So this week has been crazy; so much stuff has been happening but I'm finally out of Carrollton! Its crazy to think, but it was super sad to leave and say bye to the members but I'm so excited to be here in Fayetteville! It's amazing here and my comp is so sick we are like twins and we are going to get along so well so I hope me and him can stay together for as long as possible. His name is Elder Vernon and he is from Coleville,Utah and he has been out just a transfer ahead of me. We are just so ready to work. Luckily we do have somewhat of a teaching pool that's pretty nice to work with. But this area is incredible!! There are so many people and so much to do. Ive been in heaven the past few days. It's way different that what I'm used to. It's a pretty big suburb right off of Atlanta. Most everyone in our area is middle class and higher but they are like all black! It's incredible, I'm not used to seeing black people being wealthy and being able to keep a job and raise a family and they are
everywhere here and they still love to talk to you. So I have been loving that cause that just leaves us with more people to be able to keep commitments. But yes, the ward here is so great and missionary oriented. They have one night scheduled when all of the ward missionaries get together with the 3 companionships in the ward and we go on splits and get a ton of work done and we usually have a dinner appt. every night and 1 or 2 team ups everyday and people are so willing to open there homes to our investigators!! We have 3 for next week already lined up with family bringing there friends to be taught! So I've been in heaven for real! As for a cool story for the week, before I got here they found a mom and her daughter who are both teachers while they were store contacting in target but we went on Saturday to teach them with a member, Bro Attrice. It was the sickest lesson cause the member and Bonitta (the mom) like hit it off and were being super black with each other, it reminded me of dad when he can get real black and its hilarious but it was a great lesson and they enjoyed it and understood the restoration and the apostasy perfectly. So we are excited for them. They'll most likely get baptized this transfer and we have a lot of part member families we can work with that we are excited for. I am super excited for this area and its gonna be amazing and we will see so many miracles!!
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| Elder Vernon and Elder Anderson ready to convert Fayetteville! |
Alright so are you ready for
the craziest email that I've ever sent you, cause its going to be a good
one! You wont even believe what I have had to go through this week. But
first off it was great to see the Forsyeths again, they came up to me
after church and gave me some cookies. It was nice, me and the comps
enjoyed it! So I guess I'll start with the big news. Elder Vernon and I
are not companions anymore:( but we are still in the same apartment and
serving in the same ward! So here's the long story... we were sitting at a
dinner appointment and it was about 7:30 at night and we get a call
from the assistants saying that President Harding was super sad to split
us up but he had a strong impression for us because there were
missionaries coming in from another mission that he was going to put
with us and that they were going to be dropping them off that night
around 9:30!! We were so shocked. We were super bummed too cause were
just getting in a zone with things and getting our teaching pool up and
now we were going to have to split the area, split up the members and
split up investigators and we had like 1 day to do it... but we accepted
and were excited for the challenge and so, that Wednesday night we were
waiting for them to show up and they didn't come till almost 11pm But Elder Vernons new comp is Elder Hamilton and my comp for the day, was Elder
Gebaur. They were going to put him in a different area the next day and I
was going to get another missionary already from our mission. And when
we showed up we started talking to them and they had a funny accent so we
were like what mission are you from? They said the Sierra Leone
Mission. The entire mission was shut down because of the Ebola disease
that spread like wild fire there. The past week for them has been
insane. Basically this is what went down. They found out about 2 weeks
ago that they had to leave. But, they were quarantined for 3 days in
their houses and could not leave, talk or call anyone and then they got
word that no planes were coming in or out of Sierra Leone so the church
hired an international S.O.S plane from Japan to get them out of there
and they said the government said this was the most watched targeted
plane by the government in the past 3 years! So they shipped out 186
missionaries and went to Ghana where they thought that was where they
were reassigned but they got there and all the African elders and
sisters stayed there and they took everyone else and shipped them out to
Portugal where they were reassigned again to other missions around the
states and Canada and so 4 of them got assigned to our mission and we
are lucky now to have one of them staying in our apartment! Elder
Hamilton, who is Elder Vernon's companion now. After they were in
Portugal, they went to London and stayed there for 3 days and then came
to Atlanta. These guys were so freaking tired when they showed up with
us. It has humbled us a lot cause hearing what their living conditions were like and
what they had to go through. I don't think I could have done it and they
loved it our there. It's been hard for them to get accustomed to the
states again but we are happy to have them. And so like I said I only had Elder Gebaur for a day and then on
Thursday night they were going to put him in a different area and I was
to get a new companion again and when we made the switch I found out my
new companion is Elder Talbot!! He is a brand new missionary and has been in
the field for 1 week! He was serving in the YSA of Fayetteville and they are having me finish his training, so I gave birth to a new baby
over night! But I had met Elder Talbot when he first came in and he's
dope. We get along great. He is
so ready to work and has that greeny fire so it has definitely been in a
crazy week for me. I am now the District leader and 'Im training
and I'm white washing the area!! How much fun right?!? haha Its great
though cause we are in a 4 man in the apartment and Elder Vernon is
there to help with the area and members so it's not to bad. We are now
just in the phase of being at the bottom and having to pick everything
back up but I'm used to that now. I've had to do it in every area that I've
been in. But as for the district we now have 4 companionships, me and Elder
Talbot, Elder Vernon and Hamilton, Sister Sullivan and Sudweeks who are
the sister training leaders in our Zone, and Sister Freeman and Alofipo.
