Death Week... Literally.

Sup everybody.

 

Okay well maybe I'm not literal about death week.. That might have been an exaggeration.. But this week was rough. I wake up Tuesday morning feeling suuuuper nauseous and just not good.. So I call the mission nurse and yay... I have strep throat. I have a super sore throat with white spots, major bad headache, I had a fever and I threw up 3 times! Like I was really sick. I was out for a good 5 days. So this week there isn't too much to report.

 

Sister Pyper was able to go out on exchanges a few times but there was no success from it. My antibiotics I feel like haven't been doing anything but my stomach feels better, just not my throat. I'm hoping that this week will be different.

 

On Wednesday we have a member of the 70 coming I believe to talk to us. His name is Elder Richards and everyone is making a big deal out if it so it should be pretty good so I'm excited for that :) I'm excited to get back out and to be doing stuff... I know we are going to find people this week.. or at least soon. I can feel it :)

 

Gosh I'm already apologizing for this boring letter.. there just wasn't anything that happened this week except for a lot of sleeping and trying to feel better... And reading a lot of Ensign's. I guess I could tell you what color my throw up was..... hahaha just kidding. (It was green, that's for Luke haha).

 

Even though this week was really yucky, I was able to read this talk in the September Ensign that really touched me. Actually every talk in there did, no joke, every single one. But this one especially. It's about giving prayers of gratitude. This lady was going through a really rough time in her life with financial problems or something.. Anyway, she had prayed and prayed and nothing was happening or getting better. She came to the realization that she wasn't being thankful for what she did have, or wasn't showing the proper gratitude that she should have to the Lord. So she started saying prayers of straight gratitude. She wouldn't ask for anything in her prayers, and she did this for a week. She said it was hard and she felt guilty for not asking for things for her family and their situation, but she said in the long run, it helped her relationship grow with her Heavenly Father and she was able to focus on things she already had, not things she needed. SO I decided to do that. In every prayer, I haven't asked for a single thing. I still pray for help and for all of you and everything.. but it's more "I'm thankful that my family has been protected and healthy." Or "I'm thankful for the hard times that I am going through so that I can learn and grow." It has been hard... but I know that this will be a humbling experience for me. I know that when we put the Lord first, He will help us. My mission president said that being a trainer is the most difficult calling and that it wont get any easier. But he said that these hard times shows that the Lord loves me because he is giving me an opportunity to learn something new. I hadn't thought of that like that before, but it was good to hear.

 

I know that these hard times will pass and that everything will be okay. I have full trust in my Savior.

 

Thank you all for your love and support.. I love you all so so so much! Hope you have a great week this week!

 

Love always,

 

Sister Anderson

"This better be good if I'm gettin off my couch for it!"

Hello my loves :)

 

Well... IT'S ONLY BEEN ONE WEEK. Yikes.

 

This week was honestly pretty rough. It has been extremely hot and I have not been feeling well all week long. I have had a consistent headache for four days (actually it took a break for one day but then came back) and I have swollen lymph nodes? Yeah I know. The sides of my neck are swollen like under my jaw, and the lumps are very sore and tender. It's awful. I called the mission nurse to see what was up and she said that it is probably just a viral disease and this is how my body is reacting to it? But now I have a swollen and sore throat as well... So it's pretty poopy. I think my headache might be from the sun because I also have zero energy, even if we take naps to try to catch up on sleep. It has been pretty hard to be motivated this week.

 

We still don't have anyone to teach, so all we do everyday is try to find people. We make lists of people that were in the area book as former investigators and then go visit them. So we are out on our bikes, biking a ton everyday. We have only talked to a good 7 people that will even listen. We did knock on this glass door and this teenage black girl came to the door, didn't say anything to us, but just said "Mom I don't know who they are!" She and her mom proceeded to have a conversation about us basically right in front of us … I eventually told them that we were Representatives of Jesus Christ, and that we weren't selling anything haha, and we just heard the mom in the background (you can tell she is BIG) and we hear her say, "this better be good if I'm gettin off my couch for it!" Anyway, she's "got her own Jesus" and all that and wasn't interested. But it was so interesting to see that whole situation play out! People are cray.

 

I am struggling. Truth comes out. I have no idea how to be a trainer, I hardly know what to do myself! I try to be an example but especially this week has been hard since I haven't felt well. Seriously my headaches are killer. (Maybe send my iron pills?) Sister Pyper and I are very very different. I am struggling trying to find areas where we have common ground, because there are multiple times throughout the day where we don't say anything to each other and that's not good. We are not very unified and I don't quite know how to change that. I had requests for details about her.

 

She never wakes up first, always waits for me to get up first … even if it's past 6:30 (i'll test her sometimes).

 

She hardly eats food … when she does she eats a spoonful of peanut butter and a glass of water. Period.

 

She is extremely messy. I told her she was messy and that she needed to clean up a little, like her desk and her side of the closet, and she argued with me on how that is "not messy." (There are pictures to prove it.)

