Joshua's latest letter from Arizona

So this week we had some good and some bad... The good is that we got 26 other lessons, talked to 50 people, and got 8 new investigators! so that was really exciting. The sad is that we had to drop Aaron and Melissa. That's right, those investigators we thought were super solid. Turns out they were just super good actors. They acted the way we expected so they could use the benefits of the church. We found out they weren't what we thought on Thursday. 

So on Wednesday we went over to teach the word of wisdom and I think that it went really well. My companion and I both felt the spirit really strong, but I guess that same day we taught it Aaron went out and got really really drunk. We didn't find out until Thursday morning when we were talking with another investigator that is friends with Aaron and Melissa. Before she even knew that we had taught them the day before she was telling us about how Aaron showed up at her house really drunk talking about how he hated his wife. We were so upset to hear about that. We decided to go over there and talk to them. We didn't finally get a hold of them until Sunday. It turns out that they don't believe anything we taught. Now that his wife has found a job they are done with us.... He told us we could come back so he could tell us all about how he could us the Bible to prove us wrong. We told him that we didn't have time to Bible bash. It is really upsetting because we know how much this can help them and they are just not at all interested anymore.  

But I guess to make up for it we found two other people that seem interested in having us teach them. I hope that someday we can help them both get sealed to the temple. Something I have realized is important is to start with the end in mind. And we want them to achieve eternal live, which means our purpose is to get them to the temple! Now I'm working on praying for the gift of discernment because there are some people out there that are good at pretending to get what they want. 

well that's about all for this week!

- Elder Joshua Anderson 

Jacob's latest letter from Rio

So this weekwaspretty awesome. Everything happened almost perfectly..

Started with lunch on Saturday. It was with our Recent Convert, we baptized him 4 weeks ago.. He does piece work. He is his own boss and if he has work he does it. When he doesnt have work, he is praying to find more. Friday the day before we had lunch with them his wife was crying becuase they didnt have any money to buy food and she didnt know what she was going todo. But Edwardo (RC) explained to his wife the the lord would provide and not to worry. And he did. Edwardo explained to us the he literally received money from nothing.

Litearlly. So there were able to fix us a really really cool lunch!!

The next day in church things just went perfect. Normally before church starts we have 8-12 people that have promised they will go to church. Its normal if non of them show up.. In church we had 8 investigators...Every single house that we passed before church was ready togo.. It was awesome.. We now have 6 baptismal dates for next week. All of them are super super super firm. The only problem is that next weekend in General Conf and Elections for Brasil. So we are not sure if we should baptise them the next week, after conf geral. Which would kind of be a downer because next Monday is transfers and so there is a chance of me or my comp leaving..

I studied about somethingreally cool that i wanted to talk about but i forgot...

Faith is a principle of power!!

--

And they call me

Elder Anderson

For behold I am a disciple of Jesus Christ

Joe's latest letter from Argentina

Alrighty so another week down and I feel like its been only a day....Ahh what to write. Well last week my companion and I did some more divisiones with elders in our zone and it was a great experience. Elder miles is brand new from the mtc and this is his first transfer in the field. He is an amazing guy and a convert from Utah!! yeah la fábrica as the latinos say. His parents are members but have been inactive their whole lives and Elder miles got converted when he was 14 and stayed strong in the church up until 18 when he decided to serve a mission. Just an incredible story and really humbles me and just makes me feel like kinda a bum knowing that without my parent´s support, encouragement, and sometimes forcefulness, I might not be an active member of the church today. It makes me super grateful for my parents and family and super amazed to see and know people like Elder Miles. We have found quite a few new investigators but it is really difficult to get them to church because we live really far and we have to take two colectivos just to get there, which is kina expensive to get there and back just one time. But we are working on it and we know that the Lord will provide a way.

