La Semana Santa

Alright, so first off, I'm ticked. Royally ticked, and I'm about to tell you why. This week was the week before Easter, and here they call it "Semana Santa" or "Holy Week" pretty awesome right? Yeah, not quite. Basically, religion here is just such a cultural thing that it doesn't mean a whole lot to most people. Easter Sunday, for example. A great time to go to church with your family, and remember Jesus Christ. Well, our church attendance bombed yesterday. Practically nobody came. And on Friday, the day in which Jesus Christ was crucified and died for all of us. Yeah, they pass the day doing exactly what Jesus doesn't want them to do... Drinking. SO MUCH DRINKING. Which means a lot of cat calls from the girls. And also talking with a few drunks. Oh, and they don´t eat meat all week. Just fish. So basically just a bunch of apostasy. Aaaahh. What can you do, right? Just gotta keep teaching, and hope that they learn!

This week had some redeemable qualities however. One of them being that my new comp is awesome! He's from Brasil, and I'm trying to learn a little bit of portugese from him! He's a really fun guy, and he'll be a great Branch President here. Also, we had 21 lessons with members this week, which is a personal record, so we work pretty well together!

Anyway, that's about it for this week. Givelord and Millord are still progressing. And I think they'll both be baptized next week. And we've got 4 more that are also progressing right now. Life is good, even though sometimes people are frustrating. Part of the mission is learning to love the people, and sometimes it's easy, but other times, you've got to have some heavenly help :) Have a great week! Love you!

--

Love, Elder Anderson

New Branch President, Same Pueblo

Ke Lo Ke familia!!!! I can´t believe it´s already Monday again. The weeks are flying by here in Neyba, and it looks like I´ll have a fourth transfer here! This could be my last transfer here, but then again, it might not be. I´ve heard that since President and Sister Nuckols are leaving, and President and SIster de los Santos are coming in June, that the next transfer will only be 3 weeks long, and that the transfer after will be 9 weeks. So we´ll see how long I stay for. All I know is that I want to stay as long as possible because I love Neyba. I just got a new companion though! His name is Elder Souza, and he´s from Brazil, so I´ll be learning some Portugese this next transfer! He was my zone leader, but our zone is HUGE as far as distance goes (the smallest as far as population of missionaries) so I never met him before, but he´s a cool dude! Also, he´s the new Branch President here, but since I already know how to do the Branch President stuff, it´s my job to teach him, and show him the ropes, which is super wierd, but kind of fun!

The rest of the week was really good! I went on divisions in Duvergé again, and we talked with this SUPER rich family that lives there, and have always been pretty good friends of the missionaries (they´re catholic by tradition, and aren´t interested in converting) but we were trying to get a job for a future missionary in Duvergé at the dude´s business. We talked with them for a while, and honestly it was SO enjoyable.

Also during the week, a member came to the house and took back all of the dishes that were his that I guess he had lent to us... And we were left with just about nothing. I didn´t even have a pan to boil water in. And we had 1 fork. Just one... So I called the mission office, and they approved for us to buy some new dishes for the house, so now we have a pot, some plates, and 4 forks! haha, the only problem is that we haven´t had water since Tuesday night, so now all of our new dishes are sitting in the sink, unwashed, and we don´t have anything clean. What a joy, right! 

Investigator report: I got Books of Mormon in Creole for Givelord and his brother Millord and Millord is almost done with 2nd Nephi, and it´s been about a week and a half! Those two are gold! Also, we had 2 baptisms planned for this past Sunday, but we postponed them due to the fact that one of them didn´t have very many times in a row coming to church, and I´m not going to baptize a less active, and the other told us that she REALLY likes coffee, and she had a hard time understanding why we can´t drink it. So those two will come along I think, they just need a little more time. I feel really good about having them wait though. This country has such a bad problem with less-active and Inactive members, and I´m not going to add to it. I´d rather have zero baptisms, and have my investigators be baptized when they´re ready by the next missionaries that come, than to baptized a hundred people, and have them all go inactive.

