As many of you know, Sister Anderson is a Facebook missionary as well. She has the opportunity to communicate via social media. It is something kind of new for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints to allow missionaries to participate. They have very strict rules for the missionaries on social media to keep everything inline with mission rules.
Sister Anderson and two other sisters at an evening church meeting sang Amazing Grace. They did a very nice job. The link to her Facebook page is below, if you would like to watch them sing. Cut and paste if it doesn't directly take you there when you click on it. Check it out!
I'm very proud of my daughter!
https://www.facebook.com/sisterjulie.anderson?fref=ts
Thursday, January 30, 2014
January 27, 2014
Transfers are coming on Feb 6th.
Hi!
Update on the weather for mom: it's warmer today! The snow is mostly melted! Thank goodness. :) The weather goes back and forth from week to week. It's crazy. haha. Last week, we got snowed in, and this week it's supposed to warm up a little and then the week after that goes back to fridged cold again. The missionaries are handling it well. We are well taken care of. Other than Sister Hansen biffing it, everyone has been great. All the sisters in the mission have cars with nice warm heaters, and the elders....well. They are on bike or walking everywhere. But they're tough. :) haha.
I live in a two bedroom apartment with another companionship. Sister Hansen and I lucked out and got the master bedroom and Sisters Lindmeir and Gray have the smaller room. ;) mwahah. It's a lot of fun having roommates. It's fun to get to know three missionaries instead of just one at a time. We all have so much fun together. We all laugh and sing and goof around the apartment together right before bed time. I have made some really great friends so far!
Chances are, I will be transferred soon. We had interviews with President Riggs and he flat out told me that it's time. Haha! I mean, he still needs to seek revelation and all that, but he still thinks I'll be leaving. I really have been getting pretty comfy in the Potomac ward. A lot of the members have started remarking that I've been here for a long time! HA they're sick of me! ;) It's okay though. I really hope that I am sent to a family ward. Sister Hansen thinks I'll be training a new missionary. We'll see what happens. Transfers are Feb 6th. They happen every 6 weeks if you were wondering.
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| Anderson Headstone--wonder if we are related! |
We got to go to the Arlington Cemetary today. I loved it. We got to watch the end part of the changing of the guard. On our way to the tomb of the unknown soldier, we passed by a funeral. I feel kidna bad saying this about a funeral, but it was so cool. They had a band and a bunch of men all dressed up with their guns on their shoulders. I don't know who passed away, but I was grateful to be a part of that moment. It was really interesting. Just walking around the cemetary, I got to thinking about how grateful I am for all these men and women who died for our country. They died so that I could enjoy the freedoms that I have. If they didn't make the sacrifices that they had, I probably wouldn't have had the option of serving a mission. I am just so grateful. I really am proud to be an American! As soon as I get home, I've decided I'm going to dedicate a good part of my time to researching and understanding more about our nation's history. It just amazes me! I love it!
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| Julie and Sister?? at Arlington National Cemetery! |
A few days ago I got into a really weird funk. I was just not in a good mood. The mission is a really weird thing. A lot of really good comes out in a person, but so does a lot of bad. I guess that's okay because there's opposition in all things right? Oh man. But Sister Hansen really helped me. Turns out I've been really stressed out. She showed me a missionary supplement handbook thing that addresses how to deal with this kind of stress. So I'll be fine. But it's been tough.
