THE ONE WERE I WROTE A SONG BUT ITS NOT ABOUT CHRISTMAS (BTW FELIZ CHRISTMAS)

Holaaaaa...okay wow actually a lot happened this week sooooo we had a huge christmas celebración with half the mission...it was literally huge and it was sooooo amazing!! We did a little program with songs and speakers...well i knew i was speaking but i didnt realize i was the first one!!! So that was interesting, but i saw a lot of friends there and it was súper great! This week has also been pretty stressful because we had to go house hunting...we had to find a house in 1 day do that we could be ready to move in by this week...well obviously we arent moving in this week because contracts take a lil bit but we found a really nice apartament so menos mal. Also we did A LOT of caroling...and i mean A LOT lol but it was fun haha cause we did it with service so we did a lot of service this week so that was really awesome! 

Christmas un Uruguay

So way down here in the UY its summer time...so we dont do a lot of things the same...first off christmas eve is called noche buena...and no one does christmas pjs or christmas eve presents...everyone gets together in their huge families and has a huge barbeque...like huge. And everyone stays up instead of going to bed early because at midnight everyone lets off fireworks...so at midnight last night our sky was full of all the colors possible for legit 10 mins straight!! It was awesomeeeeee haga

Alsooooo i wrote a songggg anddddd well its not anything special bc the quality of the phone isnt that good but its not done getting worked on yet anyways haha but when its done a video is comin your wayyyyyy haha

Feliz Christmasssssss!!!!

Hermana Anderson

1. Celebración de Navidad!!!

2. Hermana Fry, Hermana Johnson, Hermana Montaña, mi compa, Hermana Torres, Hermana Smith 

3. Bautismo! 

4. A lil song i wrote.....its a work in progress haha sooooo 

THE ONE ABOUT MY FIRST TIME

Holaaaaaa!!! This week felt so long because it was SO busy haha so first off on tuesday i had an interview with el presidente de la misión and it was súper good...found lut im speaking in front of the whole mission on thursday this week at the Christmas conference sooooo that will be interesting haha and then right after the interview i had to leave to go to Montevideo to finish doing my cédula (im oficially Uruguaya for the next 18 months haha) so that was fun and we stayed in a HOTEL! The hotel was súper lindo and its probs the best shower ive had in my whole mission if im being honest lolllll but yeah i got to see the beach while i was there and that just made me so so happy because I LOVE THE BEACH! Thursday we visited an old folks home and sang christmas songs to them and they loved it...well all except this one little ole lady who told us we were making her head hurt lol...i like to believe she liked it too lol. Friday I had intercambios with hermana johansen (: shes from utah...we literally had nothing planned that day so we just put people down to go visit and i have no idea how it happened but NO ONE WAS HOME lollll so basically we just took an 8 hour walk in the sun knocking doors and talking to the gente, so that was productive, then that night we got on a bus to Montevideo to go to the temple!!!

THE STORY OF MY FIRST TIME

So while we were at the temple it was so fun! We saw the pesebre (im pretty sure its called a nativity in english) and it was so pretty! Ive never seen the pesebre at a temple before! But anyways  while we were waiting to go into the temple i met this family from idaho whos traveling the world to visit all the temples... the Uruguay Montevideo Temple is their 43rd temple in a year!!!! And get this...THEYRE DRIVING THE WHOLE TIME WITH 3 LITTLE KIDS!!! I dont know how they have patience for that lol but it was cool to hear some english after all this time. So this is where the cool part starts...so we got into the temple with our ward and they were like alright are you guys doing baptisms and we were like nah we're just here to help and they were like perfect you guys are going to be TESTIGOS (witnesses)!!!! Yall. I was a witness in the temple for baptisms!! Ive bever even been a witness for a regular baptism but its so cool that my first time was in the temple!!!! At first we were sitting in the witness chairs and waiting for the youth to come out from changing and i was just sitting there looking at the water and i was like wait im literally a lifegaurd again but like in the spiritual sense haha because im literally watching and making sure an ordinance is being done correctly so that someone else can begin receiving their heavenly blessings!! So that was really fun for me and also really special!

