Week 17

This week was rough to be honest.  Numbers were very low.  Lots of people not showing up to lessons, back up plans not working, so we would go contact and no one would listen to us.  José we can rarely meet with, we moved his fecha to the 12th of April and he is really struggling to find time to meet.  We found some people with potential but it was just a long hard week but at the same time, I can't even describe how happy I am.  I have worked hard.  I have been trying to be the best missionary I can be and the Lord has blessed me for it.  As I  strive to be consecrated and fully committed to the work he has blessed me with the gift of tongues and also with the ability to grow as a missionary.  I feel self-sufficient, I can communicate better, I can follow the Spirit better than ever, and I have learned to take adversity head on and keep pushing through.

Monday we had one lesson with José and it went pretty well.  He has desires to be baptized but we just need to meet more.  Tuesday, helped Raquel move her mom in a wheelchair down all the stairs and then later back up.  That was quite the workout.  We taught a lady from brasil and she spoke portuguese but it was amazing as we were able to communicate super well with her.  We have been asked to commit people to baptism in the first lesson and so we invited her and she accepted, but we haven't been able to meet with her since, so we're gonna keep trying but there is potential there. The rest of the day nobody else could meet and so we contacted a lot and nothing worked.  Rough day.  We also had a lesson with a preacher from this other church.  He's great and is a lot of fun to talk to.  One day he´ll be baptized.  We really enjoy those lessons!  Wednesday we had a couple street lessons but they didn't seem too interested and we haven't had contact with them since.  We also visited Raquel and helped her with her mom again and had a lesson in her doorway because we couldn't find a man to go with us but another good thing that has been happening is I feel like I can communicate a lot better than I could a few weeks ago and I can actually participate and lead lessons so that has been a major blessing!

We've been working a lot with Luis, the recent convert, and he is a stud!  We go contacting with him sometimes and teach him other times.  He's getting ready to go to do baptisms the first week of may and he has been progressing so well!  He wants to serve a mission and it would be incredible if he did.  To leave his studies, only member in his family, his dad doesn't want him to but he is going to try anyways.  He is an amazing example to us all.  We met with him Friday and also last night (Sunday).  Saturday we found a lady in the street - we were teaching her and she's like yeah, I've been to your church a lot!  and we said oh really have you seen this book? She said yeah I have one!  So we asked what do you think of it? and she's like oh its true!  It's the word of God!  So we invited her to be baptized but turns out she was baptized in Peru and is already a member.  She is just a less active and we have no records of her on the ward list but we're going to work on re-activating her!  We also met with Davy and Lorena and they are planning on moving to Spokane Washington to live with Lorena's sister.  They talked about the culture here in Spain and how its not family friendly and they really want to leave to get to a better environment for their son.  So, good for them, but its going to be sad.  They're great friends of ours and its sad to see them leave.

I love every opportunity I have to testify of the fact that if the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith was a prophet, and then testify I know these things are true!  It's the most amazing feeling ever!!  I love this work. It was a great week progression wise for me. Thanks for everything!!!  I love you all!!!

((Hugs)) and kisses,

Elder Anderson

El Reino de Dios o Nada

Week 16

Yeah, the Charly situation was super awkward but it will definitely not be the last of awkward situations in the field! Our branch mission leader just got released.  We are super excited though because our new branch mission leader not only served as the branch president a year or so ago, he also served as a missionary here years ago.  He is an amazing man and we are super excited!!! His is going to be great.

