Minding the Gap

Hey Family!  

From your letters and emails it sounds like you are all doing awesome!  It sounds like you all are having great experiences and opportunities to be missionaries.  Keep up the great missionary work!  

Anderson cousins, can I just say that you are all amazing?!  I loved the package with all of your letters!  Thanks so much for you love, support, and prayers.  I always tell everyone that I have the best family in the world and this week my companions finally agreed with me.

Things are going great here in El Paso.  I have definitely learned why I was in a threesome with 2 Koreans in the MTC.  I needed to learn a lot about myself, charity, and to love others no matter our differences.  This companionship sure is a roller coaster.  At one point we'll be super high and teaching amazing lessons and 5 mins later my companions will be so frustrated with each other and will ignore each other.  It sure is interesting.  Never a dull moment.  

We've made a lot of head way this week though.  By the end of these 6 weeks I hope that we'll be able to go a day without the two of them arguing.  I think it's possible.

I loved General Relief Society Meeting.  It was just what I needed.  The stake here makes a huge deal out of it.  It starts at 4 with service projects, they have dinner at 5, and then watch the meeting at 6.  Its way fun!  We were able to get around 5 inactive sisters to come and one of our investigators.  After the meeting our investigator, Dede, just sat in awe.  She was like "did you feel that?  I feel like that man was just speaking to me, like he was looking deep into my soul.  It feels so weird but I like it."  It was awesome!

We've had some really great lessons this week.  We have been trying to get a hold of Dede and her son Jon for a few weeks now and we were finally able to teach them on Monday.  She was just so excited and kept saying "I must feel the Spirit through excitement!  I love this!"  Jon is 20 and has had a rough past few years (they both have) and isn't quite sure what he wants but feels a lot of peace.  This is huge because just last year he didn't even believe in God.  They both have a baptismal date for the 24th!  I'm so so so excited!  We taught them 3 times this week and would have more but they live on the border of our area.  Its a town called Chaparral, New Mexico.

The Lord is really blessing us for our desire to serve him and for our charity and patience.  On Friday we went to an appointment with someone we had met on the street.  He wasn't home but his 17 year old daughter was.  She invited us in and we taught her the first lesson.  After the Joseph Smith story I asked her how she felt and she said "He's here right now.  Jesus Christ is in this room.  I can feel Him.  I love this."  It was amazing!  She also accepted a baptismal date for the 24th.  We asked if it would be ok with her parents and she said that it would.  
So yeah, I'm really excited.  When I have experiences like this I know that everything is worth it and that as long as we're doing our very best the Lord will bless us.

Well, I hope that you all of an amazing week!  I love you all so much!  Remember who you are and act accordingly.
Love, Hermana Anderson

The first picture is with a member, Hna Ughetto. She is awesome and feeds us tons of food. This week she fed us cactus. It was actually really good. It tastes a lot like peppers. I love this lady. The next one is of Chaperral. They have the most beautiful sunsets. This town is just dirt, dogs, and trailers but it is awesome.

Many of you have already heard...

Well as many of you have already heard, yes it is true I did get transferred this week. I am now serving in the Cottonwood Creek and Midvalley Stakes. Now many of you are wondering, "Where the heck is that!" So I will tell you. It is mostly in Sandy but also partially in Cottonwood Heights. My area goes from about 7000 S. to 8600 S. and from about 700 E. to Highland Drive. Some establishments in my area that many of you might be familiar with would be, Healthsouth (extended Anderson family should be very familiar with this one) and also the other establishment would be the Macey's off of 1300 E.

And also as many of you may have heard already I do now live within the ward that Elder Packer lives in. I actually live just a couple houses away from him. And he attends his home ward frequently so I am sure I will be meeting him soon.

Also one of the bishop's of the 16 ward's that I now cover is Bruce Lindsay, yes the Bruce Lindsay that is the newscaster for KSL Channel 5. Yesterday, I was sitting in the foyer waiting for a sacrament meeting to get out and to go into a new one and all of a sudden I hear a very prominent voice saying, "It looks like we have a new Elder." And I recognized the voice immediately and he introduced himself as Bishop Lindsay and I said Bishop Bruce Lindsay. And he immediately asked me where I was from because I must be from Utah if I knew who he was.

My new companion is Elder Erekson. He is from Chantilly Virginia, which is about 15 minutes outside of Washington, D.C. He has been out for 6 months and this is still his first area. He has had the exact same companions up until now. He has a lot of learning to do still so things have been kind of rough the last couple of days, but we are doing good and we will get to the point where we need to be.

