Elder Scott Anderson's Mission Blog: Food, Inspiration, Church, Good Stuff

Yesterday morning I woke up and threw up the most I ever have on my mission. Pamanha isn’t as good on the way up as it is on the way down. This may not be a great way to start a letter but it was an even worse way to start the day, hahaha. Thankfully I got gradually better throughout the day. I don’t exactly know what it was, but I think I ate something bad.

Speaking of eating this is the best area I’ve served in with respect to food. Lunch with the members is great here. They make a lot of lasagna, and it’s awesome! Brazilia lasagna is different; it usually incudes presunto which is kind of like ham.

This week started off great with an amazing multi-zone conference in Goiania on Tuesday. The morning part of the meeting included 6-15 minute mini-trainings given by zone and sister training leaders. I gave a training about goals, which is a topic I love. It was really fun! I talked about how our goals measure our lives and how we should do everything within our power to reach our goals while respecting the agency of other people (using the examples of Abinadi and Ammon to show that although we give our best, the results aren’t always what we want—though they certainly can be sometimes). As missionaries we should set goals in harmony with the Lord’s calling in Matthew 28:19-20 – preach, baptize; He is with us. I called for a “strong” volunteer in each training to practice establishing a challenging yet reasonable goal of push-ups and then I did the established number of push-ups along with the elder to encourage him to reach his goal just as the Lord does with us when we make worthy goals in order to serve him. I think it was a successful and dynamic training.

We got home from Goiania and discovered that our power had been cut (is that how it’s said in English?!)/ As we got ready for bed in the dark, a member knocked on the door and gave us a pizza!! So we ate pizza in the dark, and it was great. Elder Martin, the new financial secretary and one of my good friends in the mission, was able to take care of the situation and a day and a half later we had power again.

I had and inspired feeling early in the week as I looked towards a bairro (neighborhood…kind of) waaaaaay out the edge of our area from where we were walking, close to home. Later, looking at this bairro on our map I felt that we needed to go to the road ‘I-10’. Thursday afternoon we decided to walk there and find who the Lord wanted us to find. After knocking about 40 doors and with 5 houses left on the road, we were greeted by a nice woman who is the mom of a young family. We taught her the first half of the Restoration and will returned this week to teach the whole family. I believe they will accept the restored gospel because we really were guided to them. We would never have gone to that part of our area if not for inspiration.

We visited a few times this week and became good friends with Josy, the woman whose son recently died, and her family. One day we enjoyed a big churasco (barbecue) at her house and the next day a ton of pamonha. I learned how to make pamonha! Hahaha it was way fun. Yesterday morning she came to church with 3 of her kids and a little granddaughter. Elder Tanus and I gave talks about missionary work and the bishop did too. It was a special Sunday. After the ward had finished a 40 day fast (one member fasting each day) for missionary work in the ward. I believe the results of this fast will be miraculous. We’re actually already seeing them!

Josy and her family came to church with us in the morning and at night we visited their church. On the mission we can't go to rock concerts, but we can go to other churches if we're invited. It's usually kind of the same thing hahaha. It was a cool experience, and I'm glad our church doesn't talk about tithing, offerings, and donations for 30 minutes each meeting. I'm grateful to be a member of the true church of Jesus Christ that was officially restored to the Earth on April 6, 1830. In the words of E. Tanus "Every time I visit another church it only strengthens me testimony of the true one." We did meet a lot of kind people and enjoyed the experience.

Sunday afternoon we visited a less-active man who was really nice. We hope to help him return to the church and made a good friendship with him and his wife.

Last week was great, and this week is the last of the transfer! It went by fast. Que sempre reconheçamos os milagres em nossas vidas!

Elder Anderson