"Post-illumination Affliction"

Everyone remember President Holland´s talk from the General Conference in April where he talked about "post-illumination affliction"? Well... that´s a little bit of what I´m feeling after such a wonderful week! So many great and exciting things and the, BAM, it ends haha. But it´s all good because like the title of President Holland´s talk says, "tomorrow the Lord will do wonders among you." Good things come to an end, but we have to remember that the Lord is preparing even greater things for us! 

The Christmas Conference we had in Recife was just absolutely wonderful! It was so cool to have all of the missionaries in the mission together, singing Christmas hymns, and learning more about Christ and His Atonement from President and Sister Bigelow. It was a joy that I honestly can´t describe! After the conference, my zone was able to go to the temple and that really just topped off the night! I´m so grateful for the temple and the peace we are able to feel inside! 

When we got home Friday night, we went to visit Tamires, to find out about some things that happened that kept her from being baptized on Saturday. Pretty sad. BUT, she´s still doing really well and I know that the day will come for her-- it´s all in the time of the Lord. 

So here in Brazil they celebrate more on Christmas Eve then on Christmas! Sister L. Silva and I and the two other sisters that we live with had a little Christmas "festa". We bought 1 kilo of mini coxinhas (a food they LOVE here-- it´s in the shape of a tear drop, deepfried, and has chicken inside), made mango juice, and ate panetone (a type of cake), sang Christmas songs, and opened our presents :) 

Aaaaand to top off my week I talked to my family!! Definitely was the best part :) 

I hope everyone had a wonderful Christmas and has a wonderful New Year! I´m so grateful for a loving Heavenly Father and for our Savior Jesus Christ. I hope that this new year, we can all make resolutions to be even more dedicated disciples of Jesus Christ in following Him and becoming more like Him! 

Love you all!! 
Sister Anderson

FELIZ NATAL!

I can´t believe Christmas is this week! This Thursday we´re going to have our Christmas Conference in Recife with the whole mission-- President is going to teach us about Christ´s Atonement and we´re gonna eat ice cream until we can´t eat anymore :) I´m pretty excited! 

This week was super good though! There´s another American in the house now! Woohoo! Sister Sanguino was transfered and so the new companion of Sister Santana is Sister Miller. She´s from Alabama, but was attending BYU before the mission too. It´s nice to have someone I can relate to a little more haha. 

I´m super excited for this coming week, because aside from the Christmas Conference and being able to talk to my family on Christmas... Tamires is going to be baptize! It´s been so so wonderful teaching her! When we started teaching her she liked to drink alcohol... A LOT. But she has made such an incredible change and now she is so excited and determined to be baptized! We´ve been teaching her boyfriend too, a man named Claudio. Wednesday night we read with them Mosiah 3 in the Book of Mormon, which explains very simply, but powerfully the life of Christ. I loved being able to watch them read together. So anxiously wanting to learn more about the Savior. I made me realize just how important He is. That it really is Him that makes the difference in our lives. And how big of a blessing it is that we have Christmas this week to remember Him and all that He has done for us! 

So, Rayane, the 9 year old grandaughter of Djanira, is just the cutest thing ever! This week when we asked her if she read the Book of Mormon and prayed to know if it was true, she said that she did "and that it was the happiest day of her life!" haha. Her prayer at the end also went a little like this... "Heavenly Father, thank you for leading me to your church. Because from the looks of it, this one is really good. And I don´t want to follow the wrong path.. so... thank you!" Haha. It´s a super big blessing to teach her too.

Everyone remember our recent convert, Fernando? Well, now he´s engaged to a woman in the church that teaches the Principles of the Gospel class! Funny how things work out like that.... But, I´m excited for them! 

I hope everyone has a wonderful wonderful week and a wonderful Christmas! Take time this week to truly study about the Savior and be grateful for all that He has done for you! I am so grateful for Him and for this opportunity I have to be a representative of Him here in Brazil! I know He lives and He loves us! I love you all!! 

MERRY CHRISTMAS! 
Sister Anderson

7 More Weeks in the Heat.

Bom dia minha família e amigos! 

Another transfer has ended and begun, and I´m still here in Arcoverde! And this time it´s going to be a transfer of 7 weeks! But, it´s all good because I get to stay here with my daughter (Sister L. Silva) and finish her training! But like the title says-- yes, it´s still hot. And only going to get worse. And yes, all of you will continue to hear about it as the weeks go by haha. 

This week was good! We have an investigator named Tamires and she is progressing SO well! We met her a couple of weeks ago teaching the reference of a member. She´s reading, praying, has already gone to church 3 times, and right now is marked for baptism on the 24th of December! She has 4 of the CUTEST little boys all within the ages of 2-7. We taught the 2 year old, Gustavo, how to shake hands and now he LOVES it. Tamires says that he walks up to everyone now and puts out his hand for them to shake it haha. 

