May 5, 2015 - NEXT WEEK IS MOTHER'S DAY!!!

NEXT WEEK IS MOTHERS DAY AND I GET TO SKYPE YOU AHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I can't even believe how fast the months have flown by. Christmas feels like it was a few weeks ago! haha!

 

We have had the craziest week. We worked a lot with our less active members...and it would be really easy to feel like we were taken advantage of. But they are a part of Christ's church and NO effort is wasted when trying to help them come back!

 

We had a "lesson" with Mercedes...She told us her entire life story about how she joined the church when she was 20 and then went inactive when she moved to a new ward because it wasn't as welcoming. That was a testimony builder to me to love and welcome EVERY single person that comes to church. So now whenever I see a new face in our ward, I go up to them immediately. And I am going to make a very conscious effort to do that when I get home from my mission especially!! It means more when it comes from the members rather than the missionaries. I mean, it's the missionaries JOB to make sure that all of God's children are accounted for. But I am going to be the BEST fellowshipper when I get home! I promise!

 

Anyway. SO Mercedes is totally trying to convert us to the McLean Bible church. It's really funny. Her husband, Mike, gave me a cd of his pastor and told me to listen to it. I can't listen to it now, but I am curious. I always save everything that other people give me to convert me to their churches. :) I have a few pass along cards from the McLean Bible church and some protestant churches from people that I've met on my mission. I think it's so interesting! I mean, I'm giving out cards to invite people to MY church, so I'll take their cards too. I'm going to make a big scrapbook after my mission- I'm so excited!

 

We also met with Sister Fuentes, another less active member. She made us dinner...and we watched her make it. We talked with her about the gospel as she literally DUMPED in a pound or more of garlic into spaghetti sauce. I mean, it was good, but afterwards Sister Udall and I could NOT talk to each other because it smelled so bad. And we kept burping too- we figured that our bodies aren't used to that much garlic in our systems. hahaha it was so funny!

 

Anyway. But both of these lessons with our less actives were really hard. They both took two and a half hours.....and we are specifically trained to be in and out of an appointment after 45 minutes. It was rough. I just felt taken advantage of, and we weren't as productive with our time, in terms of talking to as many people as we would have otherwise. But these women needed it. We won't let it happen again in the future, but we helped them. They just needed to talk. The next time we meet with both of them, we are going to lovingly make very clear our purpose as missionaries and as them if they will let us teach them our missionary lessons. :)

 

As I've told you multiple times, our mission is really focusing on teaching the members. It has been going so well! The purpose of teaching members our lessons is to help them to be thinking about the doctrine of the church all the time so when they have missionary opportunities, they are ready and prepared to share the gospel. And then eventually invite their friends to take the missionary lessons!!! The most spiritual lessons that I've had this week were with members. Dorothy Greenhalgh emailed you... we've been meeting with them and I just LOVE those girls SO much. Every time we get out of a lesson with a family that has teenager, Sister Udall tells me that I will have a future calling in the youth program. I sure hope so!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I LOVED young womens. I had great leaders that really helped me, and I want to pay it forward! As we were leaving the Greenhalgh's, Sister Greenhalgh called out after us, "Thanks for always coming over! Maybe next time we'll invite someone to come to our lesson!!" :) Missionary work is totally on their minds. I love it!

We had another great member lesson where we SANG almost the entire time! Sister Gawthrop came with us to a lesson in her neighborhood last night and the lesson fell through. SO as backup, she invited us in and started to sing hymns. She LOVES to sing. And so do I! Sister Udall had a great idea to sing a song related to the plan of salvation and then discuss the principles taught afterward. That was probably my favorite lesson! I learned SO MUCH and the spirit was SO strong! I love that I can teach the missionary lessons in SO many different ways. I can sing-teach! :) :) :) :)

 

We've been doing a lot of service lately too. There is a less active lady in our ward who broke her foot and we've been going over every now and then to help her clean her house. She's kind of a hoarder, so I get grossed out and then get into CLEANING MODE. I think God is preparing me to be as clean as possible for when I have my own home someday. :) I actually enjoy cleaning now- I know crazy!

