Mexico City - Week #69

hey all.

i hope everyone is doing well. the área is still good here. it gets cold at night and hot at midday here. just felt like i needed to share that with yall. tonight i will be calling Claudia and Lizbeth to see how their talk went with their parents about getting baptized this week. hopefully all goes well with them. another investigador came to church for the first time named jaunita. we met her at a quesadilla place we ate next to the church once. she mentioned to us after church sunday that something was working inside her and she really liked the feeling of it. im excited for her. we have other investigadores we are teaching that havent gotten to church yet too. i will let you know about them when the start making more progress. 

for pday today we played soccer at church. is was a lot of fun but im pretty tired now. im so excited for friday but i also feel really weird. the same kind of weird ive falt the last 2 times ive skyped. who knows what it is lol. anyways, i hope you all have a merry christmas this year! i know i will. love you guys. xoxo

Elder anderson

Mexico City - Week #68

hey all,

im doing good being here in mexico still haha. today we had our annual Christmas party as a mission. it was fun. first we had a devotional, then a talent show, then a turkeyand mashed potato lunch, then i played futbol americano with some other gueros, then i played a bit of volleyball, then we at hotdogs and nachos, and ya.. thats it lol came back to my area in a comve to write all of you beautiful people. 

as for the area, its good! weve had lots of success. claudia and lizbeth texted us the other night wanting to know of a Book of Mormon that talks about la Navidad. so we gave them alma 7 to read because it not only talks a about Jesus´ Nacimiento but also about what we can to accept Him 😋. youll understand if you read it. anyways, they sent another text later that night letting us know how much they loved it. they are really great. im so glad to be working in this type of work. saving souls and such. yeah, its pretty nice. not to brag or anything. i would recomend it to you if you ever get the chance.

anyways, thats about it for the week. love yall! have a good one! xoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #67

hey guys,

hope everyones doing well. after district meeting today, elder salazar, came to the chapel with his family. his mom is the president of the sociedad de socorro and he returned from his fulltime mission today. i got to talk to him before he got released from being an elder. it made me think of my sister who will be going through the same thing in a couple days. im so happy for the example she has been to me in my mission and also how much of a help as well. from feeling out all my mission papers to helping me through difficult companeros. im so blessed to have had her as MY companion throughout this entire missionary experience. Kylee, te felicito mucho! nunca te olvides de lo que has aprendido junto con tu hermanito en el campo. Vas a lograr milagros en tu vida y en la vida de los demás. gracias por ser mi ejemplo y espero que te disfrutes de nuestra familia a al estar allí para la Navidad. ÉXITO! No debes estar triste. Que empezca la buena vida! Te amo!

today, i went to the center with some investigadores that Whit via FB from an area pasada. they informed us that they wanted to be baptized by me and my old companero who taught them with me, elder perez. it was awesome to hear that from them. they still have a lot of work to do before they reach that point considering they arent married yet and drink a lot haha. they have 2 kids and their hearts are definitely in the right place. it will al work out in the Lords time and how it should so im super excited for them. claudia and lizbeth didnt make it to church on sunday so we wont be baptizing the day kylee goes home which is sad but maybe the day after navidad. others also came for the first time so things are looking bright in this area.

i got my package! its huge! we have are lil Christmas corner going on in our house with everything. its so great! thanks so much family! it will be a special Christmas for everyone this year! love you tons! xoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #66

hey guys,

another great week. claudia and lizbeth keep going to church and are in the process of recieving an answer to their prayers about the Book of Mormon. its all going well. they also invited us to go help them put up their christmas tree and decorations for christmas so that was pretty cool with the christmas music going and all. currently they are the only ones getting to curch hince progressing as of right now but we are working with a lot of potentials. hopefully a couple will get through with it. at changes i also got my old backpack that another missionary picked up about 3-4 months ago.. it has my spanish scriptures, camara, himnbook, toiletries, and some other stuff that i thought was lost forever but finally appeared. everything there just like it was when i lost it. so that was a nice lil tender mercy for me.

we went to the plaza tezontle (mall) today. looked around and then went to chilis to eat. it honestly felt really weird inside there today. like i wasnt so used to such a nice building. it reminded my of going to the mall with gunnar during wrestling season in springfield il to shop for everyone for christmas and then eating at texas roadhouse after. i forced me to eat a huge meal and all i was thinking was that i was not going to make weight the following day for the tournament. oh and whit, you will also have to ask him about the waitress who tried to hit on him! (your welcome gunnar 😁) anyways, thats about it for this week as far as i can remember.. ohh wait and also theres this hna name hna marina in our area who has always always helped us in everything we have needed from food to a place to wash our clothes. anyways, she called us one night to ask us to run by to do a favor for her. we got their thinking to help here but then she turns to me and says im taking you to the shoe store. im gonna buy you some new shoes. i obviously said there was no way she was gonna buy me new shoes but after about 10 minutes she got me to go with the whole ¨¨ïf you dont let me, i will be losing blessings¨¨ act and she ended up buyin me some really cool boots. i will send you all some pictures. she is the most humble, caring, generous hna that i know here. the more i talk to her, the more she reminds me of my nana. love ya nana!