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| Tomb of the Unknown Soldier |
So this week was a bit slower....we spend a good chunk of time stuck indoors because of the weather conditions, or stuck in the doctor's office waiting for Sister Hansen to get her wrist situation all taken care of. She's in a cast now, by the way. Thank goodness! She only has to wear it for four weeks. She's doing really well! But yeah. Slow week in terms of the work. However, we still saw miracles! I couldn't believe it! We had two lessons this weekend with two new investigators! One man is from Ghana. His name is Eric. Most of the Africans that I've met have migrated to America to find a white wife.....So Eric has a friend back in Ghana who is a member of the church. He told us how he was talking to his frined about how he was meeting with the missionaries. His friend in Ghana got all excited, but then told Eric that he was NOT allowed to think of the sisters in "that way" hahaha. He told us how he decided that he wasn't even going to look at us so that he wouldn't be tempted..........I just about BUSTED up laughing. Luckily, we have a member of our congregation from Ghana as well so he talked to him a lot of the time. Oh my. But Eric has been really prepared for the gospel of Jesus Christ. We were teaching him and didn't even make it all the way through the first lesson and he cut us off to ask how he could become a member of the church!!!!! And because he refused to look at me, I smiled so big! And then he went on to ask if we paid tithing and if it was 10% of our income. Of course we said yes, and he said, "Good. I definitely agree with this." :D :D :D I made another huge smiley face as soon as he said that! Hahaha! (I've gotten used to making whatever face I want! It helps to have a blind investigator, or an investigator that refuses to look at you! Although, I know that I need to be careful. Haha)
We had another lesson with a man right after church. His name is Arthur. He has been coming to church on his own the past couple of weeks. He is so great. He's from North Carolina. He has been so prepared as well!!! I just feel so blessed! We have TWO NEW PEOPLE THAT WE ARE TEACHING!!!! I'm kinda bummed that all these people are showing up right when I have to leave the area. :( But that's okay! These people are starting their journey to come closer to Christ than they've ever been in their entire lives! :D It's so great.
So Sister Hansen is from California. And she is a crazy California driver. Like big time. She's got the "California stops" down to a T. And she's been driving with one hand lately because of her cast, and it's so scary. I don't like it one bit. And she gets annoyed whenever I say anything... Yikes. The funny part about it is that whenever I tell her about Crazy California drivers, she tells me about "Safe Washington Drivers" HAHAHAHAH!! They've stereotyped us as really cautious drivers that drive the speed limit....hahahahaha she told me that and I busted up laughing! I told her that I know PLENTY of scary Washington drivers, but they all stop at stop signs at least. ;) haha. Funny.
One of our members took us out to dinner at a cute mom and pop pizza shop. It amazes me how political everything is here. I mean, it totally makes sense because I live in DC area...but we got a pizza called "Barak my world".... Just not something you'd see in Washington state. Haha!
Okay that's all I can think of to write about! Thanks for all the pictures you send me! It's great to see everyone. And also, how does Brendan already look so big? I've only been gone for 4 months and he looks bigger somehow. Haha. I love you all! Have a great week! I pray for you all every night!
Love,
Sister Anderson
January 22, 2013 - YO
YO.
First of all, I have permission to be emailing right now because Monday was MLK day, so all the public libraries were closed and yesterday we had the worst snow storm of my life and we weren't allowed to drive anywhere.
Mom, it would have been AMAZING to go visit the Lincoln memorial on Monday. I would have loved that. I really do love being in Virginia. I still do not understand politics, but I have always loved our country's history. It might sound weird, but I feel a lot closer to our founding fathers and all those inspired men that played roles in the independence of our country. I feel very patriotic and I love it!
Monday night on our way to an appointment to teach on of our members our first lesson, our gps got us lost. The roads here are insane. INSANE. I strongly dislike the freeways around here. We were in Alexandria one minute, and then our gps told me to take a slight right turn without specifying exactly where to go. There were 500000 freeway exits all in a row, so I had to make a quick guess so I wouldn't get run over by the crazy DC drivers behind me. The next thing I know, the road is taking us higher and higher off the ground... I looked over at Sister Hansen and asked, "Are we still in Virginia??" And she looked out her window and said, "Nope. We're right over the Potomac River." Great. So much for staying within mission boundaries. A minute later, I saw the "WELCOME TO MARYLAND" sign. Hahaha. We got off the freeway and headed back to VA as soon as we could! Yikes! The roads here are super sneaky!!!
