This Week Flew By!

It's been a pretty good week.

So first on Monday last week we went to Ryan's dam and I think I sent all of those pictures last week, but it was so fun! A member set it all up and he use to be a cop for Woodland Hills and Salem! Small world! We heard about the mudslide there. That's crazy! Guess what?! The other day while we were tracting we were talking to these ladies and they were like "watch out for the mountain lion!" I was just thinking they were joking and we kinda laughed and were like "okay!" But then she's said "no I'm serious! There is a mountain in town! My son saw it down the street and the cops having been looking for it all day!" Haha what?! We never actually saw it, but other people told us about it too! We were pretty cautious for the rest of the day. Oh I got my first door slammed in my face! It was a young teenager, I was in the middle of a sentence and he just slowly closed the door.  Haha  This week we met with a girl that we’ll call  “S” and she is so great. This was our first lesson with her and it was just a total DISASTER. We were just like vomiting all of this information on her, I don't even know why it was going so strangely. But it was the first lesson, so ya know, we needed to invite her to be baptized.  So we did and she said yes? We were so surprised! Haha it's a really good thing the spirit is the teacher. Looking back at it she was understanding everything we were talking about and the spirit was there.  It just was not a normal first lesson that's for sure!

We also put this sweetest young girl on date this week :) She is so excited and prepared for the gospel in her life! We also met with W again yesterday! I just love going to meet with him! I don't know why because I am always a bit nervous before we go, we never know how or where the lesson is going to go with him.  But the spirit totally guided the whole lesson with him. He really gets a lot out of videos and we felt like we should show him the patterns of light videos which are three videos that Elder Bednar did. They are super good and just what he needed. It was a little weird to be using so much video in our lessons, but we felt like we should, so we did and it went perfect! He went to church again this week and is still praying! Also he opened up more and told us about sometimes when he has felt the Holy Ghost prompt him to do something. He has come SO far in the last 3 weeks and he doesn't even see it! I'm so excited for him. :)

This next week we are going to Helena again to meet Elder Martino from the 70! So that'll be cool! I don't know if I ever mentioned this before, but we get free Dairy Queen once a week because a member owns it! Just thought I'd throw that in there.  Also we ate frog legs for dinner last night! I have picture proof. Haha They taste like chicken!

Well I love you all!

Love,

Sister Anderson

mmmm frog legs!

Free DQ Mom!!  =)

Ran into some cool people out tracting

Twinners!  =)

The apartment mascot

Out tracting

Montana Life

Hello everybody!

Life is still awesome as a missionary here!  The only downside of this week was that we had to take 3 people off date because two of them are young and their parents said they couldn't and the other one is 22 but he respects his mom a lot and she wants him to stay catholic. But some big seeds were planted! :) However, we did put a new person on date so that's exciting!  OH! And guess what! So you remember W? Well we met with him yesterday and we brought two brethren from our Ward with us because W is single and stuff but we usually just bring one sister with us. Well anyways at first he felt like we were kinda attacking him cause we brought these two big men with us, he asked, "did you bring these two for backup?" Ha. But he loosened up after a while and the lesson was interesting but good! Then at the end he goes, "what if I told you guys I was at church today?" And we were like.. Ah what?! He just came and sat in the hall and left early so that no one saw him haha but he came!! And then guess what... He said he has been praying!! He says it is a simple prayer and he still won't pray with us, but hey! A prayer is a prayer and God just wants to hear from us! It's so exciting! I just wanted to do a couple backflips after that lesson.  But I can't.

C also came to church yesterday! Awe man C is so awesome. He has been in and out of prison for the last 10 years and has got some sad stuff going on in his life right now, but he is just filling his life with the gospel and everything he can now and you honestly would never know that he has had such a past. Every time we talk with him you can just see a change in him! When we first knocked on his door he was smiley and stuff but now he looks happy! I love seeing that change :)

The gospel can do some pretty amazing things if we let it. On another note...our apartment...the smell is getting worse. Everyday I think it changes because there is no getting use to this smell!

