August 25, 2014

Hey!

So update on Jeff's baptism: He's going to be baptized on September 20th. I called the Centreville sisters and found out that they still need to teach him a lot of the lessons. But I'm just so happy he wants to get baptized! <3 <3 <3 :D 

 

Last Monday while we were shopping in Target, I was in line to print some pictures off of my camera, and there was a girl waiting next to us. We started talking and she agreed to meet with us. She goes, "I'll meet up with you guys! I love talking about God!" Woo! Preparation day miracle!!! She met us at the church on Tuesday after our district meetings. We had a great lesson with her. We made our purpose clear and established expectations. We didn't have enough time to talk about the entire Restoration, but she said she'd meet with us again the following Tuesday! Sister Lamborn was really bold and invited her to be baptized on September 27th and she said that she'd think about it!!! She's soul searching right now and I think she will progress! :) I'm so excited!!! 

 

We had a harder time finding this week in comparison to the past couple of weeks, but we still met lots of great people! God has been putting more prepared people in our path lately. I attribute that to the fact that we have lots of member families moving in who are ALL missionary minded- two of the families have dads that were ward mission leaders in their past wards and another family just LOVES to share the gospel in every conversation. In a correlation meeting our bishop said, "I think the Lord's trying to tell us something." :D :D :D YES YES YES!! Our own ward mission leader, Brother Taylor has caught the vision too! He made a huge google doc spread sheet to help us report to the ward council more easily about the contact we've made with less active and inactive members (only 50% of the ward is active). He's also making more of an effort to help us find members to come out with us. Right now the members aren't so excited about missionary work, but the bishop and ward mission leader are pumped!!! So I KNOW that the work will pick up here pretty soon. I can feel change in the air! :) I studied Alma 43 and 44 about Captain Moroni. He's such a great leader! He was so motivating and helped his troops to be united!! So I suggested to the ward mission leader that we have a ward wide fast for the missionary work in our ward. Right now our ward members are not very united, and to unite them, we're going to ask them to unite with us in prayer and fasting to bring souls unto Christ! Brother Taylor said that was a great idea and that he'd see what Bishop thought!! I cannot wait for the miracles!

We have a less active we've been working with who is having a hard time. He has word of wisdom issues and doesn't feel like he's ever had answers from God. He's had a tough life. Poor guy. We've taught him all the missionary lessons and tonight after praying really hard about it, we're finally teaching him about the word of wisdom!!! Believe it or not, this will be the first time teaching it to someone on my mission, outside of a practice teach with other missionaries. I think it's really funny that I've gone so long on my mission and haven't had to teach it...I'm either transferred before I get to that point, or they decide that they don't want to have the lessons any more. I'm actually way excited to teach it to him tonight!! I know it will help him more than anything else!

Thanks for all of your prayers and support. It means a lot!!! Man, I can't believe Elder Ostler is home from his mission! I feel like he just left! I remember writing him when he was in the MTC and how he said it was hard because he could hear the BYU football fans! Hahaha! 

 

I love you all! If you haven't seen the clip from Elder Bednar about online missionary work, you NEED to watch it!!! The link below is for the 5 minute video, but I started watching the link to his 40 minute seminar at BYU and got goosebumps!!! It's so exciting!!!!!!!!!!!! His words are so powerful! I know that we were saved for these last days to help the Lord hasten His work using the wonderful technology that He's given us!

https://www.lds.org/church/share/goodness?cid=HPMO081814340&lang=eng

 

I love you! Don't forget to read the Book of Mormon! I decided I'm going to start it over again from the beginning because I've been all over the place with it. The Book of Mormon is a gold mine for personal revelation! It worked when I was seeking help from the Lord for knowledge of what I could do to help unite the Haymarket ward and hasten the work in this area! And I know it works in every aspect of life!!!! 

Have a great week!
Love,

Sister Anderson :)

August 18, 2014 - What a Week!

We had a week full of MIRACLES!!

Last Monday night we found a new investigator who lives right next to a member in the ward that just moved in and is WAY pumped about missionary work! Woo! Perfect member fellowshipper! 

