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