Sister Jessica Anderson: Bowling With our Truck

Hello family!

This week has been pretty eventful! On Friday as we were traveling back from exchanges with the sisters in Lovell. We were driving over the Bighorn mountains and it had snowed the night before so the roads were pretty slippery and as we went around a sharp turn we starting sliding and sliding and we ran into a few of the reflector sticks on the side of the road. I felt like we were a bowling ball and we were hitting down all of the pins. Our truck is not too badly wrecked. It still works. There is a big dent the size of a basketball in the front of the truck and scratches on the side and another dent and our sideview mirror is done for, but it could have been a lot worse! Right after we slid a sheriff came up the mountain and got out of his truck to make sure we were okay. The first thing he said was, "what you up to sisters?".. He was a member! That made me feel so much better :) He made sure everything was okay before we got back on the road. We are heading for Billings tomorrow morning and there is a big storm coming today so hopefully the roads will be okay!

We finally found K and we were able to set up an appointment with him, but once it came time to go to the appointment he wasn't there. So instead, we had the feeling we should go to a gas station, so we did! When we got there a big motorcycle guy came in and Sister Peterson was in the restroom, so I was by myself and at first I was a bit afraid of the guy because he was really big and looked like a tough guy, but I had a feeling that I should start talking with him about the gospel, so I did and he actually turned out to be a really nice guy and we were able to have some good gospel conversation! We invited him to church so hopefully he will be there next Sunday! Then we felt like we should go to the other gas station and when we did two of our less actives were there and we were able to set up appointments with them! So many miracles everyday :)

There was an amazing story told at MLC from a couple weeks ago that I would like to share with you all! There once was a father who had two children, a boy and a little girl. One day he was walking down the hall and he heard his little girl praying in her room. He couldn't help but put his ear up to the door to listen to her prayer. As she prayed, she expressed sadness for the bird traps her brother and father had made. She prayed that somehow the traps wouldn't go off and that the birds would be okay and safe. At first the father thought her prayer was cute but as he really thought about it, it began to trouble him because he realized that those bird traps they had made were really good quality and there was no way they couldn't catch some birds. Worried that her faith would be crushed by this, he decided to talk to his daughter. "Sweetie, I just want to let you know how happy it makes Heavenly Father when you pray to him. He loves hearing from you. But I just hope you know that sometimes, Heavenly Father doesn't answer our prayers in the way we hope for or ask for. I just don't want you to be disappointed if those traps catch some birds." The little girl looked at her father with all the confidence in the world and said "no daddy you're wrong I know those birds will be okay. I asked Heavenly Father!" He couldn't believe the faith of his little girl. But he told her "Sweetheart those traps are really good, and I just don't want you to be sad or upset at Heavenly Father when they go off." His daughter once again said "Daddy I just KNOW they'll be safe!" Finally the father asked his daughter "How can you be so sure? How can you have such great faith?" Then she looked at him and said "Because after I got off my knees I went and I kicked all those bird traps to pieces! There's no way they'll work now!" What can we learn from this little girl? She knew what she wanted and she worked for it and it happened. There's only so much we can do on our knees. Faith without works is dead! We can't just give Heavenly Father a grocery list of things we want. We need to work. God has given us all the tools necessary to see his will come to pass in all things. I definitely know that God answers our prayers. My invitation to you is to get out there and kick the traps! ;) Act upon the faith you have :)

Goodness I love being a missionary! I'll never get tired of being called Sister Anderson and wearing a name tag everywhere I go. I love you all! Thank you for the Christmas cards and packages :) I hope you all are having a wonderful Christmas season! For ponderizing I'm going to do 2 Nephi 22:2 :) We are ponderizing this with one of our less actives.

Love, Sister Anderson