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

Mexico City - Week #21

Hey all

And yes I have 2 companions right now! I'm in a trio! So my old comp ... left the area and I stayed but the other two elders who were in my house living with me took me on as well as my area. So now we have two areas to work so we are super busy.. It's awesome to be with elder n. and s. Do you guys remember elder s. from the skype chat? He said hi to y'all. It's such a big difference to have a different companion, or in my case two.. It's still really weird for me but it's a great thing. Chances are, I will only be with um for 3 more weeks until the end of the change so I'm soaking in as much fun as possible lol. 

As for the missionary work, we have had a lot of it. The bad thing is that out of the 7 investigators that said they would come to church, nobody at all. I would say that's the hardest part of it all. No matter how great the lessons are and how much they feel the spirit, when they wake up on Sunday morning, it's like the switch flips in their mind and they are like, "heck no, I ain't goin to church!" It does make it that much more better when they finally come though.. I also gave another blessing to a little girl. Here grandma needed one which my comp did then the little girl wanted one so I gave here it lol she wasn't sick or anything crazy. Just wanted a blessing.

But that's it for the week.. I have nothing more I can think of right now. Ohh yeah, we found the second mouse in our house. I killed it with a butterfly knife I bought from some vendor near the metro. Nasty things.. That's it I think. 

Love y'all and peace out! Xoxo

elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #20

Hey all,

I hope you all had a great new year! We had to stop working at 6 but we were alowd to go with a member to celebrate after 6 if we got rides to and from. So we went to the s. The same family we celebrate Christmas eve with. The spell check is spanish to this iPad is switching every word. I apologize for that. :) but not much has happened this week. Pretty normal and nothing crazy other than staying up till 12:00 for the new year. We left the s. around 10:30 to play uno and basketball on our basketball hoop in our house útil 12.
It was a lil tougher to work this week but im sure this next week will be better.. After all the holidays and all. Its súper hard to focus during the holidays as you could expect.. I also have changes! Well not me but my compa. I stay and he goes. New compas for both. Im anxious but nervous. It will be my first change in the field.
Hermana a. is still going to church every week with the entire family. All members now and hermana a. also has a calling!  Primary president! So cool..
Thats about it form this week cus its quite annoying to write con this thing lol. I have some pics of new years i will send next week. ¡les amo mucho y espero que ustedes pueden tener una buena semana! ¡Hasta luego caimánes!

Mexico City - Week #19

hey everybody,

i hope you all had a good Christmas. to be completely honest, it was hard for me to be away from my family on Christmas. really hard. but then. i started to look at the bright side of things. number 1, only 1 Christmas left. number 2, i got to skype instead of call. number three, i have a sister who is also in the mission. number 3, i have been able to learn spanish. number 4. i have made life-long friends. number 5, i have learned so much about the scriptures. number 6, i have learned so much about myself. number 7, i have seen peoples lives change. number 8, i have witnessed miracles. number 9, i have a wonderful family who loves and cares about me so entirely much. 

so, when i started thinking about these positive things, it helped me a ton. it was hard to be gone for Christmas and it will be hard to be gone for the next. but if Heavenly Father has given me all of these blessings and much more for missing it, i cant imagine what i will recieve for missing the next.. Heavenly Father always blesses us more than we can comprehend when we make our will that of His Son. mom and dad, i know it was hard to not have two of your children home for Christmas and i doubt it will be any easier the next time but you already know how many blessings we are recieved as a family. just think of how many more we have in store for us. i am so thankful for the people i have in my family, relative and extended. and for the people i know and will come to know. each person has played a huge role in helping me get through the tougher moments here in the mission and im thankful for that. thanks for the love yall! i love you too! happy new year everyone! xoxoxo

Love, Elder Anderson

Mexico City - Week #18

hey all,

 

i hope you guys had a good week! i certainly did. we had 3 baptisms this last saturday and it was an absolute miracle. i dont even know where to start.. i guess i can start with these last changes. it was coming to the end of this last change and i was was thinking my companion would most likely be leaving and to be honest we were both ready for the change. i mean, we had been with each other since my first day in the field.. so, we got the list of who had changes and it turned out that neither my companion, O., or i had them. at that point we were super upset with each other and just the situation in general. we were both anticipating a change and it never came so we actually didnt say a word to each other the rest of that night. oh, and btw we found out about that all sunday night.

so on monday, we went to the internet to email and i was able to instant message Kylee for a lil bit. we were talking about our comps and i was complaining to her a bit about my companion. she just told me that i was with my companion for another change because Heavenly Father still had something to teach us, myself and Elder O. after Kylee mentioned that and a couple more things, i realized she was right and that i needed to be more patient with my situation. later that day, we had district meeting and we were having a discussion about making and keeping commitments with our investigators. then, our district leader brought up an experience we had with an investigator. the investigator he was talking about was an investigator who is in our area because his area was ours a couple changes before i came. anyways he was talking about a hermana names angelica a. she is the wife of the 1st counselor in our ward bishopric. her husband was baptized 6 years ago and is one of the srongest members i have seen here but hna a. just couldnt accept to be baptized then. her reason for not wanting to be baptized was basically because she didnt feel ready.

