Pumpkin carving with the Havrillas! They're a part member family we work with
Tuesday, October 21, 2014
October 6, 2014 -General Conference time
Helloooo!!!!
Oh what a great week!!! It was so busy! And by the grace of God, we were STILL able to hit our mission standard with 2 on date, 2 at church and 3 new investigators! :) God is good! It also helps to have a companion who is so extremely excited to dominate in everything! She just goes out and owns this area! I love it!!!
Let's see. So many miracles happened I don't even know where to start.
I guess I'll start with General Conference. I have never loved General Conference so much in my entire life. I think a huge part of it is because it's a world wide broadcast, and it makes me feel really close to my family because I know everyone's watching it at the same time as I am, listening to the same speakers, and feeling the same spirit! My favorite talks were President Uchtdorf's and Elder Bednar's! They are my favorites, after all! Oh! A Conference Miracle was during the Saturday afternoon session! We have two investigators on date for baptism right now: Ashleigh and Rahfi. They don't know each other, but they showed up late for the second session at the exact. same. time. It was crazy. But they walked in during the speech from the man who spoke spanish and was talking about coming unto Christ. Literally two seconds after our investigators sat down, the speaker said, "To you that aren't members of the church, the missionaries may have asked you to follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by one holding authority." IT COULDN'T HAVE BEEN MORE PERFECT!!!! Man. After conference we had dinner with Ashleigh in a member's home and she said, "Hm, I think God's trying to tell met that I need to be baptized sooner or something..." AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so happy!!! Conference was pretty fun. We have four sets of missionaries in the apartment building where I live and there's a really nice theater room that we reserved all weekend. A member came with her lap top and we set up General Conference right here at the Marque! We put signs all over the place and tried to get people to come in an watch it with us. Only two popped their heads in, but even that was great! The theater room is in a busy hallway in our building, so lots of people walking by got to hear the words of our inspired church leaders!!!!!
Oh MIRACLE. I just have to say that I love love love love LOVE Sister Williams' greenie fire. We total up our numbers for the week every Sunday night. Last night it was 8:45pm. Sister Williams looked over at me while I was driving and said, "We are one new investigator short of reaching the mission standard. What are we goign to do?!?!" We didn't feel good about randomly tracting, and the few people that we discussed to try to turn them into new investigators didn't feel right. We were on our way home and were just thinking for a few minutes when all of a sudden Sis W says, "I've got it! We need to have a phone lesson with Debb!" I had never in my life as a missionary had a lesson with anyone over the phone, and it seemed really awkward to me in the moment. But I went along with it (feel the fear and do it anyway) and she called Debb. Oh my gosh. So background on Debb. She has a sister who lives in Hawaii and is a member of the church. Debb is a Methodist youth minister and LOVES what she does. I've gone to visit her in the past and she made it very clear that she loved where she was at. She says that she used to be apostate for 20 years, but found Jesus when her son was young. During her "apostate" years, she ran into some Elders who gave her a Book of Mormon. She took the book, but tore it apart and shut the elders down. Now she's had a change of heart!!! As Sister W talked with her on the phone, she asked Debb if she'd read the Book of Mormon and be baptized! :O ...Debb said that she's always been a searcher of the truth and she wondered aloud, "maybe I need to read the Book of Mormon with the mindset to find truth rather than to tear it down..." we were like YES YES YES!!! hahahaa :) It was such a miracle. We said a prayer with her on the phone and set a return appointment. Boom. New investigator. I'm so grateful that SIster W is so brave and excited to teach literally everyone with the resources that the Lord has blessed us with!
We had MVOC training. Mission Vehicle Operations Course. One of the senior couples had gone through the police acadamy and did the PVOC. He got special permission from President Riggs to to moderate the PVOC for our mission to train us all how to be better drivers....the reasoning was because our mission has the highest percentage of car accidents every year out of all the other missions in the WORLD. Scary thought...but it was really fun. There were four different "courses" where we drove in and out of cones and practiced backing with our companions backing us behind the car. We also did a couple courses where we drove up to 40 mph in the church parking lot and then slammed on the brakes to feel what the ABS feels like. I was SO grateful that I'm the designated driver right now because it was SO much fun!!!!!
