December 8, 2014 - Visit to DC

Sorry I'm emailing later than usual this week! Today we went into DC and took a tour of the Captial and went to the Library of Congress. It was super cool! I'm so grateful to serve in our Nation's Capital! 

 

This week went by quick! Thanks for all the birthday wishes! It was a great day :)

Tuesday we had a lesson with a Muslim lady we met. She invited two of her friends to come along. It was more of a debate... It wasn't heated or anything, but those women had no intent to really take to heart what we had to say. But it was really interesting to learn about whawt Muslim's believe. Oh and they invited US to read the Quran... It was really kind of them. Maybe when I get home I'll look more into it to learn more. I think religions are really interesting. If anything else, they help me to realize that I have been so incredibly blessed to be a part of the fulness of Christ's church!

Thursday we went to Centreville for a Dr appointment. They told me I have lost 14 pounds since I've started going to that Drs office in April! Woo! I still have a long way to go...But running at least a mile every day has worked wonders! That night we went to a lesson with a Hispanic lady named Angelik that we met last week. Everyone has been so incredibly flaky lately and all of our return appointments have fallen through, so I didn't have high hopes for Angelik. I didn't even want to go. But we went anyway of course. I was so glad we did! We knocked on the door and this guy answers. He was super sarcastic with us and didn't make eye contact, so when he told us the story about how Angelik had just called him and asked that he let us know that she was out with friends, I didn't believe him at all. We were about to leave when he stopped us and said, "well hey, since I've got your attention, I have a few questions for you." I got really nervous as he brought up a ton of anti material and asked if we wore that "cool underwear" and talked about how he fully supported polygamy. Honestly, anti just drives me nuts. Plus, I couldn't handle his sarcastic attitude like he was pulling a huge joke on us. So before he could go on I stopped him and said something like, "wait. Are you being for real? Because Yes I am a Mormon, but that doesn't mean I'm not a normal person who can see right through all of this!" He just looked at me and said, "no I'm totally serious!" After that, the conversation went up hill. Thank goodness! Hahaha. I told him that yes, I wear the cool underwear and I love it! we made sure the whole polygamy situation was cleared up too...We started asking him what his religious background was and who God is to him. He said he's pretty much a Buddhist because he just believes in good energy or something. Our conversation with him turned out to be a lot of fun! Eventually we were all laughing together out on his doorstep. After about 20 minutes, the door right across from him in the apartment building FLEW open and we all stopped laughing and turned to see a tiny old lady standing in the doorway with a crazy look in her eyes. I think my heart might've stopped in that moment. She said, "Tom! How dare you have a party...without inviting ME!" She then saw our name tags and said, "oh, it's just the missionaries. Okay." It was hilarious!! Turns out, the Sisters before me had knocked that building and met her. Her name is Debb and she's a Born Again Christian. Actually, she is the first Born Again Christian that was kind to me. I'm used to Born Again Christians being all sweet at first but then turning out to be not very kind because they're just trying to prove me wrong. Debb didn't do that. She asked if we could pray together and invited us and Tom over! After another 20 minutes, Angelik came over and sincerely apologized to us. Turns out she actually did call Tom and asked him to tell us that she wasn't home. Hm. It helped restore my faith in humanity! I love honest people!

 

Friday we went to Mission Leadership Council! That's where all the leadership of the mission gets together. We sat in a HUGE circle and counselled on what will help our mission progress. It was really interesting. It was from 8am-4pm.... Sooo long. After they fed us lunch, a tradition that President Riggs does with all the missionaries is to play a game of BUMP! It was so much fun! If that's what he does at every MLC, I don't mind having to go once a month! 

Missionary Leadership Council

 

 

Saturday we stopped by Warrens and he didn't answer. His roommate named Guy came home when we were about to leave and he opened the door and made Warren come out to talk to us. I guess from where Warren was sitting in his house, he just couldn't hear us knocking. And he doesn't have a doorbell. Lame! haha. But as soon as he came to the door he said he would come to church in the morning! It was a miracle becasue we've been having a really hard time trying to get into contact with him this week! 

