Week whatever it is i don´t know‏

What´s up family. how´s it going?

This letter is probably going to be pretty short as this was another slow week.

Elder leytton is finished with his mission in 20 days. so now he has less days than I have months. We still have no investigators although I know we could if we worked a little harder. Elder Leytton can´t stop thinking about going home so I just gotta wait a few more weeks to get back in the full swing. I love him nonetheless, and I´ve still learned quite a bit from him. I´m definitely ready for a new comp who doesn´t sleep in every day haha.

We have, however, been experimenting with our zone action plan which is a family home evening every night. We´ve had a couple, and so far no one has brought a less active or non member but that´s okay. We still had a good lesson and my spanish is better than ever. Thank you for all the prayers, I don´t know where I would be without the blessings I have received. 

The other day p day we were playing some games and I showed them that pencil game. (you know the one where you arrange the pencils and they have to say what number it is, and it´s actually your fingers on the table) Elder Healey is a VERY smart person and took several AP classes in high school and wants to study calculus and astrology when he´s older. But it was hilarous because he was the last one to figure it out and we still give him crap about it hahah just a funny little story.

Sunday was election day in argentina for president, so we couldn´t leave the pench because there were government things all over the place. So, Saturday night we bought some meat and had an asado with Elder Lafleur (also finished with his mission in 20 days) and Healey (has one more transfer than I do).

I was listening to a conference talk the other day on Elder Lafleur´s ipod about the articles of faith, I don´t remember exactly who was giving the talk but I decided to combine the talk with the ponderizing talk and now i´m ponderizing the articles of faith. So far it´s going pretty good, and I´ll be done with them in more than 4 months.... wow.

Anyway, you all are in my prayers and cool beans yo have a great week!!!!!

Love, Elder Anderson

Hola!

This week was a pretty normal week, not a whole lot happened but it was still pretty good.

We cleaned the pench for Joaquin on Tuesday like we always do, and it looked exactly as it always does and Joaquin got mad at me because the floor and bathroom still looked dirty to him. but he´s crazy sometimes, and he didn´t bring us pizza on friday like he normally does.... looks like I need to step up my cleaning game.

We had a zone meeting this week. Our zone leaders are awesome. the senior zone leader is Elder Baesler, who is my mom on the mission (last comp of Elder Leytton before training me). Elder Baesler is from Seattle and is a really great leader. He saw in our zone that like 6 elders are done with the mish after this transfer and gave this awesome pep talk about not burning out, (including my comp) and it sparked something in them so our zone´s number´s will be better. Our zone´s plan of action is noches de hogar (family home evening) every night with a member. yesterday at church we set up a bunch of them with members, and some of them are gonna bring friends who aren´t members, and hopefully we´ll get some new investigators this week!

During our weekly planning elder leytton told me if he doesn´t get up at 6:30 in the morning I can molestarle (which means bother in Spanish) so when he doesn´t get up I just clap really loudly by his head and he gets up hahaha.

Our district leader, elder Ribiero, is training a new missionary. It feels so weird not being a complete noob haha. he´s getting super frustrated with spanish but I tried to tell him that its something every gringo has to go through, and I still can´t understand stuff sometimes. He´s from California and is pretty cool.

We made some more milanesa pizza this week which was really good. I can cook milanesas pretty well now.

Today's p day activity was an asado out in the rain with the zone leaders-- Elder Baesler and Kreling, me and Leytton, Lafleur and Healey, and Ribiero and Conover, the new guy. I bought the meat with my personal debit card, and everyone just paid me back so it was just like i´m taking out money for personal cash. I also bought a backpack because we need emergency backpacks. I found one for less than 20 bucks which is cool.

As far as learning and stuff just the usual... spanish is getting better and my knowledge of the mission material is getting better too.  I´m actually really grateful that my companion is a native. We had a meeting with the other newbies in my group the other day and the Elders with gringo trainers´spanish wasn´t progressing. I´m getting confident with talking to people mostly. It´s gonna be nuts coming back from the mish and being able to talk to my friends who are also speaking spanish.

I think that´s pretty much it!! it´s been freezing this week and I´m looking forward to a little PRIMAVERA down in Argentina!!! also it will be the first year in my life it´ll be hot on my birthday, heck yeah. Remember i´m praying for you all, and when things get tough, stay positive and count your blessings!!

Love, Elder Anderson (ders)

3 Months

This week has been pretty cool and normal, but it feels like it´s going by faster and faster every week. It´s nuts how fast this mission is going by. In 3 days I´m 1/8th of the way done which seems loco. Anyway here´s a quick rundown of the weeks events.

The transfer ended, and my dear friend elder Later was transfered. We stayed at their pench last Pday night to spend some time with him. It was 9:45ish at night and we ordered some pizza like we do and we were gonna go get some Coke from a kiosco a block away but Elder Lafleur and I both had an impression we should stay in the pench. We acted on this, and a few minutes later we heard several gunshots nearby. So yeah it´s good we chose to be obedient that night, and the Lord provides in situations. Anyway we were talking about getting robbed and stuff and pretty soon the conversation turned into like evil spirits and what not people have dealt with on the mish and there was just a bad atmosphere in the room with the conversation. Then the pizza arrived and Elder Leytton asked if he could say the prayer. He offered a beautiful prayer in English which quickly invited the spirit, and all other feelings vanished. Gosh, the gift of tongues is sooo real. He is learning english and it was awesome to hear the prayer.

