Hello Everyone!

Well hello everyone! New transfer, and I am stoked. I have a new companion from Idaho. He has about 16 months in the mission, and is known for being a hard worker. I am way excited to get down to work with him. Though...he is a BYU fan, and you all know what that means to me. haha. As for my other companion, Elder Aldridge, he is on his way to Alaska. Jumping from over 100 degrees here, to far below zero there. I do not envy that of him. As far as the packages that you sent for the Christmas season...I have kind of lost hope that I will receive them. I do not have them as of yet.This week was fun, and eventful. We ate pigs head for lunch on Sunday, and that was alright. There was a lot of fat surprisingly. I really thought it would be hard to have meat, let alone fat...but it was there. Yummy! Then, me and the Hermana Zwanger had an ice cream eating contest. It was awesome, we were egging each other on and taunting each other. I have a video, and I will try to send it to you at some point. We will have to see. As for some of the work, A man named Ángel is getting into the church swing. Kind of funny because his wife told us that he would never listen to us, and now he is asking questions, and has been to church like 5 or 6 times. But, there is a catch. He is not married to her. This is a common situation here, and we are always working with people who are living together. And they always seem to doubt, but we all know that it is a blessing for them, so we keep pushing for it. Something that has really been pushing me in the work lately, and been helping me to be more successful, and to not fear talking to people, is a simple phrase, ¨Its just the truth¨. We are just offering people the truth. So, we have been walking through stores, and stopping people in the street, and we have been finding many more people that are interested. Also, when we teach people, we do not teach them lessons and principles...we just explain them the truth. A lot of times you will find it easier to try to pad tough principles. But as we learn from so many examples in the scriptures, and modern day prophets- the spirit testifies of truth. And if you have the spirit with you, the spirit will do the testifying. Its not the missionaries doing the work-we just have to keep ourselves in shape so that the spirit can be with us. I am loving the mission right now, and I am amazed how fast time is blowing by. I remember it just like yesterday when I thought it was crazy I was six months in. Now I am closing in on 8 months...a third of my mission is done. It goes so fast. Really does. Thank you so much for all the support and the love.

Your in my prayers,

Elder Andersen