Monday, April 8, 2013

I am a Missionary

Hola Dearest Familita!

Well it sounds like everyone had a great spring break and that Mom, Dad, Corinne, and Katelyn enjoyed St. George and Vegas. Sometimes the centro  (center) here reminds me of Vegas because of the smoke and lots of people..but if you go out there around 3 everything is closed so there aren´t many people. And tell Corinne I´m not fat..I am just becoming a missionary :) haha...she just can´t ruin my clothes...But speaking of being fat...gaining weight hurts, after some lunches my stomach has the hurt feeling as in streching, so yea if gaining weight didn´t hurt it wouldn´t be as bad..but hopefully I don´t gain much more and I can even it out now. 

But Mom you asked about exercise, sometimes we run in the mornings, but Hermana Hermansen has stomach aches right when we wake up so sometimes she just walks up and down our street and I run up and down it...if it´s too bad for her to go out she stretches and I do jumping jacks, run back and forth, and other such great things like high knees. but yea I always do crunches and my goal is at least 50 push ups a day. so that´s my exercise routine. 

And the bugs, for me they aren´t bad, but we saw some other hermana´s at lider last p-day who have been getting flea bites bad...but we don´t have carpet in our apartment so I haven´t had a problem with anything yet..so I am lucky! Speaking of lider or chilino Walmart I will tell you of my experience.  Well first we got on the micro which on the way there wasn´t too bad...they do make me sick and like I´ve said before they way people drive and how fast they drive scares me...when buses see dogs in the road they don´t slow down at all they just honk...so needless to say dogs have been hit..I am actually really surprised there are not more accidents. Lider was fun...they have American candy there like Reeses..which I didn´t buy..but kind of wanted to. and they have mugs which are so cute and only a dollar so yea I had to buy 2 :). I bought a pretty cool emergency back pack since we are supposed to have one and I bought some more sheets since I only had one fitted sheet (so after I get them washed, I am going to use the oil combination to spray them.) and I bought a warm blanket..which is great! So if you see my account missing money don´t be alarmed...and I didn´t know I would find myself saying this but I kind of miss Walmart..although lider wasn´t that busy it just felt like a war house and not like a homey place haha. But yea on the way back from lider on the micro I had all this stuff in my hands a full backpack and I am white..so yes everyone is looking at me and also this time the micro was full of people and you know being a new missionary I am all excited to hopefully talk to someone I sit by..but not I sit by some teenage who has headphones in and I try not to hit him with my bags and say sorry and he scoots further away from me...haha that was fun. also yea it made me a little sick, but not too bad. So that was my lider experience ..they do have more food options which is great!

So this week was another hard one for me and Hermana Hermansen with the work, but we were talking and I realized and was really thankful that we get along and that our hard times can be with the work, because that´s what we want our struggle to be. We didn´t have many citás this week, the ones we did have were meaningful and our weekly study of the scriptures class our ward does on Thursday nights we studied patience...so I had been reading about patience earlier that week and I found a great scripture in Alma 32:41-43 but I will only put 41 on here "But if ye will nourish the word yea, nourish the tree as it begineth to grow, by your faith with great diligence, and with patience, looking forward to the fruit thereof, it shall take root, and behold it shall be a tree of springing up unto ever lasting life" I love this scripture! Because it reminds us that patience is not just enduring the hard things it is being happy and looking forward to the fruit in hard times, me and hermana hermansen said we felt like the lesson was for us that night...but as we learned in conference all we have to keep doing is keeping the commandments and mission rules and have faith in the Lord. 

