"Shiver to the Bone"

Elder Anderson had a good week, but I'd like to know has he had a bad week yet?  He says that "This place will forever have a soft spot in my heart and I will always be thankful for the opportunity and privilege to serve here in the best place in the U.S.A."

 

"The work here is going good and we have been able to make some progress with the people we have been seeing.  The less active members are starting to come back to church which Elder Morgan says he has never seen in the last 8 months he has been a missionary.  I would say almost 75% of them have showed up at least once to church since we have been teaching them.  And that is just a score right there.  We are having a very different week this week and actualy are very excited for it.  This week we have zone confrenece, Thanksgiving, and a baptism and I already just know that those days are just going to fly by. So before you know it Sunday will be here and I will be on the verge to write you again. :D   ... we are loving the work.; I have been smiley and happy the whole time and have been loving it here.  

 

"The snow has come and we are starting to see the realy humid cold that everybody is talking about. You are truly not safe outside. HAHA.  It just goes straight through your clothes and makes you shiver to the bone. But I would rather be cold out there then in a 90 degree basement where you sit all the time.  The work is great and I would like to wish you all a happy Thanksgiving and tell you how much I appreciate all of support and best of wishes for me.  You all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and remember that this is a time to give thanks to the Lord. 

 

"I am thankful for the oppertunity to grow here as a missionary and be able to share the gosepl with all of the wonderful people that I love in the WKM and I wish I could share that with you." 

 

You can almost hear the smile in his voice, can't you?!

 

And Prayers are Answered

What prayers were answered?  Last week Elder Anderson asked us to pray for him that he would find people to teach the Gospel to.  If you read # 3 below, you'll see why this title for this blog.

He will be staying in his Evergreen Ward in Vancouver, Washington through the holidays!  If you want to send him a Christmas gift, you can send it to:
Elder Benjamin Anderson

14006 NE 45th St

Vancouver, WA 98682
Here are some highlights of the past week:

1.  I have enjoyed being able to do a bunch of work and see all of our investigators and less actives within the ward. 
2. I was able to give a blessing to a lady who is getting baptised this friday. And that was a very humbling experience. Her foot was hurting her very badly and she was told by the docter that she has gout or however you spell it.
3. This week was the best work week we have had sinse we have been here.  We were able to get double digits in lessons this week and we were able to talk to at least 5 investigators.  
4. This morning has been very intresting as well. We set up a trap about  a week ago and we put fish and nuts in there to attract some animals that we havn't seen but are looking for. This animal is like  a rat and has a very ugly long tail. Well we caught one this morning. it was a possum. I got pictures of it and will be sending them to mom and dad soon. But would like to fill up the card a little more before i send it.

And his faith grows...

Elder Ben is finding that miracles happen in real life!  Here is a quote from his last e-mail.

"We have also seen the work of the Lord with our investigator though his process of trying to quit smoking before his baptism.  We have been praying for him and he has been sincerly praying for himself.  This week he was eating a fish (like all Micronesians do-  haha)  and . . . after eating fish for all his life for the first time in years a fish bone stuck him right in the cheek very hard and caused a very painful gash. This gash became swollen and started to get infected. He couldn't eat and was in very much pain. But to our great astonishment the sore only truly hurt very bad when he bagan to smoke.  This then caused him to stop smoking for days. He is still continuing without smoking . .. This has been truly a miracle and has made my faith grow even more."

One of the families in his area has had him over for dinner at least twice and sent pictures of Ben and his companion, Elder Morgan.  She says, the elders came over for a "delicious dinner of chicken, potatoes, broccoli, rolls and chocolate cake. They are such fine young men we are so happy to have them in our stake. They work hard and are anxious to share the gospel. I appreciate their example for my two youngest sons. Matthew is on the left and Spencer is on the right. Their friend Mitchell is right in the middle, he is in our ward as well. We'll always have a spot for your boys in our home and in our hearts, thanks for raising such great young men."
 Elder Ben's parents have told the Nords that they will be our friends for life simply for letting us see pictures of our son!

