Season 11 Episode 4: Medicine Lake with Elder Newbold

Hello Family and Friends,

        This was an amazing week. We had some awesome lessons with the investigators we are teaching. We set 3 dates for baptism! :) :) let me tell you about it!

Monday: We had zone p day. We had a BBQ and played Flag Football and Frisbee. It was so much fun! Everyone in the zone seemed to have enjoyed playing. The missionaries in the zone are all very different from each other, but it is cool to see how much we are all unified and how much we care for each other. I got a crazy migraine early on in the day, but I felt all better pretty quickly so I was able to play.

Tuesday: We went on exchanges with the Crystal Elders. It was really fun! I went to Crystal with Elder Kemberling. Elder Kemberling is from Alaska, He is a convert of two years. He is a very solid missionary! It is always fun to be with him! We taught one lesson on the doorstep to someone in north Minneapolis. North Minneapolis is a pretty sketchy place. Apparently someone dies there every day.. Elder Newbold and Elder Hickman were on exchanges in our area. They had a lesson with Christina and her mom Tamara. I might have talked about her in my last email, but let me tell you her story again. Christina about 2 months ago just walked into church one day after looking on LDS.org and we met her, taught her during the 3rd hour of church. We set a date for September 24th for baptism.  One week later we just got a voicemail telling us she needs a break and she doesn't want to meet again. She said in the voicemail though "Hopefully I will see you again." We honestly thought that we would not ever see her again. Sister Jones a member of our Ward asks us what Christina's number is and we gave it to her and she texted her and Christina responded telling her she wanted to be at church that Sunday. Christina said in the lesson they had on Tuesday that sister jones texting her was an answer to her prayer. During the lesson they set a date for December 3rd as well as her mom Tamera who she brought a long. Member missionary work is the way to do it! That jus strengthens my testimony. Wow what a miracle!

Wednesday: We made lots of cookies for our investigators/less actives/ missionaries. It was fun! We are trying to think of out of the box ways of doing missionary work. We went to deliver them and it worked! It was pretty cool. In the evening we had dinner with the Sorenson's. They had their neighbor over for dinner that night as well. Her name was Georgia. She was awesome, we were able to teach the Restoration to her. She accepted the invitation to read the Book of Mormon.

Thursday: We went on exchange with the Elm Creek Elders. I went with Elder Anway. He is an awesome elder from Arizona. He loves Taylor Swift so much! It's so funny!! I went to elm creek during the day, at night time we went back to our area in Med Lake to go with a joint teacher. We had two joint teachers that night and so that's why we went back, we didn't want to cancel on them! We taught a lesson do Daniel who we have been working with. It's cool to see the spiritual experiences he is having from reading the Book of Mormon. Then we saw brother Quaye. We talked about serving others! We had a really good night, our joint teachers name is Brother Nouneu, he was such a great member to be with us.

Friday: We had interviews with President Forbes in Brooklyn Park. We were there for quite a long time doing car inspections while missionaries were being interviewed. I had my interview with President Forbes. I love that man! He is such a great mission president! I respect him so much. The calling his has is not easy, he honestly cares about all the missionaries. 

Saturday: We helped Brother Sprout in the morning move a really heavy mattress into his house. Nothing makes you feel less like a man that carrying a mattress.. It's not that heavy but so hard to carry hahah.. We then helped the sisters set up in the church for their baptism. The women getting baptized name is Leanne. She is a wonderful lady and so prepared to accept the gospel at this time in her life. She actually loves elder Newbold and I! Then we had a lesson with Daniel Hansen. We read 1 Nephi 8 with him and talked about the tree of life. It was a great lesson! I love seeing this mans progress. His testimony is really growing. We had the Ward Halloween Party after that! Lots of non members came, it was actually really sweet! We had a busy night, we were talking to like everyone and we were passing out candy with scriptures on the back of them. It was cool. We enjoyed it a lot! At the end of the night we were just beat though hahah.. We both slept amazing that night hah.