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| Sister Hansen and Sister Anderson--It's snowing! |
Yesterday we had a pretty big snow storm. Pretty big for out here you could say. All of our ward members who used to live in Utah say that it was nothing. But it was a pretty big deal! We weren't allowed to drive, for safety purposes, so we decided to walk. We had a dinner with one of our members who lives in our neighborhood a few blocks away. Right before we got there, Sister Hansen biffed it. I mean, she BIFFED it. I was just a few steps ahead of her and I heard this huge THUD. I turned around to see her on her stomach. She didn't get up right away, so I booked it over to help her out. She got up and said that she landed on her wrist pretty good, and that nothing else hurt. So I made sure that she held onto my arm the rest of the way. When we got to our dinner appointment, she took off her gloves, looked at her wrist and almost passed out. She had a bump on her right wrist the size of a golf ball. We got her to sit down, take some pain meds and put ice on it right away. It didn't look like normal swelling to me at all, so I asked our member to take us to urgent care. I waited in the waiting room for TWO WHOLE HOURS. (I mean, I've been praying to have more patience...God answers prayers, right?) So now we're goign to another doctor tomorrow for her to get a cast. It's crazy. Although, she's been really positive about it. She's left handed, and very grateful she landed on her right hand rather than her left. Haha. Poor Sister Hansen. (The good thing that I'm taking from this experience is that I have more opportunities to serve my companion! Yay!! haha.)
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| Sister Hansen's poor wrist! |
On Saturday, our roommates, Sisters Lindmeir and Gray, had a baptism for one of their investigators!!! Sister Hansen and I invited our investigator, Chad, to come so that he could feel the spirit. The spirit is just so strong at baptismal services, so we were very excited for him to finally recognize that. So the guy who performed the baptism bonked the guy's head on the wall....he had to be rebaptized. Oops. That was so sad! And Chad just snorted. He really has a hard heart! Oh my. We had a lesson with him after the service and he had a temper tantrum! I am really bold with him. I know it's about being bold with love, and I feel like I do a pretty good job. It's also about teaching and saying things simply so the Holy Ghost can testify and so that he could understand. Chad said something like, "Oh I could never be a mormon so I don't think I would get baptized because I don't want to give up coffee, tea, alcohol...the list went on" ANd so I stopped him and said, "You know Chad, that list is full of things and worries of the world. You are not going to understand anything we say until you put those things aside and put God first." I said that because I KNOW that the Church of Jesus Christ is a TON more than just giving up coffee, tea and everything else that we choose not to partake. It's about coming closer to our Savior, Jesus Christ. It's about love. It's about being a better person. It's about a WHOLE lot more than doing things that everyone else does. I think there's a scripture somewhere in 2 Nephi that says that the wicked take the truth to be hard. And that is exactly what happened in this case. I finished talking and he cussed at me and said that it was easy for me to say because I've been living it my entire life. Oh myyy. He sounded so silly. I mean, sure. It is easier for me to live it because I have been living it for a long time. But I still need to make choices every single day. I still need to decide for myself if this really is something that I WANT to live. I didn't even try to explain that to Chad because he was not in a place to listen. He started talking about how he KNOWS the Bible to be true because there are facts that support it, whereas the Book of Mormon has NO fact to support that Joseph Smith didn't just make it up. It totally makes me crazy when people say that, no matter who they are! We talked to him about how he knows that the Bible is the word of God. He said that he had to go on faith first, but then the facts followed. So wouldn't it make sense if that was how it worked with the Book of Mormon as well? I guess it doesn' tmake sense in his mind. We tried explaining that to him, and he cut us off and yelled out, "FACTS FACTS FACTS PEOPLE! COME ON!" while slapping his lap. It was one of those moments where I wish I had been recording him, it was ridiculous. He just doesn't let the spirit work within him. It's so sad!!! Thankfully, I was prompted to share a story from the Bible that I had been prompted by the spirit to study just that morning! Miracle! It was in Joshua ch 3. I told Chad about how the Lord split the waters of the River Jordan for Joshua and his people to cross, just like how the Red Sea was split for Moses and the Israelites to cross! However, in Joshua's case, the waters weren't split UNTIL AFTER they put their feet in the water. I related this to Chad's life and how he needs to take a literally step of faith FIRST before everything else makes sense. He like that a lot. He loves his Bible stories. :) So he's no longer progressing...but we have three strong potential investigators!!! All three came to church all on their own without even meeting with missionaries before! We got their phone numbers to set up appointments with them this weekend! SO EXCITED! :D
I can't even remember everything else that's been happening. Life is so crazy..
Oh! One of our members was watching one of her friends' daughters and her three friends. Our member invited us to come to dinner with them! All four girls are in 7th grade and they are so cute!!! It made me totally miss being in Young Womens. We shared a quick message with them about how important it is to doubt not and be believing. They soaked everything up like sponges! They were just so cute! I really really hope I get to go to a family ward next.
