Our God is a God of Miracles.

Just keep praying and follow the spirit.  You will know who to share te gospel with and when. I'm glad its been an amazing week for you!  And thank you for your testimony mom, I'm so grateful I get to call you mother.  

This week was INCREDIBLE for Elder Gentry and I!!!!  WE set super high goals this transfer and we are well on our way!  We want 8 baptisms in March, 180 transfer lessons, and 180 references.  With our faith and the Lord's help this is very very possible.  We have been praying hard and working even harder.  Plus my Spanish is good!  Kind of.  I can teach the lessons and answer questions.  I just can't really make small talk haha so I'm awkward sometimes but that's okay it will come.  Monday, we helped a lady from the branch with her washing machine.  She's less active and has a daughter on a mission in Barcelona and it was good to get into her house and bring the spirit.  We accidentally broke her washer when we pulled it out of the little area it was in haha.  The tube for the water snapped and water got everywhere.  It was bad but we fixed it and its all good.  It's better than it was before.  It was pretty funny hahaha.  Whoops.  Tuesday, we have still been working with Davy and Lorena, they want to learn more doctrine and have lots of questions about the Bible so we´re focusing on answering any questions they have and somehow tying it into one of 3 points, priesthood, prophets, and the restoration to help them see this church is true.  We´re going to be discussing D&C 138 next time.  We´re excited for that!  We had 6 street lessons that night and people have been listening to us as we have very specific prayers asking for the Lord to put prepared people in our path.  It says in Preach My Gospel to have faith that will happen. The Lord knows what we need, so we just need to ask.  So, specific prayers=specific answers.  Wednesday, we had district meeting with our new district and I could actually understand everything that was said! 

 So my understanding Spanish is coming along as well.  It was awesome.  We went to drop by a recent convert who we hadn't had contact with in a while as he never answered his phone, and we had the impression to drop by.  Normally after district meeting we just go back to our apartment to do 12 semanas (the training program) but we decided to go to Brauddy's and on the way we taught a super prepared kid named Fredi and we are teaching him now.  The Lord's hand is definitely in this work.  We taught Fransisco (our progressing investigator who wants to learn English, the sculptor) the word of wisdom.  He's in the hospital right now with some problems with something he said it in his English/Spanish that is really confusing so we´re going to be visiting him soon.  He's going to be ready for March 15th to be baptized.  We are extremely excited!!!  Right before we taught him we were setting up in the capilla (chapel) for our lesson and a man walked in for absolutely no reason.  He didn't even know what our church was and we ended up teaching him the first lesson.  So we´ll see.  It was amazing because Fransisco didn't show up on time and showed up 5 minutes after the man left.  It was crazy.  We also had a lesson that night set with a man named Christian.  We met him in the train station and he brought his girlfriend which we weren't even expecting but we taught them both and things are going extremely well with them!!  Thursday we brought Andres to Raquel's house again and gave him our do or die lesson, basically telling him he needs to act on what he's been taught and think about whether or not there is a God and we´ll meet again on Tuesday.  If he feels like he wants to know or keep commitments we can continue to meet if not we can't because it wastes our time. Raquel bore AMAZING testimony on how we can know there is a God because of the scriptures.  It was a powerful lesson so we will find out Tuesday what he thinks. 

 We also went to an old investigators house his name is also Christian but long story short the electric company cut the wrong wire and he had no power so we sat in his room with a bunch of candles and it was super dark but he had a friend over right as we dropped by she was super open and we taught her the first lesson and the investigator bore a powerful testimony of the Book of Mormon.  We can't baptize him because he won't come to church but it was cool.  We were like can we just count that as a member present lesson for our numbers this week? haha  It was insane the timing of it all.  Friday, we taught a 50 year old lady who is trying super hard to come to church.  She has a testimony but she cares for an old lady so she can rarely leave her house.  She's been coming to church and we asked her to be baptized she said well, I need to study more before I can go preach on the streets but I want to.  We told her she doesn't have to know everything and doesn't have to go preach and she said okay what day can I be baptized?  She will be baptized March 28th!!!! Super pumped.  She also said I look like her son who is in the Siberian army.  Yeah, I look like a Russian warrior. haha   We were walking to our ward mission night activity and all of the sudden this guy yelled out to us hola!  It was a street contact of ours and he was trying to find our church. His name is José and he came to the activity, came to church, we've had a lesson with him and he is going to be baptized on March 15th!!!!:)  Super cool guy.  He's progressing well!  We also went another man named Bob and his friend. We had a lesson with him on Sunday too and we read the Book of Mormon introduction with him and he asked us so how can I strengthen my relationship with God?  Yeah, what investigators ask that??  It was the greatest question ever!!!  We taught him how to pray and he will have a baptismal date most likely this week!!  

