Mexico City - Week #17

hey all,

this last week went very well. the highlight being the baptisms of the two twin boys, C. and C. and their confirmations. i baptized C. and confirmed C.. so i gave my very first blessing this last sunday and itwas in spanish lol. it was very cool because i really saw the power of the Holy Ghost. (wow, its really weird to see the words Holy Ghost lol siempre el espiritu santo.) but it was a really cool experience that i will never forget! 

we have decorated our house for the most part. i have pics i will send of it. we have a real tree! i am with my companero for another 7 weeks. i have mixed feelings about it because i love him but at the same time, i could use a change lol. he feels the same way but we are gonna kick it out for another 7! thats about it for the week folks lol not much but yeah.. i hope you all have a good week and thanks for taking the time to read and respond to kylee and me. i know it gets kinda hard sometimes when things build up. i love you all very much. hasta el proximo p-day! xoxoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #16

hola from mexico,

i hope you are doing well! thanks for the emails! this last week was great. the highlight was definitely the christmas devotional. had to watch it in spanish but it was ok cuz i understood the main points of every talk. i loved it when we got to sing silent night because only us gringo elders were singing because the latinos didnt know how to read the english lol.

had tacos al pastor. soo good.. they are my favorite food in mexico right now.. i cant really think of anything else that happened this week so yeah.. oh we went on divisiones with the ZLs. my comp went to their area and i stayed in mine. that meant i was senior comp for the day. it was super nice to see how much i knew my area. was able to get us from apt to apt without a problem. it was weird to be with somebody other then o. but cool too. yup so thats it. i love you all! have a fantastic week!

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #15

24 days till Christmas! i had a great week this last week. went to KFC instead of Pizza Hut for Thanksgiving. it obviously felt nothing like Thanksgiving but to be honest i was, just living in the my thoughts that night anyways. thinking of the wonderful thanksgiving dinner, watching NFL football, and then the best part, black friday shopping afterwards. i was picturing you guys fighting with other people over some scooters or bed sheets or such lol. good stuff.

so we had a baptism on saturday! it was A.! remember her? she was the one wedded to my first baptism, D. she ended up backing out on the same day d. got baptized so we backed off teaching her for a while until she came last week to church. she told us she wanted to be baptized now so we taught here all the lessons rapidly this last week and yup, shes member now! the reason she wanted to get baptized was that she went one night to read the Book of Mormon and the baby who she is 3 months pregnant with, started kicking and kicked the whole time she read it. she said it was trying to tell her to get baptized so we thought that was pretty neat. the twins and their family have been attending church. so their baptismal date for the 13th is still lookin good. they are an awesome family!

went to a mall today for p´day and found a bunch of other missionaries their from our misión. we all went to chilis and i had actual buffalo hotwings here for the first time. they were so good to have. like Candy.. also, the mall was just like the ones in the US and for a moment, i felt like i was home again. had a good p-day and a good week. love and miss you all!

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #14

hey yall

this past week has been great. have been able to find some new investigators and have been able to work a lot. before the mission, i used to wonder how i would ever be able to work as much as a missionary does but i have come to find out that you want to work because it gives you less time to think about the things you miss and also makes the time go soo much faster. its good stuff.

so we had a meeting with an elder of 1st quorum of the 70s! Elder paul b. piper! its was so awesome! he knows so much more than i can even comprehend! and i was sitting in the front row and he sat right next to me. i ... also know the pass to his ipad. ... in case your wondering lol. and after the meeting 10 elders out of the 2 zones there got to have interviews with him. guess who 1 of the 10 was? MEEEE! i had an interview with a member of the 1st quorum of the 70! i will tell you the questions and answers i had next week cus i dont have time this week. but he said to tell you, dad, that you are a super strong man to be the first one to turn things around in your family. he commends you a lot. it was such an amazing experience to talk to that man one on one and i dont know if i will ever have another experience like that again.. i sure hope so.. 

thats about it for the week. love yall and hope you have a great thanksgiving and black friday. peace

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #13

hola familia,

hows it going for you all? probably great. thats great. so this week, i went back to the doctor for my stupid toe for the 3rd operation in the mission. oh what a waste of time it was to go before the mission mama. rememeber how we thought it would be all better just in time for my mission?? HA. its okay though really, because i think im actually starting to enjoy the huge needles they use everytime i go. they are starting to tickle me ;P so yeah, in operation number 2 the doctor cut the edge of the nail all the way down but only took half of it out. so the skin actually grew around the nail again to make it more infected then the last times lol. gotta love the doctors here.

so i didnt get as many lessons accomplished as i wanted to this week because of my toe but we went to the stake center for stake conference sunday and a part member family showed up from our area. they have a set of twins age 11 that need to be taught the lessons in order to be baptized. super awesome and a huge blessing! also, for stake conference, Elder Andersen of the quorum of the 12 was broadcasted speaking in spanish. as well as some other people from the the quroum of the 70s but it was super weird listening to Elder Anderson give his in spanish! apparently he has a french accent because he also knows french as his second language and portugese as his 3rd with spanish as his last. super talented man and i learned a lot from his talk.

nothing much more happened this last week. a lot of studying because i had to stay home for my toe. we did go to the church this morning and play some ultimate frisbee and basketball. that was a lot of fun. and i believe im about to eat some arroz y leche ahorita. woot woot. thanks so much family for the Christmas package! i cant wait to open it on dec 24th! also, thanks for the letters from ashley, allison, and you, kim! they were great to read and you should have the return mail in a month or so (hopefully) 

thanks so much for all the love and support! i love you all so much! hasta el proximo lunes!

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #12

yo all,

this past week was pretty cool. like the rest of um i guess haha. lots of interesting stuff to tell y`all.

so last week, the day after p-day, we went back to the doctor for my toe again. i got another ingrown toenail on the same side of the same exact toe i had it on before the mission. went to the hospital a couple of weeks ago to get it taken care of so they gave me 4 shots of anethesia and plucked out part. well, it got infected the following week because the docter didnt get it all out so we had to go again last week. so, this was how that experience went.. went to cami hospital which is only about a 45 minute metro ride from my area. the only thing was, was that there were tons of people and traffic and we got their a half hour late. we were supposed to be the second to last apt. for the doctor that day and come to find out her last appointment was another missionary companionship in our mission. my compa knew them and their names were actually elder anderson and elder t. the even more ironic thing is that elder anderson was there with the same problem i had, ingrown toenail.. anyways, the doctor wouldnt even look at my foot because i think she just wanted to go home so we came all the way there for nothing. another part of the story is that we had no cell phone. (ours is in the office getting exchanged for a better one) so this is the same hospital that i already had the operation at and it didnt work and now they wouldnt even look at it until a week later. both my companion and i were fed up with it all and decided to use the other missionaries` phone to call a different hospital because i just wanted to be done with the surgery already. this was the mistake lol.