The area is doing really good though. We have 5 people on date for baptism right now and should be able to put another 4 to 5 on date this week.

And dad to answer your question, we do not drive the red mazda 3 anymore. In my new area we now drive a Chevy Malibu that is a dark gray color.

So on Saturday there was a baptism in my old area that I got to go back to. It was a really neat baptism for a couple of reasons. #1 because it was a complete non-member family. It was a single mom and her 9 year old son that got baptized. We have been teaching them for about 2 months and they really had a desire to get baptized. #2 the second reason that it was such a neat baptism was because Taylan the 9 year old son asked me to baptize him so I had the opportunity to baptize somebody for the first time. That was a really neat experience and one that I will never forget.


Well I hope that you all have a really great week and that you all continue to be great examples to those around you, and also strive to be missionaries in your daily lives!

I LOVE YOU ALL, AND PRAY FOR YOU DAILY!!!!!!!!!!
Have a GREAT week!
Love, Elder Anderson

The rain came down and the floods came up...

Hey there!  Wow, what a crazy week it has been!  

Last Monday we tutored an investigator named Thelma for 4 hours.  My brain hurt a bit afterwords but it was good to get practice doing things like that.  

Thelma is an amazing woman.  She is 31 and a single mother of 4.  She also works and goes to school.  They started teaching her a few weeks before I got here and she's never been to church.  She knows that it is what she needs to do but has a hard time acting.  We decided that we needed to do whatever it took to get her to church so we tutored her and then made her and her family breakfast yesterday.  And guess what... it worked!  She came to church for the first time!  I was SO happy!

So we also got a new companion this week.  Her name is Sister Rodriguez and is from Boston.  She has been speaking Spanish her whole life!  I'm so glad because we have needed help with Spanish.  She's been out for 9 months and President has kept her in Tucson the whole time.  On Wednesday morning (transfer day) we got a phone call from him telling us that he was sending her out here for a fresh start and the advice he has for us is to be patient and love her.  He wanted us to make this the first companionship that she has ever succeeded in.  She's an awesome teacher and really bold.  We've had some problems so we had a big companionship inventory yesterday which helped a lot.  I mentioned that in D&C 42:14 it states that if you don't have the Spirit you "shall not teach."  So we discussed all of our thoughts and feelings (actually, I didn't talk too much because it was mostly the other 2 needing to share; I was kind of the middle person).  But, last night we had some awesome lessons because we finally had the Spirit with us.  

I'm learning a lot about charity and I pray for it constantly.

Monsoon season has finally arrived.  It was a bit late though.  The worst of it hit on Saturday night.  Around 8 pm we went to a members house to get something really quick.  Well, right as we got there a downpour began.  I've never seen anything like this before.  It was so windy and the rain just came down.  We decided to wait it out a bit.  After a bit it was just a drizzle so we thought that we should leave before it got worse.  Bad idea.  I've driven in tons of conditions but never anything like this.  We got out of the apartment complex and onto the road and it was flooded.  We quickly realized that we couldn't keep driving.  The street had turned into a river within like a half hour.  When I say like a river I mean the water was probably about 3 feet deep in some areas.  It was just under the windows of the car in some places.  I really have no idea how it happened so fast.  From the apt complex it didn't even look that bad but boy were we wrong.  Needless to say, we didn't make curfew that night. We got home around 11:30.  It was crazy.  The power was out and lots of the roads were closed.  This experience taught me a lot.  We have to be ready for the rains to come. They will come but what matters is how we react to it.  Also, its important to remember that tomorrow is a new day.  The sun will come out again the rain will dry. Sometimes we just need to be patient.

Since I've been here I've really tried to follow President Monson's example of caring for the one.  I don't care who the person is - baptized or not - everyone needs to be reached out to.  I've found that from doing this my faith has been strengthened.  I've learned so much from the people out here and after talking to them I always have a desire to do a little better.

Thanks so much for the letters and packages!  I love them all so much and every day I think "I sure have the best family and friends in the WORLD!"  I'm sorry to hear about BYU.  That really is such a shame.  Well, have a great week!  I love you all and am so thankful for all of you!
Love, Hermana Anderson

Another Slow Week...

Well this week was yet another slow week. The last two weeks have been two really hard and really slow weeks! We have been working really hard to find some new investigators this week but to no avail.

The last two weeks we have found 0 new investigators so it is really frustrating!

