Elder Josh Anderson's Mission: "Bits & Pieces" from July 2014

July 7, 2007...

So the weather report from hell this week was hot, really hot, and really really hot! oh wait that was for Georgia.. my bad! But yes, it was ridiculously hot this week over here 2 of the days we hit 102! It may not seem like a lot but mixed with the humidity its a joke! That is awesome about the fast for the drought. Its amazing how that always happens when we can show enough faith and through prayer and fasting miracles are wrought upon us! Now can you imagine if we had that faith all the time? We would able to see and do miracles so much more. Its just like Jacob 4:6. and then if you go to Mormon 9:18-21 and we see the reason why we don't see them as often as we would like is cause we are all dwindling in unbelief! We have no faith! It's so sad, if everyone understood the true doctrine of Christ this world would be so much better. Now I'm not saying I have a full knowledge, cause I definitely don't! I'm far from it and learning fully will come overtime and that is what this life is for! and we also know Satan is ruling this world right now and we are in a constant battle with him, but if we can learn how to cast out doubt and fear we can do so much more in this life! Well there's my doctrinal spill for the day;) But this week was pretty good. We stayed real busy and had a lot to get done, and yes the Mounts were out of town this past week but they just got back. I'll be over there later today. but the week was packed. On Tuesday morning at 5;30 in the morning the traveling assistants texted us and said we will be at your apartment at 5pm to go on an exchange tomorrow:) haha. So we got ready for them and had a great exchange on Wednesday. I was with Elder Moodie, a black kid from up near Lehi. He's sick. He goes home in a month and I learned a lot from him. That was fun but that was the day it was like 102 and I was luckily in the car with him. E. Porter and Jensen were on the bikes! Then Thursday was the big hump day! I loved the package, thanks! I love getting pictures:) and Jensen LOVED those cookie things haha he kept trying to steal them from me and those quote things were really cool. But sadly it just felt like a normal day haha. We did find the FAMILY! Thad and Laura Higgens! and they have the 2 cutest kids in the world Jabari is 5 and Katie is 3 but i don't know if I told you about the family that we met at Ollies(store) that the dad was black and the mom was white and the kids looked like me so I had to go talk to them and turned out they had talked with the missionaries once before and were in our area book but we this is them! And so we went and saw them with the Munguias and they were so prepared. They've been looking for a church cause they see a lot of faults in other churchs and they want a good environment for their kids and so we taught them the whole restoration and invited them to be baptized and they accepted a date for August 2nd!! It was incredible and I got to play hoops with Jabari. He's a stud. He has the same skin tone as me but has blondish dark hair and green eyes! The kid is gonna be a lady killer! But then on the 4th we went to the Carrollton parade to try and talk with people, but not much success with that and then later when we were riding I wrecked pretty hard for the first time.. haha. I flipped over the handle bars and the back tire came back and smacked me in the face. I only walked away with a few scratches here and there so that was good. But I did rip the crap out of the pants I was wearing so that sucked. But we did find a family right after:) miracles after the trials of our faith! haha But no, sadly we had to go in at 9. They sent a nation wide report from Salt Lake to all the mission presidents that we had to be in. And so that was my week, pretty fun! We sadly only had 1 at church which was Josh Johnson. He's so ready! He came with us to lessons we had last night as well and was talking about his mission and getting his call it was really cool!

Celebrating the 4th!

July 14, 2014....

It was a very good week, we made a lot of great things happen but as well it just seemed really slow. We are having a tough time getting members to come out with us which leaves us on our own trying to get to places like 8 miles away which just takes up a bunch of time which sucks. But we did have zone conference which was great. It was a little different than we usually do it but it was really spiritual. I got to see a lot of old faces. Then as well, I went on exchanges on Tuesday with the elders in my district and that went great. We had a lot of success and it shows that you are really in tune with the spirit cause this week we went and saw that older guy Bartow!! He's awesome! They were in Florida for about a month and a half which sucked but they are back and we had an amazing lesson with him and we put him on date for the 26th of this month!! He has been super sick though which sucks, he had to go back to the hospital on Friday for his back so keep him in your prayers. And about the Higgen family, they live in Bowden which is about 15 miles from us and so its real hard to get there unless you have a member so we couldn't get over there this week but we have talked with them on the phone and they couldn't come to church cause he got called into work and they only have one car:( but its ok, they will come next week! We did find another family a family of 5, all baptismal age. They were a referral from members and we went over with him and the entire family sat down and we had probably the most spiritual first discussion I've had since I've been on my mission. It was incredible and they were excited to learn more and read. That's the Parham Family. And then I did get the opportunity to interview the Daniel family for baptism!! A single mom and her 2 kids Justice 12 and Delontiz 8 and they are amaizng. They've been taught by the sisters in our ward and their baptism was so great it was good to see our ward love them in so much. On Sunday I was privelaged to be able to confirm the mom Erica and the son Delontiz and Elder Jensen confirmed Justice!! So that was exciting. But that was my week! Nothing too crazy. Looking forward to this week, have another interview with a 9 yr old girl in the Buchanan area, its a part member family so that will be fun but we have a lot of stuff lined up!

