Update from Pasco

Elder Anderson has been pretty busy in Pasco, Washington so his parents have had to remind him to take time to give them a little more information in his e-mails.  Here's the latest.
"I know i have been slacking, but it is just alot harder then i had ever thought to keep on top of writting while taking the bull by the horns in your area.  Training a missionary in your area and the people and teaching all the lessons by yourself is quite a big responsibility.  Its almost like training a new missionary. But luckly not that bad yet. 
 As you both know i have gotten a new companion this last transfer.  His name is elder schmidt  and he is from west valley UT.   He has been out 10 1/2 months and is a cool guy. As always you get along great for the first few weeks.  Its the last few that are the test.  Our area has been good so far with elder Schmidt.  As a new companionship we had the best numbers that this area has put out in all of 2011.  We are doing pretty good and are having a good time while we are doing it.  Thats the best part.  We have a few investigators and i will give you a brief summary of names.  Mavi, Wissie family, Spencer, Mercedies, Rakel, THe hazen family, Aaron and Tasha, Armando Chavez, and a hopefully investigator named sister purcel.   Thank you for sending the letters i have been getting them.  We have had the wrong address a couple of times remember that it sis 8308 not 8303.   So please make sure it is to the right address.  Thank you for the shoes i did get them they fit great and i have gone running in them already and they work great."

His address is:
Elder Benjamin Anderson

8308 Orcas Dr. 

Pasco, WA, 99301

Message from Pasco

Elder Anderson sent us a message from his new location in Pasco, Washington.

"So one phone call down and 2 more to go. HAHA.  Only 7 more months as well until i get that next phone call.  Which is less then the time then i have been out already.  WOW that is sorta crazy.  5 more days and will have been out for 8 months.  The time truly does fly by so quick like everybody says.  Yet at the same time all i can remember is the mission.  I can't remember home much at all.  Which in my eyes is a blessing.  Because i had a pretty comfortable home life and i had everything pretty much going my way.  So i am glad i am not really able to remember so clearly those times and just be able to focus on my mission.  I think that is one of the blessings that the lord has given me sense i have come out. 

  Like you all know i was able to talk to you this last sunday!!  YAY for me and ya for you.  I had alot of fun and it was a wonderful mothers day.  I hope you all wished mom a happy mothers day and a happy birthday those days.  If not.  THere is always a time to say you love her and appreciate her.  Cause you never know how long you got to tell her those precious words.

  Thanks for taking time out of your busy sunday to be able to come and talk to me.  I know that you all have so much to do and so many family members to still see.  SO thank you for giving me an hour of your day and letting me express my feelings for the family and also for mom.

  THanks for the love and support family.

Love you all

Elder anderson"

Mother's Day Blessings

Missionary Moms love Mother's Day

Elder Anderson got to Skype his family and it was a wonderful experience.  By the end his mom was crying with joy at the awesome man he has become. 

He is doing great in Pasco.  He loves that he is in the mission field.  He is grateful, patient, kind, loving, funny and dedicated.  The tears on his mom's face are tears of joy!

Pasco

Elder Anderson is now in Pasco, Washington!  Please write him at the mission office -
Elder Benjamin Anderson
8656 W Gage Blvd. Ste 205
Kennewick, WA 99336

He Skyped his family on Mother's Day and it was GREAT!  He looked and sounded supremely happy!

More later!

Sorry, viewers

Elder Anderson's mother has been so busy lately that she hasn't posted much here lately. 
Here's the latest e-mail message - 
"This last week has been a nice uplifting week.  We have had the opportunity to do many things such as have zone confrence and easter that made a nice little spiritual upboost that i think that the whole zone needed and i needed as well.
Tough throughout the last few weeks - our investigators havn't had much success but we were able to see a little bit of our efforts start to come forth.  We had an investigator named Jessica come to church for the first time in over a year.  And we also got another investigator that we have been teaching the last two weeks come to church and his name is Matt and we are pretty excited about him.  He has been sitting in on the lessons with his family who where recently baptized members.   So this last Sunday we had alot of investigators and less actives come out and show up to church which is a great sucess for us.  Plus we have gotten alot of referals this last week that we have been looking for.  We got around 10 referals to go see people on Sunday because we were asking for them like mad men.  So I hope that this will continue.  We are hoping that this week will be a suberb week.  We had 4 lessons yesterday and we did a baptismal interview for some other elders.  So we are pretty pumped that this week will be a successful week."