the hospital was in the north side of the city which meant another hour and a half commute via metro so we started off for it at around 6 and got there at 730. no big deal right? ha.. we got there and filled out all the paper work and sat in the waiting room for a while until they called my name at around 8. i got done with the operation at 815 or so and yes it hurt a lot haha (i have pics) well we thought we could just leave after that but the person at the desk with my paper work informed us that she needed us to wait until the letter came from the ... insurance security company came, clearing us from having to pay for it out of pocket. so we were like, ``ok no big deal. we will just wait a lil bit and then get home a lil bit past 930. right?`` well the security company didnt get the letter sent until after 10:00pm! thats a half hour after we are supposed to be in our house.. so here we are, in the very north part of mexico city without a phone and its already 10. we also dont have the office or the presidents number with us and i can walk, but super slow. so we left for home after saying a prayer in the parking lot of the hospital of course. we got home at 12:30am that night but our prayer was answered beause there was not a scratch on either of us after walking the streets of mexico city at 11 at night. super super sketchy but Heavenly Father came through for us once again! wanna hear something even crazier? my toe is still infected so we are going to have to go again lol. so yeah that was the highlight of my week.

other news is that i have another cycle with my companion so 6 more weeks with him. im pretty excited and we are gonna work hard trying to find new investigators because none of ours are progressing right now. i also hit the 4 month mark yesterday so that was cool :) my honduran companion gave me a US one dollar bill and showed me that `THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA`` is 24 letters so i have been coloring in one letter every month haha pretty cool.

thats about it for the week. i have more pics from the center and some of my operation for you guys as well. i hope the story made sense lol im scatter brains when i email. anyways, love you guys like always and talk to ya next week!!

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #11

i am super glad the packages are coming! (Christmas package from us to Corson) i cannot wait!! i actually got a letter with some stuff im gonna send for christmas eve. you are NOT ALOUD TO OPEN IT TILL CHRISTMAS EVE. if you actually get it that is.. lol i dont have much time left but we went to the center of mexico city today. absolutely amazing but i wasnt sure if i liked it or disliked it more cuz it made me feel like a normal person again or like a tourist. just felt weird.. i like the title elder and all that you get with it haha. we met some business men from gilbert and mesa who work in scottsdale and they invited us for lunch and are hopefully gonna  call us to go wednesday. they are both mormons and served missions. we met um in the center and if i end up seeing them again, i will give him my letter for you guys and you guys can just pick it up at hit house next week sometime. how cool is that?? anyways, had a lot of good memories made the last couple weeks and we are still workin hard! i will send some pics of the center and also of a lil kid who reminds me of bren bren. love you guys and i wont be able to send a general this week cuz of the time. have a great week.

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #10

well this week was pretty awesome like the other weeks but i dont have any ... time to write about it.. all i want you guys to do is to watch this talk by Bruce R. Mckonkie called the the seven deadly heracies on youtube. 

 LAS 7 HEREJÍAS MORTALES- Elder Bruce R. McConkie

the best talk ive ever heard in my life! and this talk is better than my entire last week or possibly even my entire mission so please watch it with the family and really listen.. you wont regret it, i promise.

i love you all and thanks for everything you have down for me! peace out!

Elder Anderson

WATCH THE TALK :)

Mexico City - Week #9

hey all,

tell Bryson good luck with playoffs this next month or so and tell him im still practicing football here. i just juked out a drunk dude who tried to grab me the other day lol. he about fell over. my stomach is a lot better now so thats awesome. i hope yours is too Kylee.. 

bad news for the 2 baptism dates.. neither person showed up to church yesterday and im pretty sure one of them got a job which is great but he works on sundays now which is terrible. so now we get to go to his house and tell him that he needs to quit the job we wanted him to get lol should be interesting. we went to hna C. house to teach her saturday night. she was baptized right before i came into the area and she is the best recent convert ever! she is soo converted to the church, its incredible. anyway, we came to teach and we started talking about pizza (because thats the one dish that everybody dreams of eating here. its so good and expensive) and she was like, you two want pizza? we were astonished and didnt want to say yes because we knew it would be expensive for here but she didnt even wait for us to answer. she told L., her 6 yr old grandson, to go get her the phone. so we had pizzzaaa! woot! woot! made my day.

 had a big meeting with the entire mission on saturday. our mission president had it to draw the line because many missionaries in my mission arent making good choices and when a missionary isnt obedient, relationships with the ward members investigators and other missionaries crumble which in turn, ruins a mission and keeps many people from partaking in their salvation. it was good to hear from the president about all the rules from his own mouth and it has helped me to lift my game so im grateful for that.

thats about it for the week. love yall a bunch!

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #8

hey people,

i always love sitting down to email everyone because it gives me a chance to reflect on my week and to wonder whats going to happen in the week to come.. not to mention getting caught back up on the lives of the people i absolutely love!

this last week was good.. we have two baptism dates both set for our november 1st baptismal service. the first one is a 26 year old women named m. she is super super Christian but her church was to far away to go to and since she had lds members living under her ... she started to get interested in our church. she was taught by her pastor that you are only aloud to wear skirts and she cant pray unless she has a veil thingy to cover her head. kind of weird but we are working with her lol. shes really cool and its so much better teaching <other Christians> because they understand the bible so much. anyways, we got her committed for baptism saturday and invited her to church on the following day. unfortunately she couldnt make it because she had to watch he sister's kids but another one of our investigators names j. showed up which was awesome because we didnt even get the chance to invite him. after the class with the rest of the investigators during 2nd block, my comp. and i ... committed for baptism. he is one of 3 kids of a less active convert to the church named Hermana L. the other 2 kids are the girls i talked about in my email 2 weeks or so ago i think.. we are still trying to get them committed.

not much has happened other than that stuff.. my comp and i had to take a 2 hour bus ride to the south part of the city for his first of 2 wisdom teeth to be taken out. the next one will be scheduled for later this week or early next week i believe. we lost 2 and a half days work for just that one tooth so now i understand why perparing missionaries need to get them taken out.

my stomach has been killing me lately.. its like what kylee got with her upset stomach. just really bad pains and then yeh.. bathroom, bathroom, bathroom. it actually hasnt been working 100 por ciento since my salmonella incident. who knows what the problem is.. if it doesnt get better throughout this coming week i will probably tell my president about it.

