Physically and mentally tired . . .

Ta-se Bem Familha!

So so good to hear from you once again! You are right about me being physically and mentally tired all the time. Last night, for example, I memorized around 150 nouns like eating stuff, clothes stuff, colors, places, just tons of stuff. Don't ask me how I did it because I'll tell you that I didn't do it. The Lord did pretty much all of it. It's not fair. Every time I try and do my part, he just continues to bless me!


Let me just tell you that I think your family night idea was super amazing with ya'll doing different clip art things about the gospel.

Tara - Yours was awesome and a lot more true than you know. It's all about "planting the seed". When it is planted and you continue to "water" it or "read scriptures, pray and stuff" then the seed will grow. Another analogy as a missionary I like to think of is this. When I'm out teaching people, I'm kinda like a water well. When I read scriptures, bear my testimony, pray, and things like that, I add water to the well. The Lord is the bucket. When I don't know what to say to someone, that's when the Spirit comes in and pulls water out with the bucket. If I didn't have any "water" the Lord wouldn't be able to help me.

Mom - Yours is perfect, too! It's not only the Book of Mormon that will help us. It's when we have desire and diligence. That's when the Lord says, "OK. Look. Here's a person who is trying and actually wants to know the truth. Let me help you." Perfect!

Heath - I like yours, too. There are definitely things in this life that could bring us "instant" happiness, but that happiness doesn't last. The way we can be truly happy is by doing stuff we're supposed to and then get this . . . we're promised to be in an Eternal state of REST and happiness. Sounds good to me! I'd give anything to rest for five minutes let alone Eternity!




Kyle - You chose my favorite scripture. It keeps me going and helps me almost every day. I didn't know it was the theme this year [for YM and YW] but that's awesome. We need to always have courage. I mean, look at Moroni, for example. He was the leader of an Army when he was 16! And basically every character in the Book of Mormon is way buff and juiced so they probably got that way from having courage, strength, and knowing they are NEVER alone.

Dad - Yours made me laugh. Way cool picture and way appropriate. I've learned here that personal revelation is super important and the biggest boost spiritually ever. When you can learn to listen to the Lord, wow. Can you say blessings/miracles?

We don't have a family night here, we just do class every day/night. On Sundays and Tuesdays we have huge firesides though. They're my favorite. I'm gonna miss those, too when I leave. Speaking of leaving, they say I should get my travel plans around the 12th or 13th so I'll be sure to let you know all about that.

And I definitely think that it's time for another package. What a silly question, Mods. It's always time for another package.

I'll be sure to take a picture of the verb card or maybe even send you one. You'll be surprised.

Sounds like what you did with my countdown chart is pretty legit. Don't forget to put stickers on every day!

Sorry to say, but now we don't call Kim any more. She wouldn't answer her phone, but at least we taught her a few lessons and "planted the seed". It was in English.

That poem you sent was awesome. Portrayed a lot of the feelings I've had already. I can't wait til I get to say for myself the last two paragraphs. But then I gotta start worrying about marriage. Instead of being here with a dude non-stop, I'll be with a girl. Good to think about. :)

Things are fun here still. Portuguese is still Portuguese. Hard some days, easy others, but always awesome. Just wait til you hear my sweet accent! :) I love you all and can't thank you enough for the prayers. Best family ever! I miss ya'll!

Love,

Elder Anderson

What the heck? Anesthesia? (e-mail)

Hey Mom, your probably sleeping by now, but what the heck? Anesthesia? You better be ok. But, ya I just like e-mails and letters so both would be preferred. So glad to hear about more dear elders too :) Elder Fairbanks was just playing basketball and tweaked it i guess [his back]. I told him hi and ya Elder Stewart is his comp. I hope that Madeira is my 1st area that would be so tight. I can't wait to go wherever though. I'll pray for Sharlee Neubert. That's really too bad but cool she's still serving. There are tons of crazy earthquakes going on and a bunch of people had to get re-assigned its crazy. But everything is for a reason, right? Love ya Mom and hope that whatever you have going on gets better. I'm prayin for you. Love ya much. Tell the kids hey :) and tell Dad he's awesome.

