Monday, June 23, 2014

The contacts?

Something that happened this week that we have not seen in a really REALLY long time is that we received eight references today from the members... that was a pretty freakin sick moment. Because in this area I have a bit of time and almost the whole time that I have been here we do not receive support from the members,  but this week I feel like me and my comp were really able to connect with the spirit and be able to put the lesson that we were sharing with each member into their lives and they really felt that we care for them and I believe that is what really changed this week. Because as we show more love for the people and for the hard things that they are going through they are going to think that if we pay attention to them and that their preoccupations are our preoccupations then they are going to give us their friends that need that same blessing in their lives and I'm not just meaning two missionaries listening to some problems but really showing them how they can find peace through the gospel of Jesus Christ. So yeah... That was one cool thing that happened this week. 

And another thing that happened would have to be... When we contacted this lady who sells bread in her bread store. Because the first time that we contacted her she was not really interested and didn't want to come visit our church nor did she want to even own a copy of the Book of Mormon. But over the last 3 weeks we have been passing with her and getting to know her little by little and we didn't even try to talk to her about the gospel. We would just pass by and talk about how her sales were going and how many kids she had and all that jazz and one of the coolest things happened this week. So we pass with her just like any other day and we talk with her about the sales again and all of the sudden she just asks us... So. Where exactly is your church ? Because I would like to go and see what really is taught there and ya know... Just to get to know. And at that moment my comp took the opportunity to pull out a Book of Mormon and when she saw the Book of Mormon this time her eyes light up and she was so happy to take it into her hands and start to read it. So...  Until right now she still does not want us to come by to share a message but at least she has a Book of Mormon and is accepting little by little. So that was  just a  cool little experience or miracle that me and my comp saw this week. 

Another really cool experience that I was able to participate in this week would probably have to be when I did divisions with another elder in my area. And we were really going to focus on the contacting in the streets that day. And so we were going pretty good contacting and getting rejected (ya know the usual) but we were walking down a street and I just got that good feeling like... Hey yo bro I'm gunna bees talkin to ya. And so i saw this man and knew that I was going to contact him. So I started the contact and decided to take the Book of Mormon route in this contact and it just so happened that right where I contacted this man there was a group of people off to the side of the road (and you know like all good contacts in  Mexico you just so happened to start the contact right in the middle of the road) and when a car came we had to move off to the side of the road and we just so happened to come right into the group of the other people on the side of the road . And when we got over there I just was like "HEY HAVE YOU GUYS HEARD ABOUT THIS BOOK?" And clearly que no they had not. So I was like "come join in and listen a little bit about what the Book of Mormon is. " and so that changed my one person contact into a 4 person contact and right when they started to listen a guy just so happened to leave his house and we just so happened to be right out side of his door. So I just thought to myself ya know why not. And said to this bro. " hey come on over here and listen to a little bit of this" and that turned my 4 person contact to a 5 person contact. And you would think it stopped right there right? But HECK NO. And when I started to teach how Jesus was baptized in a specific way to put the example for us and we have to follow his example that is when the guy who came out of his house had his wife and little 10 year old girl come out looking and wondering what in the world is going on right now.  Having two white boys in the ghetto of Mexico and a crowd of people standing around listening to a message about the Savior.....now thats not normal:D:D:D  so when I finished my message that had started out as a simple one man contact but transformed to a 7 person contact. And I would love to say that everyone accepted us but.... Only like 4 accepted so.... which i would call a miracle in the streets of Mexico:D:D it was pretty awesome to see the spirit work inside of these people living in a non peaceful world........good time if you be askin me:D:D  almost like the story that we learned in fhe over and over and over and over again......mom:D:D:D

The baptism of this week.  i don't have much to say but... it was a great experience and that we were able to help this lady over come her difficulties and they are one step close to becoming an eternal family. we are now just focusing on the dad because he is the only one who has not be baptized......... yet.

and that is it for this week :D:D:D

Monday, June 16, 2014

Run n Gun...Right?

i have been sick for a long time and i am starting to improve. sickness and not being able to eat make for a pretty tired missionary but i have only eliminated exercise and not any of the work so i am not very behind.  you don't want to be sick as a missionary:D:D:D 

it hasn't been long since i was standing in front of the  hospital when a man put a gun to my head because i wouldn't give him any money. and my life was spared and we know missionaries are protected when they are doing what they are suppose to be doing and this last week goes to show the importance of me and my comp being at the meeting instead of at home at our apartment cuz the lord blesses those missionaries who are obedient:D:D