When we got home we got a phone call from the Sisters who are now serving in Centreville 2nd. They told me that Jeff Wade is getting baptized!! He was my FAVORITE investigator to teach! (He was the one who loves cats so much that we had to help him learn how to pray to God rather than his dead cat and he loves Star Wars, Stargate, Star Trek...pretty much every movie that Dad likes) I am SOOOO HAPPYYYYYYYYYY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! He's the very first person that I've actually taught that I have been blessed to know about their progression in the gospel!! JEFF IS GETTING BAPTIZED THIS SATURDAY AHHH I AM SO BEYOND HAPPY! I literally did a happy dance when I got that phone call!!! And I couldn't stop laughing!

 

Wednesday we dominated. We had so many teaching appointments that we didn't have time to breathe! It was awesome! There's a family in the ward that we helped move in about two months ago and they texted us asking if we could ocme over to meet with their nonmember sister in law who is visiting for the week. They were talking to her about the Book of Mormon and wanted us to give one to her! Her name is Amanda and she is origionally from Centralia WASHINGTON! Well, she actually lives south of Adna... I forgot the name of the town. But if I heard it, I'd be familiar with it. BUT GET THIS. She just moved to Olympia to go to school at ST MARTINS UNIVERSITY AHHHHHHHHH! I got so excited. That is where BELANA Is going to school! Do I think it's a coincidence that God sends me on a mission to Virginia where Amanda would visit her brother and sister in law and who is going to the same school that my sister is going to?!?! Um heck no! It was one of those moments where it was obvious to me that I am here in this exact spot for a reason. I told Amanda all about Belana and she's going to give her a hug for me. :) Also, I invited her to go to the singles ward!!! Belana can help be her fellowshipper!!! I am so beyond happy.

We taught Amanda again on Wednesday. She is so prepared for the gospel. She is really open minded. She kept saying how she really likes how simple the Restoration is. She loves the Joseph Smith story and said that she would be baptized if she knew with all her heart that it was true. I'm so excited for the missionaries who are serving in that singles ward! They are going to get a great investigator! I'm so grateful that I was able to teach her a couple of times while she was here on vacation. 

We've been meeting with lots of members still and helping them to become better member missionaries! After we had dinner with one of our members, we were walking back to our car to go check on a few people to see if they were interested in learning more and her next door neighbor was outside trimming his bushes. So we talked to him and asked if we could come back the next day to give him a Book of Mormon. He said we could! So we told the member that is his neighbor and she came with us to the lesson!!! It's been really amazing to see how God is leading us to people who live right next to our members who are already missionary minded so that those people automatically have members that they can rely on. Every investigator NEEDS a best friend member that they can rely on and ask questions. It means a ton more coming from a friend than it does the missionaries. 

 

We hit our goal of teaching 20 lessons this week! I'm pretty sure that's the first time my entire mission that I reached that goal!!! We taught 4 lessons to investigators with a member present, 2 lessons to investigators without a member, 8 lessons to recent converts or less active members, and 6 lessons to member families. :) It definitely feels great to be busy!

 

Friday we had zone conference! Sister Lamborn's mom sent her some music and the Zone Leaders needed someone to do a musical number so I volunteered. The only song that Sister Lamborn had that I knew was "I Heard Him Come". I asked my friends, Sisters Martindale and Billman, to sing with me. I thought it was okay. It was a last minute thing that we threw together, but it made me think of Belana (for the second time this week other than in my nightly prayers). Singing it with Belana at that fireside before my mission was a sacred experience for me. It was nice to be reminded of that moment. I love my sister so much. 

 

I hope you have a great week!!! You'll never guess what I studied about this morning.....the Book of Mormon!!! :) I read chapter 5 in Preach My Gospel. One part that hit me really hard today was:

"The Book of Mormon, combined with the Spirit, is your most powerful resource in conversion. It is the most correct of any book on the earth (see introduction to the Book of Mormon). It teaches the doctrine of Christ plainly, especially in the lessons you teach investigators. Use it as your main source for teaching the restored gospel."

 

Want to be more converted to Jesus Christ and his restored gospel? Study, ponder, pray about and LIVE the Book of Mormon!!! I promise that book brings miracles. It changes lives! I have full confidence in the power and divinity of the Book of Mormon! 