ok so i think thats it. have a great week! and sleep good tonight everyone! xoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #65

hey all,

hows it going? all good here. im trying to think of stuff that happened this week. me da mas y mas flojera al escribirles semana despuse de semana lol. im just not one for reminesing but i know you guys are interested in whats going on here so i guess i will have to keep doing it.. so what is going on here? well, those two girls came to church again this week and we put their fechas para el bautismo for the 19th of diciembre. so we should be baptizing on the day kylee goes home i think right? we also found another family, mom and daughter, who are antiguos investigadores, and they now want to seguir again which is cool. they already have 2 sundays as well, so they could be baptized as soon as the 19 along with the other too. woah, i just had deshawvoo of writing you guys all of these. here, iv Heard that comes from us passing through certain things that we previously saw in the premortal existence. who knows if thats actually true but id like to believe it. oh, so saturday, a got a phonecall from an old investigador from like 2 áreas ago. her names reina and she is what the mssionaries call an eternal. she had been in and out of lessons with missionaries for 3 years and she just didnt want to pull the trigger to baptism. so when me and my comp perez went with here, we started with the basics, went to the temple open doors, and figured out she hadnt been Reading the Book of Mormon! that was the key so we did about a week of studying with her in the Book of Mormon and then they changed us both. so it kinda left her plantada but i later took the other missionaries to her to continue to read the Book of Mormon. they ended up going averyday with here for like a month until she finally decided to get baptized. so, she called me to tell me the great news, but she was also looking for some counsel.. her family is super catholic and didnt believe she was making the right decisión. now, on this same saturday, in the morning, my comp was telling me about his conversión story and how his family didnt want him to join the church either. so, thanks to what my comp told me about his situation, i could help Reina, one of my old investigadores, feel more confort in her decisión. we asked permission and got to go to her baptism as well as another baptism of a guy named modesto. i contacted him in the Street about 3 months ago and started teaching him with Elder barnett before they sent me out of that area. but, the moral of the story is that sometimes we forget that our Heavenly Father in always in control. He is the grand architect of our lives.  so i could say that my Sabbath day was a "delight" for me, truely. i love you guys and hope you can have a good week! be safe and happy thanksgiving!

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #64

hey guys,

i hope every one is doing good. this week was a good week for my companion and i. mainly because we had our first investigadores in the church yesterday. they are named claudia and lizbeth. we found them from english classes and they let us visit them. they seem really awesome. claudia  has 20 years and the other 16. we are now going to start the process towards baptism with them. your welcome to pray for them if you would like. we have also found more investigadores this week as well. its lookin a lot better in this area. hopefully it keeps up. oh yeah, a cool thing that happened, later in the day yesterday, the 2 girls showed up to the capilla looking for us with their parents. they gave me 2 new pairs of shoes because they noticed the holes in mine lol. now i shouldnt have to buy shoes like i was thinking i was going to need to. they are such a nice, nice family. we went to the capilla this morning to help the members clean the outside. the church is really pushing self sufficience here in mexico so they took out all the mantenimiento so that the members have to come and help clean to church. hopefully it helps them for the better. 

anyways, i cant really think about anything else that happened this week. sorry my emails are so boring but you all know how much a dont like writing or expressing myself lol. im trying to get better though. just know that all is well here in mexico. i love you guys! have a great week! xoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #63

hey all,

hey everyone, i hope all are doing good. im doing great. mostly because we changed our p day today so we could make a temple visit. the temple here is amazing. it was a whole day event but well worth it! i feel so much better now. its just so peaceful when you enter those sacred grounds. i should be able to go once every 3 months or so. so i got a couple more visits to make before my mission ends. 

apart from that, just a normal week here in atlicpac, los reyes. we have had a lil more success in finding people this week to teach. we found a family of 4. taught three of them the restauracion. we fault the dad. have another cita with them tomorrow. also found a couple other individuals. no we just have to help them progress in order to start their process towards baptism. also, we have met with quite of few menos activo families. its crazy to hear their excuses for not going to church, anything from somebody in the capilla rustling their feathers to not liking the way the members sing to too much homework to a family member passing away. does that seem crazy to you guys too or is it just cuz im a missionary dedicating all my time to church? en todas formas, gotta love them menos activos.

i think thats it from here in mexico. i love you all and hope you have a great one! xoxo

side note: i got to eat some grasshoppers this week. honestly not too bad with a little bit of lemon juice. 