So this week me and my comp left for our meeting on Thursday and we left all fine and dandy and we went and prepared our selves for the next week. But the thing is when we were coming back from the church, right in front of our house there were a whole lot of police. and we were wondering what in the world was going on. and when we got in front of our house we saw what had happened. because there was a girl about 20 years old in front of our house and two guys came up to here and told her that she needed to give them her gold necklace and when she told them no they pulled out a gun and shot her 3 times through the ****. and while we were passing i'm assuming it had happened pretty recently because they had already gotten the body away but the ****** of ***** and all the blood was enough for me. but in that moment i didn't take a picture (believe me i wanted to) but i didn't want the police to think that i was part of it. and so i finally got a picture after everyone had gone and they had put a cross where she had died. so.... does that mean i should just stop dressin so darn classy? hahah yeah thats neva happenin. :D:D: but yeah here is my small story for this week :D:D i will write a lot more the next week :D:D but this was my adventure for this week :D:D so yeah right out side our house. in the picture you can see the wall of our house. 

We spent our p-day buying fruit so we can start our diet. the spots on the floor are not dirt, it's getto life.

        one of the elders in my district posing for the world cup that everyone is crazy about here

 These elders in my district don't want to do the diet so they were happy to get the treats from your package:D:D:D

Monday, June 9, 2014

This week had a good bye to my old companion and hello to a Wyoming boy.  it has been one of the best weeks of my entire mission:D:D:D this picture is of a lady who we have become good friends with and she lets us help her cook our lunch. my companions endurance for putting in a full days work and trying to be friendly to people he didn't know slowly started to improve near the end of our time together. he had a hard time understanding how important it was to show that the gospel makes us happy. people were always asking us why is elder anderson happy and your companion is not. smiling is one of the first steps of being a good missionary and it is hard to teach someone that:D:D:D but he is smiling in this picture and that is why this is such an important picture:D:D:D

Yes mom you can have a picture of me and my new companion!!:D:D i know you want it so you can find out who he is and stalk his parents sooooooo HERE WE ARE!  good luck mom:D:D:D

this is one of our favorite investigators kids:D:D we love her as much as she loves us:D:D

this is my new comp on the upper fence of our church:D:D free english classes from two americans:D

This trampoline picture is for my trampoline crazy family. some of the ward members brought this in to let everyone play on it after a baptism, i was going to show them all my tricks but the ceiling was a little low for someone over 6 feet but the "little" people had a blast. they love a good time:D:D:D

look close at this picture and you will see what fast food place is here too:D:D first guess doesn't count.

birthday with the elders

although it looks all fun i must admit that being sick makes it hard to have the energy to keep up the work:D:D eating less feels better. i have had to quit exercising so i can save my energy for the rest of the day:D:D for pday i exercised and didnt have anything left except to rest. i know there are elders are sicker than me so i cant complain but it makes everything harder but still good. i was made district leader and thats good because it causes me to rely on the lord even more as we are told our numbers as a district arent good enough. it use to be that as a senior comp my numbers werent good enough and now i get to carry the weight of the district not doing good enough. this is really hard for me but i know the lord is carrying me through this as not many positive things are said to us and so i need to be the positive change our district needs. i almost think i am not the same person because of it.  so i am going to have to fast and pray i will be able to get some confidence back.  my comp told me he can tell i have faith in god but not in myself.  he is right and i know what has caused it and i know who can heal that as i was a super confident over achiever before i got her and i knew nothing could stop me and i need to get back to that. good thing i have faith:D:D cuz when you arent liked cuz you are an american it stinks. but the lord heals hearts and that is what i can trust in. thanks for all your prayers:D:D

Monday, May 26, 2014

The weeks.

This week was an interesting one. . . . :D:D:D 

but this week i was in my area for a max of 2 days. because the zone leaders have been sending me to each place so that I could help pick up the encouragement of some elders and the attitude towards  contacting people in the street. I'm not saying that i'm a good contacter and for nothing am i saying that i have had success. but it has been a good time as i have learned that contacting is just trying to make a friend and applying the gospel to what they need (and you can probably tell me... thank you very much for saying that yet again, but really that is what i keep learning week after week.) 

And something that i have really been learning this last week is the fact that i really have to be careful that the people that i am teaching are learning to have their own testimony and that they are not just getting baptized by my testimony. Because this week i was only in the area 2 days, 1 day at the beginning of the week and 1 day at the end of the week. And when i came back some things really shocked me . That many people had told my comp that he had visited, like less actives and some of our investigators, had told him that they were going to stop going to church and all that jazz if they take me out of this area. So that was a shocker and I have most definitely have learned (not that i have forgotten) that i really am not that good of a teacher and helping people get their own testimony. But i guess that God already knew that and we have been informed of the changes that are going to pass tomorrow. And I am going to have the opportunity to stay here in this area for at least 2 more months :D:D:D That is probably the blessing that i have to fix the problem that i have created here in the area (as in my investigators were sad that i was peacin out). 