He goes on to ask for our prayers for him and his area.

Write to him at
Elder Benjamin Anderson
1840 W. 16th Street
The Dalles, OR  87058

The Latest from the Dalles

"Another week and another transfer has past here in The Dalles zone and another transfer has come and gone for me.  Wow i have been out 4 transfers already and i have had 3 companions and served in 2 different areas.  I can't believe that i have had the opportunity to see all these wonderful people and be able to serve the lord out in such a beautiful place.  Yesterday i was able to find out if i was going to be transferred to a different area and have a new companion and i was pretty nervous about leaving my area and getting a new companion.  But this transfer call was a really good call.  Neither Elder Hobbs or i am getting transfered or my other favorite companionship  that is here in the dalles.  So as of transfers there pretty much was nothing.  Everything stayed the same except for two people in our entire zone haha.  So i am pretty stoked for this next transfer.

Today we are going golfing for free and i'm so excited.  We will be going with another companionship in the dalles that we are really close to and we have a blast together so we will have so much fun.  But also we will be with an investigator of ours named JR Walker.  He is 14 years old and he is a stud.  He is so really cool and wants to be baptized so bad.  But his mom won't let him until he reads the entire bible and the b.o.m. and prove that he truly wants to be bapitzed and its not just his grandparents that are helping him be baptized into the church.  So that is kind of sad but i am excited to go play golf with him cause i know it will just make our relationship with him grow even closer.   The work here in the past two weeks has been really quite slow.  It hasn't been all that fun.  We have had investigator after investigator drop us and tell us to not come back so much recently.  We even had a gator (investigator) that was looking forward to baptism and even said she would be baptized leave a note on her door and tell us that she didn't want us to come back and she wanted us to delete her phone number from our phone.  We were pretty heart  broken when these things happened cause these types of things have been happening the last few weeks and its starting to weigh on our minds.  But we are trying to look on the positive side and to keep the work progressing."

. 

The Dalles

Elder Anderson's e-mails have been kind of short since he settled into his newest area.  But today we got a great e-mail focusing on prayer.

"Six months have come and gone and i don't know where the time went.  Its been crazy how fast the mission picks up once you get the hang of it.  But i still am in awe over the fact that 6 months have already past and that i have finished 1/4 of my mission already.  (but at the same time i don't even remember home so it feels like 6 months).   And one of the best things is that i am in one of my favorite districts that i have been in my entire mission.  We are in the Dalles district and it has  6 missionaries in it.  But mostly just 4.  The entire dalles has 4 missionaries and i am one of them.  So that leaves 3 others that we get to mingle with all the time and get to know.  They are Elder Hobbs, my companion from mount vernon Texas, Elder Fenn from Benson Arizona,  And Elder Roundy from Las Vegas Nevada.   They are truly like my brothers and i treat them as such.  Though at times i want to kick there butts and i end up doing so because i'm bigger and stronger them all of them we have a wonderful time together.  We are truly in love with this work and we would do nothing else but look to serve and help those that are in need.   I can say thus far that these 3 missionaries are my favorites as of yet. 

   This last week was a long week due to the fact that p-day was on thursday and it took so long to get here.  But it was a very good weekend.  On tuesday night i was asked to give a talk in church on the 13th and he asked me to talk on the power of prayer and how it relates to missionary work.  Well as you know from previous letters that prayer is truly one of my biggest strong points in the mission and i was really really excited to give a talk.  I ended up giving a really long talk and when i had no more time left i was sad because i had so much more to say. But i would like to share a few little key things on prayer and how it is so important in our lives.  First off my life has been changed by prayer.  I don't think i would have gone on a mission if prayer wasn't there.  Prayer is the way we get answers about questions and eternal truths.  Prayer is what started this whole last dispensation here on the earth today.  JUST BY ONE PRAYER.  And now we are led by a prophet here on the earth today because of it.   But the most true and dear thing to me about prayer that i would like you to realize is that it is truly something we need to do all the time.  It says in 2 Ne 32:9 that we are to consecrate our lives in prayer in everything we do.  Our lord and savior Jesus Christ went into the garden of Gethsemane and before he started any of his work he knelt down and said a prayer to his father.   Our savior and redeemer started this great atonement in a prayer.  And i would just like to emphasize how important prayer truly is and how we need to continue to prayer to our father in everything we do.  (if you have time anyone please check out the Bible Dictionary on prayer its a great thing to study). "


Wow!