Hi Family and Friends,
These past two weeks
have been crazy. I left Red Wing two weeks ago and it was really sad. I love
that place with all my heart! It's amazing how much you come to love the people
that you serve. I have been transferred to an Area that covers bits of all
these cities, Crystal, New Hope, Brooklyn Park and probably more. I am a zone
leader with an Elder I served with in my first area of Thunder Bay Elder Long.
He is from Alberta Canada. We have lots of fun together. I have loved being
here so far! We have 11 companionship's in the zone and we also have 7 new
missionaries. Which is the most in the mission. I have gotten to know them all
a little bit in the short time that I have been here. Okay, now I will tell you
a little bit about my week:
Monday: We had zone p
day. We played Frisbee and Kickball for hours. It was very fun! It was just
extremely hot outside. We also decided on our new Zone Focus for the transfer,
which is Active Member Lessons/ Member Present lessons. So pretty much just
working with the members to find new people to teach. I think that it will work
very well in this zone and we will all work hard to accomplish this goal.
Tuesday: We had a
district meeting with the Crystal district. We talked a lot about change.
Change in ourselves, and change in our investigators. I was very uplifted by
that! Then I went on exchanges with Elder Roberts. He is the district leader
who also served in red wing. So we talked about a lot of the people there and
it was really fun! Crystals area is downtown Minneapolis so that was fun. There
was a lot of cops around to say the least. Something interesting that happened
while we were on exchanges was we pulled up to a stop light and this guy was
entering the intersection from our left and he was going like 55 MPH and he
tried to make a turn right and smashed the pole you press to cross the road and
it came flying in the air and smashed our car.. The dude just drives off as
fast as he could so we couldn't get his license plate. But we get out of the
car to see what happened. We didn't even have one dent on the car. It hit out
bike rack. It could have gone right through our windshield if we were just a second
or two later. SO our car was fine. But the car next to us got the side of her
car smashed. So we stayed as witnesses of the accident. It was insane! We had a
good amount of lessons and it was a very fun exchange! I got to see the Vikings
new stadium which is freaking cool. I will send pictures once I download them
off my camera. We also saw Target Field and Target Center. Downtown Minneapolis
is super cool!!
Wednesday: We had
another district meeting but to save miles we just went to the church and
face-timed into the meeting. Then we mowed a members lawn and it was so hot and
humid that day. This whole week was insane. We were on bikes this whole week
too!! Later in the evening we played basketball at the church, a bunch of guys
from Minneapolis came and a former Utah State basketball player was on my team.
He was such a baller!
Thursday: We had a 3rd
district meeting but we just face timed in to save miles. Then we had a bunch
of accounting calls. Then we did stuff on the computer about miles for the
zone. Later in the evening we were biking around stopping by a bunch of people
and no one was home. So just as we were leaving an apartment building this lady
stopped us and told us that she had just moved here from Liberia and is a
member of the church. We gave her the address to the church and she was so
excited to come. It's crazy how the Lord puts us places for a reason. We might
not have talked to anyone the whole night, but that was a huge success finding
her.
Friday: We did zone
service at FMSC (Feed my starving children) That was super fun. Then we did our
weekly planning which was actually good. Then found this guy on a bench and
taught him briefly and he wants us to come back. It was so sick! Then right
after that we had a lesson with Bro Quay. Little did we know he was going to
have a non member in the home. So Bro Quay taught the restoration to her with
such power and conviction. It was amazing! I love that man!
Saturday: It was
raining very hard.. So we didn't do much! We made some phone calls earlier in
the day. Then at night it was good weather. Our WML bro Gruber told us he would
drive us around to see people so that was really nice. We drove by that man who
we talked to the day before who is always on the bench. and guess what? He was reading
the Book of Mormon. It was so amazing! We were so excited about that!!
Sunday: We had a great
service. A recently returned mission president and his wife spoke in our Ward.
It was amazing! The spirit was so strong as they talked about their mission.
Later we got a call from that lady that we had seen on Thursday that
just moved here from Liberia. She told us she has two friends who want to be
baptized. How amazing is that? We were so excited to hear that! We are meeting
with them on Tuesday :)
Love, Elder Anderson