Tracting and Tacos for Thanksgiving

I kinda can´t believe I´m halfway done with my mission...and it still doesn´t feel like November. But we had an enjoyable week this last week! I learned this week that this is really the work of the Lord and He guides us. Here´s one example from the week:

Hna Gonzales and I were walking down the street tracting addresses we had recieved from talking with people in the street. We both felt prompted to find ¨Maricela¨. We went to the street that Maricela had given us, and as we walked, Hermana Gonzales commented, ¨Wow, look at that mansion¨ I jokingly replied with ¨That´s probably the house of Maricela¨ We were then shocked to find that the number of the mansion corresponded with the number we had for Maricela. We knocked on the door, and from the fifth floor window someone yelled out asking who it was. We replied saying we were looking for Maricela. Confused the woman came out and asked what we wanted. We introduced ourselves as misisonaries from The Church of Jesus-Christ of... before I could even finish saying the name of the church she excitedly said she was coming down to let us in. We entered the mansion and after a few minutes of talking with this woman we found out that 1. Her name isn´t Maricela, nor was she the woman we were looking for and 2. She´s a member of the church. She had moved from California a few years before and had never attended the church here in Salvatierra. Thus her church records weren´t even in the ward´s member list and it´s a miracle that we were able to find her. She said she had been praying for us to show up because she wanted to start coming to church again and also because her boyfriend isn´t a member but she want´s him to learn about the church. Crazy stuff, huh? This sister had lived nearly her whole life in the United States and loves celebrating US holidays so she then invited us to eat tacos with her to celebrate Thanksgiving haha. Best day ever. 

This week we bought a mini Christmas tree :) And I got to spend a day in Tarimbaro for divisions with the STL. And nothing much else really happened...but I´m super excited that it´s almost December which means we can sing Christmas Hymns everywhere we go and there´s pretty Christmas lights all around. I´ll sure be missing some of our normal Christmas traditions, but it will be nice to be able to spend this time focusing on others and the real meaning of Christmas. 

I hope you´re all enjoying the cold up north there and I just want you to know it´s currently 75 degrees here in Salvatierra :)

Love you all! 

Feliz casi Navidad,

Hermana Anderson

Snow? Thanksgiving?

I still feel like it´s summer down here in Mexico...so I´m not quite sure what you´re all talking about with snow and Thanksgiving. Maybe we´ll have to buy some tacos or something to celebrate Thanksgiving this Thursday, but other than that, no one here really knows what Thanksgiving is. My companion thought I was crazy when I first tried to explain Thanksgiving, and even more crazy when I tried explaining black Friday haha. Oh America and our crazy holidays and traditions. 

Well this last week went by sooooo fast. We were busy with trips to Morelia, meetings with Elder DeHoyes, and our baptism with Laura. I used to get stressed when there was so many things to do in such a short amount of time, but I´m learning that if we do everything we can do on our part, everything always works out and there´s absolutely no use in getting stressed about it. And honestly, everything went perfectly. Laura´s baptism was easily the highlight. She was able to bring her kids and grandkids and her mom was even able to come despite her health problems and everything. The Spirit was so strong during the baptism and one of Laura´s kids asked us to visit her this week to start teaching her. After the baptism we had an activity with the whole ward where we ate Pasole and enjoyed talking and being together. It was great to see so many members there supporting Laura and her family. It´s absolutely the best thing in the world to see someone change so drastically and enter the waters of baptism to make this sacred promise with the Lord. 

The other highlight of the week was that at one of our meetings with President Egginton and President DeHoyes, I saw my dearest Hermana Sutherland! We worked in the MTC together before the mission and spent a lot of time together in at BYU. We became super close friends and now she´s in the mission with me! We even were able to do the special musical number and sing ¨Be Still my Soul¨ together. She has about 2 weeks in the mission field now, and is still learning Spanish, so President had me sit by her and translate the meeting to her. It was a good just to see someone from home and to be able to talk to her. 

