Water Tower Our House Our District Learned how to sew! | Today is the first day of the new transfer!! Nothing changed for me. I'm still here in Caborca with Elder Thueson. We get along great and are excited for more time together. I am going to answer some of the questions from everyone: -Do you drink a lot of Coke? Yeah we drink a ton of Coke. But the Coke here is way better than in the states. -What are you reading? I have read all the approved missionary books and I'm done with Jesus the Christ. I love it!!! -How is the language? The language is frustrating, but I can feel that I’m getting better. I'm growing in more ways then I thought I would both spiritually and mentally. -How is the weather? The weather is really nice except in the mornings when it’s really cold!! -Are you celebrating Thanksgiving, or any activities? No, we're not celebrating thanksgiving. I doubt there will be activities for missionaries. President will want us to work as much as possible. -How is the Rivera family? Good. We haven’t challenged them yet. We have an appointment with them tomorrow. Whoever said a mission is easy couldn't be more wrong, but whoever said a mission isn't worth it is even more wrong. Dad, I finally had a chance to look through the scriptures you gave me and it was so cool. Thank you so much. I'm going to start using them!!! I love you so much and I'm so grateful for your amazing example. Mom, I finally had a chance to read that talk you sent me!! Thank you so much for sending it. It's amazing and it was such a great pick me up when I really needed it. I'm so thankful for you and your wonderful example in my life!! I love you!! I have some big news. I tried cereal for the first time ever and I didn't die. It didn't taste good or gross. So... yeah. Just thought you'd like to know that I'm growing and changing in more ways than you can imagine. There has been a disease going around Mexico lately called Dengue. It's transferred through mosquitoes. It gives you really bad headache, stomach pain, and a fever. It last 4-7 days. More than half of the missionaries in our zone have gotten it. Earlier this week I started to have some really bad head and stomach pains to the point where I almost passed out. But it turns out I was just dehydrated so all is well. On Friday we had an activity in the chapel. We had a Family home evening for the ward. Someone taught a lesson about families and then we played some games and ate some food. The games here are just designed to embarrass people because that’s the type of humor they like. So the games are hilarious. The activity went well and one of our investigators showed up so that was good. We have been teaching a less active member named Margaita Marciel. She's really cool and says that she wants to go to church, but just doesn't have time. That is honestly what every single person says here. But we've been teaching her and last night we taught her husband, who isn't a member, about the restoration and then I invited him to be baptized and he accepted! We have a date set for him for the 10th of January. They're a really cool family and I hope everything turns out! I think that's everything for now. Everything is good and at the start of a new transfer always gives us a little boost to work harder. I love you all and will see you next time on The Price is Right. -Elder Anderson |
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Hey everyone!!
Sorry for not being able to write a lot last week!! I had to catch a 4 hour bus ride to Hermosillo for la reunion de las sies semenas. It was a meeting for all the missionaries that came in on the same day as me to see how we are progressing. It was really helpful, and fun to see everyone from the MTC. They are all the same, and doing well. The meeting was good and it helped me and my companion know what we need to work for these next 6 weeks that we'll be together. A missionary is in training for 12 weeks or 2 transfers, and they're usually with the same trainer and area for all 12 weeks. So I'll probably be with Elder Thueson in Caborca for 6 more weeks. While we were in Hermosillo we went and got Cena at a street vendor., and Dogos. America has hot dogs and Mexico has Dogos. But only Hermosillo has them so I feel blessed to be in this mission.... haha :) Basically a Dogo is a hot dog filled with cheese, then wrapped in bacon, fried, and then put in a homemade bun with beans, onions, tomatoes, mayonnaise, and guacamole. After that is assembled they have a bunch of other toppings that you can add if you want. Personally I like to add more bacon bits, chorizo (sausage), and salsa. OH MY HECK they taste like a fat slice of heaven wrapped in bacon.... and they only cost 20 pesos!! Which is about a dollar and 50 cents!!! So ya that was definitely a good night!!! We went to Hermosillo on Lunes (Monday) and came home en la noche de Martes (Tuesday night). On Miércoles (Wednesday) we had a lesson with la Familia Rivera. It was really good!!! We taught about the Plan del Salvacion. The spirit was there the whole time and they were really interested. I shared my experience with Grandpa and how having the Plan of Salvation in our lives made the whole thing a lot easier. They really liked it and I could feel Grandpa there testifying to them of the truthfulness of what we were teaching. Their son Mario was sick so after the lesson we gave him a blessing. Their dad, whose name is also Mario, is a member but hasn't been active for 15 years. But