We're thinking it's like mold or something growing in the vents. We are going to try and see what we can do about that haha We have been going to the far end of our area lately which is out in the country life and everyone out there has at least 5 dogs! They are all behind fences which is good, but everyone knows when we are coming down the street because all of the billions of dogs start barking at us! And this one time one of the dogs started climbing the fence! Sister Moyer and I almost had 5 heart attacks because he was not a happy dog and he almost climbed all the way over!! Ah.

The sunsets here get prettier and prettier! I'll send a picture or two. And I realized that I haven't seen night time in two months! Cause it doesn't get dark here until after we go to sleep, so that's kinda weird. Oh! So we have this recent convert she's like 16ish and lives at a group home. So to meet up with her we call them and have them drop her off at the church and we just meet with her there. So that's what we did but they dropped her off before we got there so once we got there

we were looking around and went through every room in the building and couldn't find her. So we called the group home and the lady got all stressed said she was on her way to come and look for her with us. We got all stressed! Then when she got there we looked through the whole church again. If we couldn't find her within 30 minutes then she was considered a "runaway" and she would have to call the cops! So she sent us to go look at Wendy's and McDonald's and all of these

places, so we did! And then right when she was about to call the cops Mariah and all of these people came out of the high council room. She went into the addiction recovery class! The only room we didn't think to look in was the high council room.. Ha. But that's an awesome class

from what I hear, so hey I'm sure she learned something she was suppose to! Haha

Also yesterday we went to help out the mission prep class for a bit and they talked about the covenants and how we need to always be keeping our covenants. We talked about how God needs covenant keepers not covenant makers. And that really stood out to me! When we make

covenants with God that is just the beginning, we need to keep those covenants! And as we do we will be SO blessed! And who doesn't want that?! ;)

I love you all!

Love, sister Anderson

Jessica just loves spiders =) The spider is just below the left corner of the door on the white trim

One of the "Great" Falls of Great Falls Montana (Ryans dam)

With Sister Moyer & the other Sisters in her district

Panorama of the "smelly" pink palace

Cats cats cats!  

Great Falls!

This week has just been all over the place, but in a good way!  First off...We put 4 people on baptism date this week, 3 of them in one day! Now we have 7 people on date! We would have 8 but we had to take one off because she went to jail and she is back home now but she won't let us come and see her, so that's a struggle. But all 7 of them have A LOT of things that they need to overcome before they can be baptized, so keep them in your prayers! :)  We went and ate at Stacey's house on Wednesday! That was fun! We were like 30 or more minutes late, because we locked our car and house keys inside the house! Haha Luckily we have nice neighbors and they pried open our window and the little neighbor boy climbed in and opened up the house for us! :) Then, Stacey lives on the other side of the river, so we drove over there. The other side of the river is really nice from what I've seen! Our area is a bit sketchier. Haha yes mom, I've considered buying some pepper spray. I heard that it gets dark here at like 4:30 in the winter! So far no one has talked positively about the winters here, haha so I'm in for a treat! ;) I’m actually really excited for the winter! haha

So the other day we met with this older lady, she's really spiritual and pretty interesting haha But the first time I met her was the very first day that I got here in great falls so like a month and a half ago and she gave us a half of a block of some interesting cheese and a frozen box of milk and some Cereal. haha This time she told us that she had met some elders at the bus stop, which turned out to be our district leader and his companion and she said that she had some cheese that she wanted to give them because they looked so skinny. hahaha It was the other half of the same block of cheese that she gave to us forever ago! And it wasn't in the fridge either, so I don't know how it isn't moldy. Hahaha gross, but we are going to give it to them! There is also this lady we see all of time.  She isn't interested, but she always finds us and says hi and that we look nice and then she usually tells us about a holy blessing that she received.  The other day she told us about 7 huge raccoons that are in town and that we need to watch out for them! haha She's a nice lady. 

