New new new new new. Everything is NEW!

Okay first of all.. I love that costume! Haha i was dying when i saw it. Everyone looks so different! Mom, phebe and liza, all of your hair is so long! Cant believe it!

Second.. New everything! This week has been crazy! All about change. My new companion is Sister Greenwood, she is 21, and from Far West, Utah (no idea where that is hahaha) But she is from a smaaaall town and you can definitely tell. We are VERY different.. I keep getting these companions that are not like me at all.. I must still have a lesson to learn! But she is super quiet and she doesnt understand my sense of humor... so thats gonna be rough. She is really.. monotone and doesn't have many facial expressions... And i have to repeat myself at least 3 times.. I dont know if she has a hearing problem or if she just doesnt pay attention. but we will spend like 15 minutes talking about something and then like an hour later she will ask me about the thing we talked about. its pretty frustrating but i am trying not to let it bother me! And she has never lived away from home before.. so i am literally acting as her mom. i have to make sure she wakes up on time, clean up after her and all that. That wont last very long haha its hard! And frustrating. She is really messy, again like Sister Pyper haha. She just leaves her stuff everywhere and it drives me insane! I know you are probably thinking that i do the same.. but no i have changed! i am like this neat freak now.. i think because i live with other people so its the considerate thing to do.. but i guess other people dont quite think that way. so i will have to tell her that its time to grow up and im not her mom! I already have so much on my plate, i cant have a babysitting job too haha! Especially because the first day she was here, she was sick with the stomach flu.... so we stayed home all day and i took care of her. so that was interesting because i literally felt like her mom. the mission nurse even said "welcome to motherhood!" YIKES. So not ready for that haha. But she has been pretty homesick lately.. She has broken down a few times.. And i totally understand! I get homesick basically every pday haha. We just have to remember that this is where the Lord needs us right now, and that our families will still be there when we get back. I told her we just have to focus on the work that we have and not think about our families as much. It is a lot easier said than done, but I hope she is okay. However, she does have a lot of potential. i am hoping that she is just not out of her shell yet. She has a really strong testimony and i can tell she has a close relationship with her Heavenly Father, which is good. I think everything will just take some time :)

Anyway. The new ward is great. i am in the canyon crest ward in riverside. they are loooooaaaadded. sheesh everyone is super rich here! but its good. i love the ward so far. everyone is really missionary minded and taking to heart what has been asked of them!

Lets see.. we live in an apartment with a trio of sisters. Sister Todd who served in Eastvale with me and sister jenkins and fia. To answer all of dad's questions.. Sister Fia is from Tonga, she has been out about 16 months. Sister Jenkins is from Salem, Utah and she has been out for 8 months. Sister Todd is from Idaho, 6 months. Then Sister Greenwood and I :) They are a hooooot. we just pull pranks on each other the whole time. I found this fake spider and put it in sister jenkins bed and when she found it she screamed so loud and dropped to the ground and almost started crying hahahaha. then i put it in her bag and she did the same thing the next day. i was crying from laughing so hard. then she tackled me cause she was so mad hahahahaha. then she has a fake piece of poop hahaha that she put on the toilet.. and she was trying to freak sister fia out but it accidently fell in the toilet.. so when sister fia went in the bathroom sister jenkins was screaming "my poop!!! Dont flush my poop!" so we say that allll the time now. geez we have a real good time hahaha.

To dad: to answer all your questions....... elders lived in our apartment before us (gross) so we didnt apartment hunt, thats what the housing coordinators are for. We are in a different zone than last transfer, now the Mt Roubidoux zone,  Riverside Stake. We dont have a transfer meeting, president just calls and tells us whats happening and where we are going and we go! The only "transfer meeting" we have is when we go pick up our trainees and have a training meeting! And hahahaha no, no one introduces us to the area. we are completely on our own. I wish they did! That would be a heck of a lot easier! and yes i kinda miss my bike. but its just sitting in our apartment. i would use it but its really hilly here and sister greenwood doesnt have one!

We have a few potential investigators already. Some of them are former investigators and one we found just walking around, Nick. He thought that Mormons didn't eat meat or drink caffeine and that we still practiced polygamy haha. We informed him that none of that is true, and i told him that probably most things he has heard about us isnt true. so he said that we wanted to find out what was true.. So we gave him a copy of the Book of Mormon and he said he wanted to come to church next week so that is super exciting. It's hard not to get our hopes up with people like that, but i know that i am here for a reason and that we need to be expecting miracles. So, with Nick, I am expecting a miracle.

