Everything happens for a reason

'Sup 'sup.

 

This week was… interesting.

 

Well results of transfers. We are both staying another transfer! That was definitely not expected, we both thought that Sister Cho was leaving but apparently we still have some work to do together! I think we were both hoping that one of us would leave... These last few weeks we have been getting on each others nerves a lot.. I don't know what my problem is but I can't get along with girls! Haha it's so hard to have a companion sometimes. It drives me crazy having someone with me 24/7 telling me what to do all the time. So I get annoyed and shut down and I don't say much which results in us hardly talking... She tries way too hard to be someone she's not.. and tries hard to like get my approval or something? It's weird. But we had a long talk about it last night and I think we figured things out. She admitted that she does that so I'm not just making accusations about her haha. Hopefully we will be able to work everything out since we have 6 more weeks together.

 

Brother Minton is so close to being baptized! This week we were talking about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and at the end he made a statement about "when he is baptized.." I think we are both staying here again to get him baptized. I think that's our job for this transfer fo sho. We went over one day to help them feed their horses, and they dressed us up like cowboys and took pictures of us in their "western town." They thought it was the coolest thing and Sister Cho and I just felt like idiots hahaha but the pictures were pretty funny. Other than him we have a few potentials that we are working with.. But we REALLY need to pick things up here. It's getting old not having anyone to teach..

 

I am glad I am staying in this ward because I love it! We had dinner with the Preciado's this week, Brother Preciado is our ward mission leader, and we got talking about Nacho Libre and they said that that is like their family movie, and I said that it was ours too! So we spent the next 20 minutes quoting Nacho.... I was dying laughing and it made me miss all of you a lot.. And Nacho.... Hahahaha. 

 

We were talking to people in the parking lot one day, and this guy asked what the basic beliefs of Latter Day Saints were. So I told him that we believe that Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are three sperate beings but one in purpose. BIG mistake. He started throwin out all this stuff about the trinity and all that nonsense. I asked him about when Christ was baptized if He spoke to Himself and said "This is my beloved Son, in whom I am well pleased" and then desended upon Himself in the form of a dove and he paused and said "yes." HA I about died. When people try to bash with me, I'm not very good at backing down I have realized. I threw out some other verses and finally he changed the subject of how the Book of Mormon isnt true and that the scriptural cannons are closed and about Revelations 22:18 how you cant add to the book. I told him that that verse applied to the book of Revelations only and that the Bible is not even in chronological order and that the same verse is in Deuteronomy 4:2 and he didnt have anything to say about that. He then told me that I dont know what I am talking about and that I shouldnt be out here telling people false doctrine. I told him that if I didnt know what i was talking about, I wouldnt have left my family, job, school and everything else back at home for a year and a half. He tried telling me to check my beliefs and all that because he has studied Mormons at Cal Baptist and I asked him if it was a Mormon teaching that class.. He said no, he was baptist. I was just thinking "oh yeah that makes a  lot of sense, ask a baptist to teach everyone about Mormons, then you'll get the right doctrine." Geez I got so worked up about that guy! He offended me pretty hard and I tried to keep my cool, and finally apologized and told him to check out our website if he had any questions, but it amazes me the nerve people have to completely tear down a religion. I just thought it was so interesting everything he was telling me. It was sad because he was so sure of it too. Poor guy. I am so happy that I have the TRUTH in my life, and that I can tell people my beliefs, even when they are tearing me down, without any hesitation. This gospel is 100% true, OKAY?! Sheesh.

