Mission Letter 22 "Happily Ever After . . . Almost"

Tomorrow morning Hermana Farias leaves for Tucson, and I will be
getting Hermana Hinojosa. Don't be deceived by the name--she is still
learning Spanish. Willcox will be her second area in the mission, so
she is still fairly fresh :) and President Passey told me that one of
the reasons he assigned her with me is so that she can benefit from my
focused studies of the language. I'm excited for us to improve
together. I will sure miss Hermana Farias though. Yesterday, we
achieved comp unity to a T when we discovered that our laughs are now
exactly identical. We just laugh too much :)

Pics:
#1 Not Included for Privacy reasons: My companion, Hermana Farias, and Karma. Karma was a referral
from her neighbors. She was taught quite a while ago and
wasn't really interested. A month or so ago, some tough trials brought
her back to church and she has been coming regularly since. We started
teaching her again only about two weeks ago and she is a joy to teach.
Yesterday at church we were talking in class about the Holy Ghost and
she told us that after our last lesson on the plan of salvation she
had felt so happy and peaceful. She said she felt like there was this
invisible light that only she could see. It has been incredible to see
the joy the gospel has brought her!

#2 Not Included for Privacy reasons: Us and Carrol. Carrol was also a referral from a
member, Sister Skinner. She is set to be baptized this Saturday, but
after she missed church this Sunday because she was sick, the bishop
of her ward talked to us and wants to push back her baptismal date a
couple weeks to be sure she is in the habit of coming to church
regularly and so that the members can get to know her better. That was
really hard to hear, especially because both my companion and I feel
that she is ready and we don't know how to tell her that her baptism
will be pushed back, nor if it is really the best thing for her. She
has such faith and courage. She has a glowing testimony of the Book of
Mormon and the prophet Joseph Smith, who she calls her angel. When we
told her she would have to give up her coffee she told us, "I know
that Joseph Smith was a prophet and that this is what God wants me to
do." She also knew that her family wouldn't be happy with her baptism,
but she told them all as soon as we had set the date and invited them
to her baptism and all her kids are coming! We invited the bishop to
our lesson with her this Tuesday evening and I guess we will just see
what happens. In the meantime, we are losing sleep.

#3 Not Included for Privacy reasons: Me and Carrol

#4 Not Included for Privacy reasons: Us, Carrol, and Sister Skinner

#5 My companion with the Cuevas family. Our bishopric is made up of
two white guys and then brother Cuevas. We call them Peter, James, and
Juan :). The Cuevas family are all converts and they know just about
everyone we are teaching. They just know everyone, really. And they
are great at giving us referrals.

#6 Brother Crocket, our branch mission leader.

#7 Whetten Family. This family is really the anchor of missionary work
in the branch. Sister Whetten speaks Spanish and English fluently and
is always ready and eager to come with us to lessons or to pick up
investigators for church and is always asking how she can help.

Mission Letter 21 "Pics"

Sorry no group email this week. I'll catch you up next week :)

Pics:
The Chastains, a sweet couple in our ward, and my companion
The Allred children and their pet goats :)
Some women from the Spanish branch at the class on prayer we taught
Saturday at the women's conference

Mission Letter 20 "Finding the Prepared"

Sorry for the novel, but this story was just way to neat to leave anything out ;)

Last week we made it a goal to ask less actives and investigators for referrals. We prayed and prayed to know which less actives and which members to visit. We, admittedly, didn't recognize it then as an answer to our prayer when we later decided to see the Davis family, a family that converted four years ago and hadn't been to church in a long time. They asked how we were doing and I felt like I should elaborate on the progress of our investigators. Seeming to suddenly remember, Sister Davis said, "I got a text lat week from a friend of ours wanting to know what time our church started." We got her name, Jillian, and a rough description of where she lived and told them we would stop by her place.
Later that week, Thursday, we had a couple minutes before we had to meet our mission president's wife who was coming down to teach a lesson with us, and we both had the thought that we should go try to find Jillian. We pulled up and there was a woman standing outside apartment #6. We shared with her a restoration pamphlet and told her a little about our church. Her name was Penny. She was really nice and smiley, but I couldn't really tell if she was interested. As we were about to leave I remembered to ask, "Do you know where Jillian lives?"
"Yeah, she lives here," Penny responded.
We told her how we were friends of the Davis family and how they told us that Jillian had texted them asking when church started.
"Actually," Penny said, "that was me who wanted to know the church time. Jillian is my mother in law and was neighbors with the Davis family before we both moved."
We were ecstatic! We told her we could get her a ride with the Davis family and she said she would be ready and waiting for them.
We got back in the car and immediately texted the Davis family, who told us they would be in contact with Jillian and Penny.

