President and Sister Vecchi with Tim

Elder Palmer, Tim's first companion

August 26, 2009

Hey family!

How are things going? Sounds like things are going well. I'm just chillin here in Brazil. Our zone leaders came out to hang with us today on p-day. We went and flew our kites. Me and Palmer both got cut down. Our kites are at the bottom of the ocean. It was funny cause these little kids cut them down. They’re so good at flying them though, it’s crazy.

We had zone conference this week, yesterday actually. It was really neat. We combined with another zone. My district preformed a musical number. We sang that Christmas song that holds the glooooooriiiiiiiiiaaaaaaaas (gloria) forever and we had one guy sing GL..........then the next guy sang ooooooOOOOoOoo and then the next oooooOOOOOOoooooO and the next oooooooooOOOOOOOoooo and then the last guy RIA. Haha, it was funny. President Vech came and his wife. They’re way cool - just really laid back about everything. I like them a lot.

This week was kinda of a hard one - the beginning at least. It rained so hard for like 3 days in a row, like really really hard. I was soaked, the power was out and the phone lines were down. So after a full day of being muddy (cause the roads we work are dirt) and the real roads turn into rivers cause there’s no where else for the water to go. and after all that, we come home and have to take a freezing cold shower because the power was out. And like all of our baptisms and everything fell through because the people will not leave there homes if it’s raining. Even active members, about half of them didn’t go to church. There is one family in our whole ward who has a car and they didn’t even go ha.

I got a letter with pictures of Justin from the Nalders. It was really nice. Justin is getting big and buff, but don’t let him read that. But as I read Zach’s e-mail it made me realize I may not have been giving the best details about this place so I will write a little more now. A normal day in my life right now - I get up, walk across the street and buy 2 lingua de sobres (like a corn bread doughnut kinda) for 25 cents and some pulp of a fruit to make juice with. It's so good. Then we have personal study, companion study and then language study. Then we go out and do street contacts. You run into some really interesting people here. Everyone here believes in God and Jesus, everybody, but most of them don’t do anything about it. Dogs just run the streets - lots of stray dogs. Kids always yell “give me money” or “os Mormons” or something. Lots of people ask what time it is to see if you speak Port or to hear your accent and laugh at you. There are no white people here at all. Most are very, very black too. But, so we invite people to go to church, and everyone says they will go ... which doesn’t mean much. Then we go to our lunch. We have lunch provided for us every day, which is nice, but I trust my own food a lot more. I've been really blessed to not really care about my food anymore. I can pretty much eat anything, even if it's really gross. It's true you eat A LOT of beans and rice with meat sometimes mixed in with it. Sometimes in soup they put in what looks like a chicken that went threw a blender - like the spine and all - and they lick the bones clean and then bite the bone and suck all the marrow out and everything. It’s gross. Also the kids go to school if they want but even when they do, school only lasts for a couple hours a day. We run into lots of 16-ish year old kids who don’t know how to read. There is always music playing here - always being blasted from a home or a car or something. It is really starting to get hot and it’s just starting they say. So then the rest of the day we work to try to find new people to teach. People are always just sitting on their front steps so we say “Hey if God tells you in your heart that you need to be baptized in the church of Jesus Christ, will you?”. Most of time they say “yes”, so we say “Okay great, our job is to help you feel that. Can we teach you a lesson?” and most of the time that gets you into their house. More about Brasil - at least Bahia (cause everyone says its a different country than Brazil). Lots of really crazy things happen here, like a 15 year old boy we taught is living with a 34 year old woman and has a child with her that is 2 years old! Women always breast feed during the lessons. It's so awkward. Girls are very upfront here and will just come up and say “You’re beautiful, will you date me?” and stuff like that. They whistle and hiss at you. It's ridiculous how bold they are. Water heaters don’t exist here, even in a nice home. They just have a shower head that heats it right before it comes out, so it really doesn’t do much at all. Our house is still under tons of water. They haven’t fixed it yet. It’s like a swamp on our floor which attracts a lot of mosquitoes. I’ve seen cockroaches, ants, lizards, frogs you name it. I’ve seen it in our house ha. I saw a rat the size of a cat the other day! But I’m about out of time. I love you all.

