Me, Mature?!?!?

FYI- Dave is our Uncle who was called as Bishop of his ward yesterday, and Jordan our cousin left for th eMTC in Provo Wednesday heading down to Paraguay. 

well this week was a crazy one!! my first transfer is almost up and it has flown by!!! this week a lot happened!!! so for tuesday we taught a bomb lesson with the Valdez family!!! i love them cause they speak english!!! so i can actually sound smart!!! haha but they are way cool and i love spending time over there! we also met another investigator from a referral from a ZL! she is boss!! we just talked to get to know her a bit she what she was looking for and everything but she has a true desire to learn the gospel! wednesdaywas new missionary training! and it was way sweet!! i spent the day with all the missionaries that came in with me and we got to do some from exercises with the president and the APs. President did saw some uneasy things to me though..... he would ask questions to all the new missionaries and no one would answer so i would, because we all know i love to talk, so i would tell him my opinion and talk about the experiences ive had so far and all that i have learn, and he said he was very impressed with how mature i was......ME? MATURE? i felt horrible hahahah but its all good! he also said that he sees leadership in me and likes how i get everyone involved and enjoying the work!! hahah the best part of the training was he asked me to bear testimony on our purpose, so i did and he said he was in awe of how i see our purpose. Everyone said that i remind them of Elder Walser who is one of the APs right now who have a weird but very powerful outlook on everything. so i guess that was a good thing, but its hard taking compliments when you feel so inadequate with the work. I have so much to learn and the spanish is killing me....i honestly think im getting worse at it hahah i was talking to a guy and he straight up told me my spanish was awful and he didnt understand anything i said hahaha it was rough! but the leadership training was awesome!!! President is such a stud hahaha and way to smart for his own good hahah he uses way to big of words! anyway thursday was a rough day nothing worked ourt so me and Elder Smith just had a game of who could pass out the most passalong cards....i lost...only because i dont know spanish though hahaha friday was i pretty good day we had some good lessons with some new investigators and we hope the go some where. one is a 19 year girl who just moved here from colombia to go to school! she was way cool!! we meet with her tonight!! Saturday i wanted to cry...haha we had exchanges and i had to run my area and the ZL that was with me is wayyyyyy trunky and didnt want to do anything. But i felt i made some really good plans and the day turned out really well with 4 lessons and 3 potentials. and i never had an oh crap moment trying to think what to do! which was really good, worst part is that he wouldnt speak to me in english so it was a whole lot of me sounding extremely stupid and pretending i knew what he said. haha there were a lot of laughs though so there was an up side!!! and we got some incredible food made by this Honduras family in the ward, it was bomb! haha sunday was a crazy day! first it started with me falling asleep in ward council meeting where the bishop made fun of me...but luckily he likes me cause im way close to his son who is hadicapped. so he let it slide hahaha but i definitely said sorry! we had a bunch of lessons with less active families which was way good. 

so here is some crazy knews!!!!!!!! do you remember matty baxter?? and how he got into the church and everything through his girlfriend and his best friend, who happened to be related??? well i was talking about how i play hockey and Elder Thomas comes up to me and asked who i played for and i said skyline, he told me that he played for cottonwood!! He was mattys best friend!!!!!!! and his sister was mattys girlfriend!!! And he told me that matty went on a mission and actually got home just last week from Oregon!!!!!! I couldnt believe it!!! hahah Elder Thomas let me write a note to him in his letter he was sending him telling him good job. It was such a cool experience and the spirit hit me so strong!! i was so happy to hear about matty!!!! 

Well only other news is that the weather sucks here hahaha the hurricane from mexico is affecting the weather here with intense rainstorms that just destroy houses here. We were worried that if the hurricane kept coming north that they were going to have to evacuate all the missionaries here. I dont think that will happen but the weather is awful here! It feels like a hurricane here. But we still go out and track and ride the bikes which is rough when your soaking wet but you just laugh about it and remember its worth it.

Well i hope all is well back in Utah! Big congrats to the old guy Dave for becoming top dog!!! ;) You enjoy the stand! And if i ever had to confess anything id turst the big guy hahaha He is a boss! Also congrats to Jordan for starting off the mission, crazy to think that he is already in the MTC, but i know he will do incredible things! I wish everyone the very best and hope everyone is staying busy! I love you all!!!

Love,

The Ginger Elder! 

Flat tires and running from dogs, exactly what I thought a mission would be...