On Saturday we had an Argentine asado (BBQ) with our recent convert and it was pretty dang amazing. The way they do BBQ here is build a fire and wait until everything is burned down to hot coals, find some kind of metal grate thing for the grill, throw some giant chunks of meat/bone/fat (which they call costilla cut or ribs) which are meat cuts that I´m pretty sure do not exist in the states, oh and all they put on it is salt, and finally they let it cook until literally the outside is crunchy. OOOHHH YEEAHHH QUE RIICCOOO!!! and surprisingly enough it is actually amazing tasting, you just have to embrace the fat and eat it with the meat.

Anyway that's pretty much the week, I will be watching the conference in Spanish again because I am only going to watch it in Spanish three times  in my life and because i get mad respect from the Latinos when I watch it in Spanish with them instead of going to the English room with all the gringos.

Love you all

Elder Anderson (Joe)

Elder Joseph Anderson's latest letter

Well I know I said that last week went by super fast but I kid you not this week was the fastest week of my entire mission. I will try to tell everything that happened.

On tuesday we had our district meeting whre we talked about commitments and how we can do them bettr to help our investigators progress more. After the meeting my companion and I did divisiones with two elders in our zone and I was with the one who just got here last transfer. Crazy to think that it has been almost a year since I was in his posision, completely frustrated with the languag more than anything else, and now I talk to people and don´t even really notice that I am not speaking english. Man I am glad those first three months are over haha.

on wednesday we had a Zone leaders meeting with Presidente Gonsales, the Area President of south america south. It was an absolutley amazing meeting. He is just such an amazing man and so isnpired in everything that he says. I honestly have never met anybody else who has the scriptures almost memorized lik this man does. And it was cool becuase he didnt come with any notes or anything, just his scriptures and sometimes whil he was talking he would just pause for a scond, lo0ok up at the cieling and then continue as if he were recieving revelation from the Lord in that moment. He basically gave us some really good insite on the way we extend commitments and the importance of the Book of Mormon in everything that we do as missionaries.

After that on Wednesday I went on divisiones with an elder in my district who was in my district in the mtc. Crazy to see how far we have both come in a year and how quickly the year has flown by. And also, we almost got eaten by a bear-dog that really reminded me of the dogs from hungergames.

On thursday we were in divisiones all day but there were a ton of phone calls to help people from our zone come down to resistencia for the night so that they could be on time for the meeting with President Gonzales on Friday. So that was a pretty crazy night we had to organise where everyone was going to do sleepovers haha.

On Friday we had our multizone conference with Pres Gonzales and it was amazing again. He talked about our faith to hav success as missionaries.

On saturday he did divisiones again with other elders in our district and on sunday we had church and ward missionary meeting.

As far as invstigators go we had to stop passing by for pretty much all the ones we wer teaching because they are not keeping their commitments. But no worry because we have the faith to success find more.

Oh and Another story is that some little punks kids threw a rock at me and hit me in the back so I turned around and took off my backpack like I was going to fight them and they all four scattered. haha

Love you all

Elder Anderson (Joe)

Elder Jacob Anderson's Latest Letter

This week was just full of miracles. We had all kinds awesome things happen.

First of all we a member guided by the spirit to find a women he is no longer active in the church and her husband(Edwardo) had no interest.

But we ended getting the opportunity to teach Edwardo in the church.

Now his in love the church and is starting the process to get married.

Hopefully we can help him along the way so he can be baptized and have a eternal family.

Second we had a someone in the street run up to us and told us that God told him to talk to us. He explained that before he left his house he said a prayer asking God for help with his family and to give him guidance. He saw us in the street and knew that we were the answer. We taught him the church with the Bishop and the First councilor a few min after he found us. He has 3 kids all over the age of 8 and is legallly married and he came to church yesterday. Couldnt be more excited for the guy.

Me and my companion are doing GREAT. He is my favorite comp so far.

Its very interesting because he is almost dead, he is going home in 7 weeks. I am super lucky to get to serve with him we are learninga lot together. We had very different opinions how to do the work of the Lord.

I know the church is true and the blue book is too. Read it.

