Great Week.. January 14, 2013

-- Family & Friends..

This week was great!   I love reading the Book of Mormon as a mission it is so great! I'm glad yall are reading it with us also! Elder Mauigoa and I will be going throughout the day and will find ourselves talking about the pages we read and applying it to our missionary work. I have truly seen a huge change in my understanding and reading as I have applied it as a missionary and district leader. I prepared for district meeting for a week on 1 Nephi 8 and 11 and applied it to our district and the mission field. I was amazed at how well it all fit together. We have a great district that loves to participate and work together to help each other out in the work. We had Brother Evans come and share his testimony and he has a strong one. Wednesday we took the bus to the north side Birmingham and was that ever a journey! It took almost 2 hours on the bus to get there and as we got there we were not getting some pretty nasty looks.  We got to the house  where our appointment was and the lady answered the door and said that it wasn’t a good time. So Elder Mauigoa and I  had a lot of time to talk and plan as we were waiting for the bus to come to get to our next appointment. We have been doing a lot of sifting with our investigators and a lot of recent convert work.

 Elder May,  Elder Jensen and I had an amazing experience on Friday.   We went to see a family that loves the church but are kind of holding back on baptism,  so we read Mosiah 18 and we likened it to their family.   The waters of Mormon was the baptism font and Alma was us as missionary’s and so on.   We decided to kneel after reading VS 10 and we asked the mother to  pray and ask Heavenly Father if her and her family should be baptized on Jan. 27^{th.  We told her}  to pause and just think about it and when you’re done and you have received your answer then end the prayer and she agreed to do it.   Well  we all knelt down and waited for a couple minutes for her to close the prayer and we were all praying silently hoping she would get her answer. She said amen and started telling us all the feeling she had received and was so excited,  so we are going to help her keep feeling those feelings. She has a neighbor that is not too fond of the church,  but she said she won’t let him get to her. Also on that same page Elder Bentley and I did that same thing with one of their investigators on Sunday in the chapel and we knelt there for 40 mins till he closed his prayer.   Well, he is getting very close to getting his answer also. He is Spanish so I didn’t understand it all,  but felt the spirit so strong! When Elder Larsen was here we biked passed his wife and after we bike for a second we felt the need to go back so we talked with her and she invited us over. She is half way through Alma in the Book of Mormon and wants to be baptized but is waiting for her husband.

 I really enjoyed stake conference.  Elder Cook spoke and he mentioned a conversion story from the Alabama Birmingham Mission.  We were all excited to hear that.  

I get to go to Bessemer for the day sometime in the next couple weeks and will be going to Center Point Wednesday! So got some exchanges comin up!

 Well yall stay warm! Love yall..

Love Elder Anderson!

another great week

Family and friends! Hello! This week has been great we have been working with (Tj) ** an investigator that we met that is a cousin to a member in the ward we are teaching him and are working on having his cousin (Freddy) ****** baptize him as he continues to progress! We are also teaching (jasmine) ******* she has a baptism date set for this Sunday we are going to make sure that she is completely ready to make that convent though but she should be ready! We have been teaching her for a couple weeks now but she has been taught before. We have also been teaching (misty) ***** still and she was baptized on Sunday! We got to attend the temple on Wednesday! And I loved every minute of it I wish I could go to the temple everyday! They had a nativity scene set up outside I will send pictures. We were there with the entire Birmingham zone so it was packed but that’s the best way to have it! I got to see brother (einfelt) ****** from Bessemer also so that was great! J After the temple I went to the Birmingham area with elder Ingersoll from alpine ut and elder sablan from Seattle WA. It was great to be able to go with them for a couple days and work in their area they are two great missionaries! So while I was down there we were biking out of an apartment complex and a huge German Sheppard came running after us I thought I was a dead man! But I peddled as fast as I could on the bike! And started passing the other two! But he stopped after a bit probably got tired but man was that close! Friday we came back and had district meeting about obedience to the mission rules and how to begin teaching. I have seen a huge difference from when I have strived to be exact obedience and when I have just somewhat tried. We had our ward Christmas party Saturday morning at 8 just had breakfast and some skits! It was different than a dinner but still worked out. Had some bad weather this weekend just rain and wind nothing too bad and the tornado last week was about 8 miles from us so we are fine J misty’s ***** baptism was great we had a less active we have been working with baptize her and they were both stoked! So hope we can get him on a mission and hope the rest of misty ****** family will come around! The library is closing at 6 tonight so we have to be off at 530 so please don’t use names for the blog! J And sorry we probably won’t get to e mail back and forth! What time we are skyping let me know! Love yall! And dad keep checking my card cuz I have been spending a little money!

Elder Anderson!

Ps thank you for all the Christmas cards and pkgs I have been getting I hope to be getting more! Haha and happy b day aunt tam!!!!