OKAY SO HERE ARE THE ANSWERS TO YOUR QUESTIONS MOTHER: my Pday is on Monday unless its a holiday cause we write at a college library. please send money food clothes some sweet ties possible a better bed and bascially everything else i shouldnt have on a mission! haha no im just kidding. im doing pretty good i figured out how to eat off of $20 a week, which i didnt think was possible but it actually is. Food tastes awful no doubt but its fuel not food!! haha I would definitely love some sweet ties though. Im already bored of mine. Send some really crazy ones that people will ask about, maybe ill make some more friend haha and some photos of the family and stuff so all the members can see. i dont want to take my camera everywhere.

so news of the week! I taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ and i start every morning doing that by simply brushing my teeth!! haha thats the moto in the mission. that everything you do, even brushing your teeth, should bring people to Christ. So my teeth have never looked so good ;) haha this week was bit of a hard one for us. Cause it was so busy everything got out of order and nothing really got scheduled. My companion has a leadership meeting wednesday so i went on exchanges with some english elders. It was way fun!!! besides the fixing three flat tires all moring biking 12 miles and teaching an EXTREMELY RACIST BLACK LADY WHO HATES BLACKS!!!! oh and she is afraid of the sun and is mentally unstable..... By the end of the lesson all we taught was that we need to become like Jesus, she took that a little to far as she thinks we now need to become jews..... and anyone who knows me knows that i was dying of laughter this whole time!!! IT WAS PRICELESS!!!! After that incredible lesson we came outside to find we had another flat tire...these bikes blow....so we had to walk to a store 7 miles away to get a new tube... and it started pouring rain.... totally what i thought a mission would be hahahaha but we ended up getting some pizza which was sweet!!! and we made a new homeless friend. That was cool too!

So this week we focussed everything we had to getting everyone in the neighborhood to a ward party that we were throwing! Everyone in the ward represented their orginal country and made food from it!!!! It was so sweet!!! There were like 9 different countries represented there and of course we repped good old America!!! Nothing like hot dogs and cookies hahaha but it was a way fun night with dancing and eating and it was a great turn out!! I got some guys in the ward to get on the stage and do a dance as like a talent show! It went extremely awful in a total good way! The ward laughed so hard and enjoyed me making a joke of myself. But it was really fun!

As to the real work, this was a tough week. Silvano is an investigator who is blind and has studied his whole life as a Catholic and he is one of those born catholic die catholic even if i dont believe it. So working with him is way hard cause he is super intelligent and knows the bible like the back of his hand, so he butts heads with us a lot. The Valdez family, my homies, commited to being baptized on October 13! That was way cool, but we have a lot of things to do to prepare them but they are the cooliest family!! Way crazy and funny and its way hard to keep them on subject but its way cool to be teaching them. Lucia and her family is the ones we found a week ago during the hour of power, and they came to the party saturday and loved it!!! They felt right at home and felt so good about the atmosphere!! So we are working on setting dates with them.

As of this week there was a couple more sketchy situations but its all good!!! hahah i have just learned to ride my bike really fast!!! haha there are way to many dogs here. We live in an area that use to be way nice until hurricane katrina hit then all those people moved to this area cause it was cheap, so we have ALOT of gang activity and drug cartel. 

So far my spanish still sucks but everyone loves the energy i have and how i make everyone laugh and feel loved. I have really hit it off with the youth, since ive been here we have reactivated 7 youth which like double the youth in the ward. The members are amazing!! Wish i could understand them, and one day i am sure i will!!!

Well all i can say is that estoy viviendo el sueno! Its rough but i wouldnt rather be doing anything else. I know this is where i am supposed to be and i know how much different i will be in two years. I am so grateful for this chance to learn and grow. I love you all so much and wish you all the very best!!! Keeping doing whats right! 

Con amor,

Elder Anderson

Jokes in the face of Danger

well another week down, each week gets faster and faster. It really is crazy! So the news of the week is that basically a lot happened haha I met two families who we are now teaching and seem way cool. One of the families was during what we call hour of power. Every Thursday night from 6 to 7 we go and knock a street, well we had no investigators this week so we fasted that day which was WAY rough with the heat. But as soon as we started hour of power we met this family. They were only the second door we knock! And the best part was the mother said that she has been looking for a new church and one that would get her children involved. So we shared a message with her and left after setting an appointment for saturday. So we went back saturday and she told us that as soon as we left that she felt her search was over, that she could feel are message was true. So we taught the lesson and they wanted to come to churchsunday! It was such a cool experience!