 

We also helped a lady in the ward who is SO pregnant and going through a divorce (saddest story ever) clean her car. She has two other daughters who are ages 5 and 8 who take advantage of her and don't help her at all. Anyway, her daughters were taken away from her for whatever reason and she was left with a terribly messy van- just imagine the back of the big red toaster van and multiply it by 10. It was so bad. But we cleaned it all for her so that she would have a clean car to take her new baby boy home in. :) And another surprise- I actually like cleaning out cars too! (God really has been changing me!!) haha!

 

Well. I hope you all have a great week. AHHH I can't believe Brendan's going to be ordained a DEACON. wut. That makes ME feel old!! Dayle looks soooo good in his prom pictures and I'm so happy Belana got that monster scholarship!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

 

I love you all so much and I can't wait to see you next week!!!

Love,

Sister Anderson

District

Elder Hansen district leader.  They are the only Sisters in their district again!

Visiting VA Bluebells on Preparation Day with the Hermanas!

Ha ha!!! I can't believe I missed this one! April 21, 2014 - Happy Easter!

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

Sister Anderson

April 28, 2014

This week was good but it went by way too fast. This is the last week of the transfer. I can't believe it. I would be the one to be transferred, but I really hope I stay. If I get switched out, I will be heart broken. This area has come so far since I've been here and I love it so much! So I've been having mini anxiety attacks just thinking about transfer calls. We'll be getting them tonight ugh.

 

I'm glad you liked the picture sent from our members! We had family home evening with them on Monday night. They have a son serving in Arizona right now and they always LOVE it when members send them pictures of him- I guess they just wanted to pay it forward. :) They're so sweet. They're some of my favorite people here!

 

I had a trial of faith this week. We met with Mercedes again. She's the lady who was baptized 20 years ago and went inactive as soon as she joined the church. She's very strong in her church that she goes to now, but she lets us come over every week and study with her. This week she asked about the differences between her belief in the trinity and our belief in the godhead. Okay, so I KNOW with all my heart that God, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are three separate distinct beings. But man! The way that she was explaining the trinity fit really well with the Bible. She has scriptures to back it up and everything. Both Sister Udall and I just sat there and listen to her arguments that the trinity is the way it is...and when we didn't respond right away she commented with a huge smile on her face, "You can just join MY church!!!!" My heart just sank. There was NO way that I was going to Bible bash her. I didn't want to argue. But I felt like I had to at least defend the true nature of the godhead. Mercedes is a lot like me- stubborn. :) We always talk about how we have a lot in common. And we're good friends because of it!! Anyway. We wound up sharing Joseph Smith's first vision experience with her. Right when we started talking about it, her non member husband, Mike, walked in the door early from work. So he listened in too! I don't know what he was thinking, but I know he's not a fan of us coming over and trying to bring Mercedes back to our church. Oh well. Haha! My mind was just troubled all week over the fact that so many people don't even know the true nature of God. We know about the godhead because of modern revelation, but without it, it's no wonder people believe so strongly in the trinity.

 

We've been trading off with the Elders every week in teaching a Book of Mormon study class. Our ward missionary, Brother Mercer, has started it up again and it's great. We taught this last week and the spirit was so strong. I actually like teaching in a class setting like that! We used the seminary manual :) Brother Mercer is such a funny old man!!!!!! He just says things as they are and sometimes he's really sarcastic.

 

Haha- one time we were having a missionary correlation meeting with the ward missionaries. Our ward mission leader, Brother Stark, saw a chipmunk outside on his back porch and said, "Oh look! A chipmunk!" hahahahaha. Everyone turned to look except for Brother Mercer who said, "Oh really? I've never seen a chipmunk before." I tried really hard to hold back my laughter but then Brother Stark innocently replied, "Really? Well there's one right outside, if you just turned around you could see it!" And Brother Mercer goes, "It was a JOKE!" It was so hilarious! Brother Stark and Brother Mercer are just two really funny old men who always go back and forth. I told Sister Udall yesterday that if their friendship was recorded in a movie, it would be one of my favorites. They're just too funny. I wish you could all know them.

