Week 32: Fasting

Hola familia y amigos,

Good week here in Macuiltepetl but fairly uneventful. We have a ton of people coming to church with us right now which is super awesome and we were able to confirm Soemi a member of the church which made us super happy. 

We were also able to do a fast with one of our friends in relation to her baptismal date which was a really cool experience for us. We fast pretty often but It was my first time doing a fast with one of our friends and it's something really special and different. I think she really saw our love and developed her own testimony of fasting, and we know the Lord will bless us in our sacrifice. 

I feel like I say this every 6 weeks but this may be my last week in Macuiltepetl as transfers are this upcoming weekend. This is the longest I have ever been in an area and it has been really cool to see the growth of the ward in my 4 and a half months serving here. The work has really progressed recently and I am grateful to have seen success in my time here. 

Love this work so much and testify of the truthfulness of it!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Anderson

Photos!

1. Elder McCollum and I rocking our painted ties

 

Week 31: Miracles in Macuiltepetl

Hola familia y amigos,

Another great week in Macuiltepetl! We saw so many miracles and are seeing so much success right now. The sad thing is that I am most likely out of here in the next two weeks but there are so many people that are progressing so rapidly almost makes me wanna stay another 6 weeks haha. Here's a wrap up:

To start we had a baptism! Soemi, a good friend of ours for a while, made the decision to be baptised this weekend and we couldn't be happier for her. In her testimony during the baptismal service she shared that on the way to the service her son asked her what she was hoping to get out of being baptised in the church. She got emotional as she told us that she was looking for a guide and that she knows she found it here within the church. She is so awesome and has a ton of faith. The other elders in the ward also had a baptism and so a ton of people came to support. It was a pretty awesome day for us. 

On Sunday we saw more miracles as we had a couple more friends of ours attend church with us. It is always an awesome feeling when you see some of the people you've been teaching walk through the chapel doors for the first time. Especially here in Macuil, where when you walk through the doors of the church you walk right into the sacrament meeting haha. And we don't have enough chairs to seat all the members and so we always scramble to find a chair for them. It's a lot of fun. 

Also the greatest miracle is that people are reading the Book of Mormon like crazy here. We gave one to a lady that we started teaching without a huge explanation because we didn't have a lot of time and she's already in 2 Nephi haha. Another girl we have been teaching is already like a 4th through the Book. They say that conversion is easiest when they take the time to read the book that holds everything we teach together and we are 100% seeing that right now haha. Miracles after miracles here in Macuiltepetl!

The work is going STRONG here and I am loving it. The worst weeks and days in the mission are always followed by the best weeks and days. I love this gospel and this work!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Anderson

Photos!

1. Baptism with Soemi!

2. Everyone who came to the baptismal service!

 

Week 30: The Atonement

Hola familia y amigos,

This week was another good one here in Xalapa! Let's give a quick little update.

This week was Zone Conference. I always love Zone Conference but this one hit me a little deeper than normal. It was super powerful and almost every talk and every class focused on the Atonement of Jesus Christ and its impact on our missionary work. The Atonement is the reason why we do everything we do and is why we have every blessing that we have as well. It really got me thinking that in the field I should do nothing but work to educate every single person I can about the power of the Atonement in our lives. I have seen lives change because of the Atonement and I want every person to have that opportunity.

Other than that it was fun to see the other missionaries and spend some time with them. We had a ton of missionaries that arrived to the mission field with me and it was fun to see how much we have grown and changed.

In the mission work we are still working hard. We have a couple baptisms scheduled for the upcoming weeks and we are super excited for them. We have been teaching a few people for a good amount of time now and we are excited to see them keep progressing in the gospel. Hopefully I will be able to give a couple good updates about these friends of hours in the next few weeks. 

Love and miss you all!

Elder Anderson

Photos

1. Zona Macuiltepetl

2. The Generation of Champs 

3. Gave Elder Godfrey a lift

Week 29: People Are Prepared

Hola familia y amigos!!

This week we kept grinding and doing a ton of good work. We have a lot of people we are teaching right now and we are hoping that the majority of them progress. We have also seen a ton of miracles this week. We have found a good amount of people that have shown real interest. Sometimes we can go a few weeks without meeting one. 

This past week I was walking down the street with an Elder Heninger in splits. He is from Canada and has only been here in Veracruz for about 2 weeks. Apparently two white kids looking fairly new to the area intrigued a woman and stopped us to figure out who we were. We explained to her and she told us that she always had questions about the church but never had the courage to ask one of us. We were able to set up an appointment with her and taught her and her two daughters a few days later. They are super interested and super awesome as well. 

