week 7: milagro magna!

I cant believe I've been out for 6 days already! I'm in a town west of Salt Lake City called Magna. everyone says its super ghetto but i don't really think it is honestly! Iike maybe if you compared it to peachtree city because its definitely not as nice here as it is there. But i love it here! It's just a bunch of houses really, there's not much else. And theres SOOO many latinos here. Like so many. So that's great! I'm soooo excited to be here especially on my birthday. I guess turning 20 is cool! I'm 2 decades old.  I wouldn't want to spend my birthday doing anything else other than testifying of Jesus Christ. It's great!

Anyway i arrived here on Tuesday after taking the train from Provo. I was the only sister missionary to come out with my group. So we all loaded up on the train and when it came to our stop, we went down to the bottom floor of our car to get all of our luggage and stuff. The train isn't stopped for very long so we had to hurry and be really quick. One of the elders went back to get his 3rd suitcase on the train after he had gotten his 2 big bags out and then the doors closed and he got left on the train... haha some of you may know him. It was elder (Andrew) Lester. So since i was the only sister there i was going to be riding to the mission office with president and sister palmer! We waited there for elder Lester to call or come back or something and he eventually did about 45 minutes later. Poor elder haha. Anyway after that we went to the office to get all set up and orientated and such. My companions name is Hermana Ávalos! She is from Chihuahua, Mexico! She is sooooo awesome let me tell ya. She speaks perfect English and Spanish so she helps me a ton with trying to learn. We have a great time together. So after that we went to our house to get situated and unpacked and stuff and then we headed off to our dinner apt. We had dinner with this lady in the ward from Peru, and the food was amazing!! It was this spicy beef and potato stuff with rice and avocado salad (yuummmm). And she made this weird juice drink with pineapple and cinnamon and some other things that she said but i couldn't understand. It was kinda weird haha. But her accent and the way she spoke was soooo hard to understand. In the MTC i felt like i could understand Spanish pretty well when our teachers and our TRC investigator talked to us and stuff. So i got a nice slap in the face when i couldn't understand a single thing. It was really frustrating and overwhelming honestly. Anyway after dinner we went to teach this little girl who's 9 and her family is completely active but she just hasn't been baptized yet... weird. Her dad isnt able to baptize her for some reason that we haven figured out yet. And her knowledge of the gospel is surprisingly small even though she goes to church every single Sunday. Sooo we taught her the restoration and we drew out some pictures with her of all of the things in the lesson and it went really well! We actually taught her in English too which was really kinda nice after how i was feeling at dinner time. And then we went to some other peoples house and talked to them for a little bit and then headed in for the night.Wednesday we didn't have any lessons planned so we went and contacted some referrals and some members. First we went to this lady in the wards house who failed her drivers test last week and needed some help/practice with driving . So we did that for a little bit. I sat in the back and talked to the little kids while Ávalos helped her drive. It was a good time. And then we went to try the referrals and they weren't home. So we visited this less active lady who's really sick and honestly sounds like she's about to die.but we were talking to her and we asked if we could do some service for her and she asked us to clean her bathroom. We happily did that (thank goodness it wasn't that nasty) and then we sang  Christmas hymn with her. And after she was soooo happy it was so cute. And she gave us these necklaces with 2 hands and a heart around it. and seriously this family didn't hardly have anything in their house and you could tell that they were really poor but she still wanted us to have those necklaces. We tried to say no but she insisted. These people are so amazing. Next we went to our dinner apt and it was with this Venezuelan lady! This food is probably my favorite since I've been here. So first she gave us some horchata while she finished the soup she was making. So i drank a whole glass of it in the time it took her to finish and then she gave us really big bowls of soup and it was SOOOO GOOD. It was chicken with lime and cilantro and these dumpling things. Ugh omg. I could eat it every day. And so after the bowl i was kinda full but she made these bread things that were also amazing and put the really good white queso cheese in it and while i was eating that she asked if we wanted some more soup, and i said Si! Un poco poco por favor. Which means only A LITTLE! This lady filled my bowl all the way up. And when i was talking to Ávalos the day before she said that its super impolite to not eat the food that they give you and you should always finish the food on your plate. So im sitting there SOOO full and i have another huge bowl of soup and my bread and queso thing to finish. I have never prayed harder in my life in that moment for help to finish my food. So i started eating it as quickly as i could so as to try and not focus on my fullness and then i started sweating and getting light headed and i swear i almost threw up. By the good grace of God i finished and didn't throw up. Serious prayers answered man.and i learned my lesson to never ask for seconds ever again. 