 

We had another lesson with Donna!! We went by the apartment to teach her with Chris and Kendall, but Chris was at the hospital because he has a blood clot in his leg and Kendall was out with her sister getting a tan. Haha. So we just taught Donna by herself! We taught her the plan of salvation and she totally soaked it right up! We made it halfway through the lesson up to the part where we talk about our life on earth and the atonement and she said, "Keep going! I'm totally engrossed in this!" It made me smile. This was the very first time I'd taught the plan of salvation to an investigator before, so I was a teeeeny bit nervous about teaching the part about the kingdoms of glory. I think i was just afraid that she wouldn't believe it and that she would make fun of it. But at the end of the lesson Heavenly Father taught me that I needed to have more faith in Him! Because at the end, Sister Udall asked Donna if she believed this was true, and Donna said a firm, "Oh YES! God definitely has a plan for each of us!" She has a lot of faith. She just takes things as we say them. Which is great, but we want her to know everything for herself. We almost put her on date for baptism, but we decided she wasn't there quite yet. We asked her if she had prayed about everything that we've taught her up to this point and she said she hadn't. We invited her to take it to the source of all truth, aka God, and ask to know for herself if it really is true!

 

We got to help out the youth this week!!!!! It was SO MUCH FUN! They did a bit young men and young women activity about missionary work! The leaders invited us to come and to be "investigators" while the youth paired up and were the missionaries. We went into a classroom and they knocked on the door, trying to teach us about the Book of Mormon and the restoration of the gospel. They did so well!!! Holy cow the youth in this ward are going to be great missionaries! It was so much fun. I LOVE being around the youth.

 

Right after that we got a text from a VERY pregnant lady in the ward who couldn't even bring in her own groceries. She is going through a divorce and has two little girls who do not help her at all and she's due on Memorial Day. Her situation breaks my heart!! I wish there was more we could do for her! We brought in her groceries and said a prayer with them and had to leave so we could be home by 9pm. Poor lady. We're going to go over and clean her car and her kitchen for her this week.

 

Ah!! AND we got to do another service project!!!!!!!! We are allowed up to 4 hours of service every week, and we have been doing 0. Laaaaaaaaame!! The members have it in their minds that since we're sisters, we're weak or afraid to get dirty or something. They just never invite us to help people move or to do any hard work. But this time, we pretty much invited ourselves. It was Sister Udall and I and the entire high priests group working together to clean up a less active lady's back yard! It was the best thing ever. This lady had a HUGE pile of old rotten lumber, old tangled wire fences everywhere, old swing sets... everything. But we loaded up trucks and took it all to the dump. After a couple of hours, her yard was perfect! I got so muddy and a little sunburnt (oops) but I loved it. I made sure I worked harder than the elders did. Brother Hilton came up to Sister Udall and I at the end and called us his heroes. hahahaha!! And then in the third hour of ward conference yesterday, Brother Stark made an announcement to the ward that the ward needs to use us more for service. :)

 

AHHH THIS JUST IN FROM MY MISSION PRESIDENT

From 2:00 - 4:00 pm on May 17, we will have the opportunity to have a 3-mission conference where we will be taught by Elder M. Russell Ballard (Quorum of Twelve Apostles), Elder Whitney Clayton (Presidency of the Seventy), and Elder Wong (recently called to the First Quorum of the Seventy). The meeting will be held at the stake center next to the temple.

Okay. How cool is that?!

 

Oh I almost forgot my favorite miracle of the week!! Sister Udall had served in the Great Falls ward when she was a new missionary. One of the members in that ward that had just returned home from his mission sent her the name and phone number of one of his good friends who just moved into the Centreville area and who just got married!! His name is John Kim! And he is so great! He took us to a little bakery and bought us goodies to much on while we taught him. He had so many great questions about missionaries and Mormons and what makes us different. At first it was all small talk, but then the spirit put an inspired question into my mind and I asked, "What do you expect from meeting with us?" And he then went into how he was not satisfied with his church and he wanted to find the source of all truth. He loves Mormons and he thinks our church meetings are run the right way. (He went to church once before with his friend in Great Falls). Holy cow! This was such a great member referral miracle!!! John Kim is so prepared! We gave him a copy of the book of Mormon in Korean- he was born and raised in Korea. He was so excited at the end of our lesson!!!

