mission: you may kiss the bride/#missionaries/weddingplanners#divorceattorney

September 4, 2017

hey fam,

well i hope everything with you guys is going good! here we just had changes, nothing really changed a ton for me, 3 people left my district, and so we will have some new missionaries coming in, but all is good, 

really looking back at this past change i can see the progress, haha at this point last change my district had 1 babtisimal date, now we have 9, and every sector in my district is sharing the glory, meaning that all the sectors are running these fechas,

so i put the title we got cuase well that is exactly what is going on, i have spent lots of time teaching the law of chastity as well as talking about divorce and marrage, i am getting to the point where i should just go get my law digree in this! haha i have become very familar with the laws here about all of this, due to the fact that some people dont want to get divorced becuase they are recieving money for there kids, and they thing that that will change when the divorce happens, money really is a big deal for a lot of these people, they really are afraid of marrage becuase they think that they will lose money, but as i have been going through all the laws in most situations the people are actualy going to gain money,

so this last week we found a girl to teach, she has 14 years old, her life is pretty torn appart right now, she ligaly has to be away from her father, right now she is living with her brother, as we taught her the second lesson she really opened up and told us everything, we talked about it all and she wants to be babtized on the 15 of september, after talking to her it really made me see how hard it is for the youth here, all there families are torn appart and a lot of time the kids just want to have a family.

babtism really is a point in peoples lives where they can really start over and look into the future with a lot of antisipaction. 

right now all is good for me, we are really trying to work hard, with the ward and all, we are also getting excited becuase the 18th of september is coming up, the indapendance day of chile, it really is a big deal here, 

thanks for all you do for me, i hope you all have a  great week!

elder anderson. 

The eagle has landed

August 28, 2017

sup fam!

nother week wearing the rubber off the bottom of my shoes, haha but all is well here on the coast of barrancas! last week i talked about the miricles that have been happing in the sector, well god has continued to bless us, at the moment we now have 4 dates for babtisms all in the months of september as well as a few other dates as goals with a few other people, but as every great thing happens its kinda like looking down a barrel of a gun at some moments, let me explain, we have rosa, alva, diego, juan manuel, manuel, fitler and patricia, and veronica, all of these people that are in this list are people that are progressing and that i am teaching, all of them except juan manual need to get married, this would be 6 wedding that i will have to get going, as well as one of this couple does not have any papers to get married here in chile, we figured a way so that we can send them to the hatian embassy where all of the laws of haiti apply, there we can get them married, but anyways will all of the success that god has given us i can see where it comes from, obedience and giving it our all, god really wont bless us if we put in 99% or even 100%, i know a person who is school they were always looking to get more than 100%, and now i understand, we are looking to give 100% we are going to give 200%, all that we have and all that we dont have, thats what it takes,

so my french creal is coming along, for those of you who dont know that is the language that the hatianos speak, a while back i made the dicision to learn this language, i am now to the point where i can camunicate pretty good, lots of verbs i dont know but i understand, a few week back when i made the decision i had to give a babtismal interview to a lady who only spoke this language, god blessed me in the time to be able to understand everything that she was saying but leaving that interview i decided its time to speak like a hatian!

so i say the eagle has landed becuase THE PACKAGE HAS COME!!! a box full of stuff that i have been waiting for from my family has finally come!!!!!! it took like 3 months but i finally got it!

so one thing that i learned this past week while i was teaching elder Nuñez was that we waist a lot of time planning for lessons that dont ever happen, during weekly planning, we have made the decision to  change how this whole thing runs, we have stopped planning for lessons and the doctrine we teach and have started to plan exactly for the needs of people and what we need to accomplish in the week. 

i have told you all about the goal we have had to get the attendance of church up to 70 by october, well yesterday we passed our goal we hit 74! now we have  changed goals a bit and we are going to try and hit 80 but maintian this number, as well as if all goes planned we hopefully will babtized a good number of people this next months. 

yesterday in church on of my investigators was talking to one of the members, he found out about priesthood blessings, as he found out about this he asked us for one and explained that he has faith, as we gave him a blessing he starting crying in the middle, after the blessing he was crying nonstop when he finally got wind agian he explained that he had never felt such peace in his life, and he knew that he needs to be babtized, 

the lord continues to bless us here in this sector, so long as we are obedient focused and as we put in this 200% the lord will do the rest. i hope you all can try and apply this in every situation in life.

i love you all, thankyou for your example to me and your love, and for your support, i know i am not perfect and my letters arent always the best but thankyou for always being there!

love 

Elder Kay Anderson

 

 

When the starts just line up right

August 21, 2017


Hey fam!

Not a ton of time to write, but the letter I wrote last week about perseverance payed off!  The Lord really is blessing us! Last week I talked about how no one is attending church and things and how we have had the goal to have 70 people in church by October. Yesterday we had 62 people attending church, a few families that were in active, and we had 5 investigators in church, and we have 2 fechas for baptism in the next 3 weeks.

We were super blessed this past week as we kept working and trying to find people.  We found 2 people that are super great, the contacts were for sure inspired of Heavenly Father.  One is named D who is 24 and has a really young family, he works as a deep sea fisherman.  The other is named J who is from the Dominican Republic, he is a little older and is away from his family so that he can work and gain a little money.

Not a whole lot more to say.  I hope all is well with all of you! Love you all!

Elder Anderson.