Love, Elder Anderson

Thanks for the pictures too, I love them.

August 19, 2009,

Ok, so I'm not exactly sure what pictures got sent but I think they’re good ones. And if they don’t work your gonna have to find a way to open them cause this is the only way I can send them format-wise and stuff.

But anyway this week I baptized a man. Ha mantism. He is a really cool guy. He was so excited about everything we taught him and just did everything he needed to to get baptized, and he loved going to church.

I’ll take a good picture this week and think of a scripture for my plaque. We’re still in the same apt. Not sure when she is gonna fix the roof.

Oh you guys aren’t going to believe this but I read a book this week! it was “The Message”. I know we have it. I know it’s not like doctrine but it was a really neat story and made me think a lot. I liked it a lot. And Elder Palmer had this paper his last mission pres gave him that was all doctrine about the spirit world and nothing in “The Message” went against it and a lot of it was exactly as the doctrine explained. It really made me realize how our family members are sent to help us in times of need. And I know I have family helping me all the time here in Brazil. It was neat.

I do help teach the lessons in Portuguese and I say a lot of prayers in lessons, haha. The people love hearing me talk because it’s so American still.

Tell grandpa I’m sorry about his brother’s death. I’m sure he is struggling but I’m praying for him.

That’s so cool John is taking the discussions. The only advise I’d have is just keep him excited about it and help him recognize his good feelings are of the spirit. I really hope they will go through the temple someday, she (a lady Tim used to home teach) is a good lady.

Ryan Adamson e mailed today telling me all about that stuff (his mission call). That’s cool!

I’m glad the trek went well. I’m not exactly sure that I understood your description of what happened with the ropes and you getting caught in them but I’m glad you’re ok! Wow Justin had the weenie cart huh - small but kinda strong ;)

Thanks for that experience about prayer bud (Justin); our Heavenly Father definitely listens and loves us. Prayer is one of those few things that penetrates the veil to our Father.

I love you all and hope every thing is going good. Sometimes I wish you guys could just tune into my eyes and see what I’m seeing. It’s pretty cool. Today I flew a kite that I made on the beach. Kites are a huge thing here. They make them and crush up glass and glue it to their strings and then cut down other kites with it, ha. It’s funny. My kite has a tie and name tag ha.

Love you all. Hope everything is good. I was teaching a family with a little toddler and thought about Monkey a lot. I miss him a bunch. I like getting pictures of him and of you guys so thanks. Love you.

Love,

Elder Anderson


(After Tim sent this, Mike responded to Tim telling him that he knew the author of “The Message”, and that we got the pictures he sent – which are included above - and Tim responded with this last little note.)

Hey dad I thought you knew him. I hope you’re doing good. I’m glad the pictures worked. I’ll try and take some more of the area I’m working. Love you. Take care. It’s all true Dad, everything I’m teaching. I know it. And I know you do too. I remember that story you told about Christmas and how you felt so alone and then you could feel our Savior with you. You probably are surprised I even remember that, but that story has helped me so much. I love you. Take care.

August 12, 2009

Dear family!

We aren’t at our normal place where we e-mail and this place has no way of sending pictures. Sorry. And the monitors are kinda screwed up so I can’t tell all the time if I've typed stuff right so sorry. But things are going good.

I live in the city of Malhado. I don’t know what my address is but just send stuff to the mission office because we might be moving houses and I don’t want stuff to get lost. We are moving because when it rains our roof is like a concave roof so instead of it going to a ridge point it funnels down so all the rain that hits the roof all funnels into our house and floods the floor.

