Tuesday, February 10, 2015

Mexico City - Week #25

``deer`` all,

Kim, you understand that lol. my week was fantastic ... it was great. had 2 investigators come to church. different from the other 2 who came last sunday, but thats okay. work goes on with everyone. actually, we had a cool experience happen saturday and then, on sunday. i will just copy what i wrote about it in my blessings book..    we had like 15 minutes before we had to go to lunch saturday day  so we went to contact a bit. (contacting is when you go from door to door sending a góspel principle and then inviting the person to start taking your lessons) we started contacting down this one road and werent having much success until an old lady, mid 50s, came walking by pulling a handcart up the road. we offered to help her and she actually accepted it (most people dont like our help) anyways, my compa was pulling the cart and i started talking to the hna. she was really nice, was listening, and even answering some questions that i had asked her which gave me a reassurance that she might actually want to listen to us. so anyways, we took her up the Street, across the main avenue in our área, and to her house a couple blocks over. when we got to her house, we tried to get her to come to church with us the next day or at least take our lessons but she just wouldnt do it. so we left for lunch with nothing accomplished except servicio.

but just as we were turning around the corner, off her Street. a 20 yr old guy Yelled at us some not so nice english swear words? at this point i was not in the mood, and came back around the corner and asked him, ``what did you call us?`` in spanish and then he came over and acted all nice and stuff. so we started talking and he started to tell us about some papers sent from the U.S. State Department in english that his mom nor he could read so then his mom comes out with the papers. we translated them for her. and they were very grateful. (shes trying to visit her husband who is working in indianapolis) so after that, we just contacted her and her son. her name is E. and his name is N.

we invited um to come to church with us just like every other person but i was suprised to get the answer, YES! from her. she then asked us what time she needed to be ready and we told her 1230 the next day. i was so shocked that i actually asked her if she was already a member. shes not, which is awesome, and the reason why she wanted to go so bad is because her son lost his baby girl who was around 3 yrs old to some kind of disease. after her death, he has been super depressed and suicidal. his mom, being a mom, wanted to help him in anyway possible. she had kept telling him that they needed to get to church and bring theirselves closer to God, but they just never managed to get there. Until we came up and invited them to come with us. unfortunately, N. couldnt come because of work, but E. did and she loved it. she actually told us she was going to come back this wednesday for a relief society activity and then, saturday for stake conference because she already had plans so visit her family in the puebla on sunday. we hadnt even had an actual lesson with her or anything, she just wanted to go to church so bad it didnt matter what kind. so now, we will guide her in the right direction and i know they will both become converted to the Gospel. ive never had an experience like this.. it was absolutely amazing to see it unfold. if we would have not contacted in that first Street and offered to help that old lady, we would have never found E. and her son. just one Split decisión can change the outcome of an entire day on the misión. such a great opportunity i have to be here.. i love it. i love you all too. thanks for Reading this long email and all the others i write. peace out! xoxoxo

Elder Anderson

Thursday, February 5, 2015

Mexico City - Week #24

hey yall,

this last week was a good one.. except for hearing that the hawks lost with a stupid mistake.. oh well. life goes on. i will have Elder m. as my comp for this next 6 weeks as well. but im still going to go the the changes meeting to see if theres any letters for me tomorrow lol.
2 of our new investigators came to church last week which was amazing. we can finally work towards the baptisms now. we have a lesson with them on wednesday to put the fecha down. they are really sweet old couple who just love life. they have a hard time taking in all of the teachings because theyve never heard them before but they like the feelings it all gives them so thats all that matters. i have quite a few other investigators that we had to drop cuz they just werent coming to church. we are hoping to get a couple more to church this sunday. pray for it please!
thats about it for the week lol. sorry i dont have more.. love you guys! and have a fantastic week! xoxoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #23

