18 Months

I know I always say this, but so much has happened since last Monday! So much. For all those that still read this, I think I'll just make a list :)

• Thanksgiving! So we ended up only having one dinner! It was nice since we were still full from our two dinners on Monday. I've never been so full...I felt like a potato.  That’s the best way I can describe it. We had dinner with the turner family! They are a nice bunch and it was so yummy! Then we went to the church and talked with some members for a bit, then home to set up our little Christmas trees and watch a bunch of church movies! It was a good day.

• I gave a talk in church on Sunday and EVERYONE I saw kept saying,  "You go home soon right? You'll be home for Christmas! Are you scared? Excited?...etc.." Word travels fast in these small towns. I honestly don't know how I feel. Slowly it is starting to feel more real. I don't think I like it. But don't worry I am excited to see you all :) I will really miss being a missionary though. The other day we met a lady that was kinda crazy and she gave such an interesting closing prayer. haha But I started tearing up because it sunk in a little more that I won't get to be doing this 24/7 and hearing people pray like that!
• Oh goodness and Moms in the ward are setting me up with their sons that go to school in Utah...eh

• Annie! We were trying to find a referral we had received, but we didn't know how to get to it, so we decided to try a house that we thought might be it. The woman that answered was SO nice. And guess what, she had moved in just 1 hour before we got there! Not the referral, but she's a keeper. We will be going back.

• Exchanges in Missoula! Ah it is nice to have Sister training leaders, but it was kinda strange to be on the other end of it. I got to be with Sister Fletcher! We came out together and haven't served around each other this whole time, so it was fun to get to serve with each other for the day.  We met some sweet people and even found a new investigator named Saud from Saudi Arabia! He saw an add on YouTube about the church and referred himself saying that he wanted a Book of Mormon. He grew up Muslim and is SO interested in learning! When we gave him the Book of Mormon he treated it like it was such a special gift. Which it is! But it's not an everyday thing for someone to treat it like that.  Which made me think about how I treat or think about the Book of Mormon. It really is such a gift!

• This is what we talked all about at the Christmas Conference. How special the Book of Mormon is and how important it is that we use and bear testimony of it as often as possible. For the past few months we have all been studying the Book of Mormon and highlighting the character of Christ throughout it. I've learned SO much from doing this. I've really come to know my Savior so much more and have come to see the role the He plays in each story throughout it. The Book of Mormon is another testament of Jesus Christ. Also at this conference I gave my departing testimony, along with 4 other sisters that will be going home with me. I don't usually cry, but it was SO SAD! Especially when anyone would talk about President and Sister Wadsworth. I love them :)

Anyways, enough about this going home mumbo jumbo.  There is a new Christmas video!! It's called Light the World and it is soo good.  EVERYONE go share it on Facebook and any other way you can on other social media! There is a calendar too of what kind of service to do everyday leading up to Christmas! Tomorrow is the first day. It's a world wide day of service!  "...hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up..." 3 nephi 18:24.  #LighttheWorld

Also it's finally snowing! Have a very merry week!

Love, Sister Anderson

Beautiful scenery & missionaries =)

Exchanges

Cute bunny rabbit!

More awesome scenery!

Thanksgiving day drive to Hungry Horse Dam

Sister Wagstaff

Funny stop sign =)

Selfie!

One big door!

Welcome to God's Country

This week has gone by WAY too fast. I can't believe it's already Monday again!

I don't even remember anything that has happened.. so sorry this will be a random / short email.

Trini and Gwen are being SO prepared and humbled to receive the gospel and be baptized. Keep praying for them! They are feeding us dinner after our dinner tonight. Haha Should be good! Gotta love second dinners. Getting ready for thanksgiving ya know?

I'm still loving the mission life SO MUCH. It’s crazy how quickly you can come to love people that you've never met. We got to go to the ward thanksgiving dinner in whitefish this week and it was so fun! The wards here are amazing and so missionary minded. We continue to receive so many awesome referrals from them.

There's a quote I came across this week in a talk called, "a reason to smile" it says, "The Doctrine and Covenants teaches us that “Jesus Christ your Redeemer … so loved the world that he gave his own life, that as many as would believe might become the sons of God” (D&C 34:1, 3). Father gave. Jesus gave. And we must give. There is no other blessing for which we should be more grateful than that of being recipients of the blessings that come through the power of the atonement of Jesus Christ."

Random things:

• I met a little girl named Jaja! I tried to tell her why people call me that too, but she just saw my name tag and got confused.
• Next week I will not be having preparation day on Monday, it will be on Wednesday. Because the stake puts on this thing called Cresh? It's a big community thing at the church.  There will be TONS and tons of nativities and people all over the community from different churches and stuff will be coming and singing and it lasts for three days straight and they've asked President if we could help, so we are going to be there helping the entire time! We are setting up for it on Monday. That week we will only have a total of 10 hours to work in our area since the Christmas conference is also that week and we are going on exchanges in Missoula!
• We are getting really good at heel clicks

Have happy thanksgiving and count your many blessings!  :)

Love,

Sister Anderson

Welcome to WhiteFish!

Rendering service by raking leaves

A nice gift

Chick Fil A!

A random local moose =)

You Can Pray For the World

Everything's still fine and dandy here in Columbia Falls / Whitefish! We've seen many many miracles this week. God continues to lead us to where we need to be, and keeps the wild animals away. It is not uncommon to see a bear or a mt lion here. There was one in the church parking lot the other day. I hope we get to see one! From a safe distance. Anyways, yes miracles! We found 8 new investigators this week! When we told our ward mission leader about all the people we've been meeting he about passed out. He's a funny guy and tells everyone about us like we are these all star missionaries. We've just been getting out there and working! I guess the missionaries before us didn't do much work.