I can tell this transfer will be a total test of patience, charity, selflessness, and just about everything else. I do have high hopes for this transfer to help Sister Greenwood become a better missionary than I am, and to find those lost people who want to know the truth, just like Nick. I'm ready for more trials and to learn more about myself and about my relationship with my Savior. I'm ready for hard times, but also good good times. I'm ready :) I love serving here in California. It's the best decision i have ever made, and even though it is also the hardest, i wouldnt trade it for anything. Thanks for all your love and support towards me. I can feel the influence of your love and prayers everyday. I wouldnt be able to do this without all of you!

Love you all SO much.

Sister Anderson :)

p.s. Sorry, i forgot my camera cord so i will have to send pictures next week! or check the mission blog :)

A New Adventure

WELLLLL.. Hello!

 

SO. I'll get right to the point. We got transfer calls on Saturday! Last transfer we got them at 9:30 at night so I was hoping to get it earlier. So I was in the shower..... and Sister Pyper is all of a sudden pounding on the door saying "he's calling! President is calling!" So naturally, I literally jump out of the shower, and go to listen to what he has to say haha. So he tells Sister Pyper that she is staying and training! Then he tells me he has a new assignment for me. He says "I want you to go to Riverside, and you'll be training as well!" We were both super shocked. The night before we had written down every possibility of what could happen that we could think of and that was not even close to being in my mind. Soooo... After we hung up the phone, we both started crying hahahahaha. We cried for a good 45 minutes.

 

BUT after we got over ourselves.... We realized how fun it will be to train! Well at least I did. I think she is still freaking out! But I am getting doubled in to my new area, which just means the area is new to both of us. So that will be refreshing to have literally a fresh start. So fresh :)

 

I am super sad to leave Eastvale though. I love it here. I love the ward and I have gotten pretty attached to some people! I was pretty sad to say goodbye to everyone but I know this is what's supposed to happen!

 

Update: Remember that exciting new investigator I told you about last week? Yeah right.. JOKE. She stood us up, so I think we just got a liiiiittle too excited on that one..

 

We did, however, have a cool miracle happen! So we had talked to this guy named Richard in a parking lot like 2 weeks ago.. and this week we were at Panda Express eating lunch right? So we are sitting outside and this guy comes up to us and is like "Hey do you guys have a minute?" and we both of course said yes.. Well he sat down and it ended up being Richard! We had gone to his house before but he didn't answer. He told us that he worked with some Mormons and we told him a little more about what we believe, cleared some things up like polygamy... hahaha... and he straight up asked if he could have a copy of the Book of Mormon. Super cool! So we gave him one and he said he would let us know what he thought. It was a cool little miracle. I think it was God's way of letting us know everything is going to be okay :)

 

The Hadley's came to church! Another miracle. I love that family. Sister Hadley started crying when I told her I was leaving. So cute :)

 

Well.. nothing else to really report. Hopefully next week I will have some good stories for ya!

 

I am so grateful that Heavenly Father trusts me enough to do this, to train a brand new missionary! I don't know why he does trust me.. but I am glad he does! I think it's because this will force me to be exactly obedient (which I need) and it will make me do everything right. It will be good for me, I've gotten too comfortable. I am so excited for this new part in my mission but I need your prayers! Thanks for all your support always and for everything you guys do for me! I love you alllll and I hope you have a great fabulous week!

 

Much love,

 

Sister Anderson :)

 

p.s. My district leader is going home tomorrow so that's who that elder is! and sister pyper dyed her hair :) the other pictures are of some elders in my zone haha and a real estate sign but her last name is KRAY so I had to take a picture for you guys :) hahahaha

Rain or Shine!

'Sup homies.

Week 6 already! Can you believe it? I feel like last week I was complaining because it was only week 1! Hahaha :)

This week was good.. Nothing really special happened... oh wait. WE HAVE A NEW INVESTIGATOR! Hopefully. Don't get your hopes up too high..... We met this girl named Tatyana, she's 18 and she was a referral from the sisters in the other ward. So we went over and we left a blessing with her and her friend and it went really well! We are going back on Wednesday to teach her so we are PRAYING that everything works out! Blessings blessings!

This weeks weather was totes cray. It was super SUPER windy one day, then it was hot, then it POURED, then today it's hot again! But when it rained...... Such a blast! We definitely got caught in it.. on our bikes.. in our skirts. It was awesome hahaha. We were laughing so hard because I can't even imagine what everyone driving by was thinking. I'm sure we looked ridiculous. However.. I have a new found love for riding bikes in the rain! BUT I wouldn't recommend it hahaha. When we got home we were SOAKED. Head to toe haha and we were wet the rest of the day! It was great :)

Let's see… the rest of the week we just visited less active families. We have yet to actually get into any of their houses… But we have at least met quite a few.

