So thankful

Hey everyone!! 

So, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. Ours was pretty good. Nothing too special... I made us grilled turkey and cheese sandwiches with avocado, and potatoes. It was yummy. We also drew turkey hands on our whiteboard and wrote in them things we are grateful for. :)  I have a lot of things that I am grateful for right now!

For one, Patricia has a fecha (baptism date) for December 22nd!!! She came to church on Sunday and really liked it. She is soo great we love her. She is loving all that she is learning and just excited about everything. Keep her in your prayers please, that she continues progressing and we can have her baptism the Saturday before Christmas!!

Anibal didn't come to church last Sunday and didn't come to our appointment Thursday night. We were super bummed, and were kidna worried he decided he didn't want to keep going. Because he always comes, on time, to all our appointments, and when he can't or has to change he calls to let us know, etc. But finally on Saturday he called us and said sorry that he was really sick and didn't go into work or anything. He couldn't come to church yesterday, but he said he did want to get together so we have an appointment Thursday night. Please keep him in your prayers too! Oh PS I don't know if I ever actually said, he is 26 we asked him the other day. Just so ya know!

So I looove this sector and ward of Independencia. Transfers are this next week, and I am hoping I will stay here. We think so. It would be really weird if I left. Hermana Barbosa has 3 transfers here, but she doesn't want to leave either. What we are hoping is that they divide us but keep us both here, they are going to need to start opening more sectors for the Hermanas because more and more are coming!! So we are hoping somehow we can both stay. We'll find out Saturday!!

The BEST thing this week I think... Hermana Hamblin (my trainer!), Hermana Lissandrello, and Hermana Calsina who are in Los Alamos right now, stayed at our house last night because they needed to go to Concepcion today. So that was really fun, we did divisions with them in our sector last night, and talked a lot of course. This morning I even got to go running with Hermana Hamblin! But the very very best, is that I got to hear about all my converts, and they are doing SO well. Domitila is preparing to go to the temple, to be sealed with her husband who passed away last year. I didn't hear about her daughter, Dalila, but I will assume that she is going to church with her family, I'm sure she is. Gustavo received the Priesthood and he has been blessing the Sacrament at church. Lorena continues going out with the Hermanas to visit people, and Alejandro too. Alejandro received the Priesthood awhile back, and he BAPTIZED the investigators of the Hermanas earlier this month. Wow. I just cried, I am so happy. I think it is even better than baptizing, hearing that your converts are strong in the church. That they are happy and progressing and growing. I love it!!!!!! I got a letter from my dear Lorena, and actually got to talk to Alejandro on the phone today! He called the Hermanas from Los Alamos to ask them something and I answered it :)  He was so surprised. It was good to hear from both of them. I love all my converts soo much, and oh yeah David is doing great too, he's been to church every Sunday since his baptism and we gave him his own hymn book yesterday with a picture of his baptism day in it, and he loved it. ALSO, the Hermanas in Los Alamos stopped teaching Daniela and her family for awhile. Remember them? But, Daniela came to church last week and just felt the Spirit and knew she needed to start taking the lessons again. She told the Hermanas that she remembered what Hermana Anderton had always told her about listening to her feelings and following the Spirit, and she is now preparing again to be baptized. Wow, I love my life!

This week, in my gospel study, is the Holy Ghost! Jesus Christ, in John 3:5 said, ''Except a man be born of water and of the spirit, he cannot enter into the kingdom of God.'' Baptism by water is not complete without the second part, confirmation/the gift of the Holy Ghost.

The gift of the Holy Ghost is one of the most precious gifts Heavenly Father can give us. Through it we feel His love and direction, we can be led in doing the right thing, we can know the truth of all things. A quote that I LOVE, by the prophet Joseph Smith, ''It will whisper peace and joy to your soul, and it will take malice, hatred, envying, strife, and all evil from your heart; and your whole desire will be to do good, bring forth righteousness, and build up the kingdom of God... If you follow the Spirit of the Lord, you will go right.'' We can all feel the Spirit of the Lord, when we pray sincerely and listen closely. Heavenly Father loves us, and wants to lead us every day. The Holy Ghost is a great blessing in our lives, and we should do all we can to recieve it and be worthy of it always.

Well, that's it for this week. Next week I shall tell you about cambios!! Have a great week, wow it's almost December!

Love you all so much.

Hermana Danielle Anderton

Hey everyone!