Thursday was pretty good. We figured out a good language study schedule for me y mi compañera. We had lunch at this Ecuadorian lady's house and she was soooo nice. I understood like everything she was saying too!! I was so happy y'all don't even know. I'd been super frustrated because of my lack of understanding and my bad Spanish. So i was really stoked. And then we didn't have a dinner appointment that night and we went to this AMAZING taco truck. Each taco was a dollar and it was the best $2 i spent in my life. And then we taught a recent convert Miguel about temples. He is seriously amazing. About a year ago he felt like he really needed to come to the states and change his life because he was an alcoholic and did some other bad things. So he came to Utah because he knew someone here and soon after he found the church and loved it so much. He goes to temple square every Saturday because he loves the spirit that he feels there. But anyway we were talking about temples and family history with him and he didn't know that he was able to go and do baptisms for the dead right after he was baptized! He was so excited because he thought you had to wait a year. Which is right but he can still do other temple work which is awesome. So he went yesterday to get a temple recommend and we can go with him sometime this week for baptisms! Also after we went to visit this girl Rachel. She's 15 and her family is having some problems. But my companion and her old companion just recently started teaching her and her mom. Her mom isn't really into it but Rachel really is! She needs better influences in her lives and she says she really loves all of the young women when she goes to activities and stuff. So anyway i accidentally left our phone at home so we didn't realize that Rachel tried to call and re schedule bc she had homework she needed to do. But we dropped by and talked to her and she ended up already making arrangements for someone to pick her up for church on Sunday all by her self! She was sooo pumped to go. Milagros!

Friday we had a zone training  and a few companionships were assigned a few things about Jesus` birth to talk about. We were supposed to talk about the manger! So the manger is really significant to his birth. Mangers are something animals eat their food out of. I thought it kind of related to how Jesus is "the bread of life" and when we partake of his gospel we are spiritually nourished and through him and his atonement we are able to have eternal life! Explaining that in Spanish was a little rough but everyone got the message okay. Then after that we met with this lady Elida. SHe is amazing!! Both of her kids got baptized about a year ago and she's been investigating the church for about that time. A few months ago she didn't want to meet with the missionaries anymore, I'm not really sure of the reason. But right before i got here Ávalos and the old companion were trying really hard to get on elida's good side and were trying to get her to like them and she did! So we went to go see her and i think she liked me but idk. Anyway we taught her the first lesson and the spirit was reallllllyyyy strong. We both testified of Jose smith and the Book of Mormon and then at the end Ávalos asked if she would be baptized and she said yes!! She said that she knew that it was her time now and that she needs this in her life. Sooooo cool. Ávalos and i were SOOO pumped. Seriously i was so happy. And i still am. She's getting baptized on January 28th! 

Saturday was super cool. There was this thing called Luz de las Naciones at the conference center down town and it was basically this latino Christmas program that like every latino in the salt lake area goes to. It's huge y'all. So all day we were trying to get people to go because missionaries aren't allowed to go if you don't have a recent convert or an investigator there. So we knew Elida was going but she was going with some different member friends, and this different investigator Jade is going but also with someone else. So we were relying on Miguel our recent convert,. Only problem is that he has a mexican phone service and we cant call him, he can only call us. So we were going to different members homes all day trying to figure out how to get a hold of him. We remember telling him about it in our previous lesson and didn't remember if he said he was going to go or not. So we couldn't figure out how to get a hold of him so we just decided to go anyway. We were praying so hard that he would call us and when we were on our way up there he did! And he was already there!! Milagros! So we went and it was soooo cool. So many Mexicans there it was cray awesome. Hermana Ávalos was sooo happy bc she misses Mexico a lot. This is her first Christmas not in Mexico because last Christmas she was serving in Mexico City waiting for her visa to come to the US. Also Saturday before we went, we had late lunch with some Chileans in the ward! They were a cute older couple and the lady had just had foot surgery so they haven't been able to decorate their house for Christmas. So we helped them set up their tree and some other decorations around the house and it was so great! The tree was really pretty. And before she left she surprised us with some scarves she knitted for us that week. Latinos are so nice. I am seriously in love with them! 