Sunday Warren didn't come to church and he missed our appointment. So we stopped by and started talking to his neighbors that lived across the street. He saw us and came out to talk. He had a family emergency and couldn't come to church. But he told us that he gave up tea and is working on giving up coffee. He is excited about being baptized on the 27th!!! There are just a few things we will have to go over with him, but his heart seems to be in the right place. Plus, he is reading out of the Book of Mormon, so that shows how serious he is. I love Warren!!! He is such a sweet old man! He has a lot going on in his life that always seems to explode whenever he says he will come to church or do anything that will help him progress. It would be great if you all would please pray for him!!!! He needs all the prayers he can get.

 

Love you all! Keep up the good work! Keep reading the Book of Mormon! Be sure to keep me updated on where you're at! :)

I can't wait to SEE YOUR FACES IN A FEW WEEKS AAAHHHH!!!!

 

Love you!

Sister Anderson

Sister And Brigham Young.  The Capital Building has one Statue of the
most influential person of each state. 

 

 

 

 

In front of the White House.

December 1, 2014 - First week in Ashburn, VA

Hey! Sorry my letter last week was a lame one...I was really bummed out that my computer wasn't working. :( 

So I have to tell you about my last experience in the Haymarket Ward the night before I left. So the Wednesday before transfers we took Ashleigh up to the temple visitor center for a lesson. We showed her the video called, God's plan, and everyone in the room was bawling expect for Ashleigh...it was really confusing. We did everything that we could to help her. We testified and promised her blessings and everything...we just couldn't get through to her! When we got back home, we talked to Ashleigh for a minute before we drove away and she told us that she was sorry that she wasn't responding very well.  We called a member who Ashleigh looks up to as a sort of father figure, and he gave her a priesthood blessing. I did not feel right about leaving Ashleigh by herself, but we couldn't be with her all night long. :( that night I prayed harder than I have for another person in my life!!

That was slightly stressful...and packing took forever (I really hate packing), but transfers happened...and I saw Dan Hernandez!!!!!!!! It is sooooooo awesome that someone from home is serving in my mission!!!!! I was sitting in the back of the chapel where all the new missionaries walked in at the beginning of the meeting...and I totally freaked out! I was really excited to see him! I wasn't sure when I'd see him, and I kinda forgot he was coming so it was a small surprise when he walked in! 

Hey LOOK, It's Elder Hernandez!!!  Julie was SO excited to see someone from home!

 

OH MY GOSH. So. When Sister Lamborn and I were companions, she got a video recording of me laughing in my sleep! And she gave it to President Riggs!!! How embarrassing right??? Well. To start off the transfer meeting, President Riggs played it over the PULPIT!!!!! I COULDNT BELIEVE IT!!!!!!! Everyone was laughing! When I got my new companion, literally everyone came up to her and told her to keep her camera on hand whenever I was sleeping! Oh man... so now pretty much everyone in the mission knows me for my crazy giggle. Sooo. yeah. I don't know what else to say about it. haha. 

 

 





Sister Lamborn going home.



 







Sister Udall going home.

 



 

Another cute sister going home.

So I am now serving in the Ashburn Ward with Sister Jillynn Christensen. This is her very last transfer and then she goes home!!! She has a really good attitude about going home which is awesome. There are lots of Sister missionaries who are always complaining about how they never want to go home because they love their missions so much, but she always says, "I don't wanna serve a day less or a day more! 18 months is perfect for me!" She super awesome and chill. She is from Provo, Utah and is number six of eight kids. She is one inch taller than me!!! Wooo I have a companion who is taller than meeee!!! But I wear size 11 on shoes and she wears a size 10. How does that work out?! Haha. The apartment that we live in is SWANKY. It's the nicest apartment I've lived in on my mission...and probably my entire life. It's brand new. I'll have to take pics to send to you next week. I hope I remember! Haha. But there's a super nice theater room, gym, game room, pool (that we will never use because we are obedient haha). It's super nice. I feel spoiled! And we're driving a new chevy cruze. I think it's either a 2013 or 2014. 

 

This Ward is totally awesome. They just barely called a new Ward mission leader right before transfers and he is young and excited about the work. It's really nice to have a Ward mission leader who actually cares about the work we are doing. It is way awesome! He goes out and meets our investigators when he feels like it. And yesterday at church he gave the best talk about how doing missionary work is how we show our gratitude for the savior and the atonement! The work is going to hasten in the Ward, I just know it! 