Sunday: We had church, Christina and Tamera showed up to church which was awesome. After church we helped President Wilson the Stake President give a blessing to a lady in the Ward. We then had dinner with the Lamprechts who are so cool! We had to finish our weekly planning in the evening because we didn't have any time any other day. We just felt that we needed to do it because if we don't have a good plan we are pretty much wasting time.. So we set some good goals and plans for the week. :)

I love this area. Things are really picking up! We should see some people enter the waters of baptism soon! I thank you for the support. The mission is the best. There is no place I would rather be in the world. Minnesota is the BEST!

Happy Halloween!! :)

Love, Elder Anderson

Season 11 Epsiode 3: Medicine Lake with Elder Newbold

Hello Family and Friends,

Yesterday I was not able to email because I had a terrible migraine and it was hard for me to even look at the iPad screen without it hurting my eyes/head. After sleeping for a couple hours yesterday morning I felt a lot better.

We had Zone P Day yesterday in the afternoon. Elder Newbold and I got a Burger recipe and made some awesome burgers. We assigned different teams in the zone to bring food, and we met a park and we had food and played flag football and frisbee. It was so fun!

On Saturday, we had a pretty cool miracle, we were out with a priest from the Ward and we went tracting and we found this former investigator who said he used to go to the church back in 1998 and then he just stopped and has never been baptized. We were so excited
about that! He wants us to bring a Spanish Book of Mormon so we are going over there tomorrow. Man it was so great! We also went golfing with a non member named Steve. We have been raking his leaves and we found out that he likes golf so he said that we should go before winter comes, so we invited a member of the bishopric Brother England and we went golfing. It was super cool! I love when members do missionary work!

Sunday Morning before church we got a text from Sister Jones telling us that Christina (Former Investigator who dropped us 2 months ago) was coming to church and bringing her mom all because sister jones invited her and reached out to her. So they showed up to church and sister jones invited Christina over for dinner for Tuesday today) and she wants to do all the discussions :) :) :) we are so excited for that! We got invited to a BBQ after church by a non member named Josh who we have been playing basketball with Wednesday nights. We actually met josh like two months ago getting our haircuts, and we invited him to come to the church to play ball and he has started coming every week. We found out that he played basketball professionally overseas in Germany. He is a baller, wow! He told us that he played Russell Westbrook in a summer league game, how sick is that? Anyway, he invited us over to come be with his family and friends. They don't live in our area... :( but we still got approval to go there! There family is so cool and really care about us. We had a really good time :) We played one on one on one with him yesterday morning for morning workout! Let's just say he dominates haha! 

On Thursday, I went on exchange with Elder Kozlowski who is the AP. He is such a great missionary and I really look up to him! We had prayed about a place to do some finding and felt that we should go to this specific apartment complex and tract. So we went there and we knocked on this door and an older lady answered the door, we found out her name was Suzanne and she was so nice! I was so impressed with her! As we were talking to her we felt impressed to show the video "Because of Him." As the video was playing the spirit grew very strong and tears started going down her face. We bore testimony of the Savior and she was so thankful that we stopped by that day to see her! She has been going through a lot of hard struggles in her life. The spirit definitely led us to Suzanne that day.

Later in the evening we had a joint teacher Bro Lamprecht come out with us. We went to another apartment complex called Autumn Ridge. All the people who live there are from Africa and it is really cool because most of them are really nice. It's a great place to find! So we went tracting and we taught about 3 lessons, sang to a couple people and it was just really fun. At  8:00 we had an appointment with our investigators we found Bisoye and her daughter Angie. We taught them half of the plan of salvation and went over the restoration
again. Angie is 8 years old and just so special, she has this light about her! She reads the Book of Mormon and understands it well, she understands the restoration, and she always remembers our names and that means a lot to us! I just really love this family that we found!

The work is really moving forward in our area. We love our Ward, they are really improving on doing their missionary work. Elder Newbold is such a fun companion and we get a long really well! I love this work! Being a missionary is the best! Thank you for your prayers and emails, I appreciate it a lot! Have a great week! God Bless!