Yesterday was my first day meeting the ward and everyone is pretty cool. Rachel and Elida came to church so that was great! They are so awesome. The bishop gave me a nice surprise and invited me to go bear my testimony in that very moment on the pulpit. I don't even remember what i said i was sooo nervous haha but it was okay!  And we had dinner with elida too. She told us all about the different types of food they have in Peru and stuff. Apparently tortillas are a Central American thing and nowhere in South America really uses them other than if they're making Mexican food! So crazy! But we just talked to her and go to know her and her kids and she's great. After we visited this family that just recently came here from Venezuela. Idk if y'all know what's going on down there but it's really bad. The government is taking peoples money and there's hardly any food. So please keep all of them in your prayers! Anyway we talked to them for a little bit and their youngest daughter who's 9 got baptized maybe 2 months ago. Shes sooo crazy just like Cody but its funny. It was a good little visit. 

I love y'all and hope everyone is doing well. Everyone have a feliz navidad and enjoy the time with our families and remember the reason for the season! 

Con amor,

Hermana Anderson

Week 5 -to fun

Hola everyone! 
This week has been great just like every other week.
First off, I don't know why but I swear everything is funnier in
Spanish. And they have verbs for EVERYTHING. The funniest one I think
is the verb divertidar means literally "to fun". I have no idea how to
exactly do fun but yeah!! I laughed at that like all week. And there's
this funny finger nod thing that our maestro does whenever we ask a
question and the answer is yes. Apparently it's a Latino thing but I
swear it's the funniest thing ever!

Last Tuesday one of the elders in our district has done some family
history and found some names of his ancestors that needed to be
baptized. He asked me and hermana Budd to be baptized and confirmed
for them and I was seriously so honored! It was a really great
experience for both us and him to be able to further his family's work
and to help them receive the gospel even after they were already dead.
Temple work is seriously amazing. After that we came home and did some
laundry, played volleyball, and sang in the choir for the devotional!

Wednesday we had another lesson with our awesome investigator Brian! I
looovvveeee meeting with him because I can tell he really soaks up
everything we're teaching him. We were really struggling with figuring
out what he needed to hear that day so we kinda just half decided on
teaching him about the commandments that God has for us and obedience.
We didn't really know what we were going to say other than that or
what commandments we were going to teach him. So we got in there and
ended up talking about repentance which we didn't plan on, but we were
talking about how when we repent it's honestly not a bad thing at all.
Repentance helps bring us closer to Christ and helps us realize what
we need to work on and how exactly we can apply the atonement in our
lives to better ourselves. So he asked how exactly one goes about
repenting and in my broken ish Spanish i tried to explain that when we
repent we have to truly feel sorry and wish to improve ourselves. We
have to realize that we are not perfect and that some things we have
done are wrong and have to be fixed. We pray to our Heavenly Father
asking for forgiveness and after that we have to try our very hardest
to not do it again! I'm not exactly sure how it came out to Brian. But
after I said that he was like okay I have to be honest with y'all. So
he proceeded to tell us about his addiction to coffee and how he knows
that the things we have been teaching him are true. He is always
talking with his Mormon friends and his sister and he knows that if he
is drinking coffee he cannot be baptized because it doesn't follow the
word of wisdom. So we were right earlier about feeling kinda that he
needed to hear about the commandments! So we told,him that he was
absolutely right but with the help of God and the atonement of Jesus
Christ he could do it! It would definitely be hard but the blessings
that he would reap from baptism would be so much greater than he could
ever imagine. Keep in mind that I'm like pretty sure I said all this,
but I don't know how it actually came out sooooo haha. But yeah so he
gave us all these excuses of how he hasn't been able to stop and how
he's tried and just literally cannot stop drinking coffee. And I was
honestly just so frustrated and mad that he that he couldn't stop!
Nothing is impossible with help from God. So we finally just left him
with our testimonies of that and I shared Ether 12:27 about weaknesses
and how God gives us them so that we can overcome them and become
stronger.