Thats about all i have for the week!!! Hope Hall have a good one!

Con amor,

Hermana Anderson 

P.S. if you havent seen it already, this is the Christ Child video...ITS THE BEST ONE THEYVE EVER MADE SO I INVITE ALL OF YOU TO WATCH IT IF YOU HAVENT ALREADY!!!! Its something we've been watching a lot out here and every time it makes me want to cry soooo its worth it!

https://www.churchofjesuschrist.org/study/video/the-christ-child-a-nativity-story/2019-09-0050-the-christ-child-a-nativity-story-lighttheworld-1080p-eng 

1. BUCKET HAT SELFIE

2&3. Temple

4. Pesebre en el templo!!

THE ONE WHERE I CHOKED ON A BUG

This week we had cambiossss and guess what? IM STAYING WITH THE COLOMBIANA!!! Im súper excited tbh haha. I turned 7 months in the mission on saturday and so that was fun! Turns out December 7 is día de las velitas in Colombia so we celebrated my cumplemes with candles like the colombianos and then we put up the cute lil christmas tree my mom sent me and its súper cuteeee and its christmas and i love it haha

One of our goals this cambio is to get up every morning and go running and so weve been doing that and this guy in one of the other wars saw us running and he was like "OIIIII SIIIIIII VAMOS ARRIBA HERMANASSSSSSS" hahaha so that was really funny and really fun and ive started getting back into vertical training so when i go back home i wont have lost all my vertical and yeahhhhh im súper exciteddddd yo keep running cause i like doing that! 

This week Sylvia came to church again and brought PEPE with her!!!! They are progressing SO FAST like its so crazy...every time we have charlas with them theyve read more of the book of mormon than we asked them to and theyre already in 1 nefi 13 after 1 week!!!! Theyre FLYING frfr #milagros 

Really not much else happened this week but funny story: so we were walking to the church the other day to do studies and i had this HUGE sneeze that like almost knocked me over but when i breathed in right before the sneeze a bug flew into my mouth and i started choking and i couldnt breathe for like 30 seconds and my companion was just laughing ar me and the cute old man on the porch where it happened laughed at me too 😂😂😂 and yeah that happened lol but hope everyone has a good week this week!!!

1. Parte de la misión con Benjamin de Hoyos

2&3. Dia de las velitas

4. Its not cold but i just really like my new hat man 😂😂

5. Our cute lil tree

THE ONE WHERE I GOT ORDERED TO MARRY SOMEONE IN THE STREET...

Hola hola gente como están? Este semana fue bien locaso!!! A bunch of crazy things happened haha...so on tuesday we were just working a normal day nothing too exciting, wednesday too, found lots of people to teach and taught a bunch of people too and all the charlas were súper good! Thursday we had a district meeting and another choque de fuerza (where all the missionaries in the zone do contacts in one single area) and literally it was so hot that day and NO ONE OPENED THE DOOR. How does that just happen???? Like we knocked whole entire streets and no one opened the door!! Lets just say it was really sad 😂 also we had our own little thanksgiving where we had rotisary chicken, mashed potatoes, veggies, and stuffing too, fue bien bueno de verdad. On friday we had to get on a bus at 1 a.m. un the morning to go to Montevideo for a multizona conference with Elder Benjamin De Hoyos of the 70!!! Lets just say this man is SUPER CAPO!!! He taught us A LOT of really good things we can use to be better missionaries for the people we teach and it was just súper súper good! Saturday, lets just say this was probs one of the more crazy things thats happened while on my mission, so saturday is a normal day and we're just walking to one of our charlas and this guy comes up behind us and was like "wow you guys are so precious" and kept going and we were like what haha and then like 30 feet in front of us he stops his bike and gets off so we go to start turning a córner we didnt need to take cause we know this cant be good and hes like "Walt can i talk to you guys?" And we're like bueno so we walk to go talk to him and he sits down on this bench and hes like here sit down and we're like Ah nah we're okay standing and hes like okay so then he starts telling us about personal "needs" that were súper pero súper bad...like really bad, and then he goes "i just need a woman to give me what i want" and we were like alright we're gonna go now and he started yelling at us and he was like "YOU" and he pointing at me and hes like "I WANT YOU TO MARRY ME! CAN YOU DO THAT?" and i was like you know im gonna go think about it over there and then we zoomed out because that was not a good situation to be in...im pretty sure he was on drugs or something haha but like...que raro. On sunday we went to church and we were waiting for someone name Martín to come and then this Lady that we had been teaching and the dropped Named Sylvia came walking in and i was SO HAPPY!!! Shd was so cute haha and yesterday we had a charla with her and it was the first charla we've had with her where she actually listened to us teach and didnt talk about random things!!! But yeah yall this was my week haha hope you guys have a good week next week!!

