West is Best: week 9: Im not a temple square sister lol

Hola y'all! I hope everyone had a feliz Año Nuevo this weekend. This week was interesting.

So last Monday was pretty crazy. It snowed a ton on Christmas so we went sledding the day after! So fun. Some elders bought some big inner tubes and they built a ramp at the bottom of a hill and everyone was sliding off of it. So dangerous but soooooo great haha. One of the elders even had a gro pro and we were all making videos and stuff. And then one of us had the idea of piling all the hermanas (6) onto the 2 inner tubes, interlocking the tubes, and then going off the ramp at the bottom of the hill. Probably not the smartest idea but we did it anyway. So we went super fast because there were so many of us and we all fleeewwwww off those inner tubes. One sister bruised her tailbone really bad and I figured out later I somehow sprained my ankle. But it's all good! great mems. The later that night our zone got together to play soccer, but I sat out bc my ankle. And then hermana Ávalos, mi compañera ended up hurting her big toe pretty bad while playing soccer so this past week we've both been walking with a limp. So funny haha. Then we went and had a lesson with this girl jade who is SO smart. She's 13 and is in all advanced classes at school, is in the orchestra and is the best violest at her school and even conducts her own little symphony thing. She's great. We have her set on date for January 14th and it's crazy how ready she is for the gospel! I love it.

Tuesday was pretty good too! We had a lesson with a lady who's less active only because her husband doesn't like the church and she just wants to spend time with him while they can bc they both work a lot. Her testimony is amazing though honestly. Then we met with this guy who was a past investigator but got dropped for some reason. We met with him for a little bit and talked about his life and stuff. He's so awesome, but he said he would rather attend the English ward because he spoke more English than Spanish, so we passed him over to the other elders in our stake. Then we tried some other people that "weren't home" haha. They were they just didn't answer. But then we had dinner with la familia Llosa! And y'all they are SOOOO COOLL! They were from Peru and first of all, the food was amazing. Second, I was BIEN PUMPED BECAUSE I COULD UNDERSTAND ALMOST EVERYTHING THEY SAID

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soooo pumped. They were telling us all about Peru and this weird Incan language that some people speak there. It sounded basically like Spanish gibberish. Then they gave us a ton of referrals to go visit, and we needed some sooo bad! We've been having a hard time finding new people to teach so that was good. Then we went to this family's house in the ward. The 2 young women live with their grandparents and one of them is a recent convert and she's been having some really bad depression issues. So we've been trying to help her but she hasn't really been letting us which kinda stinks. But we're always going to visit so hopefully she will come around.

Wednesday was kinda normal. Not too busy but still stuff to do. We just tried to contact referrals all day and then we had dinner with a Dominican family! Their accent is so hard to understand. So I didn't really get much of what was said at dinner. I've come to notice that since there's a lot of Peruvians and Mexicans in the area, those are the accents I can understand the best. But there's also lots of people from Venezuela too and their accent is really hard and I don't get too much of what they say either.

Thursday was SOOOO cold. Like so cold. Lots of people cancelled on us and that kinda sucked. But we had a lesson with Elida! She is going to be baptized on the 28th and her kids were baptized last year. The day she is going to be baptized is her one year anniversary of taking lessons with the missionaries! She's so awesome y'all. I'm pumped for their family. Then we went to visit this less active lady and apparently her husband removed his records from the church but she decided to leave hers and just not go anymore. Idk. She was really nice though and let us share a message still!

Friday we went and tried to contact some more people. We got some referrals and went to go visit them to see how they are and try to set some appointments. We went to this one house and this guy was pretty angry to see us. He was talking sooooooo fast I didn't get anything other than Trump. Lol. But apparently he was mad and didn't believe in any churches anymore because a lot of members of the church and religious people in general in the US voted for trump, and he didn't understand how they could preach about love and kindness when they would vote someone like that as president. Idk. It was bad jaja. Then we had dinner and it was good like always. (Props to y'all who read this far bc I know this is long. Here's a really embarrassing moment.) So we were walking out to the parking lot of the apartment complex and there's our car and one parked directly in front that's the same model/color/everything. And so I was looking at the one that wasn't ours and I noticed some guy digging through the passenger side of the car. I immediately thought OMG SOMEONE IS BREAKING INTO OUR CAR! And so I yelled HEY!! GET OUT OF OUR CAR! And started to run to the car. Lol. Then Ávalos was like dude what are you doing! And I was like omg..... that's not our car. And then Ávalos just started dying laughing hahaha. Whenever I yelled the guy just looked up at me and then continued to do what we was doing. I'm sure he thought I was on some crazy drugs or something.....haha. Then that night we went to temple square with some recent converts! I dint realize how big of a tourist attraction it really was until then. There were so many people there it was crazy. O

Then Saturday we went to temple square again! With another awesome recent convert. We took the tracks up to salt lake this time and stopped at in n out. So good. Apparently they have bible verses on the bottom of their cups, fry holder things, and the paper for the burgers! I thought it was so cute. Then since it was New Year's Eve, we had pday from 6-9. So we had an activity with our zone and we just chilled and played soccer. Me and Ávalos could play finally because our ankles were better.

Sunday, the old stake mission leader who is now the bishop of an English ward asked us if we would speak in sacrament meeting. We spoke on helping others come unto Christ. Coming unto Christ is an invitation. It is the best invitation ever honestly. Inviting others to come unto Christ by partaking in his gospel is the greatest act of love and service yall could give to someone. This gospel brings so much peace into our lives and sharing that peace with others is the best! So I invite y'all to invite the people you care about to partake in this gospel. There is no greater feeling than knowing the love that Christ feels for us and knowing that we all will be able to return to live with our Heavenly Father again with our families.

After our talks we went to our ward where they asked hermana Ávalos to translate for some people. Then in our Sunday school class the teacher didn't show up so we got volunteered to teach the lesson. Haha. Missionaries are good for everything I guess.

I love y'all and I hope y'all have a great week!

Con amor,

Hermana Anderson

Here's some pics.