19!

Thank you everyone for all the Birthday wishes! I had a great Birthday. We went on exchanges and I was able to go with Elder Fox. I served around him in my last area, so we had a great time. I bought a big Ice Cream Dairy Queen Cake, Reese's Peanut Butter Cup!  Ahaha Oh man I gained a few pounds from that! It was so good tho! I will send some pictures!

This week we have been working with a lot of people but none of them came to church, we had so many say they would be there. I even talked to one on the phone right before church and they said they would come but never showed. It was sad.

This week we did some service at the food pantry and helped a non member build a retaining wall. We also had Interviews with the Mission President. It’s always great seeing him, he is a great guy! He took us out to lunch after so that was fun!I Also played some more street ball and told them that if I win they have to come to church, I won but none of them came to church.

We had dinner with the Stake President, he is the CEO of Genesis, he has a super nice house. They also gave us a huge Chocolate cake from Costco. It was sooo good. Then we knocked some houses in their neighborhood and it was cool, I love knocking mansions. haha The Mansions and the Ghetto are the best! I’m out of time this week, I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Love, Elder Anderson

I will send pictures next week.

Where Are the Solid People At?

This week we was pretty normal, nothing too crazy happened. Tuesday we went and did service at the Food Pantry in Geneseo then spent the rest of the day out there knocking and trying by Less Actives. We met some cool people.  

Wednesday we had District meeting and that's always fun, the District is awesome. Then there was a big storm, super windy, cloudy, cold, and raining. And of course we didn't have anything to do so we went knocking haha. Everyone was telling us " Were heading for the basement" or " we’re in the basement what do you want?" haha crazy stuff, it was raining so hard. It's always fun in the rain though, sometimes, haha.

Most of the week was spent knocking and trying by people. We dropped a lot of investigators this week because so many aren't progressing and aren't willing to act. So we’re hoping to get more people soon. Trying to find the solid people! Saturday was the day we try'ed by a ton of people and ended up dropping most of them. Then we played some street ball with a ton of kids and it was way fun. I have made a lot of friends from playing street ball. Hopefully some will start coming to church. We talked to Alique this week and he said he would come to church with his mom. So we were excited, but they didn't show up. Good week tho!  Have an awesome week everyone!

Love, Elder Anderson

Transfers!

This week was transfers, I am staying and my Companion Elder Obray left to Cedar Rapids, Iowa. I got Elder Olsen on Thursday! He is from Saratoga Springs, Utah and has been on his mission for a year! He is pretty awkward and quiet but that's okay, we will work hard together and hopefully see success!

Tuesday we got our transfer doctrine and then went to the Geneseo food pantry. We’re gonna start doing service there. On our way home we picked up a sick mini pool table that was on the side of the road for garbage, it’s also got air hockey, foosball, chess, etc. So we took it home! Its sick! haha Then Elder Obray spent some time saying goodbye to people and started packing.

Wednesday was P day so we went to the John Deere Museum! It was pretty sweet. Just a bunch of sweet tractors! Then we played a lot of ball and what not. Thursday we dropped off Elder Obray and picked up Elder Olsen! Elder Olsen and I hit the streets right off the bat and found some new Investigators. This week is gonna be a lot of knocking. I wanna get a ton of new investigators because all of ours are falling off, so I wanna get a ton of people to work with this transfer and hopefully see some success at the end! We will see how it goes.

It was so nice being able to skype home yesterday!! Always very bitter sweet! haha but I’m grateful for it! I love you all and hope you all have a great week!

Love, Elder Anderson

John Deere Museum

Goodbye Elder Obray

Hello Elder Olsen!

Mothers Day Chat with the Family!

6 Months Down!!

Hit 6 months this week! Crazy, time is flying! This week was good, Tuesday we went on exchanges in our area. The Zone leaders were gonna come to our area but then one of them got called to be AP (Assistant to the President) so only one of the Zone leaders came down and another Elder that is in a Trio. I went with Elder Baxter the Zone leader and we found 4 new Investigators. Hopefully they will stick around and we can help them progress.

Really not too much happened this week. A lot of our Investigators are falling off the deep end. This week we’re gonna try to start fresh, but still keep a couple of the Investigators we have. Were gonna work hard to find those solid Investigators. This week is transfers so we’re hoping we both stay.

Saturday night we did run into some really funny guys, they were having a small house party and they were drinking and smoking. One guy came out and tried to be funny and said "What are you guys selling today?" But then another guy came out and was like go inside guys and he pulled us a side and we both thought he was gonna cuss us out, but he said " I wanna compliment you guys, I know this isn't easy work"  and he went on and on that and it was awesome. They were all holding a beer and smoking but they were cool haha. They were just a bunch of young guys that seemed to have a lot of money. They were super funny and they really liked us.

Oh ya and we went to Whiteys twice this week. Whiteys Ice cream out here is amazing, it is soooo good! We also played some street ball with a bunch of guys and invited them all to come out and play at the church on Tuesday nights. Hopefully they show, we normally get some good competition there. That's about it for this week! I hope you all have an awesome week!

Love, Elder Anderson

Whiteys ice cream

Rejecting Rejection

This week has been nuts!  It literally rained all week! We did a lot of finding and knocking doors with close to 0 success! After last week when we had 3 investigators to church our bishop called us to come over. So we did and he basically gave us a map of places we should be spending our time and it was all richer and nicer areas. Then we went to dinner that night and they said we should be knocking the other side of the river. Which is where it is nicer. I was kind of upset that we heard all that instead of hearing congratulations. But they were still a little proud and they fellowshipped our investigators.

So we started knocking rich areas, which we did all week in the wet and cold weather. We were drenched all day everyday! haha I love knocking the Super Rich areas because you meet a lot of awesome people but they are never down to hear about the Gospel. We find most of the success in the not so rich areas, still really cool people tho.

Well that's about it really. We did teach a few lessons, we taught Kenneth, Angela, and Tonya. Some investigators that we are trying to help progress and come to church. Kenneth came last week but wasn't able to make it this week because he was in Chicago for a wedding. We talked to Alique and he said he wasn't gonna make it this week because he was going to another church or something. Kind of a bummer. Someone showed him some Anti Mormon stuff and he showed it to us and it was nuts! It talked about how there's apparently Lizard creatures walking around by the Temples and how when we die we will be judged by Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and Joseph Smith! Hahaha There was a lot of other crazy stuff too, pretty funny. We tried to clear it all up as much as possible. We hope he will continue to want to come to church and meet with us.

Last night was like the light at the end of the tunnel for this week. We knocked on a potentials house that said to come back on a Sunday. And she is really cool, we think she is a single mom with two kids the ages of 6 and 2. The first thing she said was how she was sorry for not coming to church, and we had only talked to her once before. She said she had just gotten back from Chicago so she missed it. But she accepted baptism and said she will come to church next week, and to text her during the week to see if we could visit and teach her more. We left feeling sooo good. It made all the hard work worth it! I am so excited for her!

I hope you all have an awesome week! Oh ya and I hit my 6 month mark tomorrow! Soo crazy! Time is flying! I’m loving it though! Serving the Lord is the best and brings awesome joy!

Love,

Elder Anderson