Con amor, hermana Anderson 

1. María Estela!! Súper capa!

2. Sylvia!!!

3. Elder MacDonald's Funeral (cause hes going home, hermana pereira too if you can see her crossing her arm on her chest haha)

4. My first "ice cream" of my mission

5. On the way to Montevideo with hermana johansen hahaha

THE ONE WITH THE FLU X3

Welllll this week was LONG...to say the least haha we had another choque de fuerza which was súper awesome because we got to work with the jóvenes from the other ward! We worked with Laurda and shes literally so cute haha we found this lady who lived by herself and she lost her husband like 8 months ago and cute lil Laurda bore her testimony about the plan of salvation and gave her a book of mormon so she could go visit her again with the elders! Que tierna no? Also this week was the Elder MacDonald's (hos the district leader) birthday and we thought he was turning 20 but actually he was turning 21...oops haha but we all acted like we forgot it was his birthday until after district meeting and he was so happy! 

Alsoooooo this week everyone but me had the flu...bit like it was bad...they all had fevers for like 4 days so we were all in the house and i was just running around trying to keep all their fevers down and like 2 of them dont believe in pills so i ended up staying up for like 3 days changing cold rags and making them eat and drink water even tho they didnt want to and so i havent slept very well because i left having to get up every 45 mins to change cold rags and cook food...i basically played mom again haha i havent played mom since Kathryne!! Then on sunday we all tried going to church and we made it through the first hour and had to go home cause everyone was dying so...we tried haha.

Other than that i dont have a whole lot more to share about the week because i didnt leave haha but i did study a lot and one of the things i did was watch the video with the two brothers who decided to go rock climbing and almost died and i started thinking about that and basically i learned that the Lord always has his hand extended out to each and every one of us and its our job as missionaries to help others reach out their down hands to take his because there is always someone waiting for the  power of his outstretched arms. When we bring others to him and help them understand their purpose in his plan they will start to understand the importance of their eternal now. As missionaries are a light to everyone we meet, its whether or not we are shining that light that matters. We cant expect to spark the spiritual interest of someone if we arent sharing or feeding our down spiritual Fire to start that spark. By living your eternal now in the best way you possibly can, we influencia others to begin living their down eternal now. Haha okay frfr thats all i have to share for now. Thank you for coming to my Ted Talk and ill see you all again next week haha CHAO!!

-Hermana Anderson <3

1. Choque de fuerza

2. Paisaje

3. Preparando para el cumple de elder MacDonald

4. Just a selfie to bless your week

THE ONE WHERE EITHER THE WORLD WAS ENDING OR

This week was goooooooodddddd!! we had another choque de fuerza but this week was in our area and we found a whooollleee bunch of people to teach...but like we went to go visit them and because its hot outside everyone is chillin in the shade and from the people we found but as soon as the people see us walking to their house they grab all the babies and are pulling the younger kids by their hair into their houses so that they dont have to talk to us hahahahahahaaaaaa honestly its sooooooooooo funny but like honestly just tell us your arent interested lolllllll. so that happened but also we have 3 people who want to get baptized!!!! 2 want to get baptized with their cousin on the 21st of december and the other just has to get married y ya!! so thats all exciting!

