New Companion

Well this week was a pretty good week. Elder Davies was transferred to Taylorsville and I got a new companion. His name is Elder Orchard and he is from Richmond Kentucky. He has been out for a year and a half now and is a really hard working missionary! We have gotten more work done in the last week then Elder Davies and I got done in the 6 weeks we were together.

On Saturday we had two baptisms. First in the morning we had the baptism of Heydon Kaddas, she is a 19 year old girl who has been attending church sense she was 11. She has wanted to get baptized for years but her parents would not let her. But now that she is an adult she can make her own decisions so she got baptized. She was an awesome girl to teach. She pretty much taught herself! The first lesson we had with her, she had a quad sitting on her lap and we were like, "is that yours" and she said yeah I just got done reading it. And sure enough she has read the whole thing, Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenants, and Pearl of Great Price. She was a golden investigator if I have ever seen one!

We then had the baptism of Kayla Lytle in the evening. She is a 14 year old girl and has been going to church for 6 months now. We were trying to wait and see if we could baptize her and dad together but Dad is just taking a lot longer then we want so we decided to just get Kayla baptized because she was more then ready. That was a really good baptism as well and I think that it really might have given Dad the jump start to get himself in order and to quit smoking so that he can get baptized as well. So that was a great Saturday to be able to have two baptisms for sure!

Yesterday, Elder Orchard and I spoke in the Eastridge 8th ward. It was a really neat experience. When I stood up to speak I had no idea what I was going to speak about. But words just came to me and I told the story about my brain surgery and about what happened when I went to New York and pretty much how I got to where I am now and why I am serving in Sandy when I am from Bluffdale (everyone laughed when I told them I was from Bluffdale) But I told them how I have never been more happy in my life then I have been the last 7 months of my life. Missionary work is so important! And how we can all be happy and we can all feel the joy's of missionary work in our daily lives. There were so many people that were crying by the end of my talk and I was just not quite sure why. After sacrament meeting I cannot tell you how many people stopped me and told me how powerful it was and how great of a missionary I was. That really gave me such a boost and such a motivation to go out and be even a better missionary! I know that heavenly father is on my side and is helping me every day! This is such a great work, and I cannot come down!

I love all of you and pray for you daily!
Love Elder Anderson