Semana 16(:

hello! this week was full of adventures and the spirit testifying that this is the true church! we met more people who accepted dates to be baptized but none were at church. we actually rang one persons door bell 4 times and then went back 20 minutes later and tried a couple more times. his name is dennis and we found him when we were on our way to contact a referral and we walked past his house as we did i just stopped and turned around and said that we need to go back and knock on this door. it was crazy because i wasnt even thinking about it i just did it. we knocked and he answered and was smoking and we told him who we were and what we were doing and he  accepted to be baptized and he said he would quit smoking and he said he believes that joseph smith was a prophet and he said hes already read some of the book of mormon and he would come to church. he didnt come to church and we tried to help himas much as we could. i hope we can get a hold of him soon and get him there next week! also another thing that happened was after we rang his door bell and clapped our hands off at his house we went to another investidgators house and he answered (he was only in swim shorts) and we were so happy and we went and he went and changed his clothes into other shorts and a t shirt and flip flops. he walked with us to the church building and then he wouldnt come into the building because he wasnt dressed the same as everyone else. he left at the gate no matter what we tried to do to get him to come in. it really was upsetting but when we were at his house i had a thought that i should ask him if he wanted to change his clothes before we left but i ignored it thinking that maybe he didnt have other clothes and then later i realized that it was the holy ghost telling me that i should have said something. i learned my lesson. but when we were at the church outside we were trying to tell him it doesnt matter because its his first time and its ok and he shook our hands and when he shook my hand i tried pulling him into the church but he held on to the garbage bin thing they have on the roads. it was funny. he promised he would come next week. we have had a lot of help from the members this week and the ward is always so good at helping and bringing people to church. so when we finally went inside we had a non member there with a member. we have family night with him tonight at the bishops house so well see how things go he seemed to really like church! we taught a lesson in english this week! and sister tornini taught one in spanish! it was awesome! the one in english was way cool! the mom is from Australia and the dad is from here but he speaks very good english because he worked in the us for a while they have two kids whoare 6 and 4. they have australian accents its cute. but the mom had already heard about the book of mormon and joseph smith from a tv show about it. i dont know if the show was very accurate so we explained in detail about the bom.it was really good. he wanted to know how to show more generosity to people and when we gave him a bom he opened it to a random page and it was in the index about giving to the poor. he said he doesn't believe in coincidences so it was awesome! but he wasnt at church either. pray for everyone to be at church next week!! we had a party at the church saturday night and there were so many less actives and non members there it was awesome!! :) we had lunch one day on another part of the island so we rode a boat there and it was awesome! they have cool boats here. when we got there it was at a members restaurant and it was a little sketch but i had fishand i liked it so thats good:) oh and another funny thing happened.. we were on the road talking to a less active member and he was leaving and another man came around the corner so i just started talking to him and asked if he wanted tobe baptized and he said no but i didnt fully understand what he was saying so i looked at my companion and she asked him again and he said he wanted to marry me.so we just said have a good a day and left. i didtn know what happened until we had left.. haha its so funny what happens here all the time. :) we saw lots of little fishys when we were on the boat it was cool. there were hundreds!!! we taught some people in our apt and they said they recieved an answer that this church wasnt for them so we explained more and told them to pray again. pray for them that they will understand their answer. anyways it was a great week! pray that people will come to church please i love you all:) boa semana! 

-sister anderson :) 