The other family we found is crazy! haha They had the lessons about two years ago then moved and we just happened to run into them and they invited us over. Its two brothers and one is married with two girls. THESE GUYS ARE HUGE!!!! like NFL lineman huge hahaha Both 6 foot 6 like 300lbs!!! Well friday night we went over to teach a lesson, when we got there a car pulled us and guys jumped out. One came and got right in my face and started yelling for my id and money, turns out he was a crack dealer, but for some reason the the spirit told me to joke around with the guy. SO i cracked a joke messed around with him a little bit and he chuckled and said that i had balls hahaha Well by this time Jaime, one of the brothers is by my side asking if i needed help and i told him no that me and the guy were cool and had no problems. So me and Elder Smith went inside while Jaime stayed outside and talked with the guy. When Jaime came back in he told me about the guy. How he sells crack to the lady next door and is in some gang and is pretty dangerous, and told me i had balls!! hahaha It was pretty funny, definitely sketchy though! The area im in is called the grind and it is full of problems. But i havent been in any bad situations yet so thats good!!!

We are hoping to have a few baptisms in the next few weeks which would be totally sweet!!! This past week i felt we were down in the dump with the lack of investigators but things really turned around!! Im really excited to see what comes from these new families!!! Spanish still sucks but ive come to accept it which is really good!!! Cause now the only way to go is up!! haha im a big hit in the ward cause i get along with all the youth really well and the youth in the ward in really struggling so it was nice to hear from our ward mission leader that the bishop sees the good work i do!! Elder Smith says i have a lot of potential cause ive learned a lot of things that he didnt learn til his year mark! So even though my spanish sucks i am doing something right!!! haha Only other funny experience i had was that we have this street where a bunch of woman try and get picked up, and im not really sure how we got into the position but one came up to us and started trying to get us to take her so i finally threw a passalong card at her and ran. hahah

I will send some pictures next week of everything down here in Texas. We have a huge ward party next Saturday where i can get pics with all the families and everything! Til then here are some from Mexico!

Love Elder Anderson

Reality Check.....

So the mission isnt anything of what i expected...Its hard long extremely hot people arent very nice and no really wants to listen to our message besides the members in the ward. I didnt understand why people wouldnt be jumping into the water to be baptized because of how true the gospel is. It makes no sense. And its just hard. And its just devastating. This isnt what i pictured. I do everything i am told, everything in the white book, and work so hard every day. What i came to realize is that this is truly the greatest blessing of my life. Though it may not seem normal for me to talk like that at the beginning and come to be grateful, let me explain my feelings.

First, Jesus Christ was perfect in every way, He is our Savior and Redeemer, the example given to us to show how to return to Our Father in Heaven. Yet people turned away from Him time and time again and ultimately was killed. This road that i am on is the Life of the Savior. This is an every day experience of what my loving Brother did for me. Spend day after day doing what is right in hoping of finding just one person. Even through all the bad, the hope of just helping one is what matters. So why should i have it any easier than My Savior? Why should everything come easy for me? It shouldnt. I must learn to understand what Christ truly did for me, and i can honestly say im not even close to comprehending. But i am on my way. And how grateful i am that each day is a challenge, and how every day is the same but no two days are alike. The mission is a blessing in so many ways. But i have a long way to go. I do things i am told, i follow advice, and just keep the rules. But this will only bring so much success in my mission. I do those things and give to the Lord, and for that i will be a good missionary. But what i need to change is doing those things because i know without any doubt that those things bring happiness and blessings. I must change from doing them in hope of good coming from them, to doing them in knowledge that my Savior and Redeemer will help me overcome all things. We have a saying, "become a fourth missionary". A fourth missionary is a missionary who gives himself completely to the Lord and does all he can in knowledge of what that brings. I give my time, hard work, effort, energy to the Lord. But i am still working on giving him my heart, cause when you give your heart to the Lord is really when you become an effective instrument in his hands. And not only that, you become redeemer through him. I thought coming on a mission would help me become the person i want to be in this life, truth is that isnt possible. But the mission can surely put me on the right path to one day reach it.

Days are long and hot with the heat, we faster for an investigator and didnt have water one day biking and that was extremely rough, i was weak and humble but i came to learn what a real fast is like. The members here are incredible!!! So loving and caring!! Every night we eat with members and i get to know them more and more, i still have a long way to come with the language but i do my best to show my love through my smile. As of right now we dont have to many investigators but we hope that changes, we could have a few baptismal dates set this week. We will see what the Lords will is. Me and my comp are getting along great! He is happy that i can work hard and that he doesnt have to baby me, so that is very good news. Its been a rough week with the language but i understand more and more each day. I wish everyone back in utah the very best and hope all is well.

Con Amor,

Elder Anderson