Always remember Christ and your Father in Heaven. They will always remember you.

Saying goodbye to Elder Stewart (middle) as he left for home after two years of faithful service.

Jake said that Elder Stewart is like a brother to him.

Hi all! Man what a week! It has been crazy. I am in Lethbridge East stake in the Fairmont ward. It is so great. The ward is super nice and cool. I can already tell we will be fed really well. The new area is very different from High River. We have been tracting (missionary term for going door to door and talking with people) lots. It is actually pretty fun. Except for the freezing cold glacier that we live on. 

We live with an older lady, Roma Ranger. She is so awesome! Oh man I love her. She spoils us rotten. We live in her basement and get hooked up. We have a full sized kitchen with an oven and everything. We even have a rice cooker, blender, and one of those lean griller things. It's awesome. 

The ward is super nice and friendly. They have had some elders in the past that they didn't like very much so they are a little hesitant when it comes to helping us with missionary work but we are working on that. We are riding bikes too. We went from driving the nicest vehicles in the mission to riding bikes. We don't even share a car. Haha it's pretty cool though because you get a pretty good workout. 

The church is really strong here. There are lots of members. Much more than back home. Not quite like Utah but still there are lots. My companion, Elder Becker, is really cool. I think we are going to get along really well. He helps get me motivated to work out in the mornings. There are members across the street with equipment in their garage that they let us use so we go over every morning and work out before studies. 

When I first got here Wednesday, we went shopping so I could get some groceries I needed. I was running low on cash and was worried that I wouldn't be able to have enough. I only had American. I said a prayer asking Heavenly Father to help me. When I got to the checkout, the lady in front of me paid for me. It was amazing. I was so grateful and thanked her a ton. She said she always wanted to do that and now was her chance. It was a miracle and such a blessing. 

I know there is a lot of work to be done here and the area is ready to take off. Last night we were tracting and we saw a native man on the sidewalk on the other side of the road. He looked like he was having trouble. We saw his gloves on the ground along with a stuffed animal. We went over to ask if he needed help. I think he was plastered. He couldn't communicate really well. We asked him where he was going and he said home. We asked him where that was and he didn't know. We picked up his gloves and helped him put them on. Brother Leavitt saw us outside (we were across the street from his house) and came out to see what was going on. The man had a hurt back and couldn't walk. Brother Leavitt went inside, called a cab, got a beanie, food and water and gave it to the man. He gave us 20 bucks for the cab and told us it would be here soon. 

While Me and Elder Becker waited, we tried to talk to the man but he couldn't say much. His name is Clark. I gave him a few bucks in change and a Book of Mormon. Elder Becker gave him a pass along card with our number on it. We put it in his bag and waited for the taxi to show up.When it arrived, we gave the driver the 20 bucks and told him to take him to the homeless shelter. The driver seemed a little surprised but agreed. When Clark was getting into the cab, he smiled at us and said thanks. It was awesome being able to help him out. I doubt he will do anything with the Book of Mormon but why not give it a try. He said he would read it when I told him to. haha I gave him the loonies and toonie, (loonies and toonies are Canadian coins) then gave him the Book of Mormon and told him that it was worth more than any money can buy. haha It would be sweet if we got a call from him. The Lord does work in mysterious ways. 

Well, that's about all that's new this week. I am loving the area so far. I still really miss High River but this place is great too. We are keeping busy and that always helps the time go by. Well, take care of yourselves until next week. Always remember Christ and your Father in Heaven. They will always remember you. I love you all.

Elder Anderson

Elder Jake's living room.
 Funny they have such a big, beautiful TV because missionaries don't watch TV.  : )

Elder Jake's new kitchen

Elder Jake's pantry...hmmm...glad to see at least there are bananas in there!

Loonies and Toonies (They are so pretty!)

