Elder Joseph Anderson's latest letter from Argentina

Yesterday I got to talk to my amazing family por skype and I want to let them know that I love all of them so much. John, it doesnt do you any good to look like just bieber right now because you have to wait until your 16 to date anyway, just dont come down to Argentina anytime soon because the girls will eat you alive. Anna, on the other hand, you should take advantage of the dating opportunity and go on as many dates as possible even with guys you dont like just to get free dinner and see some movies for free. Angela, it looks like you getting taller and taller by the day and my prediction is coming true...that basketball is your easiest way into college for free, so practice! Alisha, I have never seen your hair so long and pretty! I also dont remember you with glasses but your look now is gorgeous! Jordan, I always new you were a sly guy with a quick hand I it makes sense now why, because you are supposed to be a magician. keep up the pracitce and you will be the best magician ever. Mom I am glad you like the new house, it looks pretty dang sweet especially the kitchen. Perfect for when I come back and you have to teach me how to make me all of my favorite foods. ITS NOT A ONE MAN KITCHEN ANYMORE!!! haha. Dad your beard is huge and it makes me remember when you were in Iraq and you sent back pictures of you looking like a straight iraqi. Cant wait to talk to all of you again in two months.

This week Elder Julaj and I worked our buts off and we had to miracles from the Lord yesterday at church. We worked all week finding and teaching people and commiting them to come to church on sunday. On saturday night we were feeling pretty good about quite a few people who we had talked to and who had committed to be at church on Sunday. Well we show up to church on sunday morning after spending an hour and a half going by the house of each person to wake them up and "Animarles" to come to church and none of them came. HOWEVER, two of our recent converts brought there friends to church so we actually had investigators at church. Elder Julaj had made a promise to our zone that if we met a goal for certain number of new investigators found and lessons taught in one week we would have people at church. We had met the goal for both numbers and we know that the Lord blessed us with two miracles.

I know that this church is true and that in it we find true and everlasting happiness. I know that Jesus Christ lives and directs his church daily and that the leaders of the church are called and led by God.

I love you all very much and I´ll talk to you next week!

Elder Anderson (The Argentine) 

Elder Ray Vejnar's latest letter from the Prove MTC mission

      Ok so as we all know General Conference was this week and it was truly amazing, and this time around I did not half to go to the gym to watch it! I will send pictures of the mission watching conference. I think that this time the 70s of the church did an amazing job! I think that my favorite talks where by Elder Lynn G. Robbins and how we should not pretend to lower the lords standards to make us feel better but raise our standards to meet God's. I also liked Elder Uchtdorf's talk in how spiritual truths deserve spiritual answers, we get a lot of people that come and talk to us and tell us that this church cant be true because of a lack of evidence, when those things do not matter, because it is a spiritual question to know if this is Christ's church on the earth today I try to remember that all the time! and remember the answers that I have received from my heavenly father! 

      So when conference roles around the chat system is turned off and we are left with nothing to do unless we have lessons that we can teach, we had two lessons planed for after the last session of conference, and wouldn't you know it neither one showed up! We did get to reschedule with both of them, and that was a blessing but it still left us with nothing to do for the rest of that night, we took the time to study the notes we where able to take during the conference and it turned out to be a good time, We also had an investigator message us during this time and tell us that he liked the conference and that he had talked with the missionary's in his area and now has a baptism date for November 1 his name is Sean, and he lives in New York, We where also glad that we had the time to talk to him about this and answer some of his questions and make sure that this is something that he truly wants to do. I know that baptism is a really good thing but I do not want anyone to be baptized if they are going to turn around the next day and say no I don't think I want to do this anymore, It is much better to hear that these people know and want to make this a lifetime commitment to living a Christ like life! I think that study is my favorite thing to I love the gospel and the simple things that I have been able to learn out here. from people that are so ready to hear about the gospel and live it to the fullest. 

     They are staring to do construction here in the MTC and all I can really think about it is man I miss being able to work with my hands it is hard and not something that I think I would do with the rest of my life but it is something that I enjoyed doing. That is really the big things that happened this week I hope that you all had a good week! And that conference was as good for you as it was for me. Wishing you all the best,

Elder Vejnar 

Elder Joshua Anderson's latest letter from Scottesdale AZ

Not much has happened this week. We finally got one of our long-term investigators on date. He is married to two women and needs to get a divorce from one of them before he can be baptized. He doesn't live with either one of them though. He doesn't even know where one of them is... Anyways he has finally started saving up to get the divorce. We are hoping to baptize him in January. 

We also just started teaching a women named Mereciana. She is originally form west Africa and that culture still plays a big role in her life. She was a referral, so when we first met her we could tell that she was really nice. She invited us into her home immediately and fed us dinner. It was a lot of fun. now that we are teaching her she is making really great progress. We have tickets to go see the Phoenix temple open house to show her where she can be sealed to her family. 

