Hey from San Rafael Barrio 2 again. Well we just found out whats happening with transfers and.........H. Anderson........se queda!!! So I am staying and........I am training again!! So I am a little freaked out and nervous to be doing this again. Obviously I didn't do it right the first time with H. Bedke right hahaha. So no I am excited and it should be interesting to train in the area where I was trained! Crazy! So H. Wilde is going to San Juan!! I love San Juan and she will love it. I am going to miss her so much though. She really is one of my best friends and its going to be tough saying goodbye but I know she needs to be up there and I need to be here to learn more. So also H. Gutierrez called me this morning because she is finishing her mission this transfer and she is going home tomorrow morning!! So weird!!! So that was really hard to to say goodbye to her. She was crying I was crying and she just was nervous and anxious at the same time. I feel like today has been hard because I am saying goodbye to two of my best friends in one day. But hey......that's what life is about....

So yes this last week was a little tough our investigator that has a smoking addiction smoked a day before her baptism so we had to cancel it. But we are definitely going to get her baptized this next transfer and also we found some great people for this transfer that is coming up. So I am excited. We found this boy that's 22 and he is so great. He hasn´t heard anything about our church. He didn't know what a prophet was and just believes in God and Christ and has a ton of faith in them. So we taught him and he is just so great. We invited him to church on Sunday and you have to realize that that is about he hardest thing to do is to get people to church here. Its always a struggle. But we called him the night before and he said he would meet us and so we went to pick up another investigator who ended up not being there so we arrived a little late to church but we walk in to sacrament meeting and he is sitting there in his track suit!! We were sooooo excited! He was so great he was listening and was singing the hymns and everything. He even stayed for the gospel principles class which was great because sometimes they don't do that. So that was awesome and we learned about the millennium and I felt bad because he doesn't even have a basic knowledge of these things but he listened really well and when we asked him if he had questions he was like well I think I will understand it better when I have learned more....so we were like YESSSSSS!!! So that was a total blessing and we are going to work with him more and hopefully get him baptized! So ya. Also I forgot to tell you last week that we ate lunch with some members here that are great and we ate an asado.....which is like a barbecue but a little different and its famous here in Argentina but we ate a whole pig! It was awesome. I even ate some brain.....ya it was not so awesome but hey I had to at least try it. So something funny that happened was that we were eating just yesterday with the same members that we had the asado with last Sunday and we were telling them that we make this really great dessert called German pancakes with this apple cinnamon and so I was telling them this and the spanish word for pancakes is panqueques. (pan k k´s) but I accidently said pan kuh kuhs which directly translate means poop bread hahahahahahahahah. They didnt know whether to laugh or not cause they are always really kind about helping us feel good about ourselves even if we dont speak perfect and I was laughing so hard and H. Wilde and so they all saw that it was okay and began to laugh....it was pretty funny. I felt so stupid haha. Hope that made you laugh. It was sooooo cold this week too. We have had days that are already in the 30´s and then one day we go out and it was like 8 degrees but raining and it was soooooooo cold cause we just had like out blazers on so by the time we got back to the pench we were frozen solid....and then the next day melting from heat. Lets just say that my tan lines have already started and it just started spring here.......I will probably be coming home a tan blonde just so you know what to look for hahaha. I can´t really think of anything else to write. I have a ton of new goals this next transfer I am excited nervous and anxious to get started with everything soooo wish me luck!!! We are going to tear it up this transfer.
Love you all!
H. Anderson

Hey!

So this week has been kinda wierd.. Yesterday we went to a dinner appointment and we ate chicken hearts with rice and beans.. Kinda wierd.. They were the size of grapes and kinda had a wierd textures but suprisingly I was able to swallow them without throwing up! :) Other interesting things this week was the other night when I was trying to fall asleep we heard some yelling and fighting outside our window and so we looked out a 2 or 3 guys were like fighting super bad and this girl was like yelling NO NO NO!! It was super wierd. My first instict was to go out there and be like he what is going on here.. Then my intelect kicked in and I realized I would probably get owned since they were realy strong.. hahaha so i just watched through the blinds and then went to sleep after they left. I also lost my USB drive that had all my pictures from the start of my mission up until now so that really sucks. Oh before I forget. Happy birthday steve. l know it was last week but i couldnt' get online to say happy birthday! Also Kori too! :)

