Elder Joseph Anderson's Latest Letter From Argentina

So a ton happened this week and it was overall a very tough and stressful week but I did get my first baptism. I have baptised other people for sister missionaries and stuff but this week one of the investigators that my old companion and I found and began teaching got baptised

Her name is Carmen  Miño and she is 37 years old. We found her just contacting and we have been teaching her for over a month now. Last week we set her baptism date for saturday because she had beed to church three times. So on friday she had her interview and everything went perfect. Then we made plans to go by and pick her up at 4:oo the next day to go to her baptism. Well on saturday we called her in the morning to make sure everything was okay for 4:00 and she told us that she was working on her house in another area (she is in the process of building her own house and moving into it) but that she would be back by 4:00 to come with us. Well we get to her house at 4:00 and her dad tells us that she hasn´t come back yet. Oh and the baptismal service started at 5:00. So we waited...and waited...and waited...and called but aparently her phone had broken. We waited until 6:00 until she finally got there and those two hours were some of the most stressful depressed hours of my life. Well when she finally got there we called the zone leaders and the bishop who were at the baptismal service because three other people were getting baptised and the zone leaders and the bishop told us that the service was over and the only thing we could do was try to do it in the morning on Sunday. So we made plans with Carmen to pick her up early in the morning on sunday to go to the church and be baptised. She was still excited. We then taked to her friend who lives across the street (who we have a baptismal date set for this saturday) and asked her if she wanted to come with us. She said yes and we made plans with her to pick her up early in the morning aswell. Well my companion and I woke up at 6:00 in the morning on Sunday went and picked up Carmen, Her friend Norma (and her nephew who we are also teaching) and two of Normas kids. We got to the church, I changed into my white clothes and Carmen changed into hers, we took a couple pictures, and started the baptismal service. The only people that were there we my companion and I, the bishop and his wife, a friend of the bishop´s wife, and Norma and her nephew and two kids. It was a small and simple baptism but still very special. I know that serving a mission is hard sometimes but when you get to see just how much the gospel changes peoples lives and how they can be so much more happy and blessed with the teaching and principles that we have, I wouldn´t rather be anywhere else in the world. I know without a doubt in my heart that this is the true church of Jesus Christ restored once again on the earth by a prophet of God named Joseph Smith. I know that true and everlasting happiness and understanding is found in the teachings that we have. I know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God and if nothing else it brings comfort and peace when we read it. I know that Jesus Christ lives and that he is the Savior and Redeemer of the world, and that salvation comes only through his great and everlasting atonement for us. I know that God knows and loves every single one of us with a ¨perfect love¨ that we can´t undertand. I am so grateful to be a missionary of the Lord and be able to share his message. I love all of you very much and I am grateful for all your love, prayers, and support. Until next week.

Love Elder Anderson

First of all I am sorry if you email me and i do not respond. I do read all of them though and i really appreciate it... I need more time!! We are only supposed to use email for one hour and this is not enough time! So very much happens in one week I don't ever know where to start...