 

So I think that's all for this week folks! :) Have a great week!

 

Do you study Preach My Gospel as a family? I bet you totally are, but if not, I invite you to do so for Family Home Evening!! Chapter 3 has all the missionary lessons, and Chapter 5 is all about the Book of Mormon and it's importance in our lives. I'd start with those chapters first. As you study together, the Lord WILL give you even more great opportunities to share the gospel with everyone around you! He puts prepared people in the paths of his prepared servants- I've experienced it for myself and I KNOW that's true!

 

Love you all!!!
Love,
Sister Anderson


 



Sister Udall's family sent Julie and egg for Easter!  SWEET!  Thank you!

Julie and the goats

This is part of the sister's service.



April 14, 2014

Hello!

Crazy week! Lots of miracles! I feel like an entire month was crammed into one week...

 

So Monday we had a lesson with the Walters. They're a family in the ward who has a son serving a mission in Arizona. They're so great. We've been teaching them the missionary lessons ever since President Riggs has really been pushing for us to be teaching the members as much as we possibly can. We taught them the Plan of Salvation and the spirit was so strong. You should all look up "Earnest" in the Bible Dictionary. It says something about how we all feel the spirit as a little taste of what the Celestial kingdom will feel like. Or something like that. But it's really cool. Sister Udall found that in her studies that morning. While I was teaching that lesson, I felt so strongly about how happy I am that our family is going to be together forever. There is nothing that brings me more joy! I love you all so much!

 

We had a lesson with our Indian investigators. There's still a bit of a language barrier, but we use the book of Mormon as our way of communicating. it's pretty cool. We say something, they have no idea what we said, we find a scripture from the book of Mormon that explains what we were trying to teach, we match up the chapters from our English copies to their Hindi copy, and they read it and feel the spirit! IT's so cool! We still don't know how much they understand about Jesus Christ, so tonight we're going to go over and teach them about Him :)

 

We did a lot of finding this week. We are trying to talk to 20 people every single day, but we always fall short because we have great contacts with people and then run out of time to talk to others. But that's okay. I had a great experience from following promptings while we were out talking to as many people as possible!!! I had a thought to go tracting in Little Rocky Run. That's the neighborhood where some of our investigators live. As we were walking there, we turned the corner and they were outside sitting on their front porch!!!! We started talking with them and they said that they felt like they needed to come outside and they just sat down literally two minutes before we walked up. Pretty cool. So we started teaching them again and asked them what it would mean to them to know that there is a living prophet on the earth today. One of them, Jarret, replied, "I think it would mean that I would always be taken care of." And BOOM immediately, the spirit put Moroni 6:4 into my mind, which talks about how members' names are taken after baptism and they are nourished and always taken care of! And that lead open the door to extend a baptismal invite. We asked, and he firmly responded, "YES." It was so great. We're probably going to end up passing him off to a singles ward, but I am so grateful that Heavenly Father let me be a part of his conversion process.

 

Sister Zieger is one of the sweet ladies that I've written about before- she has bi-polar disorder and just needs people to talk to. She has had a ROUGH life. She's a recent convert to the church as of about a year and a half now, and she hasn't been paying her tithing. So Sister Udall and I made a goal for this transfer to help her pay her tithing. We've been meeting with her weekly and trying to help her see the blessings of it, but we haven't been having much success. So finally one night, she called us and really needed to vent about her problems. Haha. So we went over immediately and let her talk everything out. She's so cute. She just needs some love! Anyway, while we were talking to her, the conversation pointed toward her need to pay tithing. She told us about her financial problems and her issues with people at work and when she was done talking everything out, she took a deep breath and said, "I Just don't understand what God wants me to learn from all this. It's so hard." And the first thing that came out of my mouth before I had time to think was, "He wants you to learn to completely trust him and pay your tithing." Haha. I was kinda shocked that I had been so blunt, but it was exactly what she needed! She knows that I love her so much, so being bold with her let the spirit come in and take over. Two mornings earlier I put a tithing slip into my purse, so I left it with her and invited her to put it in a place where she would see it every day. At the end of the lesson, she said that she definitely had a lot to think about! It was a great lesson!!!!! I really do think that before I get transferred out of this area, she will pay her tithing!!!! I know she will!