--

And they call me

Elder Anderson

For behold I am a disciple of Jesus Christ

Elder Joshua Anderson Latest Letter

I want to start off with saying my emails are not as exciting as my brothers... so don't expect too much, hahaha. and I can't blame the poor grammar on learning a new language... Anyways, this week went pretty well. We street contacted 75 people and our goal is to talk to 100 people this week. On Thursday we were riding to an appointment and my companion wrecked his bike, so we decided to go to a store close by so he could wash up. When we almost got to the store this homeless man from across the street started yelling at is that he just needed to hear "the word" so we decided to give him a brief message when a drunk guy came up to us and started to cuss and yell at us about how stupid we were to pick Phoenix for our mission and that we should have picked Italy or something. We never really had a chance to explain to him how it works because the homeless man started to yell and the drunk guy to give us some respect and leave. It was a little weird, but he finally left. After he was gone the homeless guy decided to preach to us for another 15 minutes. He kept thanking God for giving him personal revelation right then to understand scriptures he was trying to teach us. He told us that the reason Jesus fed the five thousand was because they were hungry, that was his personal revelation. probably the most inspiration I have seen all week... hahahaha, anyways, by the time he had finally finished "preaching" to us, all the blood on my companion's arm had become all crusty. Well that's about all the crazy I have seen this week. We are now teaching a family that is super great. We think that they will get baptized pretty soon, which is really exciting. But that's about all the news I have for this week.

- Elder Joshua Anderson 

Latest letter from Elder Joseph Anderson

Alrighty so the coolest thing that happened this week was of course our baptism!!!!!!! Man there is nothing better that a wonderful, spiritual baptismal service for someone that is ready to enter into a covenant with our Heavenly Father. The investigator´s name who got baptized is Miguel Angel and he was soooo prepared. Just a golden investigator who understands everything. I only taught him a few times before he got baptized on Saturday because my comp and his old comp are the ones that found him but the spirit that this man has is just extraordinary. The baptismal service went amazing and on Sunday he was confirmed a member of the church and received the gift of the Holy Ghost. He also gave the closing prayer in sacrament meeting and he was as if he had been a member his entire life. Just an amazing experience over all and a great spiritual boost for everyone who participated.

Well in other news this week has been another crazy week. Elder Truman and I are doing two divisions a week with the Elders in our zone and we are just all over the place. Last week I went on divisions with Elder Remund who just got here from the MTC about two weeks ago. He is from somewhere in Utah and he a freaking wiz. He is going to BYU when he gets back and he is going to study electrical engineering. I started out the day getting to know him by talking to him in English but i quickly changed over to Spanish because that way he couldn't make me feel stupid haha.

On Thursday all of the zone leaders went to the office building in Resistencia to have a capacitación from president Franco. The meeting was very very different from the ones that Presidente Heyman did but it was still amazing. One thing he told us is to make sure our investigators understand the commandment and importance of reading in the book of Mormon daily and praying daily. He told us that if our investigators do those two things daily with a sincere heart, they will want to come to church and we wont have to go out and pick them up in the morning on Sunday to bring them to church. Those things are so simple yet soo true. i know that until I started to do those two things every day with a sincere heart I didn't want to go to church and I probably would not have had in not been for my parents

Well I am out of time but I love you all and I didn't want to say this but I will...I will be coming home a year from today ;( I GOTTA GET DOWN TO BUSINESS!!!!!

Elder Anderson

Elder Ray Vejnar's latest letter from his mission

     So this week we where able to get another baptism her name is Gemma lives in England and is really fun to talk to. She has not sent any pictures yet but they should be in my next e mail home. so that was kind of the big news for today at least. 