No Letter from Elder Anderson, but Awesome Message from Elder Newbold

Hey Sister Anderson, 

Elder Anderson has a pretty bad migraine right now and he is trying to rest and get over it. But he really wanted me to email you and tell you he probably won't get a ton of time to email today. If we have time later though and he feels better, I'll make him send you guys an email cause I know how much parents love those weekly emails! 

He also wanted you to know that his breathing is doing better. He still has it, but it's not as much as before. Sorry those aren't very good details. 

Anyways, I just wanted to let you know how awesome your son is!! He seriously is the coolest guy ever and we have such a great time serving together. Things are really starting to pick up in this area and zone and it's all because of the faith and dedication of elder Anderson. He is a great, hard-working, loving, obedient missionary. I sure am grateful to you and brother Anderson for raising such a great guy. He has changed my mission and life so much for the better. You guys are awesome! He loves you all so much!! As you know:) 

Have a great week!

Season 11 Episode 2: Medicine Lake with Elder Newbold

Hello Family and Friends,

        Another week in the books. We had a really cool week though! Lots of things are picking up in our area and it's so great to see hard work paying off.

Monday: For p day we went shopping in Maple Grove, they have a lot of stores. It was really nice to be able to get some pants and a sweet tie. :) We went with the weaver lake elders. Elder Miller and Elder Larson. They are really cool! We later helped Michael Gauthier move a piano into his apartment building. Wow that thing was heavy. We then had dinner with the Greene's super cool family who just moved into the Ward.

Tuesday: We went to the Crystal District meeting in the morning and that was really good. We had a lesson with Daniel Vogl in the afternoon. Later in the evening we went on splits with two members of the Elders Quorum. I went with Bro Willoughby and Elder Newbold went with Bro Thompson.  We stopped by a lot of different people and actually was only able to talk to one person. It was a little frustrating! But that's how some nights go.

Wednesday: We went to Shingle Creek District meeting. That was a good one as well! We had a couple coordination meetings in the afternoon. We went raking/tracting. We went by this family that was really nice to us a couple weeks back when it was raining. We started raking their yard and the dad Steve came outside and started talking to us. It was a really cool experience. He was really nice and invited us in for a drink of water. We were not able to share anything gospel related, but we are going to go back very soon to hopefully do that. Later we had a lesson with Dora and it was good! We balled up after that.

Thursday: We had the Weaver Lake District meeting. Then we said goodbye to Elder Liechty who was a waiting for his visa. He left to South Africa! We were then in a tripanionship with Elder Kemberling, one of our favorite elders! We went raking again to find some more people to serve and this time like no one would accept any help.. It was sad! We had a lesson with Brent Pryzbyla who was a little confused when we went over, he is a less active member. But we were able to have a lesson with him which was pretty cool!

Friday: We had coordination meeting with Brother Gruber our WML. Then we went to mow a lawn for a member in the Crystal Ward. Elder Newbold and I felt pretty strongly that we needed a really good weekly planning session. We sat down and had an amazing planning time. It feels so good when you have set goals and plans that you know you will be able to accomplish. Elder Newbold and I felt like we should go and see a man named Johnny that we found a couple of weeks ago. So we went by his apartment and he was there :):) we taught the restoration. It went okay! He really likes to talk, but when we talk it's hard for him to listen. We just gotta be patient!

Saturday: We had frisbee early in the morning and only 2 people showed up besides elder Newbold and I. There was a youth conference for 6 stakes in Minnesota at our church, and so we walked in the church and I saw youth from Lake Marion and Red Wing. It made me so happy! Wow! I have been so blessed with the best areas. They all remembered me very well, which made me happy! David Smith a less active member fed us lunch and we raked up his yard and set up some Halloween stuff in his yard it was a good time. Then we had dinner with the Jackson's they are cool! We stopped by Bisuye our new investigator that we tracted into a couple weeks back. It was super cool, we taught the Restoration and the spirit was really strong in the lesson. We invited them to be baptized, but they just don't fully understand priesthood authority so they don't really know why they need to be baptized into this church. Hopefully we will be able to explain that you her a lot better next time! Then we saw our good pal Leroy, hahaha oh man! I love that guy. He is so funny!