 

Thanksgiving was really good! We went to the Dallin's for the big Thanksgiving feast. They invited another family from the Ward names the Angels. It was so fun. I wrote out the text on Sister Dallin's phone about how she is so cute and awesome...she wanted me to make sure to clarify that so that she wouldn't sound conceited..hahahahaha! Then we went to the Willis's house and we played games to let our tummies settle before eating again. We played Telestrations, which is the funniest game and I love it, and a card game. I think it's called the Great down moody or something like that. I don't know...but it was pretty fun. I just found out that the Willis's have a daughter who's birthday is the same day is mine and they totally invited me over to dinner next Sunday to celebrate together! I'm so excited!!!!! :) the Willis's then made us grilled cheese sandwiches because they wanted to eat something light and easy other than turkey. It's one of their family traditions.

I feel like with every new place I get transferred to, I feel a greater urgency to work harder and harder. This past week, we started off with no one one date and only a few new investigators. But since Sister Christensen and I have been put together, we've hit the ground running. We now have two people on date for baptism and found four new investigators on Friday and Saturday. I totally stressed myself out on Sunday when no one showed up for church... man I am constantly reminding myself that agency is actually a blessing from God..hahaha! It just kills me that we work so hard during the week, and no one shows up. I also have to remind myself that I can be happy knowing that I did everything that I could. I know that if I keep working hard, God will bless us with investigators who will have real intent enough to come to church!!! I am just way excited for God to lead us to those investigators!!

 

So about my Sister Training Leader responsibilities... I'm still trying ot figure out what they all are. It's a newer leadership position for Sister missionaries that the church made when the age changed and a TON of sisters were coming out. Being a sister training leader is about the same as being a Zone Leader for Elders. We go to a special meeting about once a month called the Mission Leadership Council that councils together with President Riggs about certain issues and concerns that we see amongst missionaries in the mission and we come up with the solution together. Then we take it back to the sisters. Sister Christensen and I are assigned five sets of sisters to be in our stewardship and we are to go on an "exchange" with them once every six weeks. We just trade companions for 24 hours. During the exchange, we take time to train the sisters on what President wants us to train them on and we practice teaching with them. Then we go out and work like it's a normal day. We go to lessons, we go finding people to teach, and we plan together for the next day. Around lunch time we switch back and the exchange is over. Exchanges are a good time to find out how the sisters are doing emotionally, so President Riggs wants us to have "pillow talk" with them late into the night to figure out if they are struggling with anything from back home, how their companionship is doing, how they are handling stress, those kind of things. (So pretty much, we don't get much sleep! YIKES). I'm pretty much President Riggs' eyes and ears for the Sisters that I am in charge of. There are a few times for zone conferences or Zone Training Meetings that we have to get up in front of the Zone and teach the whole group of missionaries, but that doesn't happen all too often. I have to do all of this on top of my normal missionaries duties! It's kind of stressful when I think about it, so I just try to go with the flow and have fun!! haha. So far, it's gone pretty well. I've only gone on exchanges once in the two weeks that I've been here and I went to Catoctin with Sister Gray!!! Cray cray Sister Gray! She was my roommate in my first area, so it was a BLAST to be companions with her for 24 hours!!!! We just laughed the entire time! I love laughing. I figure that laughter is the best medicine....and I guess I jsut need a little more medicine than normal people do ;) The exchange was a little awkward during the training part because I didn't really know what I was doing, but I was so grateful that my very first exchange was with Sister Gray because she is one of my really good friends and was really supportive of me being her brand new sister training leader.

 

I hope you have a better understanding of what I'm doing as a sister training leader!

 

I hope you all have a great week! Know that I am doing well! I am completely in love with this work. I love every bit of it! Especially the hard parts because they help me to more fully rely on God. 

Oh hey- you didn't give me a report on your Book of Mormon reading this last week! How's it coming? I challenge you to finish it before I get home in April! :) I'll try to read it again before then too! 

Love you so much!