The other night we went to what we thought was a less active's home, but we soon realized that she had moved. We got talking with this lady though and she said that she has been looking for a church to join lately, but hasn't found one yet! We're excited to start working with her. While in that same area we saw that there was a member near by and thought we should stop by.  We thought they were active, but when she came to the door she treated us much more like a less active would. Turns out she is a less active member and her 15 year old son had just gone to jail the day before and she hadn't seen missionaries for a while so she was surprised to see us and told us we could come back! When we came back she told us all about how she wants to work towards going to the temple and get back in the habit of reading her scriptures daily, going to church, and praying! Then her neighbor came over (not a member) and said that she has been wanting a blessing and feels like she really needs some direction in her life right now, so we talked with her about the gospel and she wants to come to church! Then the members active parents showed up! It was not a coincidence that we were there at that time. :)

Also this week we received a text saying, "I can't get ahold of the bishop" from a random number. We ended up setting up a time to come by and meet her. When we did we found out she is member, moved here in February and hasn't been to church since she got here. She has four kids and one of them is 10 and not baptized, so hopefully the dad will give us the "okay" and we can start teaching her the lessons so she can be baptized! The mom and daughters came to church on Sunday and actually already have some friends in the ward! I love serving here!

We are also working with a Trini and Gwen! (Not sure if I already mentioned them or not) but they have been taking the lessons for probably 10 years. They are buds with my mission President and his wife. Our assignment from president is to get them baptized. no pressure. Also Trini reports to President on how we do in our lessons haha they are more active than most members here...not sure exactly what is keeping them from being baptized right now, but keep them in your prayers!

Earlier in the week I was thinking about confidence and thinking about being more confident in my abilities and different things, then I was just scanning through preach my gospel and read the sentence, "Remember that your confidence and faith should be in Christ, not in yourself" and that has stuck with me all throughout the week and brought me so much happiness and peace ever since. We can and should, choose to put our confidence and faith in Christ. When we do we feel of His presence more in our lives and it becomes easier for us to trust in Him and His guidance. "Men are that they might have joy!" Even with the trials that happen in life we can have joy when we put our faith and confidence in the Lord.

Hope you all have the best week ever!

Love,

Sister Anderson

Ps. We met some upset people the day after the election. We asked one lady of there was anything we could for her and she said we could pray for the world.

Prettiest area in the mission!

One huge dog!

But very friendly

The Miller's sent me the cutest package!

So Let it Begin! Columbia Falls + Whitefish

I don't know where to begin! This week has been so crazy, and so great! I'm in Columbia Falls now! I should've been counting how many times people have told us they are excited to have us here. It would be a big number. Also being doubled in just means that both of us are new to the area. It use to be covered by elders, but they took the elders out and put us in! We also cover Whitefish! We are right next to glacier park, so hopefully we'll get to go there sometime. The mountains next to us are huge and so close! Kinda like Utah! I'm not use to being so close to big mountains anymore, it's great!

Wednesday was transfers, so Sister Wong came to take my place and Sister Christensen and I needed to wait until Thursday to get our new companions, so we spent the day in Helena together! We were asked to sing at a funeral that day, we sang I am a child of God. It was amazing how many people came. I would guess the majority of them were not members. It was a cool experience. We also got to visit with Victoria and the Johnson family. I already miss the people there, but I'm loving the new people here as well. We've already met SO many great people. I love it here! There isn't really a teaching pool here at the moment, so we get to do A LOT of finding! It's great! The members have been giving us many many referrals so we are excited to see what happens within the next few weeks. We know we will see many miracles here :)

I'm doing this thing called My Plan since it's my last transfer and it has me study different things sometimes and this week it asked me to study my patriarchal blessing. To circle the words that describe me and to underline the actions that I should take. It's been a really neat experience for me! I love my patriarchal blessing :) it really is like our own Liahona in life to help guide us home to Heavenly Father. If you haven't read yours for a while I invite you to do so! :)

Random stuff

• There is the first Chick Fil A in Montana opening in less than two weeks! I'm so excited.
• A quote while still with Sister Linney, "Oh my goodness, two red heads in one place! Too bad I'm so old." *wink  - old man at senior living place.
• We knocked on a door and when the people answered they let us right in and turns out they were having a dinner party with a bunch of friends! It was very interesting. They told us about how they are all pretty spiritual people and one of them might have been a preacher. He went off for a while about Jesus Christ and we shared some scriptures from the Book of Mormon about Christ and then the preacher man asked if he could pray for us and we love praying so why not! So he said a prayer for us and it really very interesting, but also awesome! All except one seemed to really enjoy us being there.

Have a top notch week!

I love you all :)

Love,

Sister Anderson

Family portrait after Jacob's farewell with me!

Me with the fam dropping Jacob off at the MTC =)

Saying Goodbye to Helena :(

Saying goodbye to Victoria and Bently

The Lintners!

The Knudsens! She gave me the cutest angel

Sister Livingston!

The Johnson's


The cutest Austin children all dressed up

Sister Miller gave us the cutest halloween gifts

Sister Linney and Sister Wong doing a great job at getting her suitcase upstairs =)


Annabelle and the Millers! They are the best!

Sister Wong and I and Elder Fleming

Sister Wong!

Sister Linney, Wong, Christensen and me