Hump Day Celebration...


burning of the shirt!

July 21, 2014....

This week has been incredible though for a few different reasons. We did get to go and see Thad and Laura again out in Bowden, the mixed family, and they are doing good they were pretty busy when we stopped by but we are seeing them tomorrow. One of Thad's best friends just passed away from an overdose and he was struggling with it. So it was great to be able to testify of the plan of salvation and we'll teach the whole thing tomorrow so that will be great. And we're seeing that member's friends family the Parhams again tonight so that will be good. But the BIG NEWS that happened this week is amazing and I didn't say anything last Monday cause I didn't want to jinx anything. But Josh Johnson ,the 17 yr old who has been wanting to be baptized for awhile now but never did cause his dad wouldn't sign the paper when he was taught a year ago. They thought both parents had to sign. but Elder Anderson being the inspired kid that he is;) (still haven't figured out humility;)) when he was out on a team up with us I said "brother there is only one signature at the bottom of the baptismal form and your parents are divorced and there is no custody issue.... you only have to have one parent to sign!" His eyes got super big and was so excited and this was last Sunday. But just to make sure we went up the line and asked president if that was true and he said it was!! So now, Josh doesn't have to wait till he's 18... he's being baptized this Saturday!!! He is so excited and ready. This kid is amazing and the only thing he is talking about is that now he doesn't have to wait until December to go on his mission and that he can now go out with all of his buddies in the ward right after school!! It's so amazing I'm so excited for him and to be apart of it. So that is the big news of the week. We are preparing for that right now and its gonna be awesome! Other than that, we just had a great week of finding and inviting people to be baptized. Like I said on the first call home our mission president takes inviting to baptism very seriously and wants us inviting 2-3 people a day to be baptized! And we were kind of slacking as a district and so we had a very inspiring district meeting and set some goals that we would invite 104 people as a district this week and we invited 88! which was so cool to see the excitement from them in finding families and inviting them. But it was a great week and it's gonna be an even greater week. We also are doing a huge clothing drive at our church on Saturday so it will be good for the whole community to come to the church and get clothes.

July 28, 2014....

So crazy news!! I'm staying in Carrollton!!! haha I called it and I'm staying with elder Jensen!! We will be together for 7 and a half months!! I can't believe it but I am excited. I figured it was going to happen, all week long I was feeling like that was going to be the case. But the crazy thing that happened is they closed the sisters area in our ward and so now we are the only ones here! So we have all of the 800 square miles to ourselves! And we have to now cover all of Temple and Villa Rica as well as all of Carrollton, Bowden, Whitesburg, Roopville and Franklin!! 7 cities! 1 and a half counties. all to us:) So it will be a crazy transfer for sure but I'm not mad that I get to be in Carrollton longer. I love the ward here and they are super excited I'm still staying!

But anyways the baptism was amazing!! It was crazy to see how well the ward supported him and how many people came to the baptism. We had about 60 people there and some were from different wards far away so it was really cool. And he is so solid. He bore his testimony after and it was amazing and he came on team ups with us on Sunday night and a whole new light was shining on him and he was bearing testimony and helping in the lesson and it was funny cause we were teaching this one lady the restoration and she was understanding everything and Josh has basically memorized the first lesson and right when we were about to say the first vision he jumped right in and said " oh you're going to love this part its my favorite!" So it was awesome. He is going to be such a great member and an even better missionary, that's all he talks about is going on a mission. This is like each missionaries dream, to have one of their converts be so solid and go on a mission and to change so many lives. It just brings so much joy to my heart knowing his life will be changed forever because of the decision he made to join the church! One of his friends who spoke at the baptism did a cool analogy. He said if Josh marries in the temple and has 5 kids and his kids have 5 kids and so on for 5 generations and all are still connected with the gospel over 3000 peoples lives will have the gospel because of the decision that he made!! It just makes me smile:) But another amazing thing, Jjosh and the person that baptized him, Scott Anderson, they are taking us golfing today so we are stoked about that. I haven't golfed in forever but I'm excited!
As for the rest of the week, we did get to go on exchanges again with the assistants so we had fun doing that but the elder that was riding my bike broke it so we were walking the rest of the week which sucked. But hopefully now we are getting a car. So I don't have to fix it. but we did get another solid person on date for next month he will be an easy baptism. He is a members friend and hes living with them and he already said he wants to be baptized. We are halfway through the lessons with him, and other than that we walked a lot in the hot sun trying to talk with people. On Saturday actually was the craziest day cause the ward was having a huge clothing drive for the community to come get free clothes so we helped out with that all day and found many new people and then right after we had to clean it all up and then set up for the baptism so it was a stressful day but lots of fun.

So, I lied, I just got late word from President, I'm going down to Fayetteville to be a District Leader down there!! They split up the super duo.. :( ...........my new comp will be Elder Vernon and I kind of know him, we should get along great but I guess the area has been a little slow so President said he needs me to pick it back up like I did Carrollton, but he said the ward is amazing it's kind of like a western ward, lots of people so I'm excited. It will be a little different, bigger city, richer people!