We had interviews with President Riggs. In my interview, he told me that I will most likely be leaving this area because I've been here for so long. He also said that he wants to get me training a new missionary. Yikes. Transfers are the first Thursday in February. Comin up quick!
This weekend, Elder Gifford Nielson of the seventy is coming to our mission to speak to us. He's the guy at this last general conference that said EXCAMATION POINT every two seconds. His talk is called Hastening the Lord's Game Plan, if you want to look it up on lds.org. He's got a nice football announcer voice. I'm pretty excited to meet him nad hear him speak in person! :)
That's it for this week! I hope you are all doing well! I loved the pictures from Belana's birthday! GO HAWKS! hahaha!
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| Sister Anderson and Sister??? |
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| Sister Hansen and Sister Anderson |
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| Sister Hansen LOVES cats! |
Love you!
Sister Anderson
Sister Anderson
Monday, January 20, 2014
YO! January 13, 2014
Hola. Had a great week! So we had zone training on Tuesday. As an entire mission for 2013, we had 356 baptisms. And the mission goal for 2014 is..............drum roll please........................
Our mission president has asked us to teach members the missionary lessons to keep the doctrine fresh on their minds, and to give us practice. We had a lesson with a sweet, sweet girl in my ward named Camille. And it was one of the most spirit filled lessons I've ever had on my entire mission. We taught her what we call the Book of Mormon Breakdown, where we go over the introduction and go over what the Book of Mormon is and how to go about studying and reading it. I love that lesson. At the end, I was testifying about how it truly is another testament of Jesus Christ and how one WILL feel the love of God when they read it. I felt prompted to share a story about Brendan. It was the first time that he decided to read the Book of Mormon all the way through by himself. I remember that he announced how far he had read every single day-and he was reading it so FAST! I remember talking to Mom and saying, "Why is he reading so fast? He won't remember anything he reads!" But Mom said something like, "Well, he's reading. So he's keeping a commandment. He'll still feel the spirit!" As I told Camille this story, I got really emotional, because I always cry when I think of Brendan...haha. But I finally understood! Brendan was acting on faith and reading the Book of Mormon and he was blessed for it. I'm grateful for his great example to me. I love the Book of Mormon. Like, I really love it. I never want to stop reading it. It truly is the word of God, written specifically for our day. I wish everyone in the world would read it and come to understand more about Jesus Christ and the great love that our Heavenly Father has for them.
Thursday night, we had pupusas for dinner. I don't know if that's how you spell it. But it's an El Salvadorian food and it is YUMMMMMMMMMYYYYYYYYY. Oh my. Our less active's mom made them for us. I wanted to eat the whole pan! It's so cool that even though I didn't leave the country on my mission, I still get the cultural side of things. I love it!
About our investigator, Chad. He is an interesting man. I'm still trying to figure out why Heavenly Father wanted me to be his missionary. Well actually I know why, I need patience apparently. Haha. It's true. We have to break up EVERY lesson that we try to teach him. Which is fine. It's not like we HAVE to get through an entire lesson in one sitting...but it's just going really slow. And I'm just a little over excited about moving things forward. I always need to remind myself that it's not about my timing.... Oh Chad... It's not that he's slow, but he just has lots of questions and issues that he needs clearing up. But he really is sincere and wants to know why the members of our church are the nicest, most Christian people that he knows if he's heard so many bad things about them.. He's reading the Book of Mormon every day and is praying to know from God and not man whether or not this is true. So he is progressing! :) After every lesson, I feel like I've just ran a spiritual marathon. It takes me a while to get into the grove of things after his lessons. I wish missionaries could take naps! His lessons are exhausting!!!!!!!!!!! haha!