But anyways, we had a baptism fall through which was sad because he was a really cool, really strong 17 year old kid and the week of his baptism his mom brain washed him and told him she would hate him if he got baptized and stuff. It was sad. But we did baptize a little 10 year old girl Tiziha. She was so excited to get baptized.

I like my comp a lot. He is a really good hard working missionary. He has only been here one transfer before I came. The Portuguese is rough. I'm learning more and more every day though. I still have some time in front of me before it just clicks but its all good. Sometimes it’s really frustrating but it’s all good. There's nothing I can think of that I really need. Oh and I ate cow stomach with beans and rice. That was a treat.

I'm glad to hear your pictures are going so well. You really have a talent mom. I hope the (youth pioneer) trek goes well for you all. I got 3 letters from you. I loved them but, I only get mail once every 6 weeks-ish so don't stress it if I haven't been getting them. I will. I do love the people, the kids are fun to play around with and dance with. They all try and dance like Michael Jackson. He was a huge deal here, ha. But I love you all.

Your son, Elder Anderson

August 5, 2009


Hey there family!

Okay, I’ll answer the questions first to the best to my ability. The people we are teaching - - We are teaching tons of people. We find new people to teach everyday. It’s very common to talk to people on the streets and have them let us into their home to teach. We get baptism commitments pretty often. In fact this last Saturday I baptized two little boys, one age 12 (Rafiel) and one age 10 (Clayton). They are so cool. They live in a very poor street but they’re both so happy and love the gospel. They’re so mature for there ages too. They don’t mess around and they work hard in their neighborhoods. On Sunday we confirmed them. And when we went to pick them up Clayton’s dad said “sorry he cant go to church today because we’re going to help some friends and then have a party afterwards”. We told him how important it was that he went to church to receive the Holy Ghost, and he said “ok we’ll let Clayton decide” so he asked Clayton “do you wanna go to church or go to a party?” and he chose church. He is so cool. This week we’re baptizing a 16 year old boy. He is really firm. He goes to church on his own every week. (And you have to realize going to church isn’t a 5 min car ride, it’s a 40 min to an hour walk in hot weather!)

My companion is Elder Palmer. He is a really bold, good missionary and the people love him. We’re not the only missionaries in Ilheus, but we are the only ones in our area. We are over one ward and there are about 100 people in it. The members are good people. I'm not sure what our district or zone is called, but our whole zone is American haha. It’s just us and another pair of missionaries, but we still have all our meetings in Portuguese dang it. We did exchanges once this week because a missionary was sick and couldn’t work so we took turns going out with his companion.

I'm not sure what my address is but I can look it up for next week. It would be cool to get letters at my apartment, but I think its best to just send them to the mission home until I get settled a little bit because I may only be here for 6 weeks and then some letters would get sent here and I may not get them. Once I get a little more settled in the mission then they try and keep you in an area for like 6 to 8 months. But it is allowed to receive letters at our apartment.

I don’t know what the beach is called but it has a gold mermaid on it so maybe if you search on that something will come up ha. I get an hour to e mail. There’s no Walmart or anything by me. I think the voice recorder would be sweet but I think you’d have to send one. The blog sounds cool, thanks for doing it. I haven’t received any letters yet. The’re probably in the mission office. There’s no way of me getting them really until transfers unless someone has to go there.

I wish I could see Monty running around. I can kind of picture it, haha. I miss the munster. I’m sure he is keeping you on your toes. Stay in there ha. I’m writing in my journal every night. I’m taking pictures and I’ll try and send some next week. Justin I totally remembered your b-day! I even had it written on my hand so I wouldn’t forget to e-mail you about it today! Sounds like your gonna have a killer party. Make fun of your friends for me ha. I love you and miss you. the big 15 - crazy stuff. Dad said you’ve been driving a little bit. Good for you. Maybe it won’t be as bad as we all thought. But I’m still glad I’m in a different country while you learn to drive haha. Just kidding, it’s not like the drivers here are any better. They’re terrible. But I love you all and pray for you all every night. Peace out family.