I don´t think I mentioned this before, but Djanira, our recent convert, has been in São Paulo for the last 6 weeks to bring two of her grandaughters here to raise them... And she finally returned!! We started teaching her grandaughters and they´re SO cute. One of them has the age of baptism and when we invited her to be baptized she got so excited and said that she´s going to be "acheiving a dream" by "entering the waters" haha. It was super cute. 

After writing these two stories, I realized how grateful I am for children! They really bring a lot of joy into the work. Today I was studying Mosiah 3 that talks about how we need to become like children-- submissive, meek, humble, patient, full of love-- and it´s so true. Everyone should study this chapter though! President Bigelow gave us some scriptures to read everyday to learn more about Christ before Christmas and Mosiah 3 is one of them. I think it became one of my favorite chapters today-- It explains PERFECTLY the life and mission of Christ. I know that His love for us is immense and that it truly is only through Him that one day we will be saved! 

Sunday we had a "multi-stake conference"-- I think it was a good chunk of Brazil that participated. We watched it via satellite. Despite some technical difficulties at the beginning... it was still really special. President Holland was there to speak and he´s been learning a bit of Portuguese. And so he started out his talk not using the translator, speaking his own Portuguese. He also ended with his testimony speaking Portuguese. I say this in the nicest way possible-- but his Portuguese was REALLY bad. BUT, the spirit was SO strong! It touched my heart so strongly! Even an apostle of the Lord has to learn and practice and progress-- Heavenly Father doesn´t just immediately give us the ability to do something if we have enough faith! But God really qualifies us-- because even when his Portuguese (and mine) had a horrible accent, the Holy Ghost carried his words to the heart of all of us. And that´s what matters. 

Espero que todo mundo tem uma ótima semana!! 
Amo vocês!!
Sister Anderson 

Suprise, it´s Tuesday!

Hi everyone!! 

So yes, I am emailing on Tuesday this week! Yesterday we had to go to Garanhuns to have interviews with President Bigelow, and so our p-day got switched to today! Sorry to anyone who may have been waiting to receive my email yesterday! 

This week was really good though! Nothing crazy happened, but things are going well here in good ol´ Arcoverde (except for the HEAT-- I think I´m drinking 20 gallons of water every day haha). 

Sister L. Silva and I focussed a lot this week on finding new people to teach! President Bigelow gave us a goal to find 10 new investigators this last week and mark 4 of them for baptism. We were praying for a lot of help and even did a fast last monday. Monday night, after p-day, we went out to work and seriously ALL of our appointments fell through. We had NOTHING to do. BUT, we knew that God would bless us if we made an effort to find new people even though it was late at night. I had a feeling to go to a road where one of the members live just to see if there would be people to talk to. So as we were walking past the house of the member that lives on the road, we saw her sitting outside with her 26 year old niece, Aline, and she waved us over to talk to her. She told us about a member that wanted us to call him, because he had a family for us to teach! And then we started to talk to Aline, who isn´t a member, and she agreed for us to sit down and share a message with her. And so she turned into a new investigator and we were able to mark her for baptism at the end!! God truly prepares the way for us when we exercise just a little bit of faith! I´m super grateful for the little miracles that we see everyday :) 

Other than that, this week was pretty chill. Viviani and Alexandre are doing well! Viviani told us that the other day, she was praying to know if the Book of Mormon and church are true, and she said that as she was praying, she felt something really strongly in her heart that made her cry happy tears. I´m SO grateful for a Heavenly Father that listens to and answers prayers through something as simple as just a feeling :) Right now we´re just waiting for them to receive a date to get married, and then... baptism!! I´m super excited for them and for all of the good choices they´re making :) 

Well. I hope everyone is participating in the "25 ways to ´light the world´ this Christmas"!! The ideas are wonderful! I know that as we really serve and love the way that the Savior did, we are going to have His light, and as we have His light, we can literally "light the world"! Christmas here in Brazil has been really cute so far. Lots of blinking Christmas lights and stuffed Santa Clauses! There´s also a special cake, "panetone", that they have here during the Christmas season... I have yet to try it, but from the looks of it, it´s fruit cake. I´ll be sure to try it out soon and let you all know haha. 

Amo vocês!! 
Sister Anderson

I realized that I´ve never sent a picture of food before! This is the usual meal here. It´s good stuff :D

haha

This Sunday we had an activity with the relief society to go and search for people
who are members, but have left the church! Had to use my awesome selfie taking skills haha.

The graffiti here is cool. And I thought this photo was funny. Haha