We received this email on Monday. Sounds like she's doing great. Looking forward to tomorrow!
This has been a crazy week. I feel like so much has happened, but there's no way I'll be able to get it all into one email. So I'll just tell you the highlights. :)
Monday night we had scheduled time to go street contacting. But Sister McKenna and I both agreed that that wasn't where we needed to be. We needed to be in someones home. But we didn't know who. We prayed really hard to know where to be. After our prayer, we sat and listened to let the spirit guide us. I just looked around outside and noticed the sunset. It made the entire sky a burnt orange color. For some reason, the burnt orange made me think of the Revolutionary war. I don't know why...maybe it's because the whole "bombs bursting in air" thing. But then that lead me to think of one of our investigators, Rande. We had just visited her the night before and had invited her to come to Family Home Evening. It was about 7:30 at the time, so we weren't sure if she would have gone or to the activity or not. We waited for her at the church, but didn't see her. We waited a few minutes for her to show up, but I still felt like we needed to go out to her house. We drove out there, and sure enough, she was home! We just checked in on her to see how she was doing. Honestly, I have no idea why I felt prompted to go to her house, but that was one of the first times that I felt really prompted to go visit someone! So that was a pretty cool experience for me.
Tuesday a miracle happened. We were on King St contacting with not much luck. We were headed back to the car when Sister McKenna suddenly decided that we should cross the street. We stopped a lady who was walking toward us and started to talk to her about the gospel. Her name is Leah. Like Princess Leah from Star Wars. :) Turns out she had been looking for a religion after six years of being a non practicing Catholic. She researched mormon.org on her own just two days before!!!! Oh man I do not believe in coincidences! We taught her the restoration and made a return appointment for the next night. I'm so glad God let me be a part of that miracle. I love being in the right place at the right time!
Wednesday night we had our lesson with Leah. She had a TON of questions, and we did our best to answer them. I just love being a missionary! The spirit brought so many scriptures to my memory that I hadn't read in months! It's amazing. Leah is totally going to get baptized I just know it! But as it turns out, we have to pass her to another set of missionaries because she isn't in our ward. Bummer!
Thursday was the hardest day for me on the mission. We spent a lot of time street contacting because we didn't have any appointments or lessons all day. It's so hard to be rejected so many times! But we kept stopping people and trying to talk to them. The hard part for me is when they say they're not interested in what we have to say. They don't even KNOW what we have to say! If they just knew the importance of our message, they would soak it up like a sponge! Oh well. We all have our agency....The funniest part of the day though... Oh boy. Some people are SO weird. I've been trying to be more bold with street contacting, and asking them a question right off the bat so I can spend more time teaching rather than introducing who I am. We walked toward a man dressed in all black and had a crazy look in his eyes. I stopped and asked, "Hey what do you know about the Book of Mormon?" He replied, "not much." Looking for a way to teach him about it so that it would make sense I asked, "Well have you read the Bible?" He said, "Nope!" I didn't really know where to go so I asked, "Do you believe in Jesus Christ?!" He said, "Nope. I don't know if you want to know what I believe in. It might scare you girls." So not really thinking I said, "Try me!!" He looked back and forth a few times between me and my companion and blurted, "I believe in the DEVIL!!!" And then he turned around and walked away laughing like a mad man. I couldn't believe that conversation was real!!!!! HAHAHAH! It felt like that whole moment was a scene from some old cheesy movie! I laughed for about 10 minutes!!! Oh my goodness. Some people are so weird out here.
Friday it rained. I thought I knew what a rainy day felt like until I came out to Virginia. It poured. I felt like I was taking a shower in my clothes. We were contacting on King St again and it was as though the clouds just dumped all the water they were carrying. And again, I felt like I was in a movie! Haha. It was a lot of fun.
Saturday we had a lesson with George. He really loves the Bible and is afraid that we're trying to replace it with the Book of Mormon. We started talking to him about how Christ visited the Nephites in the Americas. My companion started telling him about how in the Bible it talks about how Christ has other sheep and there shall be one fold and one Sheppard. Immediately, the scripture mastery song that I learned from my freshman year of seminary popped into my head!!! It was perfect timing too because George asked to see where the scripture was! And I was able to tell him! I've been preparing to teach George my whole life and I didn't even realize it!!!!! :) It was awesome. We just continued to show him how the Bible and the Book of Mormon testify of each other. I think it helped him. :) Pray for George! He's so close to gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon!!!!
Sunday we stopped in at our ward's fireside because we were expecting an investigator to show up. (She didn't show by the way :( ) But remember that song that we sang in ward choir called "My Kindness Shall Not Depart From Thee"? Well, the composer was the speaker! Pretty cool. They sang that song at the very end. I think Heavenly Father is trying to tell me something through that song because ever since I've been set apart as a missionary, I've heard it a bazillion times! It's a great song. Also. Sunday we had another appointment that fell through. The night before we contacted into a man named Jimmy and set up a return appointment to meet at the church building for a real lesson. He didn't show up. When we tried to call him, an Asian lady picked up. He gave us the wrong number! That sneaky man got our hopes up!
Yesterday we went to the Iwo Jima Memorial for Pday. It's HUGE! I'm assuming the government is still shut down because we couldn't get into the Arlington Cemetery....
Those are the highlights! I still love being a missionary though. This week was a little harder in the fact that my testimony is being tested. I am asking questions that I've never had to ask before. I can't remember who said it at conference a few weeks ago, but I love the quote, "doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith." It's so true. I am relying on the Lord all the time these days, and I know that he's carrying me BIG TIME.
My apartment is old. Haha. It's kinda gross, but it's a place to live so I can't complain. The walls everywhere are a sickly green color and the lighting gives me a headache. There's a gym though! So we go down and use it for our exercise period every morning and that's nice. We have personal study for an hour, comp study for two, lunch, and then we're out and about! We try to go contacting during the day and save our appointments for the evenings because I don't feel comfortable being out and about on the streets in the dark. That's creepy. Haha. I use my umbrella as a weapon...Sister McKenna must think I'm super paranoid or something. But hey! Better safe than sorry! I don't have my pepper spray with me!! Sister McKenna is 21 and she's from Idaho/Utah. Her family has moved around back and forth. She has three sisters and two step brothers. I think. Haha. She's right in the middle. She is AWESOME. She is the best trainer I could have asked for. She's been out for three months now, but to me it seems like she's been out for at least nine. I have about an hour an a half to email on Pdays. The library was closed yesterday because of Columbus day so I'm emailing today. :)
I think I answered all your questions! Haha.
So like I said earlier about street contacting, it's hard when you are rejected over and over again. And the longer we contact, the less bold I get. But I was reading in 2 Ne 1 (GREAT chapter by the way.) I really dissected it and it's helped me. In verse 26 Lehi is talking to Laman and Lemuel about how Nephi used sharpness and was bold with them. I really like the word SHARP because of the imagery. I think of a knife. A sharp knife will cut your skin a lot cleaner and easier. And a clean cut heals a lot faster. A dull knife isn't nearly as effective and leaves a jagged cut that will take a longer to heal. I need to be straight and to the point and be BOLD! Also in verse 15 it talks about being encircled in the arms of His love. And I thought of Gpa K and the hugging bear song! I'm sure Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are the best at giving bear hugs! :)
I love you all!!! You're in my prayers. God is good!
Love,
Sister Anderson
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