Rain, Rivers and Transfers

Well my dear ones, the heavens have opened and the rain has begun to fall, and in this city when it rains the streets turn into rivers and streams- literally. Yesterday my companion and I were almost drowned in sewer strewn rain road rivers, and just when we had finished to cross the river road like hobbits- bare foot and arm in arm, but what to our wondering eyes would appear? A car and 2 people stuck and stricken with fear. For behold we beheld and but wast did we do, help them of course as good missionaries do. By Dr. Seuss. 

Okay that is enough of the "colorful" language, but you can image we ended up quite drenched, but my heart was all warm and fuzzy in side. Ironically we ate fish, shortly after, freshly caught from the near by river road. No, but it was super tasty- don't get me wrong. The members are wonderful!

Well I wasn't transferred, I'm stickin with my Peruvian bro. I'm sure we will have lots of success and the President promised today "if we work hard we will find many special people, whom we will be able to help and whom we will never forget." that was special - let's work my friends!!!!!

I love you all, God is with Us- let us trust in His Power and His Word

Èlder Anderson

"Repentance is the process that allows us to Continue growing and Experiencing Joy"

Greetings one and all, Well I wasn't present for the festivities of the day of birth of my youngest brother, Isaac, but I was present for several others, on the same day!!! I wished them happy birthday singing "Parabéns pra você! Nesta data querida, muitos felicidades, muitos anos ter vida!" And I thought I would include Isaac in those birthday wishes as well, and no I didn't forget about our dear Grandma Hatch! I remember when she held Isaac on her birthday or a few days after- that was awesome! Family Tree just keeps growing! Well, I must say that last week I we had a family night in which the kind recent convert family made some homemade pizza that just reminded me a lot of our homemade pizza- shout out to big momma and the pizza crew. It was great, but of course I ate a little too much, darn, more self control. Well, my companion is wanting to lose weight so we are trying to make more healthful decisions v so that is good. On his part that just mostly means eating less, I suppose on my part to, but thankfully we also have access to some work out equipment. So that is nice. Man my companion and I worked a lot this week and they other day we treated ourselves to some açai, well my companion bought a bucket of it. But, man I remember when Clark tried to describe it to me and it just sounded really weird. But, now I have my own personal testimony. Man Clark you must be missing it hugh? Have you ever found some where that sells it in the states? Even wants to sell Açai there. St. George? Yesterday my companion made some visits with Jairo who is getting ready to serve a mission, we taught him how to invite someone how to be baptized and he made four invitations yesterday and we marked 2 baptismal dates. In that visit we watched the Restoration film and it was very spiritual, I felt powerful feelings and I know that Joseph Smith is a Prophet and that he say God the father and His Son Jesus Christ. The Book of Mormon is the word of God. I love to study from it daily. Yesterday I read some of Jacob 5, I felt the spirit whisper to me that really work is the work of God and He is gathering His fruits so that he made keep them unto himself and the branches that give forth bad fruit will be burned. What fruits are we producing? Are they sweet or sour? I know God lives, He loves us, we are His children. Jesus Christ is our Savior, he atoned for our sins. If we exercise faith in Him, we may be cleansed from sin. Repentance is the painful process that allows us to continue growing and experience joy as we live to fulfill our baptismal covenants and follow the promptings of the Holy Ghost. This is the Gospel, we must apply this Gospel in our lives- the Gospel is wonderful. I hope we may all reflect upon the fruits of the Gospel in our lives. And share them with others Love you All Élder Anderson