 Note that there is a cute black dog right next to Elder Ben's feet.  He was probably petting the puppy before this picture was taken because he's such a soft heart when it comes to dogs!

Elder Ben isn't so good with getting pictures of himself sent home, but he did take a few of his apartment which is in the basement of a nice couple whose children are all grown.  He says they are really nice folks and " I love this city and I love this mission. This truly is the best place to be a missionary.  I am able to see rich and poor, faithful and unfaithful, diseased and not diseased and I truly can say that this has made my love for these people and for my Savior grow exponentially."

 Wow, pretty organized!

 I think some of these ties have come from some of Elder Ben's family.  Do you recognize any of them?

 The secretary in Elder Ben's mom thinks they're doing a pretty good job of being organized!

 We enjoy seeing pics of Elder Ben's companion, but WISH HE'D TURN THE CAMERA AROUND ONCE IN A WHILE!

 This must be the backyard of the house he is staying in.

  We think this must be a picture taken from the front of their place.

The family they live with is the Fosse family.. "He designs kitchens if anyone is interested. HAHA.  And they are great people. No kids at home. They have 2 boys out of the house and married.  His wife works for the Salvation Army over in Portland as well. They are wonderful people. Love them to death."

Wow

Elder Anderson is starting to really embrace the purpose of his time in Washington.  Here are some excerpts from his last e-mail to his family:

" I can't put my finger on what was so specificaly fun [about this week] or why I enjoyed it so much. But I do think it is just me knowing I am doing what is right and I am doing the savior's work. I know that what I am doing is true and I know that I am truly blessed for it.  I am in love with doing this work and I will never forsake it. I hope that all of you know of the truthfullness of this as well as I do and that you never forsake it.  This is the only true and living gospel. Jesus Christ is my brother and my personel redeemer. He bled for every one of us and he knows the pains and the joys I have gone trhough.  He is the life and light of the world and he lives. He still lives!! He will come to this earth again. And I will be able to feel those nail holes in his hands and in his feet and I hope and pray and will continue with all my heart that I will be able to look him in the eye and say I have done my best. I have given 100% and I am worthy to enter into that kingdom with him and with my heavenly father.  And I know that even if.. Even if. I am not able to enter into that kingdom of heaven with my lord and savior He will open his arms and welcome me. He will embrace me and we will weep together for joy and for our fellow brothers and sisters. 

I am so very happy for this gospel and for what it has done for me and what it will do for me in the future.  I miss my family. I miss my friends. But I will never give this up. This work is far more important.  I forgot my planner so I don't have the scripture down right now. But I think it is in D&C 88 where it says "when you are in the service of your fellowmen... you are only in the service of your God"!!!    WOW.  I am in the service of my God.  I am so grateful to be able to do this and follow his church. I love the people here.  (Even though sometimes they ditch us and leave us out to get soaked when they don't answer the door when we have appointments).  But they are all wonderful and I pray for them with much sincerity every night."

There were no specific mentions of his investigators or funny stories, but his family thinks that this might just be the best e-mail he's sent yet!

Elder Anderson and the Micronesian

According to Elder Benj,

"This week has been wonderful.  We have had some new investigators and we have met some very determined people that want to hear about the gospel.  We committed somebody to baptism yesterday.  YAY!!!  He is planning on being baptized on Dec. 4th.  He is from Micronesia.  He is about 34 years old and loves the spirit and knows that we are sent here for a special reason.  He is very loving and has that islander personality.  He is very funny, laughs alot and always is smiling.  He always gives us so much food and makes sure that we finish it all and always keeps us satisfied.  This week we had papaya and turkey tail. HAHA.  TURKEY TAIL.  It was wierd but amazingly really good. ;)   He is getting married on Nov 4th and we are so excited for him."
 
And even though we sent him more ties, "Does anybody have any polyester ties?  All my silk ones are getting wet and actualy are starting to get ruined so I am only trying to wear the crappy ones :( .  Hopefully you have good looking polyester ties if anybody feels charitable enough to help me out :D."