Yesterday we taught a guy 'W' I don't know if I have already talked about him, but he grew up LDS and has gone through some rough times and basically now doesn't believe in God or anything.  I really like meeting with him! But man sometimes he is just so stubborn! He WILL NOT pray.... Which is obviously a problem.  But he is getting somewhere! He has a "hope" is what he says. Basically the whole time that we are there all we are doing is asking him questions and it is super effective! We also showed him The Hope of God’s Light video (if you haven't seen that you should).  He really liked it and said how it was really similar to him. He also mentioned that a good old friend of his who he hadn't talked to in years called him up the other day after we met with him. God is totally reaching out for W in so many ways and HE KNOWS IT! Ugh! We were just straight up and bold with him throughout the whole time that we were there and the spirit was so strong and I know he felt it! We told him if that if he doesn't pray then he will never receive an answer and he understands that.  He says that he just can't yet and that he needs to do a bunch of service to get outside of himself first. Which is good too, so we have a bunch of people moving in and out of our Ward so it will be good to get him to those, but ugh! He will come around. :) 

The other day we were going around to some less actives houses and we went to one house looking for a woman and her brother ended up answering the door. He was the only one home and he just started talking about his life and how he's been having a pretty rough time. Then he stopped talking for a bit and he said "ya know, I don't think it's a coincidence you guys came here today." And the spirit just came so strong and we obviously agreed with him. NOTHING'S A COINCIDENCE! He went on talking about a quote that his friend told him a while ago about how God is always there and He wants to help us and that it is about time that he let Him. Then the spirit came even stronger! :)

I love love love being a missionary. I know this is where I am suppose to be and I wouldn't have it any other way :) Thank you for your prayers.  I love and pray for you all!

Love, Sister Anderson

With her mothers childhood friend Stacey

With Sister Moyer and Stacey's daughter Dakota

A fishing lure in Sister Moyer's Shoe =)

Looks like they're gaining weight!  =)

SOoo Many Things Have Happened This Week!

I don't even know if I can put them all in this email, but I will try.

So first of all guess who is my new companion/who I'm training is?!

Its Sister Moyer!! You know, Alyssa Moyer? From Woodland Hills? We graduated together and did track and went to elementary school and ya da ya da…  SO COOL! She is awesome and so ready to be a hard working missionary! Well she already is one! We get along super well and it's great :)

On Wednesday me and sister Stacey drove to Helena and Sister Stacey got with her new companion and took off. I stayed in Helena for the night with the Sister training leaders because the new missionaries don't get here until Thursday, so that was so fun to go around with them for the day! Then the next day I got Sister Moyer and we left to go back to Great Falls!

Sorry to bring a downer into this email, but the P family I would say has taken a step down from where they were before. We aren't exactly sure, but it sounds like they are having some contention in their family and we haven't been able to meet with them much.

Also we met with D yesterday and it was just a whole rollercoaster of everything in that lesson. We started out reading 2 nephi 31 all about baptism and somehow it got into how she is having surgery tomorrow and she is not expecting to live through it and tears were shed that's for sure. Then we continued reading and, well we have been bringing up baptism a lot more with her throughout the last few lesson and she just has not liked that and she just straight up said "I will never be baptized and I will never be Mormon"....so we explained our purpose and now she is basically dropped.. which is sad, but hopefully she will come around sometime in the future :)

So I think yesterday was like "National don't wear a shirt day" or something because everyone (the guys) didn't have a shirt on!  haha This one guy was so interesting. Once we got on the street we could hear this super loud, some sort of indian or Mexican music blasting from this house.  We went and knocked on the door and it was this old man, without a shirt of course.  I think he was doing some sort of yoga or something haha but I don't even know how to explain what happened there, but he was just an interesting fellow.