Awesome How the Lord Shows His Love

Howdy Folks Elder Hayden Anderson 10/12/15 Keep this message at the top of your inbox To: Andy Anderson, Austin Anderson, Clarissa Lewis, John Te, jorge andrade, Lorna Anderson, Lorna Anderson, Maggie Root, Marti Zohner, Pamela Robbins, Ryan, Sydney Layton, W. Clark Anderson I'm glad to hear Grandma is well, I was a worried for her, but glad to hear she still going strong! GOOOOOOOOOOOO GRANDMAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA! Well this week was a super duper week, full of action packed lessons with members present! We taught a whole bunch contacting and visiting with youth including a 17 year old young man who is preparing to serve a mission! He enjoyed teaching with us and is a lot more excited to serve a mission now. My companion is soooo funny and opened up a lot as we worked more this the youth this week. What can I say he has already worked as a Peruvian clown and many other things. I have to say out of the four missionaries in the house I have got a lot less experience with the "mundão" as they say in here or in English. . . "the big bad world", but it just goes to show how the gospel really can bless us all and I'm so honored to get to know such good guys and learn from them and their life experiences also. I like to think of testimony as a drawing of Christ, each of us has his or her own understanding of who he is and we draw according to our experiences. Studying the scriptures and word of the the Prophets will help us understand more correctly who he is and how we may become more like him. Prayer and Fasting are great tools as well. Well, I'm trying to apply some of these concepts as my companion and I try to serve the best way possible and although sometimes it is a bit tough it is awesome how the Lord shows us His love. . . a few day ago we were looking for an address of some awesome youth we had found earlier in the week and were excited to teach them, but we couldn't find the house! we ended up doing some other visits, but my companion felt we should try to find one of the other investigators that was among the three youth we wanted to visit. We went looking and ended up finding him and he told us he had read the Plan of Salvation pamphlet and answered the questions, said a prayer and felt that it was true. His friend who is a recent convert helped in the process and even offered to get him a book of Mormon, needless to say we asked him if he wanted to be baptized and he said yes. He went to church this Sunday and we marked a baptismal date for the 24th. He is one of the tallest 14 year old boys I have seen in Brazil. He would give a younger Austin a fun for his money, just that Austin is almost 16 AHHHHH! RUNNN FOR YOUR LIVES, FLEE THE STREETS, HIDE YOUR CHILDREN!! hahahahah just kidding Austin. You will be a responsible driver I'm sure and even more responsible in your dating habits, I'm sure. Well, my companion baptized an 11 year old girl yesterday who is the sister of a recent convert. Her mom and aunt were there and also want to be baptized, but one smokes and the other isn't married so we still got some work to do. I did some baptismal interviews this last week, but the woman I interviewed ended up not being baptized with her children, because she wasn't fully repented. I know that the commandments of the Lord are for our benefit and for our safety. If we decided to dance around the commandments we are sure to feel the pain and guilt that is a natural consequence. Yesterday we had a missionary work training during the 3rd hour of church. I was glad to start the meeting talking about "the worth of souls" I shared my testimony about my ancestor Lewis Robbins who joined the church as one man, but grew to become many, I felt the spirit strongly as a bore testimony to the members "you are the pioneers of Brasil". Looks like we may have some more family history movements going on here in the branch and I know that it will give some serious gas to the members here. Well, I love you all and just a word to the wise stay away from beer, I get to meet drunks here in the street every once in a while and really isn't going to help you in your life, just a word to the wise. Self control. . . . Sincerely, Élder Anderson

New Peruvian Companion/Conference Comments

Hello Dear ones, This week, actually last Monday evening, I received some news that there would be an emergency transfer and my companion would join the other elder in the area and I would receive a new companion. So you can imagine it was a bit of a shock and is still a bit of a transition. I will send you a picture of my companion and I and you may recognize his face from some other pictures I have sent you months ago from my time in São Sebastião- Élder Sifuentes. He is from Peru, has 6 months left on the mission and really is a great missionary. I have enjoyed teaching with him, and hope that we may have lot of success together. We have a baptism marked for this weekend ( this is the first week we haven't baptized someone in a while), it is the sister of a recent convert. We where teaching her and her family this week and we invited them to say a prayer, but nobody wanted to say it so I said I would help her say the prayer. She began by repeating what I said, until I told her to ask God for what she needs, and she hesitated for a moment and I even doubted that she would say anything, but she began to ask God that He would bless her mom that she would be able to stop smoking and be baptized with her and that God would bless her family. It was really special. Well Conference was great, I feel that I received some revelation and I'm glad to see a familiar face called as an apostle, well kind of familiar. Èlder Rasband was actually someone I thought might be called. That is super cool. Doesn't Austin have a picture with him? That would be coool. We watched conference at a members house, it worked out just great, it was just a bit toasty with just a couple of fans to cool us down. I enjoyed eating some green mango with salt and pepper, ya it is actually pretty tasty trust me. The mango is just about ripe, but most of us just can't wait. Oh I forgot to tell you something cool from a the month of September I believe in the Brasilian Liahona you will find a small article about The Federal District youth Meeting in which a missionary choir was present and you will find a tall blond leading the choir in a small picture on the side. Ya that is me, hahah! Yes I made the Liahona in Brasil! Small Newsies moment. Maybe you guys will be able to find it maybe I can send a link. Well Love you all, the other picture I sent is a family night we had while I was on splits with a greenie Elder Richardson from Missouri- super fun! LOVE YOU ALL