Semana Loca

Well this week was an ADVENTURE.

Just starting Saturday actually. The week was pretty normal until Saturday. Oh, Saturday. Hahah. Okay. SO, it was raining. A lot. But, no importa, we work in the rain. So we went at 11 to Cerro Alto, the pueblito next to Los Alamos where we work a lot. We had a few appointments before lunch. We get off the bus and it's raining so hard, and the wind is ridiculous. We were just dying of laughter because we were like this has got to be a joke! So anyway we went to the first lesson with this lady named Delia and it was a really great lesson. While we were in her house we heard the wind outside sooo loud and I was just thinking oh my gosh we are going out in that in a couple of minutes. Haha oh well... So we left her house and it was NUTS. We were walking down the street and um well, fences were being blown down, roofs were being blown off the houses and flying in the air.... At this point we were kind of scared. The wind was literally blowing me we had to hold onto a fence. Yeah. Crazy. So we passed by a member's house for a minute to calm down because we were kind of freaking out. We sang a hymn and said a prayer with her and then took the first bus back to Los Alamos to go to lunch a little bit early. So we went and by this time there was no water or electricity OR cell phone service. We ate lunch with them and decided this was just too crazy and unsafe so we were going to go back to the house and wait out the storm a bit. Study and stuff in the house. So we walk in the house to find it is raining INSIDE the house! OUR roof had blown off, and water was coming in from the ceiling. Ayyyy yi yi. Everything in the front room and the kitchen was soaked. All of our books (minus our scriptures, tender mercy from God), pamphlets, area book, everything. Soaked. We were just like ahhh what do we do!!? Thankfully the roof over our bedroom was fine. So we put all our books in plastic bags and put them on our beds. Packed a couple things in a bag and went straight to Hermana Ana's house. She is like a mom to us here, so sweet and has a 21 year old daughter Grace that just went to Concepcion to work so we're even more like her daughters. Well she went to work right away to make us feel better, made us some soup and told us we could stay the night there. So we did. But we were stressing out because no one knew what was going on with us or our house. We couldn't call our leaders to ask them what to do. In the morning Sunday we went to Sacrament meeting and then decided to go to Cañete because Elder Morales always knows what to do. We found them thankfully and of course within about 5 minutes he had a place for us to go to eat lunch and a house for us to stay in that night with the members in their ward. Well, there's been lots of traveling back and forth from Los Alamos to Cañete and lots of stress and NOT working, which has been weird haha hanging out with the members and the zone leaders and yeah I've felt more like Danielle than Hermana Anderton lately which is weird. But... Today we found a new house, it was a miracle and we love it. The people JUST moved out yesterday and we found it today. Hallelujah. We're staying in Cañete again tonight and tomorrow afternoon we're going to be moving in to our new house. The members here have been SO SO wonderful. Feeding us, giving us shelter and love. They are so wonderful and I am so so grateful. It's been stressful and hard and during all this we had interviews with President and haven't been able to teach and it's just been really different. Definitely an experience I will always remember. TAKE CARE OF THE MISSIONARIES!! En serio.

I have remembered a lot lately the scripture in Matthew 25 when Jesus Christ says, ''Inasmuch as ye have done it unto one of these, the least of my brethren, ye have done it unto me.'' Remember that always, and serve your neighbor whenever you can. Don't worry family, all is well. I've worn the same clothes a bit more than usual and haven't slept in my own bed in a few days. Buuut I am fine. We are being helped by lots of members, our zone leaders, and Heavenly Father.

We have this AMAZING family that we're teaching right now, they are seriously such a blessing. We haven't been able to see them or contact them because of all the weather craziness. But they are super special and I love them.

I love being a missonary and I hope all of you help the missionaries wherever you are.  :)

Love you all tons. ¡Nos vemos!
Hermana Anderton

May 22nd- Birthday Companion

Hellooo!

You can call me the Birthday Companion. This is awesome. I was with Hermana Hamblin for her birthday, Hermana Gomez just had her birthday on Saturday, and Hermana Haycock has hers June 2nd! So right now I'm 3 for 3 being with my companions on their birthdays! Love it. (Well, 3 for 3 with my companions in the mission field. Hermana McKay, no). I have gotten into the habit of making pancakes for my companions for their birthdays hehe :) 

I've been wanting to send photos but today the computer doesn't want to and other days I forget or run out of time. Sorry! Just know that one day hopefully soon I will be sending some pretty pictures. We went to the beach last P-day, and it was gorgeous. It reminded me so much of Laguna Beach! Also I have more pics of the foresty area of Los Alamos that I get to work in every day. It's so pretty! 