Other cool things this week, we went to a party for this member the other day and they had a pinyata? how do you spell that? Anyways everyone takes turns as they sing this song and try to hit it and when it was my turn for the second time I destroyed it. I felt like a true hispanic. I knew you would all be proud of me. So what I am really saying with all of that is when I come home we are having them at every birthday party! :)  I think I have realized why I dont talk about my investigators as much and its simply because I dont usually say that much in the lessons. I know whats going on and whatnot but my spanish is really no where where I want it to be and its super frustrating sometimes when my companion is perfect in the language because he is from mexico. Its awesome but I just need to stop comparing myself because I feel like my spanish is terrible but in reality its not. I just need to practice more. So hopefully by next week I will have more to say about that. I am super excited about General Conference though. I seriously cannot wait. As a missionary its so much more meaningful!! anyways I am learning a ton of patience and humility out here and pretty much every other Christlike attribute and its super hard but super aweosme at the same time. Like working out you hate it when it hurts but you love seeing how big your muscles get.

P.S. I am pretty sure I can beat up any of the brothers in our family.

Love ya!

HEY Family!!

So Happy 10 months in the mission!!!! I cannot believe that Scotty and I have been out for 10 months already and that we are coming up on our year mark!!! Where on earth did the time go....Well its been a great 10 months and I feel like I have learned in this 10 months what people learn in like 10 years!! So it really has been such a blessing in my life. I still cannot believe that I am here in Argentina speaking Spanish and teaching the gospel to these people. I remember being in the exact ward when I started the mission and couldn’t talk at all and now I am talking and teaching and just feel so different. Sometimes I just forget and feel like this is and has been my whole life. It seems so strange to think that there will be a time when I am not going to be able to walk out and knock doors talk to people teach the lessons and baptize like we do now in the mission....but that makes me want to enjoy and work harder when I think about that so dont worry haha. So this week was interesting on Tuesday we found this young girl who is about 16 and she is so great. We actually taught her grandma the week before and when we knocked the door to see the grandma she wasnt there and so we were like well hey can we share a message with you. (sorry the question mark isnt working) so she said sure and we went in a taught her the plan of salvation as that was her need. She was really really intent and asking questions and we finished up the lesson and then in walks her grandma hahahaah. So  then we taught the grandma about baptism because the last time we had been talking to her we talked to her about baptism and asked her to pray to see if God wanted her to be baptized in this church. She did and she said she feels like she needs to be baptized and then she was like but without commitment.....we were like WHAT! What does that even mean hahahahahahahaha. So we asked her and we were like meaning like you dont want to be part of the church or go to church just get baptized.....and she was like ya. hahahah we were like uhhhhh okay we need to explain this whole baptism thing. So we taught her about it and her granddaughter was there listening the same one we just taught so we commited them both to pray about it after. They said they would. We gave the grandaughter a Book of Mormon and asked her what she would like to ask God for a place we could leave her to read. She told us she didnt even know if God exists....so we were like great!! So we left her the story of King Lamonis father and taught them both again about prayer and the holy ghost. The granddaughter was like how do we know when we get an answer! I seriously love it when they ask questions! So we taught her and testified from personal experiences it was beautiful and the grandma was like ya she needs to go to church and the granddaughter was like grandma its not to late for you come on! hahaha so we were just laughing and really grateful. But it was great because we passed again and helped her with her english homework and invited her to church and guess what she came!!!! And our inv. that hasnt quit smoking yet came too. So it was great. Our sacrament meeting was soooooo good both of the speakers spoke beautifully and it was one of my favorites sacrament meetings I have had in a long time. I loved it. But I am getting ahead of myself because I havent told you the story about our smoking investigator…..she is so crazy but we love her so much. She has a fetcha for this next Saturday and we are trying everything to get her to drop these last few cigarettes here this week and everything will be set. So it’s a fight every single day with her but we are working and praying and fasting for her and we need your prayers…..so also this week we went on divisions and I went with Hermana Thatcher yes like Margret Thatcher but they are not related haha. Anyways so ya it was great and we tore it up we found like 7 news and had a lot of fun. But I missed my comp. haha, just cause you do when you both get along so great. I love H. Thatcher too and I hope to be her comp. one day. They had a baptism this week and we helped with it and H. Wilde and I sang at it. We sang Joseph Smiths First Vision to the tune of Come thou Fount and it was beautiful and the spirit was so strong. It was a beautiful baptism and it just got us more excited for the ones we are working for! Anyways so that was great and we had interviews this week with President Avila and it was great! I love him so much. I was able to ask him some questions that have been on my mind for a while now and it was great the council he gave me but also he shared a really really really special experience so I am going to share it with you.