On Saturday we played futbol with some members and its so cool just playing at this little field.  Like America has little baseball fields everywhere... Spain has soccer fields all over the place, its sweet!  Yes, I'm really enjoying futbol. hahaha  I know, I know, its way fun.  Then we ate at a members house and they fed us this weird fish stuff and mom, I remembered you and even though I was about to puke as I shoved it down I remembered you saying, on your mission you just have to eat what people give you. You'd be proud of me. I did.  I ate it all and I have felt like garbage since.  I got pretty sick and so did Elder Gentry.  But, we´re good haha and we ate it all.  So thanks for teaching me the right thing to do no matter how disgusting it was haha.  It was called sevirche and Elder Gentry says he's had better from other members.  This one was just really bad.  We also taught an old less active man and I love doing that.  Being able to bring the spirit back into their homes.  We had an impression to drop by at a certain time, we did and he said we caught him for the 10 minutes he had been home all day.  It was amazing!!  Oh and our lesson with Bob on Sunday about prayer was because Eliot our normal Sunday night lesson couldn't make it back into town that night. 

 We have seen so much of the Lords timing this week and how his hand is in all of this.  He is truly in charge of His sheep and it is evident in this last story, something from Sunday.  We had our lesson with Jose and he showed up really late.  It went well and then we talked for a little after, we took a long time and it's usually good to be moving quick and getting other places to teach more people but we didn't feel right about rushing things.  As we were walking on Ronda de Outerio, the main road, it was only us and an old man a little further up and then a lot of cars on the road but we were alone on the sidewalk with this man.  There was no one else.  All of the sudden this man started to stumble and started to walk out into the road.  He was stumbling and we ran up to him and grabbed him pulled him onto the sidewalk and honestly we saved his life.  We helped him walk home and he was really struggling.  We got him to his apartment and helped him inside and his wife took care of him.  It was amazing though that had the lesson with Jose started earlier, or ended early, or had we not talked, or had he showed up on time, we would not have been there and that man would have been hit by a bus that came flying around the corner 5 seconds after we pulled him out of the street.  The Lord has his timing for all of us and when we are being exactly obedient he will guide us and use us where we need to be.  We will be in the right place at the right time.  Huge testimony builder for me!!!! Thanks for everything!!  This church is true!!  3 months down this week!  Crazy.  Love you!!!

((Hugs)) and kisses,

Elder Anderson

El Reino de Dios o Nada

Transfers

Well transfer 1 is over!!  It flew by!  Elder Gentry and I are staying here in A Coruña so we are super glad we get to stay together and especially stay here.  Sounds like an amazing week for all of you back home!!  Hannah is getting so big!  It's crazy!!  That's awesome you're having the missionaries over!  That will be awesome:)  Thanks for doing your part:)  The project in the basement sounds exciting!!  I'm sure they are thrilled though :) haha 

With the language, I'm picking it up more and more every day.  I understand people for the most part.  I miss a few words here and there but I'm struggling speaking but I'm progressing daily so its great:)  With the teaching, I struggled a little the first few weeks because of the Spanish but these last couple weeks have been pretty good.  I feel like it's hard to express everything I want to say because I can't express it in Spanish so I feel really repetitive sometimes with my teaching but I'm improving and starting to say more so its good. 