So, as you all know it's been difficult lately with our investigators. We work so hard and do everything we can but they don't go to church. It's hard but sometimes that just happens. I don't remember if I told about Veronica last week... Her husband doesn't want her to get baptized. She and her daughter were going to get baptized and she liked church when she went and she wants to keep learning and go forward. But her husband says no. And (lo siento) Chilean men kinda stink. There are so many women who have super lame husbands here. It's sad. Lydia also dropped us, said she doesn't want to keep meeting with us. She says we did our part and the seed is planted, and now it's up to her. Which is true, we can't make decisions for her. But if we aren't passing by to keep teaching her and helping her, it's less likely that she's gonna progress. Soo yeah, sad. 

BUT. Ray of sunshine. Two weeks ago this cute little family came to church. They are 19 and have a little boy, he's like a few months old. The dad is named Gustavo, and the mom Estephania. She's a member, he's not. We went and taught him and he wants to be baptized. He's already been to church for like a month and consistently goes, and goes to institute. He's awesome.  :) We put a fecha with him for June 9th and this time it seems like it will actually go through. So we're all super excited. The only problem is he lives in Cañete and his girlfriend is the one that lives by us. So, we're teaching him but in the end he may end up getting baptized by our Zone Leaders in Cañete. We need to see about that, where he's gonna be going to church and everything. But, he is awesome and super smart and ready to be baptized. So, prayers for him that everything goes well! We really need a baptism. 

Quote by Elder D. Todd Christofferson:  ''It is by the Holy Ghost in YOU that others can feel the pure love of Christ, and have the strength to move forward.''   Always, always strive to be worthy of the companionship of the Holy Ghost. It is the greatest gift we can have in this life, and will prepare us for eternal life if we follow its guidance. 

There are hard times but I am learning a lot. Nothing worthwhile was ever easy, and I am finding that to be true with helping others to come unto Christ. Love the mission. The church is true. I wouldn't give up this experience for anything. 

Love you all, 

Hermana Anderton

John 13:35

May 14th- Charlie's Angels

Hello everyone!

 

Oh, how wonderful it was to skype my beloved family yesterday! Parents, I love you tons. This week was interesting. Different, with three. But we love it. Hermana Haycock is great. She has such a strong testimony and we've felt a great spirit when we all teach together. Also, we can do divisions super easily! Normally to do divisions we'd need two members to help us so we each have a companion, and it's rare that we can get two at the same time. But now we just need one member (obviously a girl) to help us and we can split two companions together and the other with the member. We get done tons more work and it's super fun. This week we lost lots of time in the beginning of the week because well Monday is Pday so we only have a few hours, we lost the whole day Tuesday because we had to go to Conce to pick up Hermana Haycock and then Hermana Gomez had her doctor's appointment, and Wed and Thurs we only had the afternoon to work because we had zone meeting Wednesday and Thursday weekly planning. So we only had Friday and Saturday to do basically everything. But we had the help of members and did divisions like 3 times in two days. And it was legit. It's fun we like it! A trio is a different experience and I'm the translator/mediator a lot of times.. But it's good.

 

The title of my email is Charlie's Angels because of something funny that our Bishop (branch president) said yesterday. He wanted to talk to us after church and this guy Moises who's like 20 I think was in the office too. President Ortega said ''I want to talk with Charlie's Angels only please.'' And Moises said, ''I'm Charlie!''  Hahahaha. It was so funny.

 

Ummm, with our investigators.. Honestly I'm just tired. They tell us, promise us, every week they will go to church and never do. I'm sick of empty promises. We don't know what we're failing, why they're not understanding how important it is to go to church. So that's been hard. We work so hard every week to help them progress and they promise us they will go, say they want to, we call and remind them, etc. But every Sunday it's a dissappointment. Soo, yeah. That's been difficult. But we are gonna keep working (obviously).

 

Ahh when are the Olympics starting?! I'm super bummed I'm gonna miss them. I LOVE watching the gymnastics and the swimming! Oh well, what I'm doing is more important. And I can watch highlights on youtube in a year.  :) Enjoy them for me!

 

I wanted to close with a quote that I read in Preach my Gospel by apostle James E. Faust this week. It says, ''The Holy Ghost bears witness of the truth and impresses upon the soul the reality of God the Father and the Son Jesus Christ so deeply that no earthly power or authority can separate him from that knowledge.''  That is how I can say, with all the surety of my heart, that I KNOW that Christ lives. I KNOW that He loves us, and that this is His church. The Holy Ghost has born witness to me time and time again, and there is no way I could ever deny it. I love this Gospel, and I love sharing it. I know that any person who sincerly asks, will receive an answer from the Holy Spirit. ''By the power of the Holy Ghost you can know the truth of all things.''