Thursday was the first day of December and I can't believe how fast
time has passed! We taught someone over skype that lived in Puebla,
Mexico. This man was a member and he was pretty chill. We taught him
about how Christ was the ultimate example and how by serving others we
help bring a little joy into their life and we come closer to God. It
was great! We got to meet his cute little 6 year old daughter that
came home from school when we were talking to him. I could understand
her soooo much better because she spoke a little more slowly and her
vocabulary was a little simpler haha. But yeah it was cool! And the
whole time we were skylight we could only see his forehead so we
didn't actually know if he was watching us or not. Whoops. It was good
though!

Friday was our last lesson with Brian 😭😭 I've seriously loved
teaching him so much. He was always so understanding with our bad
Spanish and always listened to what we were teaching. Budd and I
decided that what Brian needed was motivation to stop drinking coffee
for this lesson. We have already asked him if he would be baptized
before and he said yes but we didn't set a date for him to go through
with it yet. We decided that we were going to ask him to be baptized
on December 24th Christmas Eve! We got in there and taught him
specifically about the word of wisdom and how it is modern day
revelation given to Joseph smith about how to protect our bodies and
what kinds of substances are good and bad for us. We told him the
blessings and told him that if he was obedient he could have those
forever! So cool. Then we asked him if he would be baptized and he
said that it was really soon and didn't know if he could do it. I
swear I have never cared so much in one moment than I have in my
entire life. I poured out my whole heart and soul to Brian and I just
wanted him to understand that nothing is impossible with God!!
Nothing! He just had to rake it one day at a time and pray for help!
He said that he would try his hardest to be ready by that day. A lot
of times these TRC investigators that we teach are fake and are
already members but I honestly didn't even care at that point, I'm so
glad that we have gotten to teach him over the past few weeks. I've
learned so much from him during those lessons and I wouldn't trade it
for anything.

Saturday was cool. We just had regular normal classes and stuff. We
said goodbye to the departing districts and hung out with them before
they all left on Monday/today. That night all of the hermanas in our
zone we're chilling in the living room telling embarrassing stories
and we're talking about their lives back at home and stuff and it was
great to get to know all of them!

Sunday there were like a million devotionals and meetings and stuff.
The only things I can remember that stuck out to me were in the first
devotional the MTC president talked about how important it was for us
to always testify of Christ and that he is the savior of the world. He
said that any meeting or lesson without it is one that's wasted. Since
we wear his name over our hearts every day we should be sharing
messages about him. Then that night we watched the annual Christmas
devotional and watched all of the general authorities speak. Honestly
the only thing I can remember from that whole thing was Henry B
Eyerings testimony at the end. He bore a special witness of Jesus
Christ and testified that he is the son of God and that because of his
birth, the world has never ever been the same again. So cool. the
Christmas season is great.

Monday was chill. Just mostly did Spanish and had our classes like
normal! Our teacher hermano hicks is awesome. At the end of our class
with him today he told us that we could just ask him questions about
the mission and like what to expect and stuff. All week I've been
super worried and kinda frustrated with learning Spanish and kinda
hoping that I would eventually become fluent because at this point it
doesn't really feel like it. And plus our whole district is staying in
the US and won't be completely immersed in the language. So someone
asked about how he thought it was going to work for us learning
Spanish and all. He told us that his mission president promised him
when he got out that if he read the Book of Mormon in Spanish and only
in Spanish they he would learn the language. He said that it took him
2 months to read it and at the end of the 2 months he knew Spanish. He
told us that if we did the same thing it would work for us too. So I'm
going to do that and I'm hoping and praying that I can do it!

Hope y'all have a great week! 
Con amor,
Hermana Anderson

Grasias

Hola Y'all

This week was awesome!! and cold. Spanish has been coming a long and thanksgiving was so good!!

So last tuesday, we had one of the members of the 70 come and speak. He spoke about not being afraid to say what you feel in your heart to your investigators even though it could be really crazy! If it scares you then its probably the spirit telling you to say something. I really loved a scripture that they shared, its 2 timothy 1:7. Look it up! 

Wednesday was super cold. We had a lesson with our investigator brian and it lasted a whooollllleee hour when it is normally supposed to be 30 minutes! woops. But it went so well! We explained what the atonement was and how it could bless his life and that through it we could let go of all of our sins and bad feelings and be forgiven! We asked him if he would be baptized and he said yes! We didnt set a date because he feels like he needs to learn more which is fine. But Brian is awesome seriously. Teaching him is always a good time because he helps us with our spanish and doesnt judge when when we mess up really bad. planning our lessons with him can be stressful sometimes but I actually really enjoy meeting with him because hes just such a down to earth person and really wants to become better! 

