Dear MOM and DAD,
What a week!!!! There's lots on my mind so I hope i can express it all.... Here we go!
The weather has been amazing, it hasn't gotten above 100 degrees in almost a week and it's about 85 in the mornings. It makes me even more excited about the winters here (I think I will still miss snow though, there are places here you can buy snowballs.... really?)
I don't know if you've heard anything about the mormon.org media blitz but it's going to be so cool! The church has selected areas in the country to play 30 second, back to back, prime time, "I'm a Mormon" commericals on ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX, etc. from October to March. There will also be ads on facebook, twitter, YouTube, billboards, and buses. The greater Phoenix area has been chosen to participate. We were told that 50% of LDS Adults and 100% of LDS Youth WILL be asked about why all the mormon media. It is such a great opportunity to do missionary work, that is one of the reasons they are doing it. The three reasons for the media blitz are 1) To dispel myths 2) Merge "The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints" (who people have a very positive view of) and "Mormons" (who people think is a cult) together 3) To Invite. So the question is do you have your mormon.org profile up yet? It's amazing how our mission president has been making changes and encouraging us to work with members and all of it has applied with the mormon.org stuff before we even knew it was happening. It just increases my testimony of our Mission President and how inspired he is.
Last week we had a sister come on exchanges with us. Sister Hoyt is AMAZING!!! We went on splits and we got to be companions, she is headed home this transfer so she is super experienced and we had a lot of fun and success that night. After one of our lessons she said that she felt like we had been teaching together forever because we had such good teaching unity. That was a confidence booster!!!
So I have one none member friend (Doug) and I've been avoiding giving him as a referral because I was writing him and I didn't want to push him. Well this last week Sister Dyer challenged me to refer him and that he would accept and I would see miracles... so I did (mom that is why Sister Vause called, isn't she AMAZING?) and he accepted missionaries! I'm so excited for him to see how wonderful the gospel is and to see how it can improve his life. That was my biggest miracle this week, it was so neat to hear about the conversation Sister Vause and Doug had and how much the Spirit was involved in the whole thing.
Another miracle was that Christina's brother Ray told us he wants to take the lessons and get baptized!!!! Ray reminds me of Alex in that he has had a pretty sorted past but is now trying to correct his life and turn to Christ, he can't get baptized till March but he is so ready and would this week if he could!
Alex is doing great he's just working toward getting the priesthood and is being a missionary himself. He brought a non-member to church with him last week. Christina is also doing well, she's slowing coming to Christ and is trying to do the things that will bring her there. She is set to get baptized next Saturday on the 24th. Evan's baptism has been moved back because we haven't seen him enough to plan his baptism, but after he saw Alex get baptized he decided it wasn't that scary and that he was okay with getting baptized. Nicci is getting baptized this week and we are very excited for her! She's still a 9 year old girl and acts it sometimes but we know that the Holy Ghost will be such a blessing in her life and help her improve.
So our stake got dissolved and combined with two other stakes, so we now have wards in two different stakes. That is going to make transfers next week really interesting... we have no idea what they will do because both the stakes only had elders so our wards may just go to them, but we still don't know. Our sad little singles ward just got bigger because of all the change so that is exciting!!! It is kind of bitter-sweet because our area is exploding with work and I don't want to leave it but I'm also very ready for a change. I know that what ever happens is the Lords will and is what is best for all concerned.
The church IS true and we DO have a loving Heavenly Father who sent His only begotten son to suffer and die that we might live! How blessed are we! I love you both very much!
Miss you much, Love you more!!!! Ether 12:27
Sister Anderson
(Check out this video, I cried!!!)
This is an amazing story. It is too bad that these types of stories can't be Headliners instead of what we get as head lines. Colleen
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