Dear Sisters & Elders,
Please shoot a quick email home ASAP letting your parents know the following:
1) The storm is not going to affect our mission much;
2) The Independence Day celebrations are continuing as scheduled;
3) You are safe and there is no need to worry.
News reports on Hurricane Arthur have some parents worried. A quick email home will alleviate fears.
Love you!
President Riggs
Julie email this to us on the 4th of July at the request of her Mission President. You know the really funny and cool thing is that since Julie has been out on her mission, I have NOT worried about her. I feel that she is safe in the Lord's hands and that she will be protected. It is a strange thing, but I just know she is ok.
Monday, July 7, 2014
June 30, 2014 - Obedience is the Key
I learned a lot this week. It was hard to learn in the moment, but I'm
really grateful for it.
It all started on Thursday when I went on companion exchanges with our
Sister Training Leaders. Sister Lamborn went to the Gainesville ward
for 24 hours with Sister Smith and Sister Lindmeir came to Haymarket
with me! It was a great exchange. In the past, I have not had good
experiences on exchanges for various reasons. But Sister Lindmeir is
great. She was my roommate when I served in the Potomac Mid Singles
ward!!! She is going home in three weeks and it's really weird. She's
a really good missionary. She's really obedient and always keeps busy.
I followed her example a lot when I was a brand new missionary and
didn't know what I was doing. So it's pretty cool that she's my leader
now. She gave me lots of great ideas of ways I could improve and
better the Haymarket ward, of which I am very grateful! I love
improvement! I love it when people tell me ways that I need to change.
While we were on the exchange, we met with Bishop Gardener. Okay. He
is the BEST Bishop I have ever served with! He's retired and loves to
golf all the time. He is always really pleased with the efforts that
we put forth and it feels really good that he cares about the
work we're doing. Half of the ward is inactive so we spend a lot of
time meeting them and reporting back to him. Yes, literally half of
the ward is less active. We have a TON of work to do here!!!!
One thing that I've learned is how fragile our testimonies really are.
The small and simple things like reading our scriptures, praying every
morning and night and praying throughout the day and going to church
completely necessary to our salvation and enduring to the end. They
seem so easy and it's really easy to justify not doing them because we
might be too tired or busy, but the moment that we decide that they
aren't as important as sleep, work, school, sports, play time,
whatever it might be, we are toast! They're commandments for a reason-
not because it does anything for God, but because it helps US. All the
less active or inactive members of the church have their various
reasons or excuses for not actively participating in the church, but
without fail, every time it comes back to their decision to not study
their scriptures or pray daily. Honestly, that terrifies me. Before my
mission, I did not study every day. I don't want to get into a huge
confession, but until this time of my life, I didn't realize that I
was allowing myself to have a "less active" mentality. We meet lots of
men and women who served faithful missions who are now less active,
and that scares me even more. I have committed myself right NOW to set
those three things as a priority in my life- for the rest of my life.
No matter how crazy life becomes. God is my priority, and I never want
to forget that.
After our companion exchanges, we switched back and went home to do
our weekly planning. We started with a prayer, and out of nowhere, I
gave myself an anxiety attack. I still don't understand why and I was
frustrated with myself. Another thing I've learned is that even when I
don't understand my thoughts or emotions, there's one person who does.
And He loves me no matter what. I'm so grateful for that, and I'm
learning how to be patient with myself. :) Although, I realized that I
felt that way because I wasn't taking very good care of myself.
Anyway. Sister Lamborn is a great companion! She pulled out her
missionary stress management booklet and made me take the test. Then
we spent the next little while going over the tips and suggestions in
the booklet that would help me. We set goals together for the
transfer. Some of those goals that we set are to wake up every morning
at 6 to go on a run, keep a gratitude journal, drink lots of water,
find a strength in every weakness, and a few others that I can't
remember...
