Ponta Pora Week 36

December 8, 2014

Let The Good Times Roll‏

Family of mine! I am a blessed man. Everything here in Ponta Porã is going smooth. It really does seem like everthing is coming together here. It´s going to be a banger year here in on the border.

    This week was filled with good things. My comp, Elder Foster, from Wacilla, Alaska got here on Tuesday. He is a happy and interesting guy, who is stoked to be on the mission and has a rad  way of expecting good things to happen. Some changes were made in our zone and two new missionaries are be trained here in the zone, I don´t think they know how blessed they are to be starting out in the raddest part of the mission. My ex comps, Santana and Tolman stayed in the zone and are training. The zone is SOLID.  We organized and made some simple plans with solid goals for the zone and our area, and just went out to work. We found an awesome family walking through this big empty field. Since I got here in Ponta we would pass through the field and I would see the shacks off in the distance and think that maybe we should talk to them. This particular neck of the woods is full of people from Paraguay who come accross the border and build shacks in the fields to live for free or run from things on the other side of the border. Members always tell us to be careful when pass through these parts of the zone and we don´t work there a ton because they usually only speak Guarani and Spanish. Anyways we decided to head over there one night and ended up sitting by their fire and teaching the restoration in half spanish half português and playing games. One of the greatest family nights ever.

     Sunday morning we started at one end of the area and walked by everyones house to remind them about chuch. As we were cruising down the dirt road we saw five young men in white shirts and ties with there little brothers on the handlebars pedaling up the hill to church. I almost cried I saw all these young mens who live in rough neighborhoods surrounded by all kinds of crap, and being the only members in their families happy and strong in the gospel. After, we passed by that family in the favela and walked with them to church. I had the chance to confirm Giovani our recent convert. It was an awesome week.

 To top it off Mareni and Wagner are getting married Tuesday!!!!!!! I can´t tell you happy I am! ME and Elder Tolman worked and prayed super hard for them and to see it come together is a beautiful thing. They started temple prep Sunday and I told them I would meet them in Paraguay or São Paulo when their family gets sealed. (I sent a picture last week of their adorable daughter Bianca, who loves me). GOD IS GOOD.  

           We are using those Ele É O Presente cards and sharing messages about Christmas a bunch. I am super excited to skype you guys!!

      Tonight at midnight, Elder Foster and I are cruising 6 hours away to Campo Grande for the reunião de conselho with president. Its going to be an exhausting couple of days but I love it.

I am sure that I am forgetting about rad stuff that went down this week but thats the skinny.

     We ate tacos today with our zone and the new stake president because we beat the goal the attendance goal that we set with him just one week before, I can´t explain to you how much I love and missed Mexican food. 

         Life is Great!

John 3:16

I love you all very much, I miss you tons, I am sorry that I don´t have the time to hit you all up individually, Austin's email made me a proud brother. I feel super blessed to be apart of our family and even more gratefull that we will party for eternity together.

Ponta Pora Week 35

December 1, 2014

Mother! Sounds like everythings going well back home. I am super happy for Jessica and Jordon, that´s awesome that grandpa did the sealing. We got transfer news last night. I will be staying here in Ponta Porã! My next companion is one more american:( who is actually really cool. His name is Elder Foster and he is from Alaska. I don´t know him super well but I am excited. This area is incredible! Stake conference was this week and Elder Aidukaitis came. He was crazy! He woke the stake up and made tons of jokes. THE CHURCH IS MORE TRUE IN BRAZIL. They called a new stake president who lives in the ward. He is the man, he is 31! He is ready to light the stake on fire. It is going to be awesome. This stake has a a few branches and a group way in the interior of the state that are about 3 hours away from Ponta Porã. There was so many people that sacrificed to travel to stake conference and were just all so happy to be there. We had baptisms on saturday and sunday and this next transfer is going to be the best one I have ever had!