 

I actually just saw a couple from my ward in Eastvale, the Postoians (I am like 5 minutes away from my old ward) and they said that Dakota Edwards just got made an elder and he is planning on serving a mission! How cool is that? Also did I talk about the Hadley family? I think I did. He was excommunicated awhile ago and his wife was inactive and right before I got transfered they came to church. We were working with them to stop drinking and stop smoking and stuff and I asked how they were and Brother Postoian said that he is getting baptized in a couple weeks! I almost started crying haha. So they are going to pick me up and take me to his baptism but that was SO good and so needed for me to hear that some of my work there has progressed and that I helped those people come closer to our Heavenly Father :)

 

Oh Sister Cho fell asleep in the car the other day.. and she kept nodding her head back and forth, and she was sleeping with her mouth open hahaha it was HILARIOUS. I was trying not to laugh so I didn't wake her up, but we were sitting at a red light, and someone from our ward walked across the street and waved and kinda laughed at her, then the car over saw him pointing at her and laughed too. Haha it was pretty funny :)

 

Well I think that is about it.. I think this will be a challenging transfer.. But its for the best I guess. I'm going to do all I can to be good friends with Sister Cho, and to really get things rolling in this area. Thanks for all the letters and support from all of you. Could do it without ya! Love you!

 

Sister Anderson

 

p.s. Sister Cho does language study every night for an hour.. so i have an extra hour everyday to do stuff... so here is the result of that......... I've been supes crafty lately. 

Crazy week!

OKAY this week was totes cray. 

We got to go to the temple again this week! Such a blessing. That beautiful building is a life saver, especially when you are on a misson! We went with Sister Graves, and I was able to learn a lot from her. We didn't come out of the session until like an hour after it had ended because we were just talking about everything and I was able to learn a lot! We went to Cafe Rio after (thats almost as good as the temple) and ate until we could hardly move... And we ended up getting home at lik 7:30 at night! It was such a fun day! 

Couple days later, Sister Graves went to a lesson with us and then took us to lunch at Bob's Big Boys and I ordered a vegetarian omlet... but added sausage... apparantly that was really funny because I am still hearing about it! Haha but anyways, after lunch we went to the church to get ready for Adrianna's baptism! It went really well, her dad who is not a member cried so we are hoping we will be able to start teaching him! It was a good good day :) She was able to be confirmed the next day in sacrament meeting, and Sister Cho and I actually sang in sacrament meeting... Everyone said we sounded good but I think they were all just being nice :) 

Okay THEN on Sunday night, the craziest thing happened. I was tired because we had an early meeting that morning, so I got to bed like 30 minutes earlier, so I was OUT. But a little while later, we woke up to someone pounding on our door and ringing the doorbell over and over and over. Sister Cho woke up and jumped out of bed, I followed her and we looked out the peep hole and it was some lady that we didn't recognize. We were hesitant to open the door since we didn't know what was happening so she went over to the Graves and started doing the same thing, pretty soon I see Sister Graves running up to the house so I hurried and opened the door and all she said was "Get out of the house, NOW!" We hurried and got out and there were fire trucks and police cars everywhere, and we looked over and there was a big car that had crashed into our neighbors garage and destroyed the garage. In the process, the gas line had been broken and gas was leaking everywhere so our neighbor thought our house was going to explode so she was trying to wake us up! Luckily our house didn't explode.... But we were pretty freaked out. We waited outside for awhile to see what would happen, then finally we went inside and we said a prayer and I felt a lot of peace and like everything was going to be okay. We just watched out the window until it was finally like 3 in the morning and we slept at the Graves house since they were working on cleaning it up and it was pretty noisy. Everything turned out to be okay but it was so crazy! It actually turned into a pretty neat experience, because Sister Martin (our homeshare) was out of town this weekend, but if she would have been home, the driver, who was drunk, probably would have crashed into her car (since the way he had hit into the garage was at an angle that had to have happened because he came up our driveway and then turned into her garage) which then would have hit her house and we could have been injured. We realized how protected we are on our missions and how the Lord is really watching over us! It was a crazy experience but it was pretty cool :)

Well thats pretty much all the excitement for this week! I am glad that I am alive and safe and that things are working out for us. Transfers are this Saturday! Can you believe that? I am probably staying but we will see! Thanks for everything you do! Love you all!

Sister Anderson

8 Months.. what?

So....

 

What up I hit 8 months this week... whaaat? Totes cray.