Thursday was thanksgiving!!! I loved it. Me and hermana budd sang in the MTC choir and sang come thou fount and it was probably the most beautiful uplifting thing ive ever heard. The lyrics are amazing. The line that says "heres my heart, oh take and seal it, seal it for thy courts above" really gets me so good. The whole song is about a guy who comes to know that Christ is our savior and feels completely indebted to him for the atonement. Which is completely true. Because of his atonement, we can be clean and be able to have eternal life with our families and our heavenly father. Our choir director told us about how in the old testament, after they had this big battle and they felt as though God helped them, they raised this big rock thing and called it Ebenezer. Basically it stood for their change and how they would never go back to their old sinful ways and always keep his commandments for them. Look up the rest of the lyrics and listen to the song. Its truly amazing! We heard Neil L andersen speak and he spoke about being thankful in all of our situations and for all of the things that come our way. even the bad things! Because even our trials and hard thigns that we go through are for our benefit and for the benefit of those we serve. God has literally given us everything we have and everything we see. The least we can do is give back to him for all of his love and charity that he gives us. It put my purpose as a missionary into perspective. 

Friday we had another lesson with brian! We didnt really teach much but we answered a couple of his questions and he felt like we knew all about him but he didnt really know much about us. So for our lesson after that he wanted us to tell him about our lives and how the gospel has impacted us. 

Saturday we were planning our lesson for relief society and it was going really bad. Me and hermana budd didnt really know what we wanted to say and were just feeling really frustrated and stressed about what we needed to say and stuff. So after our study/planning period in the morning we had a class with our teacher hermano hicks. He talked to us about how in the book of mormon, nephi and his brothers were commanded to go and get the brass plates from laban. It seemed like this super impossible task but they brainstormed and came up with a few ideas. First laman went and tried to talk to laban and just try and reason him out and get them that way. But that didnt work and he got chased out by his army. Then all of nephis brothers went and got all of their gold and silver and stuff together and tried to trade laban for the brass plates but that didnt work either. Afterwards Nephi was really frustrated. He decided to consult the Lord and ask what he should do and that Laban be delivered into his hands so that they could somehow get the brass plates like their father commadned him. Our teacher Hermano hicks told us that nephi failed. He was not perfect. He had 2 failed attempts to get the plates. We as people are not perfect and sometimes we dont get things and have to struggle in order to know what we have to do! 2 out of the 3 times Nephi didnt consult the lord about what he should do. The lord knows best in everything. The lords way is higher than our way and it is important that we include him in what we are teaching our investigators. We need to try and teach what he would have them understand. Later thats what i realized that me and hermana budd were doing wrong. When we were planning our relief society lesson we werent trying to teach what the lord would have the other hermanas learn. we were trying to teach what we wanted to and it wasnt working out. So later that night we sat down again and said a prayer that we would be able to feel in our hearts what God wanted those other hermanas learn and it went great! we cranked our lesson out and felt super good about it. After we gave it on sunday it went really well and I felt like i learned sooooo much and i was the one teaching! The lord knows yall!

Yesterday we had another lesson with Brian but this one was only 30 min. We introduced ourselves again and told him about our families and our lives. We told him that through the gospel of jesus christ and the plan of salvation that our families could live together forever and we could return to see heavenly father again after this life! we explained that some of the trials we went through in our lives really strengthened our testimonies and helped us understand that God is real and God is there. He wants the best for us in every situation and he wants us to also grow and learn. He loves us but he lets hard things happen to us so that we can rely on Jesus christ and his atonement. I love this gospel so much yall. It seriously brings more peace and joy than anything else in this world could. Have a great week!

Hermana Anderson

Espiritu Gato

Hola yall!

This week was definitely a quick one. I swear the days are the longest days of my life and then I blink and its the next week arleady! This week was awesome and being a missionary is awesome. Im starting to be tired 24/7 but its the best kind of tired. My brain hurts so bad at the end of every day but Im learning so much that I cant wait to share with the people in Salt Lake.