So do you remember when I was in San Juan and we had our miracle golden investigator that got baptized. Okay she is still doing great but something we do here in this mission is like a mission news letter thing that we get every other month. Anyways it has all the new missionaries on it the ones going home and like a letter from President Avila and then like a mission miracle. So when I was up in Mendoza in Godoy Cruz in the offices H. Packer asked me if I would type up my miracle for the newsletter thing because she knew about it because I told her so I said well sure I guess so….so we did and that was that. So what President Avila shared with me was that one of the assistants was in church and he had prepared talk and was going to share my experience in his talk but all the time got taken up so he couldn’t so instead he shared it in the principles of the gospel class for the investigators and new converts etc. and he said that after he share my experience the whole class was just overcome with emotion and it touched the hearts of everyone there. So then like a day or so later they saw one of the investigators that was in the class on Sunday and he was just overcome with emotion and told them that the story had touched his heart and he saw what the gospel could do to change lives and he got baptized because of it!!!! This just happened!! So Hermana Bedkes and my miracles helped create another miracle and this person got baptized!! I was humbled once again! Its so amazing and I really felt like it was so similar to the people of Alma in Mosiah 24 when Amulon is burdening the people and they are praying to God for him to bless them and ease their burdens even though they had a fear of being killed if they prayed and God visited them and said I ease these burdens etc so that it might be a testimony that the lord thy God doth visit his people in their afflictions. So that when we read that miracle we can have faith and hope that yes God with help us get through anything. Our miracle did the same because I was able to share that with others it was shared through those people and changed lives!!! This is what we should be doing everyday. We are always given tender mercies and blessing everyday and we should be helping others to see this and what the gospel can do to change their lives……we need to testify to what God has done for us. Anyways I just want to end with something I learned from the great talks in church and that is this. We are always looking for happiness to come from other people or some thing when really we just need to look inside ourselves…..happiness begins in the mind and ends in the heart. We decide to be happy. Its true I have tried it. I am the happiest I have ever been in my life right now on the mission. Why….because I decide to be.

I love you all. Thanks for the letters the love and the light you are in my life.

H. Anderson

Well family,

Another week in the mission has passed and just in case your wondering I have 62 weeks left. Of course I am not counting down. I love it out here. This week has been pretty good! We had a really great investigator come to church so we are excited for our next visit! We are doing a huge mormon.org campaign down here in Atlanta and so I am super excited because its really going to help out the work. This week was super sweet. We had this wierd party thing called Dia de Naciones. (Day of Nations) and we had people from all the south american countries, mexico, central america and whatnot get together and make food from their countries and then we just ate food and after they did dances for each country and it was super cool! I have a picture of what the gym looked like but then my camera died. haha I'll send another email with pictures!

Love ya!

Elder Anderson

Hey!