We are also teaching a new person named Tamia. I guess she was originally a male and changed her sex. We met with her last night and she is super excited to meet with us. Last night she told us that she wanted to be baptized... We didn't really know how to respond, so I just told her that we should get through all the lessons before we get to that point. We called our mission president that night and asked him what we should do. I guess if she as had a sex changed she can't get married in this life. It is just so upsetting to see how Satan has got such a strong hold of people. There has already been so much damage that has been done it will be really really hard for Tamia to achieve Celestial glory- it is just so so so so sad. I am so grateful for parents who raised me in the church and kept me safe. They helped me stay on that straight and narrow path from the very beginning. 

On a happier note, my companion and I got to talk in sacrament meeting with our ward mission leader. We have an amazing ward mission leader and some great ward missionaries. We both gave about a five minute talk. I gave my talk with just bullet points to help me get through it. That was the first time I have ever done that and I think it went pretty well. At the end my companion and I taught the restoration to the congregation. I got to share the part about the first vision and I felt the spirit so strong. It was really amazing. I thought it would have been a good idea to share the first lesson so members could be more familiar about how we teach. It was actually really successful. We had a couple members that wanted us to come into their home and teach their friends that same thing we taught at the pulpit. I think once we showed them that the first lesson would not offend anybody in any way and that it really isn't that weird, they were more receptive to letting us teach their friends. 

Our bishop also gave us a guitar, which I have played everyday for lunch since I got it. Playing guitar is a great way to relieve stress. 

Well that's about all I have for this week. Before I finish I just want to thank my two older brothers for being a great example. You guys sound like you are really great Elders and I think it is so cool that Elder Joe Anderson is a zone leader and Elder Jacob Anderson is a district leader. I pray for you guys that you will continue to have success. 

- Elder Joshua Anderson 

Jacob's latest letter from Rio

So this week was clearly awesome... We had 2 baptisms that were just amazingly ready... First is Everton. He is 32 years old and first talked with the missionary about a year ago. When we First talked to him he had only been to church once, read the BoM a little but didn't want to be baptized. To make things short and let you know how much work we put into helping him get baptized we marked 5 baptismal dates with him. Was not until this last Saturday that it actually happened.

So when things almost fell through you can understand why we worked so hard to make it happen last..

The other is Weverson, we have been teaching his family for a few weeks now. He lives in a home that has a list of problems like you could never even imagine. When we first arrived there he told us straight up that he didn't believe in God or Jesus Christ... So when get got baptized we were super excited.. To ensure that these guys were baptized and that wouldn't decide at the last min they didn't want to follow through. We planned the more organized baptism ever. We invited the entire world, almost. We planned to have a choir, my companion would play the violin and another Elder would play the piano. We planned to have a cake and refreshments. We gave invites to our baptisms to give to there family. We took the baptismal clothes to Everton and Weverson on Tuesday and had them try on the clothes and we took pictures with them to help them stay excited. We gave there numbers to every body we talked to during the week (members and non

members) and asked them to call Weverson and Everton and give them a para bems (congrats) for the baptismal date they had.

So Saturday Morning we teach an english. When we got there the chapel was pretty dirty and i guess the people who were responsible for cleaning it that week decided to take the week off... So my comp taught the english class. A Brazilian missionary who is trying to learning English stayed with him. While his comp and me cleaned all of the church.... about an hour half later when we finished cleaning and the english ended we tried to fill up the baptismal fount. But they have a ton of water problems so the church didnt have any water. If you know anything about baptism, you cannot baptise with out water and you kind of need a lot of it. We had non. So we made some call and in the end they said would be impossible to fill the baptismal fount or even have water in the church on Sunday. We called the bishop. We live in almost the same house as him so he is like a best friend and we talk to him about everything. We sat down with him and told him about the problem and how it was going to be solved. His brother is the Branch President of the my last area. So we decided to do it there.

Its not really a real church house there its a really bad house that they rent. It has a swimming pool behind it so they always have water.

The only problem is that you need to clean it before you enter because it gets very dirty. So we called the Elder there both of whom i love, one was actualy my first comp. So they were very winling to help. They ended up spending a few hours cleaning the pool there for us. So that was a lot of fun planning. The baptism was supposed to be at 6. At

5:30 both of baptism showed up at the church and informed them what was going to happen. at 6ish Weversons Mom and sibling stil had not arrived but everyone else had. THere was a ton of people there. The only problem is that with all the planning we did for the baptism we were not able to get people there with cars. Finally Weversons family showed up. We had 2 cars there to take everyone to the baptism. The only people that ended up going was our baptism,there

family(investigators) and the Bishop. We had 12 people at the baptism from our area. The mission of that chapel and one of there recent converts. My comp still played the violin and me and another american sang a hymn in english.. they loved it:) not because of our singing but because my comp plays really well lol.. Every at the batpism loved it and they all at the end decided that they would be baptized too. On sunday they all showed up to church all onthere own. They will all be baptized on the 25 of october. EXCITING. My comp will just stay in the water his last transfer!

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And they call me

Elder Anderson

For behold I am a disciple of Jesus Christ

Jacob's latest letter from Rio

So first of all today was transfers. I will be staying in Saracuruna for another six weeks with Elder Olsen. I am pretty excited about that. We have been working really well together and have a ton of people who are just one week away from being baptized!