Okay soo yeah I don't have tons of time! Ahh internet time always goes soo fast. First of all, thank you to those who wished me a ''happy 5 years'' this week. I have been a member of the church for 5 years and it has gone so quickly. :)

This week is Thanksgiving! Hermana Barbosa and I don't know what we're going to do yet, but we want to celebrate. Maybe turkey sandwiches or something... :) Happy Thanksgiving to all, be grateful for your blessings!

Happy birthday to my dear friend Sestra Megan Moody!! Hope you are doing great out there in Croatia! Love ya.

Soo right now we have super good investigators. Have I mentioned that yet? I love them. We had an awesome lesson with Anibal. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and afterwards he was like ''That should have been the first thing you taught me..'' He loved it! And then we invited him to be baptized and he said ''If it was right now, I would do it immediately.'' I was only half-joking when I asked him if he wanted us to fill up the font. Haha. So he is good, but still wants a stronger answer. He said he wants a week to think and pray and read the Book of Mormon, etc. We said okay and I told him I wasn't worried at all because I know he'll get his answer. Still he said he was going to go to church on Sunday and didn't, and he didn't answer the phone when we called him Saturday night and Sunday morning. So, keep him in your prayers.

Patricia is just wonderful. We love her! She loves all that we teach her and wants to keep learning. She is so great. She wasn't able to go to church because her 5 year old son just started a soccer team and it's Sundays at 10am. Right when church starts. Boo. The good news is its every other week, because the other weekends her son's dad will take him. Sooo she should be coming this Sunday.

Renato, we haven't seen him or talked to him. Understandably he needs some time to help his fam. But we are going to try to get ahold of him this week.

There's this lady, Jocelin, who is like 28 and less active. We eat lunch with her every week and she has 2 kids, one of which is Catalina who is 8. They don't really go to church but we visit them to help get them to go, etc. Well the other week we shared something with them, her and her boyfriend who is the dad of her kids, and it like really hit her. Talked about being an example for your children and raising them in righteousness. The next time we saw her she was like ''Hermanas I need you to start teaching Catalina the lessons again because she's getting baptized.'' Catalina was so excited and wanted to do it this Saturday (the 17th). But she needs to talk to the Bishop, be interviewed for baptism, and probably go back to church a few times before she gets baptized. I don't know how long they haven't been going consistenly for. But so we will be preparing her for her baptism probably in December. :) Hopefully this will help her be firm in her decision to be active in the church, and her husband, Juan, will hopefully have more desires to get baptized himself. They are in the process of preparing to get married too so when that happens he can get baptized. :)

So, this week is step 3 of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Baptism! We all know I talk about baptism a lot as a missionary, and now maybe I can explain a little more of why it is so important.

In the Bible Dictionary, this is some of what it says about baptism. ''Baptism has always been practiced whenever the gospel of Jesus Christ has been on the earth... Baptism is not optional if one wishes the fulness of salvation (and I add, baptism by the priesthood authority of God). Baptism in water has several purposes. It is for the remission of sins, for membership in the church, and for entrance in the Celestial Kingdom. It is also the doorway to personal sanctification when followed by the reception of the Holy Ghost. Baptism is a most sacred ordinance, which a person having received it, can remember throughout life as a reminder of their personal commitment to Jesus Christ.'' In Romans 6:4 in the Bible we read that through baptism, ''we should walk in newness of life.'' I love that, how not only literally are we clean from our sins and born again, we must choose consciously as well to start over. To be a new, better person. 3 Nephi 27:20 in the Book of Mormon says, ''Repent, all ye ends of the earth, and come unto me and be baptized in my name, that ye may be sanctified by the reception of the Holy Ghost, that ye may stand spotless before me at the last day.''

I am happy to say that it has been 5 years since my own baptism. I love it. I love thinking about it and knowing I made the right choice to follow my Savior Jesus Christ. Each day I try to be more like Him. I love Him, and I know He lives. His sacrifice, His Atonement, is what makes it possible for us to receive the remission of our sins and to be happy, now and forever.

I love this Gospel, and I love being a missionary to share it with everyone! :)

Have a fabulous week. Love you all so much.

Hermana Anderton

                             Saturday morning in Concepcion, community service! Wearing the famous
                  "Mormon helping hands" vests and my new 'do. :)  love y' all.

Hi everyone!!