Hey Family! This week was pretty good! I will get the good news out of the way first. I didn't have to get the surgery!! The doctor told me to do some other things for my foot instead and he said the stitches would dissolve in like 30 more days that are inside my foot. So its a little weird because doctor Hollingsworth told me I needed to get them out but the doctor told me no....so we will see. I am going to wait another month and see how they look and feel and go from there. This week was a little tough we had to drop some investigators but we found some new ones so that was good. We are still working with our one investigator that has problems with smoking and this week I took one of her packs from her and H. Wilde and I were just like no you cannot smoke another one you have one week until your date to be baptized so you have to stop now! She was like chicas this is the last 5 I promise.  We are so frustrated because she just doesn't understand she says she wants to quit so bad and that she prays while she is smoking asking for forgiveness and everything but she just thinks that God is going to come and take the cigarette out of her hand or something because she keeps saying chicas you don't understand me and its so hard etc etc. She doesn't really want to quit I think because she really isn't doing everything she can to quit. So we decided this week if she smokes again and is still making excuses we are going to tell her we cant come by anymore to see how she does with that. She seriously loves us so much and we don't know if she really understands our purpose of being there that maybe she doesn't really understand our purpose here as missionaries. So we are going to pray about that and see if that's what God wants us to do. We also talked to the young girls we have been teaching that are the daughters of the member and we taught them about Joseph Smith and showed them the Restoration movie..we think they enjoyed it and felt the spirit its just so hard because they go to a catholic school and all their friends are catholic etc.....so its very different than what we have and they are young and our ward is so small and there is like 1 young woman and so there really isn't a great support there......so we will see what is going to happen. We have a lesson set up with them tonight so we are going to go and try to see them. We also taught this old man that lived in the states for a while and this is about our third visit to see him.....well we walked in and he was dancing all over to his music on the radio and we were like hmmmmm okay......and then he proceeded to speak to us in broken English and Spanish....we finally came to the conclusion that he was drunk....he has his wine bottle open sitting on the table and he was drunk....so we wrapped that lesson up really quick and told him we would come back another time.....he really is struggling and unfortunately he is going to things that will not bring peace or comfort but do just the opposite and leave him feeling even  more sad and empty...what a blessing it is to have the gospel in our lives and to be blessed to know  that we have a loving heavenly father always a prayer away.....
So when we went to Mendoza this last Friday for my ¨surgery¨ (which is a 3 and a half hour bus ride) Hna. Wilde and I decided that we would never need a movie or music to entertain us if we went on a road trip or lived together....why?? Because we are both crazy and we just had so much fun together....hahaha. So it was good. It was good we had some really great talks and I feel like we know each other sooo well. She told me about her past and about her experiences and man is she incredible. I have so much respect for her and she is such an example for me as a missionary and a person. She has helped me so much this transfer and I know God put us together for a reason I haven't been sad one day here we are always happy and laughing. It has really shown me that we really can affect our mood. We choose. Our agency is more powerful than we give it credit. So many times in life we blame other people for our frustration or bad days or whatever it may be, when really it is us that decide to be happy, offended or sad. I have really felt that here. Dealing with all sorts of people, getting doors slammed in our faces, getting rejected every day, being received great and then passing again to be rejected is so hard but this transfer I really haven´t let that affect my mood. H. Wilde taught me that. I choose my happiness I choose my mood. So the next time someone does something mean or rude or is taking too long or doesn't do something the way you would do it......look at it in a different way and remember you choose your happiness. Don't give your agency away to other people because that is exactly what Satan wants...
Anyways I am looking forward this week we have interviews and I am excited to talk with President he is such a great man and the spirit is so strong with him..I have a lot of questions for him so it will be great. The mission just seems to be slipped under my feet. I cant believe I am hitting my 10 month mark here this Saturday.....I don't know what I feel anymore. I just feel like this has been my life for so long and I am so happy here. I love the opportunity to meet and know so many different people from so many different backgrounds....I have met some of my best friends here on the mission and I still have so much time left to go....God has blessed me so much and I feel so grateful!
I love you all. Thank you so much for your support and prayers I feel it everyday..trust me.
All my love.
Hermana Anderson

Hey Family!!

This week has been pretty good! Yesterday I wasn't able to come online since it was Labor day and all the libraries were closed! We have started to see some of the effects of the hurricane. Its been raining here for about 3 days now and there has been some flooding in other areas around where I am at right now. Actually my last area is flooding haha but Im safe. We have this lake by our house and since its been getting tons of the runoff from the roads in the trailer parks its full of so much garbage it looks super nasty hahaha. We were able to set a baptismal date with one of our investigators who has been waiting to be baptized for about 7 months and so we are really excited!! Other than that nothing really too new is happening here. Its really cooled down with all the rain and it was 61 degrees just before I came here to write. Sounds like everything is going good at home! 

Love ya!

Elder Anderson

Hey Family!