Also this week and next week is the state fair so our zone is doing a free car wash! We did it on Saturday and we are going to do it again on this Saturday. We have actually been getting a lot of referrals and some potential investigators! So that's cool!

We have been meeting so many awesome people these last couple of days who are so ready for the gospel in their lives! Its great!

On Friday we were going to this lady we had an appointment with and somehow we got on the wrong street and realized the house we parked next to, thinking it was hers, wasn't. So we just walked up the street to her house and the lady canceled on us.  So we went back to our car and both me and sister moyer were just kinda looking at the house that we had parked next to, and both of us felt like we needed to go to this house.  I thought that maybe I had tracted into this house before, but I didn't know and we figured if I had then the worst that could happen is they would tell us that we had already been there, right? So we went and knocked on the door & the lady opened the door and she was so happy to see us! She asked if we could come by the next day, so we did! When we did she practically asked if she could be baptized! haha She is a young mom, has two little kids and her husband was out of town so she didn't want to set a date yet until she talked to him about it, but we are so excited for her! :)

Then later that day we were walking around this place called chowen springs and I don't know if I have talked about it before, but it is some sort of government housing or something.  The people are usually pretty humble and there are also some very interesting people around there haha.  We were walking back to our car and these two little girls were outside and we said hi to them and one of them says "are you going to see my parents?" and I said "I don't know should we?" She said yes, so we did! haha  Turns out they were interested and we have another appointment with them too!

"From the mouths of babes" isn't that a quote or something?

Also while we were walking around there one guy said hi to us, which was unusual and we had a quick lesson with him too.  We are going to see him again and also this other guy that we met!

Since we have ipads, we can use all of the videos and stuff that are on gospel library and it is SUCH a blessing! We show the video 'He Lives' and 'Because of Him" a lot with people that we tract into. I just love those videos! If you haven't seen them then I suggest you do! I have watched them so many times, and they never get old! They bring the spirit so strong, so fast. The other day we were talking to a girl that was studying to be a pastor or something and we showed her that video and her face was just totally changed after. I don't know how to explain it, but I am so grateful we have the technology we do!

It has just been such a great week! I can't even wait to see what will happen this week! :) This gospel is amazing! Before my mission I don't think I ever realized how centered on Christ everything is! I love it! Whenever we share the video “He Lives” or “Because of Him” we ask them if they could finish that sentence "because of him..." or "because he lives..." how would you finish it?  I love hearing people's answers!  They are all so different! So now I’m asking all of you! If you could finish that sentence "because of Him..." how would you?  You can write it in your journal or send it to me whatever, but it is just something good to think about everyday :)

I love you all!

Love, Sister Anderson

With Sister Moyer after tracting in the rain

Pushin the handcart at a ward pioneer day pot luck dinner

A little craziness at the car wash

Beautiful Montana Sunset

With Sister Cutler - a Sister Training Leader

Bi-polar Montana weather

Ya want smore?  

Stripes

BIG NEWS!!

Boy oh boy I've got some news! It has been a pretty looong week

because we have been waiting to hear if we will be transferred or not!

So yesterday we got the call from the zone leader and I had sister

Stacey go first haha and he said that she was being transferred to

Shelby.. So then I was so scared/sad/I don't even know what I was

thinking except for the fact that sister Stacey was leaving me! And

then he told me what mine was... and Guess what... IM GOING TO BE

TRAINING A NEW MISSIONARY!! Oh my goodness sakes I'm still in my own

training for another transfer though so I don't even know how that

works! I guess I'll just train myself. I don't know I'm

so stinkin nervous! And excited though! Oh man I don't even know her

name yet but, I already love her! Keep her in your prayers! Haha I go

to get her in Helena on Thursday! :)

So that's exciting!

We got called a few different things this week haha my personal

favorite was when we were called false prophets :) haha people are

great.