Sister Anderson

November 24, 2014 New Companion - Sister Christensen

Hello family! This week I am having a hard time using the computers and my iPad is really slow in sending emails. So I apologize for the lack of an update on my life. I will write more next week I promise! Just know that I am doing well and loving my new Ward. I also love my new companion, sister Christensen! We laugh together all the time! It is so refreshing and nice to be around her. We are going to have a grsat transfer. Oh this is her very last transfer by he way! She is from Provo utah! Haha. She is awesome. I love you all so. Uch! Love, Sister Anderson

Sister Anderson and new Companion Sister Christensen

OK - so Julie has a new Comp and was Moved to a new area. Her Companion is just as tall as Julie or a little taller so that is AWESOME!!!!! After all, TALL IS BEAUTIFUL!!! IT's fun to see pictures of them standing together and see that Julie isn't towering over her comp. They would be a force to reckoned with!!!! Enjoy the pics and I will post more letters and pics.



Oh hey! I am no longer a picky eater. Tell it to the world because I can now eat just about anything. Within reason. Sort of. Okay, well I ate bilute. Have you ever heard of that before? Well I guess it's an Asian delicacy or something. We work with three Asian families in this area, so I've had it twice now. It's a partially developed chicken embryo that you boil. And I ate it right out of the egg!!! :O It actually doesn't taste that bad. You just can't look at it for too long before you eat it. I made sure to take lots of pictures for proof.

Sister Anderson, Ashleigh, and Sister Williams visiting the
Washington DC Temple Visitor's Center.

Sister Missionaries

Brinlee and Sister Anderson

We did lots of fun things this week! We painted for one of my favorite member families, the Grimes! They are just the sweetest people and they have the cutest girls. They're definitely people I will come back to visit after my mission. We had a game night with Ashleigh and a family in the ward that has four girls ages 5-14. We played Taboo! It was so fun! The dad of the family was actually Ashleigh's principle at Bull Run High School... so I didn't think through how awkward it could have been! But it turned out really well! :) There's another member, Sister Humphreys, who knew I'd be leaving soon so she knitted me a scarf as an early Christmas present! How sweet is that?!

Update - Julie was transferred!! New Address!

Hey!

I was transferred to the Ashburn ward on Thursday! President Riggs asked that I email you my new address. It's 43804 Central Station Dr Apt. 314 Ashburn, VA 20147

I am also a Sister Training Leader. That means that I get to take care of five companionships of sisters and go on exchanges with each of them on top of the normal work I have to do. I also have to go to extra meetings. Woo. Haha! 

I LOVE YOU! I'll send lots of pics on Monday.

Sister Anderson

November 3, 2014 - HOLA! (She got to see FROZEN)

I know, I am posting the DAY I received this!  Don't fall over or anything!  Might not happen for a long time.  I'll try to get her pics up later.  I just really liked todays letter and thought someone out there might like it too!  Enjoy!

 

 

Hey! This week was AWESOME.

 

We had 7 ideal lessons this week, meaning that we had 7 lessons with investigators in a member's home. I LOVE ideal lessons. The more we have, the more resolved I am to never teach an investigator outside of a member's home. The spirit is just so strong and the investigators seem to get a LOT more out of the lessons.

 

Last Monday was fun. Sister W and I went on a little comp date to Café Rio! :) YUMMM. We also tried to do a cool missionary photo shoot since the leaves outside are really pretty..and it turned out ok I think. I'll be sure to send all the pictures!

 

Tuesday we had a general authority come! His name is Elder Kopishke...or something. I don't know how to spell it, but he's from Germany. He taught us about the faith. He showed us the "faith cycle" and how faith is a principle of action and power. A lot of the time, we only say we have faith and then expect the power part of the equation to take place in the form of a miracle. But we forget that the miracle of faith comes through the action and out through the power! I made a visual and took a picture of it, so I'll send that to you too. It's pretty cool. Elder Kopishke said something I thought was funny, but it's true! He said, "I have the faith to move mountains! Just give me a pick and an ax and I'll get started!" We have to do our part. He also defined it in a way that really made sense to me. Faith is the attitude I have about the things that I can control. It was awesome. Do what you can, and then let God do His part. We may or may not see God's part of the faith cycle, but so long as we continually do our part, He will never let us down!! It was a really cool conference.

