February 25, 2013

Missionary Slim wonders, " Mama Mia, that's alotta Pasta! ", in his best mafia style voice. (Week 55 in Pennsylvania, Week 19 in Washington, PA)


I hope yinz aren't tired and bored of hearing all the food stories. 'Coz here's another one.

Monday, in honor of the break up of our wonderful companionship, I made spaghetti for my two soon-to-be-ex companions. It was delicious, with beef, onions, garlic, green peppers, lots of spices, and of course, cheese. It was to die for (at least, as far as spaghetti goes).

That evening, we were going to dinner with Dolores, a wonderful recent convert with a heart as big as the world. She enjoys church, being a lunch lady (and she loves her kids) and babysitting a little less-than one year old. Yep, she's a gem. Well, we get over there, and she has the entire table set. It looks wonderful. She was in the corner stirring something. And then, she brings it over.

Spaghetti. 

It was good spaghetti. Really good. But twice in one day? That was a little much.

Thursday, we had dinner with Lisa. Lisa is not a member, but she's been with the Mormons for ages. She's wonderful as well, and loves feeding the missionaries because "If I had one of my boys out there, I'd want somebody feeding them" and "I love to cook for whoever loves to eat, and I haven't met a Mormon yet who doesn't like to eat." (Also, "If I were to become a polygamist, I'd be the cooking wife") Anyway, she always feeds us something good. This time was no exception.

Spaghetti.

Granted, it was spaghetti with meatballs, sausage, and ground venison, but the pasta was pretty much the same as usual.

Friday, we had dinner with Sister Brown, a slightly eccentric member of the ward who lives about as far away from town as you can get. After a long drive, we come in to smell garlic roasting in the oven, and in a bowl on the counter...

Spaghetti.

Sunday we go over to Brother Britten's home, a VERY eccentric member of the ward who love to crochet (he's right now working on making temple altar cloths. His work is very fine) As usual, he had arrayed a very large (VERY large) assortment of goodies (chocolates, cakes, candies, cookies, nutter butters) surrounding the main dish, which was...

You guessed it.

Spaghetti.

Please..... No more. Not for another week or so.

We had a very exciting visit with Sean Southern and family. Becky, the mom, is really excited about joining the church, but their daughter, Mary Faith, is SUPER excited. We came over on Tuesday and she gave us a big card that read "THANK YOU FOR TEACHING ME ABOUT HEAVENLY FATHER AND BAPTISM!" And, if you couldn't tell, those were in big letters. It was adorable. It warmed my heart to the brim.

Oh, and speaking of which, I did get myself my new companion. His name is Elder Swanson. He's a native of good ol' Sin City, and has been on the mission for around 7.5 months. He's a dandy fellow, a right jolly old elf, a man of few words, and when spoken, they sound like a down pillow. 

That is to say, he's a soft-spoken individual, but generally very happy and content. I think we'll get along just fine.

We had a cool visit with an investigator named Aja. She's single, has a young daughter, and has had very little church in her life. So much so that she doesn't even know if there is a god, or if Jesus really did anything for her. She prayed for the first time a few weeks ago (which was an awesome thing to witness, how sincere and honest it was), and we just taught her about baptism this week. We invited her to be baptized, and her response was so good. She sat for a moment, got a little nervous, and said,

"When?"

She was a little scared because she still hasn't gotten an answer about the Book of Mormon or anything. She's just barely getting into the Gospel at all. Even still she exercised her faith and said that when she comes to find out that the things we teach are true, then she'll be baptized. That was about the best answer I could get.

One more thing:



Yep! You didn't even realize it, but I went all the way to Pleasant Grove and back this week! And I did it in a day!

"But wait," you ask, "Where are the mountains?"  "What  mountains? Pennsylvania doesn't have mountains." That's right, this past week I found myself in Pleasant Grove, PA, the ironically named town here in Washington Co. It's a dainty little village  with very few inhabitants. It doesn't even have a Purple Turtle! But as soon as I saw it on the map, I decided I needed to go there and make pilgrimage, and finally got the opportunity this week.

And for those of you still scratching your heads, wondering why I even care about Pleasant Grove, PA, my home town is also named Pleasant Grove, in Utah. As for the Purple Turtle, you'll have to figure that one out yourself!

Take care, and remember: "The hardest choices in life are best answered before the question is asked."