 

I love you all. The church is true, and the way to happiness in this life and after.

 

Amor y abrazos,

Hermana Danielle Anderton

May 7th- Cambios!

Hello everyone!

Well, another 6 weeks has flown by. Hermana Gomez and I both really wanted to stay together here and... WE ARE!!! Yay, we're so happy. Also, we're getting a third companion! Woo hoo! Her name is Hermana Haycock, from Utah, and we both already know her. She came the same time as Hermana Hamblin, they were in the same district in the MTC. She's super excited to be coming and to be our companion. Yay, a trio! This will be different, but I'm super excited.  :)  

Okay so I haven't written about investigators in awhile, how awful. Time to catch up a bit. Calle 1. Is awesome. We're teaching 3 people on the same street haha. Jennifer, Luisa, and Veronica. Veronica's been to church once and had a baptism date with her daughter Scarlett who's 9. Their date was for the 12th but they haven't been to church so we have to re-put their date for later. But Veronica likes everything we teach her and she liked church. She hasn't prayed about it and gotten an answer but she likes it all and wants to be baptized. We haven't been able to find her this week so we are gonna keep trying with her. Jennifer has a friend who served a mission and they talk about the church a lot at work. She also loves our visits and says she feels super good (the Spirit). But she went to church and didn't love it. Her kids are kinda crazy so she was trying to control them the whole time, we're thinking that's why she didn't love it lots. Hopefully she will come again so she can keep progressing. Luisa is super special. She's a single mom, probably 25 or maybe a little older. She has a 5 year old named Sergio and he is sooo stinkin cute. She has gone to Evangelical churches (like everyone in Los Alamos) but hasn't liked the way she feels there and is searching for the truth. She is so sweet but lonely. We have become good friends with her and just love her so much. We taught her the word of wisdom and she has a little problem with coffee and tea. She studies and drinks coffee to keep her awake during all her studying. Well this past weekend she had a kinda breakdown. Her ''friends'' took her to a club and she drank and smoke. And she hated it. She said she felt so awful and she wanted to die. She also came to the conclusion that coffee and tea she should give up because she doesn't feel good when she drinks them. Yep, like we said it's bad for you :)  She said it's better to throw them all away. So I asked if we could do it right now and so we helped her throw away all her coffee and tea! It was super fun, I've always wanted to do that hehe. She had a baptism date for the 12th and then the 19th, but still hasn't been to church. But she does want to be baptized. So I pulled out the calendar and said look. You need to go to church at least 3 times before your baptism. Can you come the next three  Sundays? She said yes and that she would like to be baptized on June 2nd. SO hopefully all goes well and she can come to church and be baptized finally! She's great I love her lots.

Another person we've been teaching is Sharon. Sharon I just love a ton. She's 21 and has a little girl, she's like 2 almost I think? She lives with her boyfriend, the father of her baby. He's actually a member, but inactive. He literally runs out of the house every time we come over, which is super annoying because we want to get to know him and help him to come back to church. But he always has some excuse for why he can't. Anyway Sharon is great. She always reads in the Book of Mormon and prays and has tons of questions. She loves it. The only problem is that she's not married. We've talked about it for a long time, but she said in the past that she wanted to wait to get married until they had money for a party. Didn't want to do the civil wedding thing and have a party later. BUT we were visiting her last week and out of nowhere she told me that she and her boyfriend went to find out about the paperwork for a civil wedding!!! What?! We are so excited! She's like yeah let's do this already. She's excited. So we put a baptism date with her for May 26th and she accepted. But she didn't come to church yesterday. Which was suuuper dissappointing. We don't know why. But she will hopefully be getting baptized this cambio also. I hope so!!!

We're teaching other people too obviously, but those are the main ones. Evelyn apparently has forgotten that she's already gotten her answer about the church, because she tells us she's still waiting for an answer. Ugh. It's super hard sometimes and breaks our hearts when people don't progress because we can see how close they are and we know of the amazing blessings they have waiting for them in the Gospel of Jesus Christ. All we can do is love them and try to figure out how we can help them better. But we're super happy that we're gonna be here one more cambio so we can hopefully see the baptisms that we've been working so hard for.

To finish up, I just wanted to share something I've been thinking about/realizing lately. The major impediment that we have against accomplishing what we want is OURSELVES. We can do ANYTHING if we put our minds to it. There are no limits. Really. We put limits on ourselves. When we have great faith and work to meet that faith, we can do anything. Never think that something's not possible, I'm guilty of doing that in my own life. But I am learning that Heavenly Father wants the very best for us, and will help us achieve it. We can do it. 