I LOVE SISTER LAMBORN!!!!! The moment we were put together as
companions, we were best friends. It was amazing. We were talking and
telling stories and laughing together. For the first week that we were
together, we would go to bed at 10:30 and then lay in bed and pillow
talk until we fell asleep. haha! It already feels like we have been
through so much together. We're on the same page- we're both committed
to talk to everyone and we help each other with our weaknesses.
Saturday was an interesting day. I started the day off by studying out
of the April 2014 conference Ensign. I read "Be Strong and of a Good
Courage" from the priesthood session by President Monson. Usually I
read a conference talk for about 30 minutes of my personal study time
and then move on to Preach My Gospel or the Book of Mormon. But this
time, I felt like I needed to take the entire time focusing on this
talk. It's all about being courageous and taking a stand by living
what you believe. I really felt the spirit and learned a lot. When I
read it that morning, little did I know that I would be applying all
the principles of courage throughout my day.
We started our day going to a service project. The Gainesville sisters
had gone contacting in a neighborhood and found a woman who needed
help moving and cleaning her house before Sunday. They found out she
was moving into the Haymarket ward boundaries, so they invited us to
come along so that we could meet her and possibly teach her once we
helped her settle into her new home. Sister Lamborn and I had a few
things come up, so we showed up an hour late. When we got there,
Sisters Smith and Lindmeir were the only ones home (i don't know why)
and had been cleaning for an hour. I remembered a rule that
missionaries aren't allowed to be in someone's home alone, and I
wouldn't go inside. I stood on the porch and told the other sisters
that we needed to leave. Sister Lindmeir remembered that that really
was a rule so they called the woman who lived there to apologize and
reschedule.
Since we were already in our service clothes, we decided to call the
Relief Society president to see if there was anyone in the ward that
needed our help. There was! She told us to go to a less active single
woman's home to help her clean her house to get ready to move. We show
up, and the moment this woman, Sister Taylor, sees us, she starts
bawling. She was so grateful! I knew that God needed us to be there
for her. We showed up around 1:30 and she said that the elders had
just texted her and would be over around 2. I thought to myself, "I
really hope they bring a man with them so they will be obedient." But
they didn't. It really really really hurts my heart to see disobedient
elders. I think it's because my friends- Spencer, David, Jacob, Ben,
Tanner, everyone else on a mission right now- set the standard in my
mind of how elders are. I know my friends, and I KNOW that they are
obedient missionaries. I guess I just assumed all elders were like
them. But in that moment I was disappointed. They also did not stay
within sight and sound of each other. Don't get me wrong, I still
think the elders we work with are great!!!! But I was sad that they
decided to compromise because it was easier that way. There was a
window of opportunity where I should have piped up and said, "Hey
elders! which ward missionary did you invite to come help out?" but I
hesitated and missed it. I felt bad that I didn't do all that I could
to help them be obedient.
There was another moment while we were helping Sister Taylor clean her
house where she turned on her music. And it was pretty wordly music.
Not bad, but not the kind of music missionaries aren't allowed to
listen to. I think all four of us missionaries were waiting for
someone else to speak up about it. After a few minutes, I spoke up
asked if we could bring in Sister Lamborn's iPad and Sister Taylor was
totally fine with that!! It was just a weird situation. We felt like
we really needed to be there to help this sister clean her house, and
we were being obedient, but it was uncomfortable because the elders
didn't choose to be exactly obedient. UGH. For some reason I really
took it upon myself that I needed to help them be obedient.
I talked to our Sister Training Leaders about it. I had to relearn
that everyone has their own agency and sometimes there's only so much
we can do. Sister Smith committed me to study a talk from this month's
Ensign called "Becoming Perfect in Christ". I read it this morning.
