Things are crazy in Rio with the world cup going on

Soo things are still pretty crazy with the games here. Hopefully
Brazil can pull out the W and WIN the WORLD cup. Today they have
another game so I dont have a lot of time and will need to return to
the house soon.
So I am no longer waiting for a house. We are now waiting to move in.
Who knows when that will happen. So for the time being we will
continue to work with the LZ.
We had our last Zone Conf with President Lima this week. It will be
very interesting receiving a new President. I have really learned a
lot with President Lima. He last training was really cool! He told
everyone to arrive with questions. One of my questions was "How can i
better be a instrument in the servent of the Lord?" It was really cool
to receive an answer to my question! The topic of president was "How
to better be a better instrument in the hands of our Lord." Alma 26:
3-5 were the scriptures he focused. "Behold, I answer for you; for our
brethren, the Lamanites, werein darkness, yea, even in the darkest
abyss, but behold, how many of them are brought to behold the
marvelous light of God! And this is the blessing which hath been
bestowed upon us, that we have been made instruments in the hands of
God to bring about this great work."
After we our training that was almost all day long we returned to area
and went to dinner at this pizza place. IT WAS SUPER COOL! It was all
you can eat pizza for 15heies or about 7 American dollars. Before we
sat down they had put pizza on our plate and until we left they were
continually putting pizza in our face and trying to give us more. The
choc late or desert pizza was especially good!

So somethings that i learned in Preach My Gospel this week. I studied
a lot about how to better my lang skill and something that i though
was interesting. If you have learned a lang on your mission the
prophets advise that you continue to study this lang so that you can
better speak it even after you mission. I also study about being have
more love and charity in my life. First I need to show love to God and
our Savior Jesus Christ. This is done by following the commandments.
Second My Family.I will a better at this by writing them more often
individually. Thirdly my companion. I will do a better job being more
clean organized and following the rules exactly so that we feel the
spirit more strongly in our companionship. Fourth are people in my
area. I will do a better job at showing them love by working more
diligently to ensure that those who are ready will receive the message
of the Restoration of the gospel.
I have 4 min. I will try and tell you about a very humbling exp this week.
It is normally member to give missionary lunch or dinner. Here the
members feed us lunch. This week i had lunch in with a member in one
of the more poor areas of Rio. Walking there was literally scary. I
couldn't help but think about the Camera in my bag and what if someone
decided they wanted it.
When we get to lunch it wasnt not the best meal i have received and i
was still a little sick so i felt bad that i couldnt eat more. But I
felt so extremely humble becuase this was probably one of the better
meals that this family has every month and they safe it to have with
the missionarys. I am so very greatful for this oppurtunity to serve
and help people find faith in Jesus Christ! He talked about how next
time he will feed us his fattest cat....

--
And they call me
Elder Anderson
For behold I am a disciple of Jesus Christ

First of all I want to wish my dad a happy Father´s day!!!!

First of all I want to wish my dad a happy Father´s day!!!! Thanks for raising me in the gospel of Jesus Christ and teaching me in my youth the eternal truths that bring soo mcuh happiness!! Also happy fathers day to all the other fathers out ther.

Baptism!!!!! Yes that is the big news this week. On Saturday our investigator Raimundo entered into a convenant with the Lord in the waters of baptism. He is an awesome person and will make an awesome member of the church. He is studying to be a doctor and finding the time to teach him often was not an easy thing to do. But with the Lords help NOTHING IS IMPOSSIBLE! So we are super excited for him and also super excited to find some other prepared people who are ready to accept the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.

This week has been a really fast week! We spent a lot of our time preparing for the baptism of Raimundo and also going to the area of the zone leaders so that I could do some baptismal interviews for them. So yeah this week has kinda been a crazy one but definately a great one. Elder Lee and I are working hard everyday to contact a ton of people and talk to as many people as possible in order to try and find more investigators that we can teach. Yesterday we were contacting ( without much success do to Father´s Day and Argentina playing) and we came upon one of the biggest houses in our area. It is literally gigantic!! So I thought "hey what do we have to lose" when a young looking guy came out and attended to us very well, both my companion and I were kind of shocked because the rich people here almost never even attend to us. So we began to talk and he told us that he was Agnostic, which pretty much means he only believes in things that can be scientifically proven and nothing else. Kinda like Steven from nacho libre haha. But he told us he listens to everyone and he has read the entire Bible and nothing or nobody has been able to convince him of anything yet. Well we shared a little bit about our message and how if he really wants to know if God exsists, he will need to show a little bit of faith and kneel down to pray. We also gave him a Book of Mormon and he told us he would read it in like three days. We testified to him of the how the Book of Mormon is one of the ways God has shown evidence of his existence and that he will be able to feel peace and confort when he reads. He wouldnt commit to us coming back to teach him on a specific date because he is too busy with work but I am glad for the opportunity we had to plant a seed. Sometimes on the mission we don´t get to see all of the fruit of the seeds that we plant that may grow later down the road, but I know that for every seed we plant there is a chance for fruit and that motivates me to be a seedplanting Maniac!!!