That´s why before I baptize someone, I like to read Mosiah 4-5 with them, which talks about the peoples reaction after King Benjamin speaks to them, and the results of their changed hearts. When Elder Andersen of the Quorum of the twelve was here, he told us that before baptism, every investigator needs to have two things:
1. A love for the book of Mormon
2. A personal experience of repentance with the Lord 

I realized that those are also the two of the things that we need if we are to becomemore converted ourselves. But one of my favorite parts of Mosiah 5 is verse 7, that says:

7 And now, because of the covenant which ye have made ye shall be called the children of Christ, his sons, and his daughters; for behold, this day he hath spiritually begotten you; for ye say that your hearts are changed through faith on his name; therefore, ye are born of him and have become his sons and his daughters.

Basically, when we are "Born again" (Baptized) we are becoming sons and daughters of Jesus Christ, and how do we do that? With a change of heart (Repentance), through Faith on his name.

It´s a pretty cool theme, and I really love studying all the connections through the 5 points of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Anyway, that was my week, and I hope you all have a great week as well. ¡Les Amo!

--

Love, Elder Anderson

Conferencia General

Wow. Conference was sooooo goooooood! And it was even more incredible because I got a sick hookup with a laptop, so we watched it in English :) I especially loved Elder Hollands talk about the music of life, and having sunshine in your soul. In the priesthood session, I loved Elder Bednar´s talk about being called to serve, and being assigned to labor, and I also loved President Uchtdorf´s talk about the most important calling in the church being the one you currently hold. And I especially loved Elder Joaquin E. Costa´s talk, because I felt like he was talking right to the investigators there, and it was super good! Seriously though, I absolutely love general conference, and I always feel spiritually lifted afterwards.

The rest of the week was pretty good, we´re still teaching Givelord and his brother, and they both came to ALL of the sessions of general conference. ALL OF THEM. AS INVESTIGATORS. I was so impressed. I was talking to Givelord the other day though, and come to find out, he doesn´t have his papers to be in the country. Which made me so sad, because 1. If you don´t have papers here, the only work you can find is construction, or like working on a farm, and neither of those is lucrative, or reliable. He gets work like, 3 times a week at most, and gets paid 300 pesos (6 dollars) a day at most. I don´t know how he survives. and 2. He has a girlfriend that he lives with, but there´s no way to get them married if they aren´t citizens. So my heart was broken for him, because I want him to have this gospel so bad, and he wants it too. So one night, I was thinking about his situation, and I just prayed with all of my heart. Pleading with God that he might provide a way for Givelord to be able to be baptized. I had no idea if it was even possible, but I decided to put my trust in The Lord.

The next night, we had an activity in the church, and I was talking with Givelord, and out of the blue, he told me that he was going to break up with his girlfriend. He was like: "I know that if I have a wife, that I need to get married, and I´m not ready to get married" He also said that part of the reason was because his girlfriend doesn´t want to come to church, and he wants to follow Jesus. I was kind of surprised, but I told him that he should pray about it, and do whatever God tells him to do. Honestly, that was the most surprising way I´ve seen a prayer answered. I did not expect that to be the answer, but hey, it´s a solution. We´ll see what happens, but I know that if we trust the Lord, everything will work out. One of the scriptures I love to share with people, especially when we start talking to them about ideas that are a little different from what they´ve always thought about christianity is Proverbs 3:5-6 

5  Trust in the Lord with all thine heart; and lean not unto thine own understanding.6 In all thy ways acknowledge him, and he shall direct thy paths.

Sometimes things don´t go exactly as we think they´ll go, but things will always be okay if we trust in the Lord. I believe that with all my heart. I love you all, and I hope you have a great week!

-- 

Love, Elder Anderson

Water's Back! Maybe...