That's crazy that you ran across the travel show about Santiago!!  We saw some people who I think were pilgrims who hiked there and the town of Santiago is amazing!!  Super old cobblestone streets, super old buildings, it's sweet!!  The Cathedral was amazing!!  It was a huge testimony builder too because we went in and they had a worship service going on and during it a ton of tourism and selling things off to the side, and a giant golden statue of Santiago (James the apostle).  It felt weird having tourism during a meeting, and everything just felt a lot different.  It was super cool historically and the architecture was magnificent but the spirit just was not there and it was a huge testimony builder.  Something funny that happened was we were down below in this little hallway underneath and these people were praying to the box that supposedly has James bones in it while 6 missionaries from the true church were standing right behind them.  It was really super interesting to watch.                                                    
                                                                                                         Santiago de Compostela Cathedral

left to right in the picture of the 6 of us: Elder Bercerra from Barcelona (serves in 

Santiago), Elder Gomez from Texas (A Coruña), Elder Vasquez from Barcelona (A Coruña), Elder Delgado born in Ecuador, lived in Spain most of his life (Santiago), Elder Anderson, and Elder Gentry!

Madrid was amazing!! and the things Elder Texiera taught us about street contacting we have been doing.  He taught us to go up to people, say we invite you to mormon.org, then if they look at the card say, among other things, my name is Elder Anderson and start a conversation, explain what we do, our message, and then make sure when setting appointments to get addresses and give them options like, "do you have time weekends or weekdays? mornings or afternoons? 6 or 7?"  We have been doing it exactly as he told us and we have been getting a lot of potential investigators from this new method of contacting. 

To answer your question about our investigators.  To be honest this was a really really rough week. First off, Francisco. He made some inappropriate comments to some women in the branch and one of the members (a father who is an absolutely amazing guy) pulled him off to the side and said please have more respect and leave those things outside of a church, its one thing to say those things in a discoteca but in a church, please don't.  Now this member is amazing and if I would have anyone talk to an investigator to correct behavior it would be him. Francisco stormed out of the capilla and the other elders saw him on the street Monday night, he gave them his book of Mormon, all the pamphlets, everything, and said he's never coming back.  We got him to come to talk to us Tuesday and he went off saying how that man is a terrible person, he should be able to say whatever he wants, that he is a "oveja negra" (black sheep) and he doesn't belong here, nor does he need it.  We used President Uchtdorf's  "Come Join with Us"  talk and said we're all from different backgrounds and we're all different people but we all have one thing in common, testimonies of Jesus Christ and the need to follow him.  But he said he's done and he´s not coming back.  So we lost him.  It was pretty sad but he wasn't humble at all and we don't know what would have happened otherwise.  The member feels bad and is trying to contact him and tell him to come back (which just shows why this gospel is true... this member understands the worth of a soul, and can forgive. He just wants to help him come unto Christ.) but yeah that was rough.  So no more Francisco for now.  We may get him back eventually we don't know. With Ciro, he won't come to church, we have tried and tried and tried and he just will not come, so he will no longer be getting baptized.  José has had some serious problems with his home and is now completely out of money and can never meet.  He almost came to church but this guy he shares a piso with cut his finger off so José had to take him to the hospital at 4 in the morning Saturday night. That just explains our week.  The weirdest things happen.  So he wont be baptized yet.  We might have a lesson with him tonight but we don't know we shall see and we may try and shoot for the 29th for a baptism but we will see.  Last, Nadia. Oh thank heavens we have Nadia.  She is golden!!  50 year old lady who has a testimony.  Incredible lady. She is still going to be baptized for now.  Her interview is next Friday and as long as things go well she will be baptized the 28th.  She only has two hours available on Sundays and she literally runs to church (a half hour run) comes to the last part of sacrament, goes to part of Sunday school, and then a half hour run back to her work. but she does it because she has a testimony.  We have been trying super hard to get someone to pick her up in a car but no one will yet, but she's amazing.  We are super excited for her plus, the Russian warrior son I supposedly look like is coming to A Coruña in June so I plan on baptizing him as well haha.  Things are good so far with her!!

Carnival ended last week! it was nuts.  The parties here were insane and the contacting was ridiculously harder than normal and its already super tough. It was so weird to see all the people in these odd costumes and just going crazy in the streets.  We had a super rough week with numbers.  Not many lessons, a lot of street contacting time, and very few street lessons as well.  Just no one wanted to listen this week and it was a super super rough week but we are still super happy!!  as always:)  The weather has been amazing!!!  It feels like spring here too it's been great!!!