We have played futbol twice since the last letter. I´m pretty bad compared to everyone we play with (we play with the youth in the barrio) but i´m pretty good for a gringo. Last week there were a ton of people at the stake center playing and it was pretty hard to get into a game, because if you score a goal, you stay, and if you lose you go out. This one latino hurt his leg during one match, and my companion called me in the game. He was about to deliver a corner so I ran in from the mid line toward the goal and he kicked it perfectly up to me (i had 12 inches on everyones height) and headed it into the goal. It was freakin nuts and all these kids were so astonished haha. That was my one moment of fame haha.

I keep on hearing American songs, and especially this week rock. We were on the collectivo headed for wherever we were going and this kid came on with a mohawk and a bunch of earrings and stuff with "Another brick in the wall, pt 2" playing from his earphones really loud. I was so happy hahaha it´s been ages since i´ve heard that song. But then he left before it was over. sad.

We had a trainers and newbie meeting the other day. We were riding the collectivo and this guy asked me what day it was and all this random stuff. He kept on trying to use English but his English was horrible so I couldn´t understand. But I gave him a pass along card and stuff and started talking to him about the gospel which is cool. We were heading off the bus and I said "su ingles es mejor que muchas personas" which means your english is better than most people. and then we got off and elder leytton said Que mentira mas grande which means that´s a lie hahaha yeah his english was horrible but i´m not gonna tell him that if we´re trying to help him.

We still don´t have new investigators but we got a reference today and we´re gonna go talk to him tomorrow. Weve been working a lot with members and recent converts, so hopefully this reference works out and we can share the gospel with him!!!

It´s been freezing and raining all week. It´s supposed to be spring hahaha but not yet... i had to use my big coat this week it was that cold.

A little shorter letter this week but yeah you´re always in my prayers and keep on keepin on!! God loves you so love him by keeping his word!!

Love, Elder Anderson

It was really cold all week so I ate some soup to warm up. yeah.

This is a milanesa pizza. Elder Leytton invented it. pizza, milanesa (meat with bread crumbs. it´s amazing and is staple here.) on another pizza.

3 week old salad in the fridge.



Selfie???

End of Transfer 1.

Hola familia, here comes another letter from Elder Anderson. This marks the end of transfer 1, halfway through my training in Cementista. 

This week was pretty crazy, with visa work and General Conference. We didn´t get a whole lot of work done, but it was still a great week nonetheless.

On Thursday night I went on splits with elder Later to the offices in Godoy Cruz (he needed to do his visa work too. he has 6 months in the mission). There were about 20 other missionaries there who were either noobs or super old and need to be legal to leave the country. We slept that night at the office pench nearby and got up at 2 am. We took a van to San Luis and there we basically followed around Elder Benedict, the mission secretary. He had all our documents and stuff, we just had to sign stuff to be legal. We had meals in this restaurant which was pretty awesome. Then, on Friday night, we did ALB which means abrir la boca which means open the mouth which is basically street contacts. Me and Elder Later got assigned to the plaza in downtown san luis, so it was pretty cool. Then Elder Later wanted to go on intercambios so I was with elder nielson, an elder in my group at the MTC. We walked around and managed to talk to people. We started talking to this guy in the plaza and he told us after a little he knew english, and it was pretty good. it felt super weird talking to him in english. he gave us his address and now the missionaries there are hopefully teaching him.

Last night was transfers. I´m not going anywhere, cause i´m still training. Elder Later is being transfered to San Juan, the northern, hot part of the mish. Elder Lafleur was crying, not cause he´s leaving, but because the Rubiks cube is Elder Laters, and Lafleur can´t play with it anymore. haha. Elder Leytton was on the phone forever last night. Apparently our zone is super capo (cool) now. His last comp, aka my "mom" is now our zone leader, so he was pretty happy about that.

General Conference was really awesome. I enjoyed listening to every talk of every session Saturday and Sunday. there was a room in the back of the Stake Center for Gringos where they had a TV with it on in English. there were 6 of us gringo missionaries, (5 from the states, 1 from australia) and tons of members in the chapel watching. I enjoyed all the talks, it went by super fast. I hope the new Elders will be like the new Elder Holland and Bednar, but I don´t know about that. 

I have lots of pictures to send this week after we used crappy computers last week.

Things are pretty awesome here, I couldnt be happier. I know the Lord is looking out for everyone at all times. He always has his hand stretched out, and it´s up to us, through earnest prayer, to accept his offer. This week I felt great and remained happy, so I count those blessings.

A little advice. It is your decision to be happy or not. Regardless of what happens you can still be happy. I have been associated with people who get upset easily, get angry easily, and seem sad a lot. I made the decision to be happy all the time. Things happen, but it´s still the way you react to it. Reacting negatively puts you 180 degrees around the way Christ wants you to be. Things happen, but if you remain positive and happy, the thing that happened isn´t that big of a deal. I´ve had hard times, as everyone does, in my life and on the mission, but that doesn´t mean I´m changing my mind. Sufrir con gozo.

Anyway, this week upcoming week should be great... I can´t wait!!!

 

Love, Elder Anderson

New Argentine Haircut

The Asado last week