 This week was amazing!!!!  Monday we had our final lesson with Andres.  He has completely stopped progressing and despite our attempts we have lost contact with him.  So we had to drop him. Sad, but we can't waste our time when there are others who are progressing more than him.  Tuesday we had a lesson with Francisco.  He is really interesting and he loves to tell us all about the crazy hard times he´s had in his life and he started to meet with us cause he's a sculptor (on his business cards he claims to be the best modern sculptor in the world) and he wants us to teach him English so he can move to America and get rich. hahaha  With his difficulties we have helped him start to build a relationship with Christ and his atonement and he's very receptive to the gospel so far and he has a baptismal date for the 15th of march!!:)  So that has been good!!  I got my residency card on Wednesday so I am an official resident of Spain.  That was pretty sweet!  We also found a Colombian family Wednesday. We taught the dad in the street and during it we asked him,  "So what's prayer to you?",  and he was like,  "It's a conversation with God, he's our father and so we can express our feelings to him."  When we asked about prophets he said, "Ellos son pastores para el mundo."  "They're shepherds for the world.  They teach us and guide us" and we were like okay this guys ready!!!  So we're going to be teaching them this week!  We´re super excited!!!  Thursday we got into the Branch Presidents house which has never been done before by elders here!  He lives outside of A Coruña and it took a while to find it but we got in and it was an amazing relationship builder for us.  Friday was Valentine's Day and we went all out!  We wore red ties and sang love at home for our companionship study hymn.  Then that night we bought each other pastries. hahaha  It was fun.  Saturday we taught Francisco again and then we had a movie night for ward missionary night.  So we had an investigator there and our ward mission leader puts on Charly, the one with Heather in it.  So first off we didn't know what to do, we had an investigator there or else we would have left but yeah that was bad for us.  Not exactly a mission appropriate movie and we didn't know what to do but we prayed that night for help from the Lord to help that not distract us from the work and we've been good.  So next time we will be a little more careful in making sure it's a solid movie that we can watch.  That night we found out about transfers and we're staying and so are the other elders here in A Coruña so we´re super excited!! Sunday was an amazing day!!  We had 2 incredible lessons with investigators.  One was with a girl named Sandra she has cancer and has attended church a couple times a member came up to us at church and said okay meet me here at the chapel at 5 I'll take you to her house.  That was like the greatest thing we could have ever heard from a member!!  So the lesson was amazing and she is sooo ready for the gospel!!  The lesson was powerful!  She may be moving back to Brazil this week depending on some medical things so we pray the Lord allows what is best for her in this situation.  We taught Eliot again.  We teach him every Sunday night and he asked profound questions.  We had a really good talk about the Plan of Salvation.  Great week!!  Great transfer!!  After we totalled the numbers for the transfer last night Elder Gentry showed me his from his first transfer they taught 46 total lessons. and had 7 member present lessons.  We taught 126 total lessons and had 40 member present lessons.  So it was a SOLID first transfer!  It was his birthday yesterday so we had a great time!  We made cake during medio dia and our oven is broken so it baked the top and the edges but the middle was still not done.  It happened with lasagna a week ago haha but it was still delicious but it made us so sick hahaha we´re still feeling the effects.  Amazing week though!!!!  We made a goal for 8 baptisms in the month of March and we are praying so hard to be able to achieve that goal.  The Lord will bless us according to our faith so it will all work out!  I love this work so much!!!  Thanks for everything.  Have an amazing week!!!!

((hugs)) and kisses,

Elder Jarrett Anderson

¡¡El reino de Dios o nada!!

Week 12

Happy Birthday McKay!!! :)  I'm so glad to hear you had such an amazing birthday week! :) That sounds like the coolest birthday week ever bud!  Thanks for recording my part in the year in review!  This has been a wild year!!!!  That's exciting for Tanner and I'm not surprised about the dentist hahaha but Tanner's going to be driving in 3 weeks??  Holy cow!  I won't get to drive for a long time unless I get transferred to the Canaries, Toledo, or if I'm ever in the office.  So Tanner, you may be better than me when I get home.  Fine, I'll admit it.  Hannah great job with basketball:)  Keep it up!:)   

The spiritual thought I love doing!! and thanks for your prayers.  They made this week possible.  It was a rough but still amazing week.  I'm glad the newspaper worked too!!  The lady at the place wrapped it for me and I'm glad Hannah is excited to use it!:)  Thanks so much for your testimonies!!  So this week was interesting.  It started off pretty good and then remember Andres?  and how he was going to be baptized next week?  Yeah, so we had a lesson with him in the place he actually lives.  We have taught him at his parents house (when we say house we mean piso 'cause nobody lives in houses) but it turns out he actually lives in this little tiny motor home type thing.  We got there and he was like burning incense and had a sword and all these crosses everywhere and all this weird stuff in it. and he had these rings with these symbols on it and we talk about Freemasons all the time.  Elder Gentry asks Andres are you a Freemason?  and at first i was like are you insane? but it turned out to be a very inspired question.  He never answered the Freemason question but he explained he is a Templario (Templar in English, I think?) and he basically told us he doesn't believe in God and believes in reincarnation and all this stuff and we were blown away.  He had been keeping his commitments and everything.  He'd been reading, praying and we had soo many lessons with him.  We thought he was ready but it turns out he doesn't believe in God.  Well, he knows all the options of what he could believe in and he kind of has beliefs but he doesn't believe in God and doesn't want to believe.  We talked with him for a while and we are still confused on why he agreed to baptism and we are so confused at whenever we asked do you have questions?  He said yeah and he'd never really ask them.  I guess he just wanted to research another religion and just see what else was out there.  The whole agreeing to baptism is what confuses me.  So we challenged him to read and pray and he basically told us no and he was like I'm glad we could exchange all this knowledge and we haven't been able to visit with him since.  It was the loneliest and hardest night.  We weren't sure what happened and we did everything we could to just keep smiling and have fun cause that was hard.  Good thing it was just an odd day and everything that happened was funny, but it was still hard.  We decided we need more investigators since he was our only progressing investigator.  So we prayed and prayed and prayed to have the Lord put prepared people in our path and we ended up teaching 30 lessons this week!! (the most we've taught previous this transfer was 20) and we found 8 new investigators!  One we have (we found him in the area book) his name is Ciro.  He's from Peru and he is definitely ready and has desires to change.  Our good friend Ciro, has a baptismal date for the 15th of march!!!!!!:)  The Lord answers prayers when we are obedient:)  It was a hard week but this week truly was a miracle:) 