     earlier this week I I was able to meet John he is new in the ward and the way that he decided to meet with us is to take us out to dinner! Not a lot of people do that in this mission because not a lot of people know that we can do dinners. The catch however is that the person that wants to take us to dinner needs to pick us up and drop us off at the MTC, because we only have cars on Saturday (our p day) and Sunday. and those days usually do not work for dinners. But John pulled through! he picked us up and took us to Panda Express I have not been there in a wile now so I really enjoyed it. Also one of my companions Elder Heslop had never had Panda before and it was a little to much food for him but he did like it. I always love being a part of someones first time food experiences! I don't know why but it is fun to watch there reactions to new food. Yeah so John really made the week better that is for sure! I don't know why all my good experiences have been with food this last week but I was introduced to a new place to eat by Elder Fairborn this last week called Rancoredos they make the best breakfast burritos ever! Elder Fairborn and I are becoming better friends as the days go by we both worked in construction and we both have a lot of Dr. appointments he goes to physical therapy its a long story... but the end result is because I am the most able bodied I often get elected to go with people to there Dr. appointments. I really do not mind at all because when I am out I can talk to people face to face all the time! and I get a brake from the computer and the office. I also had a Dr. appointment this last week and there is good news and bad news the good news is my A1c for those of you out there that know what that is has dropped to 8.3 so still improving! the bad new is I now see a new Dr. so I feel like I am starting all over again we will see how this goes.

     finally this week I have been studding the "effective study" section in Preach My Gospel" if you could not tell from my facebook posts. And I think the coolest thing that I have learned is that going back over things that we have already taken a look at can be a real benefit. the better we know something the easier it is for us to explain what we know. I knew a little about this from school I found that when I knew more about what I was going to present to the class the better my presentation would be. However now that I am on a mission this is much easier to see. For example this week we taught a woman by the name of Wilma from the Philippians before the lesson in companionship study we went over the first lesson again, I felt like I had been teaching that lesson with far less power than we could have been. turns out that that same night we taught Wilma the first lesson! it was amazing how much of a difference the study that morning made! Because of that I know that study is important I know that restudy is even more important! I know that Joseph Smith was a true prophet and that the book of Mormon is the word of God I love this church and I love all you out there have a good week! 

Elder Vejnar           

Elder Joseph Anderson is transferred to resistencia

Alrighty then so first of all transfers were last week on Wednesday and at about 5 oclock on Tuesday I got a call from the assistants telling me that I needed to pack because I was going to be moved to the city of Resistencia as a Zone Leader. So Wednesday morning I said goodbye to my comp and our zone leaders and header out to Resistencia on a bus which is only about a 45 minute trip from corrientes capital. Well I got the the terminal in Resistencia and the craziness had already started. 27 new missionaries came to the mission last Wednesday and our transfers are pretty crazy here. The zone leaders get an email at about 8 oclock tuesday night and they call all of their missionaries in their zone to tell them if they are being transferred or not at about 9 oclock Tuesday night. Then all of the zone leaders go to the terminal (Bus Station) in their province/area really early Wednesday morning and they coordinate where all of the missionaries are going and with who and where. And the terminal in resistencia is by far the busiest because all of the news have to pass through there and it is right in the middle of the mission so most of the other missionaries pass through there and have to take another bus to another area. Anyway right when I got there I could tell it was going to be pretty crazy and I am now the zone leader so i have to be the on who knows whats going on and how to help everybody get on the right bus at the right time. Anyway I got a hold of myself pretty quick and was able to help everything work out okay. The only problem we had was two hermanas who missed their bus because they were talking to somebody and not paying attention very well.

Well my companion´s name is Elder Truman form Missouri (yeah i know I didn't spell that right, that's what happens when you do everything in Spanish for so long) and this will be his fifth transfer in this area. He has about 18 months on the mission and he is kind of tire of this area. by the way this means I will have over a year in the mission without ever having a companion who is not from the united states. But he is a really good Elder and he makes me laugh a lot. He is really goo at telling stories. We are working hard to help our zone and I know that we are going to see a ton of success. We have 4 brand new missionaries in this zone and five white washes. kind of crazy.

But there are some really great things happening in this area and we had two investigators at church on Sunday one of which will be getting baptized this Saturday. The town is completely different from the city I have been in for 6 months and there is dirt pretty much everywhere, but the ward here is really big and that makes missionary wok a lot easier.

