Ponta Pora Week 31

Nov. 3, 2014

Family,
Hearing about what happened with Brecken broke my heart. I really cannot imagine what it was like for him to have to see what he saw. One thing that I have learned not just on the mission but through out my life is that god loves and trusts us. That much of this life is meant to be braved alone. He is certainly ALWAYS mindful of us, crying when we cry and smiling when we smile, but we are on earth. We are here to fight a little bit. To cry and pass through moments of both darkness and light. Much of this life is straight up rough. But that has come to be one of my favorite parts. God knows us, he is our father. We accepted the oppertunity to come to this life and find out what we are made of. Brecken is incredibly blessed. He has always been such an example to me of independence and strength. This will pass. What he went through in Grass Valley will be something that will shape his life forever. It will be his witness to the inherrited power that god blessed him with.

 My prayers are with brecken and especially Britton and his family. But so is my confidence and faith in the strength that the lord blessed them with long before the accident happened. D&C 121:7-9.

This week was awesome. My companion carved a watermellon jack o lantern on halloween and our neighbors stole it thinking that it was black gringo magic. I am getting a hang handling more of the administrative responsiblities that come with leadership and not getting annoyed but some times it ticks me off. This week we had to burn a whole day cleaning two houses that were full of giant cockroches that the mission owned. It made me miss the days of just worrying about my area and thats it. I also had some super enlightening experiences this week. Our ward mission leader Éder, is the coolest man in the world. I have learned so much about how to organize and plan and carry out those plans. It has raised my vision of the mission quite a bit. I feel like missionaries get stuck in a rut quite often because of our own pride. We work and help the people in the form that seems to have worked for us our whole mission and keep doing it until the end. This transfer I am working on being humble and putting everything that I am learning in to pratica. I am learning how to more deeply love the people through being more proactive with our work. Visiting the court houses and learning exactly how marriage works(no one is married in Brasil), Organizing zone service projects at an orphinage, using all of our resources to help these folks come un to christ and just share the goodness that I have found in the gospel. Its powerful stuff.

     Everything is awesome here. I am happy and healthy. I love my mission.

-com amor,

Elder Davis Anderson



Aunt April goes to cross fit with Sister Reber's daughter and this is an email she sent her.

From: Stephanie Reber <ks.reber@gmail.com>
Date: October 26, 2014 at 5:18:10 PM MDT
To: Brock and Julie Rasmussen <brockandjulie@gmail.com>, Sam & Cherin <melessafamily@gmail.com>
Subject: Elder Anderson

Cherin and Julie,   Elder Anderson is doing great!  He just made a ZL.  Very proud of him.   He just transferred to Ponta Pora, so he is pretty excited.   Here's a picture of him from our last Training!
The 3rd picture is taking the Elder's to the Bus Stop.  How many Elder's can you fit in the the Backseat of Presidents car?  Answer: to get a ride to the Bus Station they will fit any and all + luggage!  We can always fit 'one more'!  hahaha.

This is what a missionary in Davis's zone said about Davis

As far as being a missionary goes, this week has been wonderful! President came down for interviews and they were great. He really is such a great mission president. He is so loving and makes you feel like you are making a difference in your life and in others. We were able to teach a lot of people with some members and really had some great lessons! Elder A (comp) is awesome. He is just hilarious and wants to work hard and we teach really well together.

I have a feeling that we are going to have a lot of success this transfer! We were able to set up some service projects with the government to help out at an orphanage. This week we are going to clean up the grounds and next week we are going to play games with all the kids. I really looking forward to doing this different type of missionary work. Sometimes it is nice to get out of the ole white shirt and tie.