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

You ask me how I know Paco?

February 27, 2017 

well to start off i had a babtism on saturday! it was great, i got to babtize him! this guy also supprised me, every time he has came to church it has always been in jeans and a t shirt and a hat, the sunday he was to be confirmed we picked him up at his house, he came out wearing a white shirt and tie!

so we have devisions every week, as it was really hot and we are all laying there trying to go to sleep the good old kevin anderson special came up, haha if you have ever been around the anderson family for long you eventually get to hear the paco storry, tthe elders loved it, they thought it was really funny, turns out, it is a little funnier when i translated it into spanish! haha needless to say the word has gotten around that elder anderson knows paco, i now have some of the hermanas in my district asking for the story,

so yesterday i got out of talking in church! i had it written and everything! elder clark was speaking before me and just a few minutes before i was to go up i was told i wouldnt be giving my talk, and that they ahd some anouncements to make,

so this past week we have been kinda hungry, pretty much all our food is supplied by the members and when they dont sign up then we dont eat, so for 4 days in a row members didnt sign up! so we at a lot of pb and j sandwitches and a lot of oatmeal! so if there are missionaries in your ward looking for meals, sign up! 

this past week has been a hot one, still trying to get over my cold, and everything, on friday i had to take a nap after studies, just so i could go finish the days work, i am not one to really slack off when there was work, but trust me that nap was very much needed! i wouldnt of been able to walk from house to house without it!

i love you all" thankyou for your support! 

elder anderson.

CTR rings and Hatians

February 20, 2017

well so first off, the babtism i had planned got moved to this week, haha so hopefully all will go good with it!

we did end up having a babtism of the hermanas, one of the ward members babtised him but me and elder clark pretty much had to do everything else, it was  great day, 

at the end of each babtism i give each of the people that get babtized a ctr ring, i am not really sure why but they seam to really like the rings, in fact the one i gave to the hatian that got babtized last week he hasent stopped wearing it!

so this past week me and all the other elders in the district accept elder clark got sick, haha so we have all been fighting some colds for the past few days, they are weird colds though! for sure different than anything that i have ever gotten before, everything in chile is different even the sicknesses!

this past week we had lots of meetings including zone meetings with president, we basically went over a lot of the differnet ways that we are going to start teaching people, we are now starting a program where we teach in about 20 and are in and out. hopefully this will help us be able to keep a high number of people in our investigator pool as well as we will still have time to keep our new investigator numbers high,

so to answer a few of the questions people have had yes i do wash my own clothes and for lunch members always provide, haha but every now and then we dont have a lunch cause the memebers forget, then we go back to the house and make about 4 penut butter sandwitches. durring my time in the mission i will always wash my own clothes and lunches will always be provided by the members.

this week i got 2 packages, in the mail as well as some letters, thankyou for sending my the tie and all the jerky and candy and things! it was like christmas when i got those! it was also really suprising to see the letter from morgan saying that i am the best man for his wedding! not sure how i am going to do that 5000 miles away! but it will be great!  

the weather here is starting to cool down at nights, its now to the point where we get cold if the window is open at nights, hopefully it will start cooling down more soon!

not much else to write this week, hopefully i will have some pictures of a babtism next week to send you all!

love elder anderson

I always loved the classics

February 13, 2017

hey fam! 

so to start off this week has been like a dream come true! talagante is dope! it is classic latino agraculture! i really have love it here! as the week has gone on we have been able to explore me sector, it is so huge! we havent even covered a small portion of it. and the best part is it is all farm land and a little city! as the week has gone on we walked and walked and taught! turns out people that live on farms like a good visit every now and then! we have found several people that i have a lot of hope for including an amazing family! i really hope to get all of them babtized! 

one of the cool experiences of the week was when we had lunch with a family in the middle of nowhere, we had to call the garden worker and he came and picked us up and drove for a while just to get to there house, while in the truck we passed tons of fields of everything you could imagine! when we got to there house they were super rich, like super, we had a great lunch in there mantion and then had a good lesson with some of there servants there. haha its was so cool!

so elder clark and i have gotten to be pretty good friends, haha he is pretty different but so am i! we really get along well, honestly i cant remember a time that i have laughed this hard! he is a super funny guy, but he also knows how to buckle down when its time.

the challenge here i think will be the ward, i have made it my personal goal to change the situation here, i wont go into detail, but the ward has less than support for us. they are even to the point where the bishop and the leaders are working against us for the fact they dont like the people that are our investigators, i believe everyone can change, and thats what we have a as a goal for the district, change the wards, it is super hard to do our work when the ward doesnt want to help. i really have learned the importance of every member a missionary!!!!