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #62

hey all, 

i hope everyone is doing good. this last week was challenging like the other few. its been a lil tough trying to find news. im hoping we see some éxito this week. so Halloween here is called dia de muerto (dead of the dead). its really cool. you will have to look up some dia de muerto sacrafices. its a huge thing to put out bananas and other food ítems for sacrafices to the dead. the ofrendas are actually pretty cool lookin though. its like the tradition we have in the US to put up a christmas tree on Christmas. also dia de muerto is like a 3 day celebration here so me and my comp went out giving Candy to lil kids in the Street last night. it was awesome because once one lil kid saw that i had Candy he would call the rest of his lil Friends and they would come mob us looking for it, it made me remember giving out Candy at home. other, than that, i cant really think of anything else.. oh yeah! i almost forgot to tell you that the comp i have right now, actually read that blog you posted of my emails and when he met me was like, are you the guy with those endless toe problems. i was proud to admit yes to him. isnt that cool though? he learned about the misión from my emails when he was living in Idaho, got to the misión, and came to find out that i would be training him. i thought that was cool anyways. i love you guys and hope you can have a wonderful week! xoxoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #61

hey all

been a good week this week. lots of work here in los reyes. really challenging area. we found a couple news who seemed golden this last week but they ended up falling apart and not letting us back for their families not wanting us. no worries though. just keep pushing forward. im sure we will find somebody who will stick with it this week. also, we had a meeting with elder neilson of the 70 yesterday. he capacitated us on missionary work and stuff. as a sidenote, i have had the absolute best church meetings in the mission field by far.. they blow the church meetings at home and in illinois out of the water. so if you ever think a church meeting is boring. go on the mission and you will see a whole different side to it. in this meeting the biggest emphasize was made on working with menos activos because most baptisms come through member references and menos activos have the most non member friends. not to mention helping them, the menos activos get reactivated. it was pretty cool and im excited to see if the approach the 70 taught us will work out here.

today, we went to the centro to a couple museums like ripleys believe or not museum and a wax museum. it was really cool. i will send you guys some funny pictures. we also found an olive garden there and ate such good food. i had fetuccine alfredo with chicken like i have always gotten. it was great! 

ohh so the new james bond 007 movie coming out has a part filmed in the center of mexico city. you will have to watch it and see if you can find the partalso, i have somewhat funny sotry for yall. so it was about 2 pm and we were at the church building saturday because of english clases and we had to get to an hnas house to eat because we also is at 2 everyday. so we figured we woud take a public transport van called a comve to her house because we were late and it would have been like a 40 minute walk uphill because she lives on a large hill in my area called the basurero (landfill). anyways, we got dropped off by the comve on the hill but i ended up being the wrong side. since we were already about at the height of the hnas house, we didnt want to go back down walk all the way around and then walk up again so we just started taking streets we didnt know, right on across. after about 20 minutes of walking and getting to another dead end, we realized we werent making any progress. but we notice a huge field right behind the dead end, kinda like a crater looking field with a lil dog path goin across it. we decided to take the shortcut and about 10 minutes into the trail. dogs started barking and then chasing us. as a missionary you always know that when dogs start after you, you have to run faster then your companion so of course i was at the front of the pack hauling like an angel outta heaven and the new guy, my comp, was at the back. he ended up tripping i lil bit after that and we left him in the dust. i actually didnt even know he tripped until later that day when he told me. luckily he was able to get up and start running before the dogs got to him. the next obstacle was that in order to get out of this area, you had to get up on top of like a 5 foot wall and scale across it like a rock climber to get over a chain linked fence to get back on a street. my comp actually went first for this one, he got on and then us 3 other elders got on behind him. like 20 seconds later, he fell over but landed on his feet unharmed. its hard to explain the situation we were in but it was pretty sketchy. anyways, we all got past that obstacle and walked about 20 minutes more and finally made it to the hnas house at 430 for the 2 o clock apt. luckily she was a nice hna and didnt get made. we also ate really good that day. i have a video the part of me finsishing the obstacle. i will try to send it to ya.

anyways, i also gave a talk sunday in church. went well. ive given 1 talk a month for the last three months here. hmm.. i think thats about it for this week. love you guys have a good one! xoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #60

hey all,

hows it goin? i hope well. this last week was great. got to my new area with my new companion martes after changes. im now in an area called atlicpac 1 in a place called los reyes. you can prolly find los reyes on google maps. its more wide open spaces than city life. i like the change. our area is huge though.. a lot bigger than im used to. my new companion is named elder rodriguez. hes hispanic but from idaho. doesnt know any spanish which is kinda ironic lol. he gets made fun of a lot. hes gonna have a tough time the next couple months but everyone does when they start out learning the language and way of life. im helping him to the best of my abilities. i love how humble he his. hes a convert and was baptized 3 years ago. the only member in his family. his parents dont support the idea of himj being on this mission at all. he told me this last week, his dad tried to bribe him into going back home with a BMW Z4. dad, you dont wanna bribe me with anything special by chance, do ya? 😜 but all jokes aside, hes a really good guy. his home ward has helped him a ton with the living costs and moral support in the mission. his birthday is actually tomorrow and we are gonna throw him a surprise bday party in the night time with some good food and cake. (we actually planned it right in front of him) he doesnt have a clue whats going on. reminds me of myself a lil more than a year ago lol. so we are opening this area which means we start from scratch with everything. everything from knowing the streets to investigadores to knowing where the church building is. a lil tougher but nothing we cant handle. we are going to see a lot of success in these next couple months. i know it. anyways, thats about all i can think of for this week. hope you all have a good coming week and ias always, i love you guys! xoxo Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #59