This week was general conf and it was great. I watched almost all of it in English again. I understood port but its just better watching it in English with all the American missioners. We ended missing the priesthood session. They play it Sunday morning but we were busy trying to take all of our investigators to church so we ended missing it and a little bit of the first session. We will download it and watch it in the house. I was super grateful that we could take 4 people to conf. They stayed for both sessions on Sunday and they all had personal questions that they wanted to receive answers too. All of there questions were answered which is awesome.

So last week on Tuesday i had an interview with the President. He decided to make me the new District Leader, that very day. Friday night I ended doing 6 baptismal interviews. I went there fasting so that I was sure that i could know if these people were ready! I was doing interviews for a little over 3 hours. It was a lot of work. When our Mission President does interviews he starts and 8 am and does ended until after 12 at night sometimes.. I dont know he does it..

My 4 interview I did was with an 9 year old girl named Emily. She probably understood the lessons better and was deff more excited then any other person to be baptized. After the interview I told her that she was good to go.. She was so excited to burst out of her sit and ran to told the missionary who has been teaching her. I didnt even have a chance to say a prayer with her. In her excitement she ended climbing on to her roof and literally jumping off. It was like 9 feet tall. I didnt see her fall or jump. I just heard it. I thought she was dead. The sound was awful. I soon realized that she was not dead but the way she led on the ground was just absolutely terrifying. She had broken something.. Maybe was paralyzed. I felt really weezy and could barely stand. I felt even more weezy after her mom picked her up and asked her to stand. She put weight on one foot but the other looked strange, bent and not right. Me and my companion(Elder Taylor, at the

moment) were sure that it was broken. The girl was screaming and crying... The Mom put her on the bed and left the room frustrated. THe girl needed to go to the hospital. She needed to leave to work. So the hospital was going to have to wait... I was freaking out that this lady was just going to leave her kid. We couldnt take her to the hospital so I was a little freaked out.

We ended up giving her a blessing. As soon as we put our hands on her head she stoped crying. My comp gave did the second part and told her that she would be healed according to her faith. Immediately after words She went to get of the bed. Me and my comp were still freaked out and didnt want her to move but she got up anyway and walked. As if nothing had happened. Her legged looked better so it was really a problem. A few min after she asked us if she had seen a Man in the white robe that had put his hands on her head with us. We had not, our eyes were closed, but we were sure that a miracle had happened.

The Church is true.. We have the authority and power of God!! Go to church weekly and partake of the sacrament. Read the sciptures and apply them!

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And they call me

Elder Anderson

For behold I am a disciple of Jesus Christ

Joe's latest letter from Argentina

Last week was a pretty crazy week with district meeting, Consejo de líderes with Presidente Franco, and preparing all of our investigators for conference. My companion and I were all over the place. On thursday Presidente Franco gave a capacitación (i honestly dont know how to say that in english) for all the zone leaders and it was really amazing. For about an hour he just told us about a ton of changes that he is making to the mission and everything that will be happening. Crazy to see how different he is from our last mission president yet they are both equally amazing men in the gospel. After he talked about the mission stuff he instructed us on how to properly conduct a baptismal interview. Last friday I did a baptismal interview and it was by far the hardest one I have ever done. I have never been instucted on how to conduct a baptismal interview i just read everything it said in PME but there are situationes and cercumstances that PME doesnt cover. So while I called Presidente Franco to asked him a few questions about the person who I was interviewing he told me that there are a lot of Elders calling him about situations with Baptismal interviews and asked me if it would be a good idea to talk about it the next thursday. Of course I said yes. After he finished talking to us I leaned to my companion and told him that I needed to have that help a week ago!! The interview was very complicated and I was praying the whole time that the Lord would help me. I didnt do it perfectly but the Lord did help me and in the end everything was wroked out the way it was supposed to be.

General Conference was amazing!! I watched the whole thing in spanish again and even though I still dont understand 100 percent of everything, I understand about 95% and the other 5% I either look up or just guess. I loved hearing the talks in spanish and it definately makes a huge difference for the spanish speaking people. After the chinese guy talked and Elder Christofferson said "Buenos Días" in the micraphone, Everybody in the church got super excited for a second because they thought he was going to give his whole talk in spanish. But he didnt :( Something cool is that Elder Christofferson served in this mission back when it was part of the Rosario mission and served in my area in Corrientes. the same church and everything.

Well I dont have much more time but I am glad that we have a modern day prophet and I enjoyed greatly all of the talks that spoke about President Monson and his calling as our prophet. I dont remember who said it but I love the words that said when we lift our right had to sustain our leaders, we are committing to "seguirles callados" or quitely follow them. We must support and encourage them in their calling and do all that we can to help. Under nooo circumstances are we to critisize or speake poorly about the decisions they make.

I love this church and I know that it is not a church lead by men, but by Jesus Christ himself.

Love Elder Andrson (Joe)