Thank you everyone for the birthday wishes, cards, and love! It is so fun to celebrate a birthday on the mission! My companion told the member we were having dinner with, Sister Thom, that it would be my birthday and she was sweet--she made me a chocolate cake and surprised me with a card and gift!
Last Monday morning we were planning to celebrate my birthday a day early by spending the day in Sierra Vista with some other sisters for P Day. By 8:30 we were ready to head out and. .. no car key. We searched for hours before finally giving up. We texted the sisters in Sierra Vista that we wouldn't make it, took naps, and then walked to Pizza Hut because Pizza makes everything better.
We decided to ask the Sisters to have the entire zone pray that we could find our keys. All day we expected to get some sort of revelation and find them. But such was not the case.
Friday morning we called the mission office and told them our situation. "Well," they said, "looks like you are going to have to buy a new key. In the meantime, we can send you the spare we have here. Let me go check and make sure we have it." A few minutes later he came back on the line, "Well Sisters, you must be living right. Your truck is the only one with two spare keys." I am convinced it is because of the prayers of our zone. And meanwhile, although losing the key was frustrating, it turned out to be the biggest blessing! The morning of my Birthday we were stopped on our bikes by a reporter who wanted a picture for the newspaper! AND, we found so many investigators! #exhausted
For five months now I have been praying for more Spanish investigators and all along they have been right under our noses! Riding bikes gave us the opportunity to talk to more people, and we talked to everyone. One thing I have learned is that "If God is preparing people to hear the Gospel (And He is :) then you can't not find someone when you talk to everyone.
Last week when I was praying for more Spanish investigators, we were biking past a house and I felt like we should stop. Already late for another lesson, we kept biking. Then yesterday we passed by the house again and I knew we had to stop. A nice older man, Ivan, answered the door and told us in Spanish that he was glad we had knocked--he was looking for God and for answers. We are excited to continue teaching him and his family.
Another neat miracle came through the power of fasting and prayer.
Our branch has been fasting with us for our investigators and a month ago we asked some of them to fast for our investigator, Guillermina. Since then she's moved and we lost contact. We thought about asking the members to fast for someone else instead, but never did get around to it. Well I have a strong testimony of fasting and faith: Yesterday Guillermina called us and told us about some recent occurrences in her life that have lead her husband back to church. She gave us her new address and told us she and her family will be in church next Sunday!
Quick update:
Carmen went to the temple last week to do baptisms for the dead and loved it!
Perla is preparing names from her family to take to the temple in a couple weeks.
Armida and Pete haven't been to church yet so we will have to push back their baptismal date. Pete loves to pray and tells us often of experiences he has had with prayer.
Love,
Hermana Anderson
Pics:
All the letters=all the love :)
Loving Arizona sunsets
Making fried icecream because we were feeling too skinny (jk, we made it for my birthday)
See that beautiful cactus? That's dinner :) We saw someone out cutting the cactus and talked with her and she showed us how to cook cactus and gave us some so that we could make our very own gourmet cactus :) I'm excited.
Sister Thom's beautiful birthday decorations
Moving our beds together on the floor in the living room to be closer to the AC #sleepover
My chocolate cake. And yes, there are 21 candles :)
sd
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