Long time no see!

sup party peeps.

 

Weeeell Christmas was a blast and a half right? It was soo good to see you all and hear your voices! Even though it pretty much killed me to not be there with you, it was really good to see you!

 

Not too much went on the rest of the week... Liz and her family are progressing nicely :) We have taught them like 4 lessons and they came to church again yesterday, even her husband Anthony! She told us that after we left our last lesson she felt a lot of peace and happiness about baptism. We also told her to read 2 Nephi 32 about the Holy Ghost, because she is kinda freaked out about it being a "spirit" but that cleared things up for her and she feels better about it, and a kid got the Holy Ghost in church yesterday so she understood it a little bit more, which was good. But seriously, the Lord is blessing us big time with them. I was talking to my district leader, Elder McClain, and i was just telling him how hard the mission has been and how i haven't had a lot of people to teach lately, but just having this little family and being able to bring the gospel to them has been such a blessing and has brought me so much happiness. It's crazy how much serving people and letting them feel the light of Christ can bring you so much joy. I have never been happier in my entire life :)

 

The only other thing that happened was on Christmas night, the elders came over to where we were having dinner and we had dessert with them.. and the family wanted us all to take home like 15 pies and we finally got the elders to take them (after pretty much begging) because we have SO much candy and junk at home. So they took like 6 of them and left. Well when we went out to our car, all 6 of those pies were sitting on the car haha. So we took them home and added them to our piles and piles of candy...  so we sneekily found out where they live.. and just nicely dropped the pies off at their apartment.. along with the rest of our candy and cakes and stuff like that. Haha their porch was cooooverrred :) It was pretty great. 

 

 

This week was really quite boring other than talking to you all! New Years will be interesting... New Years Eve we are in by 6 (so no pots and pans banging for me!) and New Years day we dont go out until 1! Haha avoiding all the hangoversss but that day will be fun :) I am excited to make some new resolutions and start this year off right. One of mine is to study the Book of Mormon more thouroughly. I realized how much i dont know about the Book of Mormon and i want to change that. I also want to be closer to my Savior and Heavenly Father. I want to have a very personal relationship with them, more than i already do. 

 

Well i love you all! Thank you for being so great and so supportive of me. You all motivate me to be better and to work harder. I love you all so much! Have a great New Years!

 

Love,

 

Sister Anderson :)

 

p.s. Sister Jenkins is a hoot and a half and popped a laundry detergent pod in her eye..... hahahhaha she was screaming for like 2 hours and her eye was pretty swollen.. and she had just gotten out of the shower so thats why she is in a towel but the pictures are freaking hilarious haha! 

 

 

Merry Christmas

Welcome to the good life

Familia:

This week was a good one :)

As of now its 75 degrees and looks like summer and i loooooove it. That may be the main reason im so happy :)

I went on exchanges with Sister Nelson this week.. btw she is an STL so now both my trainers are STLs which is sweeet cause then we get to party on exchanges :) But we seriously had so much fun! I freaking love her and we were way happy to be together again. We got to go to the Mission Inn, which i have come to the conclusion that it is the California equivalent to Temple Square but it doesn't even come close to comparing to it, but regardless it was really fun! We sang Christmas carols with the youth in our ward and had a blast! Sister Nelson really helped with helping me not stress so much about the little things. I really have learned so much from her and i hope we get to serve together again some day!

Lisa didn't get married last week :( they were waiting for their IDs to come in the mail before they could get the wedding certificate so we were waiting alllll week. We prayed and fasted and prayed and prayed and they finally came on Friday :) So they are getting the license today and then getting married tonight! Then the baptism is all set for Saturday which is so exciting. She is so happy and can't wait to be washed clean. It's such an amazing feeling to see the Spirit really work in someones life. She was in such a dark place before and now she just has this light about her. I can physically see a change in her. She lookes healthier, happier and just better. It's so rewarding. The Atonement is such an amazing gift.  I mean people who have committed sin after sin and just dug themselves so deep that they think there is no hope left, can be washed completely clean and start all over. It seems too good to be true sometimes! But i have really seen the Atonement apply in my life and especially in Lisa's. I KNOW that Christ did that because He loves all of us. He wants us back so bad, And He is just waiting to help us and to forgive us. It just takes us to make the first step of faith. Gosh the Gospel is just so perfect.

We had dinner with a family this week and we were talking about how hard the mission has been and how we haven't really had anyone to work with besides Lisa. He told us a very personal story about how on his mission his father passed away and some other complications were going on in the family. He told us that throughout his whole mission, he didn't have a single baptism. He wasn't trying to make us feel guilty or anything but it really humbled me. It really made me realize how lucky i am. He told us if the Lord wants it to happen it will happen. I realized i need to have  more faith in Him and in His plan for me and for the people that i come in contact with. I was so grateful for this sweet member of our ward who listened to the promptings of the Spirit to share that experience with me because that is what i really needed to hear to help me get back on my game.

We talked to the ward council this week about doing a missionary week to help everyone get into missionary work and i think it will be really fun! We aren't doing it unil the end of February (lame) but i will keep you posted, it should be fun :)

Well i am excited beyond excited to skype with you next week! I wont be emailing next monday because we get to skype so don't expect an email. But i can not freaking wait to see you all and talk to you! I just pray that everything works out how it should! I hope you have lots of things to talk about :) I love you all and pray for you all every night!

Your favorite sister missionary,

Sister Anderson :)

p.s. pictures are of me and nelly at the mission inn, sister fia and i matching, and me at our churchie :)

p.s.s. keep an eye out for a christmas card from me! and send me the one of the family if you did one this year :)

12/9/13

Hellooooo!