this week we've been dying of heat...its not even summer yet and im almost as tan as i was when i lifegaurded sooooo yeah its kinda hot but its all good, we're surviving!

cool quote from my studies this week: "i dont see any good reason why the Lord would open doors that we arent prepared to enter" i liked that a lot because its true...as missionaries we are always preparing ourselves to prepare others for the promises of eternal life...so always be preparing because well...fam ya never know what life id gonna be bringing you in the future

love everyone lots...i dont have a looottttt to write about but yeah have a good week

1. Mi compañera y yo en un asado de la zona

2. Paisaje 

3. Familia de Matias 

4. Perritooooo

5. Selfie to bless your week

THE ONE WHERE I GOT STREP THROAT

This week was soooooo long haha but it was good. So what had happened was we did a choque de fuerza in the area of the elders which is basically we just knock doors in their area and help them find people to teach, so we did that and it was super super good found some really good people for them...but then on the way home we almost missed our bus so we had all 16 of us missionaries running to catch a bus and it was super funny tbh but we caught the bus so thats good but when i was sitting on the bus i had the biggest feeling of tiredness ever and i was like well we have 2 hours so im okay to sleep for a bit, so i fell asleep. then when i woke up my throat hurt literally sooooooo so bad so i was like what the heck thats so random cause i didnt feel sick my throat just hurted so i didnt think anything of it, well like 3 hours later it was still hurting super bad and i was not feeling good like at all and so i was like bueno lets take a look, so i look at my tonsils and theyre like covered in white spots and i was like ah, well that explains a lot. so i call the mission nurse and shes like alright go buy these pills and these pills and yeah, i bought them and as of right now im still on antibiotics haha so ive been dealing with no voice and also i got alergies really bad like 2 days ago so i had to go buy more  pills and haha its just a lot but we're all good over here.

as far as the work goes, its good...im beginning to think my purpose here isnt to baptize people... i have 2 baptisms and one of them technically isnt even mine, i think im here to reactivate the inactives because in my time here we've reactivated over 10 people and the ward is bigger than it was when i got here for that so im not mad or stressed that i dont have people to baptise!

that about sums up my week haha love yall

hermana anderson

1. Yudith!!

2. The nice dogos

3. 6 mese!!!

4. Éter 12:12

5. Your weekly blessing of a selfie

THE ONE WHERE WE GOT PLAYED 4 TIMES IN A WEEK

This week...let me just tell yall what happened. Remember last week how we put 3 fechas? Well...they dropped us. They just dropped us like it was nothingggggggg it was kinda like those vines where theyre like "hello darkness my old frienddddddddd" bueno. We moved on. Then the next day we're teaching this guy and hes been kinda playing the missionaries cause we found his registro in the área book and he legit has like 5 pages from 5 different sets of missionaries... every single one of them said he wants to get baptized so we asked him about it and he was like im just scared of god so we were like alright how about you pick the day you want to work towards to get baptized, because well, then hes picking the day he knows he can be ready to get baptized. He pucks a day, we have another fecha...he DROPS US NOT EVEN 12 HOURS LATER. I dont know whats happening to Gianola B haha but lets just say we havent had a baptism in this área since february and uhhhh the goal to chance that isnt going to well right now haha

Good news, im not gonna die this summer! Turns out the rule to wear pants every day was a rule from the last mission president, so this mission president changed it because he was like i dont want you guys suffering (im in the hottest area) he was like you dont have to wear pants every day but when the mosquitos start biting you guys, dont be calling me because you guys now theyre a problem...basically he just said be smart haha like if we have problems with mosquitos obviously we should wear pants but mosquitos dont bite me so im livin for now haha

Familia de Castro: theyre súper súper good!! We started teaching them again because theyre making progress again and also we're teaching some of the friends of the kids!!! Theyre all super super good!! The education here isnt super good so we have to teach them very slowly AMD now they can pray all on their own!!! And one of them knows how to read so they all read the book of mormon together!!! 