But... as for this week....the only thing that is going to change is that i will have a new comp tomorrow.  So we will see what is going to happen.  

Monday, May 19, 2014

The magic in NO

So... this week was a good one. Well... hahah yeah... here we go. I am still trying to figure out why some weeks we are just rocking socks and some other weeks well... not so hot... :D but ya know. that just the way things are. So this week we had success in the whole baptizing way but not in the finding new people....  But ya know.. i don't know if i mentioned that Elder Lee is in my district again. ya it's kinda the best thing that has come into the pantitlan boundaries. So i got to do divisions with elder lee and that was a freakin booster :D 

Oh... and i got a pretty good story...(well... i thought it was good....) So. a young little man in our ward asked me for a book of mormon so that he could give it to his teacher in school. and so already knowing that me and my comp do not have a single book of mormon in the house in this moment we went looking for a book of mormon. we went to the other houses of the other missionaries. and after a long walk we finally found one. but by this time its dark outside and if you are walking in the street at 6 there are some really freakin.... (well. so say it in a nice way they just are not all there because of the substances that they are taking into their body.) and so normally we cross the street and try to avoid them so that nothing passes if we walk by them. but ya know, i had never seen anything happen in all the time that i had passed by them and in this moment i decided that they looked really suspicious. (this could be a story where we should always listen to the spirit.) so i felt like we should cross the road like we always do but then the lazy part of me said. "well... nothing has ever happened before so... why don't we just walk by them now?" and when i thought of that i thought to myself. "yeah we are not going to cross the street because we have already walked like 10 miles today and i'm tired". (great excuse right? ) And so my comp was in front of me and he passed by them just fine but right when i started to pass this man he jumped up and started screaming and he grabbed my so freakin hard. (1. the man scared the freakin crap out of me because i didn't know a drunk man could move so fast. 2. that man probably was not all there but MAN he had a freakin grip. ) As this man scared the whole world out of me i ripped my arm from his grip and picked up the pace. and as he started to follow us he was screaming "HEY. come back!! aliens! take me with you to heaven!!!"  That gave me a small laugh, i have been called many many things here but never aliens. So i guess there is a first for everything :D and i give the man kudos points for being original :D BUT. what we can all learn from my ignorance. that it does not matter in what moment or where we are we should alway listen to the spirit because i had the feeling and being a tired missionary in mexico i decided not to listen because i was being lazy. and almost got my face eaten by this man who thinks i am an alien. 

Um... let me think if i can think of something else that happened this week... cuz i know i am just killing my family with all of the hunka junk that i write in these bad boys. OH. so i really only have one more story. So i did get the opportunity to baptize 2 people this week. that was a very fantastic experience :D Yes i know we were suppose to baptize the whole family but... we have had a rough time with the mother... (she is a tough cookie but... a couple more weeks and God will help her have those feelings that she needs this baptism in her life.) and the dad wants to wait for his wife so that they can do this baptism the same day. (now that is respectable) and this day was very very interesting. probably because of all the things that have happened with this family. I always love seeing the changes that the gospel can make in a family. Probably one of the coolest experiences  that i had the opportunity to be present would have to be when the son offered a prayer. and really it was probably one of the most amazing prayers that i have ever heard in my life. because after he finished the spirit was there so strong and the whole family was crying. (as i was thinking to my self.... so... should we just end with a prayer cuz i don't know if we have already had enough spirit for one lesson.) and as things just started to change in their lives and as they had the opportunity to partake of this baptism. and here are 2 photos of their baptism. 

so this last saturday and sunday was stake conference. and the stake conference was not to cool but the cool part was that my convert of 1 month got a letter that she had the chance to say the closing prayer. and this lady when she offers her prayers i swear that they are so sincere and so true of how she is feeling. Because we all know that in a prayer people usually start with. Our dear kind a gracious Heavenly Father. and i always thought that was great but then i heard this lady start to pray and i really enjoy how she starts out her prayers. if she is praying in the  morning she starts out with "Good morning Heavenly Father" or in its at night she starts with "good night Heavenly Father" and that has really just stuck with me... i'm not quite sure if there is one apostles that has said that we have to start with our dear Heavenly Father or something like that so that is why i think how she prays is perfect and is so original and exactly how she feels in that moment. Because after years of praying we kind of just get in a habit of saying some things because that is just what we have always said and i can loose the heart felt meaning as we pray. That is probably why how my convert prays hit me so hard and made such an impact. so lets just say that she rocks socks with her prayer to end the conference.