hey all,

hows everyone doing? this past week was the last one of the change and the last one with my companion Elder Barnett. tomorrow i get the new Elder and área. ohh and that third comp that we had for like 5 days ended up going home. pretty weird story actually.. anyways, barnett and i have had a good time together. unfortunately, i wont get to see hardly any of the fruits of our labor in this área. barnett should have some very solid converts from this next cycle here.

i didnt do much today for pday. just the normal stuff and packing. 

anyways, i got the rare oppurtunity to slaughter, prepare and eat rabbit this past week haha. i wont go into too many details but it tasted good. kinda like a jerky but with chicken meat if that makes any sense.. a converso has started raising rabbits and he let me process the first one because he knew that i was leaving. i think thats about it this week from what i can remember.. 

have a lovely week everyone! i love you guys! xoxoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #58

hey everyone,

i hope yall hada good week! mine was great. i absolutely loved general conference! it was my favorite one yet in the the mission. i feel like i learn more and more every conference. my favorite talk was a tie between 7 different ones actually haha. it was just a so good.. 

so, i just got news that i will be training along with my companion. only that they will be sending a new area to start or white wash.. it will b difficult but thats why im here isnt it? lol anyways, we went to center today with omar y laura from my last area. they are doing really good and it was a pleasure to see them again. we had a fun time together. i will send you some pics. we also had a zone activity today. we weeded a ladys backyard haha. it was fun. we found a huge dead rat in case youd like to know 😉 . overall, had a wonderful week and i learned a ton.. im excited for these next couple months. gonna be good stuff. i love you guys! have a good one! xoxoxo

Elder Anderson 

Mexico City - Week #57

hey,

hows it going people? i hope you all had a good week. a couple news announcements for ya all. first, general conference. during the last general conference i was thinking, wow, its going to be a long time before the next one, and look! here we are haha. we also got a new companion to look after so im now in a trio again. his name is elder hernandez. other than that, we have had a lot of success contactings this week. we even found a couple of nuevos yesterday which is super weird because almost nobody is home during the weekend here. there are a few families progressing well too. a couple more weeks and some should make it to the water.

 the old lady who we gave the blessing last week passed away about 24 hours after the blessing. she had definitely been waiting for the blessing before she could move on. the only thing i remember saying in the blessing is ¨your Heavenly Father wants to hug you again¨ i remember closing and thinking it would not be long unti lshe passed on to the other side. i still remained shocked at that experience. it was a blessing to be a tool in my Heavenl Father´s hands.

i love you all and hope you can all have a good day and week! be safe! watch ALL of the conference! dont forget to read and pray! xoxoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #56

hey all,

i hope everyone is doing alright! this last week has been very good. lots of work which is awesome. time flys when there is work. so last p day an hno from a different stake called us with a reference of his amiga diana. he told us that her mom is suffering from some type of chronical cancer and the doctors had given here days to live. so we called diana and put a cita with her for this last saturday night. so saturday came along and we went to contact diana. she opened the door and seemed really pleased to see us. she guided us into a room where her sick mother and the rest of her entire family was waiting. there were around 30 people including all of the brothers, sisters, aunts uncles, cousins, and so. so as my companion elder barnett, and i entered into the room we immediately started como comenzar ensenar. we introduced ourselves and what church we were part of and they could all be blessed by what God has to offer them. not much time passed before we explained about blessings to them. as soon as we started explaining about them, they asked us to bless Fransisca, the chronically sick mother. my companion anointed her and i sealed the anointing. everyone was crying as we gave the blessing including us. but there was a sense of deep peace that we could all feel. as i finished the blessing, we informed the rest of the family of blessings of consuelo and 1 after another they asked for them. after about an hour passed by we had given 11 blessings of strength comfort and assurity. it was the most humbling experience i have ever had during this mission. although we just felt completly drained when we got home that night, we were still overcome with the Holy Spirit. i am so grateful to have been apart of that experience with this family. actually, they invited us back this coming saturday to teach them all. we will be teaching about the plan of salvation. God´s plan for every one of us. the experience we had that saturday night was one i will remember for the rest of my life. Heavenly Father has blessed us with a lot of work in this area and im so grateful for it. keep working and keep trying to become more and more like Christ. He is the only way back to our eternal home. i love you guys and hope you have a great week! xoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #55

hey all,

 this week was great. the mexico city temple got rededicated. it was awesome. president Eyring and elder Holland came to rededicate it. they also had  cultural celebration saturday night we went to. it was all such a neat experience. i loved it. we are working with a lot of investigadores in this area. i believe we are going to have some good success within the next couple of cycles. i will keep you all updated on the ones who progress well. im happy to be here in las aguilas 1, my new area and to be with my new comp, barnett. its going to be a couple cycle. i love you all and hope you have a good day! xoxo bye!