and Sister Alofipo is a greeny as well! And we all serve in the
Fayetteville ward! Pretty crazy, 4 companionships in one ward and they
still support all of us and feed us and come on team ups,so its amazing
how much the members support us here. Its been fun cause Elder Nelson, my MTC
companion is one of the zone leaders here. So its been fun to get to
work with him again. But we did get to go to the temple on Tuesday. It
was amazing there like it always is to feel the spirit of that place and
we had a great zone training. I'm excited for this
transfer! It has definitely been a crazy experience but a fun one for
sure. This week I was studying about receiving personal revelation and
how important it is to receive your own personal revelation for
everything that we do. Joseph Smith said "Salvation cannot come without
revelation; it is in vain for anyone to minister without it" and "This is
the principle on which the government of heaven is conducted by
revelation adapted to the circumstances in which the children of the
kingdom are placed" and I have reflected on that the past week and
knowing that every circumstance that we find ourselves in, if we can put
our trust in God and know that he is in control and to just stay
positive in every situation and make the best out of it we will be able
to lose ourselves in his work and become more like Him. If we
can just all do what Moroni promised us in the last chapter and deny
ourselves of all ungodliness we will be made perfect in Christ!
I love ya'll so much and miss
you everyday I hope you have a great day and a wonderful week, but you're right, there is
no greater work than what I am doing right now! and I
couldn't imagine
myself anywhere else.
 | ||
| Elder Anderson with Elder Talbot |
August 18, 2014......
So it was a pretty great
week this week! Definitely a lot slower than last week, but we did get a
lot of stuff done which was good. We have just hit the ground running
trying to find new people to teach and we have found some good success with a
few people. One of those being a guy named Anthony who is in his 20's,
super interested in the book of Mormon and coming back to church. He had
never heard of the church before and is soaking up all the information
and is excited to come to church next week. He couldn't come this week cause he had to go out of town. But he accepted a baptismal date for
September 13th and was super excited about it. He just wants to get right
with God and what better way to do it than in his true church! We
have been working with some part member families which have been going
well, one lady, Varieta is so ready to get baptized. She is an older
lady and her husband has been a member for like 30 years but she
suffers from bi-polar issues and is afraid to come to church so we are
just working on getting her ready to come so she can get baptized. One more we found was a man who is an apostolic Pentecostal which is taking
Pentecostal and adding more craziness to it. They love
that speaking in tongues, but he had never heard of the book of Mormon
before and when we came back on our return apt he had read the 2nd half
of 2Nephi and stated our doctrine right back to us which was super cool
and he believes everything we shared, he just wants to learn more about
Joseph Smith but he should be a great candidate only bad thing is he
lives with another family and the other family's dad is the preacher of
his church... but hey let's just convert the entire congregation!