 

thats about it for the week my people. your in my prayers. love you guys and "talk" to yall next week!

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #7

hey all,

thanks for the emails this past week. they were great as usual. this week was a great week with the highlight being General Conference of course! i absolutely loved it. i have learned so much from it and i was able to realize how crucial it really is to watch it every 6 months. watching it in english was another great blessing for me. to be honest, i didnt want it to end.. i miss english!

not very much exciting happened this week other than Conference.. a missionary named Elder M. from my district went home this past week after completing his 2 years. he was like my favorite in the district because he was super nice caring and just genuine. he went home to the pueblo in mexico which is like only a 2 hour car ride from our misión. i think i have a picture with him i will send.

one of the members taught me how to make leche y arroz (rice and milk) also this past week and it was amazing. ive had it twice now since ive been here and its better than ice cream for me. you know thats saying a lot since i used to eat ice cream by the gallons at home lol. all it is, is rice, milk, wáter, half and half (i think thats what it is), a lot of vanilla, and a ton of sugar. oh my gosh its so good and i cant wait to make it for you all when i get back.

we had cambios as well here but i didnt cus im training which means i am staying with my comp 6 more weeks till mid november or so. im happy to be with him though because he really has taught me a lot of spanish and just how to go about the missionary life in general. you definitely need some one to help when it comes to adjusting to the missionary life and i guess thats why they call the trainers ´dads´ and the new missionaries ´sons´ lol

thats about it for the week folks, tune in next week to hear more about the fun im having!

luv yall

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #6

hey all!

well i don't know what to write haha. I'm super excited for general conference though! we get to watch every session in english both saturday and sunday! woot woot!

so with A., she is still struggling. as of now we aren't going to go over to her house for a while until she gets some stuff figured out. she's just having a really hard time so continue to pray for her please. with j., we baptised him saturday. my compa did the baptism saturday and guess what? not a single member from the church showed up. we invited a lot, even the bishop and his family and nobody came. luckily, j. is a really cool laid back kid and it didn't bother him much from what i could see. so it was only us 6 missionaries from the ward and j. at the church on saturday. it was pretty sad but at least he's baptised and confirmed now. and he already has the aaronic priesthood! we contacted another menos activo this last week also. we've been trying to find her for a couple weeks and we finally did. she has two daughters who are 13 and 12 and aren't baptised yet. hopefully we will be able to get in there and start teaching their family. 

so there are jehovas witnesses here of course too and they have their churches too. but at the entrance to the church by the gates. they always have people there. (i guess i should also tell you that all the LDS churches and really just buildings in general have big iron fences around the perimeter) well i always thought it was kind of weird that the tg's (jehovas witnesses) had people at their front gate until i realised why.. our gate was open as usual for sacrament on sunday. well, during church, a drunk old man came wandering into the halls. luckily, us missionaries were there to greet him. he wanted money of course. we then told him nicely that we had no money which was true (all missionaries go poor the last week of the month because they run out of money) and he wandered back out of the church and back onto the street. then it dawned on me why the tg's have people at their gates haha. i think our church should start implementing that.. seriously.

well, i need to get going to district meeting. thank you all for the thoughts prayers and emails. I LOVE YOUUUU

Elder Anderson

p.s. i did the exact same thing kylee did with her shrimp and shells on sunday at a members house. except i did it with the pork fat they served us and i hid it all under the onion sprouts. its so weird to read my sisters emails because i feel like i am experiencing the exact same things she is even though we are in completely different places. awesome.

Mexico City - Week #5

hey all,

this week was pretty cool. oh and before i start thanks for all the emails everyone! i had so many this week! so started off the week with mexican Independence day. it was crazy all night and i got no sleep haha. the Fireworks ended around 12ish and then the marrachi bands started right outside our appartment like clockwork. terrible. the next day we were invited to a family in our wards house and they are really great people but the food was absolutely disgusting. it was called pasolli and its basically tomatoey soup type stuff with chicken. the chicken was what was disgusting! i already have started to hate the chicken here anyway cus the butcher shops along the sides of the streets have them and every single chicken ive seen here is yellow. not White, but stright yellow like a taxi cab. but anyway, it was so bad because it was leftovers from the pasolli the night before. this meant that all the decent pieces of meat were gone, so what did they do? took the bones, fat ,and anything else left over and put it into the soup. i about threw up.. BUT i have had a very good game plan with these types of meals thus far.. Por ejemplo, i ate about half of the pasolli that day and couldnt take any more spoonfulls without gagging so there was some pica (super hot pepper seasoning) on the table and i dumped more and more of it into my bowl when nobody was looking. then i made a (holy crap! im a griengo who is stupid and put too much pica in my soup-face) and they were all like oh no! he put too much into the soup so they refused to let me eat anymore of it (normally you have to eat every last drop) and when they offered me more, i insisted i was completely full. just remember kylee, there is always a way to work the system towards your favor..

good news! i got my first baptism on saturday! it was D. it felt amazing and it makes everything worth it totally.. as for A., his wife, she had a lot of problems and didnt want to get baptized at all that day.. her sister is living with here and said that she would move out if A. got baptized. but our DL (district leader) talked with her for like an hour after D.'s baptism that day and she has a new goal for tomorrow to be baptized. please pray for her. she needs it. J. missed church again on sunday but we are continuing to teach him. hes a really good investigator but hes just a normal college student who has a hard time waking up for church on sunday mornings lol.

i actually have a very cool experience with J.. well not really with him but yeh let me explain.. so after the baptism it was about 8 or so when we left the church and we had an appointment with J. we got to his house and nobody was home. he had told us via voicemail earlier that day that 8 or 830 would be fine for us to come so we waited in front of his door for about another 45 minutes because we really needed to talk to him and make sure he knew how important it was for him to attend church the next day (sunday). well after waiting for a long time and trying to call him, we couldnt get ahold of him whatsoever so we were about to go home when i got a weird impression to go the opposite way. i didnt know why and when i told my comp. we should and he asked why, i jokingly said, so we can see a member, say hi, and then go back to our house for the night. he was like, ok lets go. so we got to the end of the Street with J.'s house on it and it was a T junction so you could only go left or right. my comp. then said, looks like you were wrong Elder.. then, i said again, jokingly, have more faith dude. he was like fine lets go right, so we went right, walked 15 steps down the Street, and low and behold, a member passed by in his car and with his window rolled down, yelled, Hey Elders! we were in complete shock that it actually happened and my comp. called me prophet the rest of the way home haha. we also told me about the feelings he had been feeling earlier in the day when A. said no to baptism.. he said he was angry with God and just wanted a sign from him to still make sure He cared.. well my comp. got the sign! it wasnt anything too incredibly crazy but it was perfect and just what we both needed considering that ive been studying about faith lately and trying to put it to use. Our Heavenly Father knows everything about our lives. EVERYTHING.

other than that, nothing happened much more other than normal missionary routine. im super blessed to be here and love it!