We taught a family this week that we were hoping to pick up as new investigators. This is probably the very first complete non-member family that I have taught on my mission. (Mom this is the family that your friend knows). But anyways we taught them, and the lesson went really well and we were able to answer lots of questions. They have been investigating a couple of different religions. The Methodist, Catholic, and the LDS church. So we tried to put them on date for baptism and they totally shot it down. They don't believe that God can answer their prayer's. We asked them how long they thought it would take for God to answer their prayer's as to which religion was true. Their answer was 9 months. I was like wow that is a long time! So hopefully they will pray and they will actually find out that God does answer our prayer's and that it doesn't take 9 month's.

Transfers are this week and I am 98% positive that I will be transferred, but you never know.

So this week I also came upon a quote that I really liked as well that I would like to share with all of you. The quote is from Elder David A. Bednar and it says, "In The Strength of The Lord We Can Do And Endure And Overcome All Things." That quote is so true! That through the power and strength of our lord and savior Jesus Christ we can overcome anything.

I love you all and hope that you all have a great week!
Love Elder Anderson!

(Elder Anderson touring some tourist sites in his mission.)

Well this week was a pretty slow week. We were not able to pick up any new investigators so that was kind of lame. But all three of our investigators that are on date for baptism came to church yesterday so that was good.

We had a pretty cool experience this week. We have been teaching this guy named John. He is a 62 year old guy. He is an interesting guy. He is a really smart guy, he was a scientist for a profession and used to work for the national government making vaccinations. About five years ago he got in a really bad car accident and lost lots of his memory. He is still a fairly normal guy but pretty much does not remember too much of his life history before the car accident.

So before the car accident he joined the LDS church and was baptized and was also an endowed member of the church. He was a very faithful and very active member of the church. But now John has no memory of ever being a member of the church. So we have been teaching him and he tells people that he is "investigating" the church. It is hard to teach him because it is not like he can get re-baptized but we are just trying to get him to remember.

So on Wednesday we had a lesson with him. And the spirit was so strong. We talked about baptism and the gift of the Holy Ghost. He stopped me and said now wait a minute, I was baptized wasn't I? And I said yeah John you were. It is so true in the scriptures where it says. The gift of the holy ghost will bring back to our remembrance all things. This was an event that testified to me that, that scripture was true.

Just thought I would share that cool story with all of you.

But other then that nothing really exciting this week. We went to four sacrament meetings yesterday so it was a very long day! We spoke in two of them, And I can tell that my story is really having an impact on people.

I love serving a mission and serving the Lord daily! This is the best thing I could possibly be doing with my life at this time! The last 8 months of my life have been the hardest 8 months, but have also been the best 8 months of my life and the most fulfilling eight months of my life!

I love all of you and hope and pray that all of you will be able to have the joy of the gospel in your lives. And also will be able to have missionary opportunity's in your daily lives.

Have a great week and I hope to hear from you all soon!

Love, Elder Anderson

No Unhollowed Hand...

Hola mi familia!  

How are all of you doing?  I hope that everything is going well and that you had an amazing week!  Our new apt is AMAZING!  Feeling safe in your apt is awesome!  Our last one was really old and run down and their had gotten to be some drug problems going on nearby.  This new one, however is awesome.  They do background checks on everyone before you move in and smoking is not allowed.  Most of the families there are military families.  It just opened up a few months ago.  Transfers are this week and I'm 99.9% positive I won't be moving but I don't know.  Sometimes the week before transfers they hold onto our mail at the mission office so that might be the reason I haven't received the package yet.

This week lots of crazy things have happened.  Satan is really doing everything he can to stop the work from progressing.  Seriously, almost any bad thing that could happen to our investigators did.  But, like Joseph Smith said "no unhollowed hand can stop the work from progressing.  Persecutions may rage, mobs may combine, armies may assemble, columny may defame BUT the truth of God will go forth boldly, nobly, and independent until it has penetrated every continent, visited every clime, swept every country, and sounded in every ear; until the purposes of God shall be accomplished and the Great Jehovah shall say 'the work is done.'"  

Despite all of the bad things that happened I have continued to be happy.  "Come what may and love it" right?  I've seen the Lord's hand and guidance in my life.  I know that this is His work.  He never said that it would be easy, He just said that it would be worth it.  I think sometimes my companion is a little confused why I am always happy and optimistic no matter what happens.  It's because I have the Lord on my side.  There is no way I can fail because I have him.  

We have to keep things in perspective.  I've met with lots of different kinds of people this week.  They are all going through super hard things.  The difference in them is the way they react to their situations.  If they have faith they know that they will overcome and that the Lord is by their side guiding them and carrying them.  The people without faith have no hope for life.  They are barely making it day by day.  Faith is SO important!  We must have faith.  It reminds me of Moroni 7.  If we have faith we have hope.  In church language we know that hope doesn't mean that we hope something will happen.  Rather, it means that we EXPECT things because we know that Lord will help us.  Our Heavenly Father is the same yesterday, today, and forever so of course He is going to help us.  Just like he protected the children of Israel, He will protect us.  We just need to have faith and hope.  