So, we finally got our water back, and I think that this time, it´s for good!  Well, I thought it was permanent, but then this morning I woke up, and turned on the sink to brush my teeth, and I about lost my mind because the water was gone. But! It just came back about an hour ago, so we´re good! Haha, this week was actually a surprise because of the amount of water we had in the form of precipitation. To give you some background, the past 3 and a half months that I´ve been in Neyba, the most rain I´ve seen is 5 minutes of sprinkling, and that happened twice. But the past week, it rained HARD for like, 3 days in a row. It was a really awesome change, but rain is the most effective way to clear a Dominican street in like 10 seconds or less. Everyone says that rain makes them sick, and they put plastic bags on their head because if the rain touches your hair, that´s what causes sickness. I don´t understand, and I´ve gotten tired of asking questions, because no one really has any good answers for me.

This week, I actually had a super cool lesson. It all started a couple weeks ago, when I was walking to the chapel with my roommate Elder Tuddenham, and some Haitians were building a house, and one called over to us in English and said "I need Jesus in my life!" At first, I thought it was just someone heckling us, because all the time people are saying things in the street like "Quieres Café?" (Do you want coffee?) or people that don´t think that we believe in God will sarcastically tell us God Bless, and almost any occasion when someone tries to speak English. So this dude calls us over, and we say hi, and he says "I need Jesus in my life, and I was wondering if you guys can help me with that?" So I told him, "Yeah, we can help you with that!" Then he said "Also, I want to get baptized. Can you guys help me with that too?" And I said "Yes, we can help you with that too!" Haha, so, we talked with him, and I gave him a Spanish pamphlet, but he told us that he doesn't speak Spanish yet, and so I told him that we´d stop by his house sometime and bring him one in Creole.

So this week, my comp and I started teaching him, and this guy is AWESOME! His name is GiveLord. Yup. GiveLord, and he´s from the other side of the border. He lives here with his wife and brother. He speaks Creole, French, and English, but not Spanish; and his wife and brother speak Creole, French, and Spanish, but not English. So we´ve been teaching GiveLord in English, and it is so weird! It just doesn´t really feel as natural to talk about the gospel in English anymore. Even Praying in English is weird, and I always have Spanish words coming to mind instead of English ones! My comp speaks a little English, but not a ton, and his accent is pretty thick, so I do the majority of teaching with him.  When his brother is there. I teach in English, and then my comp teaches his brother the same thing in Spanish, and we´re talking about a pamphlet that´s in Creole, and sometimes Givelord and his brother talk in Creole, so we are having Trilingual lessons over here! They are really awesome though, and I can see them progressing really well. 

Something surprising that I´ve gained here, is a love for the Haitian people. Obviously this doesn´t apply to everyone, and there are many exceptions, but a lot of Dominicans I´ve met are fairly impatient, brash, and prideful. In contrast, almost all of the Haitians I´ve talked to are extremely kind, humble, and just wonderful people. There´s a lot of stigma in this country about the Haitians, and I´ve had to give a few boches (a boche is like a stern talking to, or a chastisement) to some Dominicans who have said racist remarks that I disagree with about Hatians. Yes, there are some people in Haiti who practice voodoo and witchcraft and there have been stories of cannibalism, but you can´t judge an entire race, culture, or country, based on the actions of a few people. (As a side note, I think that´s a huge problem we´re seeing in America with Islam) All in all, I love Dominicans, and I love Haitians, and I think that some people here need to cut Hatians a break, because there are some good people over there.

Other than that, we had our Branch Conference this week, and I thought that it went really well. It was hard to count everyone at church on Sunday, which is always a good sign! Also, I am SO pumped for General Conference. I´ve been pretty thrifty with my money so that I can buy the colmado out of every snack it has while the two other American Elders and I watch conference in my office. (I´ve got an air conditioner in there) haha, not to mention how excited I am to hear the words of the living prophets. 

Conference is always great, and I´ve gained a newfound love for it, in addition to everything else gospel related on my mission. 