Week 15

what a week! we met some elects this week! we meet so many people on the street and so many people say we can visit them and then when we go to their house they arent very interested in changing religion or something they just want to hear the word of god so we prayed about what to do and we decided that we should be more bold and direct in the way we go about our contacts so we go up to people and say we are reps of christ and we are looking for people to baptized into the true church of god. and we pray that the elects will say yes so we dont pass them up and then that way we arent wasting time with people who arent ready right to have missionaries. this was on thurs we decided this.. so anyways that day we tried it and not one person said yes...... i was wondering if it was too bold and scaring people a little but we continued to do and we have people say yes i willbe interested in learnign more. one man was on the street washing his car and i felt like we should talk to him and so we went over and said, we are representatives of jesus christ and we are looking for people to baptized into the true church of god. he replied, what do i need to do!!!!! it was awesome! this was yseterday so we are going to meet with him again today! we put 3 people on date this week so pray for them to recognize their answer! it was rainy a lot this week so i got soaked one day because sister torninis umbrella broke and so i gave her mine because i had a jacket and i still tried using her umbrella but i probably just looked funny because there was wires flying around everywhere and the wind kept blowing underneath it and making it go the wrong  way but it was so funny everytime it would happen. we were laughing so hard! it was a good day even though we were pretty muddy and mostly rained onhaha. i almost got in a crash with a bike too and it was funny as well. we were both going around the same corner at the same time and when i saw himi jumped to one side and he turned to the same side and we both just kept goign the same wayand he was flung over the handle bars and i was just trying to move without falling off the curb and running into the post on the corner. it was really funny. oh and the other day we were waiting at the bus station and some man came up and grabbed the phone that was on the post that we were standing by and started talking instantly. i just thought he was wierd because obviously no one was on the other line and i had no idea what he said.. and then when he left my companion explained to me that he answered the phone and said yep yep they are here. the two princesses are here and then walked away. haha it was funny now that i know what he said.  i had to go to the police department and get a paper so i could have it with me all the time saying i was leagal to be here and something ha´ppened where we had to go into the other part and go upstairs and get our finger prints done so everyone had these little cards on their shirts except me but i dont know police dept word so i just did what they told me and followed the lady and they did all the work and then when we were leaving the lady asked for my card and i didnt have one and she got this look on her face and i was like oh great im going to jail haha but i guess i wwent onto a a part where you needed a security checka nd card and they just slipped me and didnt give me one. they just laughed and let me leave but thats about how safe things are here. haha it was funny. the man gaurding the door just said haha whoops we let one in. :0 i am getting bored of the food we have becasue we have the same thing every day. so i today i started  looking for ohter things to buy i found nutella it was 6 dollars for like two spoonfuls. sad. :( many things are very expensive and they dont have a variety of things like the usa has. but its good:) the language is coming along and i can usually answer when people ask me questions now so thats good:) this week we learned a lot about family home evening! i hope you are all having it:) it is wonderful! i hope you all have a wonderful week and thank the lord for everything you have!:) i love you all! 

SEMANA 14!

this week was great!! we had only one person at church and she is 11 and her mom doesnt want her to be baptized or else she would be. our other investigators are not married so they cant be baptized until they are married.. another investigator who was on date told us that the only reason he accepted our visits was to preach to us and that he was pretty rude. we had a lot of other good lessons and talked with many people. the language is coming along and i am adapting more haha. people still stare at me like i cant see them but thats ok haha so much happened this week i dotn even remember what. i know i had my prayers answered and i know that this church is true and that the book of mornon is the word of god. i always kind of took it for granted and never really explored it like i could have but its great! i invite you all to read alma 5! we worked a lot with less actives this week and we are always finding less actives so if you can all pray for them that would help love you all:)  #notalottosaytoday #openingyourmouthishard 

WEEK 13!!