Later that week we decided to stop by Cynthia. As usually happens with such visits, her twelve-year-old daughter Hana answered and said that her mother was busy. Usually, when that happens we ask if we can talk to her mother or when we could come back, but this time we asked if we could share a message with Hana. We had shared with her the message of the Restoration some months previous and she had read the introduction of the Book of Mormon. Her older siblings were baptized Mormon and her mom had attended church with them, but they had since stopped attending for many years. We talked with her about the Book of Mormon and invited her to church. "My mom will be working, but I can go," she told us.

Fast forward to Saturday night. We still hadn't found anyone to take Hana to church. We tried calling five people and no one answered, except for Sister Judd who would be going to church early and we didn't think Hana would be ready by then. I thought of calling the Bryant's, but their phone usually doesn't work and they are really hard to get a hold of.
Sunday morning we still didn't have a ride for Hana. "Let's try the Bryant's," Sister Farias said. We called her and she told us she had to pick up one other person at some other apartments near us so we told her we would meet her there.
She called us while we were in the Spanish branch to tell us that the other person she had to pick up couldn't come so she wasn't sure where to meet us, but we didnt get the message until we were already at the apartments. Unable to find Sister Bryant's car, we pulled around to park by the playground and saw that Penny's husband was outside. As soon as we pulled up he went in and then Penny came out and began walking toward our car. "Oh good, I'm so glad you came," she said as she climbed in. (We later learned the Davis's had not in fact been in contact with her, but that she was still expecting the ride from them. We were glad we had come!)
We aren't supposed to drive investigators, but we weren't about to say no either.
We then drove over to pick up Hana. She wasnt home, but her little brother asked if he could come. So we broke some rules bringing them both to church, but I think God can forgive us for that.

It's amazing to me to think of how everything had to line up for Penny to get to church. We were impressed to see the Davis's just after she had texted them. We were impressed to go find her on a day that she was standing outside her apartment. And then Hana's wanting to come to church caused us to need to call a member to pick her up and the fact that we had called the Bryant's, who would be picking someone up from the same apartment complex as Penny's . . . The Lord is truly guiding this work.

Penny loved church. She told us in Gospel Principles that she had been a meth addict and wanted to turn her life around when she had her two little girls. She has been clean for 2 years. One of the speakers got up and told us he felt prompted to change his message. He told us a story of a convert he worked with who had gotten drunk at age 15, woke up on the floor of his friend's house with a hangover and decided there must be more to life and he wanted to find out what. Just then he saw a Book of Mormon on his friend's shelf. Some missionaries had given it to his friend's mom years back and she had politely taken it but never read it. He said the moment he opened it he felt a power and a sweet peace that told him he had found his answer. He read it all that morning, quit drinking, and was baptized a month later.
Penny told us the message was for her, which is neat because another investigator we had brought, Marry, said that the message in Sacrament meeting about the Book of Mormon was also just for her, but they had both gotten something different from the message. I am so thankful for the spirit and the personalized revelation we can receive.

This past week my companion and I had been praying that we would be lead to the prepared and that they would be lead to us. With Penny, the Lord accomplished both.
SHE asked US to teach her, and I am excited to begin teaching her this Tuesday.

I know the Book of Mormon is true and I am so grateful for it's influence in my life. I have learned more about the life and influence of my Savior, Jesus Christ, experienced more joy, more peace, and encountered in it's pages the answers to my most pressing questions. If you haven't read it ever, read it. If you haven't read it today, pick it up. If you don't have a copy, that's okay! It's online :) (LDS.org)

Crotcheting with Linda
P-day naps at our ward mission leader's house
Taking part in all the strange stuff you see walking around "downtown" Willcox
Gumbo (because Hermana Farias has never had it before) after our shift
at the museum.

