See You Soon

Well this is the last letter I will write here in Mendoza. I have no idea what is going on. My brain can´t get around the fact I´ll be leaving Mendoza tomorrow.

As far as our area goes, Nacho came to church. He´ll probably be getting baptized here in a couple weeks. My companion, Elder Banks, got transfered too. They closed Maipu B and the other Elders have all of our investigators and our whole side of the area.

I can´t really describe the mission in words... You just gotta go out and serve to see what it´s like. I love Argentina and I´m going to miss it a whole lot. I´m going to miss being a missionary and teaching the restored gospel to strangers. It´s so weird.. like you sit there and think that the end of the mission is coming your whole mission..... and now it came. I know that the gospel it true and people that live it are blessed. 

I wanted to thank my family for all the support and letters these past 2 years. You guys are awesome. I looked forward every week to going to the cyber and writing. It´s been fun. I got you some goodies hahah.

Jesus Christ lives. Serving him was the best decision I´ve ever made and I´ll continue to serve him throughout my life.

I could go on and on but there´s too much to say. I´ll see you all soon.

love,

Elder Anderson

Misión Argentina Mendoza

Getting Down to the Wire...

I´ve started the last week of my mission. I don´t know if I´m going to be able to write a letter next week so this may be the last.

We were able to find a cool family yesterday called the Familia Colombo, who seem really nice. We found them knocking doors and taught the restoration yesterday. We managed to have some success with Ignacio, because he came and played soccer with the youth on Wednesday, but he proceeded to hide from us in the weekend to avoid coming to church. Oh well. 

On Saturday we had an asado with the zone for all the people who sang in the choir in stake conference. We played some serious foosball (table soccer), and me and Elder Gato against all odds beat Elder Banks and Elder Keyes in like the 50th grudge match haha. It was like the Jazz beating the Warriors these days I guess.

My mission, to be honest, has flown by. I cannot believe it´s all coming to an end this upcoming week. I just keep on denying it. It´s crazy how the time has gone, I´m gonna miss Mendoza really bad. But it´s been fun. I think I´ll write more about this next week if I can, but I gotta stay focused for this week haha.

Well have a great week everyone!

love,

Elder Anderson

Zona Maipú.

Stake pres (former mission president in Buenos Aires) doing the asado

Maipú Week 13

Another week here in Maipú, all is going good.

So we have this investigator named Ignacio who´s pretty cool. He`s 17 and pretty open to everything. We were gonna go pick him up for church and he sent us a text saying he was gonna attend church in the stake center cause apparently he has friends there. Well we left Sunday School to go see if he was there and he wasn´t, so today it´s gonna be awkward if he thinks we don´t know that. We´ll see.

We let go of a bunch of our investigators, so it´s been back to the old grind of searching for new ones. But we´re pretty happy with the work that we´ve put in here in Maipú thus far.

We almost won a free asado. But we didn´t haha.

I was thinking this week about the subject of opposition in all things. I know that opposition is very necessary, like without it we wouldn´t be able to grow as people. There´s so much wickedness in the world and it´s pretty sad. There are so many people to attack the church but it still stands. And it brings so much happiness to the lives of people. I was thinking about my time as a missionary and the honor it´s been to share the gospel with people, even though every day is full of rejection and sorrow. It strengthens my testimony and it makes me want to be a more faithful member. There have been times in my mission where I have felt like a complete failure for personal faults and the decisions of others, but I know that the church is true and being a servant of Christ is the best thing I´ve ever decided to do.

I´ll be seeing you all soon.

love,

Elder Anderson

 Hno Celoni (the goat) at his 80th birthday party.

Last Transfer!!

This week was pretty great.

On Tuesday we found this 17 year old kid named Ignacio who had recieved the missionaries in San Juan, but then moved to Maipu. He seems pretty receptive and like accepts everything we say, so we´ll see how it goes!

We have this investigator named Fernando we´ve been teaching for a little bit. He´s always been pretty hard on accepting baptismal dates but at our last lesson we asked him if he had prayed to know if the Book of Mormon was true and he said no. So we invited him then and there to pray and it was all silent after the prayer in the spirit was way strong, and he accepted a baptismal date! It was pretty cool.

We´ve continued to talk to lots of people and try to get member references. It´s going good. If you´re reading this, give the missionaries in your area a reference so they love you.

Other than that we had stake conference yesterday and President and Hermana Goates came, that was fun. We were in the choir and we sounded pretty decent I guess. 

After the conference I had the best asado of my mission, the best meat of my life. It was from Hno Banffi, he´s famous for his asados. He was my first bishop in Cementista and I had heard stories and it all became a reality yesterday. I`ll send some pictures.