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #54

hey guys,

hows it going guys? i hope your all having a great day! sorry i didnt have much tme to write last lunes but we had to despedirnos of everyone in the area. and to prepare for the changes the next day. it was a long day but a good one. it was really hard saying goodbye to a couple families in that area.. it reminded me of when i had to say goodbye to all of you guys. its never fun saying goodbye.. but the good news is that i have made lifetime friends and will be ab le to be in contact with them for the rest of my life even after the mission. so they sent me to an area called las aguilas 1. its about 45 minutes away from my last area. its really tranquilo here though. not to many people surprisely. the roads are practically empty in the night on our way back to the house. the safest area ive been in yet. my new companion is named elder barnett form utah. his a really chill easy going guy. he has 11 months in the mission. im happy about my change overall. just another step! anyways, i hope everyone is doing well and enjoying their day off today! love you all! xoxo

Elder Corson Del Anderson

Mexico City - Week #53

i dont have any time. but just wanted to let you all no that the meeting with elder Cristofferson went fantastic! learned so much.. hes awesome. but i have to despedirme of some families cuz i have changes with maletas. tomorrow i get my new comp and area. im excited for a change. idk if i will get the oppurtunity later today to write to you all so have a great week everyone love you guys!

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #52

hey all,

i hope everyones doing well. im doing good, thanks for asking ;) this week was a good one.. we had some really exitosos days. the only problem was that not very many people made it to church on sunday.. theres always this week though. 

im really looking forward to elder Christofferson coming this miercoles! its going to be such a beautiful meeting. i cannot wait! one of the 12 apostales of Christ is coming to talk to us! its the same as if luke, matthew, or peter were to be talkingwith us. so awesome! we are in the process of finding news like always haha. we are teaching about 5 different families but each one has the impediments keeping them from progressing. just need to continue helping them learn though. i think this next month should be pretty successful. anyways, thats about it for the week. i love you guys and hope you have a good day and week! xoxo bye!

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #51

hey all, 

this week went well. the highlight being that we went to the puertas abiertas del templo. it was awesome! i felt so good in there. i cannot wait to do sessions there when it opens in septiembre. i know it well help me a lot! gerardo, one of our investigadores, finally prayed to know if the things we taught him were true. it was hard for him to start praying because he didnt really believe in God. we finally got him to pray one night before he went to bed and he said when he started, he heard someone say his name. he said he thinks it was his father who passed away a couple years ago. then, when he finished the prayer, he felt super tranquilo  and really peaceful. he told us he recieved his answer! he has a baptismal date for the 5th of septiembre. the other investigadores didnt make it to church unfortuantely. but theres always this week. im still loving my area. we are having good lessons and all around success here. good stuff! anyways, i love you guys so much and miss you! have a great week everyone! xoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #50

hey guys, 

i have some amazing news!! Elder D. Todd Christofferson of the quorum of the 12 is coming to our mission to talk to us on august 26!! one of the 12 apostles of Jesus Christ! im so pumped! its going to be amazing. pres stutz has already sent us stuff to study and we will be fasting when he talks to us and everything to invite the Spirit to testify to us. it is going to be a once-in-a-lifetime experience! im so excited!

anyways, the work is going good. 3 new investigadores came to church this week which was great. weve had lots of good success in this area so im happy to be here. i will keep you guys posted on the progress of these investigadores. i will say that all 3 have very many doubts haha. 2 are a couple with a kid, not married, catholics. the other is namesd gerardo and is finsihing up his studies at UNAM (university in mexico city). he has studied in philosophy so he has a bunch of crazy questions but is very open to the Gospel. right now we are trying to help him understand that God exists and to build his relationship with Him. its kinda tough but rewarding.

my toe is doing a lot better now thankfully. i have another appointment meircoles with the podologo and hopefully it should be the last one ever. fingers crossed.

thats about it for the week. thanks for all the emails and evrything! i love you all and hope you have a great week!! xoxox

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #49

hey all,

this past week has been really great. we were able to get santiago in the water. unfortunately, his son was one month shy of being able to baptize him. santiago didnt want to wait lol. it was a good experience anyways because his son and his daughter were able to give talks about his baptism and confirmation. i think he had a great experience. right now, we are in the process of finding news like always. i dont think ive ever explained how exactly we find new people to teach but first, its with references from the ward or salt lake. they dont come in very often though so we usually go to our next source, contacting. when we need to find new people to teach, we go out talking to people in the streets or knocking doors. one out of every 10 or so accept a cita with us and about 1 out of every 10 of the ones who accepts the citas gets baptized. right know, we are really gunnin to find a whole family to convert. to be completely honest though, everything is based on the Lords time. if he wants someone to be found, he shows them to us. i have seen countless experiences of it and i know it to be true. 

apart from the work, we went to teotihuacan yesterday which was why i wasnt able to write. it was a super neat experience! i have lots of pictures to send you guys. our tour guide was LDS and gave us the tour using the Book of Mormon. it was really cool. many people believe that whenn Christ came to the Americas, he came to teotihuacan and that it was  temple one day. very fascinating.

but yeah, thats about it for the week. i love you all and hope you have a great day and week! nos vemos!