Mission Letter 19 "Elephants and Baby Otters"

Highlights:

Mayra, the younger less active we took out with us last week to a
lesson asked us what she has to do to get a temple recommend and is
meeting with the bishop next week!

Karen Reif, a neighbor of one of our members, wanted to come to church
again! This is her third week in a row! Missionaries started teaching
her a while ago but she wasn't interested--just goes to show that the
Lord helps everything happen in its own time. Now, she is soaking it
all in. We aren't teaching her regularly yet, but hope to soon.

We were hoping to set a baptismal date with the Guerras family, which
sadly didn't happen. But we were able to discover some of his concerns
and had a wonderful lesson about temples and eternal families. He had
lots of questions and was willing to say the closing prayer. We hope
to have family night with them this week at the house of our ward
mission leader.

We were also hoping to invite the Chanez family to be baptized. And,
well, that didn't happen either. The parents weren't available, so we
taught their twin ten-year-old daughters, Yajaira and Jaira, on the
trampoline in the front yard. They both love reading from the Book of
Mormon so we read third Nephi 11 and had a wonderful short lesson on
baptism, and this Sunday Jaira came with us to church!

Annie has been out of town and busy but we ran into her last night and
she gave us her work schedule so we could set up a time when her
daughter can watch the kids so we can have a more focused lesson.

We were hoping to invite Carmen, a friend of a member in the other
ward, to be baptized as well but she had to cancel the lesson on
Thursday because she wasn't feeling good. However, she said the
closing prayer for our lesson on Tuesday and expressed desires to join
the church but that she was afraid there was so much to learn. She has
been reading her scriptures and soaks up the lessons and we are eager
to see her continued progress. Next week the mission president's wife
will be joining us for one of our lessons with her!

Some weeks ago while we were an hour and a half outside of Willcox in
San Simon a train of events lead us to a less active, Julia Johnson,
who was very grateful for the visit and came to church again this
Sunday. She has been warmly welcomed back into the ward and expressed
to us her desires to keep attending.

Pictures:
Our cute zone
The Douglas Sisters. The one on the right was my second mission companion.
A picture from our exchange last week with the sisters from New
Mexico, (the one on the left was my third mission companion and I just
loved spending the day with her)
So this one needs a little more explanation. Usually, for
companionship inventory every Friday we give each other ten
compliments, but after so long together I guess there's just nothing
good left to say . . . No, but it does get harder, so last week we
went with gen funny questions and this week we decided we would just
draw each other's favorite animal and call it good. My favorite, in
case you missed it, is an elephant. Hers is a baby otter (but my
drawing didn't look much like an otter and has since been deleted). I
think it was our best companionship inventory yet ;)

Mission Letter 18 "Feeling Inspired" "I Look Too Happy"

Wednesday morning really had me stressing. Tuesday I spent some of our service hours at the museum calling all the people in our ward directory to see who we could bring with us to lessons. I thought to call Sister Lamb, a really fun older lady in the ward who is in the Relief Society. We set up to take her out with us Wednesday at 6:00. Later that night we got in touch with a spanish referral who asked if they could meet us Wednesday at 6:00. Hoping we could find a spanish sister to take with us so that we could split up and go to both lessons, we said yes. 

The plan was that Sister Farias would go with Sister Lamb to a visit, and I would go with a lady from the spanish branch to the referral. Wednesday rolled around and we still hadn't found a spanish speaker to take with us. We called everyone we could think of. Three hours before the lesson we still had no one. I said a prayer and thought of someone we hadn't tried yet--a young less active woman about my age, Mayra, that we had met with only once. We stopped by and she said she could come with us. It was truly inspired. 

The lesson with the referral fell through and so we ended up trying potentials and knocking. We say a prayer before each door and at one point, as Mayra was praying, she stopped and said, "Sorry, I don't usually do this." I assumed she meant that she doesn't usually pray in English, and so asked her, "Do you usually pray in Spanish?" And her response, "No. I don't usually pray."

