It is such a testimony builder for me to see this gospel change other's lives.

Hi everyone! 

Man what a week! It has been a pretty successful one. We found two new investigators, Al and Brother S. Haha I'll have to explain why we call him Brother S. I can't even remember his first name right now. He is married to a lady in the ward and has two kids in the ward. He is so awesome. You don't even know. He has a calling in young mens. He works with the scouts and even teaches lessons every now and then in Sunday school. I can't believe he isn't a member. Every time we talk to a member they always are shocked that he isn't one. The other week in priesthood people were bearing their testimonies and he got up and bore his! Unreal! We taught him and his family the Plan of Salvation Saturday and we are going to try to visit with them this week to follow up. They are so awesome. 

The other investigator we picked up is Al. He was dating a Mormon girl and going to church on the west side, but the relationship ended for now and so he came back here because this would be his home ward. He is also super prepared. He is friends with another guy in the ward so he comes out with him. This area is really picking up and doing so good. 

We were finally able to teach Loretta this past week as well. We have been trying to get in with her since I got here in Lethbridge. When we gave her the Book of Mormon, all she could say was how excited she was to read it. It is so awesome. Her fellowship is the Platts and she said how if there was a family that was the perfect, golden family, it would be them. 

The other lesson we had this week was with Sister S's kids, Kaylee and Devlin. They are super awesome and prepared as well. They want to be baptized, the only problem is their dad. He isn't a member and he only recently allowed them to go back to church and let us teach them. They are so close. All we need to do is get the dad to open up a little more and allow them to be baptized. 

Man the work is going so good. David, a less-active we have been teaching, is moving out to Sterling. That's just outside of Lethbridge but still in our stake. I am sad because he is so awesome and doing so good. He comes to church and loves having us come over and teach him every week. We have one more lesson with him this Wednesday and then he is gone. I will miss him. He is so awesome. He will do good in Sterling though. He has more friends out there and he really likes the town. 

The other LARC lesson we had was with Lara. She was baptized pretty recently. She had to move to the west side but she doesn't really like it over there so she is moving back the end of this month or beginning of next so she will be going to church here. That will be good. She is doing great as well. She loves the lessons ever week as well. 

The other LARC lesson we had was with a lady named Marjorie. She is in her seventies and she was baptized when she was really young. Her family were converts but she never remembers going to church or being taught any lessons. It is crazy. We taught her the first lesson about the Restoration and everything. She was loving it. At the end when we said the closing prayer we prayed for her like all other prayers we say with our investigators or LARCs and she was crying by the end of it. The spirit was so strong. We had asked her multiple times during the lesson how she felt. We had described the spirit and what it feels like and does to us. She told us about past experiences she had had in the past that she now realizes was the spirit helping her and warning her and stuff like that. When we would ask her how she felt she would just say like how cool she thought the things we taught were. We were hoping she would talk about how she felt the spirit. After the closing prayer, she was crying. She said that she loves having us over and she feels such a great spirit when she is around us. We were throwing a party in our heads when she said this. We had hoped she felt the spirit. Without the spirit, we can't fulfill our purpose because the spirit is what converts the people. When she said that she felt it at the end, we knew that she knew there was something special about this gospel.  We can't wait to go back this Wednesday and visit with her again. Her husband isn't a member and we met him when we bumped into them at the park and he was super nice. He loves to golf too so that's cool. Another bonus is that she said that she would bake us muffins. Supposedly they are super good. I had a bran muffin from her a few weeks ago and it was really good so the chocolate or chocolate chip ones must be amazing. 

The people here in Lethbridge are so awesome. I love being able to share the gospel with others. It is such a testimony builder for me to see this gospel change other's lives. There is no greater joy that can be found than in this gospel. I hope you all can feel the spirit and follow the example that Christ set here on this earth. There is only one way that we can return to live with Heavenly Father. And that is on the path that has been given to us. 

I love you all and hope you are doing well. Take care! 

With love,

Elder Anderson

It is so much fun being a missionary.

Elder Jake reading his scriptures

I have learned that Canadians will take any and every excuse to take the day off. The schools have half days every other Friday. If someone did anything remotely special, they take the day off and call it a holiday for the rest of eternity! 

This weekend they call the "Long Weekend." What is that?! I am so disappointed. Back in the old days when I was just a little man I had to mow our grass every day in the eye of a fire tornado uphill both ways! It didn't matter if it was Christmas! Whatever. 

