I know, I am posting the DAY I received this! Don't fall over or anything! Might not happen for a long time. I'll try to get her pics up later. I just really liked todays letter and thought someone out there might like it too! Enjoy!
Hey! This week was AWESOME.
We had 7 ideal lessons this week, meaning that we had 7 lessons with investigators in a member's home. I LOVE ideal lessons. The more we have, the more resolved I am to never teach an investigator outside of a member's home. The spirit is just so strong and the investigators seem to get a LOT more out of the lessons.
Last Monday was fun. Sister W and I went on a little comp date to Café Rio! :) YUMMM. We also tried to do a cool missionary photo shoot since the leaves outside are really pretty..and it turned out ok I think. I'll be sure to send all the pictures!
Tuesday we had a general authority come! His name is Elder Kopishke...or something. I don't know how to spell it, but he's from Germany. He taught us about the faith. He showed us the "faith cycle" and how faith is a principle of action and power. A lot of the time, we only say we have faith and then expect the power part of the equation to take place in the form of a miracle. But we forget that the miracle of faith comes through the action and out through the power! I made a visual and took a picture of it, so I'll send that to you too. It's pretty cool. Elder Kopishke said something I thought was funny, but it's true! He said, "I have the faith to move mountains! Just give me a pick and an ax and I'll get started!" We have to do our part. He also defined it in a way that really made sense to me. Faith is the attitude I have about the things that I can control. It was awesome. Do what you can, and then let God do His part. We may or may not see God's part of the faith cycle, but so long as we continually do our part, He will never let us down!! It was a really cool conference.
After the conference, we had an ideal lesson with Jay. There were two girls ages 8 and 10 who were running around like crazy!!! We tried to teach Jay, but he was really distracted. A few minutes into the lesson, I had an idea to have the girls help me out! I made a visual for every lesson I teach that I carry around with me everywehre, so I was prepared! I pulled it out and had the girls help us teach the lesson. I figured it wouldn't hurt, especially since Christ himself always says to not deny the little children and to let them come unto Him. It turned out really well. As we were leaving at the end of the night, Jay felt that he felt a sense of serenity in that home. It was powerful! I love teaching with little children!
The next day, we saw Rahfi. He's been hard to get ahold of for lessons. But we knew that he was studying for the ASVAP because he wants to go into the air force so instead of trying to get ahold of him for a lesson, we texted him to see if we could help him study! Ever since that text, he's been a lot more willing to meet with us for lessons. The part that he's really struggling with is the math section...and I love math! I've had to remind myself how to do a lot of it, but it's been fun to be a math tutor for a little bit!!
Friday was Halloween!!! They didn't want us out on the streets, so we got special permission to watch Despicable Me 2 and Frozen. The Centreville stake president, President Deon invited my entire zone of about 20 missionaries to come over to watch th emovies. It was so nice of them!! I had so much fun! I have to say, Frozen is my new favorite movie!!!!!!!!!! And since I'm a missionary, I connected it to missionary work every five seconds... it was perfect that a big theme of the movie was about having doors closed in your face! hahahaha!
Saturday we had another ideal lesson with Jay at the Grimes house. I LOVE THE GRIMES. They're the family with all the three cute little girls that I just love so much. Well, we went over there at 8 after the Grimes put their girls to bed and we had a lesson with Jay. Jay loves to talk. But he needs to talk so he can work out his concerns. It's really hard to pay attention sometimes when he goes on particularly long tangents about his experiences at SVU and members of the church that weren't very kind to him, especially when it's almost time for missionaries to turn into pumpkins. I was exhausted!!! I was so grateful for the Grimes- who helped teach a lot of the lesson. Jay really connected with them and asked if Brother Grimes would baptize him on the 22nd. Pretty cool. Jay is coming right along!!! We wanted to teach him about some of the commandments from lesson 4, but the spirit lead the lesson and somehow we ended up talking about the Great Apostasy. A lot of Jay's concerns result from the fact that he just doesn't understand what the Great Apostasy IS. So we cleared everything up and told him that he main part of the apostasy that he needs to understand is the fact that the priesthood authority was taken off of the earth. I can't wait for him to get a testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith because that will help him understand it so much better!!!
Church was awesome! Ashleigh told her boss taht she had to come into work later so taht she could come to church!! :) So she was there for testimony meeting. Sis W started the meeting off with an awesome testimony about the prophet Joseph Smith. I didn't feel like I needed to go up this month, but right at the very end of the meeting Sis W leaned over and said, "This might be the only time Ashleigh will see you get up and bear your testimony." I realized she's right, The next transfers are the 20th of this month, and I know taht I most likely won't be here for the next testimony meeting. Also, Ashleigh leaned to me and asked me to go.... How could I not get up there?! So after being guilted into it, right as the bishop was starting to stand up at the very end of the meeting, I jumped up and ran to the pulpit. It must have been a really funny sight. How many sister missionaries ahve you seen RUN up there at the very last humanly possible second? Ha. Oh well, I dind't care. I bore a quick testimony and just stared right at Ashleigh the entire time. She looked back at me with a huge grin on her face. After sacrament meeting she told me taht she thinks she'd be too shy to get up there any time soon, but she wanted to know what she would say if she ever did get up there. She told me she was going home to write down her testimony!! I love Ashleigh!!! I think we're going to be good friends for a long time.
MAN. We are keeping busy! We're having a ton of success! On top of all these ideal lessons with our investigators, we've been meeting with members, less actives and still finding new people to teach! I've never been so tired at the end of the day in my entire life! It's the greatest feeling ever.
I love you all so much! I hope you had a great Halloween and that you ate extra chilli for me! Speaking of which, I did not have chilli on Halloween. :( I had pizza... but I did have LOTS of chilli at the ward trunk or treat last weekend!!
God is good! Don't ever forget it!
Love you!
Sister Anderson