Love,
Elder Alex Anderson, AKA Missionary Slim

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February 18, 2013

Missionary Slim celebrates Singles Awareness Day (Week 54 in Pennsylvania, Week 18 in Washington, PA)


Happy Singles Awareness Day, everybody!



That cupcake was given to me by Donna, Brian's mom. We came over on the 14th to teach a lesson. I've always had this intense desire to teach the law of chastity on Valentines day (because I'm an incredibly ironic person), and nearly got the chance last year, but plans changed and we taught tithing instead. Well, this year, we finally managed to do it! I was so happy.

It actually was a really spiritual lesson. We started by reading the family proclamation, which Brian and Donna both loved. Then we got into the nitty-gritty (Our bodies are temples, we are bought with a price, etc.) and then moved into temples and eternal families, which is the main reason Brian got baptized in the first place. Donna was a little skeptical of eternal families, but made a pact with me that when she gets to the other side, she'll be sure to let me know if there are eternal families or not. 

As promised, I have to include a little segment about Sister Stroop. Sister Stroop is a less-active member here in Washington. And she's a little bit on the crazy side. I accidentally mentioned to her about my blog, which she went crazy over ("Have you said anything about me?" "No, I haven't." "Well, you had better!") So here's her shout-out.

Sister Stroop  fits into a really interesting niche in the church. She's a super liberal feminist who is skeptical of God and religion in general. She's fascinated with politics and deep-doctrines (and loves to say "Outer Darkness" the way that Yoda would.) She really is a super sweet lady, though. She wants to learn and gain a testimony, she loves her family, she works as a care giver for children - she's just the bomb! 

Sister Southern has been getting on our case about her son and his family. They are all less-active, the mom, Becky, isn't a member. But they love the church, and their daughter, Mary Faith , is incredibly anxious to be baptized. Sis. Southern has been asking us to visit them for weeks, but the sheer distance makes it a little bit difficult. Eventually, we got the home teacher of that family to take us to visit with them. What a visit it was. Sean, Sis. Southern's son, started by going on about how life is getting tough, how the end of times seems to be getting closer, but as we brought the gospel into the conversation, the spirit began to fill the room. We started talking about the Book of Mormon, and eventually, Mary Faith announced yet again how she wants to be baptized. As a surprise to me, Becky chimed in the same way - she wants to be baptized too. All three of us were thrilled! It was such exciting news! Sean promised to get his family to church every week so he could possibly be ready to baptize his wife. And sure enough, they all showed up.

I was a little worried I wouldn't have any part of any of it though. Transfers are tomorrow. We got the call on Saturday and sure enough... I'm staying! I couldn't be more pleased! Both of my companions will be transferred though. I'm sad to see them go, but I'm ready for a change. This will probably be the longest I will be in an area for the rest of my mission. Good thing I love this area.

The gospel is certainly true. It changes us, transforms us, and makes us into who we need to be. I'm so grateful that I, like Mormon, can be "a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people, that they might have everlasting life." (3 Nephi 5:13)

Love,
Elder Alex Anderson, AKA Missionary Slim
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February 11, 2013

Missionary Slim has a pregnant pause or maybe he has just adopted a new missionary (Week 53 in Pennsylvania, Week 17 in Washington, PA)


I had some news to announce at the baptism last week. Elder Colvin and I went up to our Ward Mission Leader, Brother Anderson, and told him "Brother Anderson... We're pregnant!" He about fell over laughing. We explained that the mission president called us earlier during the week to tell us that a missionary who had to go home for knee surgery is coming back, and since we had three beds, he is going to stay with us. So it's more of an adoption than anything. 

We picked up Elder Fairbourn, native of Logan Utah, Friday evening. Actually, he was more dropped off than anything. We were over at Brian and Katrina's house when the Assistants to the President showed up with the brand new elder. We got introduced and everything, and then got right into the lesson.

We've been working with Brian's mom, Donna, for a few weeks now. Ever since her son was baptized, she has been interested in learning more about the Gospel and church. We've been curious, though, for the past couple of weeks at how sincere she really was. After talking to Katrina earlier in the week, we decided we were going to really get down to brass tacks, be straight-up and blunt as possible without detracting from the spirit, and find out her real intentions. Sometimes you have to do that with investigators when they appear to not be going anywhere.

What we found was a big relief. Her answer was simple, but had a world of answers: "You know, it takes an old dog a long time to learn new tricks." When she said that, I knew she intended to stick with it. She just needed time to adjust and understand all the ins and outs of this Gospel. But, with time, she'll come around.