Love you all and will talk to ya next week!

Elder Rojo (the members call me that now, lol)

Mexico City - Week #4

hi all,

this week was definitely a different one. on my 2 month mark, the 9th, we had to go to an appointment in the morning for my companion at the dentist. (his wisdom teeth have been hurting him so he had to get them taken out.) anyway, he was not quite sure where it was so we had to bring along another companionship from our district who knew the área better. turned out they werent all that sure either. so after almost 4 hours of walking, arriving at the dentist office at 2 for our 10am appointment, we finally made it lol. after that, we came back and went throughout the day.

well, that night, i woke up around 12ish with a really bad headache and my body felt so so sore. it felt to terrible to be only from walking a lot the day before. anyway i tossed and turned in my bed all night just super miserable worrying myself about not being able to perform well the next day. morning came and i felt worse.. my comp already had to call the misión president for his teeth so he gave me the phone and told me to tell him what was wrong. i told him i had a headache and he said to go buy a coka cus sometimes caffiene helps and to just take it easy for the day cus he didnt want me to get sick. turned out i was already sick. sick with salmonella poisoning.. after i called him, it just progressed all day and i was on the toliet more times then i can possibly count.. luckily, i never threw up. you know how i LOVE vomitting.. so yeah i tried to sleep all that day but it was super hard between all the ailments i had. anyways, i called the president that night and told him about how much worse it got and he told me to go to the misión doctor in netza which either means a lot of walking and a metro ride or an expensive taxi ride. there was no way i was going to walk so i went with the taxi. long story short, got there and the doc informed me that i had gotten salmonella from some uncooked eggs or pork. im pretty sure i got it from the pork at a members house we ate dinner at which happened to be the same day we walked 4 hours. i remember it tasting pretty nasty. i ended up having it for 3 and a half days total. i still have the montezumas revenge but thats it now. the pills the doctor prescribed helped a lot.

so tomorrow is the mexican Independence day like our 4th of july so its a really big deal here. we have special rules for today and tomorrow because of it. also we went to a huge fiesta at the church for it friday night. it was really weird cus they brought carnaval rides into the the church parking lot for the members. they were also lighting Fireworks off right next to the church and there was just craziness. they do it every year here for the stake i guess. it was pretty awesome though. i have pictures i will send lol.

other then that, weve just been continuing to work with our investigators. we went with A. and D. to get them married saturday. it was a huge event for their entire family and friends and they had a big party at their house the rest of the day and they came to church sunday so they are all set to be baptized this saturday! its super exciting for me but also makes me nervous.. we still arent sure whos gonna do the baptizing. they will let us know later this week.

as for J., we took him to a another companionship's baptism in our district in order to show him the proper procedures and answer anymore questions he has about it all, he still needs one more sunday church attendance and then he is set too. its super exciting to see all this progress and i know im exetremely blessed to be able to see Chirst´s work move forward with few to no barriers at the momento. im exetremely grateful to be able to work in this área and i have gotten so close with so many members and people in the área already. its amazing.

nothing more than that, other then eating hamburgers yesterday. i miss american food! i love you all and look forward to hearing from you guys. you are all in my prayers and i know im in yours too. thank you so much. luv ya hasta luego!

Elder Corson Del Anderson

Mexico City - Week #3

hey everyone,

i had a great week this week. we had 3 baptismal dates set for the 20th. one of them, we took all three of them to the temple. A. and D. are the first 2 baptisms and they have been living together for a while but arent married. D. is part of a part member family and supposedly has already been baptized but the church has no records of it so we are going to baptize him along with her. they are set to get married on the 13th so we will be accompanying them. they are super excited, at least D. is haha. A. still has a tough time with it all i think. the last baptism is J. He's been an investigator for around 6 months or so. its been that long because other missionaries just about finished his lessons and then he had to go off to college so he couldnt get baptized. we found him again and taught him all the lessons he didn't remember and hes just about ready to be baptized. the only problema is that he doesnt own an alarm clock and didnt get up for church this week and an investigator needs at least 3 visits to church before baptism and he only has 2 so we have to push his baptism back another week so ...

oh and my greatest accomplishment this week was learning how to roll my R´s like in the words perro and carro. i have never been able to do that in my entire life and thought i would never learn but just the other night, i was practicing them while my comp was practicing english R´s like in the words hard and car (super tough for latinos to get our R´s), and yeah i just got it out of nowhere! everybody was super impressed here when i showed um. they said their other White comps couldnt get that until they were like 7 to 12 months out. so im super thankful for that blessing! kylee, can you do your R´s?

so the weekends are pretty funny here. they love to party on the weekends here. anyways, this last friday night, we were walking from appointments, and first a guy who was totally fried at the moment from the influence of alcohol and drugs wanted to know what we were doing. we started to tell him and then realized he couldnt comprehend anything anyways so we gave him a couple pamphlets to read and walked away. 30 seconds later we walked by a lady sitting on the curb who was under the influence of alcohol and she made some pretty nasty remarks to my comp, 30 seconds after that, a bus passed by us with a guy sniffing some type of drug in plain sight. thats pretty much how each weekend night goes here.. its really sad to see the influence drugs and alcohol have on so many peoples lives. im am so happy that i learned young, to stay far away from any of that stuff!

yesterday at church was very good. third block, we watched a movie about Gordon B Hinckley, its called a giant among men i believe. it was really great and i recommend you all watch it! seriously. after church, we had pizza at a members house which was a real treat cus you hardly ever get pizza here unless you buy it for yourself and then its really expensive. but later that night, we had it again at another member's house! it was a great fast breaker that day.

i was also getting really down on myself because we went to an investigators house to teach a lesson and the investigator had a ton of questions with a lot of doubts about the góspel and my comp pretty much did all the talking. i knew what i wanted to say and really wanted to say it but i couldn't translate it to spanish, finally i tried saying it and the little kid who was in the room was like ¨what?¨ so i knew i did a terrible job conveying my message. the rest of that night, i was feeling sorry for myself and then i noticed one of the Elders we had pizza with, was feeling bad as well. his name is Elder N. and he speaks zero english. after dinner we had a half hour walk back to our houses and i started talking to him. he told me about the problems he was having with his companion, and then i got him to tell me about his life. i learned that he's part of a part member family, there are 8 of them and his mom, sister, and himself are mormon. one sister doesn't believe in God, the other is catholic, and the other is (non-denominational), the other members don't really have a preference about religión. i also learned about what he did before the misión and what he wants to do after the misión and he gave me a lot of good advice about the misión. i'm telling you this because before this momento i have never been able to have a normal conversation with anybody in complete spanish, especially one for half an hour. i learned that night, that God had given me a tender mercy because i was struggling with my confidence in spanish that night. i'm so thankful for the role my Heavenly Father has played in this misión so far and its hards for me to believe all the blessings i have received already. i feel spoiled.

i love you all and look forward to reading your emails next week. take a moment this week to think about the many blessings you have been given and you will realize how charitable our Heavenly Father really is.