 

I love you all so much! Have a great week!
Sister Anderson

August 11, 2014 - Bull Run

We went hiking on Bull Run Mountain today!! That's why I'm emailing SO late!! It was so much fun! Well, we didn't have a map and no one knew where we were going, so we just kinda hiked around until half of the sisters got too tire to move...but I wanted to go to the top!!! So I made Sister Lamborn and a few other sisters come to the top with me. Haha. We passed some people on the trail and they let us take a picture of their map. There was no way I was going home without going to the top! I took lots of pictures with Sister Lamborn. We did a photo shoot on the top of the "mountain" while the other sisters talked about the drama in their lives.

Shadow pose!

Book of Mormon Heart! Sister Anderson and Sister Lamborn.

Top of the Mountain!

 

This week just flew by. We have THREE NEW INVESTIGATORS! WOO! They are totally awesome. I'll be sure to write more about them next week. Their names are Donna, Larry and Bill. Donna and Larry are married and older, both retired from the military, ride motorcycles together...and Donna's a Mary Kay consultant. Bill is married to Brandi who has been in active since she was 14. they fed us Jumbalya. I don't think I spelled that right...but it was relaly good. they're from the south! It was nice and spicy! Mmmmm. 

 

I honestly can't remember a single thing right now. I know I wrote a lot down in my journal..and I don't have it with me right now...

 

Something I've been studying about a lot lately is about women and the priesthood. And MAN I am so grateful to be woman!!! Think about it. Men have to be worthy to hold the power of the priesthood, whereas women are BORN with the power of creation. There's no condition for women to have the power of creation!! We play such an important role in Heavenly Father's plan. I don't know if you've heard of Kate Kelly and what happened with her in the Oakton stake...but it's just silly for any group of people to petition the prophet to try to change the mind of God. God's ways are already set... I'm grateful that I am a daughter of God!!!!!!! I'm grateful for the sons of God who bear the priesthood of God, and I'm also grateful that I don't have that kind of responsibility. I'm just on a "girl power" high right now I guess. If you haven't already, be sure to read Elder Oaks' talk called the Power and Authority of the Priesthood.

 

I love love LOVE the chapters about the army of Helaman and how they were righteous and exactly obedient because their mothers raised them to trust in the Lord 100%! It always makes me weepy when I read it because I think of Mom. :) 

 

Hope you have a great week! I love you all so much! I love who I am and what I'm doing! This church is TRUE!!

 

Love,

Sister Anderson

August 4, 2014 - Nationals Game

So many things happened this week! It was the BEST!

 

Monday we didn't go grocery shopping because we didn't have any money on our accounts for food. I realized that I had forgotten to pay my fast offering the past two months! AH! So I prayed to Heavenly Father and told him that I put some money aside and promised to pay it as soon as I could get to the church to get a tithing slip. I finished my prayer and told Sister Lamborn, "well, I hope that He recognizes my real intent and helps us eat this week!"

 

We didn't have any dinners set up because we had forgotten to print off our meal calendar to take ot Relief Society. (it's hard to remember-in past wards, ward missionaries all took care of meals for us so I'm not used to doing it yet) but we met a member from Mississippi who has been less active for over 20 years and she had us over for dinner on Wednesday and cooked us southern food! SHE MADE FRIED CHICKEN. And I thought of Brendan and Dayle. :) It was also really cool to see the food miracles that happened throughout the week too. One of our friends who lives at the Marque, Louie, randomly came up to us and gave us a huge container of spagetti sauce because he said he accidentally bought it and wouldn't eat it. Our sister training leaders had extra noodles and gave them to us. THEN (my favorite miracle) happened when we came in for the night to plan and a little old lady rolled up in her wheelchair and asked us to open the front door for the pizza man. For whatever reason she had ordered TWO pizzas, and in reward for helping her do something that she couldn't do, she gave us an entire pizza!!!! GOD IS SO GOOD! And I now have a testimony of paying fast offerings! I thought of the scripture from the New Testament: 31 Therefore take no thought, saying, What shall we eat? or, What shall we drink? or, Wherewithal shall we be clothed?