 

 

Perserverance

August 14, 2017

hey fam,

this week we sure put our shoulders to the wheele, the work in my sector is coming along, but the dissapointment also is growing, we put tons of work into the sector and not a whole lot is coming out, we have been putting tons of work into trying to get the ward to work with us, including visiting lots of members and teaching them lessons of a few things, basically trying to get the ward to work how a ward should be in there callings, but in this way a lot rides on the bishop, for the least the bishop has to show up no time to his meetings, we worked super hard this week trying to atleast get the members to show up to ward council meeting on sunday, after even calling everyone 30 minutes before the meeting, not even the bishop could show up on time, he was 50 minutes late, and we only had 3 out of all the orginazations show up, after doing all this work i realize how important it is to do our work in our callings and in our wards, after thinking alot about the covanants we made we commited to do a lot more than just obey the cammandments and go to church on sunday, we commited to serve, this makes me think a lot about mosiah 18 verses 8 through10 as well as alma 60 verses 20 through 23, really if we think we will be blessed for only obeying the cammandments and going to sacrament meeting on sundays we are kinda fooling ourselves.

the training of elder nuñez is coming along very well, he is very smart and he really loves to help and serve people, this past week we ended up doing a little bit of service helping a guy lift of some sheetrocking in his house, it was a great experience.

we have started to have a lot more people progress, and as well with that they are having friends that are members, so we are working with that a little more, we had a great noche de hogar last friday where we had 11 investigators and about 40 people in total, it was a great expeirience for the ward and the investigators,

we are starting to work with a few families that are less active, one called that family oroz, they are super great just need a little help getting up and going to church.

i put the word perserverance as my title cause thats the hard work you do after you just got done working hard, haha and thats what this sector needs, we are still working hard and we are going to work even harder this next week, i love you all have a great week!

Not sure what to name this.

August 7, 2017

hey everyone,

this week has been a week chuck full of work, and more work, including racking in the numbers, this week we hit a record in finding the most news to teach, all these people we found are great, i felt the spirit guiding me in the streets to find these people, this week we are going to go back to them all and see who we cant help to progress, 

the ward this past week has given me all the numbers from the past few years and lets just say there i tons of room for improvement, the ward gave us 10 names of families so that we  can visit them, we have plans to go visit one of them tonight with some of the ward members, 

it is super important for all the investigators and all of the less actives to have a friend in the church, it is useless for the missionaries to work without the help of the ward,

this past week i had my first divisions as dl, it was super great and i think that i can really help my district, i can feel of the spirit guiding me and i plan meeting and as i do interviews and as i work with each missionary.

this past p day i went and bought some stuff to make some work out weights, i will send some pictures of them!

my comp continues to impress me in every aspect, we are truly put together here at this time to do some serious work, and we are going get it done, this week we are having lots of ward activities and lots of changes will be made with how we work with the ward,

last friday i left my comp with another greenie as me and the other guy went into santiago to have a reunion with pres with all the district leaders, turns out there are tons of new leaders, i felt a little un experienced in the meeting as i have the least amount of time in the mission to be a dl, but all is good, afterwords i had an interview with president and we talked about the changes we are going to make in the mission and then he proceeded to tell me how much he trusts me, it is good to know that my leader has trust in me to do the things i am, i just have to keep working and make sure i keep that trust.

i love you all have a great week!

 

 

July 31, 2017

July 31, 2017

Hey fam,

This past week has been super busy, haha both with all my new responsabilities and thing that we are starting to change with the ward, my time to write now is very limited due to the fact that i have tons of thing i now have to do on the computer, so please be patient!

first off my comp is named elder nuñez de peru, he is super cool! i could not of asked for a better comp, he loves to work hard and is super into working in the same ways i am, i love being able to help him and teach him, he is for sure also teaching me tons of stuff! one thing cool about him is that he loves to cook! and food from peru is super good! haha so i will be eating some good food for the next 2 changes, 

i say this is what seperaites the boys from the men becuase really it does, haha being a trainer and district leader is probably the busiest work there is in the mission, all the free time i had now is all sucked up in the work, but it is all good, i really actually enjoy it, tons of work tons of blessings  thats the way i see it.

this week a guy named jean started progressing, he really is amazing, after teaching him twice we took him to the church to show him around, he really like it and asked when he could be babtized, also he said that in one of the lecions books it talks about cammandments, he then asked us to teach him the camandments so that he could start living them! he attended church this past week and tonight we are going to go and finalize the fecha that we put with him for the 12th, we also started working with a guy named rene, he is super good as well, him and jean are actually really similar in a lot of ways, although rene did not attend church, we went and looked for him in the morning but he said he didnt have an iron to iron his pants, we try to talk him into going but he wouldnt budge, this week we are going to make sure he has everything ready by saterday night,

the district is super great, this past week we put together some goals that we all want to have, we put the goals for having lots of activities with the wards and things, 

speaking of the ward, we were shown a program by our mission leader that he suggest us to use with the ward, basically its a whole lot of verifying with the ward and the members and all the leaders getting them to start to really fulfull all of there callings, we are going to start this i think, it really is just going to help us increase the church attendance for our ward, we are having on average about 45 people in church every sunday, my goal is to have about 70, i am going to get a few more numbers from the ward but we are going to do what elder packer suggested in the zone conferance and crunch the numbers and try to get it all into a system that the ward can really get excited to help us out, 

at the end of this past week we started to put into practice the plan del cambio, about asking good questions, we got to the point where we realized it is a whole lot better for the people and for us, we are going to keep going with it and see where it takes us, we also cut the word message out of our vocabulary, and people seam to be a little more responsive, truly that word scares people a bit,

 me with elder nuñez worked super hard, he is a very good elder that is very prepaired to be here in the mission, we are going to make tons of great changes and thing here, 

thanks for all you do for me, if you have any questions please let me know!

elder anderson

 

 

The moment you realize the mission is real

July 24, 2017

Hey Everyone!

So I guess the big news of the week is we had changes! I stayed in my sector, but I am now going to be training a new missionary!!!!!!!! I am so stoked!  I have been looking forward to this responsibility for a while now. I am so excited!  Normally when we know the changes we find out Saturday night who will have changes and then Sunday morning they tell us all the details, but we didn't know any of the details until late last night and even then everything wasn't that clear.  As we all got together this morning I found out that I am also district leader now.  I am super excited to be able to work with my district.  We are all super young in the mission and there is a lot of faith and a ton of energy.  I know that this all will be hard at first, there is a lot of stuff to do, but I really am feeling blessed for this opportunity,

So one thing that I expressed was how hard it is to get investigators to church.  After having 11 people committed to come to church and having only 1 of them show up after passing by every single one of their houses was a little frustrating.  I decided that I will have to go about this in a whole different way, not really sure exactly how I will do this right now, but I am excited to see how things will go.  With my new comp there will be lots of learning on both ends and there will be lots of changes made in us and in the sector and in the ward.

