Colombian Swag

We´re still here in Albardon, this time with Elder Camargo, straight from the mountains of Colombia. This past week was way solid, we´ve been going way hard. Let me explain:

So we have a family of investigators that is pretty golden... Now, I don´t want to get my hopes up or anything but they´re way awesome. They are married and have a car, with 3 little kids. With Elder Balmaceda we taught the restoration and then we went back and they had actually read the Book of Mormon and had lots of questions. They had read 3 Nephi 11 TOGETHER outloud and said they felt really good about it. You have no idea how much of a miracle this is hahaha. So we got really excited and invited them to church, and they said they were gonna come, but for some reason didn´t. This isn´t over yet haha so hopefully next week we will have good news about them. If not, well, that´s the mission.

Elder Camargo is 22 and from Boyaca Colombia. He plays the recorder and knows all the hymns haha. He goes home 1 transfer before me (with Elder Lybbert). So it´s all been good, we´ve been wrecking it. 

So here´s a fun story. We had to do the Capilla Abierta in barrio Los Pinos this week. We didn´t really know where the chapel was so we left pretty early, but we got lucky and found it way quick. So we sat outside under some trees for quite a while (it was the siesta, there was no one outside) and a bird of some sort left me a huge present on my shirt. I´ll send some photos haha.

Today in Pday we´re gonna go play soccer for a little, and then we gotta go to consejo at 6. So we got a little vacation for a couple of days but then we´re gonna get back at it. 

Happy Halloween everyone, eat some candy and be happy.

And Birthday shoutout to my old man, turns 49 tomorrow!!!!! love you dad!!!!

Well that´ll do it for this week. Hope everyone has a good week! the church is true!!!

 love,

Elder Anderson

Waiting in the terminal

Outside with Elder Camargo

Then came the bird

hermana sepulveda cleaning off the poop

Transfer 10 in the books

Well another transfer ended. Last night the assistants called and my new companion will be Elder Camargo, from Colombia. I´ve never really gotten to know him but he seems cool. Elder Balmaceda is going to mendoza centro and will still be zone leader there.

We went to Mendoza on thursday because of Elder Balmaceda´s knee. He got it checked out by this doctor, and has to go back on Tuesday, basically to find out if he has to go home and get it operated on or not. But transfers are tomorrow so I can´t tag along hahah oh well. Also on Thursday, after the doctors appointment, we went to President´s house. It was way weird, because the last time I was in his house I had no idea what was going on, like 14 months ago. We went to his house because he wanted to talk to my companion about his knee and stuff. Side note: Their house is in the middle of mendoza centro.. it´s the 6th floor of an extremely rich people building that has 7 houses. I forgot the word for that in english haha oh well. But yeah, it brought back memories from a long time ago, wow, time flies.

We did divisions with the Elder´s Quorom yesterday to get our goal of lessons with member. I went with Hermano Céspedes. He´s pretty cool and basically was converted into the church because someone offered him free food at a church activity, haha. But he´s a great guy and we were able to reach our goal. Swag.

As far as investigators, we´ve been able to find a couple of families who have potential, it´s just a matter of seeing if they want us to come back after the first visit haha. On monday we entered a house with 7 people in it, and then we came back and no one really wanted us there. But that´s how it is haha.

Today we´re gonna visit some members, eat some asado, and be happy haha. 

I started reading the New Testament, mainly because we´ve been talking with a ton of people who just want to fight with us haha. But one thing that I discovered, that´s AMAZING about the gospel/missionary work is this:

Most missionaries of other churches start their conversations with a ´look, here´s a scripture that says we´re right and you are wrong.´ but the very first thing we teach investigators, or like the very first point of the first lesson is this: God is our loving Heavenly Father. 

The weather in Albardon is weird. It´s been getting really hot, but randomly there are days when it´s super cloudy and mildly cold, like today. But there is a good chance I´ll be passing christmas and new years here with my new companion. That´d be cool.

I think that´s all for this week, have a good one!!

(I highly doubt that photos will load on this computer but we will see.)

love, 

Elder Anderson

when you´re in a bus and they show inapropriate movies.

me

capilla abierta round 3, tired face.

15 Months

Well this week I hit 15 months on my mission. 

Let´s start from the beginning, last p day we went to the pench and slept, made hot dogs, and played a game that involves throwing a tennis ball into a large plastic cup. It was pretty fun, but really hard. 

We had a district meeting like normal, and this peruvian elder, Elder Mañuíco, made us a peruvian dish for lunch. It was way good. Some members also gave us some pizza so we ate that, too. I took some photos of that so I´ll send them.

We did some intercambios this week, I went with a new Elder named Elder Hale, from Utah. We taught a bunch of lessons. We went to this investigators house named Ruben, and taught him and his friend. Well at the end of the lesson Ruben pulled out a HUGE spider that they found in the grape fields... it was a tarantula. ( i don´t know if that´s spelled right.) Everyone started freaking out but we stayed calm. Boom. We found 12 new investigators in one day.