 32 (For after all these things do the Gentiles seek:) for your heavenly Father knoweth that ye have need of all these things.

 33 But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you. Matthew 6:31-33

It was so cool. God has definitely been taking really good care of me.

Friday we had a half mission conference. It was a last minute thing that President and Sister Riggs and the assistants to the president put together for us. They went over the importance of obedience and consecration to the work of the Lord. So I've been working really hard to be more consecrated every day. President made a SUPER cool video of himself paralleled to Captain Moroni when he rent his clothes and made the title of liberty to fight for family, liberty, religion. President walked into the room with his suit coat that he rent in the video and he had us make a pledge to be consecrated and make our own title of liberty of things that we're on a mission fighting for. He had each missionary bring a shirt to the conference and we all RENTED our clothes! It was so fun! We left one half of our shirts with President Riggs who is going to put all of them on a pole and we took the other half with us to write our titles of liberty on them. On my half shirt, I wrote that I'm fighting for family, truth, Jesus Christ, generations past, present and future. I'm pretty excited about it.

Rented clothes!  Read above!

Saturday we got to go to the NATIONALS GAME!!!!!!! WOOOOO!!! I missed the first pitch of the game (as usual) but I MADE SURE to be in my seat for the 7th inning stretch. And then I told all the missionaries who were sitting around me that the baseball song is the Anderson family home evening song!!! They all said that my family seems awesome. HECK yes we are! :) Hahaha. I loved being there.

The DC North mission and South missions were there in the same section and I got to see one of my friends, Elder Tate Jackman, from BYU! It was really awesome! I was there when he opened his mission call at school, and I had to search him down to find him-there were about 500 missionaries there!


Elder Jackman, one of Julie's friends from BYU!  HELP ME TURN THIS!!!!

The DC South mission had a Book of Mormon blitz, where each missionary had to give away a Book of Mormon on the metro ride there, at the game, or on the metro ride home. I tried really hard to give it away on the way there, but the man I sat next to said he already had one. So that's a good thing I guess. At the end of the game, we were waiting for everyone to file out and I turned around to see a woman and her husband waiting for the misisonaries to all leave before they left. The woman, Chris, asked me what was going on and what the occasion was. So I talked to her about it and told her about missions and why we serve. And then somehow, the conversation turned to the Book of Mormon. I didn't even have to try! And I taught her about Joseph Smith and showed her the pictures in the front of the Book of Mormon copy I was holding and I gave it to her! She was more than grateful to take it! Miracle!!!! God is good. There were lots of great miracles that happened on the way to and at the game. I wrote them all in my journal, so I'll share them with you later! But my favorite one was when I talked to the seating assistant lady who stood at the top of the stairs and helped me find my seat. I started talking to her and she became my new best friend! Somewhere in the conversation she started talking about how people that come to the games are really nice to her and I said, "God is so good!" And her inner baptist came out! HAHAHA! It was great. She told me that no matter where she is, or who is talking, whenever she hears, "God is good" she stops every thing to say, "ALL THE TIME. Not some of the time, not most of the time. But ALL the time!" I told her I would start doing the same exact thing. She took my card and every time I passed her from that point on I told her "God is good!" and she said "All the time!" It was so fun!

At the Nationals Game!

Bunch of Sisters at the Nationals Game!

Lamborn and Anderson!

Nationals Stadium!

I love being a missionary. 



Sisters Duncan, Lamborn and Anderson!

I loved the pictures of the Redwoods! Those trees are HUGE!!!! It made me think of the song I learned in elementary school I think it's called This Land is Your Land...I can't remember the name exactly but now it's stuck in my head..

Brendan hugging a Redwood!

Julie send a tree hugging pic too!  She must be from Olympia!  Ha ha.

We've been working really hard and talking to EVERYONE that we see, so I know that we're going to be finding people to teach here pretty soon! We have a lot of great potential investigators who all said we can come back! I'm so happy!

I love you guys so much! I miss you, but I'm glad I'm here. I see miracles every day.