COMMENTARY FROM MOM:  Yesterday at church I had the blessed opportunity to meet Elder Stewart, Jake's first missionary companion.  Elder Stewart was also serving from Vista, California.  It's pretty uncommon for missionaries from the same area to serve together as companions, and it was a great blessing to Jake!!  He told me that Elder Stewart is like a brother to him and I know it was hard for the two of them to say goodbye.

After talking with Elder Stewart for a few minutes yesterday I couldn't resist asking him the motherly questions like, "Is Jake taking his insulin?" and "How is Jake's hip?"  Elder Stewart told me that yes, Jake is taking his insulin, and then he said the most amazing thing.  He said he didn't even know Jake had a hip problem until they spoke at a youth fireside and Jake shared his story with the youth in attendance. What a miracle!  It hasn't even been a full year since Jake's hip replacement surgery and a missionary who lived with him and was with him 24/7 couldn't even tell he has an artificial hip.

I believe in miracles!  I believe in them for many reasons.  The scriptures are full of miracles performed by Jesus. Those stories are real.  Jake's story is real.  He received a real miracle.  A miraculous healing.  And now he is in Lethbridge serving the Lord, riding a bike in the extreme cold, sharing the gospel message with the good people there.  My heart is filled with gratitude.!  I believe in miracles!!

Nothing is more strengthening than trials. I have a testimony of that.

This smile makes me happy happy happy!

Man this stinks. I just found out I am getting transferred. I hate to go. The area has been on fire for the past two or three weeks. We have found so many people to teach and Renee is getting baptized Saturday. I will probably miss it now. I am going to really miss it here. The people are amazing. Regardless, the Lord wants me south, so south I go. I don't know exactly where I am going but I will be leaving the Calgary area. I will find out tomorrow where I am going. I have to pack tonight haha. 

This week has been great though. We have found three new investigators this week alone. Renee is awesome. She is so prepared. She has been meeting with the missionaries for seven years now. She knows it all. We have seen miracles here like crazy. Through service we have been able to help people in more ways than I thought possible. We were able to take an area with absolutely nothing going on, and completely turn it around. The flood is what made that possible. 

We stopped by the United Church the Sunday before last and gave them some fliers for a fireside we will be having about anxiety and stress. This past Sunday the Reverend came to Sacrament meeting and spoke for a few quick minutes thanking us for all the help we were able to give them during the flood. He said there were over 20 Mormon Helping Hands volunteers in their church cleaning up afterward. It is amazing to see what this flood has done here. It has humbled the people and brought them closer together. Because of that, people have been so much more open to us. 

Angie, an investigator of ours was crying when we told her what it is we do and why we do what we do. We helped her move a gun safe upstairs and she asked about why we do that kind of stuff. We told her because we want to bring people the joy we have been able to feel from this gospel. We asked her if she wanted to hear a message about that from us. She broke down in tears and said yes. 

This flood was Alberta's worst natural disaster, and it has been one of the best blessings ever. When people are in need, they turn outward for help. We are able to provide that help. Nothing is more strengthening than trials. I have a testimony of that. I am excited to see what's in store for me in my new area. There is work to be done. It doesn't matter where you are. The Lord has a purpose for you. I will let you all know where I am next week. It's going to be great. Take care. 

With love,

Elder Anderson

Elder Jake with his High River District

Elder Anderson and Elder Stewart - Pyro Missionaries!

It is awesome to see the community pull together and help each other out.

Hi everyone! How have you been? It's been a great week. Biggest news? We have an investigator on date! Renee has accepted the date of March 29th to be baptized. We are so excited for her. She has a son who is 11. He got baptized a few years ago and he has been such a support for her. When we extended the commitment to be baptized he freaked out and got so excited. Renee was nervous but he was pumped for her. The lesson was awesome and the spirit was so strong. She has been set a date a couple times in the past and backed out but this time we will make sure she goes through with it. Please keep her in your prayers. 