New e-mail address (e-mail)

Hey Mods, I had to get a new email address here, so tell everyone to start sending stuff to this one. So how are ya? I just wrote a really long letter so this e-mail might not be so long. You'll get lots of my words in the letter. The family night thing you guys did is a really good idea. I put my input in so it'll be good. I'm not really sure why you all of a sudden decided not to e-mail me anymore, but i guess you're probably real busy with work and what not. Tell the kids to keep sending their letters cuz I love them. Can you believe how fast that the time is flying by? I've almost been here 2 months. The days feel like weeks and the weeks feel like days. I'll remember that forever. There's a lot of cool things going on and stuff. I don't remember if I told you that I got to be a host missionary last week. That means that I got to be the missionary to bring in all the new missionaries when their parents dropped them off on Wednesday. It was a crazy experience and really sad too. All the Elders families were bawling and Dads saying their last "I'm proud of you's" and it was all just sad. But also fun to be the one showing them around and stuff. Can you believe the snow? I think that I need to get out of here because all of this snow is making me crave snowboarding so bad. Especially when the teachers here rub it in my face that they are going as soon as they get off work. Ha, jerks. But check this out. Elder Fairbanks pulled a muscle in his back about a week ago so he has to go to physical therapy for it. Nothing serious. But his comp doesn't want to leave cuz he likes studying more, so I go with him. We get to leave the MTC like every other day. ha! Its so amazing! They drive us in a little van to the place and then we walk about a block to get to his doctor. Then when we go in he goes and does his thing and I just chill in the waiting room or whatever for like an hour. With music booyah. I finally got to hear all my favorite songs and stuff again. Amazing. And I got to talk to real people, not just fake missionaries. They aren't real. It was weird to see people texting and just chilling on their cell phones. I miss that fast communication. But all in all it is so amazing when I get to leave these walls and taste some real air for a few hours. Makes me want to go to Portugal real bad. I'm memorizing words like its nobody's business. Last night alone I memorized about 150 words. The Lord really blesses those who try. Gotta love it. I have a question with my debit card. You said it won't work until you get the pin number. I'm confused because I thought I made the pin number up. Don't confuse me like this. Simple things should remain simple things. But for now I gotta go power chill. Tell everyone I said hi and I love them. I'll be getting on in just a bit too, so hopefully you write me back today ;) Love ya!

Berry Lemonade Jones drink . . .

[I'm sorry about the spacing in this letter! I can't figure out why it won't hold the correct spaces that I put in! ~ Julie ~]


What's up Fam!

Sorry about not writing last week, but I just had to use my p-day to take a quick snooze. My body is constantly tired. :( Guess I'm gonna have to get used to that right? I'm even not sleeping while I have a huge headache, so this letter should make you all super smiley!

First off, I challenge you all to try the Berry Lemonade Jones drink. It's the best! That's what my blue card buys me every day. The blue card is just like a money card. Every week we get $6.00 put on it and we can buy stuff from the vending machines or the bookstore with it. We also need it ot get into the cafeteria but that's pretty much it.

I also wanna tell you that I'm in love with the temple. I go there every p-day (Friday) at around 10:00 a.m. Amazing!

And Mom, don't worry about printing the e-mails. I'll figure out what I want to do about them later.

That's sweet that the children are attending EFY aain this year. That reminds me! There are a few Elders here that were in my EFY groups from 3 years ago! Funny we remembered each other, but tell them to have fun.

I think that you should send me Brother Hadley's address at the seminary. I love that guy and I'd love to toss him a line. He helped me out a lot during my high school years.

Portuguese is coming along. I have to memorize a "verb card" before I leave here with 625 verbs on it! I'm almost done though, so it should be easy. As far as talking to someone, if I mime out what I'm trying to say, I can hold a pretty sweet conversation with someone. It was so crazy teaching a Portuguese lesson for the first time, I'll tell you that much! Talk about wild!

And the balloon did float up when I opened that last box, it was way cool!