We also had stake conference this week! Was súper súper good all about missionary work, and one of the speakers de had lunch with the day before and he started talking about us and we were like uh oh haha and he was going frases from Colombia and he had no iead what he was saying hahahaaaaa we were like ohhhh noooooo hahahaaaaa fue súper mal pero este hombre es un CAPOOOOO!!!!!! 

Anyways this was my week!! Talk to yall next week! 

Hermana Anderson

Picturesssss

1. From last pday

2. Castro's kids drew us pictures

3. The hermanas and a lil niñita

4. Mi compa y yo

5. Weekly selfie (como siempre)

6. Friends of Castro's kids

7. Selfie con kiddos

THE ONE WITH THE MINI PHOTOSHOOT 🙄🙄

Holaaaaaaa!!!! Este semana fue súper bien de verdad!! We did some more service those week for an investigador of the other hermanas in our ward named Pablo and hes súper bueno!! I found a huge four leaf clover in his yard and i was like oooooo today is about to be poppin and guess what happenedddddd, i put 3 baptismal dates!! Then all this week we found súper awesome people to teach! Im súper excited la verdad!! 

Also this week i was in Montevideo! Had to do my cédula, the part where they take your finger prints and your picture and stuff...well my fingerprints...they suck after that service activity with that awful paint that dries your hands super bad and i didnt have good prints para nadaaaaa so i had to reprint like 3 times which apparently required 3 different pictures haha so that was annoying but whatever. On the way home i Sat next to this dude whos a firefighter...but the firefighters have cooler names here haha theyre called bomberos!! 

Alsoooooo good news, im no longer washing my clothes by hand haha we got a washer!! But that means we had to mover the old one out...which was súper heavy and i moved it all by myself which i was proud of myself haha but now all my clothes are cleannnnnn and that means a happy hermana Anderson 

1. Soy moana 

2. Servicio

3. Brenda! 

4. Right after i hit my head cause the secretarys are scary drivers

5. Paisaje!

THE ONE WHERE I KILLED A ROACH 😭😭

Holaaaaaa este semana era muuyyy bien!! Súper ocupado pero súper bien! So we found a butt ton of menos activos this week and theyre all súper súper good like im actually really sad they dont come to church...the best part is, is that theyre incomplete families so possibly we could help the rest of the familia get baptized!! 

Then we had service this week where we painted a high school but the paint here is soooooo weird like it completely destroyed my hands and no ammount of lotion is fixing it and now im super sad about that cause i dont like how my hands feel...they feel like theyre covered in chalk thats how dry they are from this paint stuff and well...its the price of the lords work haha its worth it!

Also i had to kilo a roach 😭😭😭😭😭 so first off...i already hate roaches. But roaches here are a whole new level. Like in the states the roaches are like the video game itself and the roaches here are the extra boss level...like this roach was the size of my hand!!!! Haha lets just say i cried for a while because when i found it i was in the bathroom. I hate roaches.

Also remember the Harry Potter dog? IT freakin got out of its yard and i freaked out and we started running because it was coming at us haha and then this super tiny dog came out of no where and basically committed suicide because it started atacking the big dog and well...poor doggo but basically the church is true and the book is blue haha

Hasta la próxima semana!!

Hermana Anderson 

1. Servicio

2. What we find un fast food restaurants

3. Selfieeee (como siempre)

4. La Riveraaaaa 

5. Me in the areaaa

THE ONE WHERE WE GO TO BRAZIL

Holaaaaaa genteeeeee

This week was super good...rained a lot...but super good!! Like it rained so much that the streets were rivers and  a couple of the houses here were literally trapped by water...like they couldnt go in or out of the house...thats how much water there was sunday haha but its all good now! We have cambios a week early this week and im staying with the colombiana so im super happy about that. 

asloooooooo we went to brazil todayyyyy!!! that was super awesomeeee! i was in 2 countries at once so i have Mexico, Uruguay, and Brazil that ive been to here in the mish ;) not a lot of people can say that! but also because we went to brazil i dont have too much time to write so ill have a better email next week! 

love yall

Hermana Anderson

1. ay man im in brazil

2.rain

3. Selfie

4. More rain

5. Ay man im in 2 countries at once