Well we also got to hear from Elder Nelson from the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles. That was awesome. He opened it up a little bit for questions that we could ask him. We also got to hear from Elder Maynes of the Seventy and Bishop Stephenson, the presiding bishop over the church. It was awesome. The talks were great and the things shared were very helpful. They talked mostly about finding people to teach and talking to everyone you see. It was really cool. 

In addition to that it was Stake Conference yesterday. It was funny because they broadcasted it to High River and the connection was terrible. We missed pretty much the entire first half haha. The parts we did see were pretty much a slide show because the picture was so jumpy. The sound was off too. It was a wreck but it worked out in the end. We got to hear from Sister Nicholas and President. That was super cool. They are awesome. We also got to hear from Elder Maynes again. He is a great speaker. We were worried they were going to ask us to get up and speak when they sere trying to figure out what was wrong. Luckily they called on the Elders quorum president to talk about his meeting he had with Elder Nelson.

It has been a pretty good week to say the least. We have been busy like you couldn't believe. We are seriously going to move every person that lives in High River I swear. Because the weather has been so warm, the snow is melting and the rivers are thawed and flowing. People are already filling sand bags preparing for the worst. There is a fireside this weekend at the church, open to the community, about stress and anxiety and how we can deal with those. A professional therapist is coming in from Calgary to give it. Lots of people are getting nervous. We have helped some people who we know are going to freak out when spring and summer come. It's weird. Back home there is never a problem or scare like this. Regardless, there are still people who are stronger and better prepared. 

We went to the United Church after Stake Conference and caught the last few minutes of the session. We were there to give the Pastor some of the fliers talking about the fireside so he could give some to his congregation. Right at the end of the session, he announced that three Elders with the Mormon Helping Hands from the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints were here and he told the people to go out and shake our hands and thank us for what we did after the flood. It was incredible seeing the response from the people. They were so grateful. I shook more hands there than any day at church. The people were so nice to us. They had tea and coffee after their service. The Pastor came up to us and told us there was also juice for us because he knew we didn't drink coffee or tea. It was so awesome. Next week he will be coming to church with us. He is such a nice guy. 

As horrible as this flood was and as much of a hardship it was, the people in High River are so much more united because of it. The support we see here is incredible. There are organizations like Habitat for Humanity (we usually work with them once a week), Samaritans Purse, and others who help people rebuild their houses and basements and what not for free. They say they are going until the funds run out. It is awesome to see the community pull together and help each other out. The hearts of the people have been softened here for sure. 

Well, tomorrow I hit three months. I can't believe it's been that long already. Time has flown by. If my mission keeps going like this I'll be home in no time. It's hard to believe. But there is still a great journey ahead of me and I am excited to see what's in store. If it is anything like what the last three months have been, then this will definitely be the best two years of my life. I can't wait. 

I hope all is well back home. Take care until next week. 

Elder Anderson

The Calgary skyline (Jake is about 45 minutes south of Calgary):

Jake's exact quote about the picture below, "We cleaned up sludge behind a business. That was pretty fun."  

Below are some pics Jake sent of homes that are scheduled to be torn down because of damage from the flood.  So sad!

The Lord will not only bless those you serve but you as well.

It's getting warmer! Oh man what a relief! It was plus twelve the other day! That was so nice. Although the ice and snow is melting and that's probably got people freaked out. There are huge puddles all over here. Elder Stewart always hits them hard haha. There is still so much snow on the ground though. I get why this place floods a lot. Some people have piles of snow in their yards that are taller than they are. They just shovel it off their drive into their yard and it just piles up. A lady from our ward told us her snow pile always lasts through June because it's so thick. That's insane. 