Also I dont know if I explained it in the past emails but when one of the other Hermanas, Hermana Graff, was learning our Purpose in spanish she kept accidentally saying Espiritu Gato (Spirit Cat) instead of Espiritu Santo (Holy Spirit) lol. So everytime something unexpected happens we all blame it on the Espiritu Gato and tis the funniest thing ever. Yall probably dont think its that funny but it gets me every time hahaha. 

So last tuesday, we had a General Authority come to speak with us! Gary E. Stevenson of the 12 apostles. He is amazing omg. Since it is almost thanksgiving he spoke on the 4 missionary Thanksgivings. 1.)Thanksgivings for the change of heart wrought by the Gospel  2.)Thanksgiving for Christ and his Gospel  3.)Thanksgiving for the spirit  4.)Thanksgiving for the message of the Restored Gospel. These are so true! Ive been thinking about all of these things to be thankful for this week and how grateful others will be once they hear how awesome these blessings really are. Another thing I learned from him was that it is important to always extend a commitment after every lesson or message shared. Our purpose is to help bring others closer to Christ through the gospel. This gospel is a gospel of change, and without commitments to be better, to do something, or to look for things in our lives we cannot change!

On wednesday Im pretty sure I was the most tired Ive been in the whole 3 weeks ive been here. I dont know why though because I get a solid 7 hours of sleep every night! But anyways me and my comp and the rest of my roommates were really not feeling working out that morning. We normally go run or go to the weight room but on wednesday we decided to just chill and do some yoga. Definitely a good decision! We also had a lesson with our investigator Brian that we felt super unprepared for but it ended up going a lot better than we expected.

On Thursday omg it snowed for the first time and i am nooooottttt a fan of snow. Like not at all. Obviously ill be living here for the next 18 months so ill get used to it but after not feeling the cold for 2 years this is rough. I was borrowing a cardigan from  Hermana Graff on thursday and one elder thats going to my mission, Elder Ehlers has a bunch of cardigans too. so He wanted to try on the one that I was wearing of Hermana Graffs. His companion caught this super funny pic of Ehlers and Graff sitting next to eachother while hes wearing the cardigan and he captioned it "When he wears your jacket....<3" Hahaha it was so funny. And then the next morning when we were getting ready for our class, he tried on her cardigan again and the teacher in spanish said something and we thought she was saying "no cross dressing" but we looked it up and it meant no flirting. hahaha woops. But it was still funny. But on thursday we did an activity with one of the other districts where we write down on a sheet of paper some things that we need or are struggling with. And they didnt tell us but they swapped papers with the other district and then we had 20 minutes to prepare a lesson for them based on the things that they needed. So me and Hermana Budd taught these other hermanas from another district named Hermana Crepeau and Thruston. Me and Budd were really struggling with stuff to find for them to help them with what they needed. We knew we wanted to talk about Christ's atonement and how much he loves them but we didnt know exactly what we were going to say. But whenever we went we totally said exactly what they needed to hear and Hermana Thruston started crying. They taught us about being selfless and loving who we teach. Both of the lessons were on the same principle, love and charity, but had a different spin on it to fit each of us. It was really cool! The lesson was supposed to help with with revelation and teaching by the spirit. One funny thing was that Hermana Budd wrote on her sheet that she needed more pants. We didnt know what the list was for until after they gave it to the other district. So hermana crepeau shared a scripture (D&C 125:88) about how we should always be clothed with charity. Caridad es el mejor pantalones. hahahaha. 

On friday we taught Brian with another member. He had some really hard questions. He is kind of having a hard time dealing with his mom and his sisters illnesses and is wondering How God can be so good when he gives us hard things to deal with in life and were doing the best we can and keeping the commandments. We did our best to explain to him that our purpose on earth is to learn and gain experiences so that one day we can become like God! Life wont always be easy but it will make us so much better if we endure our trials well. 

On saturday we had our normal classes with Hermana Southard and Hermano Hicks, our teachers. I really liked one thing that Hermana Southard shared with us. She showed us a video clip from the movie "Facing the Giants". It showed one of the main football players talking about how bad they were proabbly going to lose against this other team because they were really good. So the coach called him up in front of everyone and blind folded him and made him do the death crawl with someone on his back. He was supposed to do his best and go as far as he could go. The player thought he was only able to go to the 20 yard line but the coach thought he could make it to the 50. So he was blindfolded and he started. Once he got going, he started moaning and excalaiming that it was really hard and he couldnt do it. But the coach was with him the whole time encouraging him and telling him to keep going. He made it all the way to the end zone. I thought this really applied to us in our lives. Often times life gets really hard and we think that we cant do hard things. But God wants us to do hard things. He wants us to do them and rely on the atonement of Jesus Christ for help and for comfort as we do these hard things. With him anything is possible! We can deathcrawl blindfolded and with someone on our back and as long as we try our best and rely on Christ we can get through it and become better than we were before. 