HELLO EVERYONE!!!!!!  how are you all? this week has been wonderful! we have been meeting with a couple named luciana and admilton and they ask tons of questions and really want to keep meeting with u sbut they wont come to church and they are having family problems and they think its because of god so pray for them to know the church is the right thing and it will strengthen their family. we met with celia and she is awesome she comes to church and wants to be baptized but shes not married and i dont think her man wants to get married s thats hard i had to go to santos last week to go to the police station and get a paper saying i was legal to be here but since we dont have a permanent address they wouldnt give it to me so hopefully when i go back next time theyll give it  to me. this week was a little harder. we met with a man jobert and he was basically yelling the whole time and when we left we asked him to pray and he was shouting and prayed that we would find god and that we would know they truth. not him.. its very difficult to have people stop talking for a minute so we can explain the church. all  they do is try to find reasons why its not true and i just felt like i was on the defense all week.we met with a lot of less actives this week and they were at church so thats great!  we had many other powerful lessons and talked with almost 200 people about the gospel this week. im so exhausted but its the best exhausted ever! the language is coming along! i am understanding more and more and when we talk with people i can usually understand enough to have somewhat of a conversation. haha some members came out with us today and they help incredibly!! its amazing what they bring with them when they come! i invite you all to go with the missionaries in your area and help them:) also when we were at a recent convert house this week his neighbor came over and said he wants to know more about the book of mormon so we have been meeting with him and he seems like he will probably be baptized pray from him his name is nelson.  he has a family so pray for them also. the power of prayer is real!!! on sunday we were having a hard time talking to people and helping them realize the difference in our church and other churches because they all think they have the authority which doesnt make sense becasue they go to a church thats only here in this one place but thats not the point, we were hving a hard time talking to poeple and then we prayed and after we recieved a couple contacts and people answered their doors and we ran into a couple members who wanted us to come visit them other days and visit with non members and the people we talked to were more open and understanding. so pray. pray expecting an answer and he will answer your prayers. moroni 7 48 read the liahona and ensign and scriptures! they are amazing!!!! always strive to be better:) i hope you are all doing great! i love you all!!! pray for the investigators of the missionaries that they will be able to recognize their answer. :) 

Semana 11 & 12

ola! tudu bem!? man what a crazy last couple of weeks ive had! 

- left Cali :(

- flew to Washington from Cali

- flew to Detroit for about 4-5 hrs

- flew for 10 hours straight to Brazil

- we talk with everyone here and we go on buses and stand in the front and talk to the whole bus all at one time! its way cool! people here are way more open and more nice than Californians aha the lord has prepared people here a lot! 

- the weather is great! its raining right now but it rains a little almost everyday! its always overcast since ive been here and it is like 25 degrees Celsius but it ist cold at all! its very very humid! 

- its not a clean place at all and dogs just roam the street and poop where ever they would like and so its important to watch where you walk!  

- we walk all over the place! the church is about a 45 minute walk from our aptmnt 

- we have a fairly nice apt! its on the second floor above a grocery store so we dont have to worry about running out of food! haha. 

- lunch is the main meal so we eat a bigger lunch and then we work the rest of the day. we dont have dinner breaks at all so sometimes i get  hungry but i dont notice until we are home and i see food and im like man im kinda hungry haha. we are very focused on what we do.

- church was good! it was wierd to not understand the things people were saying but to still feel the spirit! it was good!:) 

- there is a lot of english here! the people love americano music so all the songs they listen to i can sing along to haha its funny because they dont know what it says they just like listening to it! sometimes its a bad song but they dont know it they just like the beat haha. all their clothes have english writen on them and they have no idea what it says. haha and a lot of signs have english as well as Portuguese!  

- the food is a pretty similar to normal except the fruit is a lot bigger and tastes a lot better and they really know how to make rice! 

- the houses are all wild colors and they are all inside gates so instead of knocking on a door we stand outside and clap and they cometo the the gate! 

- the work is really moving on here! people here a lot more sincere than in cali, if they say you can come back, theyll let you in and really be interested and want to know more but if they dont want to hear it they just say no, they usually dont make excuses of why we shouldnt come back.

- we have already put 3 people on date since i have been here! its great! :) people want to know the truth!!! 

- president is awesome and hilarious! when all the new missionaries arrived we all prayed and he made us all hold hands and then he started to pray to joseph smith!!!! hahah its was funny we all looked up and around at each other and then president just started laughing!! hahha it really was funny! he is really spiritual though! and he has high expectations of us! by the time we go home we have to know 3 languages. we know our regular language and our mission language and then for me i will have to know spanish also.. so pray ill have the gift of tongues!!!

- my companion is from Uruguay and studied to be a english teacher so she knows English very well and helps me a lot! she only speaks in English a little when i cant figure it out after she has explained in Portuguese and weve played charades though haha. shes 24 and a convert to the church she was baptized when she was 20 and she is amazing!!!!!! 

- its hard and not everyone is as nice as most but its totally worth it!! my testimony is growing simplifying in Portuguese ahah  i know this is the true church Christ established when he was here and i know that it is so important to read the scriptures every day and pray and become mor like Him! i love you all !!!!