Still Going

Well I´ve been living in Argentina just over a year now. About a year ago Elder Leytton and I met and I started in Cementista, my first area. Wow.

This week was pretty awesome, full of good missionary work. Elder Balmaceda and I have been finding new investigators a ton. We FINALLY found one who I honestly believe will get baptized. His name is Oscar. He let us into his house and we taught him a while ago, and then we went back and he totally had been reading and praying, it was awesome. We had some great lessons with him last week. He didn´t come to church yesterday for some reason so we´ll be following up on that.

We did some intercambios this week, I stayed in Albardon with Elder Christensen, an Elder from Colorado. He´s awesome.... just a really interesting person to say the least, that was pretty fun.

Yesterday before church we got up at 5 am to attend the Stake council meeting, hahaha it was way Argentine because we all had Mate Cocido during the meeting. I´ve been extremely tired lately. Also the other day, the neighbors had like an all night fiesta, so we didn´t sleep at all because of Reggaeton shaking the walls haha.

Today we head down to Mendoza again for Consejo, it´s gonna be awesome, hopefully they show another mormon movie hahah. 

I´m trying to think of more things to put in this letter... let´s see. I´ve been playing the piano again for the ward in Sacrament meeting. The piano they have there is really nice and has the hymns programmed on it, but when I told the bishop I could play, the ´pianist´ (or girl who presses a button) got the shaft. oops.

We got a new ward mission leader, his name is hermano Montaña (yes, Brother Mountain). he´s already done more than my past mission leaders combined. Hahaa I love Albardon. There are a lot of really cool members, and the stake Chimbas wants a temple in San Juan. They mean business.

Yesterday during lunch we watched this documentary on President Monson. It was really good, and got me thinking about prophets. I have a firm testimony on the Prophet and Apostles... I know that they have been called to represent Jesus Christ himself. That´s always how it´s been, God blesses families through prophets. If we listen to what they say we will be blessed.

There are 3 things, in my opinion, that make people successful and self sufficient in life. Here they are. 

1. Read the Scriptures (study)
2. Pray (with real intent)
3. Attend Church (with repentance on your mind).

Doing those three things make everything go better. That´s just how it is. If you don´t believe me, maybe you should try it out sometimes. It works even better when you don´t feel like doing those things but you still do it.

That´s all I´ve got for this week. Have a good one!!!!

love,

Elder Anderson

The only photo I took this week

albardon week 3

It was a good week up here in Albardon, pretty normal, pretty fast. I never know how to start these letters but yeah I´m still here in the mission. It´s been fun haha.

So up here in Albardon we find new investigators pretty easily but getting them to progress is another story.... We´ve been able to put baptismal dates on people so hopefully they go through. The ward in Albardon is really awesome, there´s only one ward but 4 missionaries because it is huge. 

San Juan is starting to heat up again... it´s not even spring yet but it´s starting to get way hot during the day. We´ve been forced to walk again... Elder Balmaceda´s bike broke so we´ve been walking a lot. It´s good though, we can talk to more people in the street.

In other news, El Cerrito finally baptized a long time investigator!!!! Idk what we were doing wrong before but she got baptized the other day!!! She had to change jobs to get baptized but towards the end of my time there she was attending church a lot so they took advantage hahah. Cool Beans.

People do the funniest thing to avoid us....... like we had an appointment with a man on Saturday, and we saw him through the window, I saw him crawl to the back of the house, and his daughter came out and said he wasn´t there. Also when we are clapping a house and people walk past their own house to avoid us hahaha. oh well whatcha gonna do.

My companion, Elder Balmaceda, is extremely into rock music. he has a few bands and he was a rockstar in Buenos Aires... hahah. He joined the church at age 18 and now is 26 on his mission. It´s cool.

Remember the 5 curses of Mendoza?? well. I still haven´t fallen in the acequia. But yeah.

Well that´s pretty much it... a boring week but good. Time is still flying. Sometimes I forget what day it is haha. 

love,

Elder Anderson

 

nosotros

 

AGUANTE CHIMBAS

Well this past week was really awesome. Already on week 3 of this transfer... oh my gosh. Well let me fill you in on last week´s activities....

So P Day ended last week and we traveled down to Mendoza for Consejo. Elder Balmaceda and I, Elder Lybbert and Peralta, and some Hermanas who are leaders. It was crazy because the movies they normally choose on buses are way bad and stuff, but we watched Cokeville Miracle, a completely mormon movie hahah. I think Sister Stevens´ son is in that movie....? but yeah. So we showed up to the offices and ordered Fidelitos, an American burger place that is way awesome.... with all the other zone leaders who have to travel quite a bit. 

Consejo was way awesome. It´s basically all the Zone Leaders get together and talk about how the mission is doing and rules and stuff. I really enjoyed it. For lunch there we had the famous ´consejo tacos´ that they make quite a bit. So yeah. Then Tuesday night we went back to Albardon.