I guess i should tell you about something pretty funny that happened.. There is some great Grandparents (alfred and bernedetch?) in our ward that we visit a lot.. There son, Jaffrey, visited for 1 week during Christmas and we taught him (he is not a member). We meet with another one of there sons, Luciany who is a member but less active. We eat lunch with there daughter every once and awhile. We have been meeting alot with there grandson Roan who is the son of Jaffrey and a member, he has a kid. He is very response to the spirit and I think he really wants to be good but he doesn't have a friend group in the church. We helped him attend this past Sunday but he wouldn't come into the Sacramento meeting room because he said he was ashamed. Early this week we met the girl friend of Roan. We were at the store alfredo owns. Its like a garage that he sells soda, hamburgers and candy out of. When ever we stop by they feed us a hamburger. While we were waiting Roan and his girlfriend came by. She was very pretty and I so joking/seriously told Roan i needed to speak with her... I was going to baptise her for him. When can I teach her. He laughed and told me to ask her. He left her at the store and left to go do something. Well his was gone I taught her the first lesson. It felt good because my companion was talking with Alfred and Bernidetch so i pretty much completely taught the restoration by my self. Except when she had questions about the priesthood, apostasy, and Joseph smith. Then my companion had to explain.. When Roan got back i asked him to share his testimony of the restoration and he said a prayer for us. Then I made them make a date together when we could return and teach both of them.. They decided friday night would be good and we would teach them in Alfreds house. Roan basically lives there. Friday when were walking to Alfreds house I saw a girl that i thougtht was Roans girl friend. It took me a few seconds to convince my companion that it her because she was walking away from Alfreds house. We ran up to her and talked to her and explained to her that she was walking the wrong way! She was very shocked and told us she was confused... As we walked to the house i tried to talk to her and make conversation ( my companion doesn't like talking to girls he says he cant feel the spirit when he does... ). This can be very difficult since i cannot fully communicate. I explained to her that i like Roan he is very cool and so is his dad and grandparents. She responded by says he likes him to!! but....... I didn't understand after she said but and didn't want to be a counselor in there relationship so i didn't really try I just changed the conversation. When we arrived at the house she stood like 4 feet away from the door and didn't really want to go in. Roan was very very surprised to see us there and even more surprised to see his .. x girl friend there. He had broken up with here that day. Luciany invited us all in and told us to go look at his new car he was working on. So we all went in when we started looking at the car roan and his girl friend left to talk. I at this point still didn't entirely understand what was going on.. So i was trying to rush my companion. We didn't have a lot of time left in the day and i wanted to teach them. I guess while they left Roan decided that iwas okay that she came over and they we could have the lesson. The lesson ended up being entirely for Roan.. But it wasn't until we started walking back to the house that my companion explained to me all the happened. Awkward... We called the next day and i don't think we will be teaching her again..

So let me tell you about a very stressful experience that happened this week! We were headed home and we decided that we need some food so went to the store and bought a few things to last us until p day.. When we got back to the house and started planning I realized that i had lost 40heis... Which is a lot of money for me considering we only get 120.. I was very sad, angry disappointed and just had all kinds of emotions going through my body. I wanted to know why would God let this happen to me... I am a missionary I am supposed to be bless. I do not lose things.. Why would he let me lose 1/3 of my money. I told my companion that I could not finish planning for tomorrow i was to distracted. I just wanted to take a shower and go to bed. I was so unhappy i did not even want to pray that night...! How was I supposed to make it 2 weeks with out 40 heis not to mention the day before i had bought a pair of fake Oakley for 10 hies in the street. That had already set me back and now I was 50 heis set back. But we i was showering I wanted to look back at this experience and know that i did that right thing. So instead of turning my back to Christ in my afflictions i would run to him in my affliction. After I got done showering I would apologize to my companion for not having my mind in the right place when we were trying to plan and i would get on my knees and pray! I was still pretty disappointed after this but I would let this affect my work the next day. I would think about the task at hand. It wasn't until that next day on the walk home did I have a huge realization. We had a terrible that day. Everything fell through it was hot and I walked at least 12 miles. But I as I was walking home I realized I was happy. We had a bad day but the Lord would take care of us. I thought of King Benjamin when he was addressing his people. Mosiah 2: 41. Material matters of this world do not matter The lord will bless us, temporally and spiritually for keeping the commandments. We do not need to worry. I lost 40 heis no big deal. The lord will bless me and i will be just fine. The scriptures say over and over keep the commandments and you will prosper. This also helped me with keeping my mind in the right place. I have been trying really hard to think of after the mission and only thinking about the task at hand. This really helped because i know that after my mission doesnt matter because the lord will take care of me! So only think of the things at hand today... Out of time!

 KEEP THE COMMANDMENTS. DO THE WILL OF GOD AND YOU WILL BE BLESSED.

--
And they call me
Elder Anderson
For behold I am a disciple of Jesus Christ 

Elder Joseph Anderson's Mission Letter

Not a whole ton has happened this week. I ate cow stomach soup which was pretty interesting... My companion and I are working in probably one of, if not the smallest area in the entire mission. We have an area I think about one fifth the size of a usually area and it is kind of difficult. We are looking everyday for new people to teach but are not finding very many. Right now we are cleaning up our area book by going and visiting some of the really old names we have. Some of the people we visit recieved the missionaries ten years ago!. 