Goodness gracious i miss all of you so much! First things first. Love and miss you :(

Second. This week was a bummer. I was so unmotivated all week long.   Ugh i hate when i get like that. I was sick one day with a killer headache (boo) and then i stayed home with Sister Fia the next day because she wasn't feeling well. But the other days, I just honestly did not want to go out! It was cold (I know not as cold as it is at home, thank goodness. Im pretty sure when i come home in December i am straight up going to freeze to death.) and i just felt yucky all week. Besides Lisa (which she is doing GREAT. i actually think she might be getting married tonight? im not sure.. haha) we have nothing else to do, except visit inactives and part member families and its soooo hard to keep doing when house after house doesn't answer. It's just so frustrating. Maybe i am lacking faith or something, but something is not right!

With the holidays, i guess i have expected people to be more receptive but those dang expectations always get me down. Our OYMs have been real rough lately because no one listens. Over and over again we get rejected or denied. I guess i did sign up for this.. i just didn't expect it to be this hard!

Christmas time especially has been really hard to be away from home. I just see everyone with their families, doing their fun family traditions and it's super hard to be away from that! I'm so glad that i only miss one Christmas, but at the same time it is a great time to be a missionary. Christmas gives us an even better excuse to talk about Christ and help people come closer to Him. I just pray that we will somehow be able to touch the hearts of the people we talk to.

This week was hard for the other sisters as well.. so this morning i walked around the corner and Sister Jenkins hit me in the face with a handful of shaving cream hahaha so of course i ran and got some and we had a nice shaving cream fight. we were rolling on the ground with it everywhere, laughing our heads off. It was so much fun and greatly needed :) We also thought we were cool and made a 6 and a 9 for how many months we had been out and burned it in the sink.. then later realized how dumb we were hahaha but it was still fun :)

Being away from home makes me realize how much i love all of you and how grateful i am for you all! However, i have learned so much from being out here that i wouldn't trade it for the world. we were talking about how hard this is this week, and we were saying how we all have the chance to go home and to stop doing this, but there is absolutely no way i would ever do that, no matter how hard it has been. This is the least i could do for everything that my Heavenly Father and Savior have done for me. It has taught me how to purely have faith and trust in Them for literally everything. I have learned how to be patient (still learning.... ) and how to love people no matter what. I have learned so much about the scriptures and about prayer that i wouldn't have learned unless i came on a mission. This has BY FAR been the best decision i have ever made, and i will never regret it.

I love you all more than i can express. You all have helped me in so many ways that i am beyond grateful for. i am so blessed to have the family that i do, that supports and loves me.

Hope you all have a fantastic week, full of Christmas spirit.. take advantage of being with the family and tell everyone hi for me! I can't wait to skype you all in 16 days! Have a blessed week!

Much love,

Sister Anderson :)

p.s. another prank we did this week.... sister jenkins went on exchanges, so when the sisters went to pick her up, i hid in her shower and waited for her to come in the bathroom and then i jumped out of the shower and scared her sooo bad! I was laughing so hard i couldnt breath hahaha. She was sitting on the toilet screaming her head off hahahaha it was by far the best one i have ever done! Goodness. these memories will stay with me forever!

6 MONTHS: 1/3 done!

My dear family:

Hi :) Hope you all had a great Thanksgiving, I sure did :)

Thanksgiving in the mission field is a huge blessing because it's like an extra pday :) So we hung out allllll day long :) We had a group companion study and just shared our testimonies with each other, which ended up being a huge bawl fest haha. I have been so blessed to be with the other three sisters that we live with. I have made long lasting friendships with them and i am so happy!

This week was kinda rough because of the holidays because everyone was either gone or with their family (jealous) so we quickly found out that we hardly had anything to do! We went from house to house, called people and literally no one answered. WELCOME TO THE GOOD LIFE.

However, Lisa. She is so great. Goodness what a blessing. She is so excited to be baptized and so ready and willing to do anything that the Lord asks. I swear she has more faith than we do! Anyway, her situation is a little difficult. She is homeless haha. She is engaged to her fiancé, Dayne, and we talked about chastity with them and they want to get married the same day that she gets baptized which is good! We just have to find somewhere separate for them to live until then. So we are working with the ward and with President Smart to figure out what to do!

I am absolutely in love with California. It was 83 degrees on December 1st. Hallelujah. I do not miss the snow one single bit.

Well. As it was Thanksgiving this week, I had time to sit back and realize how blessed I am. We all made lists of things we were grateful for and mine could have gone on forever. But really I am thankful for YOU! You all have been such a blessing and answer to my prayers. I was talking with one of the sisters last night about how i was so dumb and stupid in high school and how I regret pretty much everything. I regret how I treated all of you and how I didn't make my family a priority. I took you all for granted and I am sorry! But through God's grace and mercy He has allowed you all to still love me :) I am so glad that I am a part of this family and that i will be able to spend eternity with my BEST FRIENDS!

This email is kinda lame... I'm sorry haha. There really wasn't very much that happened this week! The pictures are of me, sister jenkins and sister fia in some nasty cheetah pants we bought last pday.. we had too much fun with those.. Others are of Elder Snyder and i, he is going home this transfer and was my district leader this last transfer and my zone leader my first transfer. I think there is one of our zone and then these pictures that we made that look like us hahah. super weird. i think i have officially lost it...

So anyways... I hope you know i am happy! I am the happiest i have ever been in my life. I love this work, i love being a missionary and having the spirit with me always. It's such a blessing and truly brings pure happiness. I hope you are all doing missionary work at home! It's not hard! Read Elder Ballard's talk from this last conference and if you aren't doing missionary work you'll want to start after you read that. Don't let me down family!

Love you all so stinkin' much :)

Sister Anderson :)

p.s. This time next year i will be home! Can you believe that?