so over the past week we encountered a lady who was pretty much blind, as she was asking us where we were from she asked if i was from chile, haha it made me feel pretty darn good about my spanish, but i decided now its time to learn french, haha yup, going for the third language, i need to learn this so i can speak to the any hatianos here, we will see how it goes!

some of the great people i have become friends with is elder smith, he is from cache valley as well. we have gotten to be pretty close.

so i have a babtism planned for saturday, we have a few little problems with some things but hopefully everything will be good as he goes through all his interviews, he is a hatiano, so he has a hard time with spanish, but he has a good heart.

one thing that i have pondered this week is what is means to have pure heart, it talked about this a lot in the book of jacob, i have been doing a lot of studying on this and i incourage you all to do some searching and truly try and find what it means to have a pure heart. a pure heart in all things. that is what god is looking for.

i love all! thankyou for everything! have a great week! stay safe with all the crazy weather thats going on!

love elder anderson

Talagante

February 6, 2017

well the big news today is changes! i thought for sure i would be hanging in abrazo for one more change but the lord had other plans! sunday morning i got the call that i would leave the next morning for talagonte, its about an hour away from abrazo, i dont know much about it yet because i have only been here for about an hour but it seems pretty dope!

my new comp is elder clark, he is from indiana, he has been out in the mission for a little over a year, in this change is his first time being senor comp, we live in a pretty big rich house but it is just us that live in it. haha 2 elders 3 bathrooms! also my new zone leader is elder andreas anderson!! haha cachevalley boys! i really have a lot  of hope and a lot of excitement for this new area, it was sad to leave my old area becuase we finally had lots of people with potential for babtisms, about 10, elder rios is in abrazo this will be his 4th change there, he was a little upset when i got the call to leave, but all is well, it was great to finish my training, my spanish is suposedly very good from what everyone says. 

so this morning in changes my suitcase died, the sampsonite one, the wheel on it i guess are pretty wimpy and well, just walking down the sidewalk aways was to much for them, i will be looking for a new one of those here within the next few weeks or months.

it was sad to see my old sector go, the ward members and my investigators, i actually made my retention cry, she is an older lady that got babtized right before i came into the field. she was a great lady and she taught me a lot. i am going to miss my old district, my old zone and the friends and people i had there, but i am looking forward to this next sector and everything great the lord has in store for me here! 

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

love elder anderson

Changes next week

January 30, 2017

hey fam! 

so changes are next week, i cant wait to see what happens, there will probaby be a change in my companion ship due to the fact that i am ending my training, for nothing is for sure! 

this week i have realized a lot of the importance of my personal scriptures, haha i bought a pair from the lds store before i left, they had some elses name on the front of them, i got them for 9 dollars, i have marked them up and taped stuff in them. i really have made them mine, they have now become one of my most prized possesions. the work of god is 1 of the 4 major importances we have. i incourage you all to truly make the scriptures yours.

so i have now started to fully think and dream in spanish. its is very weird, haha months ago it felt like this day would never come! it is so cool to be able to truly live in another language!

this past week i have had some great lessons, one with a few hatianos that the only problem that keeps me from babtizing them is they work in my sector but live in another. i also had a great lesson this week with a guy who spoke good english, it was good for me, it really showed those points that i need to work on with the gospel and those things i am doing good. since elder rios could not participate in the lesson cuase he doesnt speak english. i was able to truly teach this guy! it was great!

so the house is still in the gull, i have a meeting with the pentionist today about it all. we really just need to move on from this house. its got bad bones! haha yesterday i woke up with a cat in  my face! no idea where it came from but i opened my eyes to see a cat inches from my face! haha it made for an interesting day!

so this past week i had sergery on my toe again, haha i have had lots of pain in my life before but this tops it all. that really hurt! the doc went digging this time! this time my problem is fixed pretty good. just needs to heal up. it hurts to gimp around but i wont let this stop me from doing the work i need to do! another doctor of the mission did it. i will send some pictures of what he was wearing to just work on my toe. he was ready for anything! haha okay never mind i cant send a pic. this week, the computer is being really dumb! but i will try and send some next week!

i love you guys! have a great day and week! thankyou for your love and your prayers!

love elder anderson

These Boots

January 23, 2017

Hello fam! 

I am reminded of the song by Eric Church called, These Boots.  In the song he talks about how many miles they have walked. Haha, boy I sure walked in my leathers this week! 