We had a Return and Report meeting this week too. It's a regular meeting for trainers and trainees the week before transfers. (Yes transfers are coming up this Thursday...I have noooo idea what will happen. Most likely I'm going to stay to finish training Sister W) But it's a fun meeting. They split up the trainers and trainees in two separate rooms. President Riggs came with the group of trainers and the Assistants to the President went with the trainees. We were all asked to come up with a list of things that our trainees were doing well, along with a list of things they could improve on. The trainees were asked the same thing of us. Then president Riggs and the assistants traded places and read off the list of things. It was really neat to see that our trainees actually notice things that we are doing well. I think I'm just really hard on myself as a trainer... I never feel like I do right with Sister W. She looks up to me so much and of course I mess up because I'm human... but it was just really good for me to hear the things that they noticed we were doing well and some things that we could improve on to help them learn better. I love SIster Williams so much! It took all transfer for us to figure each other out, so we'd better not get transferred because we are a powerhouse companionship! Now that we understand each other and how to react to each other, we are just going to tear it up! We set a goal for next week to double the mission standard! I'll follow up with you about how it went next Monday! Expect miracle stories!! :)
It's been such a crazy week. We had a ton of long meetings that took away from our companion studies a few of the days this week, so we couldn't prepare as well as we wanted to, but we still saw miracles and hit the mission standard. God is good. This really is HIS work!!!!!!!!
I love you all! Have a wonderful week!!! How are you doing with reading the Book of Mormon?!
Hey, I hear that Dan Hernandez is coming to my mission!?!?! That's SOOO AWESOME!!!! When will he get here? Is he going to be English speaking or is he going to be in the Spanish program?
I love my mission. Being a missionary is just so much fun!!!
Love you!
Sister Anderson
October 13, 2014
I experienced the coolest miracle of my entire mission this week!!!
Okay, don't get me wrong, I have lots of really awesome miracles every day, but with this particular miracle, I saw the effects of it immediately! It happened on Tuesday night. We had just got out of a reaaaalllyyyyy long lesson with an older gentleman who lives in our apartment complex who loves to talk. He talked our ears off for TWO WHOLE HOURS. Ugh it was so long. My ADD mind was going insane! hahaha! All of our appointments fell through, so we got into our car and pulled off to the side of our apartment complex parking lot. We prayed about what we should do because neither of us felt right about tracting, and the members we had put in as back ups all had young children who we knew were in bed. It was 8 at night. We sat there in silence as we both thought about what to do and I had a random thought, "We need to go to the church!" I tried to decide if that was just me thinking it, or if God used the spirit to direct my thoughts. I wondered why we would need to go to the church because there wouldn't be anyone there - our ward's mutual had been cancelled for the week due to an upcoming temple trip this weekend. The thought came again, "We need to go to the church!!!" I decided that it wouldn't hurt to say my thought out loud to see what Sister WIlliams thought. If she shut it down, then we'd figure something else out. I said out loud, "Hey Sis Williams, I just had a thought that we need to go to the church right now." To my surprise (mostly because she disagrees with me on nearly everything) Sister Williams IMMEDIATELY said without a moment's hesitation, "GO TO THE CHURCH." I was only taken aback for a split second before I put the car into drive and headed toward our church building. It was hilarious! On the way there I wondered aloud, "I wonder who God wants us to meet at the church tonight....hmmm!" We pull into the church parking lot where there are two cars parked on one side. We said a prayer and walked in. There was a man with three kids sitting on the couch in the foyer. I introduced myself and found out that they're actually from the Gainesville ward. The man was the ward mission leader! We talked with him for a few minutes about the work in both of our wards before he asked what we were doing there. We told him that we didn't know exactly, but we were following a prompting that the Lord had