It's my FAVORITE talk. It's so good. Before I read it this morning, I
realized that I have perfectionist tendencies. I always thought I
wasn't a perfectionist... haha. I learned that perfectionists are
impatient people who have unrealistic expectations. Please please
please please read that talk. I know I've already given you a lot to
read from this email alone, but it is such a good talk about how we
have righteous desires to be sooo good that we sometimes take those
desires to an unrighteous level by putting ourselves down when we fail
to live up to our expectations. I think everyone should read it!!! :)
Anyway. Something that's been bothering me is how I'm half way done
with my mission and haven't helped a single person come unto christ
through baptism. I just get down on myself because all my friends are
serving in countries and places in the world where the church is
rapidly growing and I'm in a place where everyone's already saved
because they have Christ, or they don't care about it, or they already
think they know everything we have to tell them. BUT everything that
I've learned this week and through the talks I've read has really
helped me. Everyone has their agency, I can't control everything, the
only way I'm going to be perfect is after I'm resurrected, it's more
important to worry about being perfect through Christ, my personal
happiness comes from gratitude, courage is standing up for every
commandment and silly missionary rule even when other good
missionaries don't, and baptisms don't define my success. Obedience
defines my success. My commitment to serve defines my success. I know
I can always improve, but after this week, I feel
successful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel successful because I understand the
atonement of Jesus Christ a little more, and I'm so grateful that I
do.
Thanks for sending me that quote from Mike Bates' farewell talk.
Obedience brings blessings.
Exact obedience brings miracles..... even if the miracle is a mighty
change in your own heart.
Have a great week! I love you all so much!
Love,
Sister Anderson
really grateful for it.
It all started on Thursday when I went on companion exchanges with our
Sister Training Leaders. Sister Lamborn went to the Gainesville ward
for 24 hours with Sister Smith and Sister Lindmeir came to Haymarket
with me! It was a great exchange. In the past, I have not had good
experiences on exchanges for various reasons. But Sister Lindmeir is
great. She was my roommate when I served in the Potomac Mid Singles
ward!!! She is going home in three weeks and it's really weird. She's
a really good missionary. She's really obedient and always keeps busy.
I followed her example a lot when I was a brand new missionary and
didn't know what I was doing. So it's pretty cool that she's my leader
now. She gave me lots of great ideas of ways I could improve and
better the Haymarket ward, of which I am very grateful! I love
improvement! I love it when people tell me ways that I need to change.
While we were on the exchange, we met with Bishop Gardener. Okay. He
is the BEST Bishop I have ever served with! He's retired and loves to
golf all the time. He is always really pleased with the efforts that
we put forth and it feels really good that he cares about the
work we're doing. Half of the ward is inactive so we spend a lot of
time meeting them and reporting back to him. Yes, literally half of
the ward is less active. We have a TON of work to do here!!!!
One thing that I've learned is how fragile our testimonies really are.
The small and simple things like reading our scriptures, praying every
morning and night and praying throughout the day and going to church
completely necessary to our salvation and enduring to the end. They
seem so easy and it's really easy to justify not doing them because we
might be too tired or busy, but the moment that we decide that they
aren't as important as sleep, work, school, sports, play time,
whatever it might be, we are toast! They're commandments for a reason-
not because it does anything for God, but because it helps US. All the
less active or inactive members of the church have their various
reasons or excuses for not actively participating in the church, but
without fail, every time it comes back to their decision to not study
their scriptures or pray daily. Honestly, that terrifies me. Before my
mission, I did not study every day. I don't want to get into a huge
confession, but until this time of my life, I didn't realize that I
was allowing myself to have a "less active" mentality. We meet lots of
men and women who served faithful missions who are now less active,
and that scares me even more. I have committed myself right NOW to set
those three things as a priority in my life- for the rest of my life.
No matter how crazy life becomes. God is my priority, and I never want
to forget that.
After our companion exchanges, we switched back and went home to do
our weekly planning. We started with a prayer, and out of nowhere, I
gave myself an anxiety attack. I still don't understand why and I was
frustrated with myself. Another thing I've learned is that even when I
don't understand my thoughts or emotions, there's one person who does.