It's been going pretty good. We picked up two new investigators in the past week. That's pretty awesome in case you don't know. We have a lesson with one of our super prepared investigators tomorrow too. Hopefully it goes well. We will probably be picking up her husband as a new investigator too if he is there. We have four less-active lessons today too. It is awesome. We are keeping busy for sure. 

Lethbridge is great. The people are so nice. On exchanges yesterday we walked down the main highway through our area and street contacted people. We had so many people honk and wave as they drove by. It's awesome. One lady even pulled over and gave us ten bucks and said "Lunch is on me." How cool is that? 

It is so much fun being a missionary. There is no greater joy that comes than when you share the gospel. Blessings are too much to count. The only downside is that you get a freaky tan line on your neck from the dress shirts. Totally worth it though. 

Well this is a short one but I'm sure you are sick of reading long emails. I would be bored reading my own emails. Hope all is well back home. I love you all and pray for you every night. 

Take care!

Elder Anderson

Mowing Sister Ranger's beautiful lawn

Love you guys! Take care of each other!

Elder Jake called home yesterday for Mother's Day 

and boy oh boy was it good to see that happy face!

Man it seems like just yesterday I was talking with you guys. To be honest not much has happened since then. We ate dinner with the Hill's family and then had choir practice. Yes, the missionaries in the stake are singing in stake conference. Fortunately, they called in some extra help from the stake young men's and young women's because we sounded terrible. Apparently it isn't good enough to just sing the song regular. We have to sing tenner and bass and soprano and alto and all of that stuff. Whatever that means. All I know is, I'm going to sing loud and proud and let the spirit take care of the rest. I don't even care how it sounds. Afterward Sister Zeck came up to me and Elder Becker and told us we should go to the ward choir practices. Clearly she couldn't hear me singing. All I have to say is, "Prepare for the worst!" 

There isn't a whole lot of news other than that. The Skype call kind of stole my thunder for today. It's whatever. Maybe for Christmas I will not call home so that my email the next week can be extra good. Doesn't that sound like a good idea? I'll start taking notes for that one. I've already written my homecoming talk. It's pretty awesome. No surprise there. : )

Well, that's about all I have. Hope all is still well back home. Love you guys! Take care of each other!

Elder Anderson

Silly Elder Becker, our HERO, in the background.

You can always feel the love God has for you through his children that he puts in your path.

Commentary from mom:  When you read this letter, please remember a few things:  

• Jake has a great sense of humor, it's one of the things I love most about him, but he may have crossed a line or two in this letter.  To prove this point he signed his personal email to me with the name Lazarus.  Not funny, Jake!!
• Also, he has no memory of either seizure.  So when he jokes about it, he really doesn't remember how serious it was.  You would think that two ambulance rides and a couple of hospital stays would sober this missionary up, but not so much. 

I passed out and had a tiny little seizure and you would have thought I came down in a spaceship from the planet Jupiter. I thought they were going to dissect me like a frog and see what they could find. One tiny little problem and they have to keep me locked up for three days with a needle in my arm. I was totally fine, but apparently they didn't trust me to be able to replenish my own fluids so they had to pump them straight into my arm. Not to mention the fact that they were taking enough blood to be able to supply an army. I felt like a science experiment. And then they figure out what I need to do. After all the samples and tests and checks and double checks and "care", they decide I just need to have my blood sugar run a little higher for a while so my body can readjust to what the normal levels are. Regardless, that's all out of the way now. Oh and one more thing! They then have the audacity to schedule a follow up appointment today! On P-Day! The nerve! P-Days are sacred. You do not mess with P-Days. Cancel cancel thank you very much. I will tell you when I am ready to see you again. 

Well w​e still were able to do a little work this week. We picked up a new investigator.His name is Bruce. He is super awesome. He really loves talking. He is so cool because he asked for the message of the day before we ended the conversation. We hadn't even brought up any spiritual stuff and he wanted to hear our message. He loves having us over to talk. We are excited to teach him.

There is one thing that happened that was absolutely unacceptable. We had dinner with an older couple who lives on the north side of our area yesterday. It was raining so we didn't want to bike up there so we called them and asked if we could get a ride. They were more than happy. We stopped by a family's house to ask if we could leave our bikes there just while we were at dinner. The dad said it was totally fine and we could do it anytime. Well, after dinner, we were dropped off at the house to pick up our bikes. And they had been vandalized. The family had the boldness, the nerve, the audacity to think it would be a good idea to vandalize the Lord's bikes. Yes. They did something so terrible, it requires action on our part. They took our bikes and tied ribbons, streamers, and bows to them. Pink, purple, yellow, orange and every other color that makes me think of puke. They stuck glitter stickers all over them as well. We were horrified. We hopped on super quick and rode to our ward mission leaders house and tore everything off as fast as possible. This is war. Japan attacked Pearl Harbor and look what happened. This is no different. There will be retaliation.