We tried about twenty houses and no one wanted to listen, so at 7:30 we returned to the church to wait for Sister Farias and Sister Lamb, and while we waited we talked. Mayra said she had no idea how hard missionary work was but told me she was grateful for the chance to pray so much with me and that she would ask her friends if we could teach them. 

Sunday, Mayra came to church and bore a powerful testimony on prayer and the spirit we can feel at church. She told us of her desire to come back to church and feel the spirit more and thanked us for inviting her to go out with us and letting her experience that spirit. It was a powerful testimony that confirmed to me that God inspires this work and cares about each of his children. 

The less active that Sister Farias and Sister Lamb visited came to church for the first time in 14 years and enjoyed it and Sister Lamb loved so much coming with us and getting to know the less actives we are working with that she asked to come out with us again! 

Thursday we went knocking and we prayed to find new spanish speakign investigators. My companion felt like we should knock Bowie, and as soon as we got to the street I felt like we should turn right. The house there on the right-hand corner is the home of Karen Q, who is searching for peace and truth and asked us to come back and teach her more. The other street I felt like we should knock was Casas Lindas, and we found three spanish-speaking families who invited us back to teach them more. 

I love how the Lord inspires this work and so grateful that he works through us! 

I am constantly amazed at the power of prayer and at the beautiful relation we can have with our Heavenly Father. 

Con amor,

Hermana Anderson

Pics:

Practicing our crocheting skills while we wait for people to show up
at service. We decided a scarf takes way too long, so we would just
make dorky collars that, who knows?, may be in fashion one day ;)

Studying on the church lawn because it's finally feeling warmish

When we realized we didn't have a single picture in the car and we're
feeling really cool with our sunglasses (because it was finally warm
and sunny enough to wear them)

Feeling really Mexican making tácitos con frijoles y queso mexicano

All our favorite kids from the ward

What happens when we try to take a serious picture. It took so long to
get one where we both had straight faces. Most of them we were trying
so hard not to laugh that we just looked constipated

Mission Letter 17.5 "Pics"

Mission Letter 17 "Why Do You Pray?"

TRANSFERS!

And . . . God answeres prayers! Hermana Farias and I are both staying another transfer in Willcox!! 

So quick follow up . . . We haven't been able to get back in with the Peraltas (Oscar, Bertha, and Ramon), and Allan is never home when he says he will be. Rachel told us she couldn't meet anymore. And Alyssa and John asked us to stop coming (we later found out it was because Alyssa thought John was crushing on my companion--awkward).

BUT

We got to meet again with Annie and share with her the message of the Plan of Salvation and she loved it. She said she feels so at ease with us because there is such a sweet spirit as we talk with her. She is really looking for peace and answers and I am eager to help her find them. 

We also this week got in with Cynthia, Haley and Jessie's mom. We met Haley when she was outside playing and she loves to read the Book of Mormon, but her mom didn't seem to want anything to do with us, that is, until a couple days ago. We had a member with us, Brett, and had struck out on our first plans. The name of a kid we had tried my very first week in Wilcox came to mind: Nate, Haley's neighbor. When we got there though I knew we should try Haley first. We'd tried her dozens of times but this time Cynthia let us in and after talking with us for a while said she knows she should go to church and wants to come to church with us. 

Tuesday, all our appointments fell through, we had to take our car in, and then dinner was an hour away in San Simon. By the end of the day we just wanted to go home, but while we were in San Simon we thought we would try someone Hna Farias had tried before. We searched for over half an hour and couldn't find them. Hna Farias knew where the turn off should be, but . . . I don't know how else to explain it except that it wasn't there. A little discouraged, we decided to try one last person, Julia. She hasn't attended church in years. Despite the late hour, she let us in, and by the end of our discussion told us she wanted to come back. Sunday morning, she made the one hour drive, then stayed for all three hours of church and told us she loved it and would be back next week. 

Wednesday we got in with the Chanez family. Their twin girls, Jaira and Yajaira, have the most interest in the church. Jaira told us when she prayed to know if what we were telling her was true she felt this peaceful feeling. She described it as a wind that kind of rushed through her and she felt so powerful and peaceful. She loves to read the Book of Mormon and last week attended a baptism to see what it would be like. Her parents, though, and older sister don't seem as interested and her parents won't pray. We decided to read the Book of Mormon with them and the older sister, Ademaries, said, "I love when we read this together, it feels happy." And, for the first time, their mother prayed. 