I love you all very much and I am grateful for all your love and support.

Elder Anderson

Jacob's Mosquito bites and the World Cup

Jacob's new chapel 

So lets talk about my mosquito bites and how the problem was solved. I was a little concerend that it was bed bugs so when i received my new mattress I didnt (havnt) removed the plastic. No one has been sleeping in our room for quite awhile and its where the Zone Leader keep all there stuff. One has been here for 7 months and the other has been here for 3 months. So a lot of stuff hasnt be touched for quite awhile. We have a eletric tennis rackit that we use to kill all the mosquitos. So one night one of my zone leaders spent about an hour killing the mosquitos in our room. He would shake and remove a bunch of things in our room and then watch the mosquitos fly. For about an he was serioulsy killing 20 mosquitos a min. Our room was full of them. We do this everynight now and now sleep with the doors and windows closed with the fan very close to us. I think i have one or two mosquito bites now.

So we are still searching for a house. Its very difficult because its a very slow process and its very disapointing that we are not able to put all of our effort to into teaching the gospel. Our branch is so very excited to help us and they really would like to help others make progress in the gospel. When we are able to start working in our branch with all of your attention i will be very happy! Our church building is pretty unique. IT is an old house that has been converted.

We have sacrament meeting out side. It is LEGIT.

So i have had a fever of a 103 the last 2 days. It feels great. Brazil is only getting more crazy. We are unable to watch the games so we confined to our house and not allowed to leave. But we still know whats going on. When Brazil scores a goal the city explodes. Literally with fireworks and screaming. After the game we hear a lot of gun shots and even more fireworks. I cant imagine what it will be like as Brazil moves farther along in the world cup. Its a pretty big part of the culture here.

So i spent quite a bit of time this week thinking and studying about how we will be judged after this life. How ever single day we choice which kingdom of glory we will receive after this life. We make up everyday and choice who will we serve. Choosing to serve the lord and living a celestial life is a choice. Choice the celestial kingdom today.

--

And they call me

Elder Anderson

For behold I am a disciple of Jesus Christ

Angela and Alisha at their first swim meet of the year

Angela and Alisha at their first swim meet of the year

Link to a great blog entry for canning recipes

Great link to a blog entry with canning recipes:     Can Me Up: Over 50 Canning Recipes

"Change" and preparations for the World Cup: Jacob Anderson's latest letter from Rio De Janeiro, Brazil

Welll I spent a bunch of time writing an email just to accidental delete it. To be brief. I am in a new area. My companion is Argentina.

I am not sure who speaks Portuguese better. A little scary considering my accent is very strong and people dont always understand what i say I am often repeating things that he says... We are in a new area that has not had missionaries for a year. Our purpose is a little bit differnt then usually. Before we arrived in our are, which is the biggest in the mission, President called me and informed me that we dont not have a house. It is our job to find one. Until we have found and moved into our house this is our only purpose. We will not spend time teaching, finding people to teach or the normal mission thing until we have moved into a house in our area. For the time being we are staying with the LZ.They lived 30 min to 2 hours away from our area depending on traffic. President told we had until Friday to find a house. In short we found a couple of house before Friday and are waiting for him to approve them now. CRAZY PROCESS. Hopefully we will move in to our area sometime this week. For now we will be working with the LZ. They are super cool soo its awesome.

I studied a lot about studying the gospel this week. The spirit of the Lord can open our minds and hearts. But this is only possible when we do our part. We should treat studying the gospel like a test that is more important then any other test in all eternity. I am greatful for all the time i have had to study the gospel and progress i have made!

The Book of Mormon is one incredible book.. Read it and pray about it.

Fast and pray about it until you are absolute sure if it is true.

Which it is.