hey yall,
i hope your week went great. i got a new companion named elder M.r. he is from salt lake city, Utah and has 4 months in the misión. im his 3rd ... (trainer) so he has had a pretty rocky start. so far, we are getting along well and chugging away with the work. he's a good guy.
now that we're talking about the work, there is a ton of it. in the beginning of the week last week, we dedicated our time to finding new investigators because nobody we have is coming to church. so we found quite a few investigators but not a single person came to church with us. i felt like a failure sunday morning in sacrament meeting but as the day went on, i just realized that its their own agency. they will come if they truly want to know its the true church. if not, then, we need to find others who are ready.
so weve decided we are going to look for news this week as well as grill the ones we have about Sabbath day attendance. we gotta start getting some people to church. if you have any suggestions, hit me up with um ;)
i had my 3 month interview with the president of our misión, President Stutzneggar. every 3 months we are supposed to get interviewed. i absolutely love my interviews with him. the most spiritual interviews i have ever had. to start out, i come in and he always starts with a kneeling prayer and before, he always asks what i would like him to prayer for so i usually tell him my family, companion, my spanish, etc. and he always prays like Heavenly Father is sitting right next to us. so genuine. so then, we get up and talk about things. he asked me what ive learned about my Saviour so far. and how my companion is. my family. my other missionary sister. and actually, when we got on the subject of kylee, he said, lets pray for her right now. so we got down on our knees and prayed for her and he prayed for her as if she was his own child. then, i realized, he has these kind of interviews with every one of his missionaries every day. HOW DOES HE DO IT? he is an amazing man and i know that every decisión he makes is guided by the spirit. im thankful to have him as my misión president! 
thats about it for the week i would say.. thanks for tuning in this week folks! luvyaslots! xoxo

Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #22

hello all,

¡y feliz cumpleaños a mi! i had a wonderful week. even more wonderful then the rest of um.. my birthday was pretty awesome! a lot better than i was expecting.. thats for sure.. so it all started on the 16th. friday night. went throughout the day with normal appointments and lessons until we had an apt with a recent convert named C. and her neighbor who she gave to us a a referral. hna C. is one of the top 3 strongest members in our ward. she was baptized right when i came on the mission and now she is stronger than ever! she has referrals, intimate questions, and always wants to know more and more. truely is one of my favorite people here. anyways, she opens the door to us and screams ¡feliz cumpleaños, Elder Anderson! and i was like, ohh thanks but actually my birthday isnt until sunday, then she was like, you told me the 16th. and i was thinking oh boy,, she planned something. so we went upstairs to here kitchen and there everyone was.. hnas e. and n., and c.'s neighbors, waiting for me! they made hot chocolate on the stove and bought me two birthday cakes! then, after we ate, hna c. gave me a birthday present which was legit.. 4 brand new pairs of socks and a bar of soap. literally exactly what i needed.. she is amazing. i have pictures with them all and my comps i will send. later that night i thought of a genious idea while i was on the pot (my oldest son just keeping it real ... good grief -Del) for my next birthday, im going to tell some of the members my birthday is on the 16th and others on the 18th! that way i can have 2 parties like i did for this year! genious, right? ;P

the next day, dads bday, (happy late birthday dad), was just a normal day. went to a families house who was super less active and i led the lesson about alma 32 with our testimonies being as seeds. and we found out that the family was having some struggles with the other members cuz they just moved from a different ward so i got to share about what we did as a family and how hard it was for us to change wards, especially mom and dad. it really helped um a lot! while we are on the subject of teaching and what not. we arent having very much success with our investigators. we have around 10-15 but the problem, as always, is going to church on sundays. we cant baptize anyone until they come to church for 5 consecutive sundays because so many people have been baptized and have never been back to church. there are even some cases where the person got baptized and didnt get confirmed cuz they never went to church at all even after the day of their baptism. really sad but it happens a lot. so we are gonna have to drop a lot of our investigators cuz they just arent progressing right now and we will start fresh with contacts and referrals. 

for the day of my birthday, we have church at 1 in the stake center cuz our chapel is getting completely rebuilt. so the bishop calls me in the morning for what i thought was a happy birthday call but actually, he just asked me to give a talk in sacrament so of course i accepted it and got to work on it. i talked about missionary work obviously and the purpose of my talk was to merge Gods purpose for us as member missionaries and our own views as to what being a member missionary means. i used our missionary objective in predicad mi evangelio and moises 5:58 to merge the two purposes. i ended up talking a lot more than i thought i would and only gave the last speaker like 10 minutes to talk lol. i said thanks afterwards though. so yeah. after that half hour talk i gave, i went into the next class and hna C. was there. she was like, oh now i remember you did tell me the 18th was your birthday! lol but then i just reassured here that it was actually better to have my bday on the 16th cuz i wouldnt have had time for it on that sunday. i kind of lied but it made her feel better. and then she gave me a big hug all of the sudden which i did not expect.. i was a lil befuddled but it was ok. shes 
an old woman so her intentions where in the right place lol shes so awesome.

got home and elder s. invited some other missionaries over from the zone. (one of which, named elder b., goes home in 2 weeks to mesa, arizona) so we had a cookout last night and then they all surprised me with a birthday cake! it was a sick birthday!! like i said, a ton better than what i was expecting.. just got a lil marshmellow cake from the hna whose house im writing at right now so yeah good bday! :) love you all and i will send the pics of everything that went down after district meeting in a couple hours. love ya. bye

Elder Anderson