We also got a call from a member from the other ward that she wants us to visit her friend, Carmen, with her. We had our second lesson with her yesterday and she, too, didn't want to say the closing prayer. She said she only ever said memorized prayers and had never prayed out loud. 

"Why do you pray?" I asked her.

"To feel at peace, to be touched," she said.

I told her about a time when I hadn't really wanted to pray out loud either and my friend had asked me the same thing. My response: to be with heaven. My friend then told me that when we pray out loud with others we are letting them see our heaven--experience what our heaven feels like, and, for that moment, be there with us. I told that to Carmen, that when she prays out loud, we are all meeting together, counseling with, and being with heaven. 

She said the closing prayer. And it was one of the sweetest prayers I have ever heard. 

One of my very favorite parts of serving a mission is teaching others to pray and hearing them pray for the first time. True, it is beautiful to hear the prayers of those who have, their entire lives, been developing their relationship with heaven, but, for me, there is nothing so sweet and marvelous as when heavenly Father hears the prayer of one of His children for the very first time. 

Hermana Anderson

Pics:
Found this sign outside a park. We always wondered why he park was so
empty all the time . . . I guess that might be a little bit of a
deterrent.
We started excel isn't in the mornings with a less active, which means
waking up at 5:40. It also means beautiful sunrises.
Because we are always saying Lechuga (lettuce/let us) . . . She thinks
she's hilarious. I told Hna Farias I love her because I don't have to
feel like the only crazy one.
We drew each other while we were bored at service. We laugh because I
look again and she looks African.

Mission Letter 16 "Wonder of Wonder, Miracle of Miracles!"

Miracles up the wazoo!! Wow, where to begin?
In my last email I told about our experience praying to know what
streets to knock and about finding Oscar and his mother, Bertha.
We went back to visit them last week and found Oscar's Dad (Bertha's
husband), Ramon Peralta, at home. We were halfway through the lesson
with him when his wife came home and wanted to listen as well. They
soak everything up and are a wonderfully sweet family. We are eager to
see their continued progress in the gospel.

Saturday we had a really neat experience. We had planned to bring a
member with us to a lesson with Lionel at 1:00, but I had a feeling
Lionel wouldn't be home. In my morning prayers I was praying about the
lessons we planned to have that day and I thought of Allan, a man that
we had taught some weeks back but hadn't found at home since. We had
tried him soo many times. We had prayed countless times that he would
be home and that didn't work. We prayed that he would be home AND
answer his door and that didn't seem to make much difference. I
figured I had to be a little more specific--a little more creative. In
my morning prayer, I told God that we would probably get to Allan at
about 1:15 and asked him if, at that time, Allan could be in his car,
having just come home or about to head out. That way, at least, we
could talk to him. I also prayed that we could extend to him an
invitation to be baptized.

At 1:15 we drove up and found Allan out sitting in his car! He asked
us where we had been and we told him we had tried his house several
times. He apologized for not being home and pulled up some lawn
chairs. We had a wonderful lesson with him and he accepted a baptismal
date for February 18th! He is meeting with us twice a week now and
wants his wife to start meeting with us too!

We have had an incredible number of members willing to come with us to
lessons and they make a HUGE difference. The spirit of missionary work
is taking over the ward--I love how when our lessons fall through some
members will suggest people for us to go visit!!

Speaking of miracles and awesome members, we brought Sister Chaffey
with us one night and after our planned appointment fell through I
felt like we should go back and visit a lady we had knocked into
earlier in the week, Annie. She, at the time, had been watching her 10
grandkids but told us we could try her later.
Now let me back up. Earlier this week we were looking for a former
investigator, Tearsa, who had moved. Annie, it turns out, is Tearsa's
mother!
As soon as we pulled up, Annie came out to talk to us. She quickly
opened up to us about some struggles she's been facing and the death
of one of her daughters and asked us if we could tell her about where
her daughter is. Sister Chaffey testified to her about the Plan of
Salvation and how her daughter has returned to be with God and with
her family that has passed on and that she is resting and happy, free
from the cancer that dominated her last years on earth.
Annie seemed to glow hearing this and you could see a visible peace
wash over her. She asked us to return and teach her more and I cannot
wait.