When we are out, mostly at meetings or church, she never stays with me. I am constantly looking for her so we are both companionless. And yes, I have told her a million times.

 

I will give her responsibilities, like calling people on the phone, taking the lead, etc., then she complains about it.

 

And she is still sassy.

 

ANY advice would be greatly appreciated!

 

I was able to fast this week for some new investigators, miracles, personal help … and Sunday night I was able to receive my answer. I prayed for what seemed like an hour, got kinda emotional. But now I know that this is where the Lord needs me. That this is what I am supposed to be doing and that HE TRUSTS ME. I am so glad that I was able to get a small simple answer. I know I have to be more obedient, more diligent, more Christ-like, more excellent. I pray every day for those things, and I know that we are just going through a rough patch right now. But I know that the Lord will provide.

 

Also a HUGE miracle. I thought so anyway :) One of the days I was very unmotivated and felt awful — we went to look in the mailbox and I had a letter from mom, grandma Connie, Brenda, and grandma Bronson :) All 4 letters in one day! I don't know if that was planned on your part, or if you even knew, but I knew that the Lord knew that I needed them that day. All 4 made me cry and helped SO much. THANK YOU, thank you, thank you!

 

I am so grateful for my family. I would not be able to do what I am doing without all the letters, prayers and support. I am so glad that our family on both sides can live together for ETERNITY. It helps so much to remember that every morning. I also want to apologize for all the heartache that I put you all through. I know I was a little brat growing up and didn't give you all the time of day. Now I completely 100% regret that. However, I know that by me and all you going through that, that is why we are all so close now. I know I personally had to go through that for myself so that I could feel this way about my family now. I love you guys :)

 

I do love this gospel. That's why I'm still here :) I know it is true with all my heart. I know that Heavenly Father does hear our prayers and if we give all we have, He will bless us. I know that we are given trials to grow stronger and to learn and become better, so I am focusing on finding out what I need to learn from this and focusing on being a better tool for the Lord.

 

I know He lives. I know He hears us. I know He loves us.

 

Love you all with all my heart.

 

Sister Anderson

 

p.s. Oh yeah, our lights from our bikes got stolen too, so that's cool. Dumb kids. I hope they needed them more than we did.

 

p.s.s. I also cut and maybe bleached my hair again today. Sorry dad :)

 

p.s.s.s. just kidding the camera isn't working. I'll send the pictures next week :(

Training, Temple and Transfers.

Hi fam :)

This week felt like it was a year long!

We had a trainer/trainee meeting on Tuesday at the mission home which was really fun because we got to see Sister Pack again! We got some really good training and then we went to lunch with Sister Pack and her new companion so that was fun to laugh and talk together again :)

Friday: We got to go to the temple!! I woke up at 4:30 to be ready at 6.. pathetic right? But when there are 3 girls that need to shower and get ready, we have to start pretty early! But anyway, we actually got to our session too early so we were able to do some initiatories which were fun because I had never done them before. So that was pretty cool. When we were sitting in the endowment room, there weren't enough seats for everyone! There were too many sister missionaries so they had to get folding chairs and bring them in so that there would be seats for everyone! That's a pretty good problem to have if you ask me! The whole session was AMAZING. Oh my goodness I loved it! It was so much more personal and relatable. I loved everything about it, and that's about as much as I can say about it :) But if you haven't been to the temple recently, GO.

Transfer calls were Saturday! We waited alllll day long. Usually if you are training or going to be in a leadership position, President will call you sometime during the day. Otherwise the Zone Leaders let you know where you are being transferred to around 10ish. So we were walking home and still had no phone call so we were kinda relieved that none of us were training. Then at 9:30 at night, he called! He told Sister Nelson that she is going to Corona, which is only like 20 minutes away. Then he told me that I was staying with Sister Pyper and finishing her training. Honestly that wasn't much of a surprise, we all thought I would stay with Sister Pyper. But I won't be in a trio anymore! I don't even know what it's like to be in a regular companionship so this will be interesting! I am excited to be able to do things my way and get reorganized with everything, but it will be hard especially since Sister Pyper and I don't really get along all that well.... Pray for me... Please.

We still have no one to teach. We did walk everywhere which was awful. Haha we got so sweaty and hot.

We talked to this Muslim guy outside one night for like an hour.. He kept telling us to read the Koran and that God is only our creator, not our Heavenly Father. It all started with us not knowing what Mary wore so we don't really know Jesus Christ. (Yes that is exactly what he said). It was very interesting. He told us he commended us for doing this good thing and helping people, but he said we are not telling people the truth and that we don't know what we are talking about. Talk about frustrating! I wouldn't give up my life if I didn't know what I was talking about and if I didn't know this was the truth! Some people... But he did take a Book of Mormon, so hopefully he is able to have a change of heart.

As a result of that visit, I have 28 bug bits all over my body. They don't itch and aren't raised, but just little red dots everywhere. Looks like I have chicken pox or something!