After the conference, we had an ideal lesson with Jay. There were two girls ages 8 and 10 who were running around like crazy!!! We tried to teach Jay, but he was really distracted. A few minutes into the lesson, I had an idea to have the girls help me out! I made a visual for every lesson I teach that I carry around with me everywehre, so I was prepared! I pulled it out and had the girls help us teach the lesson. I figured it wouldn't hurt, especially since Christ himself always says to not deny the little children and to let them come unto Him. It turned out really well. As we were leaving at the end of the night, Jay felt that he felt a sense of serenity in that home. It was powerful! I love teaching with little children!

 

The next day, we saw Rahfi. He's been hard to get ahold of for lessons. But we knew that he was studying for the ASVAP because he wants to go into the air force so instead of trying to get ahold of him for a lesson, we texted him to see if we could help him study! Ever since that text, he's been a lot more willing to meet with us for lessons. The part that he's really struggling with is the math section...and I love math! I've had to remind myself how to do a lot of it, but it's been fun to be a math tutor for a little bit!!

 

Friday was Halloween!!! They didn't want us out on the streets, so we got special permission to watch Despicable Me 2 and Frozen. The Centreville stake president, President Deon invited my entire zone of about 20 missionaries to come over to watch th emovies. It was so nice of them!! I had so much fun! I have to say, Frozen is my new favorite movie!!!!!!!!!! And since I'm a missionary, I connected it to missionary work every five seconds... it was perfect that a big theme of the movie was about having doors closed in your face! hahahaha!

 

Saturday we had another ideal lesson with Jay at the Grimes house. I LOVE THE GRIMES. They're the family with all the three cute little girls that I just love so much. Well, we went over there at 8 after the Grimes put their girls to bed and we had a lesson with Jay. Jay loves to talk. But he needs to talk so he can work out his concerns. It's really hard to pay attention sometimes when he goes on particularly long tangents about his experiences at SVU and members of the church that weren't very kind to him, especially when it's almost time for missionaries to turn into pumpkins. I was exhausted!!! I was so grateful for the Grimes- who helped teach a lot of the lesson. Jay really connected with them and asked if Brother Grimes would baptize him on the 22nd. Pretty cool. Jay is coming right along!!! We wanted to teach him about some of the commandments from lesson 4, but the spirit lead the lesson and somehow we ended up talking about the Great Apostasy. A lot of Jay's concerns result from the fact that he just doesn't understand what the Great Apostasy IS. So we cleared everything up and told him that he main part of the apostasy that he needs to understand is the fact that the priesthood authority was taken off of the earth. I can't wait for him to get a testimony of the prophet Joseph Smith because that will help him understand it so much better!!!

 

Church was awesome! Ashleigh told her boss taht she had to come into work later so taht she could come to church!! :) So she was there for testimony meeting. Sis W started the meeting off with an awesome testimony about the prophet Joseph Smith. I didn't feel like I needed to go up this month, but right at the very end of the meeting Sis W leaned over and said, "This might be the only time Ashleigh will see you get up and bear your testimony." I realized she's right, The next transfers are the 20th of this month, and I know taht I most likely won't be here for the next testimony meeting. Also, Ashleigh leaned to me and asked me to go.... How could I not get up there?! So after being guilted into it, right as the bishop was starting to stand up at the very end of the meeting, I jumped up and ran to the pulpit. It must have been a really funny sight. How many sister missionaries ahve you seen RUN up there at the very last humanly possible second? Ha. Oh well, I dind't care. I bore a quick testimony and just stared right at Ashleigh the entire time. She looked back at me with a huge grin on her face. After sacrament meeting she told me taht she thinks she'd be too shy to get up there any time soon, but she wanted to know what she would say if she ever did get up there. She told me she was going home to write down her testimony!! I love Ashleigh!!! I think we're going to be good friends for a long time.

 

MAN. We are keeping busy! We're having a ton of success! On top of all these ideal lessons with our investigators, we've been meeting with members, less actives and still finding new people to teach! I've never been so tired at the end of the day in my entire life! It's the greatest feeling ever.

 

I love you all so much! I hope you had a great Halloween and that you ate extra chilli for me! Speaking of which, I did not have chilli on Halloween. :( I had pizza... but I did have LOTS of chilli at the ward trunk or treat last weekend!!

 

God is good! Don't ever forget it!

 

Love you!
Sister Anderson

Official Washington DC South Mission Blog

Julie included this web address to her mission so everyone could check out what her mission has been up to.  Check it out!

http://wdcsmission.blogspot.com/p/mission-miracles.html

October 27, 2014

Trying to figure out how to pose!

