Happy Memorial Day

Well to start this email out HAPPY MEMORIAL DAY!!!! I hope that you all had a great Memorial Day and that it was full of the normal and usual festivities. For me, yeah not so much! It was p-day and yeah possibly one of the worst p-day's ever. First of all because Memorial Day is my favorite holiday of the year! And when your on your mission you really don't celebrate those kind of holiday's But once p-day was over at 6pm we did have a barbecue and that was really good so I guess we had partly a normal Memorial Day? But this week was a good week. At transfer's Elder Gilliland and I stayed together. It is just the two of us now and our area is still doing very well. This past week we had three baptisms in our area. On Thursday we had two baptisms. We had the baptisms of K. and S. Johnson. Two girls ages 9 and 11. These two girls were so ready to get baptized and make those commitments with their heavenly father. Then on Saturday we had the baptism of K.M. That was an interesting baptism and we will just keep it at that. Our area is still looking really good and we have a lot of potential for this coming month of June. We are looking at having 9 baptisms for the month of June in our area. So with the faith and help of every one of you and the prayers of all of you as well I know that this can happen!

So this week Elder B. my third companion finally went home! Now I know that this makes it sound like I really did not like him. This is not true! I did like him! I liked him a lot, and I learned a lot from him! He taught me a lot and I am very thankful to him for all that he taught me. But in the last few weeks of his mission he got very "trunky" and ready to go home. He was always talking about home and going back home and what he was going to do, go surfing, go swimming, go on walks with his mom and so on. Now this was hard for both me and Elder Gilliland, but I think a little extra hard for me. With me being so close to home. (like what 15-20 miles) It would be so easy for me to go home! I have people offer it to me all the time. Oh come on Elder Anderson jump in my car I will take you home right now it's only down the road. And the last two weeks my headaches have been a lot worst then they have been in the past. It has made it a lot harder for me to concentrate and focus on the work. So with the headaches being really bad and me feeling really sick on top of Elder B. talking about home so much I pretty much just wanted to go home! But then I got the great opportunity to go downtown with President Laney and some other missionary's. We went and toured temple square and the church history museum. In the church history museum their is a saying next to one of the church prophets now I don't remember which prophet it was but we have all heard this saying, But it has never hit me stronger then it did on Friday. It says, " WHAT-E'ER-THOU-ART-ACT-WELL-THY-PART." What a true statement! What ever you are doing, or whatever capacity you are in. Just act well! Act as you are supposed to. Whether you are a missionary, a bishop, a stake president, or a primary teacher, just act how you should be acting and how the Lord would want you to act. And that is what matters! I believe that is a motto we should all have.

I was also studying President Uchtdorf's talk from general conference during the priesthood session titled, "Doing a Great Work and Cannot Come Down." This is one of my new favorite talks! He talked about the great Nehemiah of the Old Testament. And how he was doing many great things and he was faced with many challenges and much tribulation but when faced with this his reply was, "I am doing a great work, so that I cannot come down." This is my new motto as a missionary. "I am doing a great work, and cannot nor will not come down!" I am doing the lord's work. The greatest of all the work! What greater work is there? I love seeing the changes people are making in their lives and the difference this is making in my own life as well. I cannot believe how much I have grown on my mission in just these 4 short months!

I know that this is the true church of God, I know that the Prophet Joseph Smith did indeed see God the father and his son Jesus Christ. I know that through them Joseph Smith did restore this church, the true church of Christ back to the earth. And that due to that we have the proper priesthood authority on the earth today to baptize and to confirm people member's of this one and only true church on the earth today. I know that President Thomas S. Monson is a true prophet of god today! I know this church is true with all of my heart I know it!

I LOVE YOU ALL!!!

Love,
Elder Anderson

Come To The Fiesta

Better Week

Well this week turned out to be a better week then last week. Our appointments actually held this week and we finally started to get back into some doors that we were just not able to get into last week. We picked up 3 new investigators this week and put them on date for baptism in June. We also had the baptism of a ten year old boy named Jaden Figueroa. He was a ten year old kid, who had the mind of a 16 year old. He was very smart and it was just awesome to see him want to get baptized so bad and follow the example of Jesus Christ. Even though he was only ten years old he wanted to read the book of mormon and pray about it to know that it was true. We told him he didn't need to read the whole thing to know it was true. But he read over half of it in three weeks. It was crazy! It was awesome to see him and his family grow closer to their heavenly father in the last few weeks and then see him make those steps and make those changes towards baptism.
Transfers are tomorrow, I will probably just end up staying in my same area.
I hope that you all have a great week. I love you all and will talk to you next week.
Love,
elder Anderson