Oh wait before I sign off, I want to share with you what I learned in my studies this morning. I was studying the Christlike attribute of Obedience in PMG chapter 6. There is a study box at the end of the paragraph that talks about obedience and one of the scriptures I was directed to was Alma 57:21-27. The verse that stood out to me was verse 25. 

 25 And it came to pass that there were two hundred, out of my two thousand and sixty, who had fainted because of the loss of blood; nevertheless, according to the goodness of God, and to our great astonishment, and also the joy of our whole army, there was not one soul of them who did perish; yea, and neither was there one soul among them who had not received many wounds.

 I thought it was pretty funny how they were astonished that none of them had died. Why were they surprised? They had so much faith! But I was thinking about how they were in WAR. the result of war is death, and they trusted God so much, they didn't care if they died or not. I thought of the hymn Count Your Many Blessings. There's a line that says, "And it will surprise you what the Lord has done". It was just cool to think about how we don't really notice the miracles until after we're looking back on them. Even just looking back on the 10 months that I've served the people in Northern VA, I'm astonished to see how much the Lord has done for me! I'm so grateful for all the blessings I have. Even all the hard times have turned into blessings. It's pretty cool.

Okay that's all folks! Have a great week!

Love you!
Sister Anderson

Sister Hanson, one of Julie's previous comps just went through her last transfers
and will be going home soon!  WOW!

July 28, 2014 - Transfers - Julie Stayed

This week was great. Transfers were Thursday but both Sister Lamborn and I stayed! WOOOHOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Thank goodness. We have too much fun together. This was the first transfer meeting where the first huge group of sisters went home. And we missed it! I was torn-grateful I didn't have to go so that I could stay in Haymarket, but sad at the same time because I wanted so badly to hear all the departing missionaries' testimonies. A lot of my friends are now at home serving as member missionaries. It's weird.

 

Hey guess what?! The entire mission is going to the Nationals baseball game on August 2nd!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'M SOOOOOOOOOOO EXCITED!!!!!!!! The only way it'd be better is if the Mariners were playing. But I don't even know if the Mariners and the Nationals ever play each other. I can't remember. We get to go because it's the day of service or something like that. I don't really know why. All I remember is that I got to the mission in October and everyone was talking about how they went to the Nationals game a few weeks before I got there- I felt jipped! I guess the missionaries behaved themselves last year because we get to go again! My mission president is so cool.

 

This week was a bit tough. We are struggling finding new investigators. And it's frusterating! But we're learning how to be patient with the Lord and His timing. Everyone is really nice, just uninterested. Oh well. We're being diligent, so we'll be blessed with people to teach sooner or later!

 

Our district meeting this last week was the best of my entire mission. Our district leader, Elder Ekins (who reminds me SO much of Spencer it's not even funny. His voice is exactly the same as Spencer's!) decided that for the last meeting of the transfer, we needed to have a testimony meeting. The spirit was so strong. It was really uplifting to be around seven other really great missionaries and to hear their testimonies of the Savior and his atonement. It was the spiritual pick me up I needed! I talked about God's love and how He knows me by name. He knows me better than I do! I'm so grateful that He does.

We live in the Marque apartments and they are REALLY nice. It's the nicest place I'll probably ever live on my mission. There's a front loby area, a theater room, a farmer's market every Thursday...and I decided taht we needed to be taking advantage of it! The sisters before me in this area started a Book of Mormon book club every Wednesday that we always have in the lobby. We also asked around this week and got special permission to set up a table at the farmer's market to pass our fliers and talk about our church! We also got special permission to use the theater room-we are going to start showing church produced movies on the weekend and invite everyone at the Marque to join! The Marque used to only be a 55+ apartment, but there were a lot of empty rooms so they opened it up to everyone. There is a set of missioanries on every floor, so everyone knows who we are and what we're all about! It's a great little community to live in.

 

I've been studying the latest conference Ensign and I LOVE it. I read a talk this morning called, "Are You Sleeping Through the Restoration" by President Uchtdorf. Something President Riggs always talks about is how when we die, people from past dispensations are going to ask us what it was like living during the time that the Lord hastened his work. We're going to be asked what we did to help the hastening. President Uchtdorf said something that really hit me as I read his talk. "There is too much at stake for us as individuals, as families, and as Christ’s Church to give only a halfhearted effort to this sacred work. Being a disciple of Jesus Christ is not an effort of once a week or once a day. It is an effort of once and for all."I want to be able to tell people after this life that I gave it my all! What are you doing to help the Lord hasten His work?