And He loves me no matter what. I'm so grateful for that, and I'm
learning how to be patient with myself. :) Although, I realized that I
felt that way because I wasn't taking very good care of myself.
Anyway. Sister Lamborn is a great companion! She pulled out her
missionary stress management booklet and made me take the test. Then
we spent the next little while going over the tips and suggestions in
the booklet that would help me. We set goals together for the
transfer. Some of those goals that we set are to wake up every morning
at 6 to go on a run, keep a gratitude journal, drink lots of water,
find a strength in every weakness, and a few others that I can't
remember...
I LOVE SISTER LAMBORN!!!!! The moment we were put together as
companions, we were best friends. It was amazing. We were talking and
telling stories and laughing together. For the first week that we were
together, we would go to bed at 10:30 and then lay in bed and pillow
talk until we fell asleep. haha! It already feels like we have been
through so much together. We're on the same page- we're both committed
to talk to everyone and we help each other with our weaknesses.
Saturday was an interesting day. I started the day off by studying out
of the April 2014 conference Ensign. I read "Be Strong and of a Good
Courage" from the priesthood session by President Monson. Usually I
read a conference talk for about 30 minutes of my personal study time
and then move on to Preach My Gospel or the Book of Mormon. But this
time, I felt like I needed to take the entire time focusing on this
talk. It's all about being courageous and taking a stand by living
what you believe. I really felt the spirit and learned a lot. When I
read it that morning, little did I know that I would be applying all
the principles of courage throughout my day.
We started our day going to a service project. The Gainesville sisters
had gone contacting in a neighborhood and found a woman who needed
help moving and cleaning her house before Sunday. They found out she
was moving into the Haymarket ward boundaries, so they invited us to
come along so that we could meet her and possibly teach her once we
helped her settle into her new home. Sister Lamborn and I had a few
things come up, so we showed up an hour late. When we got there,
Sisters Smith and Lindmeir were the only ones home (i don't know why)
and had been cleaning for an hour. I remembered a rule that
missionaries aren't allowed to be in someone's home alone, and I
wouldn't go inside. I stood on the porch and told the other sisters
that we needed to leave. Sister Lindmeir remembered that that really
was a rule so they called the woman who lived there to apologize and
reschedule.
Since we were already in our service clothes, we decided to call the
Relief Society president to see if there was anyone in the ward that
needed our help. There was! She told us to go to a less active single
woman's home to help her clean her house to get ready to move. We show
up, and the moment this woman, Sister Taylor, sees us, she starts
bawling. She was so grateful! I knew that God needed us to be there
for her. We showed up around 1:30 and she said that the elders had
just texted her and would be over around 2. I thought to myself, "I
really hope they bring a man with them so they will be obedient." But
they didn't. It really really really hurts my heart to see disobedient
elders. I think it's because my friends- Spencer, David, Jacob, Ben,
Tanner, everyone else on a mission right now- set the standard in my
mind of how elders are. I know my friends, and I KNOW that they are
obedient missionaries. I guess I just assumed all elders were like
them. But in that moment I was disappointed. They also did not stay
within sight and sound of each other. Don't get me wrong, I still
think the elders we work with are great!!!! But I was sad that they
decided to compromise because it was easier that way. There was a
window of opportunity where I should have piped up and said, "Hey
elders! which ward missionary did you invite to come help out?" but I
hesitated and missed it. I felt bad that I didn't do all that I could
to help them be obedient.
There was another moment while we were helping Sister Taylor clean her
house where she turned on her music. And it was pretty wordly music.
Not bad, but not the kind of music missionaries aren't allowed to
listen to. I think all four of us missionaries were waiting for
someone else to speak up about it. After a few minutes, I spoke up
asked if we could bring in Sister Lamborn's iPad and Sister Taylor was
totally fine with that!! It was just a weird situation. We felt like
we really needed to be there to help this sister clean her house, and
we were being obedient, but it was uncomfortable because the elders
didn't choose to be exactly obedient. UGH. For some reason I really
took it upon myself that I needed to help them be obedient.