Love,

Elder Anderson

D

Del Anderson

Mexico City - Week #2

yo,

week 2 was very good. we took an investigator to church yesterday named Javier. should hopefully have him baptized within the next month. along with a couple others if all things go according to plan.. keeping my fingers crossed! i used to hate teaching lessons before the misión and now i love it.. i dont know what it is but when we teach to people we just feel so much peace and security. i would always struggle thinking about how i would cope with teaching thousands of lessons but now im like yeh! we get to teach a lesson! lol its really weird.. another one of the many blessings i guess. also took hna christina to the temple visitors center for her first time ever. she was just recently baptized and is super converted. i love here so much. she has a lil grandson she has to watch a lot named leo. hes a lil terd. haha but hes so funny. hes like 4 and he does stuff just to get under her skin.. sounds like me when i was Young.. love you mom ;)

my cámara died one night and i put new batteries in it and started it back up and all my pictures were deleted! super sad but im glad it happened early in the misión and im also glad i sent a good half of um home via email.. (if anybody has a better way that i can send pictures home via internet let me know) the day after that happened we got caught out in a thunderstorm and we were on the other side of our área so it was about a 20 min run thru the rain to our casa. my shoes are still drying out haha. it was a lot of fun and my cameras waterproof so i got some good pics and vids. the streets turn into waterfalls here when it rains because they are all super inclined because we tract on the side of a mountain basically and there is practically no drainage.

we have had some kick-butt food this last week. had some pizza, with cut up hotdogs on it for the meat of course. actually pretty good.. and my comp and i started a tradition every friday night to go to this one place and have quesadillas and coke (the coke is made with real cane sugar here so it tastes amazing) and the quesadilla was the best one ive had in my life.. seriously considering getting one right now.. theres a lot more i ate but i wont bore yall with that

so everybody takes the metro or buses or taxis for transportation here so everytime we get on the metro there are so many people packed like sardines or when theres not that many people, the performers come in and they are anything from clowns to singers to whistleblowers, to ladies with their children helping them sell candies to people. its crazy..

...

nothing more really happened this week aside from preparing. teaching and contacting everyday. it was a great week for me! i love you all so much and thanks for the dearelders and stuff you all sent me thus far! letters seriously make my day! gracias gracias

love Elder Anderson

First week in the field!

hello all,

this week was definitely exciting. my area is called Ixtla 2. its one of the nicest areas in the mission. lol that worries me. i will get to that in a bit. left the mission offices tuesday morning for the netzhaulcotoyl (dont think i spelled it right) stake center for the missionary exchanges. my new comp. is elder o. he is a great missionary. he is from hondorus. and his primary language is spanish of course but luckily for me he knows a bit of english which i am so grateful for because i dont understand 90% of whats being said around me. i figured i wouldnt know a lot of what was going on around me but dang its crazy.. i am learning more and more every day though. my learning curve is exponentially increasing with spanish. i have 12 weeks with elder o. i talked to other griengos (slang for white missionaries) and they said they felt pretty good after their first transfer. so i will give it 12 weeks and if i still dont have a clue whats going on, then i will be worried lol. so the life here in mexico city is ridiculous.. i dont understand how any of these people can live in these conditions.. its hard to describe without you all actually being here but i will do my best.. it feels like every building ive seen since i got here has been spray painted on. their are the nastiest dogs and cats i have ever seen here and they are on every street. the people are nice for the most part. you get the occasional ones who yell at ya and call ya names but thats normal.. most of these people have never seen a white person, let alone one with red hair so i get weird looks on the daily. its pretty funny actually. it is almost impossible for people to find jobs here so they all just buy tarps and tables and either set up right outside their front door or on the curb of the streets. it is really sad. they sell everything and i mean EVERYTHING. what ever they can get their hands on they will sell. they have these big deals called tiengas.apparently mexico city is famous for um. this is when all the people who usually set up the shops in front of their houses bring um all to one street and set everything up there. its basically a mall just mexico city style lol. i asked my comp where these people got all of this stuff they were selling and he said they either buy alot of it for mass price and resale it or just steal it. look up ^tiengas^ google images and they will probably come up. we walk through one on the way to church yesterday. it was at least a half mile long.. craziness.. my apartment it pretty big actually. i have pictures of it. we are on the top floor and we door our laundry on the roof the building. its by no means clean but i am very happy with it compared to some of the other missionaries apartments in our area.we havent had hot water this last week because they ran out of gas so we we fill up a 5 gallon bucket of brown water from the shower faucet (all the water is contaminated here) and we have this wire thing that you plug into the outlet and put the other end in the bucket of water and it heats it up. pretty janky. oh wow atm there are dogs fighting outside the house.. they are super loud. anyways yeh so we took a bowl and scoop out the warm water and pour it over ourselves for a shower. lol it was rough at first.. luckily we got gas today so i got to take my first real shower! so happy. it usually runs out before the next shipment of gas so im going to enjoy it while i can. im no longer nervous to contact random people on the street or teach lessons. i just accepted the fact that im going to be doing this for two years so no more comfort zone lol. so i got 800 pesos for the rest of this month and yeh im being super frugal with my money, every missionary ive talked to has spent all of it and had to either go hungry or get money out of their own bank account. I'm making a budget and i calculated it out to be about 20 pesos for each meal. thats like 1.50 us dollars. which can get you a lot of food here. i bought a bag full of like 20 tunas (prickly pear cactus fruit but different from az pricklys) for 7 pesos! 50 cents thats was the deal of the week for me haha. they taste so good! kinda like a pear and kiwi mixed. i went shopping and 107 pesos a couple nights ago. i have a picture of everything i bought with the 8 us dollars worth. 8 packs of ramen noodles. 6 liters of water, a kitchen towel, a coke, milk, 6 rolls and a package of bread. pretty good deal eh whitley? the food here is great for the most part. i havent had anything crazy yet but some other missionaries have. we went to a restuarant (more like a persons living room with tables and chairs) and we got soup with a chickens leg in it. somebody literally cut off a chickens leg, cooked it and threw it in the soup. About made me want to puke.. the tortillas are soo good here and we have had um for every single meal.everything you eat gets rolled up in a tortilla with some hot sauce. i cant think of much else thats going on other then us preaching the gospel lol. its so bizarre to be here for me. its a huge culture shock. oh and the tents in the street are actually spelled tianguis i think.. anyways yeh im happy to be here and finally my ON my mission after preaparing for my entire life.. i love you all and look forward to hearing from you guys more! keep asking questions and hopefully i will be able to answer um all. xoxoxo

corson

First day in the field!