other than that we just have a
few potentials here and there,nothing to exciting, that's what we are
going to be working with, a lot this week still is finding some new
investigators. I get to go on exchanges this week with Elder Nelson, my MTC comp, so we are super stoked for that. But a cool thing we do each
Monday is there is a family in the white water ward; the
Perkins, and they have a huge house with everything you could ever
want and each week like 20 or so elders go and play ball over there and
they feed us and it's super fun. Ill send the pics from that. But its a
blast living in a 4 man. Sometimes it gets a little hectic with so much
stuff everywhere and dishes getting piled up really fast but its so much
fun but, don't worry we don't pile out and we still work hard all the
time! Fun fact about my companion, he is a crazy good juggler! He can do
everything from 5 balls at one time to juggling knives, clubs, flaming
torches, its crazy!! So we have created our juggling team, me, Talbot and
Vernon juggles all the time back and forth and passes them around the
house and its so fun. I have decided how to get new investigators, we just have to
go to Fayetteville square and have Talbot stand on a chair and juggle
some flaming torches while I preach the gospel to everyone watching him! Its gonna work! Elder Vernon and I went on
exchanges though this week and taught an investigator who is very
knowledgeable in the Bible and this was the first time I have ever
taught him but Vernon and I have gotten pretty good at our Bible
teaching and fixing anti-material so we felt strongly that we had to
teach him about the apostasy. Which is my favorite topic to teach. And
it was the most perfect lesson I have taught on my mission and
definitely one of the most spiritual. We prepared pretty well for the
lesson but it was so cool cause it flowed so smoothly and we were going
back and forth point to point scripture to scripture answering all of
his come back questions and this was in a members home so the spirit was
definitely there and then he asked the perfect question, if God always
called a prophet why didn't he call one after the apostles died, which
lead into a conversation we were having before we started the lesson. He
and the member, our history junkies, and they were talking about the
founding fathers so it was amazing to swing it back to Gods timing and
he had to wait for freedom of religion and it was the perfect time to
bring back the gospel and he was kinda shocked how well everything fit
together. It's just a testimony builder of mine to be able to teach the
restoration so much and watch it grow in people's hearts. They see that
there had to be a restoration and that God really did call another
prophet on the earth!
Email sent from a member during the week......
Hey Im Kadee (the one that nominated your son to do the ice bucket challenge) and here's the full video!! its just from the start and thought you'd enjoy it!! Elder Anderson is amazing and we are SOO happy he came to Fayetteville. Like he's a life saver and has it down!!
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B4hLP6EO7VIySF9YLXFnWFVpSEU/view?usp=sharing
August 20, 2014.......
This week was pretty good,
nothing to crazy. We did pick our pool up a little bit. We are just
struggling to find those people that are going to progress. We are
keeping our spirits up though and having a great time. Elder Talbot has
that greeny fire that just keeps us going. He is going to be a great
missionary. He's already mature and know a lot about the doctrine and is
now getting used to approaching people and talking with everyone and so I'm basically done training so that's super nice! We get a long great
though and being in the 4 man is even more fun! The ice bucket challenge
was really fun and now yall have to do it! That story about us
getting those helping hands t shirts out and cutting out those trees out
of the road was so much fun nothing better than at 9 o clock at night
its pouring rain and we got chainsaws going with us just hauling logs
away, it was pretty sick. The Sultans are a great family. Their son
just left on his mission to Phoenix Arizona. And as far as teaching went
this week it was slower than usual. We had struggles getting to people
when they could meet cause something would come up but we have good
plans for this week. I did go on exchanges with Elder Nelson (mtc
comp) this week and that was amazing to get to serve with him again. He's
doing great and killing it out in Griffin as a ZL. But yesterday, we had a cool experience, a member in our ward put on
a fireside for the whole community and for us to invite anyone we could
to. It was about the history of Christianity, or as we like to call it,
the great apostasy. She has been studying it for months now, getting
facts and details as much as she could to fit into an hour and a half. But I thought it was amazing! The apostasy has been my favorite topic to
study since I've been out here cause if you can have an understanding of
the Bible and what Paul taught in all his epistles and how there would
be many false prophets and heresies coming about to change the doctrine. And if you can see how the doctrine Jesus taught was obviously
perverted and changed for the convenience of man. and the steps that
took place from Plato to Constantine to all the reformers like Martin
Luther and see how much was really changed from the time Jesus Christ
was here teaching the people and how not only on that side of the world
was apostasy starting around 200 AD but we see it was a world wide
apostasy because in the Book of Mormon in 4Nephi verse 24 its states that
in 201 AD the people started getting lifted in the pride of their hearts
and very quickly everyone, Nephites and Lamanites fell away and were in
darkness! How everyone reviled against Gods true teachings and
changed them and for many many years the world was in darkness and
people like the reformers were trying to get out of it but it wasn't the
right timing. It wouldn't have worked. There needed to be a place of
freedom of religion where God knew the church would be able to stand
one last time before the 2nd coming of His Son. and I have grown to have a
love as well for history, more specifically of this amazing country and
what it was founded upon and how we are losing the site of that today. But it really was founded with Gods hand involved. He needed this
country, so a young boy in 1820 could question all these different
churches and seek personal revelation and answers and to be able to
receive that personal witness from our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ
and for him to Restore that Priesthood Authority which had been lost and
then to bring back that same organization that Jesus Christ had when he
was here and we have the Book of Mormon as evidence of it. It truly is
the work of God and I know it to be true. I love this Gospel so much!
 |
| Elder Nelson and Elder Anderson together again! |
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