given us to come to the church. The ward mission leader smiled and said, "Wow. There is a non member using my cell phone in the other room. He wanted to talk to your Bishop to see if he could take the missionary lessons and get some help with a few things." My jaw just dropped. :O "Sweet," I said, "God is so good! There is no way I believe in coincidences!!!" We talked with him and his three kids until the non member guy was done talking on the phone. We introduced ourselves and found out his name is Jay. Jay went to SVU for college and knows a TON of Mormons. We just got to know his religious background and listened to him talk for an entire hour while he told us how he chooses to live the Word of Wisdom because it makes sense to him and also how he's been told that he's a Mormon in denial. He's had a few girls tell him that they couldn't marry him because he wasn't Mormon, and he's also seen a lot of members go through the motions of getting a temple recommend that they were never worthy of. He said that people at SVU used to try to convert him all the time because they wanted him to be their "convert trophy". We just listened to him. He really needed to talk. At the end, we shared with him a few verses from the Book of Mormon. I pulled out my extra copy that I always carry with me and held it in both hands. I told him that this book means the world to me. I told him that I don't want to force it down his throat because he means so much more than a trophy to me. I started to say more, but he cut me off to ask for a copy of his own. It was awesome! He then was the one to ask us to meet up again. He said, "Now, I know you'll probably try to meet with me again to try to convert me or something. I don't know what protocol is for this, but..." he thought for a minute, "Do you have a piece of paper? I'll give you my phone number" He went from talking himself out of meeting with us, but then talked himself back into it! It was the funniest thing!! It was cool to see the spirit working on him. We made a return appointment with him for Saturday.
This was such a cool miracle! I mean, I have promptings from the spirit every day. I do my very very best to follow them, but I've never seen anything quite so significant come from it. Who knows why God gave me those promptings before? I have no idea! But I hope someone's life was a little better off because of it! Maybe God gave me those previous promptings to go to a certain place to get me out of the way of a potential car accident or something. Either way, it doesn't matter! All that matters is that we act on the promptings taht the Lord gives us. This time, the result of acting was finding a man who is so desperately needs the gospel in his life. God truly is behind this work.
We taught him at the church again on Saturday. It was a great lesson. We taught him the Restoration and he understood it all so well. He was able to tell us his understanding of the priesthood and apostasy in his own words. It was one of the best lessons ever. We put him on date for November 22. He is one of the most prepared people I have ever met!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm so excited for him!! :) :) :)
We taught our other investigators in members homes this week. We taught Ashleigh in the bishop's home! It was the best lesson we've ever had with her! We taught her about repentance and she asked, "Will you teach me what all of the commandments are? I don't know them, but I want to keep them!" :) She's progressing so much. We also had a lesson with Rahfi in the Thiriots' home. They're the seminary teachers in the ward and they have seminary in their basement. We went down there for our lesson and used some of the seminary videos and visuals to help Rahfi, who comes from a Muslim background, to understand the atonement of Jesus Christ. It was wonderful!
The work is working! And I know it's because God's the one behind everything. He's soooo good.
I'm doing so well. I'm still learning a lot as a trainer, especially patience and humility, which are great lessons to learn.
I love you all so much! Keep reading the Book of Mormon! It can change your life daily if you let it! All you have to do it read, ponder and pray about it!
Have a great week!
Love,
Sister Anderson
October 20, 2014
Hello family!
I'm getting to the point in my mission where Monday comes around and I have literally no idea what happened since I last sat down to write you an email. So it takes me just as long as it took me to type up those 68 page essay emails that I used to write at the beginning of my mission, but I don't have as much content.