Today I did some souvenier shopping, sadly. It´s almost time to go home. But, still got these last weeks to do my best,

That´s it for now.

love, 

Elder Anderson

Elder Camargo dies today. feat. President and Hermana Goates

the maipu squad with some jerseys on

hno banffi putting on some meat

Mother's Day

Well it´s been a good week here in the good ole city of Maipú. 

First of all, we had intercambios on Tuesday, I went with Elder Marin, from California. We went to this family home evening with a bunch of people we had never met, cause some members from a different stake wanted to have one with their less active cousins, who live in our area but it´s pretty far away. It turned out to be awesome and there was a ton of food. Elder Banks was kind of sad for missing out on the food.

We also starting teaching an athiest guy who´s really cool. We found him knocking doors. We actually had a pretty spiritual lesson with him so we´ll see what happens with that. We are pretty much dropping a bunch of our investigators because they´re not progressing and getting other better ones. The mission is really focusing on talking with everyone in your path, and I think it was on Thursday or Friday we talked with over 50 people in the streets between lessons and stuff. It was pretty awesome so this week we´re gonna cash in on those names. 

Skype was fun! It was good seeing you all again. Can´t wait until Christmas to do it again! We got hooked up by this member named Adriel so the connection was pretty good and yeah.

After Skpye we did another Capilla Abierta, it was weird, because it was on Sunday, which was a complete mistake because River and Boca played yesterday right during it. There were like 6 people that did the tour and most of them were people from the street the other Elders brought in. Oh well something is something.

Today´s P day festivities include us staying at the pench and washing clothes. It´s been a while. We actually saw a dryer on sale at ChangoMas for about 2200 pesos, which isn´t bad, so our socks don´t become all crusty when they´re dry, but we decided to not buy it. Today we might play basketball too. 

It´s been pretty cold these days, but it´ll be warm in about a month here.

Have a great week and I love you all.

love,

Elder Anderson

With some kids in the ward after church

look it's you

After 22 month I found a mango

squad in Adriel`s car (elder banks got shotgun)

at plaza independencia, this was a while ago

noche de hogar.

. from the asado last week, everyone´s being a little weird

Work of Salvation

This past week was great, I don`t really know how to start, I´ll do my best.

We`ve managed to get a pretty good pool of investigators, and I´m pretty excited for this week. That one way gold family is still doing good. We haven`t been able to teach them for a while but last night we visited them and things are still going good. Hopefully things will go well with them this week. We taught quite a bit of lessons this week to newer investigators, it`s been pretty good.

We did a good job at explaining the importance of reading the Book of Mormon to our investigators. One of them read the entire introduction and testimonies and EVERYTHING before and had tons of questions about where the book came from, so that was good. Another one, named Fernando, read like 5 chapters in 1 Nephi which is a lot more than a lot of other investigators. 

The Book of Mormon is true. I have received a witness by the power of the Holy Ghost. I have seen lives changed, including mine, by the pages. It´s amazing.

This has been one of the best eras in my mission. Elder Banks and I have been working hard. When we wake up in the morning the day goes by way fast. These have been times I know that I am a representative of Jesus Christ and that this is His Church. I can testify of that as well.

Other than that, things have been going really good. This work is very satisfying when you see others come unto Christ. I only have a few weeks left and I still need to do my best, haha.

There wasn´t anything really that out of the ordinary that happened this week, just pure missionary work.

Have a good week everyone!

love,

Elder Anderson

Jesús es mi Luz

Hello everyone. Welcome to another week in the land of Maipú, it was actually a pretty solid week.

We had some pretty good success this week in finding new investigators again. Elder Banks and I went pretty far to this street called 25 de Mayo and we had no idea how to get out of there. So we asked this woman where to go and then (of course) we preached the gospel for a little. She told us she had just barely, the night before, watched a documentary about Mormons and she was interested so we taught her the Restoration. It was pretty cool.

We finally had some investigators come to church this week. One of our investigators, David, and his pareja (wife but not legally) Laura came to church. They are way cool so hopefully we can slap a baptismal date on them this week. They have 2 little kids so it would be awesome to baptize them. The ward did a good job and saying hello to them and swooped right in and were way nice.

Other than that it was a pretty normal week, I don´t really know what else to say. We´ve been working pretty hard and seeing blessings, hopefully before I leave we can get some of these people baptized. I also want to read the Book of Mormon again before I leave. So that´s that.

Have a good week!

love,

Elder Anderson 

eating hot dogs with the new elders in maipu, elder gomez and elder keyes

The Mountains from our roof

tacos with cheese and buttery tortillas

the zone at burger king last p day