Sunday and monday were kinda ehh. Just normal days filled with church and class and lessons. 

I love yall! have a great week! Heres some pics. 

This was walking to the temple this morning. This pic doesnt even do it justice. THis mountain was so pretty it didnt even look real. 

​The elders taking a bro pic.

Messing around on our temple walk

Idk i just liked this pic

​Hermanas ft. the elders in the back

​a few of the elders

​HERMANAS FOREVER

​Elder Ehlers with the cardigan and when Hermana Southard told him to stop flirting hahaha

​Me n Budd <3
​

​

Hermana Anderson

​Hola/Aloha/Hey!

This week was fairly normal I guess if you could consider what im doing normal. Spanish is coming along i guess! Its still super hard but hopefully itll get better with time. I feel like ive been here in the MTC forever but its only been 2 weeks! crazy. but its great here! the food is a little rough on my stomach sometimes but i couldnt be happier. 

Wednesday we didnt do much. A bunch of studying and preparing to teach our investigator lessons. 

Thursday we had our first service assignment! it was cleaning the showers in the bathroom. normally i really hate doing that but this time it was way  more fun becuase you got to spray the showers with a hose and some weird soap stuff. me and hermana budd had a good time with it. We had our 5th lesson with Diana and it went way better than expected! I used google translate less than i did before and i feel like she really understood what we were saying. We taught her the plan of salvation and i drew the little picture chart on the board and she laughed at my drawings haha. But its okay becauase i think she really got it! Hermana Budd and I work really well together in lessons and while we study and just in general. i love her shes awesome. Were still really struggling with spanish and a lot of our district is too but its all good! hopefully we pick it up sooner rather than later haha. 

Friday was just a really funny day in general. There is one elder in my district named Elder Smith and hes just soooo funny. Hes  been sick all week and today he was like saying something in spanish and he lost his voice in the middle of the sentance! haha funniest thing ive ever heard. He sounded like mickey mouse for like the next day and a half and anytime he talked we all just busted out laughing. Ive really been missing music a lot lately! me and the other hermanas all listened to the same type of music back home so we definitely bonded over that. Also on friday we had a practice lesson with our spanish teacher hermano hicks. He showed us what a real lesson should look like and hermana graff played a fake investigator. It was amazing!! I really learned a lot from him. He asked so many questions that i never really thought to ask and said so many different things that made so much sense. I love being a missionary!! its so hard but its so fulfilling at the same time. Im really grateful for the mtc so that i can better myself and study so that when i get out into the field i can help other people know the happiness that I know. 

Saturday was just saturday. Im not really sure what to say about it other than it was kinda just a normal day and didnt really feel like a real saturday would back home.

Sunday was really good like sundays normally are! Church was good. There was a couple from argentina that served under one of our counselors when he was the Misison President somewhere down there. They got up and bore their testiomonies in spanish and it sounded really weird. I guess argentinians have a really weird kind of accent or something. I only undertsood about 3 words from each of them but it sounded like it came from the heart. Then after them the departing districts had a musical number and sang If you could hie to kolob and it was beautiful!! they did a really awesome job. Then later that night me and Budd went to choir practice. We decided to join the MTC choir! Im nor normally into that kind of stuff and i suck at singing but its really cool. The choir director is awesome and tells awesome stories. that night we practiced Joseph Smiths First Prayer and it sounds sooooooooooo good. Im so excited to sing it in tonights devotional. While we were pracctiicing it, he told us something that was really interesting. He said that when joseph recounted his first vision when he saw God the Father and Jesus christ, he told it differently to different people. Most people use that against him saying that because he did that he was lying and theres no way that he saw what he saw. But in reality its the opposite. When we tell lies we usually rehearse it in our heads a bunch of times before we tell it and make sure that we dont get it wrong. But since joseph really did see what he saw there was no way he could have recounted the story the same to everyone! To some he would tell more details because they would ask  more and to some he would just tell the basics of the story. 