 

We stopped by to visit our investigators from Iran. They said that they would come to our church if we went to theirs. They go to McLean Bible Church. It's a huge church out here in Virginia. And oh man, they hate Mormons so much. They have entire sermons about how we aren't Christian. It's hurts my heart. But Houshang and Kima think we're Christian, and they want to really understand what sets us apart. They're sweet. There's a bit of a language barrier there too, so we sang them some primary songs! We sang He Sent His Son and I Am a Child of God. They really liked it and said that we sounded like angels. :) Music really brings the spirit!!!

 

We had another experience with music! We were just singing and making beautiful harmonies as we were going door to door and we started to sing Count Your Many Blessings. Sister Udall said that the next door that opened we would ask to sing it to them! Haha! A sweet Indian lady opened the door and kindly explained that she wasn't Christian. Then we asked if we could sing for her! She got really excited and said, "Oh yes! Please come in and sing to my son who can't walk!" She lead us inside and downstairs to sing to her son who had torn all the ligaments in his ankle. Poor kid. But we sang to them and ended up talking about the temple somehow. She didn't invite us back, but she felt the spirit! We told her to look up the general conference talks online and she said she definitely would! We'll have to follow up in a few weeks.

 

I LOVE MY COMPANION SO MUCH! She is seriously the HARDESET worker that I know. Her desire to talk to people is so strong, and she has so much faith! She is definitely helping me to become better. We've had so many sweet, spiritual moments together and I just know that we are going to be friends for life. We work really well together and we really want to help each other learn and grow. Last night I told her that we are each other's number one progressing investigators. It's so true! The other morning, her studies were geared for what I needed in that moment. And I do everything that I can to help her too :) I just love her so much.

 

We've seen lots of miracles. We're still trying to find people and we're working as hard as we possibly can every day!

 

Oh hey! I went to DC today to see the cherry blossoms!!!!!! I tried to take lots of pictures for mom! I know how much she loves the pink trees! :)

 

Love you all! Have a great week!

Love,

Sissy Anderson (as Brendan would call me!)

Sisters with Capital!  Still don't know how to rotate pics!  Ha ha.

Sisters infront of the Jefferson Memorial.

Julie and a tree.  Ha ha.

P-Day - ran into some other missionaries in DC

April 7, 2014 - Finally Caught up! Look for a New Post tomorrow evening! Enjoy your reading!

Hello! I don't think I have any pictures from this week...haha sorry! I'll try to be better about that for next week!

 

The days are all starting to run together. Sister Udall and I decided that a day feels like a week and a week feels like a day. Time is just so weird on a mission.

 

Well, I loved General Conference! I just love that we are blessed to hear from our prophet every six months. I KNOW that he is a man called of God! It's weird to think that I've watched two conferences on my mission...I've been out for six months! I still feel like I just got off the plane after the MTC. I know the rest of the time is going to fly by. I really wish it would slow down a little bit. I loved M. Russell Ballards talk about following up and missionary work! I think he was the one who invited families and missionaries to write each other about what they've been studying in preach my gospel! I LOVE that! We are going to strengthen each other so much. I'll start by sharing a little of what I learned today from my Preach My Gospel studies. :) Today I read about the Plan of Salvation in lesson 2 of chapter 3. I thought a lot about agency and how it really is a gift from God, given to us to be able to choose for ourselves. It shows how merciful God is...he doesn't want to force anything on us! Under one of the sections of scriptures to read and other gospel resources links to the lessons, there is the section of "agency and accountability" from For the Strength of the Youth pamphlet. It talks about how there are consequences for every single choice we make, whether it be good or bad. Immediately, I thought of Dad teaching me that very principle when I was really young. I'm grateful that I was taught such great principles in my home when I was little!!!!!! Now I have the chance to share it with someone who may or may not have learned the same thing when they were younger! :)

 

We had lots of miracles this week!

