I don't want to say goodbye to my mission.

 

I cannot fully describe the torn emotion I am feeling as I type this email. This is harder than I ever thought it would be. I don't want to say goodbye to my mission. Transfers are hard, but this is impossible. I just want to tell you one thing that happened before I say goodbye til Friday. 

So this area has honestly been my hardest area. And Elder Kelly agrees with that for himself as well. I have never worked so hard for the work than in this area. We have fasted many days trying to get the work going. We have gotten a family in each ward throughout the whole stake fasting every day for 40 days. Tons of things have happened since I've been in this area. And just about all of them have petered out to amount to nothing really. 

I was prepared to leave this area holding on to the one lady we were able to help come back to church. And don't get me wrong, that was amazing and I will never forget that experience or lose touch with her. But after all the work we have done, I would have considered this a dead area until Sunday. We have less investigators than I have fingers on one hand. And none of them have shown any desire to progress. Until yesterday. 

We had one of our investigators come to church with his friend. He has been taught for over two years and has come to church many many times. Since I have been in the area nothing has happened with him. Well at the start of third hour at church yesterday, he and his friend, Corey, who's a member, asked to speak with us. We went into an empty classroom and sat down. Our investigator looked at us and said, "Corey is going to baptize me on January 1st." 

I have never been more shocked on my mission than at that moment. This came out of the blue! Completely blindsided me! Never in a million years did I think something this miraculous would happen. And the greatest thing of all was what the spirit told me at that moment. This was God's way of saying "Thank you." After four months of frustration, disappointment, and discouragement, God produced the miracle. 

We have fought and dug and prayed and fasted for something to happen. Never have I faced such opposition than I have in this area. And just before I go home, God shows me that what I have done was not in vain. The sweat and tears that went into this area were not wasted. God never left us. And he never stopped working alongside us. He has been here all along working behind the scenes. 

I cannot tell you what joy I have felt being able to work with the greatest being to ever live. I cannot tell you the pure happiness I have felt doing His work. And I cannot even begin to describe to you how grateful I am to have been called to this work. For it truly is the work of God. And there is no greater work to be done on this earth. You will never feel a more powerful love than that of God's. And you will still never know how much He truly loves you. I couldn't have asked for a greater ending. This truly will be happily ever after. Because I know that this happiness is unending. No one loves you more than God. And God will never love you less. 

I will be home in five days. And I'm not totally sure how I feel about that. I never thought this day would come. But it has. And I never thought it would be so hard to leave. But it is. I love you all and can't wait to see you again. Well I could wait a little longer, but I won't. I'm not allowed haha. 

Until we meet again.

Elder Anderson

I'm going to miss this place so much.

It's been insanely warm here which is the greatest news I have for you really. It's been around 7-10 degrees Celsius. There is still green grass here. It's insane! I'm loving it! It's the middle of December and we are wearing sweaters #joy. 

It's been a pretty quiet week though. Not too much has happened. We had two people we are working with come to church which is sweet. One lady who has been reactivated is doing amazing. She is the greatest person alive. We are so pumped for her. She is getting ready to go to the temple as soon as she can. I will be coming back up for that. 100%. 

Time is getting short though. I'm going to be home too soon. I'm going to miss this place so much. It's really hard to think about. I try not to dwell on it too much. But people love reminding me how much time I have left. haha I think they're trying to get rid of me. Probs. 

Anyway I don't really have anything to report on this week. 

I love you all and will see you soon!

Elder Anderson

We can choose to be happy.

It's been absolutely freezing here!!!! It's around -10 in the mornings and evenings and warming up to around 1 or 2 degrees during the day! Holy cow this country is cold!!!! I'm not sure I will miss that. Actually I'm pretty sure I won't, however it makes for fun stories. Like having to walk uphill both ways in a blizzard to church. You know, the usual stuff. 

