Happy Easter!!!!!!!!!!!! I love this season so much. This is definitely the most spiritual and testimony strengthening Easter I've ever had in my entire life!
Our investigator, Jarret came to church with us!!! We had set up ahead of time for one of our members who is a brand new returned missionary to fellowship him. His name is Mattson. He came up and sat right next to Jarret and was immediately his best friend. In that moment waiting for the meeting to start, I was just completely overcome. THIS is why Christ died for us. I was so happy about helping Jarret come closer to Christ by coming to church with us and seeing the power of the priesthood in action through the sacrament, and then to see Mattson love and welcome this complete stranger just hit me- this is Christlike love in action! This is what it's all about! Oh, and I forgot to mention, I've had this head cold all week and I completely lost my voice!!!! So I tried the best that I could to express the happiness and love I felt to SIster Udall in that moment, but since my words were literally failing me, the tears just started rolling. And they were the happiest tears in the entire universe. I spent the rest of sacrament meeting with silent tears streaming down my cheeks. I don't even care what anyone thought!! It was the greatest Easter Sunday I've ever had. The Easter bunny and egg hunts are part of the fun, but since I was separated from all of that, I got to really focus all my energy on the savior. During the meeting I had a silent testimony meeting- just between me and Heavenly Father. I know that Christ is my Savior and Redeemer. I feel it so strongly, and I wish I had words adequate enough to help every single person in the world feel the same way I do. But I know it with all my heart and I will serve him for the rest of my mortal and also my immortal existence!
We had so many miracles this week! We found SIX new investigators! That is my own personal all time record! Holy cow! I mean, hey- I'm used to getting way excited over 2! But we had 6!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I'm just over joyed and I don't know what to do with myself! We have a current total of 17 investigators that we are working with. Five weeks ago at the beginning of the transfer, Sister Udall came here and we had 3. I am so grateful for a companion who is willing to work with me in serving the Lord and his children. We see miracles because we hardly let a single person pass us by without at least telling them that God and Christ love them. I have really learned the value of hard work! And in reality, talking to people isn't really work! It's fun to tell them about the Restoration of the gospel.
Okay, I have a HUGE miracle to share this week!!!!!!!!!!!!!! So we had just finished having dinner in our apartment and we were headed out for the evening. We didn't have any solid plans for the rest of the night, but we were going to try to find more people to teach and maybe check on a few members. We were literally about to turn out of our complex, when Sister Udall (who was driving) had one of those moments where she could have stepped on the pedal and gone, but she hesitated in that moment, so we had to wait for a few more seconds in order to turn. And I have never been more grateful that she hesitated than in that very moment!!! We were waiting to turn left onto Trinity Parkway, but there was a little white car speeding along coming from our right and went into the turn lane to turn left into our apartment complex. For whatever reason, the moment that little white car came into my view, I literally couldn't take my eyes off of it. Right when it turned in front of us, I caught sight of who was driving. And then I KNEW that the spirit kept me focused on that car for a reason. Immediately I was like, "SISTER UDALL THAT WAS DONNA HOLY COW SISTER UDALL WE NEED TO TURN AROUND AND FOLLOW HER!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! AHH!" hahhaha. This is where my creeper instincts totally kicked in. And I'm sure glad they did!
So. Donna was our investigator when Sister McKee was here. She has been SO hard to get ahold of and we hadn't seen her in months, so literally two days before we had decided to "drop" her to give her a break until the time was right for her to meet with missionaries again in the future. I think part of the reason I recognized her so quickly is because the last time we had a lesson with her, I told myself that she reminded me of my cousin Alyssa! So when I saw her really quickly in passing, I saw Alyssa and I KNEW it was Donna driving. Isn't it just amazing how the spirit works sometimes?!
Okay, so Sister Udall turns the car around, and we try to drive in the direction that we saw Donna turn. I was scanning the parking lot EVERYWHERE for that little white car, and when we finally found it, we saw Donna walking up some stairs with some groceries in her hands. I was so confused. I thought, "Um, Donna doesn't live here...Did she move? Is that why she's been to busy to meet with us?" I was so confused. We didn't see the exact apartment that she went into, but we knew she was on the second floor. We drove by that building literally three times (I felt like I was with Belana when we did our fun little pranks on Ezra and Noah Anderson hahaha). We finally decided to park the car and try to find her. We were going to knock on every door in that building if we had to! We were going to find Donna!! hahah. We walked up to the second floor, and I was so nervous! I had no idea what we were going to do or say... I kinda felt like Nephi when he went back for the brass plates for the third time and he had no idea beforehand what he was going to do... so I decided to be like Nephi and just trust the Lord. We picked a door and knocked on it. And DONNA ANSWERED!!!!!!!!!!!!!! The VERY first door that we knock. Go figure. I'm sure God has fun watching my reactions to his master plans. Since I didn't want Donna to know that we had pretty much followed and creeped on her, I just kinda smiled at first. I opened my mouth to speak and the first thing that came out was, "Donna?!?!?!"
THE LOOK ON HER FACE WAS PRICELESS. I wish I had taken a picture it was so great. She was stunned. A man from inside called out, "Donna who is it?" And she motioned for us to come inside and she replied, "It's my sisters from the Mormon temple!" haha. We introduced ourselves and met the man, who's name is Chris.
So backstory. Donnas' neighbor, Kami, is in her 20's and has a 5 year old son named Oliver. Kami is pretty irresponsible and doesn't take care of her kid, so Donna does. Donna isn't related at all. Anyway. So Donna drops Oliver off at his Grandpa Chris's house for the weekends. She's told us about Olley's grandpa before, but she didn't tell us where he lived. Which she never had any reason to before. haha
Well, Donna was visiting Chris (I think they might be dating or something) and Oliver was there. Chris's 14 year old daughter, Kendall was there too. Chris and Kendall were literally talking about Mormons not even two days before. We talked with them and answered their crazy Mormon questions and taught the restoration. They said that we were welcome to come back at any time! Such a crazy miracle. At the end Kendall was really interested and asking a ton of questions about prophets and how everything works. She said she wanted to come to church with us after eater was over. And then Donna was like, "Kendall, I'll take you! That way you won't be alone!" All I could do was smile! We had been trying to get Donna to come to church with us for MONTHS. And she always had some excuse! But now she has someone to go with!!!!!!!!!!!! Oh my gosh it was the best thing in the world.
Man. Miracle after miracle this week. I'm just amazed. This is already a really long email, so just know that I have really great stories to share when I get home from my mission. And don't worry- I've written all of them down in my journal so I will NEVER forget! :)
I love you all! I hope you had a great easter and that you felt the love of our savior.
Have a great week!
Love
Love
Sister Anderson
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