--

And they call me

Elder Anderson

For behold I am a disciple of Jesus Christ

Elder Ray Vejnar's latest letter from his mission

Well where do I begin I guess I will start with some of my investigators this week we found a girl named Janell she is only 14 but got her parents permission to be taught by the missionary's she really loves what she is learning Catlyn is another investigator that I love to teach she is from Alabama and has a strong southern accent I don't know if I have already mentioned her but she is getting baptized on the 12 she is almost as excited as me. As for the family we are teaching we have not been able to get in contact with them that is one thing that makes this mission very hard. We have to rely on our investigators to want to talk to us it is so easy for them to just ignore our messages and things like that all they need to do is not look at the message on there computer or phone and boom they have skipped out on a lesson. That is one of the reasons I like to teach Catlyn so much she is always answering us she is the perfect investigator. 

So moving on with the week I had a diabetic Appt. and found out that I am bringing my A1C down a lot and I am only getting better but that was not the best part of that day. When we had finished my Dr. Appt. we went over to the main hospital building and as we here waiting for the shuttle to take us back to the MTC a woman walked up to us at the same moment the shuttle arrived and told us how she had, had a premature baby and the baby was having some problems. She asked us if we would pleas come and give her baby a blessing. I did not know what the baby's condition was, but without hesitation me and my companion told the shuttle driver to wait for us in the parking lot wail we went to give this baby a blessing. As we walked up to the area of the hospital where these premature baby's where being cared for, the woman started explaining to us her concerns, as she did this she began to cry and thank us for being willing to do this for her. We got to the room and because my companion had little to no experience with blessings and I having had the opportunity to give some before my mission, I asked what my companion would feel more comfortable doing, anointing the oil or the actual blessing. He said he wanted to anoint the oil. We where both shaking and very nervous. When my companion finished the anointing I put my two fingers on this baby's head (that could not have been any bigger than a tennis ball.) and started to pray I felt calm inside I knew what I should say and began to say it I do not remember what I said exactly but when I finished I had this feeling that the baby would be ok the spirit I felt in that moment was incredible and it is an experience that I will never forget! 

this experience made me think of how impotent it is to be worthy at all times because as Jeffery R. Hollend says

"young men, you will learn, if you have not already, that in frightening, even perilous moments, your faith and your priesthood will demand the very best of you and the best you can call down from heaven... all priesthood bearers must be instruments in the hand of God, and to be so, you must, as Joshua said, 'sanctify yourselves.' You must be ready and worthy to act."

That was the highlight of this week and I am grateful for this experience and for the priesthood in my life I love you all 

Elder Vejnar     

    

Joe's latest letter: "¡Estoy entrañando un misionero nuevito!

Elder Joseph Anderson with his new companion

Yep so transfers happened last week and I was told that I will be training Elder Lee from Eagle Idaho. He is super awesome! We are working like crazy and we even have a baptism this Saturday for our investigator Reymundo. Its been a little while since I have had a baptism and I am sooooo ready for saturday. Not I whole lot has happened this week other that that. I am in my same area and I am still the District Leader here, but now I am training. Elder Lee is making me remember how hard it was for me my first few weeks. Not understanding the language, and kinda just being lost with everything hhaha. I have progressed a lot more than I thought. I am sooo grateful to have Elder Lee as my companion. He is obedient and has just the most positive sincere attitude ever. I am rekindling some of that fire and drive that I may have lost a little bit in the mission. He is really reminding me to love the people no matter what and that there is always hope, even when I just want to move on the the next person. I have been reading a lot in the Book o f Mormon and the more and more I read, the more my testimony grows and also my desire for other people to read it and feel the same Spirit. We are going to work our butts off this week to try and be the best missionaries possible. The hardest thing for me still in the mission is waking up at 6:30 every morning and doing 30 minutes of exercise. I just home one day its gets easier hahaha but right now Its still really flipping hard!!! Luckily nobody else has hit us in the face this week but maybe next week. Thats pretty much all I have for this week. Please pray for Raymundo and keep sprending the Lords gospel around the world!