I did a lot of exchanges this week. First, I was with my Zone Leader, and then another missionary in my district came to my area. Exchanges are always interesting, because you get to see the personality and teaching style of missionaries you may never have worked with before. It's always good to get new insights into missionary work.

Oh, and you have crazy experiences with members of other wards. I was driven around all over Wheeling, West Virginia by a guy with only one arm and a lot of attitude. Let me tell you, it was harrowing and gave me yet another testimony of the power of prayer.

With the other missionary, Elder Henriksen, we had a lesson with Dan. Dan has been learning with us for nearly 12 weeks now, but hasn't come to church once - he works way too much. He's been trying to get work off, but has had no luck. Our lesson, which we planned to be on Tithing, ended up being about keeping away from the territory of the Devil and coming over to the Lord's side of the line. During the lesson, Dan kept making comments like "I really should delete my bookmarks to those websites I shouldn't be going to." or "I should get rid of my pirated stuff." We pointed out right away that the Spirit was telling him to do those things. I was impressed at how sensitive he was to that stuff.

Two days later, we got a call from him. He said "I was reading the Book of Mormon, and I have a question." He got to Nephi's dream about the promised land, and all the things that would happen here in the last days, and was confirming his theories. For example, the mother gentiles is Great Britain, the war was the Revolutionary war, stuff like that. He pinned down all of it, without error. I even asked him if he looked at a Book of Mormon commentary or something to get all those answers, which he didn't. Then he told us that he actually did delete those bad things on his computer and has even quit drinking beer. Wow. Talk about making changes. He's a stud.

Isaiah had a good week of missionary work. After a lot of pressure, he finally convinced his sister to come to church. She seemed pretty wary as she stepped into the chapel right before the sacrament, but as time went on, she seemed to soften up a bit. During Sunday School, she even commented "This is exactly what I needed to hear for this next week!" We stopped by later, and Isaiah said she wanted to keep on coming, except she wanted to go to the ward in Pittsburgh where she lives. We got her the info. Hopefully, she follows through. Isaiah is a super-star. He's got it rough, because he can't get baptized for at least a couple of months because of probation, and he's having a rough time quitting cigarettes because of the constant peer-pressure around him. He's trying his hardest, though, and to me, that makes all the difference in the world.

That's about it!
Love,
Elder Alex Anderson, AKA Missionary Slim
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February 4, 2013

Missionary Slim almost makes amends this week with a longer blog entry (Week 52 in Pennsylvania, Week 16 in Washington, PA)


I beg the pardon and forgiveness of everyone. Not writing for this blog last week was an unexplainable and inexcusable act, and I apologize, most sincerely. 

With that having been said, the past few weeks have been pretty excellent. Looking back, I can't believe how much has happened in these two, short weeks. I have a few interesting experiences that will highlight.

You know those random times when, for some reason, you are in the right place at the right time? Well, that happens quite a bit for me. I was on exchange with another missionary and we took it upon ourselves to knock every door of an apartment building. It was only three stories, so it actually wasn't as big a task as I make it out to be. And, as can be expected, we got just about the same response at every door. "Not interested." "We don't believe in God!" or "I'm already a member. Go away!" (Actually, she was really a member - she just really didn't want visitors) We continued until we got to the very last door. After the gentle knock, a voice came from within: "Come in." I looked at my temporary companion (he is one of the few missionaries who I actually look up to - he stands at a good 6'5" - he's a big boy!) shrugged and turned the knob. We cautiously walked in. A woman was listening to heartthrob country music in a recliner eating a bagel. Oh, and she was crying uncontrollably. She managed to subdue the tears and told us "Sorry, I would have gotten up to get the door, but my brother died two hours ago!" With that, she surged into another round of sobs. 

Having never had any of my relatives die (save my 101 year old great grandfather who I had met once before), I had no idea how to react or offer empathy. I just sat there, as she explained that her brother had just passed from a battle with cancer, how she only had one surviving brother who was ill with heart disease, and how she herself needed to eat the bagel because of her diabetes. We tried to offer comfort by sharing the Plan of Salvation, we said a prayer with her, but I don't know how much comfort we gave - she was in pretty bad shape. After spending some time with her, she told us thank you and we bid farewell. Since I wasn't in my area, I have no idea what became of that woman. 