Transfers are next week and both Hermana Farias and I are praying that
we stay in the promised land of Willcox :). Till next week,

Hermana Anderson

Mission Letter 15 "Lechuga Rejoice!"

Wow, where to start . . .? My last group email was almost a month ago
. . . Whoops.
Christmas was, of course, incredible. The members here were so good to
us, and I was also blessed by the love and support of friends and
family. Thanks for thinking of me!
Oh, and Lechuga Rejoice--so it comes from Let us Rejoice, which became
Lettuce Rejoice, which became Lechuga Rejoice (Lechuga being Spanish
for Lettuce). My companion and I say Lechuga for EVERYTHING and it is
one of those really old lame jokes that never gets old with us because
we still think we're hilarious.

So here in our little Wilcox, we get to work with two different
congregations, one in English and one in Spanish. Last week we were
meeting with the mission leader for the Spanish congregation and,
honestly, kind of dreading it. See at these meetings we are supposed
to discuss with him the investigators we are working with . . .
Investigators we didn't have, and hadn't had for the past two or three
weeks. We try and try but we couldn't for the life of us find any
Spanish speakers interested in our message.

We left coordination meeting determined to make a change and surprise
our mission leader when he gets back from vacation next week. We
decided we would start by doing everything within our power to show
the Lord we were preparing to be ready to teach the people he would
put in our path: we decided that we would speak only Spanish in the
apartment and in the car. We also decided we would start asking the
Spanish-speaking members to come out with us at every chance we had
and to fast for new investigators.

Thursday came around and we still had no Spanish-speaking
investigators. We decided to set aside an hour and a half to go
knocking. I pulled up a map of Wilcox and said to my companion,
Hermana Farias, "Okay, here's what we're going to do. We'll both pray
about a couple streets we think we should knock. Then we'll come back
together and pray together about the streets we thought of."

For those who don't know, I'm a little oblivious to directions. I know
about five streets in Wilcox. I didn't want to read the streets on the
map though because then I was afraid I wouldn't know whether I was
thinking of them just because I had just read them or because they
were actually the streets the Lord was putting in my mind to knock.
I prayed and immediately a street I had probably only heard of once
and never been on came to mind: Prescott. After that I prayed and told
God, "I know I don't know the names of all the streets, so just tell
me where they are in relation to the ones I know."
Immediately I thought, "North of Biddle, and right of Flagstaff."
Biddle was another one of those streets I didn't even know I knew.
The street to the North of Biddle was Austin. Problem was Austin is a
really long street, separated into North and South. I prayed again to
know which part we should knock and felt like we should stay North.
Then I looked at what street was to the right of Flagstaff: Prescott.

I turned to my companion, "How many did you think of?"
"Two," she said.
"Me too. What are your two?"
"Prescott and Austin," she said. I was overwhelmed.
"What part of Austin?" I asked.
"North."

We left eagerly to knock North Austin and Prescott and found three
people and two families, all Spanish speaking, who listened to our
message and invited us to come back and teach them more. The following
day I felt like we should go back to visit one of them, Oscar, even
though we had seen him the day before and told him we would be back on
Monday. Well, maybe we can invite him to church, I thought. Oscar
wasn't home, but his mother welcomed us in and said we were welcome to
come back any time and that she was eager to read the Book of Mormon
and to learn more.


I know God guides this work and that he works according to our faith
and desires. I am so grateful for this opportunity to teach, serve,
and love His children.

Hermana Anderson
#AllforHim

Pics:
Caught in the rain during service
Snow in Arizona?!!
Getting really excited about our bikes we finally got!
Our Sister Training Leader, Hermana Hoffman, and her companion,
Hermana Crane, joined us for a day. It was so fun to be back with one
of my favorite past companions, Hermana Hoffman, and to get to know
Hermana Crane. It was also nice having two more warm bodies as our
apartment has no central heating ;)