and just end i would like to say something about the contacts that we have to do everyday. because there is one elder that told me something that really hit me hard. so usually when you are contacting you do everything you can and if the people say no you move on. but  this elder told me that when the person says no the first time that is really when you show all you know about how they really NEED this in their lives. So now every time when someone is going to tell me no i'm just going to think to my self.... "perfect. now we are actually getting somewhere. and you are telling me no because i didn't say the right thing that strikes your fancy." because every person should say yes you just have to follow the spirit and find that need that everyone has. 

so.... yeah.. nothing to crazy. but that was my week and the things that i learned. yup. not much but just enough. 

Monday, May 12, 2014

Mother's Day!

This week was pretty freakin sick. we accomplished some things that we don't do every week. and yeah... there was another earth quake. (second one in my life.)

so i'm just going to start with the earth quake. so there i was just sitting in the stake center planning my next week.(ok... this isn't a an action movie.... so....) yeah so we were just planning and it was just like another normal day here in the hood (or... mexico) and i was just planning how i was going to make sure that none of our baptisms were going to fall from their date. In one moment i decided to sit back to take a breather (not like i was doing exercise or anything...just a break :D) and in that moment i felt like i fell over a little bit.... and i thought to my self..... well... i have never fainted in my life..... so this is a first and then it hit again. i saw the table move and felt myself like i was going to fall over.... then as my brain was just there trying to find an answer to why i feel like this i thought to my self..... hey gray (oops Elder Anderson) this is probably an earthquake. then all of the elders looked at each other and we all ran outside (because we all know that buildings in mexico are only concrete and more concrete just waiting to fall down.) and that is when we saw all of the people running and screaming as they were leaving the other buildings around us. hahahah (sorry for the laughter) but that is when elders started quoting that when the second coming is here people will walk in the streets like they were drunk, oh wait.... that man is just drunk (ok... that was a little bad... berkeley... probably take that out... ;D) but the earthquake was way stronger than the last one that happened. and it was quite the experience. I hope in the days that are to come there is another one that just so happens to bring a little bit more action to these parts of mexico :D

and.... yeah we also had the opportunity to baptize a hermana:D she is like my mother substitute, always making me sandwiches and worrying about my eating.  she is the one who had the Lord had prepared with the medicine for my companion, so she is very dear to me:D:D:D but the story that is behind this baptism is a pretty good one. So this lady we already had an interview for her and she then says she didn't want to get baptized.... and she also said that if elder anderson leaves she would leave the church so we had to help her get past that too and so we have been working with her and seen so many changes in her life and she has been part of miracles, over the last 3 weeks and so we brought her in again for another interview and... YES she told us that she had the desire to be baptized.:D:D  So this mothers day in Mexico which is saturday not sunday, we had her date so that she could make this commitment. And when we came to her house to take her to the church she was all good and well.. everything change when we hopped in the taxi.... who knows why but... something made her angry... and i knew that this conversation was not going anywhere good in that moment so ya know what you do when things are not going good... well.. you try to talk about something that will make her happy right ? :D:D so i asked her.... hey how has your day of mother's been? and she just told me..... Not good at all..... and i just thought to myself... oh great she was not happy already .... oh great... so while we were in the taxi driving to the church i was trying to make this lady happy so that we could have this joyful experience. and i don't really remember but we did finally get her to smile and forget all of the bad thoughts and things that had happened in her life for the last couple of days...(seen as satan was working on her as hard as we were) and when we got to the church she was happy and we got her baptized and i practically cried because after so much doubting and... all the things that happened miraculously with this hermana... she finally had the opportunity to take this baptism.  :D 

Today for lunch the one legged man who owns our building invited us to lunch. he makes the greatest burgers ever. i loved the cows hooves we were served for sunday on a tostada. t he cream sauce on top made it amazing. between this and the grasshoppers i ate this last week i can say i am really expanding my horizons.

there is a kid in our ward getting ready to go on a mission.  i taught him the paper cross story and he killed it.  the family i am teaching really responded to it and so i thought i should teach Mario this so it would help him wherever he gets called. he will be such a great missionary since he is 22 and excited:D:D:D

i love all the friends i have made in the streets. it is nice to have friends when you are out walking. there is one lady who sells us bread. she tells us she really likes us but she will never be interested in talking to us....but you never know, she may change her mind just like others have. i do wonder why people that don't know me yell at me to go home and to quit trying to steal their uranium???  are we???