One thing that has changed in the ward since I have been here is that we are now getting all the priesthood brethren together every 2 weeks and we visit alot  of the people that are inactive.  It's actually not showing a whole ton of results on the side of the inactive members, but it is for sure changing the hearts of the people in the ward.  There may be very few members, but each and every one of them are starting to help in the work and eventually we will see the fruits of our labors.

So with my new comp I won't get to meet him until tomorrow late.  Today all the trainers were in meetings with President as he was giving us council on training.  At this point he says he doesn't even have the assignments made.

I am excited to write you all next week and to tell you how everything is going! At this point in my mission it is great to look back on myself and change and become even better! My goal is to train my new missionary to be a beast of a missionary, so I need to be a beast of an example! 

I love you all.  I hope you have a great 24th!

Elder Anderson

The struggle is real

July 17, 2017

Hey Everyone,

This week was a pretty normal week, super slow at the first of the week and super busy at the end. Not a whole to tell you guys about either, 

First off  these past few days have been super cold, ha ha! President is even making jokes in our emails we get from him about how cold it is! Here in Chile it snows once every like 20 years, and I guess its has been one of those years cause snow fell a few days ago in Santiago.  Not here on the coast though.

On Sunday we finally had a few people attend church and we now have a baptism date with a man named J for the 5th of agusto.  We have lots of hope for him.  He is a super great guy! He is a little older like in his 60's, but he has a very strong testimony.

So last week I got a call from the office asking what we were running in our house.  They explained that our electrical bill was running 5 times higher than normal.  In our house we have less things than most of the other pentions have.  After doing a little inspecting I found a nice cable running from my house to my neighbors, haha!  They were stealing our power for the past 2 months.  I called the office and they sent a guy to take a look at it and in the end the guy just cut the cable and threw it away, nothing more.  I had a good laugh at it because who would of thought to do something like that?

So today for p-day an Elder from the next sector over stayed with me in my house.  He is a great guy from California and his parents are both from Mexico.  We had a good time scrubbing the house.  I am sure our mom's are proud of us! We cleaned everything we could.  The fridge, everything!

So talking about the struggle is real...just a reference to how life is.  The mission is super great, but it is always a struggle to get people to church, but it is such a reward for them and for us when they finally go.  I have found that once a person goes to church once, somewhere down the road they get baptized.  That is why it is such a goal to get people to go to church!

I hope you all have a great week! 

Elder Anderson

My Mr. Rogers Sweater.

Cable connecting to our apartment.

Grongo Vacation

July 7, 2017

hey yall!

this past week has been one full of miricles, many things happened this week that showed us that the lord has been watching our hard work, to start out this past week we now have 4 people that have committed to babtizm, 3 hatianos that speak good spanish and english and 1 chileano that is an older guy that has stomach cancer, each of these people we litteraly stumbled upon them, the only problem is we cant make anything offical with any of them becuase none of them have come to church.

jose, jose is the older chilean that we met on tuesday, tuesday we had interviews with president and so our day was kinda a little shorter on time to work, we had just gotten out of a lesson and for some random reason we started contacting up in this part of the sector, which we normaly would not do at this time of night, like 8:30, elder quipildor then said lets go visit jose, i had never even heard of this guy, but we litteraly were headed straite for his house without knowing it, turns out my comp had seen him around the change before i got here but had never had a lesson with him. as we nocked on his door he let us and we had a great lesson with him talking about babtism, we then commited him to be batized, it will be a little harder to teach him becuase he cant read but it will all turn out good, we have high hopes and lots of faith, one thing that i have learned about is that with everyone we really need to have tons of faith in them, all to often we classify people after we leave there house as if they are going to progress fast or not progress, as we have tried to put all the faith in the world into these people and extend a lot more invitations and dates for babtism we are seeing the results.

today for p day my comp had to go get his visa done, since it is a couple hours in bus to get to santiago he left last night, with some other elders from san antonio that had to do there visas as well, so i am on divisions with elder johnson, the zl, he has only 2 weeks left in the mission, so we decided to go up to el quisko today and hang out with all the other gringos in the zone, litterally all the latinos are gone today, haha we ended up walking around a bit looking at the ocean and we went and ate a churrasko in a nice little resturaunt. it has been a really great day, nice and laid back, haha and i havent spoken this much english in months!

so last monday i was on divisions with the dl elder nicolas  from peru, we were leaving a car of a member and as i was getting out i heard a big rip! the back of my pants had gotten caught on something and had oppened of the back end of my pants pretty good! luckily i was wearing thermals underneath,

so today i took some time and bought some new pants for a super good price, it was like 2 pants for 25 bucks, this week i will take them to a ward member and she will slim them up for me. haha always the custom fit pants for the missionaires!

thankyou for all the support you all give me, i hope you all had an amazing 4th of july, please have a great week!

elder anderson

Fly Over States, Jason Aldean

July 3, 2017

sup fam!

welll my subject this week i decided to give a shout out to my good old country! 4 july for sure wont be the same out here in chile as it will be there, this song by jason aldean if i remember right explains alot of how america is, small towns and country, thats what america is, i am super greatfull to be able to be from this country, and to be able to have the rights and things that i have there, you never realize how great it is to live in the states until you dont live in them anymore.

well this week was very much the same as last week, lots of trying to find people, some of the people that we found over the past while have started to progress, its a little hard to teach them though, these people are all friends with our retention joey, so in this case many of them have very bad drug problems. i haved worked with serval cases of things like this, it is hard for them to progress and change but when they do, it for sure is rewarding,

this past week we have been seen several miricles happen, we can see the lord trying to bless us, we have found a few people that are really receptive when we are there, its just hard to get them to church because here in the port everyone works all the time, the fishing opperations here have been hitting gold this past week so alot of people have not been home much. 

this week i have planned a ward activity, my hopes are that this small ward of 50 people will be able to be a little more united, the activity will be this friday at 7, we have a few activities planned that hopefully will turn out great!

so i got to give a shout out to friend weller, haha for teaching us how to lead music, the ward found out that i can lead so thats what i am doing now! haha also when i have time i am trying to remember what i learned from piano lessons, hopefully i can remember enough to play then we can have a piano durnig those hymns!