Thanks for always keeping me updated on stuff at home! i cant believe I'm halfway around the world as well!! thanks for everything!! and the package don't worry. no rush on it. Just when you can!! and yeah tell me the name of the cookies!! maybe i have!! 

As for other random things that happened this week, from people throwing fireworks at us, a giant fire in this garbage can thing that goes deep in the ground, and getting yelled at last night for supposedly trying to break in to a building (I had my hands on the handle to the door and this guy came running out screaming and yelling if he ever sees us again he's calling the cops and all this stuff) haha.  We were talking over the intercom with some members. Crazy week but it's amazing because it's like you can feel the prayers of the members from all over the world.  I feel so safe and I know all will be well.  I love it and it's great to have the Lord on your side!  I love this work and even though it's super hard at times and discouraging I'm still extremely happy.  The happiness is amazing and even if I only baptize one Russian lady my entire time in Spain, I know I helped with bringing one soul unto him.  The work is tough, but worth it.  People have their agency, and its tough, I wish they didn't sometimes.  The gift of agency is beautiful it's what we fought for in the pre-earth life and one day every person will look back and realize they should have talked to us, or shouldn't have stopped talking to us.  But most importantly everyone eventually in one way or another will be brought to the knowledge of our Savior and I just want to do it for them now so they have the opportunity to choose now before its too tough.  This is so important.  It's the only thing that truly matters, forming eternal families, bringing His children back to Him.  He wants them back and I'm so glad I can help.  Even if it's only just one.  I love it out here!!!!  Love you all!!!

((Hugs)) and kisses,

Elder Anderson

¡El reino de Dios o nada!

March 3, 2014

Oh my goodness what a week!!   We both got to spend a day with a General Authority this week!  I'll tell you about that in a little bit.  Yes, I met the couple from the MTC!  They gave me the gift and thank you so much!!  I'll be needing it in the next few months because I have been writing in my journal nightly so you´ll be proud of me! 

As for your questions, yeah, I'll probably be buying some sweet futbol cleats while I'm here!! haha its super fun and we play every Saturday mornings when it isn't raining and we bring members and investigators.  We play to help build relationships between members and investigators and unity between us and members, so it's strengthening a lot and helps the investigators feel comfortable!  We actually have never played sports on p-day.  We´re always out seeing stuff around A Coruña.  Last week we went to the Torre de Hercules and this week I'm actually emailing from Santiago (which means James in Spanish).  It's in our district and so 6 of us elders (the other two from A Coruña and the 2 from Santiago) we're emailing now and then heading to the giant Cathedral de Santiago today.  It's the giant cathedral that supposedly James the apostles bones are buried.  That one that i guess people do that big hike or journey to or whatever that is but it's going to be way cool - the cathedral is huge!! 

It rains a ton!!  Oh hey, it's raining right now.  We live in Galicia so it's just normal for it to rain daily but the weather has been getting a lot better lately!!  We've had sunny days and we could see stars last week!!  It's been hailing the past two days and it's supposed to be really bad weather this week!!  That's okay its gonna get beautiful in springtime!!  This place is always wet but its super green.  It's gorgeous!! 