We have found and are working with a few people that recieved the lessons before but not many of them are progressing. Most of them tell us they like having us come over and talk to them about the word of God but they don`t want to read or pray or go to church because they are catholic. On saturday we had a very spiritual lesson with three different investigators. One investigator we have been teaching for almost two months and she loves everything that we share with her. The only problem is that she can be very hard to find sometimes. So we found her last night at around 9:00 and because she has recieved all of the lessons already and is fully prepared for baptism we decided to show her the Restoration video with her family. Her kids loved it and even one of the boys who lives next to her came over and watched it with us. She told us after the video that she wanted all of her friends and family to see the video. It was an amazing experience. So we talked to her about gong to church the next moring with us and she said everything was all good. So yesterday morning I woke up to a text message at 6:30 in the morning from someone else that we had made plans with to go to church telling us that she didnt sleep at all and that she wasn´t going to be able to come to church. Then I saw that we had another text message from the investigator that we have been teaching for two or so months telling us that she wasn`t going to be able to go to church either. My heart was crushed. My companion and I had been working hard all week to get our investigators to come to church and I woke up to two of them telling us they couldn`t. I prayed and prayed for confort that morning because I was honestly just crushed. I didn`t know what we had done wrong. Soon after we left the apartment to pick up another investigator to go to church I felt a sense of peace and comfort. God answered my prayers and gave me the comfort that I asked for. Those three hours in church were amazing for me. I felt so calm and relaxed. I am so grateful fore the Lord answering my prayers and giving me comfort. I know that sometimes in the moment things can be devistating but life moves on and the Lord is always there to comfort us and let us know that everything is going to be okay. Many times in life we have to just forget what happened yesterday and move on to tomorrow with a positive attitude. I have such a strong testimony that the Lord answers my prayers and that he will always give us comfort if we asked in faith. This life has its diffuculties, but the Lords gives us what we need to get passed our trials and move on to the next day. If we read in the scriptures everyday and say our prayers everyday and keep do everything else the lord commands, we are promised to have him with us. Thank you all for all of your prayers and everything that you do for me and my family.

Love Elder Anderson

We got a surprise call from the AP at like 830 one Monday night (P-day) and were told that he would be spending the next day and half with us. My companion was a little annoyed I guess going out with the AP is thought of more of a punishment then privilege. I was excited. He is American and knows English. The apartment was clean and I had cleaned my stuff early that day. I deff a perfect mission so I had nothing to worry about ;) The next morning we woke and got dressed and left the house as soon as possible. We then waited at a bus stop for about 45 min for the AP. He was late... We we got back to the apartment the first thing he said to me was.. Is this your desk? I proudly said yeah... (I thought he was complementing it). I had a lot of things on my desk.. I guess to much that I didn't need during study and though it was very organized but he did not see it as clean. He Then asked Did you spend 5 min organizing this before i got here? I didn't answer, I just kinda timidly acknowledge his comment. I had actually spent like 2 hours make it look nice the day before, P-day. He then explained then when it is messy it is more difficulty to feel the spirit and that is why the temple is so clean. My desk did not look like the temple. He then start taking everything off my desk and said the stuffy you need daily put here and if you don't need it daily put it here. I was a little in shock and it took me about 5 min to comply with his request. I just kind of stood there and watched him work. It was not just my desk he didn't like. He didn't like how i had my shoes organized, how clean the floor was and all of the other companion ships stuffy in our room that didn't need to be there. Finally when I grasped that this was real life I picked up the a little box that had all my pencils in it. I wanted to put it back on my desk because that's where i felt like it belonged but I know he wouldnt like that so I put it in the pile of things I didn't need daily; I took out a pen and my scripture marking pencil. This continued  for the next 15 until my desk met his standard. I could tell i still had a few things on my desk that he did exactly approve of but let slide.

My desk was deff organized and what I called clean at the time. I can see now looking back how others would not have looked my desk the same way and called it clean. I have since cleared a couple more things off of my desk and have committed to keeping my things more then just organized but clean. I feel like this would have been an impossible change to make in my life with out his help. I did not see a problem. I thought I was living my life correctly. I have repented of my dirty habit and committed to being more clean in all that I do. This my sound a little silly but this same idea is true with all of us in our life's. It is really hard to look at are own life's and try to know what we need to change. How can we become better. But that why is why we have been given the Gift of the Holy Ghost. The Holy Ghost can make know to us things that we could have never seen before and through the atonement we can completely change. Even if it is as small as keeping a desk clean. Now you might think this is silly, but why not use the atonement it all things. Ask for the lord to help you recognize weakness in you life, pray for help to change it and do all the you can to change it. After pray for forgiveness and commit to never to do it again and pay attention to the difference. I have since done this made and made a list of 20 things and counting that I need to change. Some of them seem very small but I think thoe are going to be the most difficult to change!

