Hey everyone! It was really good to hear from some of you! It seems like things are going really well! I'm glad that all of the wedding festivities went well!
Well, this has been quite the week. Tuesday was quite the day what with transfers and the wedding taking place. It was interesting because I thought that I would be upset all day but I guess that everyone must have been praying for me because I was completely fine. Like seriously, I was just excited for Reed and Jen. I don't know if I believe that my little brother is married yet but I guess only time will tell. Thanks for the pictures. I especially like the ones with you all holding up my picture. I thought that that was pretty funny. So thanks everyone for praying for me and what not.
On Tuesday after I emailed I got on the wonderful transfer van and rode to Tucson with a couple of different missionaries who were going home. It was fun to get to Tucson and to be greeted by good friends. Sister Rust is a great missionary and I'm learning a lot from her. I'm also way happy because Sister Howard is in my district! Woohoo! She and I are great friends. This is her last transfer so we're going to definitely make it the best. She and I are the oldest sisters in the mission. It's so weird to think that. It seems like just yesterday when I came out. Sister Aquino and I were talking about how long we'd been out and I started to cry because time is going too fast.
I'm now in San Manuel and I'll tell you what, it's quite the place. It used to be a booming mining town, but it's not so booming now that the mine is closed. Most of the people are really old. I've met 5 kids since I've been here. 5! Crazy! The ward list is like 21 pages long and it is full of people who are less-active Like, a huge huge huge percentage of the members are less-active. I'm not ok with that. We are all here to help each other and the numbers of less-active is just way too high. Even one less-active person is one too many. I plan on working a lot with the ward members to change this characteristic of this ward. The Ward Mission Leader isn't too keen on missionary work because it is "hard" in this area. We're going to help him come around and see the beauty of missionary work and the necessity of it. Missionary work is not something that we can be passive about. People need us! It's up to us to help them come unto Christ. I'm excited for the potential of this area but I know that in order to have success we must change some things. It's going to be a challenging area, but I'm up for that challenge! Oh, it is SO far away! We are an hour away from other missionaries and real stores. It sure is interesting. We spend a lot of our time in our truck. Our area covers the towns of San Manuel, Oracle, and Mammoth. We're kind of on the side of the mountain. It's really pretty.
So we had an AMAZING mission conference on Saturday! Unfortunately it only lasted 2 hours but we were all just soaking it all up. It was so so good! It was amazing to see all of the missionaries together. I was so happy to see Sister Mackay again. She's doing great in Thatcher but has been pretty sick. Hopefully that will change soon.
Well, at our conference Elder Pickett of the 70, Elder Keeron (sp?) of the 70, Elder Rasband of the presidency of the 70, and Elder Christofferson of the 12 were in attendance. Can you imagine? It was AMAZING! It was really neat because before it even started we all got to shake all of their hands and meet them personally. Elder Christofferson told me that he's been to Bluffdale before so I was pretty excited about that. During all of their talks I felt like they were talking directly to me. One of the themes of it seemed to be that the Book of Mormon is the most powerful tool that we have. D&C 4 was referenced and they said that our "sickle" is the Book of Mormon. It is the only way to have lasting conversion. They talked about how we need to make the study of this book a life long pursuit and that it is salvation in our hands. Pretty cool! They also talked about how we have to be the message. People need to see us and recognize that we are representatives of Christ by our appearance. We have to smile!
Elder Rasband talked about how literally the worth of souls is great in the sight of God. We must remember this in all that we do! Elder Christofferson spoke a lot about the Book of Mormon but also about how missions and life are hard. He said not to look too far into the future during the hard times but to take everything one step and one day at a time. Great advice! He said that as we do this the sun will soon come through the clouds and we'll be able to see the Lord's hands in our lives. I saw this very literally just a few hours after the meeting.
As we were driving back I noticed that the St. David sisters had given me their car keys on accident. Well, this turned into an hour and a half detour. By the time we finally made it back to our area it was much later than we anticipated, but because we were held up we were able to see people that we otherwise wouldn't have seen. I think that often things happen and we are frustrated, but often it is the Lord intervening in our lives. He certainly does work in mysterious ways.
Elder Christofferson also testified strongly that Christ is the head of the church. There is no doubt about it. He said that He is not an absentee leader, but that He is involved more than we can ever imagine. How comforting! Yesterday in the stake meeting Elder Christofferson spoke about how we need to hold up our light to the world. I know that as we do so we will see miracles. We will see others come unto Christ and we will come along with them. What a blessing! After the conference Elder Christofferson invited all of the youth and children to come shake his hand. It was amazing to see his love. I've realized that the closer people are to Christ, the more they become like Him. I want to be more like Him and for others to be able to see it in me. I was thinking that it was amazing because so many people were doing their own things yesterday and didn't even realize that one of Christ's special witnesses was in town. How sad. We are so blessed to know what we know. It was really neat because I was able to see people yesterday that I worked with while I was with Sister Howard for those 2 weeks. I was told that because of those 2 weeks that we had together, 5 people were baptized. What a miracle. I'm convinced that often we don't see the impact of our work, but there is a great impact that we each have.
Well, this is a really long letter but it's been such a good week and so many great things happened. I know that Christ lives and that His Church has been restored! It's true! If you don't know it's true, read the Book of Mormon and pray. You will get an answer and be happier than you can ever imagine. The Gospel is definitely true! Live true!
Love, Sister Anderson
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