Just Another Week in Paradise

     Hey family! This week went by pretty fast as usual. On Monday we went to Pres. and Hna Borg´s house for a family home evening with a married couple that we are teaching.  The wife is a member but the husband is strongly Catholic and tells us he´s not going to change. Well, we went to President´s house and we started talking about families and how they can be strengthened through the gospel of Jesus Christ, and the couple (Juan and Ketti) started arguing and it got pretty awkward. But President and Hermana Borg are fantastic and  just shared their testimony about how families can be together and how we can work out any problem with our spouse if we just love them enough and forgive them. Juan was especially just blown away by their sweet spirit, especially of Hna. Borg who is just amazing, and after the noche de hogar Juan thanked us and told us he was sincerely impressed. I think the noche de hogar really helped them, although we haven´t been able to go back to visit them this week.

     On Tuesday we had the blessing of going to the temple!! Inside the temple there´s just an indescribable feeling of peace that´s just so different from  outside. I realized what a blessing  and a privilege it is to be able to go to the temple, especially in  the mission. I learned more about myself  and god´s plan of salvation for all his children, and I felt so grateful for having a temple so close.

     We got a call on Friday from the assistants telling us that a handful  of hermanas  were traveling to Lima from the Peru Huancayo mission and that we would be having two of them come stay with us for a day. We picked up Hna Macias (from Malibu) and Hna. Pickett (from St. George) in the office and had them stay  with us Saturday and Sunday night. It was kinda fun going to church with four hermanas! It was fun for me having two norteamericanas for the day--  I´m pretty sure we were just laughing and smiling all day! They had to go back this morning, so we had  to wake up  early  to  take them back into the office. Just another day  as an hermana capacitadora in santa cruz  :)

     I wanted to tell you about a few of our investigators...

*Darlene: I´ve been teaching Darlene ever since I got here with Hna Gomez. Darlene is about 40 and  lives apart from her children. She has lots of  desire to learn more about the gospel, but was having problems keeping her commitments. She told us the other day when we dropped by to visit her that when she tried to drink alcohol she felt sick and couldn´t drink it. We were like... that´s God helping you keep the word of wisdom!! She said, I guess so. Ha but she came to church yesterday and she was super excited. She now  has a fecha for June 21, but still needs a little bit of help.

*Pedro and Nelly: Pedro and Nelly are a 60 year old couple that were references from a member in chile.  Pedro is a little more willing to listen than Nelly, but they´re both excellent! The main problem is that they need to get married, and that they both work on Sunday. We´ve got plans to help them get married in a massive matrimonio that´s free, so there´s hope!

Well I think that´s it for this week. We´re still busy with our exchanges, which are super fun and I always learn a lot. It sounds like you´re all doing well!! I love you so much! Have a great week! 

Love, Hermana Anderson

Diana's baptism!!!

Templo!

At the temple with mah friend Hna Terry.  She's from Orem.

Beach in our sector (aka el parque del amor)

Pier at the beach

Us four playing the skittles game :)

"A God of Miracles"

     Hello family! Another week has flown by here in the Santa Cruz ward. Earlier in the week I got a call from the assistants giving me permission to head over to Carmen de la Legua (my first sector in Peru) for the baptism of one of my investigators I had been teaching almost a year ago! I was so surprised!! The hermana´s name is Diana, and my whole time in La Legua she was always at the top of our list in our weekly planning, always so close to baptism, but she never wanted to accept a date. La Legua was were I started my mission in Peru-- it´s where I was trained, where I first learned the language, where I struggled to learn and to grow... it was so weird going back to la Legua! I felt so many emotions come flooding back, but mostly I just felt love for the people and for the ward. The members there in the church were so friendly and most of them remembered me. They all wanted to know where I was serving and what companions I had had. It´s a very humble ward and I was impressed with their spirit and their love. Diana told me that her grandma had passed away and she felt that that was God telling her she needed to be baptized. After her baptism, when she came up out of the water, she was smiling so big and her face was just glowing! It was so great to see! The Lord has a plan for each one of his children, and in the mission we just need to be humble and work hard, and the Lord will do his part. He knows what each one of us needs to progress! Sometimes we need to take those ¨uncomfortable¨ steps to move forward and to change. It was a cool experience to go back to the La Legua and to see how much I´ve grown since I left. I learned a lot in the time I was there, and I could see how much I´ve learned in each one of my areas.

     Last night we went to visit one of the ward missionaries, an hermana that lends her house as a hostal for travelers ¨huespedes¨. She invited us in and in the kitchen we met two women visiting her from Thailand. After a little bit of small talk we explained to them that we were missionaries of Jesus Christ, and we explained a little about the church. They spoke a little broken English, and nothing of Spanish. They were both so cute! They told us they were Buddhists, and hadn´t read much of the Bible. We explained a little about the Book of Mormon and gave them a card with the website of the church. They thanked us by giving us packets of dried soy milk, which were actually really good! Santa Cruz is a pretty cool area, because we get to meet people from all over the world. I hope that someday there in Thailand those two women can talk with the missionaries.