This week we also had Stake conference, The Mission president, President Lima surprised us and showed up to speak. We all were arrived to the meeting about 30 min early after I talked with all the missionary I thought i should as well go talk to the mission president, I hadn't seen him in a few weeks. I walked up and sat next to him on the stand. We talked, joked around a little bit and he told me about 3 things i need to change. Starting with my where I swat and how I would dress from now on. He also gave me a message to deliver to the other messages.. awkward. When i went to go talk with the other missionary they made fun of me for going to talk to him, i was a little confused.. I think that they think of talking with president as a scary thing because he tells you that you need to change... I dint mind and even enjoy change. But half way through the meeting when it was presidents turn to speak I realized the result of my decision. President Lima asked me and my companion to come join him on the stand. He then told the stake that not my companion who knows Portuguese but I would be sharing my testimony with everyone. He caught me of guard and I was little nervous I shared my testimony with the ward a few weeks ago and i share my testimony with random people on the street but this was different..! I think for the next 2-3 i spoke Portuguese like I did the first week. But i guess this was the point that the President was trying to make. Even though i struggled with my saying exactly what i wanted and oh did i struggle the spirit was there. 
i am out of time!

And they call me
Elder Anderson
For behold I am a disciple of Jesus Christ

Elder Joseph Anderson's Mission Letter

Well this week was pretty tough. We have been working really hard with two investigators for a while now and they both came to church last week and we had a baptismal date set for this Saturday but when we went to meet with them on Saturday, neither of them were at their house and subsequently neither of them came two church yesterday. This week my companion and I have been working hard to find prepared people to teach but for some reason we are just not having any success. We have did service for an investigator for over two hours one day and tough him the first lesson and we have tried to go back twice to keep teaching him but both times we have seen him hide from us when he saw us coming down the road. And then his family tells us he is not there and I´m not sure if we are supposed to tell them they are lieing because we saw him run and hide. But its just a sucking feeling when you try your best with people and they first lie to you and tell you they are interested and want to learn more and will read and pray and go to church but none of its true because they hide from you for the next visit and tell their family to say they arent home. So yeah thats frustrating. That has happened with about 4 of our investigators. Everybody here tells you they are interesting and they will do all of the things they commit to do but they won´t. I would honestly rather have people just tell me they don´t like us or they don´t think our message is true so that we can either answer their questions or move on to someone else. But when people just lie its almost impossible to make any progress and we use alot of time with people who really aren´t interested in what we have to say instead of finding the people the Lord has prepared. Regardless I am still happy to share the message of the restored gospel to every ear that will listen and I know that if I am working hard and being obedient the Lord will take care of the rest. Sometimes my companion and the zone leaders tell me that if we meet somebody and after talking with them for a few minutes and getting to know them, we don´t think they will every progress to baptism for whatever reason we shouldn´t try to make an appointment or come back to teach them the first lesson. But the truth is every single person, who is willing, deserves the chance to here the message of the restoration of the  gospel of Jesus Christ. Yes ther are people who are pepared by God specifically for us to find and teach and we shouldnt spend weeks teaching people who never follow through with their commitments. And yes there are people who sound or apppear as though they won{t ever progress after just getting to know them for a few minutes, but if somebody,no matter how old, catholic, or whatever else, is willing to listen to the message of the restoration or another teaching of the Lord´s gospel, it is our duty to share it.

I am grateful for the opportunity to be a missionary of the Lord for two years of my life and I know that it is going to be over before I know it. I know that sometimes life is hard and things don{t always work out the way we want them to and a lot of the time we don´t know the reason why. But I know that the Lord is there for us as long as we are worthy and obedient and that he will take care of things in the long run. I know that the purpose of this life is to find happiness through principles in the gospel and to learn and gain experience to take with you in the next life. I can´t remember exactly where but I love the scripture in Doctrine and Covenants that says we will take our knowledge with us to the next life and the more knowledge we gain in this life the greater our advantage will be in the next life. A scripture that also goes along with this scripture is another one in D and C that tells us not to be idle with our time and not to sleep too much but to go to bed early and wake up early. I know that I only have one chance to serve a mission and I want to learn as much as possible while I am here and also work as hard as possible. I know that this life is short and we can´t get back wasted time; therefore, we should be productive with every minute of every day so that we will have an advantage in the life to come. I regret the time I have wasted in my life being idle and lazy, but I am determined to use the rest of my life to streangthen my relationship with my Heavenly Fanther and Jesus Christ, enjoying and spending time with my family and friends, and using every hour that I can being active, productive, and wise. AND HAVING FUN OFCOURSE!!!!!!!