The highlights of the week;
I recited the 1st vision (in Spanish i might add) for my first time in a real lesson here :)

Me and Hermana Hermansen had a noche de hogar (fhe) with a member family and her brother and made real American apple pie for them (which we weren´t quite sure the ingredients with the crust and before we put it in the oven we tasted the dough and it tasted and smelled like play dough so we got really nervous that we were cooking spiced apples in play-dough..but don´t you worry it turned out great (making pie isn´t really that hard) and that we had a lesson about the importance of working..but I got lost at what people were saying haha Chilieans speak so much..but bueno I am learning to understand

Me and Hermana Hermansen got our first 22 contacts in a day! Yay...our goal as a mission is to have 20 a day, it was hard but we did it and on that day we met a man (Emanuel who was really receptive to our message and took a Book of Mormon and he thanked us for what we were doing and said we would touch peoples hearts, so that was a tender mercy from the Lord...we tried to go back and have a lesson with him the next day but he wasn´t home, we hope to find him this week, because he seems ready to hear the gospel)

I ate horse this week, also I don´t know if I told you in the last email but for one lunch I had mashed potatoes with fried egg on top..which i think is weird .that´s weird right? Hermana Hermansen didn´t think it was weird .she is just used to things here now..but I am pretty sure they don´t do that in the states. 

We received a reference from SALT LAKE CITY...yea I bet you are just as stunned as we were excited and called the number the next day, just to find out that it was the 2nd counselor in our bishopric...him and his wife wanted to know how long it took for references on the internet..we found out it takes about 2 weeks because the zone leaders called us right when they received it and we called them the next morning...but yea we should have known because the name was Cinderella....BUT on a happy note we did receive a real reference this week and contacted them and they said their family would be really happy to receive us...so we have a cita with them on Wednesday  Hopefully we don´t get transferred so we can go to the cita...we find out transfers Wednesday morning than we have the meeting Wednesday night. 

And last but not lead CONFERENCE!!! Ah conference as a missionary is amazing and it went by way too fast..sadly one of our investigators who said she was going to come didn´t...but we gave her the church web page and hope she looked it up. Jean did come and came to the baptism...we have a cita with him tonight to talk more about conference...we are hoping he paid attention to Elder Hollands talk..which was really awesome-loved it! And yes I got to watch conference in English-yay! Also can I just say I am glad I listened to the prompting to come on a mission, they talked so much about missionary work and I know I am in the right place at the right time right now! 

So yea I loved the references to missionary work. Also there was a theme of keeping the commandments, and how true peace is found in living the gospel. From President Monson I learned to be thankful for everything- he is always so thankful and is a great example of showing his thanks. I loved I think her name was Sister Wixon but she talked about children and the story of the man loving to learn and try to things...that´s like me as a missionary. I liked how she said it´s okay to try, it´s true with any party of life, you just have to try. And again with Elder Holland I loved how he said we have to act on what we know rather than focus on what we don´t know...because we will never know everything.

And Elder Richard G Scott on the Christ centered home..I loved that! I loved all the talks really! I love the power that comes from conference and the Spirit we feel! I am glad you all enjoyed it and learned from it. Mom when it comes out in the Ensign, could you send me a copy so I can mark up my own, thanks! 

OH I almost forgot our amazing cita we had with Carlos on Saturday between conference and the priesthood session...we had Hno Julio (from the bishopric) join us because he used to smoke and has a testimony on that...so we talked about the Word of Wisdom and he committed to a date to stop smoking completely ..it was amazing and what´s even more amazing is he has gone from smoking 20 cigarettes a day to 5 a day! so he is on a great path! 

Let´s see walking home from conference last night was so great..it was a peaceful night and I was just able to reflect on conference with the beautiful scenery of Chile and reflect upon how grateful I am to be in Chile, safe, and healthy, preaching the gospel. I am truly so blessed...and I can´t believe I am a missionary!!!!

Oh yea Hermana Hermansen is teaching me cool trenza´s (braids) that´s fun! Also I have learned so much more about the importance of prayer and scripture study everyday..I really don´t know how you can survive without it! Prayer truly is such a blessing from our Heavenly Father!!

p.s Aleisha sent me an email, let her know she has a letter on the way that I sent 2 weeks ago I think and that I love her very much and that if I could email her I so would! So yea just let her know I haven´t forgotten about her...it´s just snail mail :)

I re-read the book mom gave me before I left with advice in it, I love reading it in free time like p-day, so thanks Mom!!! 

I love you all and this Gospel is so great! We are all really so blessed and we can help others feel the same. les amo!!

con mucho amor,

Hermana Anderson

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