other than that not a whole lot to tell! i hope you guys have a great week! and remember to always remember to retain your knowledge that you recieve, not going to really explain it, but you will always use the knoledge you have throughout life! no matter what!

love you all!

elder anderson

Beach Town Chile

June 27, 2017

hey fam!

another week in your typical beach town in chile, dogs rain and coastal breeze, this past week has been pretty good. just a typical week where nothing and i mean nothing really eventful happened, as i had mentioned last week my sector was kinda in the low part for people progressing, this past week we spent a very large amount of time contacting, we talked and talked and talked, and we now know that if we want to work this sector it is not through contacting, the people were not receptive, now dont get me wrong we did find a few people that we are going to pass by, including a family where the dad is a member and the mom and daughter arent, and they have tons of questions! so we will follow up with them this week to see what we can do.

one thing that did happen is it rained and it rained, here in chile they dont have good drainage systems, expecially when the the rain just doest stop! haha but it makes for a fun adventure, all the streets turn to rivers, and we get to go have a fun adventure in the rain, 

sunday we had stake conferance, it was a pretty good conferance, the missionaries had to sing in a chior, we sounded pretty good for a bunch of missionaries, the conferance was really sentered on the faith and how in life our faith will have its ups and downs but we need to make sure it is in the general direction of up!!! which reminds me alot of the talk from general conferance called look up! i invite you all to read that again.

yesterday since our p day was changed we had to make arrangements for lunch, luckuly a great family offered, when we were over there the family had all there grandaughters there, as we were all eating one that had like 7 years kept looking at me, me being me i asked her if i looked different or something, haha it was really cute of this little girl to be so curious as to why i looked so different. at times i forget that i am white out here, until someone in the streets screems hello! sometimes i forget that i am different, i really feal like i am a chilean, people say i even have the accent.

i love you all! have a great week!

elder anderson

Well I did say I like to work

June 19, 2017

hey fam,

so to start off i wont send pics again, this computer has more viruses than the people here know what to do with. 

so this week has been pretty real, haha as i started the week i spent as much time as i could cleaning up the house and the sector, the house that we live in is your typical beach house with tons of sand!!!! all the streets here are sand streets, so it gets in the house, also not a single elder has really taken time to clean the house in probably ever! so i threw out tons of old clothes and junk that was in the house, after burning most of my freetime the house is finally a little better. 

so the sector here has been left out to dry for quite some time, it hasent seen a babtism in a while, but the retention here is good, cause the other elders were visiting them every day! when i got here they wasnt anyone that was progressing or even was being taught really, the people that my comp took us to visit the first few days were a bunch of hatianos that dont speak english or spanish so we cant teach them. 

so all throughout my life i have always said i like to work. haha so that is for sure what the lord put me in this sector for. there is tons of work to be done here, this past week we spent a good amount of time in the streets looking for people to teach, chileanos! not hatianos, we found a good number of people that we are now helping progress,

one of the retentions here is a very cool 24 year old kid, he has had a really rough life, before he was babtized he was one of the largest drug dealers on the coast. after visiting him a few times he introduced us to some of his friends that have seen the change in him and we are now working with them to make the same change. they are all super nice people, one is named kevin, he is 20 years old and he really wants to not only change his life but help change a lot of other lives as well.

so the ward here is really small, my job this week is visit them all and get them helping us. this week i spent some time studying in alma 26, it talks a lot about how we are all called to do this work, and how the lord has prepaired us, and how we can keep prepairing for things. i invite you all to read this chapter!

i love you all, have a great week!

elder anderson

Ocean front property

June 12, 2017

Hey Fam!

So the big news is I got changed! I moved to the coast! I am in Barrancas, a small town just off of San Antonio, one of the biggest shipping ports in Chile.  Here it is super cold! I am here with Elder Quipildor from Argentina  He has 6 months in the mission.  I am senor comp now.  The ward here is super small.  Only 50 people attend church, we will change that, but so far the sector seams good.  I can't wait to get to know the people here.

It was sad to leave El Monte. I truly loved it there, lots of memories and it truly is my kind of town. Elder Lazo is staying there and he will train again.  It was sad to say goodbye to my converts, but it was good.  I could never really see how big a part of there lives I was until I had to leave.  They are truly amazing people and I know they will continue in the gospel.  Some of them just got called into the Relief Society which will help them tons!

This past week we spent a lot of time helping A with his problems.  He fell a few times and let me tell you, you can't talk sense into a drunk dude.  I also learned how dangerous it is to be alone.  I am so grateful that I have the ability to have the constant companionship of the Holy Ghost.  It was during lessons with A that I was able to see the importance of that.

I love you all and I can't wait to write you all about my new sector next week! 

Elder Anderson

Matthew 10:39 Sometimes you have to lose it all to gain what the Lord wants you to.

June 5, 2017

Hey family!

so to start off let me tell you a little about the weather.  Here it is cold, humid and cold. All day long I can see my breath and it gets really, really cold at nights.  We now sleep with electric blankets and with like 3 blankets on top.  This week we need to buy a heater for the house because we haven't had one! It is not that great when you can see your breath during personal study in the mornings. I am also looking in the next few weeks to buy a coat here.

So like I promised last week I will explain the picture of the little bear dressed up like a missionary. Well his name is Elder Donoso.  Elder Lazo and I made him.  He is a missionary that every week after sacrament meeting we send him home with a family and a backpack full of materials.  The family then has to share all the stuff in the backpack.  This activity is a good way we get the ward to be more involved and to get new references.

