Times flying... Sept 25, 2012

Hi y’all,

Man another week come and gone! Someone has got to let go of the fast forward button and let time slow down a bit! Things are going well! We had a good lesson on Tuesday with the Evans and also with Erika. On Wednesday we got to go to the temple and of course that’s always great! Nothing like being in the temple jammed packed with tons of missionary’s and having the spirit so strong! It’s great! Thursday we were able to teach another great lesson with the Evans and meet with Erika and then stopped by a member’s house that night. Friday was a slower day. Saturday we did service for a family in the ward! It was good to get dirty for a while.   Saturday night the ward had a chili cook off with 37 different chili’s and then pies. You got to rate 3 each it was pretty fun and a great idea! Sunday was great and church went by really fast! Nothing much new this week! We are having some baptisms this weekend that the Lord has allowed us to have. Erika asked me to baptize her on Saturday then on Sunday the Evans will be baptized so we are excited for that!  Today we went to this place called the Mcwane Center. It is like the science place at the Gateway only 10,000 times better. haha (see attached picture) I laid on a bed of nails,  got to pet some sharks, and even played a piano that is so big it’s on the floor! It was a good preparation day! This week will be 14 months! I can’t believe how fast it’s going! I hope y’all have a great week! 

Much love! 

Elder Anderson

Hi y’all

Alright.. so this week was my last week in Fort Payne and it did go by fast!

Monday for our p-day we went to the rec center with the Wilding boys and some of their friends to play basketball.

Tuesday we had multi zone conference in Huntsville with Elder Koelliker and his wife.  Elder Koelliker is in the Quorum of the Seventy and he had some pretty great things to say. We all were asked to prepare a 5 min talk and then he was going to choose randomly people to come up and give their talks, so I was freakin out a little bit... but was not called up thankfully! We did do something pretty cool.  All the missionaries got up and bore there testimonies in one minute. Man there are so many different testimonies, no wonder we have so many missionaries, different people need to hear very different testimonies. The meeting went from 9 am until about 3 pm.

Wednesday we went to Gardendale for a bit.  I got permission to go to Bessemer for the day and see some of the people we taught. There wasn't very many of them was home though!! :( it made me sad. We did get to see the Reed’s, man what a wonderful family! They invited me to their temple sealing on May 12th. That will be a great day! :) We had alligator gumbo and it was amazing!  Then we made the long drive back to Fort Payne.

Thursday we had district meeting and went on exchanges with the district leaders for the day. We helped by serving others that day.

Friday we exchanged back and then yes, did more service :) I love service. We went to see Jason and Maranda that night.

Saturday we worked during the day and then went to the Wildings at 7 pm for hamburgers.  We talked with them and Justin and Amy. (Justin and Amy Nessen are Gentry’s cousins. They are friends with the Wilding family and drove from Texas for the Wilding boys farewell) It was so great to see them! Their girls are so cute! They are such a great family! It didn't even seem real they were here in Fort Payne. It was kinda like a dream haha.

Sunday we had church, of course and I had the opportunity to teach proper prayer language in Sunday school. Elder Wilding gave his farewell talk and did great! He will be a great missionary! After church we went to the Wildings home for a little bit. We talked and took some pictures and then the Nessen’s headed back to Texas. It was very good to see them. The Wildings have been so great to us. I am thankful that I was able to meet them and their family. We had stake priesthood that night and I said goodbye to *** Chain he is also a great guy I'm gonna miss him too! Then of course like I said I’m getting transferred so I will keep you updated! 

Thank you for the package!!! Today I have been out 13 months! pretty crazy!!! :)

Love y’all..  Elder Anderson

Never put off a prompting

This week went by pretty quick! On Tuesday and  Wednesday we were in Huntsville for the day because  we had a meeting with the Callisters, a senior couple in the mission.  Tad Callister is his  brother and they have set up a master teaching program in the mission to help us become better teachers and also better at the scriptures.   The meetings went pretty good.   It really helps a lot to be able to be corrected and to receive help on the lessons. We came home that night and had missionary corralation at the church.