Anyway, I hope you all have a great week, and that you all know how much I love you! 

If you want to know what every single Evangelical churchgoer says when we talk to them, just look up 2 Nefi 29:3. Lol.

--

Love, Elder Anderson

No Water, No Problem

The heading of this letter is a lie. Not having water is actually a huge problem for us here. This week, we were without water for three days. Had it again for two days, and then lost it again. It´s so true that you don´t really know what you´ve got until it´s gone. When you don´t have water you can´t: Shower, wash dishes, use the bathroom, get a haircut (because you´d have to shower), wash clothes, brush your teeth, mop the floor, or wash your hands. A few of the things (like brushing our teeth, and washing hands) we just use our jugs of drinking water for, and as for going to the bathroom, we just have to hold it until we go to the chapel. Oh well though! There´s not really anything we can do about it right now, so we have to just keep working, and then check if there´s water yet when we come home. 

This week wasn´t entirely uneventful, we went to Galvan, which is a little pueblito about a 25 minute guagua ride from Neyba. We have 1 active member from there, and she gave us a couple of references, so we went to go meet them and start teaching them. So, we started teaching this one lady. We start with a prayer, and we start talking about who Jesus was and what he did. Suddenly, she excused herself to talk with some girl (we were teaching outside on the street) and all of the sudden, the two girls (the one we were teaching, and the one who she was talking with) started to fight. Not just a small fight either! These were pretty big girls, and they were pulling hair, and one of them slammed the other down on the hood of a car! About 5 seconds later, there were about 30 people around, trying to pull the two girls apart. 30 seconds later, the crowd got them apart, and the two began yelling at each other. Needless to say, we didn´t end up finishing that lesson!

I asked my comp if I could give a talk on Sunday about the pioneers, because nobody seems to know who they are, so I did, and I thought it went really well. I think it´s so important for everyone to learn about the history of the church, and a huge part of that is the pioneers. Even though nobody here is related to them, I explained that it´s a shared heritage of everyone who is a member, and that they can follow the example by being pioneers in here in Neyba. We have quite a few pioneers here in Neyba. We´re preparing the branches first group of missionaries ever. The first missionary left about a month before I came to Neyba, and we have about 6 youth that are going to leave within the next year. I´m excited for all of them!

It was a crazy week, but a good one. I´m so glad to be serving here in Neyba, and in the Dominican Republic. There are some good people here who have desires to change, and I´m trying to find and help those people. I love you all, and I wish you a great week!

--

Love, Elder Anderson

Pretty Neat Week

I had a good week here in Neyba! On Wednesday we had our district meeting, and afterwards, I went on splits with Elder Mayhew in Duvergé. You guys actually met Elder Mayhew at the airport, when you gave him the letters you had for me. 
He´s a way cool guy, and he works hard, so we went to Duvergé, and contacted for about 6 hours straight! It was pretty fun though. I always like contacting, because you always get to meet a few crazies, and I think almost all of the crazy mission stories come from contacting! Then when Elder Mayhew and I got to his apartment, we got ourselves a pizza (not quite as good as Little Caesar´s, but the best pizza I´ve ever had in this country), and we reflected on how crazy the difference was between when we contacted in the CCM, and now that we´ve had a bit of experience out here. I´ll tell you what, the difference is HUGE! There were moments when I thought I´d never learn the language, but everything comes with work, time, and the Lord´s help.

Later in the week, we ran into this preacher/pastor that lives next to our chapel, and he started asking questions about Joseph Smith, and the Book of Mormon, so later on in the week, we swung by to answer some of his questions. We  decided to give him lesson one so that we could answer his questions, but we never even ended up getting past the first 2 pages of the pamphlet. We basically had a bible bash that wasn´t really a bible bash with him. We started talking about prophets, and then he would ask what we thought a prophet was, who were some examples of prophets, and he´d explain to us that moses was a prophet, and did lots of stuff, and we´d be like: "yeah, we know that, but let´s get back on subject", and he´d be like "oh yeah, sorry" and we´d explain a tiny bit more, and then he´d cut in again. It ended up being an alright lesson, but he got hung up on a bunch of things, so we´ll see how it goes with him. I think he just invited us over to try to prove us wrong or something, but it´s not a huge deal, because he didn´t know a TON of what he was talking about. As the dominicans say, he told us a lot of "pura vaina".