This past Monday we were walking down the street and on a small corner store I saw one of my contacts.  I decided to turn around and go talk to him.  After talking to him for a bit he told us about a friend of his that needs help.  We got to meet him that night and we have been working with him for the past week, his name is A.  He is 36, he has some big problems with drinking and the poor guys family left him and his mom died not to long ago.  He has some pretty bad depression. Almost every day this past week we have been visiting him and trying to help him. He is a really great guy who just hit rock bottom. We brought him and his friend, my other investigator to church yesterday. Throughout church he started to cry at times.  I could see how hard it was for him to sit there and think about all that he has lost. I just sat there with my arm around him all of church trying to give him some comfort.  He turned to me at one point and said he would love to bring his son here to the church, so we put that as our goal with him. His journey will be a hard one, and a lot of times I look at us, just 2 19 year old boys with ties.  How can we help this dude? In reality we are the only ones who can really help him. We were set apart and given many gifts for this exact reason. We are the only people who can help this guy get the exact kind of help that he really needs.

It was this week that I was really able to see the potential and the good that missionaries have.  I hope that I can use my full potential and be able to really help this guy the way he needs help. 

Well everything else here is good! Not much to say.  Changes are next week, so chances are I will be writing you from another sector.  I have been here in this zone for 3 changes.  It's not looking good for another change in El Monte, but you know where ever I go it will be where the Lord wants.

Love you all! Have a great week and enjoy the warmth!

Elder Anderson

 

 

Wedding rings and a baptism

May 29, 2017

Hey Fam,

Well to start off we had a conference with Elder Packer of the 70 this past week. It was really great. We talked a ton about missionaries having the spirit and the importance of the spirit in our lessons, as well as Sister Packer talked about exact obedience.  I had a second to talk to her after the conference, they are such great people.

So I guess the only other big thing this week is that I had another baptism. She is the lady that we have been working with for a while. Saturday at around 2 we had the wedding, just a small deal that she did at her house.  After that we all loaded up in cars and drove to the church. There were a lot of nonmembers at the baptism that were there for the wedding. A lot of people liked the baptism and had questions afterwards.  After her baptism P shared a few words with everyone about everything.  She was a lady that before her baptism you could see the grief and things that her life before had caused her.  As she talked she sobbed tears of joy about how this baptism was so important to her. One thing I forgot to mention was as I was in white and we were about to go take pictures she kept calling me her, "little angel", even though that for sure is not true.  I was touched by her comment, it really was cool to see how big of a difference I have made in her life.  I have helped her start her journey, her next step is to go to the temple with her husband who in the process of teaching P we reactivated. 

Funny story of the week, as we were trying to get the water filled up in the baptism font the hot water didn't work. The water heaters here are on demand water heaters.  When the sense water passing through a batter clicks on and lights the flame. Well the batteries were dead and no one had keys, not even the Bishop to get into the door where the heater was. Long story short with a few papers clips I had the lock turned 4 out of the 5 turns. (All the doors here in Chile are like safe doors) Then the lock smith showed up and did that same thing I did and got it opened.  Ha ha! I just had to turn it one more time! The bishop afterward told me he is a little scared that anyone can get into his house now. Before the mission I was known a little for being able to crack bike locks and stuff. I guess that came in handy to help us baptize a lady in warm water!

These past few weeks I have been thinking a lot about faith, I actually felt inspired to write a quote, here it is in one of the pics!

Love you all! have a great week!

Ha ha!  I will explain the bear next week!

Visa run

May 23, 2017

hey fam!

well sorry this letter wont be long either, but not a lot happened! but i just want to give a shout out to everyone that emailed me for my birthday, it was so interesting to see 47 emails waiting for me! haha i love you all and i am so glad for all of your support!

so this past week it has gotten a lot colder and we are for sure using a lot of coats! this past week there has been a lot of rain storms and we can see our breath even inside our house! we have been talking to tons of people trying to get some heaters in the house and stuff like that along as electric blankets,

this past week we spent a lot of time contacting and trying to be very creative in how we are contacting, one of the ways that we contacted was that everyone here in chile has something they are selling out of there house, so we decided that we were going to talk to everyone about what they are selling and then turn the whole thing into a good contact,

so yesterday for my birthday i got the oppertunity to go do my visa! haha not the funniest thing i could of done! i had to wake up early to go into the big city, once i was there i stood in line for almost the whole day with a bunch of hatiano, haha had a little oppertunity to practice some french, 

sorry not much else to write, thankyou all for all that you do for me! 

elder anderson

Duck hunting hands

May 15, 2017

Hey Everyone,

My email this week will be pretty short, not a whole lot to write about, just the work.  I put the title duck hunting hands because that is the words that describe this week. If any of you know me, my life before the mission was all about duck hunting.  When you are duck hunting your hands take a hit and get super cold.  I remember days out in the marsh where I couldn't feel my hands because it was so cold, and then when I got home my hands would swell up because they got too cold. That is kinda what happened this past week, riding my bike with rain and really cold weather made my hands freeze! It took me back to the old days in the marsh.

This week we continued to work with people that we have been working with for a while, not a whole lot has changed.  We put in our fair share of work and then some.  There was a lot of rain and people really didn't want to open there doors and let the cold wet missionaries into their houses.

This past Saturday we had what is called a open chapel  It is where people can come in and take a tour of the church.  It is a super good program, all the missionaries and the ward participate.  It is really a big event.  Elder Lazo and I took the lead and were out front contacting people and dragging them into the church.  The Bishop of my ward here was making jokes in sacrament meeting about how Elder Anderson and Elder Lazo were crossing the street all day dragging people bag and forth like it was a big game of cat and mouse.  I had a really good time chasing down the people and talking them into taking 10 minutes out of their day to see our church.

This past week we continued to teach a lady that I have been working with a little over the past few weeks.  She has some pretty big smoking problems, but she has such a great desire to change her life. I love being able to see the changes and progress that she is making in her life.

I continue to be able to see the blessings and miracles that happen here in the mission.  I see many things happen that are direct blessings and results of the work Elder Lazo and I are doing.  I would invite all of you to look for the blessings in your lives that are results of your obedience and bein gin the church.

I love you all! Have a great week!

Elder Anderson

A week in the John Deere tractor

May 8, 2017

Hey Family!

I put the title of my email as it is because I was reminded of weeks at work and weeks working on the ranch with grandpa stacking hay and in the tractors all day long. I was reminded that the good old John Deere tractor is the hardest working machine that we got in America, and this past week Elder Lazo and I worked just like the good, old John Deere tractors. 