hola familia!
just shooting ya an email that im finally outta the ccm. we got up at
5:45am this morning showered and got the last of our stuff packed up.
it was me, elder healey, call, muir, and garrett. everybody in our
house was gone when we woke up because they had to leave in the middle
of the night for their flights. we got in the vans and it felt like i
was a soldier in a war videogame in a cargo truck cus the van was very
open and had bench seats along every side panel. i got really motion
sick cus i was facing sideways towards the sidewalks as we were
driving. i thought i was gonna throw up but i didnt luckily.. im good
at keepin it down :) we got to the mission home and met the president
and his wife they are very very nice! i am actually talking to hermana
stutzneggar (mission pres. wife), as we speak. we are just talking about everything from
what its like on the streets to kylee serving as well. pretty sweet. i
think they will send you a pic with me and them later. we had amazing
donas for breakfast and we had a hermano from the stake here who owns
a burger stand so he brought it over for us right in front of the
office and he was like "my burgers or the 'in n out' burgers in mexico
city" and they did taste that good if not better! they have been the
best food ive had yet! there are 206 missionaries in my mission at the
moment. so many. i will probably get paired with a hispanic missionary
who knows no spanish but its ok. it will be hard at first, really hard
im sure, but i want to learn as quick as possible. we are all gonna
sleep in the mission office tonight, and we will get up and go to the
netzhualcoyotl stake center to get our comps. im sitting with elder
leawitt right now. hes the redhead kylee knew in the mtc (in Provo). pretty cool.
other people have to email now so i gtg. love you guys. i think my p
day will be mondays so talk to ya later.
elder anderson :)

Corson MTC Final P-Day

Hola everyone!

i leave the ccm this monday the 18th. our mission president will come to the ccm to pick us up. pretty lucky of us considering almost everyone else has to get up at 2am for their flights. i have gotten really close to elder healey, call, and muir. youve probably seen um in some of my pics. they all are goin to my mission as well so it will be sweet to catch up with um as well as elder garrett every month or so. i have gotten really close to elder muir tho. He is an awesome friend and it will be sad not having an hour before bed to chill, talk about life, and write in my journal with him. for his personality, picture gunnar, just younger. haha and he lives in heber, utah which is supposedly an awesome place to be. we already have plans to chill a ton after the mission. as for the week, not much happened i dont think. let me go thru my journal.. oh a big stomach virus went thru the ccm. like 100 kids had to go to the infirmary on our campus. healey was the first one to get it in our casa. tons of other kids ended up getting it in the days to follow including my comp., elder garrett and elder king. i was so lucky not to get it. i did not want to throw up, please believe! oh so garrett and i had to come home one day during class because he had low blood sugar, so we left the front door open thinkin we would be really quick which we were.. but a bird flew into our casa because there is a mirror right behind the front door so i had to shew it out while garret stood behind the doors screamin his head off lol. it was pretty funny. as far as devotionals and our district goes, its really the same exact thing as kylee is going through. it sounds like she can handle it alot better tho lol. i get frustrated when so many people our worried about a person. it feels like somebody sneezes and the rest of the district is like, are you ok? your homesick arent you? talk to me.. people get way to sensitive around here lol oh well a couple more days. we had french toast for one of the days and it was nothing compared to mommas but man it tasted so good.. other than that, i dont really have much else haha it has been a great time here. im excited for the mission! i love you all and you are in my prayers 

elder anderson 

ps dont send anything yet until i get u my address in the mission field. i might be able to email saturday as well. not positive tho. ;)

Corson MTC P-Day #4

hola everyone,

kylee, yes we have p-day eve and p-adam as well (the day before p-day eve). pretty sure i get more excited for p-day than i did for Christmas.. at least the last couple years haha. thats bad huh? lol i am also glad u get to go to the temple. ur so lucky.. i was just talkin to elder ..., another elder in my district about going to the temple and we were saying how we would give anything to go to the temple and do some sessions right now. even in spanish haha. oh and that blessing is so cool kylee! gift of tongues is sweet stuff. heres what you should do, at least this is what i do; i used the second journal i got from the newkirks and i am using it for all the blessings that have and will happen to me on the mission only. i already have like 8 or so blessings written in it. you should do that too. oh and one of your efy kids is here. hes that really nice dirty blonde haired kid. i think his last name starts with a b? i will get a pic with him this next week to show ya. 

my week has been pretty good. today we went to the visitors center of the mexico city temple and it was great. i got some pics i will tag along with this. kinda like kylees, week nothing new here. everyday is exactly the same haha. ready to get out as well. our devotionals are always interesting because they are really good speakers, from the quorum of the 70s, but they dont know english all to well, so its kinda funny to see um try to get their points across. ... its weird to think that the kids r starting school again. time is going really quick here. mom did u guys get that usb drive yet? i should be there if he sent it when he got home. oh and since elder ... went home, his comp, elder ... got put into a tri-companionship with elder ... and my two other roommates. so elder ... and i decided to switch elder ... rooms so now im in the same room as elder king and elder ..., the tall kid that was elder king's comp from the time you said goodbye to me at the airport. so u personally know 2 of my 3 roommates now haha. another blessing! its been interesting getting to know my comp. elder ... we virtually have nothing in common outside of church lol but we dont ever get into arguments or anything. its just weird being with somebody 24/7 that is completely opposite of you lol. aside from learning spanish thats the hardest thing so far, is having a companion. oh btw, can u give me gunnars email? and whits if you want. 2 weeks from now i will have been a couple days out in the field. i leave for the field on the 18th. i heard our mission president is a really chill guy and supposedly he's gonna come pick us up in a van from the ccm which is pretty nice considering everybody else who isnt going to mexico, has to wake up at 2:00am to get on airplanes. brutal.. nothing else is new that i can think of atm. im just happy to be here and happy to be writing you all.. miss you guys and love you all so much,