Another interesting incident of a similar nature - we were driving around, trying to find someone to teach when we decided "Let's go see Sis. Southern." It seemed like a pretty good idea, so we drove over and knocked on the door. Lo and behold, Sis. Southern was sick - very sick. She has had a heart attack before (in church, even) and was having some relapse issues. We gave her a blessing - I anointed, and her son-in-law gave the blessing (it was funny, because her four year old grandson, his son, came over and put his hands on her head too. I'm pretty sure it didn't make a difference either, because...) Sure enough, when we came by two days later, she was fine and fit as a fiddle (banjo, actually - she comes from the deep south. Hence the last name.) I would say her recovery was pretty miraculous.

On that note, we visited another brother who had a bad dog bite on his legs recently, received a blessing by the hands of a member with my companion and I participating, and recieved word from the doctor that he was having a miraculous recovery. The man was walking within days, and without the use of  a walker or anything. I would say it's pretty miraculous.

We've  been teaching Laurie lately. She's a super sweet, mom-of-a-member who can't come to church but is paying tithing regardless. Well, we came by this past week with a nice, shiny copy of the Triple Combination which we gave to her. She loved it, and was so excited to read it. We started her off with Section 89 - the Word of Wisdom. Before we even got to verse 5, she was talking about how many times she's tried to quit smoking, how much her daughter and son-in-law hate her smoking, and how she wants to quit so badly. The VERY NIGHT BEFORE we came to teach her, she prayed for help to quit smoking. Sure enough, we arrive the next day to answer her prayers. We'll be giving her a comprehensive stop smoking program this week, and within two weeks, she will be a non-smoker. How's that for Heavenly Father answering prayer?

We were put on the hunt by our bishop - We got a new membership record for someone who lives at this address, but we don't have a phone number and I can't remember his name. Go to the address, find the member, and report back to me. Awesome. I love these kind of assignments. We got them all the time in Pittsburgh, and you could never guess who or what you would find.

We went to the address. Come to find, it was an apartment building with four apartments. Shoot... So we knock on the first door. A very nice woman came to the door, but wasn't the member and wasn't really interested in becoming one. She gave some good information on her neighbors - two had moved in recently. Nobody at the next door. The third door was a very interesting gentleman. He was quiet, with an unkempt beard and tousled hair. He was wearing what appeared to be two sweaters and pants that were not long enough and his fingernails needed trimming. Grocery bags, energy drinks, and clothes were strewn all over his apartment. The only furnishings we could find were a blue tarp with sheets, a computer and internet modem, and a refrigerator. He invited us in, but told us that he was not the member we were looking for. He says that he's travelling, and plans to leave the area soon, but was totally fine with us teaching him a lesson right then and there and setting up another appointment. He was very knowledgeable, and while staying pretty quiet the whole time, seemed to understand and was pretty interested. The whole time, though, I had to keep reminding myself "No matter how odd this man might be, he's still a Son of God." We'll see where this goes.

One more really big thing. I'll just show the picture:



Hannah, a little girl who we've been teaching for a little while, was baptized by her father just this past weekend. We started teaching her way back in October and she turned 9 since then. Her dad is a full-time State Trooper, which means that he is saving the world most Sunday mornings. Her mom is not a member of the church, but has been taught by missionaries for at least 10 years. She just hasn't made the choice to be baptized. Well, Hannah did make the choice. That was something which was commented on over and over again is how this choice was totally Hannah's and that she wasn't pressured or coerced in any way. She seemed really happy about it and really excited when she was confirmed yesterday. 

We've been talking about her mom for a while, and how we can help her mom choose to be baptized. This is probably the best thing that could have happened for this family. It's going to make a huge difference for them and bring them closer together in so many ways. 

Isn't that what the Gospel is all about? Bringing us together? It brings our families together, it brings our neighbors together, and most importantly, it brings us and God together. It serves to reconcile man to the maker, and can turn any sinner into a Saint. I love the quote by Elder Jospeh Wirthlin: "We see ourselves in terms of yesterday and today. Our Heavenly Father sees us in terms of forever. Although we might settle for less, Heavenly Father won’t, for He sees us as the glorious beings we are capable of becoming. The gospel of Jesus Christ is a gospel of transformation. It takes us as men and women of the earth and refines us into men and women for the eternities." How true that is. I know that it is true. How? Because I have seen it in my own life and in the lives of those I serve with and around. This Gospel is so amazing.

As always, a humble follower of Christ,
Elder Alex Anderson

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