I love you all! Have a great week. Be sure to look for the little every day miracles that the Lord is blessing you with!

Love,

Sister ANderson

July 21, 2014 - A Couple More Pictures

The plate says I66SUX - the I-66 is a Highway that is usually a parking lot.

Temple Day!

July 21, 2014 - Pictures

Gainesville District pic in elevator.

Visiting the Washington DC Temple.

Washington DC Temple Trip.

Sister Lamborn fell asleep at morning studies.

Mermaid!

July 21, 2014

What a week! It was both really hard and really great!!! Really hard because Satan was pulling us down from every angle, but really great because I got to go to the temple!!! There's a rule in our mission that missionaries can go to the DC temple every six months. Since the last time I went was in October, I decided I was way over due for a temple trip! There were some sisters in my zone that were going, so I asked if I could come along. Sister Lamborn went on Memorial Day so she couldn't come with me. We exchanged companions and she stayed back and hung out with the other sisters' companions. It worked out really well. The timing of the temple trip was much needed. As soon as I walked into the temple, my heart melted. I felt like I had come home. I've had a lot on my mind and the best stress relief is the spirit that is felt in the temple. We got there five minutes late to the 12 o'clock session, so we decided to do some invitatories. I don't know how to spell it.... but that was the first time I'd done invitatories since I'd done my own. I love, love, loved it. We went through the 1 o'clock session and I was silently crying to myself the entire time. Thank goodness for waterproof mascara! I just thought of when I went through the temple and how special it was that Grandma and Grandpa Anderson, Sister Burnette, Sister Grondel, Tanner, Sierra, Sister Burton, and I think Sister Bates were all there. (My memory is failing me!! I really wish I had written down who was all there when I went through the temple the first time. At least, I pictured Sister Bates was there in my mind! :) There is so much love in the temple. I made a promise to myself and to Heavenly Father that I will go to the temple every week when I get home from my mission. People think that the world is reality...but they are completely wrong. The temple is reality and I want to spend as much time there as I possibly can. And don't worry, I know a weekly trip up to the Seattle temple might be a lot, but I'll get a job really quick so I can pay for gas! And I'll go with my friends who can carpool with me!

 

Quick update on our finding: it's still really tough. People are generally really nice, but they're not interested. Their ignorance is bliss. They don't know what they're missing! And I try really hard to testify of the Savior and His gospel so that the Holy Ghost can touch their hearts...but they're just not open to it right now. And that's okay. God will lead us to His prepared children sooner or later!

 

Our District Leader, Elder Ekins, who is from Portland (woo pacific NW!!) asked Sister Lamborn and I to teach a portion of our district meeting. The only assignment he gave us was to teach about something we're good at so that we can help strengthen the other missionaries! We thought about it all week and decided to teach about being HAPPY! :D Sister Lamborn and I are known for laughing all the time. We just love to have fun! So we talked about how being happy helps all aspects of missionary work. If you want to be happy, you have to work! If you want others to be happy, you have to open your mouth and share the gospel! If you don't want to be discouraged, be positive and look at the glass as half full!!! We started our lesson by putting a glass half full of water on the table- it reminded me of when Dad taught me about looking at things with a half full attitude. :)

One night we pulled up to a less active member's home to see if we could visit her and we parked next to a woman sitting in her car listening to music and crying. It was starting to get dark, so it was a little sketchy to knock on the window and talk to her, but Sister Lamborn did anyway! She went to the passenger side and knocked on the window. We shared a scripture with her about Christ and how he suffered literally everything for us. The woman said she recognized us from when we came into the restaurant that she works at and she quickly went from crying to laughing! :) We didn't get a return appointment because she wasn't too interested, but it was good to know that we were in the right place at the right time and that we were her angels in that moment. I'm glad Sister Lamborn was brave! :)

 

Our district is awesome! Elder Ekins likes to have district bbq's every now and then and we had one on Friday. He didn't buy hamburger meat...instead he bought....SPAM!!! He made us all SPAM BURGERS! AHH. I didn't want to eat it. Hahaha. But all the elders made me! It actually wasn't too bad.. it had a really weird texture, but it was okay I guess. Again, I thought of Dad. He would have been proud in that moment.