 Thursday we had a  district meeting and it rained pretty hard here that day.   We have been having some crazy weather lately here. We saw some members and set a baptism date with a dad and daughter for the 25th of this month,  but they didn't show up to church so we are going to go and see whats going on tomorrrow.  We saw the Mangolds  and they fed us some good pizza from Chattanoga. 

On  Friday we did our weekly planning and did some service.   It was a busy day with people all day long.   The Wilding boys have been going out with us and it has really helped us out a ton! We also we have a new elder with us now so we are in a trio and his name is Elder Bentz from Arizona.  We seen Jason and Maranda on Saturday and helped build a ramp for some one in the ward.   That took a while,  but turned out really good.

 Sunday we obviously had church and Elder Whipple was scheduled to speak last in sacrament meeting.   We got a text saying a lady needed a blessing and we kinda put it off because it was in the middle of sacrament meeting.  Then we got the same text from another number and then someone called us so I knelt down and prayed about it and felt like we needed to go right then,  so Elder Bentz and I took off and asked a priesthood holder to stay with Elder Whipple.  When we got to the address we were suppose to go we found out a lady had been run off the road by a 18 wheeler and her car went under the trailer.  Instead of getting crushed inside the car it  actually pushed her out.   She really shouldnt be here any more. She is going to be alright.   We gave her a blessing and we could feel the spirit was very strong.  I'm glad we were able to follow the spirit of the Lord to help give a blessing.  We should  never put off a prompting just do it!

Hope yall are doing great..  

Love, Elder Anderson

july 23, 2012 update

Hi yall

 This week we taught one of the families that there son was one of the boys we helped in baseball.   The son can speak english but the rest of the family only speaks Spanish.   Elder perkins and i went over and I basically just sat there most of the time.  He would then would give my testimony in english it went pretty good. We set a date for the 28th of July for them to be baptized and they said yes,  but they first need to learn more they said.

 Tuesday I was with Elder Perkins.   They got there visas so they were showing us where the investigators they were working with live. We then had dinner a familys house that made us gautamulin  kind of food.  I was really nervous,  but it was pretty good.! 

Wednesday we went to one of the part member families homes and had a lesson.   Jermey came with us and it went good.  He is still not ready for baptism yet though.   He said he still needs to receive his answer.

 Thursday we had  our weekly planning and then we tracted for a bit.   We saw Chris and his family.  They are the ones from the baseball team.   We taught them the restoration. The spirit was very strong as Elder Perkins gave the account of the first vision.  Chris was actually saying it with him so it was a cool experience. We then had dinner at a members house and then our corrilation meeting.

 Friday we had district meeting and one of our zone leaders Elder Schawrting taught the meeting.   It went well.   He is really good at all he does and knows a lot about the gospel. He is from Long Island New York. He talked about dead works which sometimes means going through the motions. It was a good one to be at.

 Saturday we did service for a referral that  we received out in Rainsville.   He is a non member, but his son served a mission and was a bishop and is now a Dr.  in texas. Ben is the father and his house got hit by the tornado.   We went and helped him pull nails out of boards and clean some stuff up. They then made us some good deep fried chicken,  okra,  corn and all that good stuff that came right out of the garden. Then we went to Jason and Marandas and read the Book of Mormon with them.   They just finished with 2 nephi! yay! 

Sunday we had church of course then after the other elders started packing up all there stuff to go to Argentina.    Elder Whipple and I saw some members.   We came home and everything was all packed up. We took them down to the Birmingham on Monday morning.  Transfers were this week, but Elder Whipple and I we will be here for another 6 weeks.

 Hope yall have a great week!

 love you so much

Elder Anderson

busy week of june 9th

whats up yall

 This week has been pretty good. Tuesday we went to the country to see some members for most the day an then they were having their firework show at the Fort Payne High school and a member took us.  We talked to some people until it was 830 and then we had to leave! :( so no fireworks for the missionaries... but thats ok because I went home wrote in my journal and drew some in there so that should make up for it right? 