I guess a highlight of the week was when we taught Jay again. We were trying SO hard to find a family that would let us teach his lesson in their home, and it seemed like literally everyone that we asked turned us down for whatever reason. It was hard! But we knew that we needed to teach him in a members home, so we kept trying. We tried just about every active family in the ward when finally the Schmidts said we could come over. Phew. It's such a HUGE wave of relief when things go through. Jay connected really well with Brother Schmidt because they have the same sense of humor. It was pretty funny. They're both really good at the one the spot one liners! A lot of Jay's concerns have to do with him feeling judged. He went to SVU for school at a time in his life when he was mourning over the death of his mom. He said that the majority of the students at the time were all members of the church who tried to convert him, and they weren't sensitive about it. He had a few people tell him that he wasn't going to the Celestial kingdom... Man. I wish all the members of the church realized that pushing people into the church isn't missionary work. It's all about love! Thankfully, Jay made a few friends who loved him enough to support him and help him through that hard time in his life!! We started to teach him about the Plan of Salvation. Jay's understanding of his life is to live, serve and die and that's it. So to tell him that he lived in heaven with God before he came here was a whole new concept for him. It's really cool to see him put the pieces together. We started to teach him about the pre-earth life and he said, "Oh, a scripture from Jeremiah is coming to my mind about how God knew us before we went into the womb or something" I was like, "Yes!! Jeremiah 1:5!!!! You've got it!" It's exciting! :) We only got through half the lesson with him because he talks a lot. But that's okay because talking things through is how he understands them. I love it when he talks everything through because I can literally hear how the spirit is working within him. He tries so hard to talk himself into believing that what we say isn't true, but then he starts talking about how it totally makes sense! He just talks himself into knowing for himself that what we're teaching him is true!! It's the best ever!! It's evidence to me that the spirit really is the TRUE teacher. As missionaries, we just provide the environment for the spirit to take over through personal stories, scriptures, testimony and promised blessings. When the spirit is present, I know that I am doing my job!:) At the end of our lesson, we didn't even invite him to baptism before he said, "Sisters, I have been really thinking and praying a lot about this. And I can see baptism as more of a possibility for me." :D
We had a really great week, but we did not hit mission standard. We still had really great numbers this week (don't worry, each number accounted for has a person that I love backing it up!) so of course, I wasn't going to complain. Our mission has had an even bigger push for working with members right now, and we've hit the ground running. We're just trying to find the balance so we can still find new investigators to teach. I am fully aware that we need to improve, but I was so grateful for the week that we had! Sister Williams took it really hard though. This is the first week that we didn't hit at least 2/3 areas of our mission standard... Ha! I wanted to tell her that she should serve in the Potomac Mid Singles ward where it was considered a tender mercy of the Lord if we found even one person to teach!!! It's just funny how different our missions are.
Since we've been teaching Jay the Plan of Salvation, a big focus in my studies this has been about the atonement of Jesus Christ in preparation to teach him. It's truly amazing to me how we, and by we I mean people everywhere, don't realize that we need a savior until we realize that we are fallen. I am so grateful that Jesus Christ came to the earth and performed the atonement for us so that we could live again. I always knew that was true, but now it really means something to me. I love our Father's perfect Plan of Happiness and I feel so blessed that I've known about it since I can remember. I also feel really blessed for this time in my life that I've had to really break it down and seek to understand as much of it as I possibly can. I can't wait to teach the rest of the lesson to Jay because understanding the Plan of Salvation is what changes people. I know that because it's changed me and how I see myself, the people around me, God and the world!
I love you all so much! Have a wonderful week!
Oh and mom- sorry I've been a bum about sending pictures! I'll be better about that!
Love,
SIster Anderson
September 29, 2014 -What a Week
What a week!
On Sister Williams' first week here, she accidentally called someone in our phone named Ron Ryan. It was really funny. She was falling asleep and as she was nodding off, her hand bumped Ron's contact and called him! She realized what had happened, freaked out and hung up as quickly as she could! She asked me who Ron Ryan was, and I told her that I had no idea. We looked him up in the area book, and realized that he was a potential investigator that Sister Lamborn had contacted last spring. We decided to send him a message to see if we could set up an appointment. He actually got back to us!!! This week was the first time that worked out for the all us to meet up for a lesson. It was pretty cool. Ron told us that he had previously dated a girl who was Mormon and she never told him anything about it. He was curious!! (Man, that girlfriend missed out on a golden missionary opportunity. That was evidence to me of the importance of ALWAYS opening our mouths!) We had a great lesson with Ron and set up a return appointment for two weeks out... He's a busy guy with work.
We have still been meeting with Lei. Lei's friend, Nick, had just moved in to help Lei and his mom pay for rent, so we invited Nick to join us in a lesson. He willingly came out and asked a ton of questions, but he is SO incredibly closed off. It came to the point where I just stopped talking because teaching a wall would have been more effective. Sister Williams has a lot of fun trying to teach Nick because he is really analytical, just like she is. I feel bad for Nick. He has no faith. He doesn't even have a desire to believe. It's really hard for me to see how he's okay with where he's at. I know that some day he will remember my testimony and my promise to him that the Book of Mormon really does contain the answers to all of his questions.