Like I said this is week 6… So next week I may be in a new area! So towards the end of the week send your letters to the mission office :) My guess for transfers is that we are both staying and training a new little lady. But I have yet to be right with my guesses so we will see what happens!

We had multizones this week and I got to see Sister Nelson! Gosh I love that girl. She is kinda struggling with her new companion.. But I think she is holdin up. Our whole zone meeting was about dealing and handling stress… So I think pretty much everyone is stressed out haha. But it was really good to hear and they even gave us this blessed little book on how to handle different kinds of stress. Hallelujah :) But that whole day was good :)

Okay this is crazy. One elder in my district knows Corinne Lundskog that I went to Ecuador with! So he gave me her address cause she is in Missouri on her mission so I wrote her a letter today :) Another girl I went to Ecuador with sent me a letter too! Her name is Kayla and she is going to Mexico and she said it's an all walking mission… totes cray. I hate my bike somedays but I sure am grateful we don't have to walk everywhere!

Welp. That's about all I can think of for this week… Kinda lame, sorry. But regardless I am still ecstatic to be here serving our Master. I love love LOVE being a missionary, even though it's the hardest thing I have ever done. I wouldn't trade this or what I have learned for the world. I'm so grateful that He trusts me enough to be out here. I was thinking, I think this transfer was for me to be able to figure things out for myself and learn how to deal with Sister Pyper, without having to focus on investigators too. That was the best excuse I could come up with anyway :) But I really am glad that I have had to go through these ROUGH 6 weeks because I have learned so much. Not only about myself but about Sister Pyper, and my relationship with my Father in Heaven.

Thank you all for your letters and love and prayers and support. You guys are the besssst.

Love you all mucho mucho.

Sister Anderson :)

p.s. the pictures are of us being soaked in the rain :) and at multizones

4 Months :)

Hello everyone!

Gosh 4 months already! Can you believe it?!

This week has been crazy. Things are going so much better than they were. We went on exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders this week and we both learned so much. I was thinking about why I wasn't happy.. I have been called of God to do this work and I wasn't happy and it was really bothering me. I was trying to blame everything on Sister Pyper and I was only focusing on the negative. I realized that I was being a little brat and if I wanted our companionship to change, I needed to change. Not her. So.. I had to flip a mental switch and get over myself. I just started talking to her and laughing and forcing it until it came naturally. Now.. weird.. we are like super good friends. Now we actually have fun together. I have been PRAYING and fasting and doing all that I could for this to happen and it has. Last night when I was praying, I just felt this overwhelming love from my Savior. I know He is looking out for me and that I needed to go through that to learn what I did!  

Also. I have been praying for more opportunities to meet new investigators and stuff like that and I kept getting all these signs that that's not what I should be focusing on. I read President Monson's message in the Ensign this month about rescuing the lost. He told of a story of a less active man that wrote him a letter saying he wanted to come back to church but he was afraid and just wished that someone would care enough to come visit him. That broke my heart. So these next few weeks we are going to be visiting less active and part member families. So far none of them have really answered... But that's okay. I have a really strong feeling that this is what we need to do right now. After all, our purpose as missionaries is to bring people closer to Christ, not to baptize. Although baptizing is essential, so is helping those who have for some reason fallen away. So that is what we will be doing this next week! We have been able to get into a family's home, the Hadleys. They are less active and he is actually excommunicated. But when we visited with them they both said it's time to come back to church. They both smoke and drink so we had members from the bishopric come and give them blessings to get over that, so that was really cool. They have a son that is 18 and had a baptism date at one point but it fell through, so we are hoping that this will be a big break and that we can start teaching him and get him dunked :)

Oh yeah. Last week I bought some yogurt... and on the lid it says "want to save a life?" So I thought, obviously that's why I'm here for the next year and a half... but it says to send in the yogurt lid and some company will donate 10 cents to the a breast cancer fund... SO I am currently saving my yogurt lids because I figure, if no one will listen to me so I can't save lives here... at least I can save a life somewhere else. Hahahaha I'm also going to send them a pass a long card :) Haha I think I'm so funny :)

So CONFERENCE. Holy amazing. I loved every minute of it. It was really cool because I didn't write down a physical question that I had, but I had some in my mind.. and they were all answered. Elder Ballard specifically said "To all the full time missionaries: If you don't have anyone to teach, talk to more people." DUH. So we are going to try to double our oyms this week and talk to 30 or 40 people instead of 20 everyday. We'll see how that goes. Also.. side note.. Did you guys notice Elder Hales eyebrow? He was the very first speaker but it looked like he had one eyebrow drawn on.. So I honestly don't really know what he said because I was so transfixed on his eyebrow that I couldn't pay attention! Hahahaha. Anyway, I loved the repetitive messages. Rely on Him, Be not afraid, only believe, Rescue the lost, Believe in miracles, and I loved loved LOVED Elder Holland's talk. I loved how he said "If the bitter cup doesn't pass, drink it." He is so profound, I was basically hypnotized while he was speaking. And as always I am so grateful for President Monson. I was bawling as he was talking about his wife and how today is their 65th? wedding anniversary. I was so heartbroken for him but so amazed at his strength. I just love him so much.

