Hey Family

Well another Christmas has come and gone and I find myself wondering
where the time went. I was thinking a lot about what Christmas means
to me as I was here in Argentina with a new companion I don´t know
really well in an area I hardly know and thinking how Christmas isn´t
about anything temporal. I realized all of this as I talked with you
on yesterday. I was thinking about how excited I was to be able to
talk to you all and just how that was really the only thing that I
really wanted. So interesting how when we are away from the things we
love we really begin to understand what is important. I think that
that is why we had to come to earth. We lived with Heavenly Father and
all of us as Brother and Sisters probably just lived a normal life but
as we come down to earth we are away from our Father and many of our
loved ones and I like to think that this is why so many of us feel
that emptiness that the Gospel of Jesus Christ fills. As we are here
we start to understand that really it is family that matters. The
Gospel focuses on the Family and how we can live forever. It doesn´t
matter how many gifts we receive or how many holidays we go on. It is
just about the family. That is why Christ gave His life for all of us
so that we could live with our families forever. That is true
happiness. I  love you all so much and to be on the mission I think I
understand even more how much each of you mean to me. To think about
how little time we had to talk to each other and how its just so hard
to say goodbye. I think that maybe that is how our prayers should be
to Heavenly Father.....as we pray it should be hard to say goodbye to
him and to go on with life. Obviously it is something all of us have
to do but just an interesting thought I had. Christmas is such a
wonderful time of year a time for us to really just focus on what is
really important. I love this season and there is such a special
spirit to it. It was cool because Hermana Haskell and I had the
opportunity to go to the hospital on Christmas eve and sing some
Christmas songs to some of the people there. As we were there singing
to a man and a woman that were along on this sacred night probably
concerned with what would happen in their future we sang songs of
peace and joy. The first noel....silent night songs that bring
feelings of the spirit and calm our spirits and help us to feel that
all is well. As we asked them after if they had ever heard these songs
they said no. I thought how stranged it must be to grow up not knowing
songs etc. that were so much a part of my life. The spirit entered the
room as we sang to them and their hearts were opened to accept to hear
the gospel message. We are going to back and teach them this week and
I am excited to see how that goes. Something that was kinda funny
about this weekend was definitely how they all light off fireworks on
Christmas Eve at about 12 at night. It doesn´t matter if your 6 or 60
I saw kids grandmas and middle aged people all out in the streets
lighting off fireworks. As Hermana Haskell and I ran to get into our
pench (we had permission to be out late) We felt like world war 3 had
started and that we were dodging bullets and small land mines! It was
so funny. I have a video of it. But we both were sort of shook up and
laughed about it later. The ward here in Maipú is awesome and I am
really excited to get working in this area. We were able to meet with
the bishop when I first got here and he is solid. Ready to work and
see miracles. So we are going to have lots of success in this area. We
have lots of desire to work hard and just loose ourselves in the work
so I am excited to see that results of our labor. It was good to talk
to all of you and Scotty too. The kids are getting so big and I had to
laugh when Allie started counting and just started throwing in random
numbers. She is so cute. I hope you all enjoy this last week of 2011
and spend it well remembering that Christmas is something that should
be in our heart everyday of the year. Have a Happy New Year make sure
you party hard and we will see if I am alive for the next PDay email
time. They light off even more fireworks for the new year! :) I think
Scott prepared me to be a missionary here in Argentina all his pyro
skills I have learned how to successfully avoid disaster! Thank
goodness he isn´s serving here or he would be out in the streets with
them! haha.

Love you all!
Hermana Anderson