Wednesday we had zone leader training in Huntsville.   We drove to the meeting and it was  good.  I like hearing our leaders talk. We then came home and tracted the rest of the day. 

Thursday was pretty busy.   We had weekly planning in the morning then we have been asked to start doing 4 hours of service in the community.   We searched for service,  but everyone just looked at us like we were talking a different language.. so we went to an all you can eat pizza place called Stevie B's.   You can put whatever you want on a pizza there.   We did some service for them and they allowed us to get some food so that worked out great :) Then we had branch corrilation that night and a storm rolled in with heavy winds and rain.   The 2 visa missionaries were lovin it. I went out in it for legit 5 seconds and was soaked head to toe... 

Friday morning during studys door bell rings and it was the mail lady and what does she have? A pkg from Uncle Kirk. Lets be for real.   Whenever he sends something,  you know its home made,  So I ripped it open and there it was..... the best jam in the world! Two  loafs of bread gone that day! We then tracted and contacted the rest of the day. We were able to watch tv special 20/20 Where Heaven Is.   It was pretty cool that it talked about our church. 

 Saturday we helped our branch mission leader start putting up a shed just like Uncle Rex's tin one.  It is 17 ft tall 40 ft long! Man that was tough,  we only got 4 sections up andwe got sun burned! Man am I greatful for sundays and church.   I taught GP's class again   The visa waiters  had 2 investigators come to church that I had talked to before.   It was weird they remembered me to, it was pretty cool,  I really hope they keep coming. Then after church Jason and Maranda had us over for dinner and we watched the 20/20 with them.   So all and all it was a pretty good week. The weather radio calls for rain everyday this week,  but I doubt it.  The weather in Bama is bi polor! Gas was down to 2.94 now its back to 3.04.  I never thought it would get that low again.

 Well hope yall have a great week! Much love!

Edlder anderson

hot hot in Alabama

Well this week has been hot!!!!! They said it is never this hot till end of August,  but it was over 103 for 3 straight days with the humidity! The heat index got up to 112 one of the days..

 So Monday the baseball team won.  They were down by a few runs,  but then they started to get it together and let  Shane pitched and they ended up going into extra innings and ended up winning. When we came back home,  there were police boats and scuba divers out in the lake by our apartment. Come to find out someone drown and they couldn't find his body. Later on in the week they did find his body about a mile down the lake from where they last saw him sad...

 Tuesday we tracted all day and then the team had another game that we went to that and they lost.. so now they are out. The good news is we gave another book of mormon to someone else that asked for one,  so that was good. 

Wednesday we got up at 5 am and got to go to the Temple! I love the temple.   It was great to be able to go and feel the spirirt with a room filled with missionaries! We saw brother Bush from Bessemer at the temple cutting the lawn with some boys from Bessemer.   He  took us out to lunch to Hamburger Heaven and it was pretty good!

 Thursday Elder Perkins and I  went out  tracting and it was so hot!  We had some good lessons and found 2 potential investigators,  so we will see where that goes. I forgot my planner at the house so sorry I'm  winging it from memory!

 Friday was just another day of heat and tracting. We had district meeting over the phone because everyone was out of miles on their cars. 

Saturday we were in Collinsville and it was another way hot day on the bikes until Elder Whipples chain on his  broke off.  We then we had to walk all the way back to the car it wasn't very fun haha.

 Fast Sunday was yesterday and we talked to John and had him pray during the sacrament  We then asked him to read a story from the Ensign and pray about the 14th of July and he said he would,  we are really hoping for that!  We had a pretty good storm last night that was needed because  everything is dying because of the heat. The new elders thought the lighting and thunder was pretty sweet!

 Well I love yall so much and have a good 4th of july. 

Happy Birthday Markell! love yall!

Elder anderson

Fort Payne All Stars

The Fort Payne All Star Team.  A letter that one of the parents wrote to President and  my testimony that I wrote and put inside all the Book of Mormons.