Sunday: We had church which was awesome. We did not have any investigators at church. We did have a less active member who was there which was awesome! The sister missionaries had an investigator at church named Leanne. We gave her a blessing and the spirit was really powerful! Wow, it was a cool experience ! After church, we were walking to our apartment to change and we got a text from President Forbes, and it says "Elders I am coming down from Duluth and I will be late, start without me." We had no idea what he was talking about and then we realized we had a Stake Report meeting with the stake presidency and President Forbes. We found this out at 3:15 and the meeting was at 4:00. we were freaking out because we had to type up the sheet for the meeting, and drive to Brooklyn Park. We run to the Family history center to do this and the one time we need the computer most it doesn't work. So we said a quick prayer and we had the idea to try a computer in the other room and so we did and we got it all typed up and it worked. We got there at  4:05! We were freaking out but we got it done hahah! The meeting went really actually. Then we hustled to mission presidents fireside in Bloomington because Elder Newbold was singing at it! That was really good! I love hearing new converts speak. We only ate breakfast because that was the only meal we had time for. It was a good day looking back on it though!

Things in our area are really starting to happen. We are working much better with the Ward. I love being here in Medicine Lake. I hope that all is well back home with you all! I would love to hear from all of you! If you haven't emailed me in a while. Please do! :) make this week great!

Love, Elder Anderson

Season 11 Episode 1: Medicine Lake Anoka Zone with Elder Newbold

Hello Family and Friends,

I want to apologize for not writing a good group email for a while now. P days recently have been so packed with things that we gotta do, we just didn't have a lot of time to email. This week has been really good though! Transfers is always hard.. Elder Lowell (One of my favorite missionaries) got sent up to Virginia which is like 5 hours away. Our area is picking up though, we are excited about the work that we are going to do this transfer!

Monday: We had a good P day, I was able to buy some new basketball shoes which made me extremely happy. We then went to the church and played basketball and volleyball with the district. We then went out to eat at this Asian Restaurant, it was pretty good. Then since it was Elder Kings last night doing missionary work. We went knocking doors and we knocked a whole street. We taught 1 lesson and sang to 1 person. I swear everyone here in Minnesota answers the door and says "I'm Lutheran/Catholic" then just slams the door. It's frustrating. But it was a good experience, it helped me understand that I need to get better at teaching at the doorstep.

Tuesday: We said goodbye to Elder King in the morning. Later in the evening we had dinner at the Wilkinson's. Bro Wilkinson is so cool, we had a really fun time talking with him. He was a college volleyball player and he was telling us that he could touch the top of the backboard just standing under the hoop and jumping straight up. We then did some stop by's and no one answered the door, we got a call from a less active who we haven't been able to get in with and he asked for a blessing. He is going through a lot in his life right now, we were able to give him a blessing and the spirit was so strong. After the blessing he was just in tears and we were able to testify to him of the power of the Priesthood. The spirit was so strong and you could truly feel the love Heavenly Father has for this man. Wow!  Something I will never forget! Then we got pies thrown in our face by the sisters that we thought was whipping cream, but it was actually shaving cream. So we got pranked pretty hard and was eating shaving cream.. That was so gross hahah.

Wednesday: it was transfer day! I had to say goodbye to Elder Lowell and some other missionaries in the zone. Man it's crazy how much you can love the missionaries that you serve. I have loved being here in the Anoka Zone so much. It makes me so happy to be here at this time. We got a call pretty early in the morning from the office ladies at our apartment building. They said " Hey Elders, you guys move people for free right?" Of course we said we would be willing to help out. There was a family who lived in our apartment building and went to Africa for 3 months. They lived on the bottom floor and the night they arrived back in Minnesota, there was like two inches of water in the apartment and it ruined a lot of things. It was like all moldy and gross in there. So we helped them move up to the top floor lifting all their stuff up the stairs. They were such a nice family and the Crystal Elders were able to get a return appointment and hopefully soon they will become investigators. In the night time we had the High Priest Group leader come out with us Joint teaching. We had two great lessons with Less Active members. We actually didn't have to say much during the lessons which is a change. Brother Camp is such a solid member/ teacher he pretty much talked the whole time. Having Joint teachers is really my favorite thing! It makes the work so much better in so many ways.