This past week we worked hard and it has been a blast! I truly have started to be very, very happy here in the mission.  I love working.  We have been in the streets all day contacting, getting chased by dogs, and exploring and contacting parts of our sector that we didn't even know existed! We have some fields in my sector and it turns out there is a bunch of houses in a grove of trees way out in the middle of nowhere! 

My investigators are doing well.  We have some people that are gold!  We have had a few setbacks though, one got his appendix out yesterday and the other was at her daughters.  Neither of them attended church, so there baptisms will be pushed back another week.

This past week we had a zone conference with President.  He talked about exactly what I needed, how we need to not focus on the down part of our lives and always focus on the good.  We need to focus on the up!  That is what we all need to do and up is always the Savior!

The house is doing a little better. Haha!  I killed lots of spiders! Fixed lots of stuff, but it still needs some work! Good thing I worked for the city! Haha I will rig something up!

I had a talk in church yesterday.  I guess I got carried away.  I was suppose to talk for 7 minutes.  Elder Rios said I was over 20!  I don't think my Spanish was great, but everyone said it was good!  Haha my first talk in Spanish! I really actually loved it!

I love my investigators.  I have really started to love everyone! This is such an amazing opportunity here in the mission.  It is hard. Lots of time it is super hot, but I love it. 

Thank you everyone! I love you all! Hope all is well!

Love Elder Anderson

January 16, 2017

January 16, 2017

Update on the house. I fixed the sink so that works now. We need to get the house sprayed.  We have problems with brown recluse spiders. Haha!  Look that one up!  These things are huge! 

Our hard work has payed off! We got a baptism date! The 28th! So pumped for that! 

I hope all is going well! I kinda miss being in all your snow! Haha!  Send me a package of it if you can! 

Love you all! 

Your Missionary,  Elder Anderson

January 9, 2017

January 9, 2017

So to start off we moved into our new house! Haha its okay. It's just me and Elder Rios and we have tons of room, but it's missing the essentials right now. Like a toilet seat, a shower head, gas for the water heater and stove. We can't shower. We don't have warm water.  We can't cook, but hey I have a bed.

This past week I have studied repentance. There is a big process to repentance, but in the big thing, it is change. It is changing ourselves to become more like Christ, 2 Nephi 9.

This past week I had the opportunity to be the senior companion in a trio for a day as Elder Rios since had to go to some training. So I was the senior comp with 2 very green elders. It was great to be able to lead and teach them and to rely on my knowledge of the area and everything. That day we contacted some French people. Later that day as we were walking they saw us and invited us to play ping pong with them. Haha it was fun. The one guy doesn't speak Spanish or English just French. We played ping pong for a while until the wind blew it under my shoe and I crushed the ball. Ooops! 

Everything here is coming along.  No one really wants to listen or come to church or anything. It is very hard, but we just have to keep on keeping on. 

I love you guys and hope all is well! 

Elder Anderson

Oh, I almost forgot! Haha!  I had a problem with an ingrown toenail before I left for the mission. I got it taken care of, but its back!  Right after I am done writing I get to go get it taken out! The only thing our doctor Hermana said is that they don't have anything for the pain. This is going to be fun!

Love you all!

January 3, 2017

January 3, 2017

Hey everyone! This week has been one of the slower and harder weeks for me. We had last minute changes and on Thursday night we got a call at 10 and Elder Dumer is now a senor companion in the coastal part of the mission. It is back to just Elder Rios and I.  We still are living in the house in the main city, but are planning on moving into our new house tomorrow. When we live there it will just be he and I.

Sorry I didn't write yesterday.  It was some sort of holiday here and so president changed our p day to Tuesday just for this week. Next week I should write on Monday.. 

Since this past week was a little harder me, Elder Rios responded with doubling our numbers. We contacted like crazy and got tons of lessons in and have a bunch of new investigators. 

This past week I studied the talk by Elder Anderson given this past General Conference called A Witness of God. It was a really good talk. We all need to be looking for more opportunities to stand as a witness and to not be discouraged when people don't accept our invitations. People have their own agency and will accept the gospel in their own time. This next week I would like you guys to be looking for opportunities to stand as a witness and then share those experiences with me.

So as we were changing houses Elder Arcos gave me some high topped shoes that are pretty sick and I will use them during the rainy season. 

I have finally been able to answer the long since asked question, how long does it take for once person to use a full size toothpaste tube?  The answer is 2 days short of 3 months. Wow that is crazy, I am just 2 days short of 3 months in the mission!   

I hope all is going well and I really love hearing from you guys. Keep on doing great things!

Love, Elder Anderson