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #48

hey guys,

i thought i sent you all the general earlier but i guess not. this past week was great. had lots of exito. ana maria and encarncaion are continuing strong. they are super converts. we have a baptism planned for this saturday for a man named santiago. hes a great guy. actually, when i got to the capilla for the first time in this area, he was there and i had always thought he was a member until his sister told us that he wanted to start taking the lessons haha. he has 2 kids who are members and his son will prolly be baptizing him this saturday. its been a neat experience with him.

i had (hopefully) my last procedure done on my toe thursday. it went ok. its just in recovery right now. should be all good to go from here on out. sorry this is a short one but im doing well and i hope you are all doing well as well. i hope you all have a great week! love you guys! xoxo peace out!

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #47

hey guys,

great week this week. we finally got ana maria in the water along with encarnacion. hes the one that reminds me of papa. i baptized ana maria and my companion baptized encarnacion. was a really sweet experience for the both of them. they are both super converted to the Gospel which is awesome.. ana maria is so strong. all of the family of ana maria came to here baptism and afterwards, we had a party at her house. her family now calls me her padrino because thats who they call the one who baptizes you in the catholic church haha. it was a neat experience in all. last night, we went back to ana marias house to teach her entire family as well. we taught them all the restauracion. its was a good lesson. very spiritual. everyones hearts were touched by the end of it. now we will just start the process with all of them. poco a poquito haha. 

we had thinly-sliced chicken breasts veggies and refried beans served with tortillas and salsa yesterday for lunch. i cant remember anything else from the week. maybe the pics will refresh my memory haha. sorry. i love you guys so much. thanks for all the love and support you throw my way. have a fantastic week! xoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #46

hey guys,

this week was good, unfortunately, we didnt have the baptism of ana maria.. she needs a special interview with the prez. because of something she had done in her adolescent years.. im sure you can guess what.. but its all good cuz she is scheduled with the prez for miercoles. she will get baptised this saturday with another old dude we are teaching named encarnacion. pretty funny name eh? i thought so anyways. 

apart from that, i cant remember what else.. oh we made a lil fire behind our house and burned my shirt for the year mark. then we ordered pizza. dominos of course because the mexican pizza tastes like garbage. double the price   but hey im a gringo and as far as that goes here in mexico, i got loads of money! (according to what all the mexican people are trying to tell me) im still waiting for that supposed payday to come though lol.

thats about it. i got some good pícs for you guys though. i will send them rightr now. have a great week everyone! love you all! xoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #45

hey guys,

this week went well. nothing too crazy. as with the investigators, we went with ana maria this past thursday and found out she wasnt married.. shes an old lady and has been with her husband for 36 yrs! i really dont understand the whole marriage thing with the people here. people HATE having a commitment. anyways, that lil problem pushed her baptism a week back to this coming saturday the 11th. the great news is, is that we already got them married lol. we came back the next day after find out and scheduled an appointment with a judge and them for saturday morning, the 4th. it was pretty awesome because that doesnt really happen so quick like it did. it just took a lil coaxing on our part and she was gun-hoe for it. so we were at the municipal half the day on saturday. i got some pics i will send. it went great. moments like that are the ones every missionary hopes and waits for. matrimonios and bautismos. so awesome. so that was really the highlight of the week for me. 

other then that, we are just working hard. getting fechas set up and trying to find news. these next couple weeks should be really exitosas. we went to the center today to get a couple things. was fun but tiring. ohh and im back with just one comp now. elder perez. its good to be back to normal but it sure was fun being in a trio. thats about all i can remember right now because everything just kinda melts together these days. but i love you guys! xoxo bye!