Well we had another good week... Actually not as good as we have been having, but it's alright... They made a bunch of changes in the mission. My whole mission we have had to do 140 contacts every week. 15 lessons with member 15 other lessons... lessons with less active members and recent converts... Anyway they changed it so that we only have to do 50 contacts now, still 15 lessons with member... but we aren't reporting the numbers for the less actives or recent converts, and there's no ''standard of excellence'' as it's called, or mission-wide goal for other lessons. They want us to pretty much completely work with the members. Getting references from them of their friends and family who would be interested in the Gospel. AND for our zone only, President Martinez told us that this month of November, we aren't allowed to knock a single door!!! Soooo, yeah, it's different! Usually when appointments fall through, and back up plans and everything we knock. To try to find new investigators. But now we can't knock haha so we go to members' houses trying to get more references and working with them. It's been... interesting. But I know the best way to do missionary work is through references. We received more than 50 references from members last week, now we just need to contact them all! It's hard to do though because we want to go with the member to do it, so it's not just random missionaries contacting them but rather their friend with the missionaries. They're more likely to listen to us you know? But the hard part is these members all have lives, like working and studying or whatever, and they don't have all that much time to come with us to meet their friends. So, we will see how that works out, hopefully this week will be better...

Renato told us last week that he told the Catholic church he works at ''Don't count on me next Sunday because I'm going to the Mormon Church.'' Hahaha. We loved it, so funny. BUT, his mother-in-law passed away like on Thursday... So he couldn't come to church. They were doing everything for the funeral and all that. Sad. We haven't seen him since last Monday so hopefully we can see him soon.

Anibal said he was going to come to church yesterday but didn't. Weird, he always does what he says he will. And if he can't he calls us. So, we don't know what happened there.

We found this new great investigator, her name's Patricia. She's about 30 and a single mom of a 5-year old boy, Cristobal. The Elders in the sector next to us contacted her a couple weeks ago, and she said they could stop by. But she lives in our sector so they told her we would come. Well, we went on Tuesday I think? and she was home and she is great!! Her dad is also investigating the church, and he told her about it he said it was really great and he likes it a lot, and she should look into it. So she was really receptive and loved what we shared with her.We went back again Wednesday with her and she said she wanted to come to church too. Her phone was off when we called to remind her about church, and she only partly committed to go. But we are hoping to see her again this week! :)

Great news from Villa Obispo, Maria Jose and Jorge got baptized!!!! The young couple where Jorge's parents and sisters are members... Yayyyyy!! Soo happy. Hermana Shelton called to tell me all about it. :) LOVE IT!! Their family is going to be a forever family once they go to the temple in a year or so. :) That's what the Gospel's about!

Today I finished the Book of Mormon in Spanish!! El Libro de Mormon. Woooo.

Also, oh, I cut my hair like 6 inches last monday!!! Hermana Barbosa convinced me, and I LOVE IT. I don't know why I never tried anything different, cause I've had long hair my whole life. But I really like it and I don't even miss my long hair like I thought I would. :)

We saw President this past week and he told us there are TONS more missionaries, and especially Hermanas, coming to our mission. I. Am. So. HAPPY! I heard a few weeks ago, that the church usually receives 600 missionary applications a week, but that the other week they received 7,000 many of them being sisters. LOVE IT!! Pres. says that by Feb or March we will have about 270 missionaries, right now we have 194. He also said that we will probably have 50 more Hermanas. This is amazing!! He said that probably one Hermana is going to have to train two at a time, because so many are coming! Hahahaha, crazy. I am so excited. This Gospel is going to all the earth, and tons more missionaries are leaving to preach it. :) :)

This week: Repentance.

The second step of the Gospel of Jesus Christ, after having faith in Him...

''God sent His Beloved Son, Jesus Christ, into the world so that all of God's children would have the possibility of returning to live in His presence after they die. Only through the Savior's grace and mercy can we become clean from sin so that we can live in our Heavenly Father's presence'' (Preach my Gospel, p. 60).

Repentance is a change of heart. It is recognizing we have sinned or made mistakes, and confessing those sins and asking for forgiveness. It is made possible through the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Through repentance, we can feel clean, whole, and happy.

I am out of time!! But I hope you all are well, and have a great week! No time to send a picture of my hair, hopefully you can wait a week to see it. ;)

Love you all,
Hermana Anderton

                                               us on the micro (bus)

                                                    David's baptism :)

Hello hello!