Last night we had a miracle!!! We were going to check on a member of our ward who's mother passed away last May. She's still really struggling. She says that sacrament meetings remind her of her mom, so she REALLY struggles at church. We decided last minute to stop by her house, but she wasn't home. So we checked on another member that was near her house. We walked up to the door, and we heard the clang of utensils and dishes and two women talking and laughing. Sister Hansen suddenly clammed up and didn't want to knock because she didn't want to interrupt dinner, but I was like, "Oh well. Whatever. We can always set up a return appointment!" Hahahhahaa. I gave a loud knock, and our member opened the door and invited us right in! She was just chatting with her NON MEMBER FRIEND who was visiting for the evening. We walked in, and our member's friend was TOTALLY closed off to us. Like her legs were crossed and she was scrolling on her phone, probably posting on Facebook about how the missionaries barged in on her evening....hahaha. But after we just talked and got to know her, she really opened up. She started asking questions and participating in the conversation! (I've gotten pretty good at reading body language) I asked if I could share a message about Jesus Christ. So I opened to Alma 7:11-13 about the atonement. I know that everyone feels the love of God when they read the Book of Mormon, so I KNOW that she felt something as I read and bore testimony. We didn't get a return appointment or anything, but that's okay! We planted a really great seed last night. If anything, she knows that Mission Mormonaries are normal and that we testify of Jesus Christ!!!!! :) I love this work so much.
HAHA okay. Here's a creeper story. We go to the public library to use the computers. And one time when we were doing Facebook missionary work, a homeless man came up behind us and said that Sister Hansen and I had really pretty hair. A few minutes later he came back again to tell us that we had pretty eyes and lashes. About ten minutes later, he came back AGAIN to tell us we were pretty. The third time around, he actually saw our name tags. (ABOUT TIME) and asked if we were Witnesses. I'm pretty sure he confused us with Jehovah's Witnesses. Easy to do, I guess. I tried to explain that we were missionaries and representatives of Jesus Christ. It didn't really get through to him. He went on to say that we were the prettiest witnesses that he's ever seen. It was SO CREEPY. Since Sis Hansen and I were on Facebook, I messaged her and said LETS GET OUT OF HERE. And we quickly left. It was so awkward! Hahahahaha. Whyyyyy do the creepers talk to me?!?!?!?! I can't wait to find some normal people who actually want to talk to me...about the GOSPEL! :)
We're going to try to go to the Arlington cemetery today if we have time. I hope we do! I've wanted to go for a while now!
Talk to you next week! Miracles are happening! And I get to be a part of them! Woo!!!!
Love you all,
Sister Anderson
ps. On our way to email this morning, Sister Hansen and I realized that we didn't take any pictures this week. So to make sure that our moms were happy, we took a quick picture outside of our favorite Preparation Day restaurant: Taco Bell. <3
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| Julie in front of Taco Bell! |
Monday, January 6, 2014
Happy New Year!!
Trying to keep up! This was sent from Sister Anderson today!
Hola familia!
I had lots of miracles this week!!! My zone, the Arlington Zone, started doing something we call, HIGH NOON PRAYER. Meaning that no matter where we are, or what we are doing, we drop to our knees and say a prayer "together" as a zone. We pray for miracles and to be guided to God's children that he has prepared for us. It's been great.
Our investigator, Chad, is starting to open up to new concepts of the gospel! (VERY slowly, but surely!!!) It gives me hope. He continues to come to church and read the Book of Mormon, and I am confident that he will feel of God's love as he keeps his commitments that we leave him.
We got a referral from one of our members this week!!! She asked us to pretend that we had just been tracting so that she wouldn't feel singled out. haha. We're good little white liars. ;) We stopped by the referral's apartment to find it up in smoke!!!! AH! I had a mini panic attack! BUT! It turned out to be a miracle. Our referral's name is Yessica, and she had started her fire without opening the fluke/vent thing first. We walked up to her door, and of course it was open (YES), so I jsut hopped in and helped her and her boyfriend try to blow the smoke out of her house to make her fire alarm stop! It was a miracle!!!! Oh man. I know for a fact that Yessica would not have even given us the time of day if we had just knocked on her door and given her the typical missionary tracting approach. But she is letting us come back! We offered our serving in helping her clean the smoke off her walls or painting. I am always amazed at God's timing. If we hadn't walked up in that exact moment that we did, we wouldn't have been able to help her out! AHHH!!! It was amazing.