So this week has been interesting. We have been working hard hard hard to try and get our investigators progressing....which means they come to church....its soooo hard to do here!! But we are trying everything. So we passed this week for one of our investigators and his mom came out and was like look stop coming over he is a different religion and our whole family is a different religion and we dont need you filling his head with stupid ideas......then she turned around and walked away!! We just stood there stunned not really sure what to do or say and we left with a feeling of sadness......there family doesnt even have good standard and he is the only one in the family that is trying to be good! Its so sad that his mom wont let him make his own decisions and we just felt so down.....but thats okay we pushed on and had some miracles this week. So last week H. Wilde and I set some fun goals to do this week to shake things up a bit. We were sick of the same old same old. So we decided to dedicate one of our mornings to do service. So we left in our P-Day clothes and brooms and went out all morning looking for old ladies or people sweeping their sidewalks..and we found some! So it was really cool! We helped one woman who had a really bad vision of the church change her view and also another girl we taught and we are going to keep teaching her. So it was fun and succesful! Just one great reason why I love H. Wilde is that we both just want to work and have fun! So its so much easier. So we were trying to look for some part member families and we found this one woman that I think I told you about last week how we taught her three kids and they love us now.....ya well its sweet becuase we planned this big FHE with them on Saturday (the kids) and the other Hermanas and their investigators that share the pench with us. So we met up in the stake center and played Futbol!! It was sooo fun and the girls loooooooved it their brother couldnt come but the girls love it so much! We had a lot of fun too. As we took them back to their house they were like mom guess what! We are coming to church with you tommorow!! We just were smiling so big and the mom was like ya if I wake up! We wanted to just scream with frustration! The mom is always saying the kids have their religion because they go to a religious school! So we are so confused because she should be wanted her children to get baptized and have the same blessings!! So anyways one of the daughters came to church which was a total miracle and there was this member that came up to her and was like oh is this your daughter!! She was like ya she is just visiting. and the other member was like oh great she should visit every week! And the mom was like well she has her religion! I was like oh my word calm down Hermana Anderson!! So frustrating sometimes! But we are going to go and talk with the mom and ask her what exactly she wants.....cause we dont know. Anyways we also passed for this family that the Hermanas have been trying to get a hold of for a long long time and we got in and we taught them and they were really great and they were really nice to us! So thats great cause the Dad is a member but they arent. So we are crossing our fingers for them. I feel like I have so much to work on to be better this week and I am trying really hard. I am always happy with Hermana Wilde and its just so fun we just laugh all day in the streets and have fun. I love it! It makes the work so much easier. So last night for some Pre P Day eve fun we were in the pench and H. Thatcher comes into our room with her shorts on and a bandana around her head and is like its time for ping pong war!! We just started laughing and kicked her out and changed into our gangster get up to beat them at ping pong. She has a little kit so we set it up on our table and it was way fun. Also something way funny is we have an elder in our district who is from North Carolina and has a wicked thick southern accent and so every night when the District leader calls to verify his comp the southern elder gives us a red neck quote of the day. I love it its sooo funny. So we have a good time thats for sure. So we also taught this lady this week who believes in reincarnation and she believes that John the baptist was the reincarnation version of Elias the prophet......I was like no no no cause I had just been studying about that in Jesus the Christ and I felt this heat rise in my chest and I felt anger come up in me cause she was like no you dont know but I just felt distinctly the impression to keep my mouth shut and it was sooooo hard but I did it and didnt say anything and just let H. Wilde testify and continue to teach and then I testified at the end and the spirit was there. I know that if I hadn´t listened maybe we wouldnt have been able to help her feel the spirit....so I am glad that I listened to the spirit and didnt try to fight with her. Oh my word I have never been soooooo sore than I was after that futbol game with the chicos every part of me hurt and I was like NOOOOOOOO I am getting so old!! I remember when I was a kid and could play for hours and hours and never get tired.....but alas I am not a kid anymore and am not in great shape but I am trying to be doing better and H. Wilde and I have been running mornings and been trying to eat healthier hahahah and its just so hard..but whatever. 
So I have a BIG Enormous THANK YOU to shout out to MOM and Hilary and whoever else had a part in the lovely package I just recieved! I am so blessed to have such an awesome family who spoils me!! I loved it all!!!! Especially the Joseph Smith movie the long version. That is like GOLD here and I have already put it to good use so dont worry! I love that movie every time I watch it my testimony grows stronger. Anyways thats about it for me from this end we have lots to do this week and I am really praying we have success!!! 
LOVE YOU!!
H. Anderson
P.S. So here is the bad news for this week......my foot has not been healing right.....my right foot the cut still isnt closed on top and the stiches arent dissolving however the skeleton grow stuff is sweet mom I felt like Harry Potter when I saw the bottle and just started laughing so hard! Anyways I called the nurse and she talked to Dr. Hollingsworth and he said after looking at some pics of my feet I took that I need another surgery. They are going to go in cause he thinks there might be a little infection deep down from when they put in the stiches so I have to go to Mendoza Friday and they have to open it up all over again and clean it out sooooooo I am sooooooooo not excited for this to happen again. So I will have stiches again I guess and another lovely healing process.......I need prayers......I am going to try to work as much as I can after but I will be careful and take care of my foot so dont worry mom. Anywyas so thats my life here in the mission always trying to heal from something blah!!! Anywyas love ya!!