We have an investigator named Rahfi. Rahfi is Muslim. I have never had a Muslim listen to the message of the Restored gospel before. Aparently, we were supopsed to have Rahfi meet with President Riggs' 1st or 2nd counselor right after the first lesson. But I didn't know that until after the third or fourth lesson with him!!! I felt sooo bad! But hopefully we're going to set something up this week before we teach him again. Teaching Rahfi has been cool because we have all of his lessons in a member's home. Rahfi knew one of our members from when he played on the church basketball team. And that coach so happnes to be one of the best member missionaries in the universe!!! It's soooo much better to have lessons in members homes. You should definitely offer to have missionaries and their investigators have lessons in our home!!! That's one of the number one things I'm looking forward to doing when I'm a member missionary.
We had a misison wide Sisters Conference on Friday. I sang a musical number with Sister Jorgensen, Sister Savage, and Sister Richardsen. Our accompanist, Sister Herring- who was in Women's Chorus with me at BYU, took an arrangement of I Know that My Redeemer Lives and added four part harmony to it. It was really fun. I love bearing my testimony through music. It's my favorite.
The women's broadcast was this week too!!... We missed a huge chunk of it. I was a little bummed, but I was definitly okay with it. My number one responsibility is to preach the gospel, and that's what we did. I really had to go to the bathroom, so we stopped at a gas station. There was a man there who said that he knows all the missionaries who come through to use the bathroom. Haha. (I was surprised when he said that he didn't know me...after all, I am the queen of the throne!! :) hahahahaha I have just been drinking a ton of water, okay?!!) But he said he was a non-practicing Muslim! He's the second Muslim who wanted to know more!!! My jaw dropped! He has a lot of soul searching questions. He lives in Manassas, so I can't wait to refer him to the missionaries that serve there...we walked into the broadcast right when President Uchtdorf was speaking. I'm grateful that the talks are printed in next month's Ensign!!!
GUESS WHO I SAW THIS WEEK!!!?!?!?!????!!!! My old investigator, Donna Woods!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh it was such a huge tender mercy!!!!!!! A couple of weeks ago, Donna messaged me on facebook, well she commented on my profile picture actually, but she told me that she had moved and gave me her address so that I could come over again. She's not in my area, but since my area was just up the road from where she lives, I was able to go on a mini exchange with the sisters who are serving in the area that Donna lives in so that I could introduce them to her!!! We went to her house, and I before I could reach up my hand to knock my musical knock on her door, she ripped the door open and rushed forward to give us a HUGE hug!!!! Oh my gosh, I love Donna Woods with all my heart!!! She is seriously the sweetest. It was even cooler because while I was in Centreville, the first thing I would do would be to follow up with her to see if she had read the Book of Mormon. I haven't seen her in over three months, and the very first thing she tells me is that she hasn't been reading because she's been so stressed out and busy with her move. Eventhough she didn't read, it made me happy to see that she knows that I expect her to read the Book of Mormon! :) She updated me on everything about her life as if we were life long best friends and then told us that the reason why she didn't get baptized is because she want to be a godmother to her sister's little girl. Which is the same concern that she told me when I was in Centreville. But she said that she just has to go to the Catholic church for a year to become a godmother, and then after that, she will get baptized. Oh Donna. At least she didn't completely close the door to baptism. But I know her new sister missionaries will do a good job clearing that up with her. I just know that Donna is meant to be baptized. What are the chancecs of her inviting me over when I was so close to where she now lives?? The pass off from me to her new missionaries was so smooth! Miracles DO happen!!!