Me and Elder Ruiz get along super dooper. Everyone kinda looks up to us, I'd say, in our district, cuz he's native and teaching me lots. It's pretty cool. We still party all the time. One thing we do is what we learned about companionship unity. So, check this out. In Portuguese "gatilho" means trigger or to shoot. So, whenever we're messin' around and Elder Fairbanks says something dumb (or anyone) Elder Ruiz holds his hand like a gun to them and I say "gatilho"! That means they are dead cuz they said something dumb so they can't say anymore dumb things! Good idea huh!?!? I must say, I'm kinda turning into a pretty blunt person so maybe that's why I love this little game of ours. But hey, I was told I'd be blessed for my honesty. :) There are a few times though when I wish I could just chill for like five seconds alone, but nope.

Oh, I just thought of a quesiton or "pergunta" in Portuguese. Ya know my countdown chart? Where did you put that? I picture it being in the hall between the front door and the kitchen/laundry room where that weird long picture is of the house and flowers and stuff. You should put it there so people can see how long I've been gone!

I haven't had to speak in church yet, but I'm sure my week will come. I think I'll be ready. I'll send you home my talk for next week.

I think that USA is winning by like 20 medals olympic wise. Or at least that's what I hear from teachers when I'm walking by. But as soon as they see a missionary they instantly stop talking about normal stuff. It's stupid. Pretty much in the white bible, the first rule is this: Don't have any more fun. Rob and Dad can probably vouch (sp?) for me on that. That's why me and Elder Ruiz think it's so funny to hide people's name tags when they're eating. Gotta get by somehow!

It's funny, before my mish, I used to kinda "dread", if you will, listening to conference. Now, I have the opportunity to listen to them on the computers and whenever I have free time that's what I like to do. People in our church are smart. Don't get me wrong on this next part, because I like being on a mission and stuff, but just like the next guy, I'm excited about getting married, so I've been listening to those kind of talks. The Brethren have convinced me that I need to treat my wife better and I don't even have a wife yet! Just simply amazing! At this point in time it feels lilke my mission will never end and I'll never get married. But, I also thought that about my mission before my mission. So WEIRD that it's one of the next things I'm gonna be doing. Definitely before Heath [Heather]. Unless you marry someone before November 2011. :) Then I give you permission!

I'll work on getting those pictures you asked for.

That blows about the St. George house. :( But, that's their choice is not ours. Good quote, remember it.

Also, I love singing in the MTC choir! It's not just hymns, we're all over the place and yes, the Spirit is crazy strong! I'm not much of a singer, but the spsirit still overwhelms me when I open my mouth. It's not really fair how much he blesses me. I try to keep up and help him and do my work, but he never stops giving! Not fair! :)

Some stories now for you guys!!! Yay!! A guy in my branch presidency named Brother Aidukaitus (or something like that) told a sweet story in a Sacrament meetings. As we all know, in Portuguese and Spanish there are masculine and feminine words. To say "my whatever" you say either "meu" for masculine words or "minha" for feminine words. Both mean "my". So, he and his wife were driving and decided to practice when they need to say meu or minha. They'd see random stuff outside like a ball. So his wife would say "meu balo" seeing how it's a masculine word. So he said the word "pain" for some reason and his wife said "meu (word for pain)". He then said, "no, it's 'minha (word for pain)' cuz it's a feminine word. Isn't it proper that pain is a feminine word?" he asked her with a giggle. She replied, "no, but isn't it proper that "leixo" (means garbage) is a masculine word?" Ha ha! Funny stuff! She totally dissed men, but I laughed.

Me and Elder Ruiz are teaching this lady the lessons through the phone. She's from Ohio named Kim. It's so awesome that my missionary work has literally started!

One thing me and Elder Fairbanks like to do is really childish, but it's so funny. Every time we see each other, we "pretend" to kill each other, like pretend to throw grenades or have swords and it's the funniest thing ever. Let's say we're running around the track. I'll be lifting weights and he'll run up behind me and pretend to stab me and, obviously, I am committed, so I fall to the ground. Well next time he runs around he can't find me so he starts going slower and I bust out from around the corner and cut his head off. It's so funny cuz ya just gotta see us together. PB&J.

I finished the Book of Mormon! AMAZING! The only book I'll ever need to read. Just superb! Check this out . . . Missionary: Someone who leaves his family for two years, so that others will never have to leave theirs!

I love you guys. Kyle, prepare now. Tara, be awesome and keep being the boss. Heath, show some emotion.

Much Love,

Elder Brian Anderson