A couple days later we were knocking doors and we knocked on one and he immediately invited us in. He told us that he has had a few illnesses but has a strong testimony in Jesus Christ. We were able to give him a blessing and he was so grateful for our visit. 

This week was really a testament to me that there are always people that are prepared and we just have to find them. There are people that are searching for the gospel and we just have to work hard and trust the Lord will put them in our path.

Love and miss you all!

Elder Anderson

Photos

1. a view

2. another view

3. a tie one sister painted for me!

Week 28: Rain

Hola familia y amigos!

It's going out here in Macuiltepetl! We're working really hard and seeing a ton of miracles. The Lord is really blessing our work here and we are just loving it and taking advantage of every moment.

This week it rained almost all week which was a super bummer because we had to cancel our soccer activity which is our best access to some of our friends that are coming to church. But we were able to visit them and they are still super excited about the church and everything. We have also been talking with a ton of people in the rain which I think also gives us added blessings haha.

Other than that not a lot to report on haha! We are just working really hard and have high aspirations for the next month and a half here in our area. Hopefully I will give a couple updates a little better in the future weeks haha.

Love and miss you all!

Elder Anderson

Photo!

1. my name

Week 27: Staying in Macuiltepetl

Hola familia y amigos!!!

Transfers came and we will be staying the same!! Elder Ramos and I will be going strong another transfer here in Macuiltepetl and we are super pumped for this opportunity. I also got made District Leader which will be a great service opportunity to help the other missionaries here in Xalapa. The work is going pretty strong here and we are looking forward to a ton of success this transfer. Being here 3 transfers will also bring a handful of difficulties but I look forward to getting over them and finding miracles in our work.

This week was our Zone Conference. We heard some pretty great talks from our Assistants and Mission President and received some really good counsel from the leaders of the mission. This was also the last Zone Conference of Elder Higgs and Elder Souza, two really great missionaries here and also from the other side of the ward, and we were able to do a little sendoff to them and cut the classic tie. It was a great conference and gave us an energy boost for the last week of this transfer. 

This Friday the ward also did a going away party for Elder Higgs and Elder Souza. We were able to invite and bring a few friends of ours and they had a great time meeting members and learning more about the church. At that same time we also had our Soccer Activity and were able to talk with a lot of our friends that come to play with us there too. Overall a ton of people showed us and it was a great community activity for the members of the ward and their neighbors. 

And lastly we had the awesome opportunity to have the baptism this week of our friend Juan. We met Juan walking his dog in the street with his family a little while back. My companion at the time loved dogs and asked to pet it as we began to chat with them about the church. They said they were interested, and a week later he began to come to church with us. He has made huge changes in his life since coming to know the gospel and is a great example to me of the love we need to have for the scriptures. Every time we come over he wants to dive into a chapter of the Book of Mormon and learn more about this gospel. 

All in all that was the week! Pretty busy and pretty awesome, and we are excited for more stories to come this upcoming week!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Anderson

Photos!

1. Zona Macuiltepetl!

2. Cutting the tie of Elder Higgs

3. Elder Ramos, Presidente, and I 

4. Juan and his family!

Week 26: Feliz Cumpleaños to Me!

Hola familia y amigos!!

Hit the 20 mark today!! Thanks for the birthday wishes and for all of your wonderful support. While I may be far away I feel your influence close always and I am so grateful for that.

Another week has passed here in Macuiltepetl 2 and maybe my last!! We have transfers coming up this week and so we will here if I get to stick around here a bit longer. I love it here and we have some great friends that are meeting with us. We will just have to wait and see!!

I think I have mentioned before that the ward here has a soccer activity every Friday night which always brings in a ton of members and their friends. Many of the members are inactives too which gives us a good chance to talk with them. We have really been pushing this activity with people we find as a way for them to get to know the church and the members a little bit. Sometimes we see kids playing in the street and we just go up to them and talk to them and tell them about it. This last week we were able to get a couple awesome families we met to come and they brought a ton of people. We were then able to casually talk about missionary work and the gospel with them and they were super interested. It was just a testament to me that it takes some creativity to find and teach people in missionary work. While knocking door to door works, there are many more effective ways in order to prove that we are not robots teaching lessons but real people who want to be their friends and want to make their lives better. Knocking doors and teaching lessons is an outdated way to do work. In this day and age it takes love and care and creativity in order to get people to develop a strong testimony of the gospel.

That´s all I got this week!!

Love and miss you all!

Elder Anderson

fotos!

1. the zone!

2. the district!!

3. heading home! (not really)

4. the endless pile of snacks the fam sent for christmas (we already finished it all)