On friday we had our Zone meeting... and to say the least we did our best to motivate the zone to find new investigators.... and it definitely worked. The entire zone found 57 new investigators which is completely insane. We were way pumped last night when we gave the assistants numbers.

Albardon continues to be humble, we´re still finding a lot of new investigators. The problem is that they don´t understand that well. So we´re gonna keep searching until we find someone to baptize. We have a few investigators, but nothing huge for now. We ride our bikes around and talk to a lot of people. Albardon is basically a huge hill..... so getting up there sucks... but coming home is all downhill.

Yesterday I had my first Asado for a really long time. In fact, the last asado i had was back in Retiro.... good job San Juan. Not to mention the Olympics were on at the same time..... USA vs France basketball........ahhh man.

That´s all for now. Enjoy your week and remember Christ´s atonement for us!!!

Love,

Elder Anderson

 

ALBARDON

This has been an awesome week. The best one in a VERY long time. I´m back up in Chimbas, the promised land. I´m way excited here and Elder Balmaceda and I have been putting in work.

Well our area is the most humble part of the mission. We found 15 new investigators last week which is my record by a lot. There´s this part of our area called Campo Afuera that you can pretty much get in to any house and teach a lesson. It´s awesome. We taught a TON last week and we´ve been putting a lot of baptismal dates. We´ll be seeing baptisms soon. There is a huge difference between Chimbas and San Rafael... it´s crazy. Albardon is the area most north in the entire mission... also during the summer the hottest. But right now the weather is in like the 60´s I would imagine.

Here´s the rundown on Elder Balmaceda. He´s from Buenos Aires. He showed up to the mission with me. He´s been a zone leader for a long time now, and he´s doing a great job at showing me how it is. He´s 26.. pretty old for the mission but he´s all business. He´s been in Albardon for one transfer and now we´ve been tearing it up here. Also, the pench here in Albardon is one of the best in the mission..... I´ll send photos. It´s way awesome.

Albardon is so big that we use bikes.... So I feel like a real missionary now hahaha. It took a couple of days to adjust to it but now it´s all good. If you remember a long time ago I did an intercambio in Albardon... when my butt hurt... yeah that´s here.

So tomorrow we have Consejo of the mission, where all the zone leaders get together and listen to president goates. So our colectivo leaves san juan at 6 so we got a bunch to do. And it´s way awesome cause a bunch of dear friends on the mish will be in the consejo.... yeah.

I got my haircut today. 

Time is really picking up..... oh my gosh it´s going by so fast. 

That´s pretty much it for now. I´m kinda in a hurry cause we got some more stuff to do before consejo. So have a good week and keep the commandments!!!!

love,

Elder Anderson

elder balmaceda

don´t worry mom, we use helmets.

last monday, a bunch of missionaries had to stay in El cerrito for transfers the next day.. it was nuts. venegas, saenz, sears, bingham, lybbert, me, and randomly elder sivertsen showed up haha.

layout of the pench.

Transfers (you never know)

This week in El Cerrito was pretty great. I´m extremely tired right now. But that´s just how it is.

So there´s an area right next to ours called Barrio 3. An Elder there went home so his companion, Elder Sears, from Idaho, joined us as a trio for this week. It was a little weird being in a trio the whole week but Elder Sears is awesome so it was great. Side note: Elder Sears has won multiple Super Smash Bros 4 tournaments in Idaho so we talked about smash quite a bit haha. We also worked in Barrio 3 to help out his investigators there.

We found this family called familia Espinoza, there are really awesome. We taught them a really great Restoration lesson (the three of us) and I´m excited to see where they go from here. We also have been able to find a few people willing to listen so we will see how they go.

Yesterday was the big day of transfer calls, so we made Chicken Tacos (courtesy of the little packet of seasoning in my package, thank you).  They were really yummy and we got most of the stuff for free at a kiosko in the area. Also, it was the last weekend of a dear friend of mine named Elder Perkins, so we went and said goodbye to him at the terminal.

Well here´s the news......

I´m heading back to CHIMBAS, in San Juan, my old zone, to be Zone Leader in an area called Albardon, its the area most north of the mission. It´s the same district as Retiro. I´m super pumped. I´ve heard awesome things about Albardon. My companion will be Elder Balmaceda, from Buenos Aires. He´s from my group, one of the latinos we met up with in the airport. I literally could not sleep last night I am so excited. It´s been a great 3 transfers here in El Cerrito. Elder Bingham will be joined by Elder Orellana, from Chile. Should be fun. In other news for transfers, just for fun: Elder Lybbert is gonna be Zone Leader in San Juan, right by Chimbas, so we´re pumped for that, and remember Elder Agyin from back in the MTC? well he´s the new asistente to president! So yeah  pretty crazy I know. I´m excited.

So yeah that´s the news. It´s gonna be great. 

That´s really all the the important stuff that happened. So everyone have a good week and be good!!!!!!!

love,

Elder Anderson

perkins´s last stand.

chicken tacos with the phone ready to get transfer calls.