Tuesday, September 30, 2014

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.

Monday, September 22, 2014

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)

Tuesday, September 16, 2014

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

Saturday, September 13, 2014

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.

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
Del Anderson

Saturday, September 6, 2014

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