     Yesterday at church in sacrament meeting I saw someone sitting a few rows in front of us that looked like he was from the states. At the start of our gospel principles class he came up to me and I realized he was one of my friends that I had worked with in the Marriott Center!! His name is Zach. I was just a little surprised ha. He told me he had served his mission in Paraguay, but was in Lima for three months for an internship. It was SO weird but way cool to see someone from home here in the ward. My roommate Krista also wrote me and told me that her dad (he works as a pilot) had landed in Lima for a few days and had assisted our ward. It was the day I had spoken in church and he was going to come talk to me but never had the chance. How crazy is that!! This ward must be pretty popular ha. 

     Well I love you guys!! Congrats court on your seminary graduation! And it sounds like Colton is still going good in baseball. Love you guys! Good luck with everything! Work hard til the end of school ok? Chau!!

love, Hermana Anderson

P.S. I´ve misplaced the thing to send pictures, so I´ll have to send them next week. Sorry!

Happy Mother's Day!

     Hey! It was so great talking to you yesterday! I love you mom and hope you had a great Mother´s Day! It´s weird thinking that was the last time I´ll talk to you on skype in my mission. Time is flying!! 

     One thing I forgot to tell you is that at the start of the transfer for 3 days we were in a trio with an hermana Lengua that had received her visa and was just waiting to fly out. Her mission is in Tijuana and she flew out on Thursday. We are starting the transfer out  busy as usual! 

     Thanks for everything! I love you guys so much and I can´t wait to hear from you next week. Have a good one!

Love, Hermana Anderson

Pics

Hna Nunez, Hna lengua and I

Park in our sector

View of Lima from apartment building. Not all the buildings are yellow right Colton?

Cinco de Mayo!

     Saludos a todos! Como estan? It´s pretty cool thinking that up there in the states today everyone will be speaking Spanish saying ¨cinco de Mayo.¨ 

     Well we have come to the end of another transfer! I can´t believe how fast these six weeks have gone by. We´ve been trying to get the assistants to tell us the changes, but they won´t budge. We´re about 99% sure that Hna. Gomez has transfers, because she´s been here in Santa Cruz for 6 months. One of the assistants, Elder Huber, also has 6 months here so will probably change. It´ll be sad to see them go but I know we grow the most when we have to change. It´ll be fun to serve with new missionaries!

     We had to go into the office this morning to help out some hermanas in our zone and Hermana Callister came walking in for her last interview with President, so I got to say goodbye to her. So many goodbyes are happening this transfer! But it´s ok cause I know I´ll see her and some other missionaries up at BYU.

     This week we decided to go and give Irma a visit to see if she was reading or praying yet. She was super friendly, but told us that she had been watching a program about the Bible that explained that lots of people were crucified in Christ´s time, and it was a normal punishment then. She said that Christ was a great political leader, but that she didn´t quite believe it was possible that He died for us all. This week I learned that God knows his children-- God knew that Irma didn´t have a testimony, even if we didn´t. He knew that if we would have found out after her bautism  that she didn´t even have a testimony in Jesus Christ, we would have felt pretty bad. So I learned once again that God knows what´s best for us. He knows what He´s doing with his children :)

     This week we were talking with a woman we met in the street selling earrings named Edith. She told us she had faith in Christ, but she felt like her life didn´t have any purpose. She started crying and told us she had no family, no friends, no money... nothing. In all of our meetings in the mission we always recite our missionary commission written by Bruce R. McConkie. Part of it says that we are here ¨to do and to say what Christ would do and say if here were personally here.¨ In that moment the comission popped into my head about I thought, what would Christ do if he were here? What would he tell to this sweet daughter of God? I felt the spirit so strongly and felt the love that God has for her. I wanted to just throw my arms around her and tell her that everything would be ok! I testified that Heavenly Father loved her SO much and that he knew what she was going through. I also told her that Christ died just for her, because he loved her so much. She thanked us and told us she felt much better. We gave her a pamphlet of the plan of salvation to read. It was a great reminder to me that that´s why I´m here in the mission, to testify of Christ and to help people like Edith. If I can help people like her who are looking for the truth, then all the hard work is worth it. 

     This week we also had a leader´s training meeting that is for all the zone leaders and hermanas capacitadoras. It is my favorite meeting! We talk about logros (numbers??) that each zone has reached in baptisms and reactivated members for the month. We talk about what we can do as leaders to help our mission progress. After that we eat lunch prepared by Sister Borg and it is always delicious! This time she made the cabbage salad with ramen noodles that mom always makes! I was super happy ha. 

     Last night we went and visited a family that we haven´t visited for a while. The husband is menos activo, the wife is not a member and they have two littles boys, 5 years old and 1 year old. We taught them the Restoration and invited them to come to stake conference with us this Sunday. They said that we could drop by to pick them up! They´re a great family and they´re willing to progress. They even want to have their baby blessed in sacrament meeting! We´re excited to teach them and see them grow.

     Welp that´s it for this week. Oh, Mother´s Day! We were thinking of getting on skype on Sunday in the afternoon around 3 or 4. Are you guys gonna be home around then? I love you guys so much! Thanks for your letters! Have a great week!

Love, Hermana Anderson

P.S. Estamos en Argentina o Peru? Mate sin factura!

        Our last district meeting for the transfer.

        View of the beach from my sector Santa Cruz.

​