Nothing too crazy happened this week, but we did get in contact with a

few less actives! Now we are gonna start meeting with them every

week which IS A MIRACLE really! We hopefully have a couple of new

investigators! So that's exciting too!

We didn't have any investigators at church this week, that was a bit

of a bummer. But we will get them next week! We've been having some

less actives be back at church lately and they are so awesome!

Goodness the gospel is just SO great!

The P is being randomly out of town and sometimes half of them or just

one of them is there so it is hard to teach something and need to

still teach it to the others too when they get back, but they are

still progressing slowly and on track for their baptisms coming up!

They have come so far! It is so amazing to watch as the gospel changes

people's lives.

I don't have much more to say, but I just love being a missionary and

talking to everybody! It seems like just about everyone we talk to has

lived these crazy hard lives. I have really realized how blessed that

I am to have grown up in the church with active members all around me.

It makes such a difference!

I am still having the time of my life here! I'm so happy that I didn't

get transferred out of this area because the people here are THE BEST!

:)

I love you all!

Love, Sister Anderson

Jessica right after receiving the news that she will be a trainer after just one month in the field =)

The Missouri River

Cool panoramic picture

Jessica’s first day after MTC just after being hit by a big rainstorm out street contacting

MONTANA MONTANA!!

hiya!

This week felt a bit longer than usual, and by that I mean it felt like maybe two days instead of one. haha

We had a zone conference this week and it was so good! They always are! We did what you might call a "faith experiment"? We all went to a quiet place in the room and knelt down to pray, specifically asking a question that we had, and after we prayed we'd wait for the answer. The spirit was so strong as we all did this and we all received answers to our questions right there! I love the spirit. It's the best! We also taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ to little kids to practice teaching it simply. Me and Sister Stacey got a little 6 year old, Willa and her little brother, Carl, who was 4. haha Willa sat still for most of it, but Carl was shaking his bum at us the whole time! hahaha It was a good time.

When we went to D's this week and it was great! We were reading the Book of Mormon and D was reading. We usually just read a couple verses at a time and then explain to her what is happening, but she just kept reading and reading! Once she stopped she said "that was cool" we asked her what she meant by that and she said that it was the first time she had ever been able to understand what she was reading while she read it and that she felt the Holy Ghost so strong while she was reading it, so she didn't want to stop. Aw she is just so great!

In the P family the 17 year old daughter told us that she wants to be baptized! Now the three of them will be baptized all together! I really hope I don't get transferred out of this area cause I want to see them be baptized! :)

We had to drop one of our investigators this week :( He's 86 years old, but looks like he's 60ish and he is so so nice! We have been teaching him every week since we got here and he has made really no progress at all.  He has been all over the world fighting in war and stuff and he always tells us the many stories about war (the same ones) haha We love him, but he doesn't believe much of what we tell him unless it is something about Jesus Christ, so it is hard for us to teach him much. We asked him why he has us over and he told us that he just likes to state his opinion and see what we think about it. Well we explained our purpose as missionaries and basically said that we won’t be back anytime soon. Then at the end he handed us his calendar, which we usually write on it when we are coming back and we had to say no.. it was the saddest thing ever!! I just wanted to cry!

Man I just love the people here and I want them all to come unto Christ! But if they aren't doing their part and making progress then we need to move on and give our time to other people that will. It's sad, but our time here is SO SHORT!

I am loving it here in Great Falls! The ward we are in just loves us so much and we love them! I haven't been to anywhere else so I don't know if all wards are this great, but I just love it here :)

I hope you all are doing great! Thank you for your prayers! I am praying for you too!

I love ya'll ta pieces!

Love,

Sister Anderson

PS. DO the Faith Experiment!

From the youth conference a week ago with Captain Moroni

Teaching the little kids.  She's in the back left corner...

The pink palace (her apartment)

Her car

an attempt to show Montana's Big Sky

This was the Fastest Week Ever!

This was the fastest week ever! Too fast!!