I talked to our Sister Training Leaders about it. I had to relearn
that everyone has their own agency and sometimes there's only so much
we can do. Sister Smith committed me to study a talk from this month's
Ensign called "Becoming Perfect in Christ". I read it this morning.
It's my FAVORITE talk. It's so good. Before I read it this morning, I
realized that I have perfectionist tendencies. I always thought I
wasn't a perfectionist... haha. I learned that perfectionists are
impatient people who have unrealistic expectations. Please please
please please read that talk. I know I've already given you a lot to
read from this email alone, but it is such a good talk about how we
have righteous desires to be sooo good that we sometimes take those
desires to an unrighteous level by putting ourselves down when we fail
to live up to our expectations. I think everyone should read it!!! :)
Anyway. Something that's been bothering me is how I'm half way done
with my mission and haven't helped a single person come unto christ
through baptism. I just get down on myself because all my friends are
serving in countries and places in the world where the church is
rapidly growing and I'm in a place where everyone's already saved
because they have Christ, or they don't care about it, or they already
think they know everything we have to tell them. BUT everything that
I've learned this week and through the talks I've read has really
helped me. Everyone has their agency, I can't control everything, the
only way I'm going to be perfect is after I'm resurrected, it's more
important to worry about being perfect through Christ, my personal
happiness comes from gratitude, courage is standing up for every
commandment and silly missionary rule even when other good
missionaries don't, and baptisms don't define my success. Obedience
defines my success. My commitment to serve defines my success. I know
I can always improve, but after this week, I feel
successful!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I feel successful because I understand the
atonement of Jesus Christ a little more, and I'm so grateful that I
do.
Thanks for sending me that quote from Mike Bates' farewell talk.
Obedience brings blessings.
Exact obedience brings miracles..... even if the miracle is a mighty
change in your own heart.
Have a great week! I love you all so much!
Love,
Sister Anderson
Sunday, July 6, 2014
June 25, 2014
OK - this came on a Wednesday! I was a little worried about her, but figured that she was doing something.......AND she WAS!
Hi!
Sorry I didn't get to email yesterday. We were asked last minute to
help a lady in the ward unpack her home- she is 9 months pregnant with
three kids under 4 and just moved to Haymarket area from Thailand and
she needed our help. We decided it was best to sacrifice our
Preparation Day to help her out. We planned on helping for 1-2 hours,
but her shipment didn't come in when she was expecting it, so we were
there for four hours! Man! We got a lot of work done though! She's
almost all moved in! :)
This week was one of the crazier weeks of my mission. There were
plenty of fun stories. I'll try to remember the good ones- the rest
are written down in my journal to share for later :) Our car was in
the shop from Tuesday to Saturday so we couldn't drive anywhere. We
had a set of elders that serve in the Haymarket ward with us, and they
were kind enough to let us use their car when we had appointments that
were super far away, but we didn't want to leave them carless so we
decided to walk everywhere. Wednesday and Thursday we didn't have any
appointments, so we walked all over the planet. It made me really
grateful that I was not a Mormon pioneer trekking to Utah. It was
really great to be outside though!!!! We talked to SO many people! It
was the greatest. We talked to every single person in our path and
didn't let a single one pass us by. I even stopped a guy who was
talking on his phone and he said we could come over in a few weeks
when he gets home from vacation! That's been the bulk of our week.
When I got here, we decided to clear out our investigator pool because
none of them were progressing. We have put a TON of time into finding
people to teach.
So here are some stories for you!
-The night that the Elders let us borrow their car, we lost their
keys. They had the car key on a carabineer (sp haha) with their set of
house keys and mail keys. We came in for the night and parked the car.