Well we have basically turned into a moving company. Everyone that calls us for service needs help moving. We have been exhausted! Some people are pretty good at being organized for the move. Most people aren't prepared at all though. It is so much more work when we have to move all of their belongings one by one instead of having them in boxes. We also move lots of furniture into basements. Most people have small stairwells too. That is always a challenge. We had a move where the man wanted a couch in his basement. We got it to the bottom of the stairs and it wouldn't go through the doorway. We had to pull it back up and out. He had a different couch he wanted down there then. We got it to the bottom and it wouldn't go through the doorway either. We pulled it up and out. We then took a treadmill down the stairs. It got stuck at the doorway too. We had to disassemble it at the bottom because it got stuck and we couldn't move it. Unfortunately problems like that occur all too often. 

But we have made up a survey that we ask people to take after we help them. We ask them if they were affected by the flood, if they received help from the Mormon Helping Hands, if they got help from anyone else. We really don't care about any of the answers to those kind of questions. The only question we care about is if they would be interested in hearing a message from us. We have done the survey twice and one of the families said yes. So we picked up a new investigator this past week with that. We have a lesson set up for Thursday night. Right now we have about five investigators. It is pretty cool. We have been working like crazy and we are seeing the blessings from it. Even this morning our Bishop told us about one of his workers who picked up a hitch hiker on the side of the road and found out that he loves the Mormon church, believes in it, but isn't a member. We are going stop by his place and see if we can teach him. The work is moving forward. 

Oh yeah! Elder Nelson is coming to our mission and is going to speak to us! He wants us all there early so he can shake our hands! How cool is that? I'm so stoked. That's Saturday. It's going to be awesome. I got to hear from Elder Bednar in the MTC and now I get to hear from Elder Nelson. That's pretty awesome. 

Well other than that, nothing new is really happening. There is a chance we are getting iPads in May. That would be awesome. We've heard about other missions getting it. Like Edmonton is getting them in April. I've even heard that the missionaries that do get them are told to use them for everything. They are told to use them for their scriptures even. They don't want them using paper scriptures. It's crazy. I think it's because they are still testing them out so they want the missionaries using them for everything so they can figure out how useful they are for certain things. Regardless, I want one. It would be so nice to be able to have the Mormon Chanel and LDS.org and that kind of stuff for teaching. Using resources like that is so much more productive. 

Well one cool story before I go. A few weeks ago we helped this lady Jane. She is in her 70's probably. We moved her from the place she was in to her new place. She was super grateful for our help. Really nice. Well the other day we were talking to a lady in our ward, Sister Parker. She said she was at her swimming class and she was talking to a lady there. She was talking about how the flood only killed four people but a lot of people ended up committing suicide afterwards because of depression. That wasn't advertised as much for obvious reasons. The flood was really hard for a lot of people. It forced over 100,000 people out of their homes. Well the lady she was talking to said that she could have been one of those people. Sister Parker asked her what she meant. She said she could have been one of those people who committed suicide. She said that when the Mormon Helping hands helped her move, she felt so much better. She said it was so much fun having us help her and it made her so happy, she completely changed. She wasn't depressed anymore. Come to find out that that lady is Jane. She was talking about when we helped her move. I never would have guessed that she was depressed. She was so nice and happy when we saw her. That truly made me realize just how important the work we are doing is. We truly are changing lives. 

Without even sharing a message about Jesus Christ or hope or love or anything, we are still making a difference. It is incredible to see the power of a helping hand. I now realize how important it is for us to be there for someone when they need us. I would hope that you all will look at service differently now. I know I will. You never know what will happen. Jane called us to serve her, the Lord called us to save her. I absolutely know that to be true. Take every opportunity you get to serve the people around you. Be uplifting. Serve with a smile. Go into it expecting to have them walk away feeling over joyed because someone cared enough to lend a hand. If you do this, you will bring peace and joy to people like you never thought you could. The Lord will not only bless those you serve but you as well.

Take care of yourselves and each other. I love you all.

Elder Anderson

Are we ready to do what the Lord asks of us?