   On thanksgiving, Elder Tolman improvised an AWESOME apple pie and your package got here!! I am the happiest man alive.

     I miss the desert and the mountains! SNOW!

    Thank you so much for the packages. It means a ton but I don´t think you need to send anymore. Everything I want is her!

     I feel terrible that I am not able to write everyone individually I know there´s a bunch of friends and family that are wishing me the best and praying for me and it means a ton. Let everyone know that I love them and thinking about them.  Minha nossa! everyone looks so good. Dad is a fox,.

Ponta Pora Week 34

November 24, 2014

stealing coconuts and look what a member hooked us up with. He served his mission in the states so he knows what us gringos like. He works for a company that imports foreign things to Paraguay and dropped this by at our house just to be awesome.

Ponta Pora Week 33

Life is good. This week seems like it was a month. We did a service project at an ohpanage with our zone and a few members. It was a huge success and we had an incredible time making obstacle courses for them and just helping them cut loose a little bit. We are working with an awesome couple Mareni and Wagner. Wagner was baptized when he had 12 years old. We are helping them get married right now which is a super lame proccess here but its going to be awesome. When they get married he is going to baptize his wife and they are already super excited to go to the temple. I love them to death. They are one ofthe most active families in the ward right now.

    Good stuff is happening.

    I am happy that everyones hanging in there. Do something super fun for me.

com amor,

Elder Davis Anderson

This is what an Elder in his mission said about the week!

It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas! They are getting excited about the holiday season here in Ponta Porã! Everyone has begun to put up their Christmas decorations, trees, lights, and the weather has even been pretty crazy too! For Brazil it was getting pretty cold, down in the 50´s&60! This week I even broke out the Christmas lights and hung them around our house.

This week we have really been focusing on strengthening and helping out the members keep their testimonies strong in Jesus Christ, not anything else or anybody else at church.This week we organized and did an amazing Service project with the Abandoned Childrens' home here in Ponta Porã. We had so much fun playing fun little games like musical chairs, jump rope, and a home-made obstacle course with all the kids. We even danced a little bit too! The staff couldn't believe that we would do such a thing like this and be so fun and excited! By the time we were done, all the kids were happy, staff amazed, and a bunch of tired missionaries! We are starting to work with a couple of the staff members, so who knows what could happen! That's really what this church is all about, good fun selfless service!

Sunday was so incredible. We decided to wake up real early and go wake up all of our investigators, less actives, recent converts, members, and invite them all to come to church. It turned out to be a success! We had 2 investigator families at church, and almost 20 less active/recent converts at church as well. It was so fun to see the chapel full again! Afterwards we had a quick lunch and rushed back for a couple meetings at the church. As we arrived home, we went to open the door only to realize that our landlord had changed the locks on the front door. I almost got upset, but at that very moment our neighbors that were having a little party called us over. We got to know them and talked a lot about religion and they were especially interested in authority. We invited them to a baptism this saturday so I'm hopeful they'll have a good experience! It was fun how we were blessed in disguise.

Ponta Pora Week 32

Nov. 10, 2014

Family. This week was great. Sometimes it is hard to express the value of all of the simple events that are happening here everyday. We have been trying to keep ourselves organized and look to complete the families. The weeks are flying by and the days are a blur.

   On Sunday I gave a talk. The topic was A Rocha de Nosso Redentor, the rock of our reedemer. I was happy about how it went. I always feel so strange giving talks but I like it. I am always reminded how much I love these folks. I mentioned Brecken and the situation with Britton and shared one of the earliest memories I have about when dad taught me how to swim. I remember being super super young at the green valley pool and he would hold me in the deep part and just let me go. I remember freaking out and flailing for my life and the relief of dad picking me up just when I thought that I was going to drown to death and repeating it until I learned. I know that I might have exposed the fact that dad waterboarded me as a child but that comparison of our life here on earth has came to me a few times on the mission. Our father never leaves for longer than we can handle, all though to us the short time that we spend on our own struggling helps us to learn.