We handed them the carabineer with the car key on it and thanked them
for being kind enough to help us out. They were like....uhhh where are
the rest of our keys?.... so we went back outside and looked
EVERYWHERE for them!! We spent a good 20 minutes outside looking- we
even crawled around on the grass looking. No luck. It was actually
really funny- I thought the whole night was hilarious, and Sister
Lamborn was freaking out. She felt SO bad that we had lost the Elder's
keys. She thought it was all her fault. Silly sister. You know me, all
I could do was laugh. I called the Elders and apologize and they said it
was fine and that they wanted to come out and look. They walked to
where the car was parked, looked around for two minutes and found the
keys. I wanted to die of embarrassment. Leave it to the two crazy
Sister Missionaries to lose the keys and struggle finding them. Oh
well. I hope we gave the Elders a good laugh.
-We were outside checking on some people that had said we could come
back later with not much luck. We were about to head in for the night
when we pass by some people a ways off who were sitting in lawn chairs
and smoking together. There was a man and a woman and I knew I needed
to go out of my way to talk to them, no matter how awkward it was
going to be. So I did and started talking to them. I asked them if
they had ever seen missionaries before and the man said, "Why yes I
have. In fact, I have a Book of Mormon in my apartment." my natural
response was excitement. So I said, "No way! How great! Have you read
it?!?!!?!?!?!!!" He looked at me for a few seconds and asked in all
seriousness, "Are you high right now?"
Hahahhahahhahahahhahahahahahha
together. I told him that of course I was NOT high, but I was just
really excited because I love the Book of Mormon and I know that it is
true! He wasn't too interested in us coming back, but as soon as we
walked away and got into the car, I DIED laughing. It was so great.
-We found a new investigator! Again, he was out of our way and it
could have looked like we were creepers by talking to him, but it was
a miracle! He was playing basketball at the neighborhood court we were
walking by. He had his headphones in and was shooting hoops all by
himself. I figured it wouldn't hurt anything by at least giving him a
card, and he put away his basketball and went and sat down on the park
bench to listen to us. We taught him the whole restoration right on the spot! Miracle!!!! His name is Nolberto! He's so great. He is 19 and
his dad has cancer for the second time :( but he loves talking about
Jesus Christ, and he was interested in everything we had to say!
-We found another 19 year old guy to teach from Egypt named Bishoy. He
was kicked out of his house at age 15... poor guy. Anyway. We went out
of our way to talk to him (I'm seeing a pattern here...I need to go
out of my way ALL the time!!) he was leaning up against his car
smoking and we started talking to him. He is Coptic Christian. We gave
him a Book of Mormon and made a return appointment with him!!! :D
-We met some born again Christians. They let us in and started
quizzing us on our knowledge of the bible. I didn't want to answer all
of their questions because I didn't want to feed the fire. I kept all
my answers inside. I did NOT like it. As we walked away, I could feel
my body relaxing. I didn't realize that I was literally shaking the
whole time we were talking to them. It was bad. They want us to come
back so they can talk at us some more. :( It makes me so sad that some
people find so much "joy" in proving us wrong. The worst part was that
the lady we were talking to was arguing in such a sick sweet voice
with a fake smile and hard eyes...I would have definitely preferred it
if she had screamed at us and kicked us out. That would have been SO
much better!
-We also got to knock down a wall! We did service for an inactive
member and his nonmember wife -on Saturday. It was sweet. They are
redoing a wall in their kitchen and we got to tear down the drywall. I
have before and after pictures. :) It was so fun. Then we got to go
and build bee boxes because they have their own little farm and are
raising bees for honey. We built the actual boxes the bees will live
in, and we also built the sheets where they will build their honeycomb
off of.
-In the Haymarket ward, there is a family that has three foster kids.
The dad of the family is one of the bishopric counselors, so he can't
help his wife out when his kids get rowdy during sacrament meeting.
