Remember, that in this life we can have peace if....

Arrived Jan 6, 2016

Love you more than…Apoyo day and shopping for food! This is the day we get our support money or apoyo and after shopping, you just get this super content feeling knowing you have money and food. Maybe it’s a missionary thing but its like receiving presents for your birthday! 

Speaking of birthdays FELIZ CUMPLEAÑOS EMILY!!!!! You’ve always been like the perfect example to me and I forget your only 22 haha. Hope it went great. The other day I was thinking about all our fun memories playing together as little ragamuffins! Remember when we would play in the back yard and pretend we didn’t have parents so we had to survive on our own and you were like my mom haha. Also Dominicans like roller blading and it always reminds me of you, especially when someone falls I cant help but picturing you laughing super hard.

Boys, it sounds like you got some neat presents for Christmas and basketball is going nice! Samuel what about a little one on one smash bros match when I get back. You gotta keep practicing to be able to beat me! Perdonan mi Orgullo. Jacob, keep up with the basketball, life is so much more fun when you have something you like that you can work hard with. Bet my little j bud will be able to dunkear (dunk) in a few years. Josh, how’s life. It’s crazy you’re a junior in high school! I loved that year. Did you end up working on that motorcycle you wanted to make? How’s Ruby the jeep? Need any advice or are you already one-upping me in everything. Stop growing taller. Mom and dad you guys are amazing parents and I don’t think I could give you any advice or tips and anything like that so just want you to know I love you and I’m open to advice now that I’m no longer what Grandpa Anderson would say “a noodlepuss” haha.

I was thinking about the family reunion this week and sounds like it was fun like always. I hit my six-month mark that same day and its nice to know that I have a new year to work harder and be better. I like how I’m starting 2016 with my six months because this is kind of the point in the mission (it feels like) where missionaries start to develop their teaching and are less stressed about the language so they can help others. We burned a big fuzzy blue tie I bought from the Haitian market. Earlier that night we also celebrated the New Year with a family and did party poppers and banged pots and pans and ate a lot.

Lamentablemente I have been lacking in journal writing after a short spurt of doing well so I don’t have a ton from this week but it was an amazing week.

We had a great lesson with young Cristofer. He isn’t super fast with learning and he is a little quiet, but he understands a lot and accepts it well. He wants his older brother to baptize him, which will be exciting because the brother has tattoos and had a hard life until about a year ago he turned his life around. We taught the lesson with a less active member and it felt nice to share the greatest work in the world with an ex-missionary who has forgotten the joy he once had. Reading in the Book of Mormon I think I realized how people slowly just forget these special things. I feel like the happiest people in the world are those who, of all religions, remember that in this life we can have peace if we just remember Christ- who gave up everything so we can have it.

There is this one woman who is accepting the lessons and slowly progressing. However her husband Luis M. came and visited for Christmas from Nuevo York, where he lives and works. He is the most amazing guy ever. He pretty much quotes the Book of Mormon and Bible to us even though he barely missed joining the church years ago. We thought he would be returning soon and so we just continued focusing on Angelina, the wife, but this week we asked when he is returning and he said March! This is one of my favorite investigators now and he reads everything and has such animo! I think we could get the two baptized and they could raise their two-month old child in the church!! I’m so excited to help them find more happiness. Some p-day we are going to hike in the mountains with him. We call him superman.

We were finally able to get a few lessons with a practical internal investigator, 20 year old Leonardo, his friend and his 16 year old brother. We are pretty good buddies and with the lessons. He is staring to fill in all the gaps of stuff he has learned from attending church these past 6 months without any missionary lessons. Sharing and bearing my testimony, I really felt the spirit in me, and I feel like I’m slowly starting to become more of an instrument in the hands of the Lord. The friend asks tons of questions and has some potential and the little brother, I’m trying to figure out since he is a little quiet. 

We are continuing to work with Daisy and Elias (wife investigator and member husband). Like many people here, they have a steady home and family but aren’t married, so they can’t get baptized. But they have to change the name of their daughter in order for her to be included in the marriage and it’s a big process. We have been trying to get them to get married and then change the name to get baptized and get the blessings sooner than latter, but they have been leaning towards the longer process. In our lesson with them I shared my testimony about families and eternal marriage and its something they really want. 

Contacting, or shouting through metal bars, instead of door-knocking is getting easier but it’s still one of those things that will never be easy. I think it takes practice to ignore how awkward it feels and just try to let the people see we want to help them.

In the Book of Mormon I have started just Spanish instead of the English and Spanish reading and I’m in Helaman now. It is special how we can all change in life. The wicked Lamanites turned towards the Lord and let him help them. The good Nephites FORGOT their joy, turned toward their riches and stopped letting the lord help them. In the world of if God’s willing or si Dios uiere we need to realize that our blessings rely on us. We can receive help- if we let people help us. Being blessed means wanting it enough to be humble and accept the help.

We can change, if we allow ourselves to. “Today is a gift, that’s why its called the present.”

For the truth to be learned it needs to be spoken

Anything worth trying is worth finishing.