The week started out with just finding gold.  We honestly just found and started working with 3 people that I have high hopes for. Elder Lazo and I have found how to work with each other, and if I do say so myself, this week we did good. I can't wait to see what happens when we keep tilling up the sector.

Over the past week it got colder, and when it gets cold, its super cold! In the mornings it gets cold and then around 12 or 1 it starts to heat up, but as soon as the sun is gone it gets cold again.

I well be skyping this week around 5:00  I would turn on the computer and wait as soon as you get home. I will email on Sunday right after church to let you know more.

Today for p-day we cleaned the house, and we cleaned and cleaned! ha ha! We still got some work to do.  I cleaned the sink too.

Sorry, not too much to write this week. I will tell ya more next week! Listen to the voice recording!

love you all! 

Elder Anderson

Giant empinadas and giant companions

May 2, 2017

Hey Fam!

So this week was pretty good. To start off though I want to share with you some of the scriptures I took to heart and some thoughts I had over the past week.

Alma 5 verses 13 14 15 16 and 57 58  60

Now I know when you think of Alma 5 you thing of some pretty big strong verses that tells everyone to repent. ha ha!  Ya it has that, but it also has a bunch of good things that we can look at and see how we are doing in life. Also, we can see where we need to go. It shows us a lot more clear the path that we can take to become more like Christ. It also shows us that it is possible and we all have the potential to become like Christ. I really love putting it all into perspective. at times it is scary, we don't think we are good enough or that we will ever get there.  I like to look at it as I have a lot to do, but Christ is there showing me what to do. I also like to look back and see what I have done. 

So this past week on Saturday we helped put some trusses up in a house for one of the members. It was pretty good. a little different. this house is made of of pure sheet metal, but it was a great experience to get back behind some tools. The only down side is that working like that showed me that in the mission I have lost all the calluses that I had on my hands! 

This past week El Monte had what they call catam.  It's basically a huge fair. All the people in the big city comes to this, so there are thousands and thousands of people! Us wanting to talk to that many people, we went to the catam and talked to some people.  When we had a minute we went and bought some empinadas, but these were huge! They were full of cheese and shrimp. For sure a good buy!

This past week we had changes. I am still in El Monte.  I hope to be in this small little town for a while, but I got a new companion Elder Lazo.  He is from the northern part of Chile and he is taller than me. I haven't seen a person taller than me in a while! And this guy is topping like 6 foot 6 inches. I am 6 foot 2 inches. It's going to be interesting getting used to being the short comp. Also Elder Lazo is the District Leader. He is really good and works really hard. We honestly work great together and I have a feeling that we are going to do a lot of great things together. He only has 9 months in the mission, but we both work great together. I hope to baptize a lot this change.

I have a great experience that I got to hear about from an Elder in my old area about an investigator. I will wait for Skype to tell you guys, because it is super long. 

I want you all to know, this is the Lord's work.  That I am in the Lord's hands. This truly is the most amazing opportunity in the world and I want you all to know that the Lord has a plan and everything happens for a reason. 

I love you all. 

Elder Anderson

Heaven must have some big windows

April 24, 2017

Hey Fam!

This past week was pretty good! Flew by really fast, but everything was really good. We had some good lessons, found some good people to teach and all.

This past week we had Stake Conference.  As we got into the church President Woodward was there with his family.  He and his wife both spoke in the conference as well as Elder Zapatta of the 70.  As I was listening to them all talk I had one of those big flashback moments. I looked back and saw all the things I have done in my mission. All the people I have been able to bless. All the lives I have been able to see changed, and I can honestly say that I have received way more blessings than I have given. I have been changed more than I have changed others. That's why I say the windows of heaven must be big. because I can see the huge blessings that are in my life. I can see how much God really loves and cares about me. One thing that I was also able to do is see how much more I need to change. I can see that I have a lot of work to do and I need to put my shoulder even more into the plow and not look back. So this past week I have put a bunch of goals and found a bunch of things that I can change to become a better member of the church, a better person, and a better missionary. I invite all of you to do the same thing. Take a minute and have a little self inventory, then make the changes necessary in your lives. 

After the conference I got the chance to talk to Hermana Woodward. She asked me if I have had a chance to meet her kids yet. And in my whole time in the mission I haven't. So I went out to the car where all the kids were and got to meet them all. They have 3 boys and 1 girl, but it was super great to meet them. I talked with Hermana Woodward and she explained a lot about her family and it sounds so much like my family.  ha ha! Kids fighting on car rides and all. I really loved talking to them. They are so cool! The more I get to know the Woodward's the more I love them.  They are such a great family!

So this past week we have had some earthquakes, haha!  We will see where it leads next week. People say the earth goes through this here every couple of months.

I love being out here in the fields of El Monte, and I love testifying of Christ to all of the people. I hope that you all take every chance you have to share your testimonies of Christ.

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Anderson

Pinguinos, vineyards, bike breakdowns

April 17, 2017

So here in Chile there are these little things that are almost just like hostess cupcakes, but way, way better. They are called pinguinos and any time we get a chance to go buy some we do. This morning we all decide we wanted to go hike to the top of the mountain, so we got up, rode our bikes to the base of a pretty big mountain. We spent a few hours climbing to the top, it was pretty steep, but we all had a blast and enjoyed hiking to the top of a mountain and eating pinguinos. As we got to the top the clouds were starting to clear up and we got to overlook into the valleys of El Monte and Talagante and Milipilla. As we hiked back down to the bottom, got on our bikes and were riding them through the vineyards back to the main road the chain on my bike broke. So I had to use it like a scooter the rest of the miles back to the house. It was a good workout! 

These past few days we have gone into some areas that we haven't been in and boy here in my sector there is the most beautiful farming land I have ever seen in my life! I don't have a picture because I forgot my camera when we went into this area, but I have a lesson there this week so I will remember to bring it next time!

This past week I lost 2 days of work. Elder Reese and I were blessed to be sick, and we sure were sick. There were several times where we Elder Reese told me he was going to die. Good times. Luckily we both recovered just fine. The first day was really rough, but the second day we could sit up, so we used a little bit of time and dyed some Easter eggs!