Yesterday we had our first TRC lesson with another investigatior. It was rouuuuughhhhhh but still a good learning experience. It was different than teaching Diana. (she ended up being fake and becoming another one of our teachers haha wow). But yeah our spanish was rough and we have lots to work on. Learning spanish is really hard and so is learning how to teach with the spirit, but I know for a fact that God is looking out for us. Even though we go through tough times and have stuff that brings us down, God is there and wants us to turn to him and ask for help! He wont ever let us down. I love yall and hope everyone has a great week!

Hey everyone!! I made it here to the MTC and its pretty cool. A lot better than i expected it to be! Im so pumped to be here learning spanish and doing the Lord's work! 

So i arrived last Wednesday and that was probably the craziest day of my life. Youre running around all day and you have absolute zero time to feel homesick or basically anything else other than OMG. But it was great! My companion and district are soooooo awesome. We all get along so great. Waking up at 6:30 everyday has been a little of an adjustment and i go to bed every night SOOOOO tired but I know that its all worth it. 

Thursday was our first real day as missionaries. haha We hear some pretty funny things while walking around. The best thing ive heard so far was when we were walking to breakfast and we here this one elder say kind of loudly and obviously we heard it out of context but he said "Spicy is nicey!!!" haha so funny. And we started learning spanish on thursday too. Its SOOO HARD! I thought it was gonna be way easier than it actually is. We met our branch president too and he is seriously one of the coolest people ever. He gave us a ton of great advice about being missionaries and learing spanish.

Friday was a really hard day for me and my companion hermana budd. They give us a lot of free study time in the beginning and we dont really know what to do with all of it. Also spanish proved to be really hard on friday too so we were both just kinda down. But we taught our first investigator on friday! It wasnt as bad as i thought it was going to be. In our broken spanish we did our best to explain to her that God is our loving Heavenly Father and loves us soooo much. He sent Jesus to this earth so that he could fulfill the atonement and we could be saved from our sins and return to live with him again like we did before but with bodies and 100x better.I think She understood most of it but it was really rough haha. But after our lesson we went outside and were studying and i was just really annoyed with a lot of things going on but especially annoyed that we didnt have a teacher there most of the time to help us with spanish and we were kinda just left to figure out what to do for ourselves. So i was sitting outside and it was freezing (like maybe 60 degrees lol) and i was really annoyed with everything. So i said a prayer that I could learn spanish quickly and that our teacher could please come and teach us some stuff because I was sick of not knowing spanish. And i kid you not 2 minutes later our teacher walked up and said that we had class right now!! God is real yall and he cares so much. 

Saturday was fairly good. We studied a whole bunch and planned out another lesson for our investigator. I dont really know what else to say for saturday other than that. 

Sunday was interesting! It was definitely not a typical sunday but it was good none the less. I think the highlight of sunday was this movie that we watched that night as a district. It was actually a talk that Elder Bednar gave a few years ago called Characters of Christ. Let me tell yall that was probably the most amazing thing ever. I was struggling to stay awake during some of it because our days are so busy and we wake up really early. But what I got out of it was that as missionaries our purpose is to help others Come unto Christ. And to do that we need to develop the characters of christ, as hard as that may be, so that we can help people in the most selfless way possible. We should always be kind and grateful for our circumstances because we never know what others are going through and how quickly our lives could change in an instant. Christ was always looking outward when things were going wrong for him. He healed the sick and went out of his way to make sure others knew that they were loved. As hard as it is, we should always try to put others first! 

Yesterday was good. I guess kind of a normal day. We taught our investigator a lesson and we studied a bunch of spanish. When we had class last night i really liked this one activity that we did. We had to figure out in spanish how to share our favorite scripture with someone and explain it to where they can understand it. I shared Alma 26:11-12. Its sooooo great everyone look it up please. It talks about how we as people do a lot of great things and help a lot of people out but none of it is because of us. It is because of God that we can do all things and it is because of God that we are able to help bring other people unto christ. This scripture is definitely one im going to be living by for the next 18 months. This life is amazing!! Thank our Heavenly Father for all things because through Jesus Christ, we are able to have eternal life and that is the greatest thing ever. I love yall so much and hope everyone has a great week!