Anyway, I'm excited for these next 6 weeks. They will be hard and very interesting but I'm ready. I know the Lord and my mission President both trust me enough to do this at only 3 months... So I'll give it my all and hopefully everything will work out :) Helaman 5:12 :)

Love you all so so much! Thanks for all your support and love. I can feel it everyday :)

Love your favorite daughter,

Sister Anderson :)

Go hard or go home

My lovies,

HIIII. I miss you all. Plain and simple.

This week was not as exciting as past ones. Since we baptized basically all of our investigators last week, now we have no one to teach :( So this week was interesting. We did a loooot of finding and found hardly anyone.

You all say it's been raining... HA. It has been over a hundy lately and has been suuuper humid. I don't know where that came from but it feels like you can hardly breathe, even at 6:30 in the morning! Totes cray fo sho.

Okay so back to our lack of people to teach.. Remember Jerry? So his baptism date was for the 31st.. but we got way too ahead of ourselves because, surprise, he's addicted to morphine. Like hard core. We taught him on Thursday I think and he was so wired. He admitted to being hooked, and oh yeah, he takes Vicatin too and chases it down with Morphine. And he's been hooked for multiple years... Completely normal right? I don't know how he isn't dead yet to be honest. So we have to drop him or have someone else teach him because we are very uncomfortable there and we can never get a word in anyway because he talks the whole time. Crazy stuff.

Devon... He is the investigator that we picked up at the baptism last week. Buuuut, another surprise, he's gay. Which is fine.. He has been living that lifestyle for the last 7 years and really wants to change and come closer to God. We taught him the Restoration and the Plan of Salvation and he really loved both of them. The only problem is that he lives in Riverside so we had to give him to the Riverside missionaries.. So there goes another one :(

So this next week.... We have realized that we take way too much for granted. When we are on our bikes, we always say "it could be worse, we could be walking". So this week we decided we are going to walk everywhere. Hahahahaha you think I'm kidding. We thought that we have been disobedient lately so we are disciplining ourselves by walking everywhere. Plus we are hoping to loose some weight (I may or may not have gained 10 pounds already :( People feed us SO MUCH FOOD). So I'll update you next week on how that goes, but the first night we barley made it home because our feet hurt so bad, and we did our nightly planning soaking our feet in the tub :) Hence.. Go hard or go home :)

Okay I actually lied.. We tracted into this family this week that lives right by our bishop. We gave them a harvest blessing, Shannon is the mom, Cleone is the daughter, and they loved it. We are going back on Friday to teach them more.. But a couple days later we went to the bishops house and his wife said Shannon put something on Facebook about us! She wrote that the night before the Loudon's (bishop's family) dropped off some cookies. Later her and her daughter were talking about God and just what they believe in then that next day, we showed up, Representatives of Jesus Christ and gave them a blessing. She said she was really grateful for us and was excited for us to come back! So we will hopefully see some success with them! That was super exciting :)

Since we were trying to find people this week... it was super rough, especially because people were definitely not interested in what we had to say. We had a couple rude people. Last night actually we were at a parking lot, and Sister Nelson went up to a lady and all she said is "Hi how are you doing" and the lady said "Are you Jehova's Witnesses?" (we get that all the time) and we said "no, we're from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints". So the lady said "Oh, Mormons. Even better. I don't want to talk to you". So Sister Nelson just asked if we could leave our card with her and she shot that down fast and said "I don't want anything from you people." So that was nice. Good to know there are nice people in this world :) Sheesh we're just trying to save your salvation. When people shoot us down like that we always walk away and say "it's your salvation, not mine." Why don't people get we are just trying to help?! This other guy let us into his house after a long talk about how we don't memorize what we are going to say, we're not jw, and we are not putting a curse on him..... Weird. Then he made us pray for his church....... No comment.

Okay confession time. We got blessings this week. We all kinda broke down this week, got a little home sick and was lacking motivation. We all were just questioning if this is really what we are supposed to be doing.. so we decided that a blessing would help, and it did! Gosh I love the Priesthood. We have all done a lot better since then, but just thought you should know :)

I'm pretty sure that's all that happened this week.... Not too much to report. But after the blessing I got, I know that this is where I am supposed to be. I know that people are waiting for my testimony and that the Lord will help me be guided to them. I have grown so much closer to my Heavenly Father and my Savior in the last 3 months. I absolutely love it. I know that this is the true church.. I don't understand how people can even question it. The Book of Mormon is so black and white, if everyone in this world would just give it a chance.. There would be no more need for missionary work :)

I love and miss you all so much! Thank you for your letters and love :) It is greatly appreciated!

Much love,

Sister Anderson:)

p.s. Transfer calls are on Saturday already! Fastest 6 weeks of my life!

p.s.s.Sister Nelson and I lost it this week.. One night we were taking pictures of different body parts... Like our eyes, ears, elbows..... and then zooming up on them and crying from laughing at how gross it looked hahaha. Yes that is what we do for fun now. What has happened to me!? Hahaha. Sister Nelson will be a homie for life. We talk about living together after the mission all the time. I'm so grateful I am companions with her!