¡Les Quiero Mucho! CHAU CHAU

Elder Anderson

Link to Five Gallon bucket A/C

Five Gallon bucket A/C

Letter from Elder Ray Vejnar from the MTC mission; this is his facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/elderray.vejnar?fref=ts

Link to Elder Ray Vejnar's Facebook Page

So from the time I got a Facebook I have had a Facebook stalker and this Monday I am going to meet her she speaks very little English and works here at the MTC so Monday morning she wants to get a picture with me because it is her birthday so I said yes I will take a picture. I am also teaching a family now and that is really rair in my mission because it is mostly 18 year old kids that don't want any one to know they are looking into the church but this family is really cool and they actually only live in West Jordan so we could get permission to go to there baptisim that would be way cool. We had another missionary leave the mission today some people get here and think well I don't want to serve here so I will just go home and to me it's like the lord called you here for a reason God knows what we are capable of doing and he assined us here for a reason! that is getting me through my mission what I want dose not really matter it is what the lord need me to do so I will do it and be happy doing it. One really cool thing I reolized this week is the line upon line thing in training this week I discovered that to learn line upon line we need to start somewhere and as we continue to learn things will start to connect in our minds like well this makes more sense because I read this other thing somewhere and our knowledg of the gospel will grow that is really all I have to shair and I am playing wheal chair basketball so I gatta go so in the words of some lady I meet on chat with a mormon " I wish you all peach love and wellness." 

Elder Vejnar   

Joe and his companion get punched in the face

Okay so the title of this letter is that we were hit in the face...haha so I´ll tell that story first. Yesterday, while waiting for the bus to go to church with our investigator Reymundo, some big drunk man pull up next to the bus stop and started telling my companion that he was not a real servant of the Lord be cause he was too Lindo (good looking) and because we were dressed too nicely. Well he kept on lecturing us and as he did his enthusiasm...or maybe temper in a better word... got higher and higher. I tried talking to him to get him to calm down but that just made him more "enthusiastic". so he then decided to get out of the car and really give us a talk. He got up into my comps face and started just laying into him. Elder Bingham, my comp, is 18 right out of highschool, loves wieghtlifting, works on a farm with his dad, and doesnt really like to be yelled at in the face haha. So I realized it was time to take action before Elder Bigham lost it and showed this guy the angrier side of a representative of Jesus Christ. I took control and cut in. I introduced myself with authority and explained to him who we were. Here is where the problem comes. When I introduced myself as Elder Anderson I shook his hand nd asked him for his named, he responded that his name was Pedro...Well I accidentally said mucho gusto "perro" which means nice to meet you DOG and that´s not like cool hip language that it means in english. When you call someone an animal like dog or cat or pig or something, it is an insult. So i quickly corrected myself and said Pedro after but by that time it was too late. He lost it. He had in his hand a Jesus Christ passalong card that I had just given him and he took it in his hand, showed it to us both and then with force hit Elder Bigham right in the front of the face with his had that had the card in it then did the same thing to me. Luckily our bus pulled up right after that and Elder Bigham and I just walked away and got on the bus. 

So our investigator was pretty wierded out and Elder Bigham was really pissed off. Just another day on the mish haha. 

CONGRATS TO MY BROTHER JOSHUA FOR GETTING HIS MISSION CALL TO ARIZONA. ABOUT TO HAVE THE BEST TWO YEARS OF HIS LIFE!!!!!!

Elder Anderson

Jacob wonders what he's been eating and says that his bed is too small he keeps breaking it because he's too big.

Well received some letters this week.. = exciting! I will try to respond to some of the questions but since I forgot the letters at home sooo i am sure i will forget something else.

First of all and probably my favorite question. I have no sold a single BoM (book of Mormon). Though i have given away quite a few.

Second the food can be very interesting and i miss eating in American very much. Everything i have eaten here is very good. Sometimes i do not ask what i am eating because when they kill cows, pigs chickens..ect. They eat everything.. I will send a pictures.

Uhh i have been in the same area for the last 6 months and i had 4 companions including the MTC. OH and i loved the MTC. I really miss home and cannot wait for my mission to end. I am counting the days!!

Kidding but some missionaries literally are counting the days. But i also ABSOLUTELY love my mission and am so incredible grateful for my opportunity to serve. I love almost every single day of the week. My bed kind of fits me, some of the wood planks underneath have broken because the bed sucks and i am kinda big. So sleeping for 8 hours straight is impossible. I have some of the most interesting dreams.

So other then today being transfers cannot think of anything else. We should have heard 15 hours ago about our new companions and if we stay in our area or leave.

MY brother got his mission call. Congrats. I was hoping you would be called for Rio.. oh well..

--

And they call me

Elder Anderson

For behold I am a disciple of Jesus Christ