Hermana Anderson: 7 Investigators at Church But We Were No Where to be Found...

Hola friends!

Mom, I got your letter and your package. Thank you so much for everything. I appreciate the breakfast drinks. the food. the popcorn. Everything. I love the jacket. Thanks for the stamps. I love your letters and how cute they are. Thank you so much. I am going to write more letters.
I am so sorry about all the deaths. That is terrible but I am glad you got to reconnect with your friend. I have met her once. She is the one with Mr. Bodily in her ward. :) I am so thankful for the knowledge we have about the plan of salvation. I love the pictures of Beckett. He is the cutest baby in the entire world. I love him. And his picture he drew me was is so precious.

This email may be kind of long so if you don't read it all, I understand. Except you mom, but I know you will read it all :) 7 of our investigators came to church.... but we weren't there... I'll explain more later... (skip to Sunday if you only want to ready about that)

On Wednesday we had interviews with President Smith. He is such a cool dude. I cried to him about missing home and we talked about how much of a blessing it is that I miss home. Because that means that I have a family and a bunch of friends that love and care about me. So that is how I am trying to think right now and it is really working. He says the only way I am going to get over the home sickness is to love the people and get to work. And he is 100% right. We also talked about how I had a lack of faith of finding people. Sometimes it is really hard for me to think that there really are people who want to hear our message, but people really are being prepared. I promise... and now comes the classic missionary story....

So President Smith told both Hermana Coleman and I that we needed more faith in finding. So we decided that we were going to go find someone that day. So we prayed about where we should go and we were led to a neighborhood. Which is super not normal because Hispanics are normally in townhouses, apartments or trailer parks. So we knocked on a few houses, talked to a super creepy old guy and decided we were in the wrong circle so we walked to a different part of the neighborhood and found a lady outside her house. We started talking to her but she wasn't interested but we asked her where Hispanics are in this neighborhood and she pointed us back in the direction of our car. We went over there and talked to this guy whose wife is a less active and he said some Hispanics live across the street. Right where our car was parked. So we knocked and talked to this guy, Nelson. He is super cool and didn't seem interested at first but eventually promised us that he would read the introduction to the Book of Mormon and pray about it. It was super cool and I know we found him because we decided to have faith and just trust in God and his timing.

On Friday we had this meeting called "Return and Report". I assume you saw the pictures on Facebook... All the missionaries that came in at the same time as me and their trainers all gathered in downtown Richmond. This area is not a sister area and I am really thankful I won't ever have to serve there. It is a super cool place but definitely pretty sketchy. But we all go down there and try to street contact for like 2 hours. We went out with different companions and I went out with Hermana Davis and it was super cool. We gave out 3 Book of Mormons and a few restoration pamphlets. A super drunk guy stopped us and told us he wants to become a preacher but he is an alcoholic and he asked us if we think it would be okay if he still preached the good word while being an alcoholic. Somehow we changed the subject and gave him a restoration pamphlet and left but I just thought it was super cool that he trusted us enough to ask for our opinion. He recognized us as servants of God and that is a promise that we are promised in preach my gospel and I really saw it. It was really cool.

On Saturday we had some lessons that were super cool. We went and had a lesson with our investigators Humberto and Andrea who have been investigating since like July or August. its hard to communicate with them because they don't have a phone or a car.... but we finally taught them and we taught them for an hour and a half.... About like everything. The Spirit was so strong so we invited them to be baptized and they are hesitant but we think they are going to accept a baptismal date soon. I explained to them why we are here on missions and we are here because we know this is true. We know the Book of Mormon is true and we know we will one day live with our families for eternity in true happiness and that we want this for them. (yes I did that in Spanish....) After this we had a lesson with another investigator, Javier. He has come to church 15 times. But won't accept a baptismal date. He says he wants his kids to grow up in this church. He wants to bless his little girl but he won't get baptized. Its really frustrating but we are trying to be patient and figure out what it is that he needs so he understands how important baptism is.

STOP HERE IF YOU WANT TO READ ABOUT SUNDAY. Alright here is where it gets good. Sunday. We were studying when we got a call from our investigator Brenda. She told us that her sister had been in an accident and she needed us to translate at the hospital because she doesn't know anyone else that speaks English well enough to translate. So we got permission to go out of our area to downtown Richmond to the VCU hospital. We were expecting that she needed stitches or something and we get there and she had gotten out of a 10 hour surgery. She had broken several bones and had some bleeding in her brain. At this point she could not communicate with us because she had some tubes in her mouth and can't move very well. So we are talking with our investigator, Brenda, who doesn't know what happened because her sister can't tell her. so we had to call the police officer who told us it was a single vehicle accident and the car rolled several times off the road. She had to be flown in a helicopter to the hospital. It was super intense. We translated this phone call for Brenda. (I just had the Spanish dictionary open and looked up words for Hermana Coleman) We had to call the towing company, the fire department and file an insurance claim and then translate all of this back to Brenda. and by we, I mean Hermana Coleman because my Spanish is not good enough yet. I can understand a lot but I can't think fast enough about what the said and then what to say back and how to say it correctly... So this is all happening during church and we get a text from the Elders that said we had 7 investigators at church. So that is super awesome but we felt bad that we couldn't be there with them. We eventually made it back and talked with our investigators and attended an English ward's sacrament so we could take the sacrament and it was much needed. We were so tired. That was probably the most emotionally extinguishing thing I have done on my mission. So we decided that we can't keep doing this so we found a member who is willing to translate for Brenda. Hermana Ainsa. She is awesome. We went to her house to explain what was happening and she made sure everything was okay with Brenda and stuff but then she looked at us and asked if we were okay. We were okay but so tired. We are just some 19 year old girls that don't speak Spanish fluently and don't know anything about insurance. She just acted like our mom for a second and made sure we were okay with everything. I am so so thankful for her.

How I met Coach Gillette's sister. We were waiting for the English ward to start and she came up and was trying to see Hermana Coleman's tag and she asked me if she was Hermana Anderson. Probably because she is taller and looks like she plays basketball HAHAHA! But I told her she was looking for me and we talked for a little bit about Virginia and Coach Gillette. it was super cool! I also found Gwen Brockbank's sister in law... I don't know which boy she is married to. If I see her again I will ask :)

Facebook: at first it was communicating with our investigators and our members but I found a Hispanic Richmond Virginia group. So I changed my privacy settings so not just anyone can look at my friends. (trying to protect yall) and started messaging people "Hi! I am a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. We have a message about Jesus Christ and we believe we can live with our families forever, even after this life. Do you want to learn more? and I have sent this message to around 60 people and only 2 have responded lol! but I am trying.

Our mission has also been chosen for a new pilot program. Only 5 missions in the world have been chosen for this so its pretty cool. If people google "questions of the soul" (where are we going, where do we come from, what is our purpose) mormon.org will show up and they can request to have someone come teach them. We haven't had any referrals from this yet but apparently in one day there were 30 referrals in the mission. So that is super cool and I am so excited for it!!

My Spanish is coming. I understand a lot and can teach some things. I can share my testimony. I share my testimony in all of our lessons and I can promise blessings. All the members are surprised that I can pray so well for only being out for less than a month. So there is that.

I love you all and thank you all for all you do!