So the highlight investigator of the week is a lady named P. She is in her late 50s.  Her husband is a member. She is a very strong lady with a rough past, but she is willing to do whatever it takes to get baptized! We have a date with her for the 27th of May because that is the day that she is getting married. She needs to be married before she can be baptized.

This past week I stopped by the house where 2 of my retention's live. I love talking to my retention's but sometimes just like all of us they make mistakes, so this week we will be working more with them.

I love you all! I hope you all had a great Easter week. What a great day Sunday was, the opportunity we had to look back on our relationship with our Savior and all the amazing things he did for us.

Love,

Elder Anderson

What dreams are made of

April 10, 2017

Hey Fam!

This past week was a pretty, darn good week if i do say so myself! To start off this past Wednesday we had divisions.  I got to go with an elder that was super good. He is the comp of Elder Andras Anderson. Then on Thursday we had interviews with President. All went well. It was good to see him and get to know him a little better.  Friday passed by like a normal day of work, but Saturday was a great day! It started out with some good yard work. ha ha! A nonmember needed to clean out there huge yard and we are talking huge! We were cutting trees, trimming bushes and taking out the trash! It was a great day. After that we went and filled the baptism font. Then we baptized! It was so much fun to see the smiles on there faces. Especially on Sunday after they were confirmed.. You could see the difference and I knew they felt it because the mom L was crying. I truly love this family and I fully intend to baptize the rest of their family as well! It is all about family for them.

After the baptism on Saturday there was a ward talent show activity and there was some culture shock there! Chileans know how to party! ha ha! But the good part about that activity is that we had 7 of our 9 retention's there. We had all of our investigators there and we had a less active family also. Everyone was at church the next day too.

The weather continues to get colder. We now sleep with electric blankets. This week all of us in the house decided to go on a diet, to the best we can. For all the other guys they are trying to drop in weight. ha ha! For me, I'm still trying to go up! I got some protein powder and the diet has begun. My mornings are filled with tons of exercises as well as my days are spent trying to stay completely full. So far it is working. I have gone up 3 kilos. 

Sorry, can't write more.  This computer is super hard to type on. I love you all!  

Elder Anderson

Going Coastal

April 3, 2017

Hey Everyone!

Well this past week has been one heck of an adventure! To start out last Thursday we had a conference with President.  This time he decided to have it at a stake center that is out on the coast, so we got up at 5 in the morning on Thursday to hit the buses! After a very crazy 3 hour bus ride and changing between a few different buses we finally arrived on the coast.  The conference was good, but the highlight was President allowed us all to take an hour and walk down to the beach.  We got to take some pictures and just enjoy the ocean air.  It was such a nice experience to get to go look at the ocean.  It was the first time I had seen the coast since I have gotten here.  The conference was good, President talked about how we can work better with the members,

This week we all had the wonderful opportunity to listen to our prophet and his apostles and we were truly spiritually fed, and might I say, listening to these guys with a mission plaque on your chest brings a whole new meaning to everything they say.  There were many things that I for sure will apply to my mission as well as I hope that all of you will apply in your lives. There were several talks that just blew me away, as well as it was amazing to be able to listen to many people talk that I have met in person, including a few of the apostles and a number of the members of the 70's.  It was great to hear the story from Elder Rasband about those missionaries in New York.  I heard that story once from him in person when he came to Chile while I was in the CCM. I for sure think there are tons of things we need to take from this conference, including 2 times we were commanded to read the family proclamation to the world. I invite you all to do that as well!

So this week will be a week of white! One of my investigators is getting baptized, as well as her daughter that I told you about last week. I am so excited for them! It should be a great week!

One of my favorite quotes from this week is, you can know the Savior, not just learn of Him. I truly know that to be true.  Our relationship with Him is so important, and it truly is a relationship and not a history class way of learning of someone. I love to see my relationship as well as others with our Savior grow closer. I love to see the change and the light of our Savior grow in people's eyes as Elder Neto and I help these people find the true path of our Savior.

So I am still working on that bike. ha ha! It's pretty far down the hill. Hopefully I will have it done by tomorrow.

Love you all! Have a great week!

If you build it, they will come...

March 27, 2017

well......

This sector is dope! I don't know if you guys can understand this movie quote, but this past week I spent time in the fields, right in the middle of all these fields, in the middle of nowhere, there was this huge soccer field, a very beautiful field. ha ha! So that's my interesting quote of the day.

So this sector has a little bit of the city in it.  Some apartments and houses, but the main part of it is people's houses out in the middle of nowhere and there are these beautiful mountains as well, the best thing that I can relate it to is Grace Idaho.

This past week the weather has cooled down and we have been wearing sweaters and such.  It hasn't really rained yet, on Thursday it kinda sprinkled.

So you guys have asked a little bit about my investigators, well they changed this past week, but the 2 main ones right now that will get baptized in 2 weeks are J and L.  L is the mom and J is the daughter, she is 9.  These people are amazing and I can see the potential they have.  Just yesterday I was talking to J about her baptism and helping to clarify some questions she had. She then went on talking about how she wanted her older sister to be baptized as well so that they could live with God together. 

I found myself this week talking a ton about eternal families and about the purpose of the family and marriage.  I won't go into detail, but some of our investigators don't understand.  As I was explaining this to some of my investigators I could feel the spirit testifying of the truth of what I was saying. I am so grateful for my eternal family and for the opportunities that we have to make covenants with our Father in Heaven and be able to live with him and our families again.

So I am working on trying to get these bikes fixed.  I am basically stripping them all down to the frames and buying new stuff  and rebuilding them. haha!  Elders in the past sure wrecked them!

Well that's all I got for this week! Let me know if you have any specific questions!

Love you all! 

elder Anderson

Transfers, El Monte

March 20, 2017

Hey Fam!

So first thing transfers, haha! I got moved to El Monte, just down the road from my old sector.  My new comp is Elder Neto, he is from Brazil.  I know him well for the fact that he was in my zone last change.

My last sector was left in a whitewash, Elder Clark left for Ochagavilla, it was a little sad to leave my sector especially since I had only been there for one change,  but El Monte is my kind of town.  This is the country, tons and tons of fields.  We have bikes coming for us this week as well.  I am super excited for this change.  We also already have some baptisms that we are walking into,  so that will be great! 