We met an older couple from India named Anita and Shashi Bagga. We found them about a month ago by accidentally knocking on the wrong door when we were trying to go visit one of our less active members. Haha. Of course, I don't believe in coincidences, so we went back last Monday evening to bring them a copy of the Book of Mormon in Hindi. They remembered us from before and were WAY excited about receiving a book about Jesus Christ written in their language. There is a little bit of a language barrier, but we communicate well enough to share what we know about Jesus Christ and how we can come closer to Him. Shashi, the hubby, speaks better English than Anita. But Anita is just the cutest!!! About half way through our lesson with them, she started saying things like, "I feel good! I feel happy! You make me happy! You come here to make me happy!" She said a few other things in Hindi and Shashi translated for us to tell us that Anita feels like we were sent to her from God. It was really touching. It's so cool to me that I get to be a blessing for God's children that come from all different places in the world. It just blows my mind! God is so good! I don't even have to leave the country and I get to teach people from India, Sierra Leon, Ghana, France, Brazil, Honduras, Mexico, El Salvador....... so many different places. It's such a blessing.

 

Tuesday we had a miracle lesson with one of our less actives. She home schools and is usually really distracted by her two children, ages 8 and 2. So our lessons are usually all over the place. But this time, God used me and the lesson went so much better!! I think that one of my gifts is working with kids. I love playing with them and talking to them- kids are just so much easier to be myself around! Anyway. Her 2 yr old son was sitting at the table going through some flash cards. Immediately, I had the thought to help him out! And of course, that was a prompting I had no problem following! Up to this point, the 2 yr old was really shy around me, but after playing with him and helping him with his flash cards, he really opened up and I was able to play with him and distract him well enough for his mom to feel the spirit while Sister Udall taught her about how we really do have a living prophet on the earth today. At first, I felt bad that I left Sister Udall hanging. haha. But at the end of our appointment, our less active that we were teaching really opened up and admitted that she does know that she needs the power of the priesthood in her life. Wow. The only thing that could have gotten her to realize that was the Spirit of God. My gift of distracting young children came to good use! I feel so good knowing that God used my gifts for the benefit of his children. It was such a blessing!

 

We had a lesson with a couple from Iran!!! They used to be Muslim, but were tired of it for whatever reason and decided to move to America to be Christian. They speak Farsi and we have trouble understanding each other. BUT! We found a man from our ward that lived in Iran when he was in the military and learned Farsi while he was there! Miracle!! It was amazing. I love trying to guess what they are talking about. Haha! We didn't get very far in our lesson with them because we were trying to explain the book of Mormon and how it compares and differs from the Bible. He keeps asking us why Mormons are different from other Christians is we keep saying that we are representatives of Jesus Christ. SO we are going to teach him the Restoration the next time we see them :)

 

Ether 12:27 is still my theme scripture. I'm learning and relearning how to be patient with the weaknesses that I have. And I'm learning how to put my newly found strengths to good use for the Lord!

 

Well that's all for this week folks! Sister Udall and I are miracle workers in the Centreville 2nd ward! I love working here in this area. We have great members. Ha, our ward mission leader is a dermatologist- he prescribed me some acne medication because my face is pretty bad right now. I told him I feel like a 13 year old girl haha. And a few weeks ago he polished my shoes! Brother Stark is seriously the greatest ward mission leader ever!!!!!!

 

I love you all!! I can't wait to hear about your Preach My Gospel studies!

Love

Sister Anderson

I just really like this picture of Julie!

March 31, 2014

This week was the best week I've had in a while! It was so great! I just decided to be happy! Haha. And Sister Udall and I work hard! :) We set a goal to talk to 20 people every single day. We haven't reached our goal yet, but because we are making the effort, the Lord is placing prepared people in our path.

 

Here are just some of the miracles:

 

1. We had a lesson with a less active couple that we've been trying to get ahold of since I was transfered into the ward! We taught them the Restoration and reminded them of their testimonies. We invited them to church, but I didn't see them. (That's okay though. They'll come next week!)