 How lucky are we to have him and the other apostles? I can't think of anything better to have. We are so lucky to be members of this incredible church and to be children of our Heavenly Father. We are so blessed and we all have such a divine purpose. I love being a missionary and being able to further my relationship with my Father and my Brother. I am so grateful for you and my whole family. You are all such an inspiration to me. Thank you for your prayers and letters. They have definitely helped immensely.

I love you all and hope you all have a great week!

Love always,

Sister Anderson :)

Sept. 29

Hi my sweet family :)

Well. From the beginning, this letter won't be anything special.

This week was just like the last. We still have no one to teach... And I have found that it is extremely hard to be motivated when you go out aimlessly knocking on doors. Go figure? We have tried to contact former investigators from our area book but have had no success. Either they are not interested, or moved, or don't answer. So this week our bishop gave us a list of less active people to visit so hopefully we get something out of contacting those people.

Elder Richards was able to come, and that was good to be able to hear from him. He is definitely an inspired man that knew what he was talking about! He talked a lot about faith and trusting in God, which is exactly what I needed. I know that this whole trial is a test of my faith, and I am trying to keep up my faith and not get discouraged, as hard as that is.

We also got to go to the General Relief Society meeting which was really good! I thought it was cool how the whole meeting was centered on keeping our covenants and if we REALLY love our Savior, we would have no problem keeping them. Well duh. Obviously He knows that we are mortal and that we will mess up and not be perfect, but it made me think, how much do I really love Him? He gave me so much that the least I can do is do my best to be like Him, to not complain about this dumb trial I am going through.. I really loved that whole meeting. I got a lot out of it that I really needed to hear.

I feel a lot better this week. My strep is completely gone which is really good because that is one last thing to worry about! I was telling Sister Pyper, I feel bad for her because she has really never had the opportunity to do missionary work. Since she has been here we have hardly taught any lessons. She doesn't even know what it's like to see the change in people and to see the Spirit work in them. All she knows is dumb tracting and I know it's not, but I feel like that is partly my fault. I feel like I don't know how to train her when we have no one to practice for! It's been really hard to not have any investigators. However, an elder in my zone was talking to me and said that every missionary has to go through something like this. He said consider it a blessing that it is happening at the beginning of my mission so I can get it over with! I hope that's true and that it doesn't happen again, although I'm sure it will haha.

I loved the letters and support I got this week. I can definitely feel the love from everyone at home and it is greatly appreciated! I love it because I feel like I am alone in this companionship so it is good to have the support from home. Sister Pyper and I don't argue or fight or anything like that, but I feel like our companionship is very one sided. I always make all the decisions, I start everything and she copies everything I do. It's so irritating. I told her she doesn't have to do that and she can take initiative for herself.. but so far that has done nothing. We hardly talk to each other, only when we have to, and we never laugh or joke or anything. She doesn't take jokes very well so it's pretty awkward 95% of the time.

I try to be happy and I try to find the good in everything, as hard as that is. I try to just keep going and to do what I know I need to do. Please pray for me though... I am trying my hardest to just keep going and to know that we have to walk the hard road to get to the good. I knew that a mission wouldn't be easy. I mean I represent Christ, and His life was in no way easy, so why would my mission be? I know that He was mocked, persecuted, crucified and killed for my benefit so that He would know every little thought that ran through my mind. So that He could be there and help me when I am going through hard times like this. I am so eternally grateful for Him and His sacrifice for ME. I KNOW that He is my Savior and that He is waiting to help and bless each one of us. I know the power of the Atonement and the strength that we can gain from knowing that He is waiting to stretch forth His hand to help us. I'm so grateful for my Savior and for the knowledge that I have of this gospel. I know that we will find people to teach soon. I know that we are put through trails to grow stronger and to learn something new and learn to become more like Christ. I know that He trusts me and knows that I can get through this trial. I am so grateful for all of you and all your love, prayers, letters, and support that I get from you everyday. I am SO blessed to have such an amazing family.

I love you all. Know that I am happy and that I wouldn't want to be anywhere else in the world, despite the hard times I am going through. I love this gospel with all my heart.

Love you all,

Sister Anderson

p.s. Sorry this was so depressing. Hopefully next week will be more successful and I will actually have something to talk about!