This past week we had tons of lessons with non active members, they are always so happy to receive us.  It is great to see that they still have love for our Savior, its just a matter of getting them to get to church! 

This past week on Thursday we had to go to the church because the hermanas had interviews with President and they can't be alone with President for rules of the mission.  As we were there President asked me and Clark if we had any appointments, we responded yes. He said, great, you mind if I come along? Yep we had President come with us! The person ended up not being home, so we went contacting with President.  The area we were in is pretty hard to contact because its super rich, but with President working with us we were able to arrange a few appointments that now the new elders will have to take care of. It was a way cool experience to contact with President.

So I gave Elder Clark the rest of my spare Nike socks.  I will be needing some of those in the next package! His feet were in the gull, he needed them worse than I did!

So I don't know much about El Monte yet.  I have only been here for a few hours, but in the house we live with 2 other elders, one of them is a gringo, the other is from Peru.  We all get along great, this change will be really fun.  I am going to miss my old sector and my old district, we were all really close, but this all will be super good for me.

Love you all! 

Elder Anderson

Wait, how did I get put in charge of this?

March 13, 2017

hey fam!

so next week we have changes, pretty sure that i wont be going anywhere but there is a good chance i will have a new comp, 

this past week has been full of the little trials in life, haha on wednesday i decided to call the doc again about my toe because it just flat out still wasnt doing what is should be, later that night about 10 i met the doc in the church and he took me into surgery again, and again without any pain meds, i am here to tell you, it hurt! haha but this time the doc really took me appart, the toe is already doing a whole lot better,

this past week all there hermanas in my district have been sick, 2 of them sick with chicken pox, and the other sick, with her comp haveing mouth surgery, so the elders kinda took over everything, and when i mean elders i mean me, haha every friday we have noche de hogars, we always have food there, somehow i got ropped into making a few cakes for this, everyone was kinda like, haha elders making cakes? but it turned out good! as well as there has been a lot of the meetings that i have had to plan and a few lessons i have had to do, so i kinda got a jump from the low guy on the pole to running the show this past week. 

on saterday we attended a few babtisms of the ward, one of them was a little girl that in my first week in the mission i got a phone call, it was the dad of this little girl, the girl was sick and needed a blessing, within 5 minutes the dad picked us up in his car and we went and gave the girl a blessing, before i gave her the blessing i explained to her how blessings work and just talked to her a bit. this week as she recieved babtism and the gift of the holy ghost i was asked to stand in the curcle, apparently i had made some sort of an impact, as well as i got to be the witness for both babtisms that day.

yesterday i had to give a talk in church, it was on our savior, on saterday i had written down a few thoughts of what i wanted to talk about. 3 minutes into my talk i was already just rolling with what i felt the spirit was telling me. i was supposed to talk for about 10 minutes, 23 minutes into my talk, haha yes 23 the bishop set a piece of paper on the pulpit saying it was time to shut her down, haha i guess i got a little carried away! i have learned that i really actually love giving talks!

so some of you have asked what i do on a p day, well basically i wake up, excersise personal study, and then i clean the house, mop floor, ect, then we write the fam, and after that we go get our shopping done, buying food for the week, for me i just buy protien, thats all i buy. and then when i get home i usually take about 2 hours and work out. i have started to gain weight, and its all in my upper body, thats why i only buy protien, then after i work out. i make brownies or something, then we go back to work!

i love seeing the difference i make out here, seeing those changes in peoples lives. the missions is so amazing and it really has opened my eyes, these people here in chile are amazing, and i really love them they have to much potential, its just like the prophecy for chile, they will be the light house of the world. 

love you all ! have a great week!

elder anderson

Anderson walking and did I mention I am an Eagle Scout?

March 6, 2016

Hey fam! sounds like all went great with the wedding and all! good! i hope you are all just fine and dandy! 

this past week proved to be one full of work, and not normal work, anderson work, haha and anderson walking, if any of you have ever gone deer hunting or going anywhere with the anderson boys you learn really quickly that we have long legs, and we know how to use them, this past week i gave elder clark tons and tons of huge bad nasty blisters on his feet, i showed him what it means to be an anderson! after i read my emails this past week morgan had challenged me to on friday set high goals and complete them, we took it to the next level and called it {jacked week} we set super high goals for the week as well as we set our main goal to find a family we could teach, as the week went on we had door after door slammed in our face, but we kept going on, as the day would wind down we see milagros, happen, dont remember that work in english, sorry! but anyway we would somehow get lessons in and some how get new investigators, as well as we found 2 families that i believe have some realy potential,

as the week went on it was still hot, we got tons of grey cloads and stuff and it threatened to rain but never did, really sad! we really want it to cool down! 

it has become apparent that the lord wants us to start reactivating people, in my ward we have 150 who attend church, we have over 1000 yes 1000 memebers in the ward area, 2 guys 1 book, 1000 in actives, lets get it done! this past week we encountered many of them and tons that are great people! as well as a 16 year old girl and her 14 year old brother, 

this past week many have ask for blessings, what a wonderful oppertunity i had to be able to gives so many blessings this week and to be able to litterally bless these people, many of the chileans have problems with lazyness and it being easier to not do anything about your faith, but when people have things happen in there lives it really makes people want to come unto god, and through this we are able to help them come unto christ and act on there faith.

friday we were heading out getting to go to work but as i walked out the door there was a bunch of dudes waiting there to do some work on the house that the pentionist had ordered, so we spent a good part of the day in the house. as we were in the house we decided to clean out a bunch of stuff, we found an old ladies dress and i had elder clark put it one, haha it was really funny and the dress smelled so strong of ladies perfume!

this all in all my week was great! worked hard got tons of stuff done, and when elder clark woud get all these blisters on his feet i would patch him up, also i gave him a few pairs of my nike socks, his sock are in the gull, nike is for sure allways the way to go, haha the joke we would use all week is dont worry i got this, i am an eagle scout, 

i hope you all have a great week! love you all! 

elder anderson