 

So this was a good week. Last pday we went to the mall with Sister Nelson and her comp which was way fun. We were talking and they had one of their cute members with them and she has short blonde hair... and it reeeally made me want to cut my hair like shoulder length. BUT I need input first. Please and thank you :)

 

We hit the standard this week finally :) That was pretty cool. We taught Adrianna and Matthew a lot this week. We taught about repentance and how if you have a dollar and crumble it up, stomp on it, even draw on it, its still a dollar and still worth something. We taught them how thats how Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ feel about us, no matter how many times we make mistakes or mess up, they still care about us and we are still worth something to them. It was a cool visual that helped me learn more about repentance as well! Adrianna is for sure getting baptized this coming Saturday so thats exciting! I feel like I wasnt here for a lot of her teaching, since she has been taught for like 3 months, but regardless it is exciting that she is finally taking that step to be baptized!

 

We also figured out that Brother Minton had never actually been taught the missionary lessons.. missionaries have just left spiritual thoughts or something so we are going to start from the beginning and teach him everything, so hopefully that works out and he gets baptized as well :)

 

We went on exchanges with the STLs this week.. which meant I spent a day with my BFF Sister Nelson! It was a blast. We maybe stayed up until almost 11:30 talking and catching up and we didnt realize what time it was.. oops :) we had a LOT to talk about though! That next morning we had a lesson at 10 and so we had to bike there (oh yeah.. she's on bike again haha) anyway, it was cold outside and i am going on week 4 of having my stupid cold, and we biked way fast and way hard and when we got to our appointment i thought i was going to die! We were sitting there and i started to black out and loose my hearing and i knew i was going to pass out... I went to the bathroom and just sat there and nothing ever happened.... I tried to justify me being the biggest wimp ever and being totally out of shape... but I finally just admitted that I am completely out of shape and just laughed about it later. But because of that little incident, we decided to walk instead of ride our bikes and just our luck it started raining! We walked in the rain for a good hour and a half maybe and we were SOAKED. It was hilarious. We couldnt even see because the rain was getting in our eyes.. So we finally went to one of their members houses and they took us home and we threw our clothes in the dryer and put our feet in a hot bath and sat on the edge of the bathtub, eating popcorn and talking. Hahaha that would only happen to us but it was so much fun. We had a good day after that, we got rides everywhere but it was hilarious!

 

We had dinner last night at this old couple's house.. and they made us a little Valentines day dinner.. and EVERYTHING was pink. It was a freaking hoot! She went alllll out for this dinner. She said that they (them and this other couple) do it every year for the missionaries. Everything was pink and in heart shaped dishes. It was hilarious hahaha but they were so proud of their dinner display and even more proud when I asked if I could take pictures! People are so funny. Some go all out for our dinners and some order pizza on paper plates.

 

This week we found another guy that was really interested but we had to give him to the YSA elders.. After our lesson i was so frustrated because i just want people to teach that i told Sister Cho "we are going to drive around and the first person we see will want to learn more about the gospel". So we did. We saw this guy walking down the street and i hurried and pulled over, got out and started spillin out the gospel to him and he immediately started bashing with us saying we have a different Jesus and we are this and that.. We got back in the car and I just started laughing hahaha. I totally let my pride get ahold of me and I deffinitely paid for it! It made fora good laugh though :)

 

Speaking of laugh... I got probably the best excuse from someone yesterday. I went up to him and offered him a blessing.. and he said "ya know, i would.. but I'm turtle headin it... I really gotta poop!" HAHAHA! His wife was so embarrassed and apologized and i was dyyyying! I was laughing so hard! I had never gotten that excuse before, but i guess it was pretty valid! At least he was honest!

 

I am loving this ward more and more. Sister Graves had us over last night for a fire to roast marshmallows to celebrate Sister Cho's 9 months and we had a blast. We were taking pictures that turned out hilarious.. we look handicapped in some of them. And our ward mission leaders wife, Sister Preciado gave me a shirt this week! I mentioned how I was looking for a certain kind of shirt and we were just talking about it and then she came to church with the shirt! This ward is the bomb for sure.

 

I am so blessed! I am happier than i have ever been, and i know its all thanks to serving my Heavenly Father. This is the hardest work i have ever done, but it is so worth it. I have learned so much these past 8 months, and I cant wait to learn more :) You are all the best support group I could ask for, and I know that you all help me so much! Thank you for everything! I love you!