There´s very few things in the mission that I don´t like, but one of them is the fact that sometimes we have to decide to stop teaching someone. I realize it´s necessary, but it´s hard for me to stop teaching someone when I can see such great potential in them. So it´s always a decision I make carefully, and a decision I make with the Lord. Yesterday in the morning I was praying to know whether we should leave one of our investigators or not. Latter that evening, we received a message from a member that her friend wanted us to visit her. When we met this friend, we soon found out that it was the mom of this other investigator we were about to stop teaching. The mom shared with us some insights on their lives and perhaps some of the reasons our investigator wasn´t progressing. Needless to say, we´ve decided to keep teaching them both, and I´m excited to see them progress together. It´s just always interesting to me the different ways the Heavenly Father answers our prayers. 

Well, that´s all I really have for this week! Life is just flyin´ by and we just keep on working in the work of the Lord. I wish you all the happiest Thanksgiving! 

Con mucho amor,

Hermana Kirsten Anderson

Amazing Experiences

I feel like a once a week email is far from suffcient to tell you of all my amazing experiences here in the mission. It was a great week this week. I`m pretty sure we`ve eaten tacos everyday and we continue to have progress and many Spiritual experiences. I don`t know how the Lord does it, but He continues to have infinite patience with us imperfect servents of His and help us to find the people who are ready for His truth. Last week we knocked on a door looking for a woman who I`m pretty sure had moved out of that house long ago, but coincidently it was the same name of the daughter of  the woman that opened the door (who doesn`t actually live there), so it caught her attention and she let us in. Long story short, this woman had just lost both of her parents and was praying to know where they had gone. We taught the Plan of Salvation and shed many tears together as she felt the truthfulness of this plan. The Lord is aware of every single one of His children and their needs.  

Another quick story, we were waiting at the bus stop with two women who had a bunch of kids. I was about to talk to them and ask if they wanted to hear our message when I heard a still small voice, ¨wait for them to talk to you¨. That  goes against basically everything we`re told as missionaries to do, but I listened. A bus passed by and while it wasn`t the bus we normally take, I felt like we should get on. The two women also got on behind us and sat in the back. At this point my companion was so confused as to why we were on the bus, and the only thing I could tell her was to wait. About 3 minutes later one of the women tapped my shoulder. ¨Can you two come visit me and my family?¨  Of course we excitedly said yes and set an appointment. We taught the lesson yesterday and she accepted everything we told her about Joseph Smith and the Restoration. She told us she has been really confused and wants to know which church is true to be able to take her kids and teach them about God. So prepared. 

This Thursday Laura will be baptized! It`s a miracle how her mom, who is a member and fighting cancer, has gained enough strength that she will be able to attend the baptism as well. What a blessing! Laura will be the first of my investigators that I have found, taught, and seen baptized. It`s been so wonderful to see the whole process and this great change in her life! El Evangelio es hermoso.

We swtched our P-Day to today to come to Morelia and have a Zone Activity and we will be staying the night to have a conference with the President of the Area, Elder DeHoyes tomorrow morning. I love everything about the mission, the meetings, the activities, the lessons, the ups and downs. I know this is the work of the Lord!

A lot of other great things happened, and I don`t have time to explain everything, but I`ll send some photos of this weeks highlights!  

Thanks for all you all do for me! I love hearing from you and feeling of your support and strong spirits. Keep up the great work!

Con todo mi amor,

Hermana Anderson

Christmas lights are here!! 

Hermana Sobeida-- la mamà de Hermana Laura

Family Home Evening with some investigators 

Enjoying tacos as a distrito with Hermana Angelina

Zone activity with the fantastic 4

Oliver and I 

Family Photo with Hna Carmen, Andrea y fam

Laura`s house is basically a butterfly garden  :)

No such thing as a bad day in the mission

I´m convinced there´s no such thing as a bad day in the mission. I mean, yeah there´s those days where all of our appointments fall through and no one wants to listen to us, but what a privilege it is to be working in the work of the Lord, to be walking with Christ by our side trying to do and say the things that He would do and say. The people didn´t always accept His teaching, it wasn´t always easy for Him, so why should I ever expect it to be easy for me. And I´m learning that the joy of seeing someone accept the Gospel is waaaayyy more rewarding than whatever rejection we might receive. Remember the reference I mention last week, from our recent convert, well, she came to church this week! And she also took us to visit one of her friends who has been struggling with a lot of different family problems. The Gospel applies to EVERYONE and EVERY SITUATION. When we teach, these people just light up and get the biggest smiles on their faces with tears in their eyes and there´s nothing better than seeing someone feel the Spirit for the first time. It makes me feel even more blessed that I´ve had the blessing of the Gospel all my life. We should never ever stop recognizing the blessings of the Gospel and the Spirit in our lives.  