 

I think those are the highlights of the week. At least the ones I can remember! Time flies. The 18th was my 10 month mark. Summer's half way done! What the heck!

 

I love you guys. Keep reading the Book of Mormon! I find a LOT of peace through the scriptures. I hope you learn to love them as much as I do. Oh and speaking of peace, I learned that Satan has a counterfeit for every emotion except for peace. For love, he has lust. There's laughter and then there's loud laughter, godly sorrow for worldly sorrow, excitement and anxiety, passion and obsession... but the only emotion that Satan does not have a counterfeit for it peace. And that is a feeling of the

Spirit that is clear as day. I just think that's really cool.

Have a good week. Seek to be more consecrated to the Lord and his gospel!

Love,
Sister Anderson

Have a great week!!!

Cheerwine

Lightening bug - great fireworks for the 4th of July!

Crème Brule - She wanted to break out in High School Musical!  Ha ha.

Painting for service with Sister Lamborn.

Sisters Anderson, Lamborn, and Riggs selfie!

Sister Missionarie's tan line!

Investigators.

July 14, 2014 - Release Date April 3, 2015

Helloooooooooooooo family!

 

This week was awesome. So much happened.

 

Monday night we went to a member's home and taught her non member niece who is staying here for the summer. Her niece, Cammi, had just come back from girls camp and had a great time. We talked about Heavenly Father and how important the gift of the Holy Ghost is. She said that she really wanted it and accepted a soft baptismal invite! She's going out of town for the next couple of weeks to NY to see the pageants with her aunt, so she'll be spiritually fed before we meet with her again. She's so great.

 

Tuesday morning we finished our studies and left to go to District Meetings. On the drive there, I checked the phone to see two missed calls and a voice message from Sister Riggs.... Jinkies. Why was our mission president's wife trying to get ahold of us?! I called her back and she said that she was coming to our meeting and then planned on tagging along with us for the ENTIRE DAY. What. I hung up the phone an immediately Sister Lamborn and I started freaking out. What did we do wrong?!?!?!!! Ahh! hahaha. It was really funny. I was laughing the whole car ride there. About an hour after Sister Riggs had been with us, I straight up asked her if we did anything wrong. Haha! She said that her kids were on vacation in Arizona for the week and she wanted to come out with us!!!! She could have chosen any other set of sisters, but she chose to come out with US! I felt really special after that. :) I used to be really intimidated by Sister Riggs. She's naturally shy and pretty strict. I just needed to get to know her...that was a tender mercy. Now I look up to her SO MUCH. She is crazy bold and practices what she preaches. She is a Preach My Gospel missionary and I want to be just like her! We checked on a few potentials with her and where I would have normally thanked them  and walked away, she made a teaching opportunity of the situation. I've been more bold with that after she came out with us and we've had more lessons than normal! It's been awesome. I love Sister Riggs.

 

Haha I just had a thought. It's pretty embarassing that I didn't leave the country or learn a new language. I don't have any excuse to have such poor grammar in my letters home! Oh well. I'm too lazy to make ever sentence perfect! So I apologize if I repeat myself or if I don't make sense. :) hahaha!

 

Thursday we checked up on a former investigator and she let us right in! She was talking on the phone when we knocked and she just opened the door and pointed to the couch and kept talking. It was as though we had been friends for a long time and she didn't even bother asking us our names. It was really funny. Her name is Casey and she is friends with a member in our ward. She used to be married to someone from the church and she has taken the missionary lessons on and off over the past couple of years. She's had a hard life and her family is a Yours, Mine and Ours type of family. She LOVES her three girls. They're pretty cute. We just talked with Casey, but she told us that she wanted to start going to church with her family and she wants us to come back next Tuesday to teach everyone!!!! Woo!! We've been praying SO hard to find a family <3

 