On Saturday we had Capilla Abierta round 2 in none other than Retiro. It was pretty good, pretty normal. Towards the end of the evening I went with Elder Oveson, (the companion of Elder Hale, who are currently in Retiro) and visited Pablo, the dude we baptized like forever ago. I had heard he had been falling back into old habits (sigh) so we went to  visit him. He seemed pretty well. I invited him to remember his feelings in his baptism and do his best in the future. That was fun.

Fun story, the other day I was just minding my own business on my bike, and I got a really bad bloody nose and it totally stained my tie, dangit. But then I remembered that, like the atonement, even the worst stains can be cleaned. So yeah.

That´s it for this week. On a more serious note, just remember the truthfulness of the gospel and the Book of Mormon. In every dispensation, people have rejected the prophets, and the trend continues.... people are rejecting our latter day prophet. Like the primary song says, ´If you don´t believe it, go and watch the news´ . Remember to feed your testimony, because if your testimony isn´t growing, what is it doing? 

Have a good week!!

Love,

Elder Anderson

District Lunch



Intercambios with Elders Oveson & Hale

La Paciencia

It´s been a pretty long week. But it was good. I learned quite a bit.

 

The other day we were in a packed bus going home, and there was a child that was SCREAMING the entire 45 minute bus ride. I looked at my companion and said ´Life is just a game of patience, and we have to decide if we are winning or not´. That was sort of the theme for the week. We´re still going strong, just a little bit frustrated because we haven´t been able to get investigators to progress. But it happens, I mean, you just gotta do your best. 

This week our stake started the ´Capilla Abierta´ (chapel open house) to get more people to come to hear about the church and stuff. The first one was alright, me and Elder Balmaceda stayed in the street inviting people in, and got rejected like 500 times haha. But there were a few people who entered the chapel, God bless their souls haha.

Last p day, I forgot to mention, we ate a bunch of hot dogs and played sports with the entire zone. It was pretty fun. Today is going to be really low key... we are pretty exhausted so we´re gonna go take a giant siesta in the pench.

I don´t know if I´ve mentioned this before, but I have to play the piano every week in Albardon. It´s pretty fun, but it´s also not fun sight reading a really weird hymn and then messing up hahaha but it happens. Yesterday we sang pretty common songs so all was well there.

Yesterday we had lunch with a less active family. It was pretty solid. I ate like 6 milanesas and I was WAY full, and then they brought out the dessert. It´s called batata, which is like this weird solid jelly that´s supposed to taste good, and they serve it with this cheese. Well I wanted to be polite and eat it but I honestly couldn´t. I hate batata and I was way full. but luckily one of the daughters realized and saved me by saying ´you don´t have to eat that.´ whew.

I am running out of things to say. Just remember, study the scriptures, go to church and say your prayers. that is the key to success.

Love,

Elder Anderson

capilla abierta

in an elevator

even the Peruvians know what´s up

a tree house thing

Conference Weekend #3

It was another good week here in the Pueblo of Albardon. We were really busy last week with meetings, interviews, etc. One of those weeks. 

First of all, General Conference was awesome. I feel we are very blessed to have living prophets and apostles in our day to help guide us. I left the conference with desires to become better and change. If you are feeling this too, I invite you to actually do it! Faith without works is dead. 

Monday and tuesday consisted of traveling and meetings in Mendoza, like normal. On Wednesday, we had interviews with President Goates, which, as normal, were amazing. Dang, President knows so much. He´s a great help and recieves revelation to help out the mission. They´re not even interviews... it´s just a time to talk openly about anything with president. It´s sweet. Wednesday evening President came with us to work in our area. It was pretty awesome, a little different. But we had a car in our giant area to we were able to teach like 4 lessons which is quite a bit. I also think its the first time an iPad has ever been in Campo Afuera and all the kids were way interested in president´s swag. 

So then friday we had our zone meeting and Saturday and Sunday was General Conference. Like normal, I watched it in the Gringo Room in English, with Elder Morgan and Elder Jorgensen, the other Gringos in Albardon. We watched all 5 sessions on the little computer but the quality was good. It´s amazing how technology has changed... like dang we saw the same conference live as the people in Utah watching it from home. 

I learned quite a bit from the conference. I really enjoyed the talk by W. Mark Bassett. I basically learned that we shouldn´t worry about deep doctrine when we can´t even recite the 5 points of the Doctrine of Christ. There are simple truths in the gospel that we must study even if we think we already know it. Also, I learned that president monson has given 230 general conference talks. fun fact.

I don´t know if I´ve mentioned this before, but Elder Balmaceda´s first name is Socrates. Pretty much describes him hahaha.

Well that´s it for this week. Have a good week and apply what you learned in the conference. I know that those men and women and chosen by God to convey His Word to the world. I know that missionary work is way important and brings blessings that are hard to describe.

Love,

Elder Anderson

Gringo Room



The Countdown



I wasn't ready