Then, on Saturday we had our baptism! It was kind of funny, because she decided to ask Elder Capellan (the other Elder in our district) to baptize her. Oh well! It doesn´t really matter who performs the ordinance, what matters is by what authority it's performed.  It was really neat, and I´m really happy for her! Also, this week we had "El Domingo de Invitados" (Sunday of invites) and it went REALLY well! We normally have about 90 people maximum in our ward, but yesterday we had 138 people! It was great, and I think that a lot of those people are some great future investigators! The only problem yesterday, is that we had 3 talks, and two of them went for about half an hour each, a choir number, the sacrament for 138 people, with only 3 trays, and 4 confirmations, AND we started sacrament meeting a little late, so instead of ending at 10:00, we ended at about 11:00. Haha, yeah... I just hope we didn´t scare people away from ever coming back to another sacrament meeting. 

But yeah! That was my week! It was a success, and we worked hard! There´s nowhere I´d rather be than right here in Neyba York. It´s been interesting for me in the mission because I always thought I knew everything about the gospel, until I had to teach it. And do it all in another language. I´ll tell you one thing, I have learned a LOT, and I´ve still got a long way to go, but one thing I really enjoyed finding this week was the way Moroni explains the gospel of Christ, and the connections between all of the principle in Moroni 8:25-26. It was a lot of fun to look through that, and figure out when he´s talking about which principle. I´d highly reccomend a mini study of those two verses. 

Anyway, thanks for reading, and thanks for being the best family in the world. I love you guys so much, and I hope your week is incredible!

--

Love, Elder Anderson

Every Day is a Surprise

Dear Mom,

 First of all, I am so glad to hear about the results of everything back home, it sounds like everyone did really well in all of their various activities, and I'm so happy to hear about everyone's success!

As far as my week, it was good! We're finishing up teaching Joanna right now, so we'll have her baptism on Saturday! We're also working with a few news that we have right now, and I think this week, we're probably going to have to do a bit of an investigator purge, and weed out those who aren't progressing at all. Now that I´ve seen the beginning to baptism process of a few converts, I want to start working more efficiently with those who actually have the desire to learn and progress. A problem that we run into a lot is people here prefer to let you into their house and "listen" to your message than to refuse us altogether. So sometimes, it's hard not to waste your time with some people.

Well, one surprise that we ran into this week was the following: We were at the chapel Saturday morning, reviewing the calendar for March, and we were about to leave for an appointment we had with the Mother of a member of the branch. We had taught this lady once before, and she's pretty old, and blind, but we were planning on bringing the Book of Mormon on audio disc, so that she could listen to it. Well, the appointment was at 11:30, and just as we were about to leave, we got a call from one of her neighbors telling us that she had died. So that was definitely the saddest way I've had one of my appointments fall through. 

That was the sad part of our week, but the rest of it was actually really good. I feel good about the work that we did, and I can't wait to continue working with the branch, and the investigators that we have here!

To answer your question mom, we got one new elder in our house this transfer. His name is Elder Tuddenham, and not a single person here can pronounce his name even close to what it is. He's A cool guy, and he's from Utah as well (from Wasatch). Also, in our district we got an Elder from my MTC group. Elder Mayhew. He was one of my good friends from the MTC, so I'm really pumped to have him here with us!

But that´s about it for my week! It had some ups and downs, but things always have a way of evening out on the upside! I love it here in Neyba, which is too bad, because I don´t know how I´m gonna get a better area after this one! Haha, love you, and I hope everyone has an incredible semana!

--

Love, Élder Anderson