For the spiritual thought for the week!  The Book of Mormon has one purpose - to testify of Christ.  To go along with that there are two main themes in the book of Mormon.  Remember and Repent.  Our missionary purpose and also lesson 3 in Preach My Gospel have 5 steps. Faith, Repentance, Baptism, Holy Ghost and Endure to the End.  This is the gospel of Jesus Christ. When we read the book of Mormon it is constantly reminding us to Remember and Repent.  We are on step 5 of the the 5 steps, we are Enduring to the End, which include the first 4 in a repeated process over and over again.  We must always remember our Savior and have faith in him, repent daily, and as we renew our covenants every Sunday we covenant to remember and we can be cleansed of sin, and then we have the Holy Ghost to help us.  Step 5 is a combination of the repeated process of the first 4 and the "guidebook" (if you will) on how to live the right way and stay on the path is the Book of Mormon.  Its themes are Remember and Repent, and look to the Savior.  As we feast on the Book of Mormon daily and we choose to apply the things therein we are helping ourselves repeat the process of the 4 steps and the only way to stay on the right path with these steps is through daily study of the Book of Mormon.  This church is true and the Book of Mormon is the way to come unto Christ!!!!  I love you all!!  Have an amazing week! 

Love,

Elder Anderson

¡El Reino de Dios o nada!

A letter to a brother

(This is Elder Anderson's mom.  I just had to include these sweet letters today.  Sophie is just four years old and loves her oldest brother.  Her face just lights up when she receives letters from him.  She loves writing him and so she tells me what to say and I just type verbatim what she says.)

Dear Jxxxx, 

I love you.  I am glad you liked the pictures I painted for you.  Have you  had  a  great day  today? are you having fun on your mission?  Every night when I say my prayers, I pray for you. I had a great day at primary on church day and I learned about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I learned about Jesus too. For preschool, I learned about bees and bobcats and the other wild animals that we can't pet.  I know how to write lots of letters and numbers but not 2's.  I don't know how to write 2's.  That's all I want to say today.  

Sophie




(This is the reply a little sister received from her missionary brother) 

Today was awesome:) I'm having a lot of fun!!!  I'm glad you're learning about the church:) and animals!!  and one day you'll write 2's.  I love you!!!

Jxxxx :)

¡¡Viva Galicia!!

They’re getting so old!!  And Mom, you should have just gone to dental school. Haha, but good for Hannah!!!:)  That’s gonna be so much fun for McKay at the Lion House!!  I’m excited for him:)  

I absolutely love the principle of "teaching people not lessons" and it applies to missionary work, as well as primary, Sunday school, everything.  This church isn't about teaching lessons, its about strengthening members.  The Savior, during his earthly ministry, did not teach to the masses but taught to the one.  (I think I've said this in a previous email but its like my favorite principle ever).   Elder Bednar says the hallmark of the Savior's life is "one by one".  He didn't teach one multitude but a multitude of ones.  My absolute favorite principle. One by one. 

Oh Tanner!!  Well done bud. Haha, way to do what you know is right.  Keep it up!!  With the region wide fast for rain, I know the Lord will answer your prayers and fasting because he always answers the prayers of the righteous.  California had a similar fast last week and Elder Gentry got an email written last night by his dad saying after all the prayers and fasting as he was writing the email last night it was pouring.  So I know the lord will answer the prayers in your region as well.