elder anderson 

Corson MTC P-Day #3

hey so this week went pretty quick like usual. its crazy how fast the time flies by. i just got done doing laundry, cleaning our room, cleaning out my closet, and sweeping and mopping (one thing i learned that actually benifits me in life other than making an amazing burger from the BK job) ;) i never thought i would want to clean or do anything when i actually got here and to the pdays when i was pondering about the mission at home. but all i want to do is make everyhting perfect for some reason. so unfortunately <a missionary in our district went home.> we thought he was doing better <and going to stay here, but he just didn't choose to.>. i talked with him for a couple hours a couple nights before he made the decision to go and told him about my wrestling story and the feelings i felt towards it when i was living it. he told me later that helped him alot and i am super happy for him to be home because of the ... <anxiousness> he was experiencing while here in the ccm. looking back at, it all makes sense why <my cousin met him prior to us leaving and asked me to look for him in the CCM.> ...he knew me when we were here together and opened up to me because of what <cuz> told him <about me.> God works in mysterious ways and my doubts about them are gone. im so blessed to be here. also, after <the elder> and i talked, we decided we would got to <see> the mission president of the 1000 missionaries here. while <the elder> was talking to his mom on the phone, i ... got to talk to the mission president and his wife for an hour straight! this is the same person who served in the quorum of the seventies and i found out later in a devotional that he served with elder jeffrey r. holland as his companion when they went on their two year missions! How amazing is that?! <He> was working as an attorney for the church and has lived in every place from mongolia to hong kong.. i told him about my family and our journey to az. ... it was sweet to meet them. i became dl <district leader> this week and its nice to be  a leader honestly. it gives me more to keep my mind on, which is cool. never thought i would actually like to lead until i came here. it hailed again yesterday. the weather is so weird but i love it. ive been playing some ping pong at gym time and i want to get good at it before i leave. i figure thats a good skill for byui eh? lol oh and my companion and i bought usb drives in the tienda and we put videos on um ... to mail to you guys so u should be gettin um this next week. they have videos of the bird pranks we pulled on one of our roomates and another video of me talking. a lil bit in spanish even but i forgot what to say so i just went back to english. i think you guys will like um. and you better cus it cost me 115 pesos for that usb! ;) other than all that, my spanish is still comin i think. it feels like im slowing down but i am still learning and im thankful for that. i am so ready to be out the field tho. its crazy to think i will be in a couple of weeks! oh and thanks you guys so much for all the letters and the package i got! anytime i get anything, it makes my entire day better and since <the other elder> left, im pretty sure im top of the district when it comes to getting letters. keep um coming please! im grateful to be here and i am having a blast so dont worry about me mom! its great!

love you all so much, corson

Corson MTC P-Day #2

ok so sorry i am so late. we went to the mexico city consulate today and got our visas for the 2 year residency done. im officially a mexico resident now. it was pretty awesome to get out of the ccm and actually see whats on the outside of the walls and to be honest im pretty lucky to be inside um ;) i got pictures btw. i will try to get more of me in them for next email. we had to wake up at 5 this morning and get on the bus at 630 then we all had to wait for a triple companionship of elders who "forgot to set their alarms" for another hour. we finally got there at around 9ish and took our identity pics and did paperwork, the line was really long in front of it so our chapperone told us to start doing some street contacting.. it was so unlike me! picture this; me <hardly> knowing any spanish except for church words with my comp. walking up to random people and trying to start a conversation.. we could barely get passed "de donde es?" when it came to the small talk lol. we did talk to a security guard who was pretty cool and one set of hermanas in our zone actually managed to give away a book of mormon. although im sure the guy just took it cus he was young and thought they were pretty considering they barely knew any spanish like the rest of us. pretty cool tho. we are supposed to go to the mexico city temple visitors center next pday (temple is closed until sometime in 2015). it should be a blast.

as for the rest of my week, it practically rains every afternoon and pretty hard at that.. its common to see flooding because the streets are poorly designed. it actually even hailed twice this last week. the first time after pday, while we were doing a service project (cleaning 100´s of plastic chairs), so we got to finsih early and have more gym time which was sweet. that rainstorm actually caused our power to go out for the rest of that day and half the next one. we were one of the 3 casas out of the 50 here. just our luck, so im glad we got that flashlight packed cus i used mine to write in my journal and everything else at night. thanks mom. <his mother made him take one! just in case and he tried to refuse.> our district also took all of our beds out from our rooms and put um in the dining room to have a slumber party that night ye ha. come to find out. thats against the rules so it was probably our last one but it was still cool. the next morning we walked outside and there was a moth on our screen the size of a hand (not kidding). we have had pizza and chicken sandwiches that have been my favorite meals so far of course. i put ranch, hot sauce, cheese, and lettuce on my sandwich just like mcdonalds haha. i met another redheaded elder who came in the week after me whos in my branch and his middle name is dale and his last name is anderson. hes alot bigger then me tho. i also met pres. hinton's <stake president in az> cousin who is also in my branch. turns out pres. hinton was gone visiting him when we got set apart so thats why he wasnt with us. small world. ive branched out and played some tennis and ultimate frisbee for gym. one of the days we were outside, a small plane came circling over our little campus blaring with a radio voice talking about how it was our last chance to buy tickets for the upcoming concert (i dont think they realized we were missionaries)

the catholics have been celebrating for something not sure what but they shoot off fireworks randomly through the day and into the night. it has finally calmed down these last couple of days but for like 10 days straight u hear big booms every hour or so and they show how much faith they have by a bigger boom so it gets reallly really loud. my best accopmlishment for this week was sewing on my buttons to my suit. i read a quick how to for missionaries on it (complements of elder smith) and did um in like 5 minutes. pretty great if u ask me.. 

spanish is gettin tougher but im definitely still progressing. i decided to memorize the first vision instead of d&c 4 this last week but these next 2 weeks i am going to work on d&c 4. i felt super stressed for the first time yesterday when another class who has been here for 5 weeks came in and companionships taught each other for TRC. i dont know if i didnt prepare enough or if it was my first time teaching the restoration in espanol or if it was the loud noise of 30 missionaries teaching lessons in one classroom but that was the worst lesson i taught yet and could not feel the spirit at all. so it got me worryin for the next hour or so <until> i realized that im not supposed to know it all and its good to have failure and most of all, i had pday to look forward to the next day lol. im good to go now mom so don't worry.