There are a few people who sit with the family to help them out, but
the kids are still really loud. They sit on the right side of the
chapel facing the front. On the left side, there is a woman who is
completely deaf - this ward has an interpreter too! Pretty cool. I feel
right at home. I don't know her name, but she walked across the front
of the chapel and picked up one of the kids when she ran away and took
her back to her family and sat down with her on her lap and
entertained her for the rest of the meeting. Sister Lamborn and I were
talking and we thought it was funny how the rest of the congregation
pretended to be deaf and ignore the situation, but the one person who
actually is deaf was the only one who got up to help in the moment of
need. It was a great example of Christ like love and service. It really
helped put things into perspective for me.
I love my mission. It's a lot of fun. The mosquitoes are out, and
that's not as fun...but I still enjoy being here! So long as I don't
have bedbugs, I'm great! Have a great week. I'm glad to hear that
everyone's been busy!! Dayle's eagle project looks awesome! I'm so
glad lots of people showed up to help. That makes me happy!
Again, I'm sorry I haven't emailed you yet this week. It's been a
crazy couple of days. I love you!! Have a great week!
Love,
Sister Anderson
Hi!
Sorry I didn't get to email yesterday. We were asked last minute to
help a lady in the ward unpack her home- she is 9 months pregnant with
three kids under 4 and just moved to Haymarket area from Thailand and
she needed our help. We decided it was best to sacrifice our
Preparation Day to help her out. We planned on helping for 1-2 hours,
but her shipment didn't come in when she was expecting it, so we were
there for four hours! Man! We got a lot of work done though! She's
almost all moved in! :)
This week was one of the crazier weeks of my mission. There were
plenty of fun stories. I'll try to remember the good ones- the rest
are written down in my journal to share for later :) Our car was in
the shop from Tuesday to Saturday so we couldn't drive anywhere. We
had a set of elders that serve in the Haymarket ward with us, and they
were kind enough to let us use their car when we had appointments that
were super far away, but we didn't want to leave them carless so we
decided to walk everywhere. Wednesday and Thursday we didn't have any
appointments, so we walked all over the planet. It made me really
grateful that I was not a Mormon pioneer trekking to Utah. It was
really great to be outside though!!!! We talked to SO many people! It
was the greatest. We talked to every single person in our path and
didn't let a single one pass us by. I even stopped a guy who was
talking on his phone and he said we could come over in a few weeks
when he gets home from vacation! That's been the bulk of our week.
When I got here, we decided to clear out our investigator pool because
none of them were progressing. We have put a TON of time into finding
people to teach.
So here are some stories for you!
-The night that the Elders let us borrow their car, we lost their
keys. They had the car key on a carabineer (sp haha) with their set of
house keys and mail keys. We came in for the night and parked the car.
We handed them the carabineer with the car key on it and thanked them
for being kind enough to help us out. They were like....uhhh where are
the rest of our keys?.... so we went back outside and looked
EVERYWHERE for them!! We spent a good 20 minutes outside looking- we
even crawled around on the grass looking. No luck. It was actually
really funny- I thought the whole night was hilarious, and Sister
Lamborn was freaking out. She felt SO bad that we had lost the Elder's
keys. She thought it was all her fault. Silly sister. You know me, all
I could do was laugh. I called the Elders and apologize and they said it
was fine and that they wanted to come out and look. They walked to
where the car was parked, looked around for two minutes and found the
keys. I wanted to die of embarrassment. Leave it to the two crazy
Sister Missionaries to lose the keys and struggle finding them. Oh
well. I hope we gave the Elders a good laugh.
-We were outside checking on some people that had said we could come
back later with not much luck. We were about to head in for the night
when we pass by some people a ways off who were sitting in lawn chairs
and smoking together. There was a man and a woman and I knew I needed
to go out of my way to talk to them, no matter how awkward it was
going to be. So I did and started talking to them. I asked them if
they had ever seen missionaries before and the man said, "Why yes I
have. In fact, I have a Book of Mormon in my apartment." my natural
response was excitement. So I said, "No way! How great! Have you read
it?!?!!?!?!?!!!" He looked at me for a few seconds and asked in all
seriousness, "Are you high right now?"