His parents love that he sent a scripture for us to read and consider - ALMA 34: 28-29,32.  He says, "This scripture is very important to me and I really think this is how we should be.  So please read it with your families or just in private and if possible send your response on what you think about it to me before next week."

 

 Funny story for the week -

 

"This week as we were standing on the curb waiting for one of our members to pick us up for dinner we were talking as cars were zooming by.  There was a Scion that drove by that had blaring music.  The driver and passenger inside were around 25 and had full on facial hair.  These men were head bobbing to their music.  We thought nothing of it. But as they went by a second time I started to laugh cause of something I remembered at home.  These two men looked like the hamsters on the commercial where they are listening to music and head bobbing to it in there car.  We laughed so hard.  So if you get the chance look that up on youtube or something and then you will know what I saw this week haha"

[Here's one commercial and here's another.]

 

"The rainy season has started. There should be no sun coming through the clouds now for supposedly 90 days. So that will be interesting.  The roads are always wet here so if anybody is scared of the rain ;) they might not want to live up here."

 

Elder Anderson's family is so proud of his dedication and so thrilled that he is helping to bless people's lives.  He has three more weeks before he could be transferred, so if you're sending ties, be sure to do it soon!

 

Love, love, love Tuesdays!

Elder Ben has done a good job so far of sending his family an e-mail on Tuesdays, his preparation day.  Today he wrote a long one with lots of newsie news.

It was his second "p-day" in the mission field and he says he loves teaching the gospel.  Yesterday he taught an investigator from Micronesia whom he describes as "very, very nice" who feeds them lots of food including 2 plates of rice with "good stuff to put top of it. (i guess it was papaya and beef)."  He called it "really different," but so good that he didn't have dinner at the member's house that night.

His routine includes"getting up at 6:30 every morning. Just like normal and doing some excerises and making myself some breakfast.  Then getting ready.  At 8 i have personal study and kinda recharge my knowledge for the day. at 9 we go into comapnionship study and start to go through the lessons we have planned for the day and plan a lesson for them.  At 10 we go out and start tracting or go to an appointment. We really don't enjoy early morning tracting everybody is waking up and is mean. HAHA.  at 12 we have lunch and we make that back at the house. Just simple things like pb&J or top roman or anything nice and easy.  After that we go back out to our appointments or tract tell 5.  At 5 or 5:30 we go have dinner with members.  We have dinner planned for us at a members house every night. It is very fun. HAHA.  We always have desert and a huge meal cause of course it is a really big deal that the missionarys are over."

They present a message they prepared for the family and ask them to pray for them and other missionaries around the world.  He says that they are so full that they "can't walk cause they fed us so much" and so the members drive them home!  They get ready to go out tracting or to go on an exchanges at 7. Exchanges are when each missionary goes out with a different member of the ward and they enjoy this a lot. 

"And we go tell around 8:30 or 9 depending on if we are at an appointment or not.  People just don't like us knocking on doors around 8:30 at night. I don't understand why ;) .  We then go home and plan for the next day. Who we are going to teach or what area we are going to tract." 

They get out of the dress clothes they have been in for 13 or more hours and either go get in bed and say companionship prayer or "we play hacky sack and talk to the family that we live with until about 10. "

"And then we hit the sack and pray for our families back home and look at your pictures write in our journals and then dream about all of yall back home.  That is my day most every day and i enjoy it alot."

He tells of his first day tracting when they were let into a home by a young Russian girl whose sister ended up coming out into the room they were in twice dressed only in a towel!  What a first day of tracting experience!

 

He "would love pictures of the mountains with all of those trees turning nice colors" and as much snail mail as possible." 

Fix the Address!

Good-ole UPS - how hard could it be to figure things out?

Apparently Elder Ben gave us the wrong zip code to his house in Vancouver.  His zip code is actually 98682, not 98684.    Here's the (I think!) right address.

Elder Benjamin Anderson

14006 NE 45th St

Vancouver, WA 98682

Frustration, frustration:(