Well, I tried to send photos but it's not letting me attach any files. So, you will all just have to wait I guess. The baptism went perfectly. :) David was so cute, he was all nervous but really excited too. The ward mission leader here is AWESOME, he did everything! Usually we plan the whole baptismal service, call everyone to give talks, we go to the chapel in the morning to fill up the font.. everything. But the one here is great. We just showed up! Anyway, Rodrigo Coloma (from this great family here) baptized him. He has helped David in this whole process, been his friend, answered his questions, everything. So it was great to have him baptize David as well. I wish I could send pictures of them in white and all of us out front of the chapel before the baptism! Next week I will try again. Anyway, it was great and Renato came!! Renato is that older gentleman we met last week, the one who had been to an LDS school and loves the church. But I'll tell you more about him later. So David's mom and sister came to the baptism too, they are inactive members, and they really enjoyed being there. I hope they were remembering their baptisms from years ago, and I hope they have a desire to come back to church. It was great to have them there to support!

After the baptism, I asked David how he felt. He said that he was really happy, and that he could tell it was something important that he had just done. :) Yes, yes it was.

Next is Renato! So he's super good. We went with Hermano Coloma (Rodrigo's dad) to teach him the other day. Turns out they actually know each other, so that was perfect. He says he still hasn't gotten his answer yet but that he still is going to pray and continue learning. We invited him to the baptism and he loved it. I guess he has been to various baptisms before too. We sang ''Soy un hijo de Dios'' (I am a Child of God) in the baptism and he sang without even reading the hymn book!! Afterwards, I heard Hermano Coloma ask him if he was Mormon or what haha. He couldn't come to church on Sunday because he actually works in the Catholic church...haha... But he wants to come so he's going to try to not go this coming Sunday so he can go to church. Hehe.

Next: Anibal. He went out of town because we had a long weekend, so he wasn't at church. But we talked to him Saturday and he said maybe we could get togther Sunday night when he got back. Well, we had Stake Conference Sunday and so after church we took the bus back home. While we were on the bus I tried pushing the little button to tell the bus driver we wanted to get off but it wasn't working, and there was another button but for some reason I just didn't push it. Which was weird cause we were in our sector. Hermana Barbosa got up and then pushed the other one, and then we got off. We had passed our house a little bit but not by too much. So we get off the bus and cross the street, and guess who we see standing on the corner? Yup, Anibal. We asked if we could get together later that night and he said yeah, ''It was for something that we found ourselves here'' Like randomly finding each other on the corner. It was cool. So we went later and taught him the chapel with Luis (another of the sons from the Coloma family). We had a good lesson with him, which he started by saying ''I read the chapter. But I don't want to get baptized.'' We just laughed and taught the lesson about how to recognize an answer from the Spirit, because that's what he's trying to do right now to know if the church is true. The Spirit was definitely there in the lesson as we all shared experiences, testimonies, and scriptures. We invited him to be baptized, if he has his answer, on November 24th and he accepted! Wooooo!! He told us this story about how three different times in his life he has just had ''coincidences'' with the church that he knows aren't coincidences. That make him believe that God wants this for him. One time he wanted to go find the LDS church to talk to the missionaries, and he was walking around in town and decided to ask someone if they knew where he could find the church. Out of all the hundreds of people on the street he could have talked to, he happened to ask a MEMBER of the church, who was glad to help him. :) Second, a couple years later, he decided to investigate the church again and the very next day the Elders knocked his door. That was about a year ago, and then the third time was yesterday, we didn't have an appointment with him and then we randomly just see him on the corner. It was great. He had tears in his eyes a little bit as he was sharing this all with us, and although he doesn't quite feel like he has his answer yet, we are confident that he will get it.

We have three people that will be baptized on the 24th!! As long as they all keep their commitments and obviously if they receive their answer that they know it is true and want to be baptized. But we have faith. :) Renato, Anibal, and Esteban. Woooooo let's do it!

So this week time to talk about faith! The first principle of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Faith is to have confidence in something or someone. ''Faith is a principle of power. God works by power, but His power is usually exercised in response to faith. He works according to the faith of His children'' (Preach my Gospel, p. 116).

''Wherefore, whoso believeth in God might with surety hope for a better world, yea, even a place at the right hand of God, which hope cometh of faith, maketh an anchor to the souls of men, which would make them sure and steadfast, always abounding in good works, being led to glorify God'' -Ether 12:4.

''Yea, and how is it that ye have forgotten that the Lord is able to do all things according to His will, for the children of men, if it so be that they exercise faith in him? Wherefore, let us be faithful to Him'' -1 Nephi 7:12.

I know that Christ lives, that this is His church, and that He can do anything for us and through us, if we but have faith in Him.

Have a great week. And pray for my investigators, please!!

''Somos hoy llamados a servicio al dar testimonio de Jesus. Vamos a un mundo en tinieblas para proclamar la LUZ...''

Un gran abrazo,

Hermana Danielle Anderton