    We are working with some really awesome families and helping some folks to get married. 

Life is good.

-Elder Anderson

Love yall

This is what an Elder in Davis's Zone said about the week!

Elder T

Elder T, new comp Elder Anderson, and their pile of tea

This week we have been so dang blessed! From Arabian food to car rides to awesome lessons we have been so blessed this week!
This week while at the store, we saw the Elders and sisters from Paraguay right on the other side of the street! We quickly called them over and talked with them. The 2 sisters were from california and one of the elders from utah and the other from Chile. They were all so warm and friendly and seemed like such great missionaries! It was really interesting how we were all able to understand each others spanish and portuguese. It's so amazing that no matter where you are in the world you see the missionaries! 
This week we have also been hitting it hard with our part member family. We have been making goals with them to get married and baptized and they said they want to before the new Year. We had such a spritual FHE with them I could just feel that this little family is going to have such an impact on the church here in Ponta Pora!
We have also been working with another part member family. The son is 15 and is an amazing young man that is so active and is so excited about serving a mission! When we first went over to teach his family they were hesitant, but as we explained about the church and the active role that their son has to pass the sacrament his parents were astonished! His mom even went to church on sunday and said she loved it more than the church she has been going too.
It seemed as though each time we were tired, worn out, frustrated, defeated, or exhausted, someone or something came out of nowhere to make us feel better. As we were walking down the street from a canceled appointment, a member showed up to give us a ride. As we were walking back home after a long day, another member showed up and took us out to eat at a sweet Arabian food restaurant. As we were praying for more success, phone calls out of no where came giving us references for more people to teach.

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.

Ponta Pora Week 30

Oct. 27, 2014

Opa! 
This week was awesome. I arrived here in Ponta Porã on Monday night and was greeted by the entire zone, which is 8 Elders in total.  Some of my good friends on the mission are here in my zone, so It is going to be an awesome transfer. Tuesday we worked in our area and my comp showed me around the area. It is super diverse. It has some wealthy spots and some SUPER poor areas. I am stoked about the work here. We have a solid group of folks and the people seem super receptive here. Wednesday I did a split with an an African elder in my zone which was awesome. Thursday after almoço we got on the bus to go to the leadership training six hours away in Campo Grande I slept in the amumbaí house and stayed up almost all night talking with the Elders there. Friday we had our training. It was actually pretty awesome. The theme seemed to be the importance of preparation and goals. I learned a bunch. It was cool to see this side of the mission. My mission president is an awesome man. He works so hard and really cares about all of us. I am stoked to put it all in to practice and serve Zona Ponta Porã.

    This week was a bit uneventful, because of the trip to Campo Grande and back but I feel incredibly blessed. I love you all very much.

  Enjoy being together as a family becuase there is nothing better

     2 nephi 5:27

Brynley was so excited that 2 different people face booked  her and sent her pictures of Davis!

This is What an Elder in Davis's Zone said about Davis

It was another awesome week here in Ponta Porã!

Elder A and I have been getting along great and working really hard. We have been getting into a lot of doors! We have just been on fire and I have a feeling that we are going to have an awesome transfer!

I love President Reber! He is so inspired and such a spiritual man. In his leadership training this week he talked about how planning and goal setting is so important not only for the mission, but for life. He shared how he was not a really bright student, but he made a plan to study and get good grades and then accomplished the plan and eventually became the man and Doctor that he is. I have also seen how much planning has helped me. I also want to be a doctor, so that gave me some motivation to step up and learn to master goals and planning.

We have already found some new investigators all ready for baptism! One of them came to church and got very emotional and loved the spirit that she felt and our other 2 possibilities are grandchildren of a super active and wonderful member. I thought that they were already members because they both bore their testimonies in the primary program yesterday. 

Next month our stake presidency will be reorganized and Elder Aidukaitis from the first quorum of the 70 is coming!