he testified to the power of the priesthood and after the blessing Mario the son had tears and the spirit was super strong!! We have a lesson with them again tonight and we're going to invite them to be baptized!! I really hope they accept but if they don't we'll just continue to help them and love them. Okay so there is my spiritual experience for the week. Here's what else happened. So a week and a half ago I was laying in bed at night and I felt these things crawling on me, but I just flicked them off and thought nothing of it because I mean come on I'm in Mexico. But then they started biting so a jumped out of bed and turned the lights on and sure enough there were red ants all over in my bed!! They had come into the house through the outlet next to my bed!! I took apart my bed and got rid of all the ants and then I taped off my outlet so they couldn't come in anymore and I forgot all about it. Then 4 days later I woke up in the morning and went to the bathroom. As I stood in the bathroom I felt a bunch of things biting my feet so I ran out and turned on the lights. Sure enough the ants were back!!! They had found a new way in!!! So I found how they had gotten in and I shot bleach down the whole to kill them all. Then I taped it off again. Well 3 days later when I went into our front room in the morning sure enough there were 300 red ants crawling all over!!! I got so mad.... I swept them all out and found where they got in again and bleached it and taped it off again. This is now war. I have won all the battles thus far but the war has just begun. I'll keep you updated on how it's going; battles won, battles lost! That's pretty much all for this week. We're doing good. Always working. I have one favor to ask of all of you. Please contact the missionaries in your area and offer to feed them or invite them over for a family home evening. And while they're there give them references of people they could teach. It helps more than you can imagine!! I love you all and hope you have an amazing week!! -Elder Anderson
Hola familia y feliz Halloween y dia de muerto!!
This week has flown by. The first part of it was really hard, but it has gotten better towards the end. At the first of the week my companion was sick so from Monday until Wednesday we sat around the house all day..... It was awful. I have never been so bored in my life. I never thought I would be like this, but all I want to do right now is work, work, work so just sitting around for those three days killed me!!!! But we got to work on Thursday. The work is still slow though. It is so hard to find new people to teach here, and the people that we are teaching aren't progressing. But that just pushes me to work even harder!! On Thursday all of our appointments fell through so we were just riding through the streets with nothing to do. I felt prompted that we should go and visit a member of our branch named Jose (such an odd name for Mexico right?). We headed over to his house and arrived just as he got there too. Jose is paralyzed. About 15 years ago he got sick and ever since then he has been paralyzed. We're not sure exactly what happened. But being paralyzed in Mexico is really hard, because it cuts out a lot of opportunities for jobs. So he has a hard time earning money. He invited us in and we started to visit him. But instead of us teaching him a lesson he taught us. He had all of these scriptures prepared to share with us about how Jesus and his apostles healed the sick and performed miracles. He then asked us if we believed those things were possible in these latter days. We said yes and then he asked for a blessing. So we gave him a blessing and it was soooo cool. He has so much faith to be healed!! He isn't married, but he has this girl that he always tells us is the most beautiful girl in the world and he wants to be healed so he can marry her in the temple and be sealed to her for eternity. He's been a member for 5 years and he hasn't ever missed a day of church!!! Mexico needs more members like Jose!! Our branch has a church attendance of like 20 people per week. But there are like 150 members in our branch. Most are less active. A lot of people here get baptized and then end up leaving the church. We're working hard to re-activate people and we're trying to find more families to baptize to strengthen the branch. We have a lot of work to do!! Well this week was Halloween. Dia de Muerto was on Nov 1 and 2 so that was fun to see. It's kinda sad because the old traditions like that are dying off so it isn't as celebrated as it used to be, but it was still cool. We went to the cemetery to see what it was on Saturday night. The cemetery's are really different. They have a lot of really big tombstones and a lot of really big family tombs. Some of the tombs are nicer than most of the houses here. The people all go to the cemetery and bring food and decorations for the graves because they believe the dead come and visit them. There were a bunch of bands playing to the graves too. Like they were literally facing the tombs and playing to them. Oh ya, today is my 2 month mark of my mission!! Yaa..... haha it has honestly gone so fast and if the rest of my mission goes this fast I'm not going to want to come home. The language is still really difficult, but I'm learning more and more every day. I know I can learn it. I love you all and I hope all of you have an amazing week!! -Elder Anderson |
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