Ashleigh's back on date!!!! She's the one who showed us her special spot in the woods. She's facing a TON of opposition from her family about learning about the Mormon church. We met with her just last night and had a GREAT lesson with her. We started teaching her about the Plan of Salvation, and as soon as we started and I pulled out my visual for her (She's the most visual person I've ever met), she just satrted smiling and quietly giggling. It was so funny! It was awesome to tell her that that feeling was coming directly from God through His Spirit. We didn't teach through to the end of the lesson because we taught to her needs. We got to the Atonement, and Sister Williams pulled out her iPad out of the blue and asked Ashleigh to seek God's will to choose a date for her baptism. My jaw dropped a little, but I quickly caught myself. Man, from my perspective it seemed to come out of nowhere, but it seemed okay to Ashleigh. She looked down for like 2 seconds and picked January 24th. It was so fast. We had her kneel in prayer and ask God out loud if that date was the date He intended for her to be baptized. The spirit was so strong. She was so sincere. It was the greatest feeling to be a part of that moment. I was in awe! Ashleigh Fisher is back on date. It's amazing. I think it went so well because right at the beginning before I prayed, Ashleigh said, "I'm so excited to learn!" She came with the expectation for God to teach her, and she was edified. Personally, I think that she will end up being baptized before January 24th, but we'll see how everything works out. It's all in God's hands!
I love my mission. In the past few weeks, I have been so incredibly humbled. God truly is shaping me. He's changing my perspective on life, eventhough I'm not always the most shapeable person. I'm so grateful that he's patient with me and my endless cries for help.
I love you all so much. It's funny to me that eventhough we're miles apart and I only get to catch a glimpse of your lives, I've never felt closer to my family. Weird huh? It's all God's fault! :) The gospel is designed to bring families together.
Keep reading the Book of Mormon! Or listen to it! That's one way God helps me feel closer to you guys! It's cool to be reading the same words and feeling the same spirit that you are!
Love you,
Sister Anderson
Monday, October 20, 2014
September 22, 2014
Hey there!
Where to start... Well, I have been a missionary for over a year now. And part of me is in denial! Big time! But than again, this is my life now. It's who I am!
This week was a big harder than the previous. All of our appointments fell through and I felt really bad for Sis Williams! People cancelling on us is a part of the work, but it can be discouraging! I just wanted to shelter her from that, but there was nothing I could do about it. It was also a harder week in terms of companionship unity... Don't you worry- I love her to pieces!!! But she tells me that I have the exact same personality as her mom. She also tells me that her mom is the only person she has a harder time understanding and getting along with because they both have different ways of communicating and showing love. I still haven't decided how I feel about that fact. Haha. I mean, since her mom is a Lythgoe, it makes me feel awesome that I'm like her because every Lythgoe that I've met is SO COOL. But then, as Sister W's trainer, I don't want to remind her of her mom! She's my companion! She's my equal! I have tried SOO hard from day one to not "mother" her. I mean, I do need to be bold with her to help her be obedient to all of the mission rules, but I feel like I've been extra careful to lovingly correct her once and then setting an example so that she knows what the expectations are so she can exercise her own agency. Sis W is just so incredibly independent!!!
I made my own training program with her. Because she is so independent, she doesn't like it when I train her. We have a 12 week program that touches on everything that was discussed in the MTC and a few other things that help us to fulfill our purpose as missionaries. President Riggs really stressed that we NEED to be doing the 12 week program with our trainees because it was inspired by our prophet and apostles. Since my first trainer didn't train me using the 12 week program, I made up my mind that I was going to train Sister W the right way! But it's really hard when she feels like she is exercising all of her patience to get through it! After praying about what to do, I decided that I am giving up my position as the trainer! hahahaah! Isn't that wonderful!?! I'm not training her any more because I am having her train me! It was the BEST revelation I have recieved my entire mission! Now during our training hour every day, she leads the training and the discussion and I am the "new missionary". It works so perfectly for us because when she feels like she already knows how to do something, she touches on it briefly, but when she doesn't know something, she asks questions. It's been really good to focus on the areas that she feels like she needs to focus on, rather than me just preaching to the choir while she sits there bored out of her mind!! Besides, it's been fun to be the "new missionary" again. :)
We went on companion exchanges this Thursday with the Sister Training Leaders in Gainesville. I stayed in Haymarket and Sis W went to Gainesville. While she was gone, we got a call from our number one progressing investigator, Ashleigh. She said that she has loved what she has learned so far and wants it to bless her family. She invited her dad to come to a lesson with us, but he freaked out. Ashleigh comes from an abusive, broken family, but she still loves them and wants to be happy with them! It was so sad to hear that Ashleigh's dad freaked out and said that she wasn't allowed to come to church with us any more. He told her that they were born and raised Baptist, and they weren't going to ever change. :'( That phone call broke my heart. I said a prayer with Ashleigh over the phone and she agreed to meet with us right away. We had a lesson with her and tried to help settle her concern. It was pretty cool that the only story from the Book of Mormon that kept coming to my mind was when King Lamoni and Ammon ran into King Lamoni's father, who wasn't happy with his son that he was hanging out with a Nephite. In that story, King Lamoni's father goes to kill his son, but Ammon stood up for him!!! We read that story with Ashleigh and said that we were always there for her and that we would help pray for her dad's heart to be softened. I think meeting with her dad would be really scary, but I also feel like it's going to be completely necessary if he's ever going to let Ashleigh get baptized.... I dont know what' going to happen, but God does and that's all that matters. I trust Him and I know that Ashleigh is going to make it through this trial. I know she'll get baptized! She's seen so many good things from this gospel already!!!