 

2. We felt strongly about tracting down a street of townhouses and found a guy who has already read the book of mormon! He said that he wasn't raised with religion, and so he's always been fascinated by it. He's explored many different churches. His girlfriend saw us talking to him outside and came out to talk with us too! We gave both of them their own copies of the Book of Mormon. The girlfriend asked about life after death because she recently lost a loved one. We were able to teach them the Plan of Happiness :) and set up a return appointment for this Wednesday!

 

3. After church we had planned to stop by a potential investigator that we met in the street in our appartment complex. We knocked on the door, and they let us right in! The lady that we talked to on the street went and hid in the kitchen, but her husband and son listened to us! It was really awkward at first, but it turned out really well. This family is Muslim so we talked about prophets and how we have a living prophet on the earth today. They said they would come to church with us this Sunday to watch general conference. They said if there was a living prophet today, they would definitely want to know!

 

4. Last night around 8:30, we were walking around to check on a few people that we had met, and the Lord lead us to a man who was on his front porch for a smoke break. Haha. We started talking to him - he's from Guatemala and is confused about why there are so many churches on the earth today. We taught him the Restoration and he said we could come back again!

 

We have been so blessed. These are just a few of the miracles we've had this week. God is so good. :)

 

Oh hey! I've been having success with online proselyting too! I have a few skype lessons set up for this week! :) Can't wait!!!

 

I have been watching Mormon Messages during lunch time and when I get ready in the mornings...oh my. Those videos are so inspired! It's been great to just pull up a video in conversation on the street and share it with people. It just adds so much! This morning I watched one of the Mormon Messages for youth about the priesthood responsibility to serve a mission. And Marie Bates is in it! I've seen this video before, but it was just so great to see her with a missionary name tag on. She's such a great example to me. Ya know, the first time I thought about serving a mission was after a young womens night at the Bates' home where she did a slide show presentation on her trip to Jerusalem. Grandma K was there with us and on the way out she said something like, "She would make an AWESOME sister missionary!" Haha. That got my wheels turning! And now here I am in Centreville, Virginia!!! It's really cool to see how my life has played out so far. :)

 

Keep reading the Book of Mormon! It's the greatest book in the world! Oh my. We had a member lesson with a family in the ward and we taught them about the Book of Mormon. The spirit was so strong! Theyr'e a newer family in the ward and they have three girls in middle school/high school. Their mom emailed us and told us that we have been helping them a ton. Their girls haven't been wanting to do Family Home Evening, and they're really struggling because they're still getting used to their new schools and the new ward... but it was the sweetest thing ever. It just makes me feel so good that I feel like I'm making a difference :) It's such a blessing.

 

I'm growing a TON, and I love it! I can't wait to apply everything I've learned on my mission to the rest of my life!

 

I love you all so much! I hope you are all seeing just as many miracles as I am :) 

Love,

Sister Anderson

 

Annie and Dan Palmer--YOU ARE THE BEST!!!  THANK YOU!!

Goodies!!!!  Yummm!

Happy Sisters - feeling loved!

A love not from Dan and Annie!

March 24, 2014

Transfers were on Thursday!!! I'm still in Centreville 2nd ward and my new companion's name is Sister Udall! I am literally a head taller than her...but she is so sweet! We were both trained by Sister Hansen! How cool is that?! Sister Hansen trained Sister Udall in the Great Falls ward this last summer. Sister Udall's been out for a little over 10 months and is a great missionary. She's really good at talking to people and has really strong faith! The night before transfers, I prayed really hard that I would get a new companion that would help me increase my faith and become a better missionary. Heavenly Father answers prayers. :) This is going to be a miracle filled transfer!

 

Miracles started happening the moment we were put together! We've been getting our members really pumped about sharing the gospel and giving their friends copies of the Book of Mormon or a Restoration pamphlet. We've been teaching them the missionary lessons, and then inviting them to share it before a deadline. We have them set the goal for themselves, and then we put it into our iPads with a timer on it so that we can follow up with them. So far it's working well! I'm excited to see what happens! Missionaries love setting goals!

