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 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
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