OH! Last night, there was a Why I Believe Fireside at the Centreville Stake Center. I got to see all of my favorite members from the Centreville 2nd ward! Sister Christiansen, Sister Walter, Sister Miller, Sister Zieger, Sister Whitaker, Brother Garfield, and a bunch of youth that I worked with all the time! I don't know why I didn't think I'd be seeing them there especially because the fireside was in THEIR chruch building, but it was SOOOO good to see them! AND I also got to see my favorite member from the Potomac Mid Singles ward- Tiffany Player!!! I just love them SO much! One of my biggest fears being a missinoary is that people will forget me! But no one did! They all remembered my name without looking at my name tag (which always means the WORLD to me) and they were so happy! They said that I needed to come back to their ward! Oh my gosh, it was such a wonderful moment in my life!!! <3 I miss Centreville 2nd ward SO much. A huge piece of my heart is in that ward!!! I hugged everyone like 50 bazillion times!!!!!!!!!!! Also, Ashleigh came to the fireside!!!! The couple speaking were two former ministers of other faiths (yes, they were married) and they got baptized into the Chruch of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints a year ago. They shared their conversion stories and it was AMAZING. Their last name is the Casto's. Ashleigh said that the night before she had a dream and their name was in it!!! She said that she knew that God wanted her to be there tonight. It was a huge turning point for her. I'm so excited to see her grow in the gospel and get the courage to talk to her dad about how much this means to her.
I can't htink of anything else to say. Lame, I know. Sis W is a rockstar missionary. I am so grateful that God made her my companion because I am learning so much from her. She is SO focussed on our purpose as missionaries and she is OWNING the ward. The members all love her and connect with her. I know we'll have tons of referrals in no time. We are still learning how to work together in unity, but it will come over time. I can't wait to see her grow!!!
This morning I studied about HOPE in Preach My Gospel in the Christlike attribute section. My favorite part is how hope helps us conquer discouragement. As I studied about hope, I realized that it's a Christlike attribute that God has already blessed me with! The others...I still have to work on and pray really hard for...but I realized I am a hopeful person! I didn't realize I was!
I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Have a great week! Keep reading the scriptures! And general conference talks-- OH MY GOODNESS I am SO excited for conference coming up! It's my new favorite holiday that happens every six months!
Love you,
Sister Anderson
September 22, 2014 - Thiriots
Hey did you see this? The Thiriots are a WONDERFUL member family in our ward. Every time they feed us, they have to get our pictures to send home. They just LOVE doing that. They are great home and visiting teachers too! Brother Thiriot home teaches Marlie Bassey, who is from Nigera, Africa, and Sister Thiriot visit teaches Margo Larson, who is in the bright green/yellow blazer. They just invited us all to dinner! It was so wonderful!! Both Sisters Bassey and Larson are converts to the church within the past two or three years and we work with them a lot to help strengthen their testimonies so that htey can be spiritually self reliant! :) It was such a great time! Also, the Thiriots are seminary teachers! They have seminary in their basement! SO COOL!
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