 I love all of you very much and I am very gratful for all your love and prayers.

Of course wayy to much happened for me to even attempt to put it into a 20 min email.. Let me start of by telling you about my attempt to stop drinking soda. FIrst of all I have decided that my diet is actually pretty good and what i am eating is pretty healthy most of the time... Minus all of the soda i drink. My attempt failed terribly.

People only serve soda and so its kinda weird to ask for water if they dont have any. So I dont. Plus some members have learned that i love the fanta here.. I Loved it in the states but it is different here and it tastes even better. So members will stick a two liter next to my plate and every time my cup is empy they end up refilling it. Instead of ending my soda driking i end up drinking almost 3 liters of at lumch on sunday...

So i was eating lunch with the family that had me eat a bucket of ice cream the other  day. One of my favorite familys in the ward by the way, he is leader of the quorum here.. They are a younger couple. Well at lunch his brother (who is 31) was also there with his wife(21). I wish i had the time to tell you about all of the conversation that we had becuase we were almost in tears... One thing i have had to learn here is that english swear words are not swear words... They mean nothing to people here so members say them.. It is the worst when there is a song playing and members sing along and they sing all the words.. Which by the way i cant say i miss music. I honestly hear more american music here then i did before my mission. People are always listening to there music as loud as possoible and every one here has speakers that can shake your house. So about every 100 feet we just hear a knew song. This is kind of difficult and can be very distracting. I have tried to explain to people that you shouldnt do this and its a bad word but its just hard to understand.. But at lunch this one day. We were all laughing and having a good time and my companion was explaing that he is the only one in our house that doesnt understand english. we have 4 people in our apartment. He wants us to speak portuguese and we try but sometimes it is difficult when you have no idea how to convey your thoughts. The president of the quorm had a solution for this problem. When ever we all start talking in english he suggested that my companion start screaming f-u..I think you can imagine how much shock i was in when he said this at the table.. My mouth dropped and i had no words. I didnt see it coming at all. They all laughed at me becuase of my face. He then explained just like how they cant understand when i speak in english they dont understand the swear words. After this i have pretty much given up on trying to help people understand that swear words are bad...

Church this sunday was awesome. We had 4 investigators show up and this was awesome!! But the highlight was when I gave this 5 year old a little tiny smilely face sticker before the first meeting. He was instantly my best friend after that. He tried to sit with my all through sacrment meeting. But there as no room on my bench so at first his sat on the bench in front of me which was the very front row. So for the first 20 so min of church he sat on the front row (by him

self) and just would look back every few min. He soon got board and started coloring on the flooor next to my bench. I thought this was pretty cool and after 3 hours of church he still had that little sticker. By the end of church all of my class from last week had learned about the sticker and i gave them all one. This made me think of the atonement and the gift we have been given... The ability to repent for your sins and become obtain perfection is amazing. But often times I think that we dont give the attention to our Savoir that he deserves.. We should always be trying to be as close to him as possible and always looking towards him. With out fail and luckly when we fail at this we have the atonement and through it we can change.

Probably my coolest experience this week was with a more active memeber. A lot of times members will just give us money for lunch instead of actually feeding us. You can get a very large plate of food for our 10 heis which is like 5 american dollars. Sometimes its very hard to share messages with this people becuase they dont even invite you in even after you ask if you can share a message and so we end up jsut givng a message in front of there house. But One time this week i had a very strong feeling that i should ask this older sister if i could share a message with here. I didnt have anything planned and so i flipped open to one of my tabs that i had on my portuguese and english scriptures. I read the scripture and explained the meaning the best i could.. She was in tears and the spirit was very strong.. I didnt think a lot about it at the time but later that day i decided i liked the scripture and wanted to share it again. I searched and searched for the scirpture but couldnt find it... I still cant not find the scripture. This was really cool becuase i know that the lord showed up that scirpture for the member so we could help her.. It is a little aggrevating that i still cannot find the scriputre.. its like it is not in the scirptures..

Well i am out of time.. sorry for my english.. My portuguese and egnlish are starting to melt together.. its not a good thing..

--

And they call me

Elder Anderson

For behold I am a disciple of Jesus Christ