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #43

hey everybody,

so, im one of 4 missionaries in the ward. the companion of the other set of missionaries went home. he had like 15 months and just couldnt do it anymore so he decided to go home. so his comp, elder martinez came with us. now we are in a trio until president figures out what to do with elder martinez. we shouldnt be together very much longer though. everything should be back to normal by the end of this week i would imagine. its my second time being in a trio. i have had a bunch a comps and only 2 areas so far haha. i guess thats how it goes though.

im still going the podologo. ive been there a lot lately. im jsut having problems with my right foot big toe on the left side. but they should fix it all up nice and pretty in these next couple weeks. 

we are still having good success in the area. hopefully we should have a baptism within the next couple weeks. we contacted a guy named encarnacion but he likes us to call him chon. so hno chon reminds me a lot like papa. and he actually owned a bus business around 20 yrs ago but he lost it because of the economy and everything. then he started working as a handyman type but for buses. he is like 82 yrs old but still has truck and gets called every so often to help some people out with parts and other little things for their buses. hes very very kind and we had a 2 hour lesson with him. he came to church yesterday and we have a temple visitors center trip planned with him for this miercoles. hes a super cool guy. hes like my papa, just spanish speaking haha.

thats it for this week. i hope you all have a good day! love you you guys! bye! xoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #44

hey,

so i went in for another operation on thursday. it went really well. came back to stay at the presidents house after and have been here since. i go back to my area tomorrow morning. ived been pretty bored here though. not much to do other than eat or sleep. the food is amazing here! american! they definitely spend some money on food here.. so good.. this has been my 3rd and hopefully last time being in the presidents home. all for toe problems. so, moving forward, i just have to go to more podologos to get trimmings and cleanings done for the rest of my mission.

the area is still good with lots of success. everythings tranquilo here. anyways, i hope you all have a wonderful week! i love you guys! xoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #42

hey all,

i had changes this week. elder hernandez-garcia left and i got elder perez in return. elder perez is good but i do missed my old comp. we had a good first week of work. ive never been a big fan of getting to know my new comps and all lol. mom and dad know how i always havent been the biggest social butterfly haha. but its been good getting to know him.

ana maria is still golden. shes such a sweetheart. she is just so open to the Gospel it crazy.. theres such a difference between pushing the Gospel on people who dont want it, as compared to when they do want it. my experience with her is a reminder of that im here to find people that are ready for the Gospel.

had another toe operation today. they are never fun. one day my toes will be good again. one day lol. have another appointment in a couple days. we went to the center today. my comp needed to buy some shoes and a couple other things. we ate at KFC there. it was good. its always cool to walk in the center. such neat stuff there. 

anyways, thats about it. i hope you all can have a good one this week. love you guys! xoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #41

hey all

i had a great week. we had great success with the people we are teaching. especially this one older lady and her husband. we contacted her a few 2 weeks a ago and she accepted a baptismal date for july 4th. she actually started crying the first time we talked to her. right on her doorstep. she has accepted the gospel with open arms. and yesterday, she even took her husband to church, who is in a wheelchair. she is a golden.

we didnt work starting from saturday at 6 o clock evening to all day sunday because mexico had their elections for poltical leaders. so we went to church and came directly home to do nothing all day lol. just read the scriptures, slept, played checkers, and ate. was a good lil break though.

i cant really think of anything else exciting that happened this week. nothing too crazy. anyways, i love you all and hope you have a good week! xoxoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #40

hey all, 

this week was a great week. we had 2 baptisms. a pregnant mother named e. and her daughter named f. who has 8 years old. we found them my very first day in this area. we are also working with the dad but hes a lil slower mover. hes a policeman so its a little harder to find him cuz he has a tight work schedule. but hes the next goal for sure. we are also starting fresh with a couple other people. the other couple families we were teaching didnt progress so we had to drop them. the work is still great here in pantitlan 2.

we went to the center of mexico city today. i bought a new camara in the center today. my old one was really bad so it was time. we brought a couple recent converts with us to haggle the dude down for us. you cant haggle down anything with a white face here..

other than that, nothing too crazy happened. this week. just the normal. let me know if ya got questions.. i love you guys! have a good one. xoxo

-Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #39

hey all,

this week went well.. for the first time in a very long time, everybody who we committed to come to church, came. so sunday was an awesome day for us. we have two baptisms planned for this saturday so hopefully all will go well in order to have them. we are teaching three different families right now and they are all showing signs of progression. we just have to be patient with them. we have our work cut out for us this week. the area is great and so is the comp.

i cant really think of what else to write.. oh, i ate cow tail this week. it tasted like meatloaf. i didnt like it too much.. i have another apt with the podologo today. should be good. im still learning more than i ever would ve imagined out here. its great! anyways, i love you guys and hope you all have successful weeks! xoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #38

hey guys,

i hope everyones doing okay. this week was kindof unsuccesful  but ni modo. just that nobody came to church so everything gets put off longer.. p day has been good so far. woke up at 630 to take our laundry to an hnas house then came back and slept for like 3 hours longer. felt great. went to play hockey at another hnas house then to carnitas (street tacos) were really good. i had brain quesadillas and tongue tacos. the brain was a lil bitter but tasted good with salsa. the tongue tasted very tender. it was pig tongue but tasted more like cow steak. pretty good though. also tried the pig knee cap. it tasted like garbage.. that about made me upchuck.. it was very slimey and just nasty tasting. after, we went home to shower and go to the store. then we came here to write. so yeah pretty good pday. love you guys. have a good one! xoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #37

hey all,

i hope everyone had an awesome mothers day. i sure did. it was so nice to talk to you all. (CLICK HERE FOR SKYPE VIDEO.)i felt like i never left for a moment or two. its amazing how energizing that skype call was for me. i feel great now. ready for the week. i hope all of you guys got closure as well. its a great thing to be able to talk to family face to face even though we are spread out all over the americas.