The 12 week program is great!!!  Learning lots and it's been amazing to see my growth already.  I finally feel like a real missionary!  We start week 5 today.  Well I would love to be picking up on the Galician language (Gallegan) but sadly no Gallegans (Galicians) will talk to us.  There tends to be an attitude of don't talk to the Gallegans among the Galician missionaries but we had a lesson from the zone leader last Wednesday about "el buen pastor y nuestras ovejas" (the good shepherd and our sheep) and he gave an incredible talk about us being the shepherds of this part of the Lord's pasture. The north of Spain and no matter how tough it is (and we need to be in reality, this is a tough area when it comes to natives), we need to realize everyone is God's child and we need to talk to everyone because they are all his children, Su ovejas.  His sheep.  But no, I'm not learning Gallegan at all.  

Elder Gentry and I get along great!!!!!  He's amazing and a great missionary.  He's a stud! and he's hilarious.  We were making puns the other day with the word Spain haha. Something fell and I was like that was dangerous and he was like, "Did you just say that was Spaingerous?"  hahaha.  So we were making a ton of puns.  That's inspain!  insane) and my favorite... Holy Toledo, that's inspain! ha ha.  'Cause there's a city called Toledo in Spain ha get it?  Dumb puns are awesome hahaha!   Elder gentry is a great trainer!!  He pushes me with my Spanish and it's helped a ton!!  I can understand people for the most part and I'm speaking more and more every day!  So that's been good!! 

Our district leader is in Lugo and I went on exchanges with his companion in Lugo this week, so I've spent a few days in Lugo this transfer.  That town is super cool!!!  It's a smaller city and in the center it's got this wall around the super old part of town.  It's sweet. 

I know this is where I need to be right now!!  This place is amazing!!!!  I love it here and I love this work more than anything.  The lasting happiness of sharing this message is a permanent peace I have never felt before in my life and even though it's hard at times, it's comparable to having the spirit we feel in the temple 24/7 and its incredible!!!!  I love the feeling of just getting lost in the work and just wanting to share this with everyone!!  I love it.  

Tell Sophie good job on her testimony!!!!:):):)  that's amazing:)  and good job to Hannah too! My siblings are amazing examples:)  We go to a locutorio and its a euro for two hours, and yeah, good price for a good amount of time!  We have the smallest apartment in the north but it's in the middle of the city so everything is easily accessible including walking to appointments and getting home on time so the size doesn't matter cause the location is prime.  It's just Elder Gentry and I.  The other two have an apartment on the south end of town and its quite the walk, so I'm grateful!!

Well this week was another incredible week!!!!  We have been teaching Andres and he's getting there.  We're teaching him about diezmo (tithing) tonight and going through the baptismal interview questions with him and helping him with his dudas (doubts) so keep praying for him.  We're still shooting for our meta (goal) for the 15th so keep praying hard!!! We had a major rebuilding week this week and we dropped a lot who weren't progressing. But we found some new investigators this week and were excited!!  We did a TON of street contacting and we are working with the people we found and trying to get in with them so it's been a good week for rebuilding!!  This next week is going to be incredible!!  We're also working with Eliot, the one whose relatives are members.  We taught him the Plan of Salvation last night and he accepted a "soft commitment" to be baptized.  He said he'll be baptized as he comes to know this is true and he has been studying el libro de mormon A TON and he loves it so things are going great with him.  The parents of Leslie said she cannot be baptized until she is 18, so that's tough since she's 11.  But it's okay, eventually. She has a STRONG testimony and comes every week to church We've been working with  Davy and Lorena.   Other than that it's just been a good rebuilding week.  Teaching English classes, going to Lugo, oh!  and President and Hermana Jackson were in A Coruña this morning!!  We had interviews and talked about some things for a while!  It was great!!:) It's always refreshing to get a visit from someone from Madrid 'cause were so lonely up here.  As one elder said, "We've been exiled to paradise.  It's amazing up here but we're alone.  Just clear up north, but I love it!!!!  That's my week!!!  It's been amazing!!!  Thanks for the prayers and continued support:)  Love you all!!!!:)

For the spiritual thought: read Moroni 10 and notice how many times he says I would exhort, or I exhort and as you go through and read it, what he exhorts us to do is how he wants our experience with the Book of Mormon to be.  So, read through Moroni 10 and find out what Moroni wants us to do with the Book of Mormon. 

Love you all!!!  The church is true, and the book is blue.  You're in my prayers constantly!!

((hugs)) and kisses

Elder Anderson

El reino de Dios o nada