The kids here are so cool. i took some pictures so you could see how cute they are. i love mexico:D:D 

                             the pictures of me are being taken by a future photographer:D:D

When you look at the picture of a bunch of elders standing outside of the church you will know what elders look like after they run out of the stake center after the second earthquake that was even harder than the first....i know you told me it wasn't stronger but it was here:D:D

it is such a small world:D:D i am teaching a lady who had a visitor from out of town and guess where she is from.....Pleasant Grove Utah!  crazy that she knew where highland was. 

i wont tell you what she said about highland:D:D

Oh and this mother's day was freakin killer. I'm not going to lie the chance to talk with your mother is probably one of the coolest experiences that you will have here on the mission, except for when a very scary man walks in while you are skyping and looks like he wanted to kill us all, even the blonde people looking back at me on the computer:D:D so glad you all got to feel what mexico can be like sometimes:D:D deep down i know they like us.:D:D:D i Just want so say that i love my mother and that she is kinda weird.... i would probably be more normal and not as cool of a person if it weren't for her :D LOVE YA MOM! :D

um.... yeah... that's about it for this week :D:D 

Monday, May 5, 2014

This week was pretty sick. I have learned my lesson that if i have any baptisms planned i will NEVER write home until after they are baptized. because I know that is just some sort of boasting and because of that God takes all of those baptisms away...... so... yeah :D We did a heck load of contacting this week.... Did some divisions....  some birthdays passed.... no baptisms.... um... yeah. this week was... pretty wonderful. 

So.... i think i will start by explaining about the divisions that we did this last week. So i did divisions with Elder Young. (a freakin champ if you ask me.) this elder is not wanting to stay on his mission and so they put him on splits with me for a day so i could try and help him change his mind.  the mission asks us to contact 15 people in the street every day.  forSo me personally i kinda enjoy contacting so I do 25 to 30 every day. because.... hahah i don't know.... you get to meet some really weird people and some really nice people at the same time :D And usually when we are contacting in my area about 3 out of 45 contacts that we do accept us. but i don't know if we just struck gold or if it was pure luck or the power of God was with us... i have no idea or maybe the Lord doesnt want this elder to go home but we were teaching a whole crap load and didn't have to much time to contact so we only contacted like 24 and out of those 24. 8 People gave us an appointment (and yeah i know you are probably thinking that.... yeah great Elder Anderson... you got an appointment... but were they actually home when you went back to check for them?) and!!!!!!..... I am here to tell you that when they went back 5 of the 8 was the right address!!!!! WHAT A FREAKIN SUCCESS!!! :D ahahah that was a great time. So yeah... that day was a real booster for both of us. by the smile on his face when i introduced him to a talking parrot that we were trying to teach to say elder, you would never guess he was so unhappy and wanted to return home. i have a testimony that hard work can be fun and if you do more it can bring you more happiness.  this kid was the coolest kid i have met. i am glad the president thought i could help him change his mind. two americans are great together and we all feel like going home sometimes:D:D

For cinco de may i cooked for my zone.  i cooked horse chunks, cow chunks, pig chunks and a variety of street animal chunks with a seasoning.  it is freakin sick when we put it in a tortilla. Cookin like a boss n sauce. its called AL PASTOR. its a little bit of every meat that exists.  

one of the members has this cool iguana for a pet. i was on splits with the DL and we stopped by their house so he could see this monster...some might think this is a chupacabra but its not:D:D:D

my mom wants pictures of real mexico so i am adding the blood bag.  thats real mexico:D:D:D

The birthday celebration of my DL and Elder Young who I went on splits with.  i have the greatest zone:D:D:D  

This is me and my DL teaching our zone about how to teach the sabbath day.  it was kind of the president to say that if it wasn't for what elder anderson was doing with all his street contacting the zone would be sinking:D:D  glad he is happy i am working hard because my companion cries because he thinks i am working him too hard but if you dont work hard you want to go home:D:D:D when the president asked me if i would be a DL i told him no because i don't like the numbers thing that they have them push:D:D probably didn't go over very well but i can think of way better ways to motivate than numbers of baptism:D:D:D

I went to the el centro today and the other elders were walking got just a little ahead of me when four guys surrounded me, i thought, they are going to kill me and i am all alone. then one of them asked me if i spoke english and i said no just spanish, then they said i looked like an american and i told them lots of people look like americans in mexico. they said they knew i was an american and i told them i knew i was a mexican and ducked under them and ran :D:D i so didnt need to get killed:D:D 

um.... yeah.... that is about it for this week :D:D:D a whole lot of humility and pain :D:D:D hahah but thats a mission right:D:D:D the joys come... but slowly :D:D