 

Well, I can't say that we are not having fun. The members have been awesome through these past couple of weeks. They are super supportive and caring. I feel like I am back home with my home ward. The church is true no matter where you go. And you can always feel the love God has for you through his children that he puts in your path. I hope you all know how much I love you and pray for you. I feel your prayers everywhere I go and can't thank you enough for all that you do for me. Stay safe and don't give up.

Elder Anderson

I think I had a déjà vu!

This is Pam, and this is the letter I wrote to Jake this week. I'm using Jake's mission blog as sort of a journal of his experience, and ours.  I'm posting this so I will always remember this experience and how it blessed and changed me. I am grateful. Oh so grateful.

I think I had a déjà vu! And I think I have a million more gray hairs and my heart still hasn't stopped freaking out. And I KNOW I have increased faith in God because He has protected and watched over our missionary so closely!!! I believe in miracles, and you are a walking miracle! I know what happened could have been so much worse, and I will be grateful to God forever and ever for watching over my baby boy!

I couldn't believe it when I saw we had another call from Sister Nicholas on Tuesday night. I prayed it was an insurance question or something like that, but in my heart I knew it wasn't. I knew something had happened. This I've learned, the mission office doesn't call to say hello. They call with a reason, and it's not usually a happy one.

After your first seizure I really struggled to feel peace. Not just that day, but for the entire week following. Every since you've been gone I've felt such joy and peace. It's been a miracle, one that I didn't expect, but one that I have treasured. After that call on Easter morning I couldn't get that peace and joy back. I prayed and I tried but I just couldn't feel it. I went to the temple, and I felt peace while I was there, but when I got home it was gone. It finally returned the following Monday when we heard from you and I knew that other than a bloody and blackened eye, you were doing really well. And I was so grateful to feel the peace and joy again.

This last time was different. I'm not sure why. I fell apart when Sister Nicholas called, but after a short time, about 30 minutes, I felt this feeling of peace come over me. It wasn't the normal peace I feel on a day to day basis, but it was peace, and it was amazing. As the days went on I was worried, but not in the same way. I felt like I was being carried, and I know that is exactly what was happening. I also felt like God was giving me a big hug. I knew He was very close, to you and to us. I knew He was completely aware and intimately involved.

I kept going back to the scripture that President Vongsawad shared the night you were set apart:

D&C 84:87-88
"Behold, I send you out to reprove the world of all their unrighteous deeds, and to teach them of a judgment which is to come. And whoso receiveth you, there I will be also, for I will go before your face. I will be on your right hand and on your left, and my Spirit shall be in your hearts, and mine angels round about you, to bear you up."

This scripture has brought me so much comfort, and I KNOW it to be true. God is in front of our face, He is in our very personal space. He is on our right, on our left, and His angels are round about us. And I know he ALWAYS has our back! What that means to me is that whatever direction we turn, right, left, front, back, He is there. His angels showed up in the form of Elder Becker, Sister Ranger, your bishop and his wife, the doctors, the members of your ward who are beyond wonderful! They also appeared in the form of our friends, family and ward members who joined together in prayer in your behalf, and ours. I felt every prayer. I literally felt them and they carried me!

It is truly through the trials of life that I have grown closer to Heavenly Father and Jesus and gained increased faith in them. The first seizure all I could think is please don't have him have to come home. Please don't have him have to come home. After the second one I said, no matter what happens we will deal with it. I really don't want him to have to come home, but whatever happens we will deal with it. Thy will be done. Jesus take the wheel. That's how I want to live my life, with Jesus at the wheel. I trust him with all of my heart. There is no one better to ever put our trust in. No one!

My heart is bursting with gratitude. I see the tender mercies of God everywhere I look. I will forever be grateful.

I love you so much! I know you are exactly where you are supposed to be, doing exactly what you are supposed to be doing. There is nothing I want more than for you to spread the good news of the gospel with the fabulous folks in Canada. Take good and careful care of yourself so you can do that, so you can share the great plan on happiness with everyone who will listen.

Just keep swimming...and I will too!!

Mom