Oquirrh Mountain Temple

WHAT A WEEK!!! Everything was going so so good and then all of a sudden on Thursday everything just seemed to start canceling. Monday through Wednesday it seemed like nothing could stop the work in our area! We were doing awesome. All of our appointments were holding, and none of them were canceling. All of the appointments were going really well and we were continually putting people on date for baptism and helping people work towards the waters of baptism. And then Thursday hit us. Thursday afternoon, one after another every single one of our appointments started to cancel. It was horrible. Thursday night we had 5 appointments cancel. This was the first day of my mission that had been like this. It was really hard. I was like why? Why would this happen? Then Friday rolled around. And three minutes before the baptism interview of two girls that we were going to baptize on Saturday their dad called us and told us that the baptism was cancelled. We were devistated. Pretty much everything that we had set up for the last three days was cancelled! Obviously somebody is trying really hard to make the work in this area stop and not progress! But I know that this week is going to be better! And that we are going to be able to get back into those houses and be able to teach those people once again and help them make those decisions again to enter into the waters of baptism and make those sacred covenants with their heavenly father.
It was so good to talk to my family yesterday! HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY MOM! And happy mother's day to all of you women out there! I truely am thankful to all of you and the example that all of you have been to me in my life! MOM thanks for all that you have done for me in my life and the example that you have been and still am in my life. You are one of my best friends! It was good to hear all of your voices on the phone! Today my companions and I had the awesome opportunity to go to the Oquirrh Mountain Temple open house. My dad actually picked us up and took us to the temple. We thought we were going to be with a big crowd of people and just kind of be ushered through but turns out that was not so. I also knew that my sister Melissa would be doing a shift at the temple and that I would hopefully get the chance to just say a quick hello and then goodbye. Turns out we were the only ones going through the temple this morning. So President Homer took Elder Gilliland, Elder Bayba, my dad, Melissa, and myself on a personnel tour of the temple. It was so good to be with my dad and Melissa and be able to walk through the temple and be able to feel the spirit of the temple there. It was also really nice to be able to spend that time with Melissa as she will be leaving on her mission here very shortly. Well all in all this week was a good one. I love you all and pray for all of you every day! The church is true!

Strive To Give As The Savior Gave!

What a week it has been! This week truly was a really good week. We have really been focusing our efforts on finding new investigators to teach. We have really been praying to find those who would be ready to listen to us and be ready to prepare themselves to enter into the waters of baptism. It is amazing what can happen when you just have the faith that you really will find those people! We have had some great success this week in picking up some new investigators. We are teaching some great people and some great families. I am really enjoying the area that I am in right now. The members are great as well. This week we had some interesting dinners. Last night we ate at a Jamaican families house for dinner and had some jerk pork. It was very hot and spicy! I am starting to learn to not be so picky and just eat everything! Which has been very hard for me but hopefully by the end of my mission I wont be so picky anymore. On saturday we had the baptism of one of my favorite investigators so far. His name is Aly Landa. He was 29 years old. The way that he got interested in the church was that his family and him were invited to the Draper Temple open house and felt the spirit so strong there that they wanted to go back and be sealed as a family some day. And they knew that the only way to do so was to be baptized first. So they called the missionaries. His wife was already a member just not active. So now the whole family is a very active family. The twelve year old daughter was baptized two weeks ago and now the dad was baptized on saturday. It was interesting. We were talking to Aly at the baptism interview on Friday night and we asked him, "Hey Aly, two months ago if we would have knocked on your door what would you have done?" He said, "I would have slammed the door in your guys faces so hard and possibly pullen a gun on you!" He was so serious too! What a great opportunity we have coming up here with the Oquirrh Mountain temple open house so close to all of us to invite our neighbors, our friends, members, non-members, anyone, and everyone to go to the temple and walk through it see what it is like on the inside of the temple! There is not a place in this world where you can feel the spirit stronger then the temple! I hope that all of you take this opportunity of the open house to invite someone to it and share your feelings of the church and of temple work to them.

So this week has also been a really hard one. Friday, Saturday, and Sunday i was not feeling very good. I had a really bad headache and was throwing up and was just feeling down on myself. I was kind of feeling like I can't do this mission thing! Why am I even here! I was also thinking, I got the honorable release I can be done! So I started putting a lot of thought into "my mission." And I came to one major conclusion.
That conclusion I came to was that this is where I need to be! It does not matter where you are serving your mission, it is HOW you serve your mission! When I accepted my mission call I told President Monson and the Lord that I was going to serve for two years and I am going to do just that, serve for TWO years! I was thinking in one of the sacrament meetings we attended yesterday about when Jesus Christ was on the earth he performed many mighty miracles. He healed the sick, he brought the dead back to life, he made the blind see again, he performed the atonement for each and every one of us. While he was doing all of this, NEVER ONCE DID THE SAVIOR EXPECT ANYTHING IN RETURN! We should always strive to give as the savior gave! One way we can do this is by serving a mission! In Doctrine and Covenants section 4 it says, "Now behold the field is white already to harvest.....Therefore, O ye that embark in the service of God, see that ye serve him with all your heart, might, mind and strength, that ye may stand blameless before God at the last day." The field is white and already to harvest everywhere! It does not matter where you serve but how you serve! Also in Doctrine and Covenants section 128:22 it says, "Brethren, shall we not go on in so great a cause? Go forward and not backward. Courage, brethren: and on, on to the victory!" I really like that scripture where Joseph Smith is saying why shouldn't you go on in so great a cause such as missionary work? It is such a great thing what have ye against it? Go on! On to the victory!
I know that I am supposed to be here right now! Even here in the Salt Lake City South mission! I have grown more in the last three months then I have in the last 19 years of my life. I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to be serving the lord at this time. The church is true!
Love Elder Anderson