Parents, I love you ''un monton'' (a mountain) and I can't wait to skype you on SUNDAY!!! 

The church is true. And it's a marvelous work and a wonder indeed.  :)

Love and hugs,

Hermana Anderton

I love this. - April 30th

Hellooo todos!

Well, this semana was an interesting one... For one, I was sick :(
Not so fun. Thursday at 3am I woke up with a really bad stomach ache
and was up the rest of the night in the bathroom.. Bleh. We woke up at
7 like normal but I could hardly stand up and I was dizzy and it was
just bad. We called Hermana Martinez and she told us we needed to stay
home. And I cried. I was seriously so sad that we couldn't go out and
work. There were people who needed us, and we were in the house!! It
was awful. We couldn't leave to go buy anything, so our amazing zone
leaders helped us out. They dropped everything they were doing, all
their plans for the day in their sector, and came out to Los Alamos
after stopping at a pharmacy to pick me up meds and gatorade. They
brought them to our house and gave me a Priesthood blessing. They are
so great! Elder Arjona from Spain and Elder Morales from Honduras.
Love them. I was so grateful for their help. My companion was an angel
also. She cooked apples for me and made sure I took my medications at
all the right times. She cleaned up the house and made sure I was warm
and comfortable. She was wonderful. Friday we went out to work but
half day, we left at 3. I felt tired and kind of empty in my stomach
ha but we had a good day. Then Hermana Gomez started to feel sick
Friday night. Anyway, we've been working and feeling better. I still
don't really want to eat but feel much better. When I was laying in my
bed and couldn't leave to work I was realizing just how much I love
this. I LOVE being a missionary. LOVE IT. To every day have the
opportunity to represent Jesus Christ and His Church, and to invite
others to come unto Him is the greatest thing ever. I love this I love
this! This week I will complete 6 months in the mission. Which  makes
me kind of sad because I only have a year left! Family, I know that
seems like a long time. But for me it goes SO fast and this experience
is so so special.

I've always had a problem with being so excited for the future that I
don't enjoy every minute. Unfortunately sometimes I still have that
problem here in the mission, even though THIS is what I was looking
forward to for the past 3 years. So I am realizing now that the
mission is short. Life is short. We need to enjoy life TODAY. We need
to be the person we want to become TODAY, NOW. We can't say we'll
become that person in a few months, or once this or that happens.
Because tomorrow never comes. Now is the time. Enjoy life, wherever
you're at. I am.  :)

Besides my 6 month mark in the mission, something else exciting
happens this week- My mom's birthday!! Happy birthday mommy, I love
you soooo much you are my best friend and the best mommy ever! Dad, do
something nice for Mom okay? Go have fun you two. And we will skype
the following weekend!!!!! So excited for that.

We are teaching some great people right now, and feel really confident
that they will be baptized in the month of May. Jenniffer, Luisa,
Lydia, and Veronica. Evelyn is still great and loves it, but we're
still waiting on Reinoldo. It's a pain, and I'm nervous because I
don't want her excitement to die before she gets baptized. But we have
had some really beautiful experiences and we are doing everything we
can to help them progress and receive answers to their prayers that
this is true. We love them so much and are praying for them. I will
keep you all updated!

Okay so now it's time for some funny stories.

1. Matias. He's almost 3 years old and the nephew of a couple we've
been teaching. Whenever we come over and sit down on their couch, he
pulls out el Libro de Mormon from under the coffee table. He knows
that when the missionaries are here, it's time for the Book of Mormon!
Haha he's soo cute! And smart. The other day was the best, he had his
Pinnochio book in his hand and I was asking him if I could see it. But
he threw it on the ground and picked up the BoM. Haha. Love it.

2. When I was sick Hermana Gomez's first thought was to make me a home
remedy something (she doesn't like pills). She called Elder Morales
and was like ''My companion's sick, what do I do?'' Elder Morales was
like ''Well I have a home remedy that you could make her but... No we
can't.'' Hermana Gomez was like ''Yeah we can't, she's a Princess.''
Okay it was so funny. They decided because I'm a gringa they didn't
know if they should give me their home remedies. Hahaha. It was so
funny. I was like what, why? Hna. Gomez calls us princesses and I was
like, you're a princess too! And she said (in English) ''I'm a warrior
princess. You're a princess princess.'' Hahaha. Too funny. Love them.

But okay, don't worry about me, I feel much better now and we're doing
great. Cambios are in one week!  We will see what happens. I love you
all so much! Remember to be happy, today! The Church is true.  :)

Amor y abrazos,
Hermana Danielle Anderton