Friday we had a last minute Sisters Conference. Since we had just finished our interviews with President, he wanted to address all the Sisters as a whole. The majority of them all beat themselves up. Women are just harder on themselves than they are on others. I have been doing really well lately and felt like it wasn't directed at me in this moment in time, but it was still really great to be there and feel the spirit. President and Sister Riggs talked a lot about how we are Daughters of our Heavenly Father. They made us stand up and recite the YW theme. Pretty cool. They talked about all the storms in our lives and gave us some scriptures that talk about the resources we have in weathering those storms: Doctrine and Covenants 115:6, Alma 26:5-6, and Helaman 5:12. I am going to look to these verses for the rest of my life!!!! The first verse talks about how we are surrounded by the stakes of Zion to help us overcome the storms. We have so many great people around us that we can turn to for refuge. The next verse talks about sheaves and garners. The sheaves represent converts and the garners represent temples. We want the sheaves to go into the garners!! President said that he hoped each of us were sheaves and that we would go to the temple regularly- especially after our missions. In that moment I set a goal to go to the temple every week after I get home. It will be a high priority in my life. The last verse is the more common scripture about overcoming storms. It's only through Jesus Christ that our foundations will be strong. I also committed myself to daily scripture study and prayer for the rest of my life. Storms are coming. Satan never stops- and neither will I!!!! I'm grateful for the protective umbrella the gospel provides when I use my resources effectively!

 

Oh yeah. I get home from my mission on April 3. Haha. Sorry Mom. At least you found out sooner than later, right?...heh heh :) Sorry! I think that's all you would need to know at this moment. I know that when I get closer to that date, the mission office will send me a letter with more information on what needs to happen before I go home. I will be sure to be on top of it so that you will be in the loop!

 

I need to be better about wearing bug spray...I just get attacked by the mosquitos! Ack! haha. 

Oh I did get the package! Thanks so much! Sister Lamborn tease me when she saw that Grandma had given me intensive anti age cream with spf 25 in it! She said that apparently my pictures home have made me look like my mission has aged my face! Pretty funny! I use it every day anyway :) Hahahaha!

 

I love you! Have a great week!!!

Love,

Sissy Anderson

July 7, 2014

Hello!

We had a weird preparation day, so we split up our emailing time. Sorry if that messed you up a little! 

This week was great! 

Our district meetings were bumped back to Wednesday because of our interviews with President. Sister Lamborn and I always laugh together and have so much fun! The elders made a snarky comment baout how we laugh too much. So we set a goal to NOT laugh the entire time we were around them in district meetings. Haha! It was SO hard! But we did it! I just made sure to hold my breath and not look at my companion!

But that night, the no laughing goal back fired. I laughed in my sleep for a good 20 minutes. Sister Lamborn said that it wasn't my normal laugh, so she quickly got her iPad and recorded me..... I was having a laugh attack! It was the craziest thing! On top of laughing in my sleep, I had a conversation with Siste rLamborn about how I was laughing because I fell out of a cookie tree...?? I don't remember any of it. Sister Lamborn told me that i wasn't allowed to restrain my laughter during the day ever again.

 

The fourth of July was okay. We were allowed to stay out later, but we had to be in our apartment at 10:30. President Riggs really wanted us to enjoy independence day since we're living in our nation's captial. He suggested finding a member to take us to the potomac river to watch fireworks, but haymarket/gainesville area is too far away from the potomac, so we stayed in our area. We went to a member's house where they have a dark wooded area that is covered in FIRE FLIES. I've never seen real fire flies in my life, and we always go in at 9 before it gets dark, so we decided to watch the fire flies. It was pretty cool. It reminded me of christmas lights! Other than that, I missed the Tumwater fireworks show and playing on the golf course. I'm grateful that I only have one 4th of july on my mission!! ;)

We've been doing pretty well finding investigators! When I first got to the area, we wiped out our teaching pool and started from ground zero. We have found 7 new investigators in the past three weeks! Woo!! They aren't very good at keeping their appointments, but I'm just grateful we have people to work with! 

Thanks for all the pictures! Looks like everyone is having fun!!!
I love you all! Have a great week! 

Sister Anderson