 

Speaking of goals, Sister Udall and I made a goal to talk to 20 unplanned people every single day. Good goals are supposed to stretch yourself...and I definitely feel stretched. But as we work hard and put all of our efforts into talking to that many people, we will see miracles! I can't wait!

 

God has this way of putting his prepared people into the path of his prepared servants. We were getting into the car after checking on a less active member of our ward with our relief society president, Sister Heiner. (I just love Sister Heiner by the way. She has the sweetest spirit and is SO missionary minded! She is one who is truly converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ!) As I was getting into the car, this lady was SPEED walking right by me. I had literally a second to say something to her, so without having time to think I grabbed a pass along card and held it out to her and said, "Can I give you a card?!" She stopped in her tracks and said, "Sure! What's it for?" I went on to talk about how it is for Mormon.org and how great it is. She then talked about how she knows Mormons and loves them for who they are and what they stand for. She said she would be a Mormon by now if it weren't for her strong Catholic roots. She said if she converted, it would most likely kill her mother. She joked about how her friends say that she "already talks like a Mormon". :) It was so funny! We had a really great conversation. She said her name is Lolin and that she is here visiting her brother and his wife with her children for spring break. They're from Texas! Lolin said that she is going through a really hard divorce and tried to take her life. She said she went on a walk this evening with a heavy heart, and after talking to us her spirits were so much higher. We showed her a Mormon message that Sister Udall downloaded on her iPad, Mountains to Climb by Elder Eyring. The spirit was so strong. We gave her a Book of Mormon and promised her that it is the one thing that will help her the most through this hard time in her life. I do not have the words to describe how I felt. I will never forget this moment of my mission. I can imagine what a sight we were in that moment- four women all crying together on the side of the road. In this exact moment, I was God's hands. I am so grateful that the Lord put us where we were in that instant. I've never met Lolin before and I may or may not see her again in this life, but I love her so much! This experience helped turn my faith to knowledge. I can look anyone in the eye and tell them that I KNOW that the Lord directs this work. I KNOW that Father in Heaven knows our hearts, and he knows how to help us. I KNOW God is in the very details of our lives. And because of all these things that have been shown to me, I will do everything in my power to serve Him. Not that I wasn't working hard to serve Him before, but I have a new found urgency and love for this work. Miracles happen. And I get to play an integral part in them every single day. I feel so blessed that Heavenly Father chose me to serve him at this time and in this place.

 

We've had lots of other miracles too! Yesterday we worked really hard to talk to 20 people, but we only got to 10. We had so many meetings and other appointments that took a lot of our time...but when we were outside, we did all that we could to talk to everyone we saw. We saw a kid sitting on the swings in our apartment complex. He was way out of our way, but we went over there to talk to him about the gospel! His name is Gordon! He's 6 feet tall, and he's only 12 years old! Oh my. But we talked to him about Jesus Christ and how he is a child of God. Sister Udall's a pretty good singer, and right when we were put together as companions we'd agreed to use our talents more in our finding and teaching. So since we talked about how he was a child of God, Sister Udall was like, "Gordon, we'd LOVE to sing you a song!" Hahahahaha. And so we sang I am a Child of God. It was a little awkward. But it was great! It really invited the spirit! We gave him a book of Mormon and he seemed like he actually would read it! We're hopefully going to teach him again at the swings today! So pray for Gordon! :) and pray for his family that their hearts will be softened enough for us to come and teach them too!

 

:) I am so happy. I love this work. I love my companion. I love God! I love his children! I love my ward! And I love all of you! I hope you pray for and seek great miracles in your own lives- they're happening all around you every moment!

 

Love

Sister Anderson :)

 

 

The Sisters with Mary Rose - She has a lot of interesting items in her house!  Look below!

Sister McKee and the Lion!

Sister Anderson and the Lion!

Sister Anderson and something Gold!  Ha ha!

Transfer Day!



Sister Anderson's fourth transfer day!  Wow has it already been that long?

Sister Udall and Sister Anderson