hno and hna a. have 2 daughters named a. and a. ages 10 and 11. the whole family of 4 are super strong in the church and go every sunday and to all he activites but hna a. nor her daughters 

are actually members. missionaries call these type of people eternal investigators because no matter how many times you go to their house or what you say they still cant pull the trigger to accept the baptismal invitation. so, for 6 years, every set of missionary that has been in there area, my area, has been to there house trying to get them to accept baptism. 6 years and nothing! we had already been with her once and we ended up staying with her 2 and a half hours that time and she said no, im not ready yet.

so, to bring you back to the district meeting when our district leader was talking about her, my comp whispered to me, hey, we are going to go with hna a. again. when i heard that, i was thinking to myself, ´great.. we are going to go with her and waste 2 hours to get nothing accompished except frustration from her not accepting our invitation to be baptized.´´but i said ok, fine, lets do it.

just a fyi, we have every lunch meal with members every day so they take turn feeding us. so, the next day, which was tuesday, we opened our agendas up to plan for the day and we saw who we ate with. familia a! so, we planned to have a lesson with them after lunch since we would already be there. after lunch that day, we asked them if we could and they agreed. so after the opening prayer, we asked what we normally do.. how are you? hows it going with the family? etc. hna a. then replied, not very good.. i made a terrible mistake.. and then she looked over at her husband 

and said, should i talk to them about it? her husband nodded and then took the two daughters outside for a walk. hna a. then preceded to tell us that she had (made some mistakes in her life). ... she was sobbing, said, i just feel terrible and i dont ever think this feeling is going to go away. then, we shared with her about the process of repentance. we explained that all of these terrible feelings she was feeling were part of her own repentance process. we then went on to explain with scriptures and our own experiences about repentance, and baptism by immersion. we explained that she could become clean again through baptism.

now, in this moment, i was thinking about what i could tell her and i kid you not, everything thought or impression i had in my mind, my companion said himself. i felt the spirit of the Holy Ghost stronger than ever in those moments. and i knew everybody else could feel it too in that room because we were all crying. so at the end of our discussion, we asked her to be baptized on 

the coming saturday, and before my companion could finish the commitment, she shouted, yes! now, i want you to remember that for 6 years, elders have been trying to get her baptized but each time the commitment was asked she said, no. the difference between those times and our time was that it was in Heavenly Fathers time not ours. so, her and her 2 daughters were baptized 

this last saturday by the father and almost the whole ward came to the baptism because everyone was amazed at what had happened. Hna a. was being baptized!

after that lesson when we committed hna a. to be baptized, my companion and i were talking about what had just happened and how it came to be such a great miracle. we both understood why we were supposed to be together for another 6 weeks. it was because of her. everytime a companionship changes, the one who has more time in the area leaves especially when its the younger ones first area. if we would have had changes, O. would have left and i know i wouldnt have taught her a lesson after that lunch that day because i honestly thought it was a waste of time. so many better missionaries than me have tried so many times and failed. what could i have done.. the next part of this miracle was that we didnt have to track her down to set up an appoinment to teach. the day after my companion told me that we needed to visit her again, we had lunch scheduled with her! the next part was that evrything that i couldve said, my comp said exactly and visa versa. Heavenly Father wanted her to hear specific words and phrases and we were just the mouth pieces for him. the final thing was that once my companion scheduled the baptism for her which was on saturday the 20th and she said yes, we asked hermano a. if he had work that day and of course he didnt. he is a police officer with a super busy schedule but that day was his one day in the week.

so, my companion and i were lucky enough to be part of something miraculous. we were able to see with our own eyes how when our Heavenly Father wants something to happen, it happenens no matter what. After 6 years, Heavenly Father said it was time for her to be baptized an she was baptized within 4 days along with her two daughters. this is why i absolutely love the mission. its so easy to see the miracles of God when you do nothing put serve him all the time. im so blessed to be here and i cannot wait to see the next miracle our Heavenly Father sends me.

i hope all of this made sense for you. i kind of wrote it in a hurry but you get the gist of it. i love you all so much and thanks for reading this email. Merry Christmas!!!

 

Elder Anderson

C

Corson Anderson

On Tue, Dec 23, 2014 at 12:14 PM, Corson Anderson <corson.anderson@myldsmail.net> wrote: > > hey all, > > i hope you guys had a good week! i certainly did. we had 3 baptisms this last saturday and it was an absolute miracle. i ...