There we go!

 

Hey family!!
This week was pretty great! We had a TON of member present lessons with all of the people we're teaching and both Ashleigh and Jay came to church yesterday! That was a miracle! We also had a lesson with Rahfi, our Muslim investigator, and we made a ton of progress with him! He used to never pray with us at all, but at the end of our lesson with him last night, we invited him to pray about when God wants him to be baptized! And he actually did it!!!!!! :D :D :D He said that December 27th really stood out to him because that was the day that his dad passed away two years ago. Rahfi is awesome. He still doesn't show any emotion in our lessons, which is frustrating at times because I'm the queen of emotion, but he is keeping commitments and praying to know that everything we teach is true. The best part of the lesson was at the end. I really felt like I needed to share my testimony of the Atonement. This week, I've really learned a TON about Jesus Christ and his Atonement.

 

We had an awesome Zone Conference. President Riggs had just come from a mission president's seminar with Elder Holland, who had just taught all the mission presidents to tell us that in order to really understand the Atonement, we really need to understand the fall. It was awesome. I wish there was a way I could teach it over an email, but there's a cool visual that goes along with it that's hard to explain. I'll have to show you some day. Anyway, my understanding of the Atonement has definitely increased. I've also really been studying 2 Nephi 2, 2 Nephi 9 and Alma 34. My love for the Savior has grown. There's a promise in Preach My Gospel that says something along the lines of how when your understanding of the Atonement grows, your desire to share the gospel WILL increase! That is SO TRUE!! I have seen a new drive in me to help everyone I see come closer to Christ! It's amazing! 

We had the ward Trunk or Treat on Saturday. We stapled mormon.org cards to candy and passed them out! :) it was a lot of fun! We have a really good relationship with our ward- it's so much fun!

 

I love you all!
Love,
Sister Anderson

I forgot to write about a really funny story!!!

We had a lesson with Jay in a member's home. We attempted to teach him the third lesson, the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Jay and this particular member were waaaay too similar, and didn't really get along. Jay told us he didn't read from the Book of Mormon and he wasn't in the best of moods because he just came from work- he was substituting for a fourth grade class. About halfway through, the lesson was going downhill, especially when Jay said something that wasn't very nice. I can't even remember what it was exactly, but it was something along the lines of how imperfect the people of the church are or something along those lines. I felt so strongly that I needed to stop him and be really bold with him. So I was. Turns out, he responds really well to boldness. I told him that I really felt like the lesson would have been better if he had kept his commitment to read 2 Nephi 31 because he would have been spiritually prepared. I kept talking and bore him my testimony of the Savior. I was about to stop talking and let Sister Williams take her turn to teach or testify when the member's new kitten snuck up behind me on the couch. It took a big swipe at the back of my head and hissed, which of course, totally freaked me out!!! At one point I was sitting on the very edge of the couch before the cat smacked me. In that moment, I freaked out. I was already on edge because I was being so incredibly BOLD with Jay, so when the cat attack happened, I screamed and turned SO fast that the momentum of my turn put me on the ground. I caught myself just in time so that I didn't face plant. I had no idea what had actually happened when I realized that I was on my hands and knees in the middle of a lesson!!!!!!! Talk about embarrassing. All I could do was laugh!!! It was so awkward!!!! At least Jay is a pretty chill person who just makes fun of me for it rather than judge me. That lesson will probably be the most memorable...

 

We also were asked to come and teach seminary on Friday! It was so much fun! I love seminary. We went to the Thiriot's home- they have seminary in their basement. We all split up into four groups and each group was assigned to an Elder or Sister. So I got to teach and role play with four of the seminary students from the ward. I LOVE it when members ask us to help them with their callings!!! :)

 



Sister Williams and Sister Anderson

Brother and Sister Riggs.  These are the missionaries that helped
 Julie with the whole "bed bug" situation!  Thank you Bro and Sister Riggs!

Carving pumpkins.

The finished product!

Sister Lamborn, Elder Ekins, he was a District Leader that just went home.

Sister Gray!

Sister Gray at transfers.

Trunk or Treating!

Haymarket Elders when Julie first got there.