Also, Moroni 7 teaches us that faith and hope lead to charity.  Charity is something that I'm constantly working on.  Without it we are nothing and I'm wasting my time and your money here.    Anyway, those are just some of my thoughts for the week.  We are trying to get more ward and branch involvement because we need them.  Dad, in the pamphlet you sent me it talks about what happens if the members are involved.  Instead of having 2 missionaries covering North East El Paso and tens of thousands of people we could have at least 500.  We are going to try to get some ward mission plans going. I'm excited to see the thing you sent me!

Well, that is about it.  I sure love all of you!  The Church is so true!  Trust in the Lord and lean on Him.  He will direct you for good.  Have faith and be believing.

Love, Hermana Anderson
ps GO COUGARS!!!!!!!  

It's called Labor Day for a reason - Oh my goodness!!! Go Cougars!!

Oh my goodness!!!  GO COUGARS!!  Mom, thanks for the update I really loved it! Can you maybe print it out and send it to me?  Dad, can you print out that thing you wanted me to look at and send it as well?  That would be amazing.  So unfortunately I was unable to watch the football game.  The Bishops wife told me what time it was on so I could pray extra hard and cheer in my heart at that time.  Like I always say, prayers are answered.  I really think that my serving a mission has had a direct result on the team.  You know, like how when we serve our families are blessed; well when the number one fan serves the team is blessed.  I really believe it with everything in me.  Wow, I'm so excited to hear how the rest of the season goes!


We finally moved yesterday.  The elders and the wards were busy so Hermana Randall, our 26 year old friend Mary, and I moved everything.  The Lord really blessed us because we were able to fit everything in Mary's van.  There were so many things that shouldn't have fit in the van or around corners in the apt but they did.  I know that the Lord made it so everything fit.  Boy am I tired today though.  Its so nice to have a place that is new, clean, wholesome, etc.  They even have a no smoking rule!  It's amazing!

This week has been really good.  I've been trying to figure out how to have more success here.  We decided that we need to have members out with us as much as possible.  We didn't know exactly how to do this but we took a leap of faith and sent around a sign up sheet during church.  And guess what happened... we are as busy as this area has ever been since at least March!  Every night is as jam packed as it gets!  I know that when we take a leap of faith the Lord will always bless us and help us to do His work.  I know that it is also as a result of obedience.  President Dean taught me in the MTC that we must be obedient with exactness and so I am.  Blessings flow from this.  

I also decided that there needed to be a bit of a change in attitude in our companionship.  Complacency is not ok with me.  I expect miracles and to receive them we need to work hard and have faith.  Now when we go tracting I say things like "Let's go save some souls" or "We are inviting people to come unto Christ and someone will listen!"  I have received some weird looks from my companion but I don't care.  We need to always remember our purpose!  I'm not here to just go around town and tell people a great story.  I'm here to bring people unto Christ, to save souls!  I can't ever forget this.  I repeat our purpose tons of times every day.  Our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored Gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost and enduring to the end.  I always try to remember Doctrine and Covenants Section 4 as well.  I need to serve with all of my heart, might, mind, and strength.  Always!  People need the truth.  

A man called for a finding faith in Christ dvd on saturday.  I asked him what prompted him to call and he said that he lost his job and doesn't have a whole lot going for him.  He said he has faith in nothing.  Isn't it sad that there are people like that?  There are so many and it is all of our job - missionaries AND members - to reach out to them, to lift them from darkness.  

One of the ladies we've been teaching, Gabby, is amazing.  In the space of a few weeks her life has changed completely.  She has given up spending nights with her boyfriend, drinking, smoking, viewing pornography and so much more.  Lots of these things she did without us even teaching her about it.  Her boyfriend and daughters are really mad at her because of this but she said that she doesn't care because she is happy.  

Well we went over there the other day and her scriptures were missing.  We searched the whole apt but couldn't find them.  I knew immediately that her boyfriend had taken them and she did too.  She was so upset because the scriptures make her happy and she kept saying "I need to read them every day!"  So we gave her a new Book of Mormon. She had me go into her room with her and watch her hide it so he couldn't take it. Sometimes I think that we take the scriptures for granted.  We all need to follow Gabby's example.  

This morning I was reading Alma 49-50.  It teaches us a lot about preparation and how to withstand the adversary.  I recommend everyone reads it.  We need to remember that preparation proceeds power.