Hahahhahahhahahahhahahahahahha
together. I told him that of course I was NOT high, but I was just
really excited because I love the Book of Mormon and I know that it is
true! He wasn't too interested in us coming back, but as soon as we
walked away and got into the car, I DIED laughing. It was so great.
-We found a new investigator! Again, he was out of our way and it
could have looked like we were creepers by talking to him, but it was
a miracle! He was playing basketball at the neighborhood court we were
walking by. He had his headphones in and was shooting hoops all by
himself. I figured it wouldn't hurt anything by at least giving him a
card, and he put away his basketball and went and sat down on the park
bench to listen to us. We taught him the whole restoration right on the spot! Miracle!!!! His name is Nolberto! He's so great. He is 19 and
his dad has cancer for the second time :( but he loves talking about
Jesus Christ, and he was interested in everything we had to say!
-We found another 19 year old guy to teach from Egypt named Bishoy. He
was kicked out of his house at age 15... poor guy. Anyway. We went out
of our way to talk to him (I'm seeing a pattern here...I need to go
out of my way ALL the time!!) he was leaning up against his car
smoking and we started talking to him. He is Coptic Christian. We gave
him a Book of Mormon and made a return appointment with him!!! :D
-We met some born again Christians. They let us in and started
quizzing us on our knowledge of the bible. I didn't want to answer all
of their questions because I didn't want to feed the fire. I kept all
my answers inside. I did NOT like it. As we walked away, I could feel
my body relaxing. I didn't realize that I was literally shaking the
whole time we were talking to them. It was bad. They want us to come
back so they can talk at us some more. :( It makes me so sad that some
people find so much "joy" in proving us wrong. The worst part was that
the lady we were talking to was arguing in such a sick sweet voice
with a fake smile and hard eyes...I would have definitely preferred it
if she had screamed at us and kicked us out. That would have been SO
much better!
-We also got to knock down a wall! We did service for an inactive
member and his nonmember wife -on Saturday. It was sweet. They are
redoing a wall in their kitchen and we got to tear down the drywall. I
have before and after pictures. :) It was so fun. Then we got to go
and build bee boxes because they have their own little farm and are
raising bees for honey. We built the actual boxes the bees will live
in, and we also built the sheets where they will build their honeycomb
off of.
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| Before demo |
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| After demo - Nice Job! |
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| Julie - Hulk Smash! |
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| Sleeping in the car. Different clothes, not sure if this was the same day, but she looked bushed! |
-In the Haymarket ward, there is a family that has three foster kids.
The dad of the family is one of the bishopric counselors, so he can't
help his wife out when his kids get rowdy during sacrament meeting.
There are a few people who sit with the family to help them out, but
the kids are still really loud. They sit on the right side of the
chapel facing the front. On the left side, there is a woman who is
completely deaf - this ward has an interpreter too! Pretty cool. I feel
right at home. I don't know her name, but she walked across the front
of the chapel and picked up one of the kids when she ran away and took
her back to her family and sat down with her on her lap and
entertained her for the rest of the meeting. Sister Lamborn and I were
talking and we thought it was funny how the rest of the congregation
pretended to be deaf and ignore the situation, but the one person who
actually is deaf was the only one who got up to help in the moment of
need. It was a great example of Christ like love and service. It really
helped put things into perspective for me.
I love my mission. It's a lot of fun. The mosquitoes are out, and
that's not as fun...but I still enjoy being here! So long as I don't
have bedbugs, I'm great! Have a great week. I'm glad to hear that
everyone's been busy!! Dayle's eagle project looks awesome! I'm so
glad lots of people showed up to help. That makes me happy!
Again, I'm sorry I haven't emailed you yet this week. It's been a
crazy couple of days. I love you!! Have a great week!
Love,
Sister Anderson
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