Another miracle. We were stopping by a potential investigator's house. On our way, we ran into our district leader and his companion! They were doing the same thing. Turns out, they had just tracted out the entire apartment building the night before and were coming back to follow up with a man. We weren't sure if we should check on our investigator just because the elders might have already talked with him the night before and we didn't want to be a burden...but we decided, What they heck. We have nothing to lose! So we walked into the apartment building and a man walked out and started talking to us. His name is James. The elders that we ran into were outside, but saw that James had come out to talk to us. Turns out that James was the one they were trying to get ahold of! It also turns out that James is 30! AND SINGLE! That means he'd be in the Potomac Mid Singles ward AHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Those are the main miracles. We continue to work with the members in the ward to gain their trust. We've had lots of members actually tell us that they'd be comfortable introducing us to their friends because Sister Hansen and I are, in their words, "actually normal". haha. So that makes me feel really good. One of the keys to success in missionary work is to just be yourself. Which is a testimony to me that God called ME, Julie Charlotte Anderson, to serve him. He called me, and all my crazy! Haha. Missionary work is fun. I love it. There's nowhere else I'd rather be.
NOT TO WORRY: Transfers are not this week! Thank goodness. Sister Hansen's prediction is that I will be training a brand new missionary next transfer......................
OH! On New Years, we did everything as usual. The only difference is that our mission president wanted us to be home by 8 instead of 9. He didn't want to risk any run-ins with any of the crazies out there in the DC area! But News Years Eve was really fun. We went to our members house and had dinner. She served her mission in Spain so she had us do the spaniard new year tradition. She bought a big bag of the biggest grapes she could find adn with every strike of the bell till midnight, you eat a grape. So we ate 12 grapes as quickly as we could. It was so fun. Oh yeah. And our "midnight" was at 8. I felt like I was a little kid again, but it was still fun. We went to bed at 10:30 as usual, but we set our alarm clock for midnight so we could still celebrate a little. I just woke up, yelled out HAPPY NEW YEAR and rolled back over. Haha. I was too tired. But it was fun.
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| Counting down at Midnight (8pm, haha)--popping grapes like they do in Spain. |
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| Sister Gray - Not sure what that is but it looks pretty yummy. |
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| New Years Eve party! left to right: Alicia, Tiffany (our member-SHE IS AWESOME) and Shanna, sis Hansen and ME! |
I had a great week. We are doing our best to find new people to teach!!! Things are moving right along! Miracles are happening! I know that God directs this work. He sure does know what he's doing! Thank goodness, because I sure don't! haha!!!!
I love you all! Hope you are doing well!
Love,
Sister Anderson
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!!
Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!!!!
It was really great to see everyone on Christmas. Now I understand why missionaries aren't allowed to call home whenever they want to though... It was hard! Hanging up that Skype call was harder than saying goodbye in the airport. I can't believe it's been that long! Time just flies.
After Sister Hansen and I both talked to our families, we went to an old folk's home and did some caroling. We sang in one of the common areas in front of a pretty good sized group. Just before we sang through all the Christmas hymns in the hymn book, one of the ladies started to talk out loud. I didn't know who she was talking to until she screamed, "I SAID SHUT UP!" Hahahahhahaha. It was so awkward. I didn't know we sounded THAT bad......... Sister Hansen and I were there singing with two other missionary companionships. We all just looked at each other and kept on going. We saw one of the workers and her reaction to our new friend's little outburst, and she was just laughing. I guess we did sound pretty bad. So we wrapped it up and left after talking to a few of the ladies that lived there. THEY seemed appreciative of our little amateur choir... Oh man. Once we got into the car, I couldn't stop laughing!!!
We also went and sang in the Crystal City metro station. Our entire zone showed up. Word spreads pretty fast amongst missionaries these days. It was pretty fun though. We handed out flyers for the Washington DC temple lights and tried to harmonize.....And failed. Haha. Pretty much everyone was making up their own harmony lines.... And it didn't really work. So I did my best to stick to the melody so the people walking by would somewhat recognize what we were singing! Hahah! I talked to a big family visiting from Tennessee. That was pretty cool.
Oh! For Christmas Eve, Sister Hansen and I got together with our roommates, Sisters Lindmeir and Gray, and the sisters who live in another room in our apartment complex, Sisters Taylor and Ellis. We were going to study the life of Jesus Christ because President didn't want us out disturbing people in their homes. So we decided to read the Christmas story and act it out at the same time. We even dressed up a little. ;) It was so much fun.