Speaking of usual stuff! Here's a cool little message I've prepared over the past couple seconds. #bearwithme! One thing I learned this week is that there are things in this life that we cannot control. Other people are an example of this. We cannot control people or what they do. However we can control our reaction. Our feelings of love and peace and happiness and joy are not just nouns. But they are verbs as well. They are actions that we can choose to do or feel. We can choose to love someone. We can choose to be happy. We can choose to be peaceful. These things are principles. They are unchanging. We have the opportunity to choose them every time and never worry about something changing. Some things in this life change without our control. When we center our lives around those things, we will completely crumble and fall, because they might change. However if we make the unchanging principles the center of our lives, then we will never have to worry about something affecting us in the negative. because we chose to be happy. We chose to have fun. We chose to love. And nothing or no one has the power to change our feelings but ourselves. Some unchanging things that we have are the scriptures, the gospel, Jesus Christ. If we center our lives around things like these, then we will never be let down. As we think proactively rather than reactively, we will find more happiness and joy.

Hope this made sense and helped! Love you all! Take care of each other and love one another!

Elder Anderson

I will follow Christ til the day I die.

I'm running out of ideas here to write about. This week was ok. It's been rough with the work here though. There is not a whole lot going on. We have been working our tails off trying to get it going but it's slower than molasses in a Canadian winter. AKA dead stop. But we haven't given up. #onwardchristiansoldiers

There is just a quick scripture that I want to share with you before I go. In John chapter 6, Christ preaches some difficult doctrine that some of the people don't really like or agree with. In verse 66 it says, "From that time many of his disciples went back, and walked no more with him." Some of the people decided that they didn't want to follow Christ at that point. When He sees this he turns to his apostles and asks, "Will ye also go away?" 

Then Peter gives his response. "Then Simon Peter answered him, Lord, to whom shall we go? thou hast the words of eternal life. And we believe and are sure that thou art that Christ,the Son of the living God." I love Peter's response. 

Sometimes there are difficult things to believe or follow in this gospel. Sometimes we are asked to go outside our comfort bubble and accept something out of the ordinary. When this happens, we must turn to our fundamental beliefs and hold on to what we know. Christ is the Son of the living God. He has the keys to unlock our eternal salvation. This I know. So if I follow Him where He leads me, then I will live with God again. 

Some things may be hard to accept at first, but if they come from Christ and his authorized ministers, then they are true. And we are asked to follow. I will follow Christ til the day I die. I know He is my Savior. I know that He loves me. And I know that I can live with God again because of Him. 

I hope you all have a great week and stay safe and warm. I'll be seeing you soon enough! Love you!!!

Elder Anderson

We can choose to be happy.

I refuse to have a countdown. The other week we noticed a sign that someone had up on their roof that had a countdown for when Christmas was down to the very minute. Well I accidentally saw it and immediately knew how many days I had left on my mission then. Well that night I knelt down before my Maker and cried unto Him begging Him to let me forget how many days I had left. Well thanks to the great blessing He has given me of a forgetful memory, I have no idea what that number is anymore. #Blessed So things are going well.

This week has been full of ups and downs. I have noticed that the downs are much easier to focus on, and cause us to forget about the ups. This caused us some discouragement and adversity. One night after we got back to our apartment and were planning out our next day, we stopped and focused on what good had happened to us today. As we reviewed the day we noticed many different little miracles that we completely overlooked and ignored because we were too focused on the bad that had happened. We realized that we were missing out on all these good things in our lives because of our bad attitude and perspective. 

Since then we have been working on focusing on the good more than the bad and it has helped us a ton! We are much more enthused when going out to work. Canceled appointments don't get us down anymore. (And we had 7 this week, 6 being with an investigator). We have been much happier and have had tons of fun. 

When we focus on the bad, we feel bad. We allow ourselves to be affected and changed by the bad experiences that we have. But when we focus on the good things in life, we feel good. And we let those good things change us for the better. As we look each day for God's hand in our lives, we will have more joy in each step we take in this journey. We have not been sent down here to be miserable and hate everything. "Men are that they might have joy!" We can choose to be happy. Our agency starts in our thoughts. So choose to have good, uplifting thoughts! If you do, you will have a heart filled with gratitude and joy for what God has done for you. 

Don't worry, be happy!

Elder Anderson

I shall Endure to the End.

