The MTA's

Hey everyone!  How goes it?  Sorry if this letter is a bit all of the place, I don't have much time to write. 

It sounds like the open house and everything was quite fun!  Well, while you were all enjoying the open house I was at a rocking ward party and didn't want to be anywhere else. It was so funny!  The ward (mostly really old people) had a swimming party! It was great! Sister Rust and I went so that we could show support and I could get to know everyone. I really feel like the temple open house really blessed me with skills in talking to everyone in situations like that. We were even able to get some referrals! 

We're starting to get the ward's support and I'm way excited about it.  Nothing will happen without their support.  So basically to gain trust we just went out and talked to tons of people this week.  It was so fun.  We visited a lot of inactive members and had some good experiences with that.  It was great because in ward welfare meeting yesterday they brought up a lot of the people that we had visited. They asked us to go visit them and we were able to report back that we had already done so and were able to report on how they were doing. It was great! 

We also had some great miracles this week. The church has changed some of the missionary curriculum to make it more simple and to help our purpose to really come into our hearts. So we've been studying this the past few weeks and trying to implement it into our lives and it's making a world of a difference.  On Wednesday at district meeting we learned about how to make church more of a priority and to help people understand that. No one can progress without going to church. Well we role played how to help our investigators understand this and a miracle happened.  Since the missionaries came back to this area in end of May they've been teaching lady named Sondra.  She never went to church and was full of tons of excuses. I honestly don't know why they were still teaching her.  Well, as of late we've been able to meet with her every day and she was beginning to progress. After district meeting we went to her house and taught what we had role played and a miracle happened.  She came out with what her real concern was about going to church.  We were able to resolve it and she came to church yesterday!  It was the first time that an investigator had come to church here in months that hadn't already been coming for a long time. We were so excited and the ward was too!  Some people came and talked to her and that made her feel really good.  It was a huge miracle!  The stake presidents councilors came to our ward yesterday as well to do some ward business and after sacrament meeting they came to me and said, "Sister Anderson, stir things up here. Make these members uncomfortable."  Well, basically they want me to make this a missionary minded ward and Sister Rust and I plan on doing that.  We got a new ward mission leader who is excited about the work.  We'll see miracles because of that. 

Also this week we had interviews with President.  They were a bit different this time because we did them as companionships and talked about our areas rather than ourselves.  It was really great.  We were able to find things that we can work on to make this area the best area in the mission.  I have confidence that it will become the best as we show our faith and as the members show their faith as well.  President shared something with us that is so true. He said, "it's better to shoot for the stars and miss than to shoot for manure and make it."  So true!  I think about this all of the time now and ask myself what am I shooting for. 

As we were talking to a member yesterday she said something that I thought was interesting.  She said, "the Gospel is not something that you can tread lightly on or tip toe around.  The Gospel is true.  Jesus is the Christ.  The Book of Mormon is the word of God.  We have a prophet on the earth today.  Nothing else matters.  This isn't something that we can be sorry about."  Amen! It's so true!  I love the Gospel and everyone needs it.  We can't be afraid of offending someone by giving them the truth, by giving them what they need to live with their families forever.  I love it! 

Well, I hope that you all have a great day!  The Gospel is true!  Christ is the way the truth and the life. Never forget it!  I love you all!  
Love, Sister Anderson