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| Sisters participating in the Nativity on Christmas Eve. |
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| Sisters Anderson and Hansen with their mustaches! |
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| "Staching" it up with the sisters. |
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| Goodies table to everyone to share |
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| Thanks to the McKeas for the great mustache fun!!!! |
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| Check out their beds--NOT against the walls! |
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| Sister Anderson's desk - not too messy! |
We had some tracting miracles! (See dad-people DO talk to us when we tract!) The very first door that we knocked on was a miracle. I'm pretty sure the lady was Phillipeno (Not sure though) and she was in a hurry to get back inside. Of course we didn't know why, so we started talking about Christ's restored gospel and how much it blesses our lives. She let me talk for a second and then explained politely that she couldn't listen because she was taking care of her very sick mother. Sister Hansen offered to pray for her. The lady agreed and started to close the door. And Sister Hansen was like, "Can we pray for her right now together?" And the lady let us right on in! Her mother was hunched over in a chair and looked so frail. I felt so bad. But Sister Hansen prayed for her to feel loved and comforted and at peace. When we finished the prayer, the lady who answered the door was like, "Wait, what church are you with?" WOOOHOOO! :) :) :) So I told her. We didn't have a lesson or anything, but we planted a pretty big seed and definitely made an impression. It was great. It set the tone for the rest of the evening. We had plenty of other miracles talking to people. We handed out four copies of the Book of Mormon in that same hour!!!! The Lord will bless us with people to teach as we are diligent with talking to as many people as we can.
So since this last week literally everyone was out of town, Heavenly Father decided to focus on me a bit. He has been teaching me so much. As I was talking to Sister Hansen about ways she could help me she suddenly blurted out, "Hmm. You get bothered by a lot of things!" Before my mission, I would've probably lashed out and said, "YEAH whatever a lot of things bother you too!" But instead I just sat there and thought for a minute. It's so true! It was really humbling as I sat there and pondered what Sister Hansen had just told me. I lot of things really do bother me. The logical part of me tells me that it's irrational and silly to be bothered by some things...but my emotions seem to get the best of me. It's SOOOO hard to control them! (And I'm sure as you're reading this, you're thinking, OH FINALLY I knew it all along! she's learning how to be humble....Well. I'm not quite humble yet so don't say anything about it...hahahahaha) I'm learning that I really don't hide my emotions very well. When I'm upset, literally everyone knows it. BUT the same goes for when I'm happy!!! So I'm really working on putting off the natural man in me. I'm also learning more about the grace of Jesus Christ. In trying to control my emotions, I find that I am failing and struggling to do it on my own. I've learned that the more I give everything up to God, I'm fully relying on His grace. We truly are saved by the grace of Jesus Christ! And I am SO grateful for it. Because of His grace, I am made whole. I pray for it every single day. I am so weak without Him. I really am. I'm trying to just get myself out of the way so that God can change me. I've already seen a little bit of a change as I have recognized these things! But I have a looooooooooong way to go. I'm glad my mission is 18 months. And even then, that won't be enough time. THAT's how imperfect I am! I'm so grateful that God is helping me see. I'm grateful that he's teaching me how to become like Jesus Christ. He's such a good God.
We had another lesson with our blind investigator last night. He is making a little progress. It seems like whenever he takes a step closer to Jesus Christ, the devil steps in and pushes him right back. Chad's been reading anti-mormon websites and books. Which, of course, he has his agency and can choose to do what he wants, but it really isn't helping him. Our lesson was about Joseph Smith and the first vision. After I gave the account of the first vision and the spirit was really strong, Chad read aloud anti materal about Joseph Smith. It was the hardest lesson I've ever had to be a part of. The spirit of the devil is strong and it just brings everyone down. Sister Hansen really struggled. After the lesson she told me she had started shaking with frusteration and was afraid to say anything out of fear it being negative. I told Chad that there are plenty of scriptures I could use to prove that Joseph Smith was a true prophet of God, but that we weren't there to argue. It literally is down to the fact that he needs to pray and read the Book of Mormon and seek the spirit of God. After the lesson, we were both exhasted. I said to Sister Hansen that it felt like we had just run a spiritual marathon.
Well! I hope you all have a great week! I love you all! I pray for you every night. Never forget that God answers prayers. He is a God of miracles. He loves all of His children. He is in every detail of our lives. I want to be with Him always.
I love you!
Sister Anderson
Sister Anderson
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