This week was great!!  A rough week but when you're serving the Lord it's tough to be sad. We had the 4 baptismal dates but now only 3.  Ciro, who works in the ocean, we lost contact with him for two weeks, but yesterday we said a prayer right before we left the piso that we could have contact with him and we came walking up to his portal (by the way the buildings all have portals.  All the bottom floors are businesses and then the other floors are pisos so we get peoples' "direction" or address and they give us which portal and then which piso for example, ours is Ronda de Outeiro 19, 6º, so portal 19 piso 6.  We came walking up to his portal and out walked Ciro.  We set a lesson for tonight and he said I'm so excited for you to come by to spiritually feed me.  So we're having a lesson on feasting on the words of Christ and how he can spiritually feed himself with 3 things.  We call it the OLA lessons (ola is hello in Galego haha) but it stands for Orar, Leer, Asistir.  Or, in english, Pray, Read, Attend. Helping him become self-sufficient spiritually.  Francisco is doing good.  He is still set to go for the 15th of March and is progressing well!  He´s out of the hospital and is keeping his commitments so hes great!  Nadia literally runs to church every week but she has an amazing testimony and is so excited to be baptized.  That one is good to go for the 28th of March!  José, we have a lesson with tonight and he is doing well.  We aren't 100% sure so far if his current fecha (or baptismal date) will work but we will start figuring out tonight.  He's been sick but he's been reading so that's good!  As for our other investigators - we've been working with one named Bob and he knows nothing about God so we are starting from literally the basics.  We had a lesson on the Godhead and who God and Jesus Christ are. Tonight we will be teaching him about the Savior more and watching Como Hallar Fe (Finding Faith in Christ) with him and reading parts of Mosiah 3.  It's been amazing to see his growth in his relationship with God already.  We may try to help him be baptized at the end of April but we´ll see.  
We're struggling to have contacts with our other investigators because its Carnival this week and the town has been growing crazy and everyone is partying.  Fireworks.  People marching around with drums and whistles and gosh its crazy.  It's a week long festivo so its been tough but it's all good.  The work is progressing regardless.  The branch is doing pretty good.  It's struggling and attendance is down.  The people are nice but just like anywhere have their problems.  But that's what we´re here for - to help those who haven't made covenants yet make them and strengthen those who have.  So we´re working hard!!  We have 70 - 85 members attend weekly and the primary is small but there's quite a few for how small we are.  We taught the young men the Plan of Salvation the other week!  We have a really good relationship with the Young Men's President.  Juan, the one I sent the picture of me with him, to you, that's him).  So we're doing what we can to strengthen the ward.  This branch is awesome and even though we have a lot of struggles that's what we´re here for - to strengthen.

 We got to go to Madrid this week!!  We left Wednesday on a train and got there that night (it's like an 8 hour train ride).  It was so weird being down in Madrid and going to "Holy Pavones" as Elder Gentry and I call it (haha Pavones is the metro stop with the Temple and MTC). Thursday was the "mission tour" with Elder Texeria of the 70.  We all got to go give him a handshake, and yeah, I totally shook his hand.  He said, "Que tal, Elder Anderson" and gave me a hug.  Que tal basically means "what's up" haha, and then a little later during lunch break Elder Gentry and I were washing our hands and so was Elder Texiera and he asked us "is this useful? are you learning anything?"  It was so cool!!  Just to see his humility and realize he is a normal guy.  But the training was INCREDIBLE.  He taught us how in Europe our best finding tool has been and always will be street contacting.  He taught us a better way to street contact using the mormon.org cards and then taught us we need to "keep digging where we have already found gold" and taught us to ask our investigators and members who we can pray for and then pray with them for whoever they say and then work our way to teach those people.  He promised we would triple our number of new investigators.  It was an incredible meeting.  We also got to go to the temple after!!!  The Madrid zones go every transfer but in the north we can't.  So it was sooo amazing to be able to go!!!  Anyway, this week was amazing and something I have learned is this:  We are sent on missions at such a young age to learn how to use this great responsibility of the Priesthood that we have been given at such a young age.  We have a responsibility as Priesthood holders to minister.   On our missions is when we truly learn to let our own desires go and learn to minister, and to serve others.  A mission is "lifelong Priesthood holder prep" to learn to serve others.  I've done a lot of studying on Priesthood as we´ve been working to strengthen the new recent converts who have recently been ordained to the Priesthood.  

I love you all!!!!  This church is true!!  I love this work and I am so happy!!!!!!  Thanks for your support!!!  and thanks for the weekly quotes mom:)  I love you!!!

((hugs)) and kisses,

Elder Jarrett Anderson

El reino de dios o nada!

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 :)