I've seen Christmas lights already. Man this is scary. Time is flying. The days are really short it seems. There is just no time left! I don't like it one bit! Nevertheless, there is still work to be done. And it has been promised that I will be given time to accomplish all that I am called to do. So there is time yet. Now bear with me and I will tell you of the wrestle I had with God this week.

For the past week we have been working pretty hard to pick up the work in this area. And for the past week it seem as if we have been spinning our wheels. We fasted twice this past week for help. And nothing came from it. At least not the things we had in mind. We have been stopping by a ton of people trying to meet them and see if they are interested in us coming by and teaching them. No luck. We have prayed harder than ever for those we are working with. No change. It's been so tough. Probably the toughest week of my mission.

That being said, we have a stake wide 40 day fast coming up for missionary work. What we think is happening is the same thing that happened to Joseph Smith when he was praying in the grove of trees. A dark force came over him trying to stop him from praying. Right before his revelatory experience of seeing God and Jesus Christ, Satan worked hard on trying to stop him. Satan knew what was about to happen. And he didn't want it to. He went to all lengths to hedge up the way. 

We think the same thing is happening here. Satan knows that we are going to have a 40 day fast in Med Hat and he knows what that will do for the work here. He has attacked our faith and hopes of anything happening. We have been worried this past week as to what is going on but we are now understanding of the situation. We know that this is the work of the Lord. And we know that no matter how hard Satan may try to stop us, we will win in the end. 

Even if we have to cross through the most trivial times of our lives, we are confident in saying that there will be rest on the other side of our trials. There will be joy and success as we are faithful to the bitter end. I am so grateful for the knowledge I have been blessed with. If I didn't know that God existed, then I would have given up long ago. But I know that He has a plan for us. And all things are done in His wisdom. 

That is why the last point of the gospel of Jesus Christ is Endure to the End. Because that is what we have to do sometimes. Endure. Which means to make everlasting and omnipotent. Relentless and unstoppable. All powerful and unconquerable. I shall Endure to the End. I pray you all will too. 

I love you all and hope you have a great week. Remember God loves you!

Elder Anderson

A note from Pam:  Most of you know that Jake has Type 1 Diabetes, which means he really isn't supposed to fast.  To me, this shows that he really is doing everything he can to bring forth the blessings of heaven.  Before he left on his mission, I really worried about him fasting.  Now I know better than to worry, for I have seen God watch over him every step of this journey.

This is where I belong. This is where God wants me.

Elder Jake's zone. He has expressed his love for these missionaries over and over again.

Man this is not real. I can't believe it. This is my last transfer as a missionary. I hate it haha. My new Companion is Elder Kelly. He is the greatest! He is from England right by the London temple. But he's not from London. Make it clear. Hahaha. He has been out 18 months.

He is probably one of the best missionaries in the mission right now. For sure. I am so pumped to be serving with him! And to be back in the 2nd ward and the YSA branch. There are some miracles in store for this area. 

We currently have one girl on date to be baptized in 2nd ward for November 27th. She is solid. Then we are working with a sweet family who has been making big progress and reading the Book of Mormon. We have a guy in the YSA branch taking the lessons right now and he is a great guy. We are excited for him. We hopefully found another lady to start teaching who lives next door to members. There is a lot of work going on in this area right now and it will only keep building. We are going to be busy for the next long while. 

This is truly what pure joy is like. I have found it here on my mission. There is nowhere else I would rather be than right here in the Crescent Heights area of Medicine Hat in Canada. This is where I belong. This is where God wants me. And this is where the blessings lie for me and my family. As I continue to work here, I continue to uncover those blessings and my joy simply increases. 

God is with us. We are walking along side Him. His work is great and marvelous. I cannot express my gratitude for all that He has done for me. I love you all a ton, but I am in love with my mission right now more than anything else. I have been called by God. I have been set apart by His ministers. I represent His Apostles. And I will go forth and "teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost" (Matthew 28:19). 

I am now coming to the end of the greatest journey of my life and I want to let you know that I have never seen God more in my life than I have being in His service. Know that He loves each and every one of you. And know that I do to. Peace, be still!

Elder Anderson