So I received the best compliment this week....we were talking with this guy in the street and when my companion said she was from Peru, he asked me if I was from there too, and then when I said no, he said, ¨So you´re Mexican then?¨ hahahaha he said my Spanish was too good to be American. We were laughing about that all week. We then invited him to our English classes we have every week, and he came! I love teaching English. It reminds me of the MTC when I was trying to learn Spanish for the first time. 

So Hermana Tupouniua and I completed 8 months in the mission this last week...what better way to celebrate than by eating 8 tacos. The guys at the taco stand were a little surprised when these 4 girls were asking for 32 tacos...and then we were even more surprised when we actually finished all of them. 

Well, everything´s going well down here in Salvatierra. We´re working hard, having fun, and enjoying every moment. Oh, also, Hermana y Elder Anderson (our relatives) arrived in the mission this last week! It will be fun to have some more Anderson´s here in Mexico.  

Gracias por todo,

Hermana Anderson

Zone Conference

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Pase lo que pase y disfrutalo

What a week! Haha we still have the sisters from Acambaro (Hna
Tupouniua y Hna Trejo) living with us. Which is super great cause we
all have a super good time together. Also we had el día de los
muertos, interviews with President in Morelia and then some late night
traveling to Guadalajara to visit with President again! There was some
super great moments as well as some stressful situations and such, but
we´re learning to just take it all as it comes.
The best thing happened this week, Alberto (our recent convert)
introduced us to his friend to teach, and she is GOLDEN! We got to the
first lesson and she not only had read all of the pamphlet about the
restoration, but also searched all the scriptures and answered all the
questions in the back. We basically didn´t have to teach anything
haha. It´s great to see how a member first introduced Alberto to the
church, and then how he introduced someone else, and now she even
wants to bring someone else to church on Sunday. It´s the ripple
effect of missionary work. Speaking of missionary work, a young man in
our ward received his mission call to Tucson Arizona! He´s going to be
super great.
So those were some of the super great moments, the super stressful was
Sunday night when we received a call from the secretaries asking if we
were in Guadalajara...what, we had no idea we had to be in
Guadalajara. So we received special permission from President to
travel all night to get to Guadalajara for the meeting in the morning.
We got to the bus station, and the last bus had just left 5 minutes
before, so we had to wait, and then we got to the next bus station,
and the last bus had just left 5 minutes before. So we spent our time
in the bus stations enjoying hot chocolate and reading the scriptures.
We finally got to Guadalajara at 6:30 in the morning...and then after
the meeting we got to spend the rest of the day coming back to
Salvatierra. But it´s all good. The mission has taught me to just
kinda go with the flow and stop stressing about the things I can´t
control. And it was some good bonding time for Hna Gonzales and I...14
hours in the bus together in 1 day. Haha
Have I mentioned I love the mission? Well I do. There´s nothing quite
like putting all of your energy and focus in the work of the Lord. I
realize this time is so very short and so very precious, so I really
am trying to enjoy every little moment. These people suffer so much,
and I love being able to offer the hope and joy the Gospel brings. I
can´t even express how grateful I feel to have this Gospel in my life.
I know with all my heart that this church is true.
Les amo,
Hermana Anderson

 last comida con Julio y Pepe 

Hot Chocolate at 1 am in the Morelia bus station

Junta de 12 semanas en Guadalajara  

En la casa del Cruz del Sur. Hnas. Gonzales, Mortensen, Morales, Garcia, yo, Allen, Zapata

Hermana Kinikini (Hna Tupouniua´s cousin) and I at the 12 semanas meeting