"...and Elder Nelson will be serving in Harrisburg Walk with Elder Lucio. Now go where you need to go." The missionaries in the transfer meeting began to shuffle where they were assigned. The Zone Leader, Elder Brutinel, finished reading off the list of which missionaries would be going where and who their companions would be. The missionaries were getting together with the new companions that were already in the zone, and those that would be going to Pittsburgh to transfer began moving to their cars. In the midst of all this commotion, hand went up.

 

"Yes, Elder Anderson."

 

"Uhh... Where do I go?"

 

Elder Brutinel took a look at his paper. He looked down at me. He looked at his paper again, and then scratched his head. "That, I do not know."

 

My new companion wouldn't be in my area until 7:30 that night, and I needed something to do for the next 10 hours. After a lot of shuffling, and a lot of waiting, I finally got paired with - guess who - Elder Rowzee. Yep. I went off to work with my old MTC companion out in Hershey, PA. Him and the Elder from the second companionship in Hershey, Elder Kartcher, and I went out to visit their investigators. Our first visit was to Bonnie and Tom.

 

Bonnie is a recent convert who literally has a billion cats. Okay, not quite a billion. But I swear, those cats come out of everywhere! As we were talking to them, the point came up that Tom, who usually comes to church, made it in two weeks. After a little bit of prodding, we found out that the concern was with Bonnie. "It's my cats," she said, "I'm worried about them! They're like my children! I'm worried that my house is going to catch on fire, or somebody's going to break in an hurt my cats. I need somebody to watch over them while I'm away." Yep. She really loves her cats. After a little bit of counsel, she told us she would pray about it.

 

Also, I do need to make a small confession. While we were in Hershey, we had dinner at one of the members there. We sat down at the table, and our hostess comes out with some kind of brown drink. "It's lemonade mixed with ginger ale!" she assured us. We all filled our glasses and took big drinks - I drank mine all the way down. Pretty soon, the pitcher was empty, so our gracious hostess took it back to make some more. A few minutes later, she came back out, frowning, with the bottle of lemonade mix. "Uh oh," she said, and then read the label out loud: "Green Tea Lemonade." Our jaws dropped. She just filled our glasses with regular ginger ale after that.

 

That night, I got back to Harrisburg to pick up my new companion. There he was, sitting outside the church... next to a brand new Toyota Corolla. That's right! I got a new companion and an new car, and can I say, driving it is most choice!

 

But that's beside the point. My new companion is named Elder Blake. He's been out for about 6 months now, is originally from Las Vegas, Nevada (sin city itself!), and is a super great missionary. He really knows his stuff and I definitely have a lot to learn from him. Things should definitely be improving in the area with him here.

 

Just so everyone knows, Maria is doing much better. She still has a long way to go, but is definitely improving. Thank you so much for your prayers on her behalf. I know that they make a difference.

 

I'll be sure to share many more stories and experiences next week. But for now, I'll just leave you with something that I learned this week. Prayer makes all the difference. There are some times when I am in a situation where I know that I am supposed to be feeling the spirit, but for whatever reason, I'm not feeling it. But the moment I begin to pray, the spirit fills my heart and I can feel that when I testify, the spirit bears witness to those around me. That is why, as missionaries, we are encouraged to be praying whenever our companions are teaching. That way, we will always be bringing ourselves in line with God's will and will always have the spirit with us. It just adds so much more meaning to the words "So, when life gets dark and dreary Don't forget to pray!" And Christ always said "Ask, and ye shall receive." I know that promise is true.

 

Take care, everyone. Be good!

Love,

Elder Anderson, AKA Missionary Slim