We have met a lot of new people this week and have a couple of new investigators! Its so exciting when people are actually interested in what we have to say! I love it. A lot of the time they just tell us what their religion is and close the door, but in a nice way! Everybody is just so nice in Montana! Well not everybody but most! Last night we knocked on this door and the lady just let us right in and gave us apples. haha We didn't know if she was a member or something? But it turns out she is just a really nice lady and likes to learn about different religions! So we got teaching and they had SO MANY questions and some of them I had no idea how to answer. Luckily I am not the teacher and the spirit work wonders!  As long as I have done my part the Lord will do the rest and I just need to have faith and open my mouth :)

This week we met the new mission president! They had half of the mission meet them in Billings on Thursday and the other half meet them in Helena on Friday.  So we went to Helena again on Friday and it was great! Nobody hit any deer this time so that was good :) Him and his wife are great and so nice! I love them already! President Mecham has had the whole mission praying for them since April, so once they got here it felt so right. They have such amazing testimonies and are going to bring so much to this mission! While we were there the assistants did a role play thing and we learned all about asking inspired questions. As we did all of this and as they bore their testimonies I have never felt the spirit so strong. You know how people say the spirit was so strong that you could have sliced it with a knife or how it was just tangible? Well it was like that but more! I don't know how to explain it, but I love it when soo many missionaries get together. The spirit is just so strong! Sister Granados was there and it was great to see her again :) Oh and after this we all got to take individual pictures with President and Sister Wadsworth. So I did that, but right after the picture I just walked away. I was suppose to give them a hug and a handshake goodbye! Then sister Adair said "are you going to say bye?!" haha so I quickly turned around and gave them a hug and a handshake goodbye! I guess president looked pretty confused while I was walking away. ha.. but it's okay! We all laughed about it! haha

On the 4th of July we got to be in the parade! It was so much fun! It wasn’t as hot as I thought it was going to be! Our float was a big cardboard thing of the Salt Lake temple. I'll send some pictures! We could hear people and little kids saying "look at the castle!" haha We handed out Mormon.org cards, pictures of the Salt Lake temple, information about Jesus Christ, and family proclamations. We had tons and tons of them and we handed out all of them! Some people would say no every now and then, but it was great! Then we got to stay out until 10:30 to watch fireworks! We needed to be with a member or an investigator, so we went with 'D'! I love that lady. It was so much fun! I guess here you can light off any kind of firework that you want until midnight and that is what everyone was doing! Everywhere you would look there would be big fireworks going off! We wheeled D up to the top of this hill kinda and we watched all of the fireworks going off everywhere! So fun!

Also on the 4th I had never been so full in my life.. For lunch most of our zone all went to café rio and then two hours later our members fed us all of this yummy BBQ stuff and the best homemade oreo ice cream! And then we tracted into a members home and she gave us some cupcakes.. Oh man... Me and Sister Stacey were going to explode! I was full till dinner the next day! Which was nice since the next day was fast Sunday haha ;)

The 'P' family, I don't know if I already mentioned this, but the mom and the 19 year old daughter are on date. They are still so awesome! They have read all the way to Jacob now in the Book of Mormon and they are learning so much! The other day the mother asked if they needed to read all of the Book of Mormon before they could be baptized haha we said they don't have to, but they totally will! They are GOLDEN.

Everything is going so great here in Great Falls! Yesterday it was randomly 55 degrees? Don't know where that came from and it was raining the weirdest rain! It was like a strong mist.  It felt like the tingling you get when your arm falls asleep you know? haha I love love love it here!

I LOVE YOU ALL SO MUCH!!

Love, Sister Anderson

With the new mission President: President & Sister Wadsworth

With Sister Granados

Mom put hundreds of these stars in Jessica's care package which ended up on the floor of their car =)

Ya got us mom!

More care package contents...

Happy 4th of July!

The missionary float for the July 4th parade