 

Sister Anderson

 

 

annyounghaseyo! (thats totes korean for hello!)

Well this week was killer!

 

It was actually freezing this week. I am a walking ice cube. Aaaand the pathetic part is that it has only been like 60 degrees hahaha. I am such a wimpy. I sleep with sweats on and two pairs of socks.... and I'm still cold. Maybe I'm cold blooded? I am honestly worried for when I come home because I will literally freeze to death... Maybe I will just never come home :) Seems like that anyway. I really think being a missionary is how the rest of my life will go! I can't picture my life without being a missionary!

 

This week was good. We were SO close to reaching the standard of excellence (20 lessons a week, 7 member present lessons, 4 people at church and 140 OYMs) but only 2 people came to church so it was a major bummer. Those who get the standard, President Smart recognizes in his weekly email so it's always a little boost when you get to see your name on his email but.... not this week. But that just gives me a better reason to work harder this next week!

 

So we have some investigators I have failed to mention...

 

The Mintons: They are a part member family, he, Brother Minton is not a member and has taken lessons about a jillion times before. He always comes to church but he doesnt want to quit drinking (lame) but he is so close! They have horses, as does everyone here, and we feed them all the time. We are building that friendship with them and hopefully he can create that desire to join the church.

 

Adrianna: She is 10 and is planning on being baptized February 15th! Yay!

 

Matthew: Matthew is actually 8 years old. His family has been inactive for the last little bit and the APs told us that we can count him as an investigator because he will be 9 in February. So we are teaching him which is actually really fun because we get to come up with simple fun ways to teach the gospel. This week we taught him about the Godhead. He is all into every sport but right now for him it's baseball season. So we took baseball and related it to the gospel :) The head coach of a team is the one who has the master plan for the game, the assistant coach helps him under his direction, and the base coach stays with you at the bases and tells you what direction you need to go. So if you can guess... The head coach is comparable to Heavenly Father. He is in charge of everything and knows all of our "game plans" for life. Jesus Christ is the assistant coach because he works under the direction of Heavenly Father and he helps us along the way. The base coach is like the Holy Ghost because he is always with us telling us what direction we need to go. He sees things that we don't and knows what our game plan is as well. It totally put the Godhead into perspective for Matthew and he loved it! It was pretty cute. Sister Cho did all the drawings too so it turned out really well! It even helped me better understand the roles of the Godhead and how we can rely on Their help daily.

 

We have had fun trying to get used to neither of us training. That has been intersting but Sister Cho and I do get along, thank goodness. We balance each other out pretty well. She is quiet and dignified and I'm... not :) Haha it's good though. I think I am too much for her sometimes but it's all good. Just adds to the group that think I am a total weirdo.

 

Speaking of... We went over to the Graves for lunch this week.. and somehow we ended up doing chin puppets. Ya know where you put eyes on your chin and turn upside down? HAHA it was hilarious. I was doing it with Laura who is 10 and Brother Graves walked in and I'm sitting upside down on his couch... awkward... But it was really funny haha.

 

We are still trying to find find find. I am confident that there are people here for me to teach. I know it. I know the Lord has funny ways of teaching me and I just need to continue working on my patience and my faith, so I am grateful for that, but sometimes it would be nice for someone to just walk up and say they want to learn more about the church :) I can dream, right?

 

I studied about the Atonement a lot this week. In 2 Nephi 9 and Alma 7. They are solid chapters :) I prayed that I would be able to apply what I learned this week and sure enough Brother Minton asked a lot of questions about the Atonement and why Christ's death saves us. It was cool to see that prayer answered, and to be able to answer his questions because of what I studied that week. I am so lucky that I get an hour every day to study the scriptures, but that hour is not enough! I feel like I could study all day sometimes. Of course there are a lot of days that I maybe fall asleep while I am studying...... :) But regardless, everyday I have the opportunity to learn more about my Savior Jesus Christ. What a blessing!

 

I love you all and I am grateful for all your support and prayers. I have the greatest family!

 

Love you all and have a great week!

 

Sister Anderson