Wow, what a wonderful week it has been! I have been assigned to the
south side of the city of Tucson and love the area and my sweet
companion, Hermana Beatty. I fact, neat story: we stayed the first
night of the mission in the home of the mission President. That night
as I and a couple others were waiting to get some stuff from his car,
the President showed us his office and the huge board he had with the
names, pictures, and locations of everyone in the mission. I found
that there were four Spanish speaking missionaries without companions
and realized I would be assigned to work with one of these. I felt an
instant bond with Hermana Beatty just from seeing her picture. It was
no surprise to me when the following morning I was assigned to be her
companion. I was overjoyed! She is so positive, patient, encouraging,
and enthusiastic.
This week has been crazy and good. We were fed two dinners in one
night and finishing the second was honestly painful. There was a man
who knocked on our window and hung around it for about half an hour
Friday night. We made cookies but didn't have chocolate chips so I
sacrificed my chocolate bar and then we brought some cookies to the
elders. And I beat an elder in chess during lunch.
On a separate note, I love Arizona nights! I never thought I'd
associate warm with fresh until spending a night here. And today was
actually our first really hot day. It's rained this past week and so
has been relatively cool (and the rain smells amazing). I love the
plant life here and that nearly all the flowers here are red orange
and yellow. I'm in heaven.
I want to close out by telling you about a younger woman we met while
we were out knocking doors. Her name is Asheley. We told her about who
we are and that our purpose is to help others come closer to Christ.
We shared what we believe and she was interested to learn more. She
told us she'd actually been looking for a church and we invited her to
attend next Sunday. We asked if we could leave her with a prayer and
she asked something along the lines of, "How is it done?" So there on
her doorstep we taught her to pray and afterwards she said, "That felt
so good. Thank you. I needed that."
It was really eye opening to me to realize that prayer is so
instinctive for me and yet there are people who have never prayed
before because they don't know how. It was so neat to tell her about
the relationship we can have with God, that he is the Father of our
spirits, that He loves us and wants to hear from us.
As missionaries, we pray ALL THE TIME and I am so grateful for that
privilege and the spirit that comes as we pray.
Love you all,
Hermana Anderson
#allforHim
