Awesome General Conference! (April 2013)

[This week I asked Kyle a LOT of questions.  We happened to be online at the same time, so we e-mailed back and forth.  These are all the answers.]

 

Momma!  How was your week?  How was conference?!  Temple in Cedar City!!!!  I'm for sure going there now!!  We didn't have any baptisms cause it was conference weekend. But we got three lined up for next week.  All of our investigators are doing super well.  We are focusing on the ones with dates though.  

 

Today we didn't do much for p-day.  Just bought lots of food to snack on and pretty much drew all day.  We buy what we will need for the next day.  It's just a lot more convenient to grab a couple eggs for the morning, I think, then just bread for dinner.  The stores are pretty much just like your basic grocery store.  Just a little smaller.  We have a lunch with a member everyday, which they usually like to give us lots to eat. TONS of Rice.  Ha!  I drew Joseph Smith and a cool name thing for Brian.  

 

There's just me and Elder Flores in our apartment.  Our apartment has two stories. Both about the size of the TV room downstairs. We have a sink and a fridge and a place to do laundry. We wash all the dishes by hand.  We have a microwave and . . . we have a shower and a toilet.  The water is freezing!!  WOOHOO! I have a picture I will send you . . . when I figure it out.

 

We usually have to wash our clothes by hand, but there is a lady in our ward who needs help money wise, so she washes them for us.  We pay her and she washes our clothes. 

 

We have a missionary credit card. We get money put on it every two weeks. We usually go to an ATM and get it all out at once and keep it at the house. 

 

We don't knock on the doors.  Everyone has gates with their front doors open.  So you just walk up and say, "BUENAS" and they come.  The people are always nice.  They really like talking, too.  We usually do street contacts though.  Well.  We find them in the street then later go to their houses.  I wish the members gave us referrals.  We keep telling them over and over again to give us some, but it never happens.  We have tons of appointments during the day so we are always walking to peoples houses. We have an hour a day set apart for only finding new investigators. During this hour, yes, we just stop people and get their information so we can visit another day.

 

A regular day is . . . wake up at 6:30.  Pray.  Exercise.  Eat some breakfast.  Shower. Personal study. Companionship study.  For the first 12 weeks of your mission there is a program you have to do.  We do that after comp study.  It's just kind of a getting started kind of deal.  Then we go to lunch.  Then go to all of our appointments for the day. At the end of the day we buy some stuff for dinner and breakfast.  Then we have a planning session for the next day and then we usually have about an hour to ourselves.  Sometimes we just go to bed cause were so tired.  But a lot of the time I eat and read my scriptures.  And then we go to bed and get to do it all over again the next day!  HA!

 

Speaking of which.  The other day we had divisions.  That's where me and Elder Flores split up and he goes with the district leader for a day and I go with the district leaders companion.  It's kinda interesting being in a different area for a day.  I was glad to be back with Elder Flores.  Ha!

 

I still haven't gotten your package yet. We usually don't get packages until zone conferences. Which are every 3 months. So it's probably sitting in the office waiting for me (I hope!) So I don't think it's lost forever.

 

But nothing to crazy happened this week.  Except for awesome GENERAL CONFERENCE!  We got a couple of our investigators to go.  I'm so glad we did.  It's like an instant testimony finder!  So we have a couple more baptisms, I think!  Conference was awesome, as you all know.  I was so so fortunate enough to watch it in English along with two other gringos in our zone and Patricia (my first convert!). It was awesome talking to her again.  Conference here is like stake conference. They all gather at the stake center and watch it in the big room.  It was awesome!!  In between sessions us Elders didn't really have much to do, so we just went to the store, bought some food, and chilled at the church.  HA!  But anyways.  Life is still good here! Hope all is well there and I love you all!!!

- Elder Anderson

  

More About the Gunman

Have you heard the saying, Days turn into weeks and Weeks turn into days?? HA! Crazy it's already Monday again!  We had a pretty spectacular week here in Campo! Thunderstorms here are awesome!  So loud and crazy!  Ha the other day we made homemade popcorn.  Turned out pretty awesome!

First I'll talk about the gun guy from last week.  He had his gun in a little fanny pack and didn't pull it out all the way.  But I saw that it was fake, so I wasn't too nervous.  They tell us in these situations to just give the guy some money and then tell the president and you get reimbursed.  I'm not sure why he didn't take my money.  He had a glove on so he must not have felt it.  I didn't mind though!  The two guys were huge!  Once they started beating him up, out of nowhere like 10 more guys came out and helped.  The gunman was a little twig.  Maybe 20 years old.  I easily could have taken this guy.

Everything was said in Spanish, but I understood everything because the only thing he was saying was DAME SU DINERO.  Pretty easy to pick up.  Especially when he was trying to get it.  We kinda just stood there in amazement as he was getting beat up.  This happens in video games and movies . . . not in real life!  Ha.

We didn't tell the mission president because nothing happened to us.  But we waited around for the cops.  I don't know how, but this kid got up and was all up in our faces because he thought we knew the guys who stole his motorcycle.  There were lots of people there by then, so nothing got too crazy.  It happened at about 7:00 at night.  Right after it was dark.  It was actually right by the church.  We had a meeting there and were waiting for the jeep to take us back to Campo. 

I was pretty calm through the whole thing.  If he would have started something, I would have punished him.  It hasn't really affected us too much because these things just always happen.  It's usually not a good idea to try beating someone up because almost always they have a group of buddies watching to make sure things go smoothly.

 

We had a sweet fast to help us find new investigators.  It's hard fasting cause all of our investigators offer juice.  Ha we had to turn it down like four times!  But it's okay.  We have an investigator named Henry.  He is like your ideal investigator.  Loved the restoration. Loved the Book of Mormon.  And he is coming to conference with us next week.  I think conference is live . . . I'm not sure. We're just going to the stake center which is about a half hour away to watch it.  

 

We have another investigator named Rosio.  She is so cool!  Single mother with two kids.  Today we bought her a hymn book and a complete Book of Mormon/Doctrine and Covenants!  It was so cool to see her face when she received it!!  Just another example that I really need to be more thankful for the things that I have. 

 

Personal study is probably my favorite part of the day!  It's for an hour in the morning.  Right now I'm in Alma.  Alma the younger is such an awesome man!  I wanna be like him.  He teaches with such power!  Like in chapter 5.  Perfect!!

 

Testimony meetings here are awesome!  There is never a silent moment.  EVERYONE wants to share!  And this week they just got back from the temple in Bogota.  The temple is about 12 hours away.  They were gone for four days and it's a pretty big chunk of change, so usually not the whole family goes.  They are so so thankful and it made me realize how much I take the temple for granted.  

 

The way computer time works here is kinda like . . . the houses are pretty small, but everyone has some sort of shop.  So yeah, we are in an internet cafe type deal.  There are about eight computers in here.  We have an hour.  We do it at the end of the day because we're all dressed up and at 6:00 we gotta go out to work again.

 

We had some sweet burgers for lunch.  They put beef, chicken, and all sorts of mess up in there. SO GOOD!  Also, when they have refreshments they go all out.  Ha not just your basic cookies and stuff.  We're talking sandwiches and soda! HA so good.  We didn't have a baptism this week, but it's okay.  

 

Another thing. Check this out for personal revelation.  Not too long ago I was reading in D&C 31.  I substituted my name for Thomas.  AND IT'S AWESOME! Give it a try!

 

But anyways.  Love ya Momma!! And until next week!!

 

Pero esta bien!  Mucho amor Mamma!!  Hasta proxima semana!

- Elder Anderson