Anyway, I love you all so much!  I pray for you daily.  I know that the Lord hears our prayers and is blessing you.  I know that I've been blessed from your prayers as well.  Keep them coming!  I need the blessings!  I know that the Lord loves each of us.  He is the Savior of the world but also the Savior for each one of us.  The atonement is a personal thing.  

I hope that you all have a great week!  Sorry, I couldn't email yesterday the college was closed.  Never forget who to put your trust in.  The Church is definitely true.

Love, Hermana Anderson

Rise and Shout!!!

Well first of all, HOW ABOUT THEM COUGARS!!! What an amazing win for the Cougars! And to answer all of your questions. No, I did not watch one play of the game. I was planning on watching some of the game, but got a call on Thursday night saying that somebody that I taught in my old area was going to be getting baptized at 6pm in West Jordan so we left at 5. The baptism got over at 6:30pm and we tried finding a ride. Nobody could give us a ride because they were all watching the dang game. So we just decided to start walking home and figured hey it's Utah somebody will ask if we need a ride. No, that was not the case We got lot's of people honking and waving at us but nobody asking if we needed a ride. We walked from Copper Hills High School which is 7800 South and about 5100 West all of the way to 9000 South and 1300 West. That is the point when the BYU game got over and one of the ward mission leader's called asking if we still needed a ride and he came and picked us up. So we walked for two and a half hours. But I was calling somebody every ten minutes getting updates so I knew what was going on. I wore my BYU tie all day on Saturday and I only offended a couple of people when I rung their door bell so it was pretty good. I am going to wear that tie every game day this year! But bravo to the cougars way to go out and show BCS that we really can play with the top teams in the country.

This week was a pretty good week. We were able to get a lot done. And I was able to learn a lot about myself. We were able to start teaching a couple of people and that is always a good thing, but it kind of stinks because the people that we started teaching are going to take a long time to get worthy so they can get baptized. But that is okay we will continue working with them so that they can have the spirit in their homes and that they can work towards baptism.

Now as many of you know when you are on a mission you tend to gain a little bit of weight. And being in a car I am really getting out of shape. So one day this week I told my companion that we were going to ride bikes. He did not like that idea one bit! I had to pretty much trick him into the whole thing. So after pretty much tricking him into it I finally got him on a bike on Tuesday morning and we were off. (I found out that I am really out of shape) But it was such a great experience. I really want to ride bikes every day now. We were able to talk to so many more people and were actually able to get a couple of referrals because of it. So I am going to try to make him ride bikes a lot more. 1. so that I can get in better shape. 2. so that we can talk to a lot more people and talk to everyone in our path.

So my companion has been out for 19 month's, he is a great missionary but is one of those missionaries that makes things really awkward sometimes. Although he has been out for a lot longer then me I am actually the senior companion in the companionship. So over the last 4 weeks I have learned a lot and have been really thankful for the experience because I have been able to increase my teaching skills a lot!

I also learned something else this week that was really cool. We were teaching a joint young women's class yesterday and I was starting out by introducing myself and I started out by saying, "I am Elder Anderson and I am from Bluffdale Utah," when a girl rose her hand and said, "my brother heard you speak in another ward and told me all about you." I was like oh okay that is weird. But yeah so my story is kind of like making it's way around the mission which is kind of cool in a way. I know that I am making an impact.

I am so thankful for trials I know that without the trials that I have had in my life up to this point I would not be where I am today! I am so thankful to Heavenly Father and for all that He does for us and for everything that he puts within our path and for the lessons that we can learn from it.

I also saw a quote this week that I really liked it says: "In the strength of the Lord we can do and endure and overcome all things." -Elder David A. Bednar-

That quote is so true. We truly can overcome and endure everything with the strength of the Lord. He can help us with all of our trials and everything that we go through.
It was never meant to be easy, Just worth it! This life is not meant to just be a walk in the park we are supposed to struggle through it we are supposed to have our ups and down's.
Our Father in Heaven is yearning for us to return home to Him, we just need to do our part. We have to do our part so that we can return to live with our Heavenly Father.

I know that as we do our part. As we live the commandments of our Heavenly Father, as we repent, as we go to church, and as we partake of the sacrament worthily we will be able to return to live with our Heavenly Father again. What a great homecoming that will be.

I love you all and can't wait for that wonderful homecoming when we will all be able to be with our Heavenly Father, Heavenly Father loves us all so much!

I love each and everyone of you so much!
I Pray for you daily!
Have a great week!
Hope to hear from you soon!

Love, Elder Anderson