some other interesting things that happened to me this last week was that i got peed on by a boxer. all up and down my pant leg and shoe. then, i got bit by another dog a twice. now, at least i can mark those things off the list of things to do before i leave mexico.

we had lots of exito this week with investigators up until sunday. 9 different people said they would come to church, we passed for all of them but only 2 came.. i think mothers day kinda made it tougher. but the two that came have dates and we will continue to work hard with them. i think a lot more people should come to church this week. i still love my area and the members here. especially the hermanas. they are soo caring and hardworking for us.

but yeah, i hope you guys can have a good week! i am going to send a lot of pics now. hope you like um lol. love you all! xoxo bye!

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #36

hey guys.

i have had a great week. we had changes tuesday and i am now with Elder h.-g. from california. hes a latino and hes a great guy. he has 4 months and is super obedient. we had a very successfull last week. and believe we will have even more success throughout this next cycle. the área is way different. its more safe here, completely flat, half the área as my last, working members, good comp. literally all i could ask for.

we have carnitas in this área which is when the guy buys a full pig and cuts it up. you tell him what you want and you get it in a taco. intestines, eyes, stomachs, ribs, bacon, legs, anything.. so we will have some fun the next couple weeks with that. i will let yall know you it goes. i rode on a trash cart thingy. people go around with their carts pulled by horse here. we wear late to an apt. so we hopped on with this drunk guy and his girl. he was a super nice person. everybody was wondering what a White kid in a White shirt and tie was doing on a trash cart lol. it was super fun.

i cant wait to see you all sunday. its going to be great. i love you guys!

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #35

well all, great news! im finally getting out of my first area. i have changes with maletas which means im going to a whole different stake! im hoping for a cool comp and a flat area so i wont have to deal with anymore inclines. but, im pretty excited for the change. my toes are all good now. just healing up from all of those surguries. i dont have a single problem as of right now which is a tender mercy. 

we found lots of news this week was exciting until only 1 came to church. but he looks like he will progress quickly so thats good. he found a mini football one night so we have been playin two hand touch games after work at nights in the street. very fun and reminded me of when i always used to play with my lil bros in the yard at deer hollow. so much fun. i vomitted the other night. i think it was the buffalo wings i got from a street vendor. they tasted ok but i dont know, i just got sick really fast.. within 2 minutes and the rest is history. i have a pic if you would all like to see it ;) had a zone activity this morning which was pretty fun. we played soccer basketball football and wuffle ball. sports are so great on the mission. we also had tacos de suadero y longaniza. the salsa for them was surprisely hot this time around. so yeah, delicious. thats it i believe. love you all. have a good one!

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #34

hey everybody,

this week was great mainly because i didnt have to sit in the house all day doing nothing. had lots a good lessons and found some news. but the bad part was that nobody came to church.. it pretty makes you feel like the weeks work was useless. because if they dont get to church the dont get baptized. so it really just puts you back another week. thats part of the experience i guess though.. 

so i have a pretty funny story for you all. and theres not a better day than today to share it lol. i was on splits with my district leader, elder s. the other day. we were contacting trying to get citas fijas with the reciently contacted people. anyways, we just got done talking to a man who actually lived in utah for a bit. but anyways, we went up the street towards another part of my area and a 20ish yr old kid yelled to us to come over. so we talked to him for a while and he told us all sorts of funny things. i forgot to mention he was drunk and high. so usually when somebody is druging or is drunk, they are either super happy nice or mad mean. he was super nice. actually, he wanted to go work with us! we gave him a palabra de sabiduria <Word of Wisdom> pamphlet and tried to leave but he kept insisting to go with us so we were like, oh well, lets do it. so we walking with him for about 5 minutes or so talking some more and then i got the idea.. lets start running. so i told elder s. the plan and he just laughed and then i told the drugged kid. i told him as missionaries we liked to excerize and that he could run with us if he wanted to. i thought that would keep him from going with us but he said sure and was ready to go at a moments notice. so i started sprinting up the hill and then he started. it turned into a race. me and the drugee with elder s. trying to keep up with us while laughing his head off. anyways after about a quarter mile i decided to stop and then we let elder s. catch up to us. i incorporated the run we had just done with the pamphlet we had given him. i told him in spanish, brother, what we just did can be found in the pamphlet we gave you. and that there are more <amazing> things that could be found in the pamphlet that would change his life. so we put a cita with him for another day and he finally let us leave. but can you just picture two white missionaries in white shirts and ties running in an all out sprint with a mexican drug Addict? i dont know, for me and elder s., it made our day..

anyways thats about it for the week. i love you all and hope you guys have a good week! xoxo

Elder Anderson