Well that is all I have time for this week, I am soo grateful for the gospel in my life and I know that it is true

Love Elder Anderson (Joe)

Elder Jacob Anderson Gets Mugged

So my first week with Elder Olsen has been really good!! Elder Olsen is pretty old... He has less then 3 months until he goes home. So we are learning a lot together!!

First of all... We got robbed.. That was pretty interesting.. I have never had a gun pointed at my head. It happened like this.. So this guy on the street asked us for a little bit of money becuase his buspass had broken and he didnt have money to return his house. After talking to him a little bit and decided he wasnt a drug addict and he was telling the truth we started to count the change we had so he could get home. As we were couting the change 5.35 2 teeagers run up to us and wanted started to yell, "Man i got the gun pointed at your head and i going to blow your brains out man." While he was pointing threating us his friend told us he wanted our money. I told them that we were counting money for the bus and we didnt havnt much. He called me crazy and told me to give us his money and started yell somemore how he was going to kill us. So we gave them the maybe 8 heis we had (in change) and they left. I pretty sure it was there first time becuase when i looked the guy in the house who was actually takingour stuffthe guy i felt that he was more scared then us. He was so scared he didnt ask for my watch, they didnt ask for our wallets (with a good amount of money and our cards), he didnt want our bags that had a cameras and he beleived me when i told him we didnt have cellphones.

So pretty much we collectly we have him maybe 10 heis which is less then 5 dollars.. Yeeepp thats what you called spared..

The next day we were crossing the road, we had plently of space but the car that was coming decided to speed up, even when him speeding we only had about a foot or two until we crossed the street. But i guess he didnt like that we crossed in front of him so he tried to hit us.

Literally. My companion was infront of me so it wasnt a problem for him. But he was so close to hitting me that i jumped out of the way and that still wasnt enough. Youknow when a something pass by you so fast and close you can feel the wind. I had the same feeling with the car.. and then the his sideview mirror actually hit my arm. I felt closer to death that time then when I was robbed at gun point the day before.

And finally when me and my comp felt left for dead. So Saturday we decided to do a fast. Which always is a great exp. Except all of our plans afterwards fell through. SO the only thing we did saturday was WALK WALK WALK WALK. So we got home pretty tired. IN short when we got to church on sunday we didnt have lunch. But we were sure that before church ended we would have plans.. By the end of church no one offered to give us lunch. The funny part is the other set of missionarys in our ward had 3 different people that wanted to give them lunch and they were willing to give us lunch. But with the new rules we are not allowed to eat lunch with members in our ward who dont actually live in our area. So we were starting to feel a little left for dead. We literally have nothing to eat in your house on sundays becuase weonly buy food on monday and so by sunday its all gone. We really wanted to just break the rules and eat lunch witha member inthe other missionarys elder. But we didnt and finally about an hour after church ended and almost everyone had left togo home and all hope was gone. we were going to starve to death, literally was the feeling. A return mission decided to ask us if we had plans for lunch, we did and so he gave us lunch and it was awesome!!!!

Yeupp this week was pretty crazy but i had probablythe most spiritually exp of my life. WE have a less active family who is juding mmebers and soo basically i read the last paragraph on the litearlly the first page of the book of mormon and i told them "you are judging members of the church of Jesus Christ, Stop it Now (almost yelling and pounding my fist on the table)". It was really cool to feel the spiritual testify soo strongly of what was said. Both me and my companion talked about it after. It was like our heart getting hit by a train. The member who starts to joke every single we talk about the something spiritualy started to cry.

So i have decided to do everysingle part of preach my gospel. Read Eversingle scritpture and do all the activitys.. IT is awesome.. It really helps you apply things you have learned. I recomened that all of you do it.

The Chuch is true. The book is Blue and i love you!

--

And they call me

Elder Anderson

For behold I am a disciple of Jesus Christ

Elder Joshua Anderson wins the "Golden Sponge" award: