Hermana Anderson: 2 Months.... Say What??

Hola amigos!

Mom, I got your snail mail and it made my day! I loved it so much. I have re read it a couple of times already. I also got grandma Larrabee's letter and wrote her back today! I am so thankful you guys took the time to write me. I know you were inspired to do so. I did a lot better this week with the homesickness. I still felt it a lot. Especially this morning for some reason but I do think I am settling into missionary life more and more. I know it will take some more time but it is happening.

We have had branch council once and branch coordination once since I have been here. They are super helpful meetings and I can't wait to have more. Right now we do not have a ward mission leader so that is tough but once we get one, we will meet with them every week. We just got new Presidents in Young Womens and Young Mens and primary. They are all younger people who are so ready to help the missionaries out with the work. And we are coming up with a program to have each member suggest names through Facebook that we can teach or share a message with. Missionaries are so involved in the branch here because the branch is so small. Members are so willing to come out with us though and be involved in missionary work. We have three sets of Spanish missionaries all in our branch.

This week was kind of tough when it comes to rejections and stuff. We got rejected a ton. We have some recent converts that are ignoring us and we had to drop an investigator that Hermana Coleman has been teaching for 12 weeks. That was really hard on her. But it was what we needed to do.

On Friday, we went on exchanges with the sister training leaders. I went with Sister Perry for the day and we went and had lunch with lady for lunch. Her name is Peggy and she is like 71, single and at one point in time had 8 cats. She is so awesome. Sister Perry asked her about her conversion story and she told us about it and she talked about how the missionaries came and knocked on her door and told her about the first vision and right then she knew it was true. She knew it but was not sure if she wanted to be baptized because she wasn't sure if she wanted to change her lifestyle. Around 10 months later she chose to be baptized and has been a faithful member of the church for 35 years. It was so cool for me to hear this because I had been lacking in faith about finding people to teach. Then later that night we went to visit a recent convert, his name is Lloyd and he is one of the coolest people I have ever met. He was baptized less than a year ago and has an incredible testimony of Jospeh Smith. He was sharing his testimony about how he knows Joseph Smith is a prophet could not have done all of this without the help of God. It was so cool to hear his testimony. He is working to go through the temple soon and I am so happy for him. Hearing their conversion stories gave me some extra motivation to go knock on some doors and tell people about the gospel.

Then we had conference. We watched the morning sessions on both days in spanish so I can't wait until they come out on gospel library so I can actually understand what was said! I got some things and I know the Spirit helped me understand what I needed to hear in those two sessions. It is so sad about Elder Hales but I know he is going to do some serious work on the other side. The other two sessions were so awesome. I loved Elder Andersen's and Elder Nelson's talks. They were incredible. Also, Elder Callister's talk about Joseph Smith was the ultimate talk that I want every person who denies Joseph Smith as a prophet to read. 6 of our investigators said they were going to come to the church to watch conference with us and only one came. One. So that was super discouraging but we are going to talk to them this week and ask them what is up. One of them watched a couple of the sessions at home though so that is awesome!! :)

Since I was feeling motivated to knock on doors, we went on sunday to this apartment complex and knocked on like 6 doors before dinner and every single one of them said "not interested". Just like that. Some opened the door and didn't even let us speak. One didn't even open the door, just yelled through and then locked the door. so that was kind of sad but I know we will find someone who is ready.

I want you all to know that I know this is the true church. I know God is aware of us and wants us to return to him. He has given us the Book of Mormon to do so. I know Joseph Smith translated the Book of Mormon. I know that Joseph Smith was called by God to restore the true gospel to this earth. He was persecuted until death because he knew the truth. This gospel is amazing and we are so blessed to have it on the earth today.