Monday, July 27, 2015

July 27, 2015

hey everyone!

It has been an adventure of a week! my companion is finishing up her mission so we are making the rounds on Pday to say bye to all the people she has gotten close to.. On monday we went to a family that has a bee farm and sells honey for a living. They were getting ready to open one of the boxes and I got the brilliant idea that I wanted to experience it. so I talked my companion into it, and they gave us suits for our top half and told us ´´dont worry, they dont sting your legs.´´ BIGGEST LIE EVER. we lasted a whole 30 seconds with the box open before they went straight to our legs and started stinging us like crazy! hahaha we dropped everything and ran as far away as possible. we each had at least 20 stings and we thought we were going to die because it hurt soo bad! they told us ´´we´re really sorry, we´ve never seen them react like this!´´ Our legs swelled up and we were waddling for a good 3 days and they continue to itch us like crazy! haha we bought every thing that could possibly help from the farmacy but there is really nothing that helped.. lets just say I never want to see another bee in my life!

we are continuing to find amazing people in this area, yesterday we found a family that is part member. the wife is inactive and the husband assisted a lot when he was a teenager but never got the chance to be baptized and he told us ´´I know that this is the true church, sometimes life just gets in the way.¨´ it was seriuolsy a miracle to find them and its amazing to see how Heavenly Father puts people like that in our path every single day!

I hope you are all doing well and got to go to a rodeo this week ;) On pioneer day I was reading President Uchtdorf´s message about how much we can learn from the pioneers and their courage to keep moving forward even through all the hard times. even as there spouses and children were dying they were singing ´´all is well!´´ Ive been thinking a lot about that this week and how even in the harderst of times we can look at the blessings that surround us, put our trust in Heavenly Father, and sing ¨all is well!´´ Attitude really is so much and the way we look at the trials we are faced with can change everything! 

love you all!
Hermana Andersen :) 

Monday, July 20, 2015

July 20, 2015

Hey everyone! 
Its been such a good week here! No super crazy experiences but so many miracles! earlier this year 2 teenagers got baptized in our area but the parents wanted nothing to do with the church.. but we have been visiting and teaching them since I got here and this week both the mom and dad accepted baptismal dates in August and they told us they want to be an eternal family!! holy it was so hard to hold back my excitement and stay calm when they told us, haha we left the house and were literally jumping up and down! Its seriously a miracle.
That same day we visited one of our inactive families and when we walked in the husband who hasn't been to church since he got baptized and pretty much dedicates his life to drinking was reading the Book of Mormon! literally I thought it was staged and I just starting laughing but he was for real and he told us that he is ready to change his life! 
We ended the day with an appointment on the top of a hill that over
looks all of Cochabamba and as we were heading home we stopped to look at over the city and there were fireworks everywhere! haha we have no idea what they were celebrating because nobody said anything about a holiday and fireworks arent even legal here hahah but it was the PERFECT ending to a perfect day, and week! 
Its so true that this really is the Lord´s work and we are really just instruments in his hands, finding the people that he has prepared for us. I couldn't be more grateful to be here learning and growing and for the opportunity to truly see the difference that the gospel makes in these peoples lives. 
I hope everyone has the best week! Thanks for all the love and support from home! 

love, 
Hermana Andersen :)

Tuesday, July 14, 2015

July 13, 2015

Hey everyone!! 

Its been a crazy week, the pope came to bolivia this week! haha the government blocked out all of the TV stations in the whole country and played the Pope on every single channel, so all week everyone was glued to their TVs watching the pope, which made our job pretty hard! Also, someone started a crazy rumor that there were trumpets in the sky the night he was going to leave, so everyone we meet asks us if we heard the trumpets.. when we tell them no they are disgusted hahah its been crazy. 
We have realized that our safest option is to be friends with the super alcoholics that live in the street because we pass by them a million times a day.. they yell ¨hi sisters!¨ and ask us to give them pamphlets to read.. hahah whatever keeps them happy. but this week one of them approached us to ask us to give them blankets to sleep on at night, as he was talking he read my nametag and when he saw ¨Jesus Christ¨ his eyes got huge and he said ¨Oh my gosh, You are Jesus!!¨ he was seriously convinced of it hahaha and backed away slowly. We walked away dying laughing, an experience I will never forget!
As we spent an entire day this week getting rejected, yelled at, doors slammed in our face, etc. I couldn't help but think ´´I think this is why I didn't share the gospel more when I was at home´´ I was left thinking a lot about that.. ´´what crazy person leaves their family and everything they have for 2 years to come to a foreign country and be rejected?´´ the next day I found a scripture that was a definite answer to my prayers:
 ¨Blessed are ye, when men shall revile you, and persecute you, and shall say all manner of evil against you falsely for my sake, Rejoice, and be exceedingly glad: for great is your reward in heaven, for so persecuted they the prophets which were before you. Ye are the salt of the earth: but if the salt have lost his savour, wherewith shall it be salted? it is thenceforth good for nothing, but to be cast out, and to be trodden under foot of men. Ye are the light of the world. A city that is set on a hill cannot be hid, Neither do men light a candle and put it under a bushel, but on a candlestick; and it giveth light to all that are in the house. Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father which is in heaven.´´ Matt 5:11-16
That gave me motivation to keep moving forward and reminded me that I am here because I have something that changes lives and if I can find even one person that is interested in our message after a whole day of being rejected its completely worth it. I love this work and couldn't be happier to be here!
I love you all! 

love, 
Hermana Andersen :)

Monday, July 6, 2015

#winterwonderland #happy4th‏

hello hello!

Whoever said that Cochabamba is an ¨eternal spring¨ doesn't know what spring is because we have definitely definitely been in winter weather here this week! there is even snow in the mountains! this morning we drove for 3 hours to the top of the mountain to play in the snow! haha the americans were saying ¨this is crazy¨ the whole time but it was super fun to see the latinos that have never seen snow before play and we showed them a good snowball fight :) also my goal was to take a picture with llamas... we literally had to climb a mountain straight up to find them but it was a mission accomplished so I was happy :) also on the way home we got in a fender bender and our bus driver went into video game mode to chase the guy down and everyone was screaming hahah I thought for sure we were dead!

The 4th of July has always been one of my favorite holidays but even more now that I have another country to compare it too! I love this country and these people but seriously.. nothing compares! hahah my companion is not a huge fan of americans so there wasn't much celebrating but I woke up singing american patriotic songs and she looked at me with a very serious face and said ¨I hope you don't
get assassinated today.¨ ...uh hahaha me too! luckily it rained the whole entire day and when its cold nobody leaves their house! so we didn't have any problems in the street :) 

Everything is great here and we have been working hard to find new people to teach and have definitely seen a lot of blessings and miracles everyday this week! thank you for all the love, support, and prayers! 

love, 
Hermana Andersen