Thursday: We had MLC in Bloomington pretty much all day. It was a really good Counsel. I love figuring out different ways to help out missionaries in anyway that we can! I was able to see some former companions and missionaries I know, that was really enjoyable. President and Sister Forbes are so wonderful. They love the missionaries so much! It's so inspiring! We then helped out the family again with a little bit more moving stuff. We then had a coordination meeting with the sisters in our Ward.

Friday We had Zone Service at this Garden. We pretty much just weeded things out and it was such a fun time with the zone. The zone has changed a lot just from transfers, so it was fun getting to know everyone in the zone better! We then did some accountability calls and we did some planning for the transfer and for our zone focus. Fridays are always filled with lots and lots of planning. We had dinner with the Sister Training Leaders to talk about what we feel would be best for the zone. I got free French Toast at IHOP for some reason haha. :) I was happy about that! Then we did some good weekly planning for our own area, and planned some really good things done for this next week! Planning is boring sometimes, but it makes missionary work and just everything so much more enjoyable and easier.

Saturday: We had Zone Service again. We went to Anoka and dug up headstones in a cemetery to raise them up if they were uneven, it was really fun! It was pretty cold, the weather is definitely changing rapidly here. Which I don't mind because I really like sweater weather :) We had a lesson with the person we gave a blessing to earlier in the week and we were able to share the video "Because of Him" We testified of Jesus Christ and felt so much love for this man. More importantly he felt Heavenly Fathers love for him so deeply in the lesson. We then had a dinner at the Jones house. They are one of my favorite families in the Ward! Elder Newbold and I feel like sister jones is our mom here in the area. She really loves us and knows us well. Anyway, a couple of weeks ago they fed us and after dinner they took a picture with a Polaroid camera and gave us the picture and we both thought that was so cool, especially because I had never been in a Polaroid picture before. So back to the dinner Saturday she asked us " Is it okay if members give missionaries gifts? Is that against the rules?" We of course said no that's totally fine (not thinking she was going to give us anything). She pulls out two boxes and we open them up and she bought us both a Polaroid camera. We were freaking out! Like who does that? That was so nice of her to do that for us! That night we felt impressed to go to this apartment building called Autumn Ridge. We were going to to do the same thing the missionaries did the President Uchtdorf's talk called "Fourth Floor, Last Door" We planned on knocking this whole apartment building. We taught 3 lessons, got 5 new investigators and sang to a lady just miracles after miracle. We were so happy with the results. We had a lot of faith going into this time of finding new people to teach. Because we don't even have one solid investigator that we are teaching. It just was a testimony to me that when you are willing to show Heavenly Father that you are willing to do everything you can. He will place people in our paths that are willing to accept the gospel.

Sunday: We had church and it was an amazing service. We had 3 less actives that we are working with come to church. We were so happy about that! We were able to give blessings at church. They were both very spiritual and great! The power of priesthood blessings is so real. I am so grateful for the opportunity to be able to hold the Holy Melchezideck Priesthood. We then had a lesson with a less active that we have ever met before, we just stopped by randomly and we were able to get to know him well, he has lost his faith completely in Jesus Christ & Heavenly Father. Elder Newbold and I asked some good inspired questions during the lesson. We both felt impressed to show the video "The Hope of God's Light" it's pretty cool how that works. A lot of times that has happened to us where in the middle of the lesson we both feel that we should do the same thing. We then had dinner at Bishop Henstrom's house which was really good to break the fast. Brother Gruber our Ward mission leader then took us out to go joint teaching and we were able to see a couple people. It was a great day overall.

Family and Friends, I am so grateful to you for your emails. They make me very happy when I read them! You are all wonderful. The Gospel is true. Have a wonderful week everyone.

Love, Elder Anderson