aside from the learning espanol part in the ccm, ive decided i don't really like it much. too many other missionaries. sometimes i feel like im at some scout camp or high school again but its all good. i know that i need to learn spanish so im ok with being here for a couple more weeks. the schedule for me is exactly like kylee's and my new night classes teacher was the person we taught last week. i think we are supposed to teach a real investigator this wednesday tho so that will be interesting. i love going to devotionals on tuesdays and sunday nights. the speakers are so awesome. they are mostly from the areas of quorum of the seventies <general authorities>. they have great insight such as "things that we persist on doing, become easier to do," devotionals are my favorite times of the week besides bed time and pday ;) i also got a dearelder 8 days after you guys sent it and it had writing from you robin and kim on it. its the best feeling in the world to get mail so please keep sending ;) 

overall, this experience has taken me way the heck past my comfort zone, farther than i thought i could possibly go and i know it will only take me farther and farther. im blessed to have it like this! i love you all, family and hope you guys have a great week! xoxoxo

Corson MTC P-Day #1

buenos diss familia,
i only have one hour and the keyboards are differnet here so my grammar will be terrible.. so here goes my first week.. i got on the plane and sat next to a 20 yr old hermana who was going to the ccm (MTC) as well. she is going to serve in new york city, spanish speaking. it was very cool to meet her cus she reminded me of kylee so much so it was kinda like having my sister next to me on the way to mexico, we talked like the whole time. once arrived, we had to do all of the new missionary things like unpacking and getting organized and a ton of new missionary standards devotionals and meetings the first couple days. but the first night we had a get to know you with the rest of the elders in my district. come to find out, elder king (from home ward in AZ) is in my district, my house, and his room is literally right next to mine, pretty awesome to have him here with me. our district has 12 people in it including 2 hermanas. half of us are going to my mission and the other half are going to other parts in mexico. oh and elder greene who was elder kings companion is still his companion and in the same house as us as well. we have a pretty great district. my companion, elder garret is great too. very energetic and ready to work. btw elder garret and i got called to be district leaders so he was the first 3 weeks and i have the 2nd 3 weeks in the ccm. (Another Elder) is also in our district. he actually has been having a ton of trouble with homesickness and has actually went to the ccm (doctor) and been missing a lot of classes because of it which is no bueno but he is a very smart kid and is pretty cool. very reserved. i have been getting to know him better and trying to help him out as much as i can because it helps me with the homesickness as well ... i feel pretty bad for him. we gave him a blessing of comfort a couple days ago and so far its been helping a lot. he is a pretty awesome kid and his companion, elder healey is too. elder healey is from utah and knows spanish the most of us and its crazy how it worked out ... elder healey has been helping (us) out alot! so far heres what i learned the first week in terms of spanish.. the spanish alphabet. how to pray in spanish, testimony in spanish, and missionary purpose in spanish, i have learned more in this first week then i have in my 2 years of high school spanish classes,, amazing what the gift of tongues can do! also, my companion and i had to teach our first "investigator" on the third day for a half hour and she didnt know any english. we taught here about the espiritu santo (holy spirit) and we felt its presence so strongly. we have been teaching her every weekday since teaching everything from eternal families to the baptism commitment we asked her last night. she wasnt sure yet so we asked her to read some scriptures and we are following up with her tonight (during) the last lesson with her. shes obviousily a fake investigator and we are pretty sure she is gonna teach us this week and next on what we did wrong and right so thats awesome. the feeling i got when i taught here was incredible. i feel like you are invincible when she understands your spanish! i am going to try to memorize d&c 4 before next pday which is thursday for me. it will be every thursday and this will be around the time i email too, the food is good most days. picture school cafeteria food but just turned mexican. lots of taquitoes, nachos, tacos, and a lot of other stuff i have no idea what to call. for example, yesterday we had mashed potato sandwiches for the main course. literally 2 pieces of bread with mashed potatoes in the middle lol. i added some hot sauce and it was great! i have eaten hot sauce with like every meal and my stomach has been great so far... fingers crossed. also their cereal here is amazing! its soo sweet and tastes so much better than at home, muy bueno. everyday we get like an hour to work out or play sports and i played soccer the first day with a couple buddies from our house, and the rest of the days ive been ownin it on the volleyball court lol no but actually these last 2 days the players have been so bad that i just had to leave. serve, hit miss, serve hit miss, 20 minutes straight.. i am still terrible at basketball so ive been stayin away from that.. i am still holdin true to my word about being frugal! we get 100 pesos a week and i spent my 100 on a hymn book and laundry soap. i have bought nothing else. overall i am super happy to be here and to be honest have been trying to lose myself in the work. the one time I cried just a little was when a group of missionaries got up in sacrament meeting to sing moms song to teagy in spanish acapella. that was it though. i havent had any "oh my goodness moments" yet dad so keeping my fingers crossed they wont come so soon. i am truly happy to be hear and am excited to continue Padre Celestials work! I love you guys so much and hope you are all doing well!
--- your missionary, Elder Anderson ;)

New Website - Elder Anderson

Check out the website for our Mexico missionary! It is a great way to stay connected with him. You can also write him a letter and have it sent directly to him - NO COST!!! It is so easy to do and it will be delivered to him approximately a week later. It is done electronically and without going to the post office or worrying about stamps and envelopes. He will receive an actual letter addressed to him.

Give it a try! Missionaries love receiving mail!

http://www.dearelder.com/ElderCDAnderson

Email Address

Our missionary would love email messages if any feel like dropping him a line! We are managing both of our missionaries blogs so neither Corson or Kylee will be responding at their respective blog. In addition, they will each have a very limited time to email once per week, so their email responses might be brief, but please send them a note from time to time.  Again, here is Corson's address and Kylee's is on her blog also.

corson.anderson@myldsmail.net

Day 1 - Safe Arrival

Hey mom dad and family,

I arrived to Mexico City MTC about an hour and a half ago. just got back from dinner. we had some type of chicken soup and bread, corn, and some other sides as well as a whole variety of juices to choose from. they arent labeled for english so i had to guess what looked good. i got the jamica juice and it tasted terrible but its all good haha. im excited to be past the travel and goodbyes and ready to learn some spanish. some other elders were saying how you sit in class for 10 to 12 hours a day just learning. that will be interesting. anyways, i sat next to a sister missionary on the airplane that reminded a lot of kylee. that was cool. ... i actually haven't found ... <my companion> ... yet but i guess i will once we get to our rooms to go to sleep. thats when most companions find each other anyways. it feels like im still living in my dream so im nervous to see what happens when reality hits. mexico city is crazy. its like the area by dads work, but all over. our mtc campus has huge walls with barbed wire fences around the perimeter. its pretty cool to see how people live. there are houses all the way up the mountain sides like brazil. and people drive crazy aggresive here too. im glad i wont be driving. i feel like we almost got hit like 4 times on the way from the airport. overall its been great so far so no need to worry. i love you guys!