Oh my goodness! It has been so cold!  Saturday was less than -40 with the wind chill as was Sunday. We aren't supposed to go out if it's colder than -40. We didn't do anything in the morning but it warmed up to the 30's so we went out and helped people move some stuff. I went outside Saturday morning and my hair froze. Literally frozen with ice in it. We did a stop by where we were in our service clothes and were asking members if they needed help with anything. We got out of the truck and walked to the door. The member wasn't home so we ran back to the truck. We were outside for less than two minutes and we thought we were going to die! It was insane. Luckily it is warmer today. Barely. 

So the craziest thing happened. President called Elder Roper and Elder Madsen. He said an Elder down in Cardston went home early and he needed to replace him. He told Elder Madsen he was going south to replace him and that Elder Roper is now going to join me and Stewart. We are moving into the other Elder's place. They live with a member, but the member is renovating their house so the member doesn't live there right now. It will just be the three of us in their shop. It's pretty cool. The place is really big so it will be nice to now have some room. Brother Baker's place was really cramped but he was awesome and I'm going to miss him. We are pretty excited. We now have two trucks for the three of us. It's crazy. 

Well, as far as the work goes, it's been alright. There is a lady who is a friend of a family in the ward. We met her at the Chili Cook-Off. (By the way we got to be the judges of that. It was pretty awesome, until the next morning). We talked a little with her. She is divorced with a kid. She is super nice and really likes the members. We asked her if we could come by and teach her and she said yes. She is really busy because she is looking for a place to stay but she said she will have us over for tea. That's going to be a little awkward. (For those of you who may not know, Mormons don't drink tea or coffee.) Anyway, we are pretty excited about teaching her. She seems perfect for the church. She recently lost her dad so we might talk a little about the Plan of Salvation with her. We'll see. We don't have an appointment yet but we have her information. Her son is 7. He's pretty cool. 

We had a move this week that was insane. The people called us and said they found a place they can move into and so they needed our help. We showed up not expecting half of what we found. They needed every belonging they had moved. And they didn't pack hardly anything. They didn't take out their drawers in their dressers or anything. It was so crazy. Luckily they had a trailer that we moved everything into to move. Then when we got to the new place, we had to move it in all throughout the house. Upstairs, downstairs, in a room down a hall that is too small. Everything you could think of. It was brutal. We are going back this week to get more stuff out of a storage place and finish. We aren't exactly looking forward to that to say the least. 

Other than that, it's been great. We are still keeping real busy. The Bishop is so awesome. He shot an elk the size of Alaska the other week. He owns a meat shop here in Okotoks so he told us to come by today and get some sausage. He is one of the best cow breeders in the country. He is famous for his beef. It's pretty cool. He gave us some elk pepperoni last night. That was so good. The members we are staying at now have a freezer crammed full of elk and moose and beef and they said we can have all we want. We have elk burgers all the time. It's so good. 

Well I hope all is well back home. I just read about the Strippling Warriors. I think it is amazing how they were prepared to stand up to the challenge that faced them. Their parents made a covenant with the Lord that they would never take up arms again. When the Lamanites were coming to attack them, the young men stood up. I love how they were prepared. Helaman didn't need to send them to boot camp. He didn't need to humble them or anything like that. They were ready to go right then. Because of their preparedness and obedience, the Lord blessed them. They were able to fight against the vicious Lamanites without even one of them dying. When the call came, they were ready. 

Are we ready to do what the Lord asks of us? Are we worthy as priesthood holders to go out and give a blessing to someone? Are you worthy as women to go visit someone in need and testify with the spirit about the gospel and the blessings that come from walking in the footsteps of Christ? Are the young men prepared to go on missions? Are the young women prepared to go to the temple? Are we like the Strippling Warriors, ready to serve our Heavenly Father the moment he calls on us? If not, what do we need to change? We will be blessed for following Christ. We will see the Lord's hand in our lives, just as the Warriors saw it in their lives. I hope we are all preparing ourselves always. No matter where we are in our lives. No matter how well or bad we are doing. We can always become better. We can always improve. Take care of yourselves and the people around you. 

Elder Anderson