Elder Anderson- February

Dear Family, I am really tired right now. We just got done moving this family. We started at 9:00 and finished at like 3:00. It doesn’t sound like long, but we were going the whole time, and they had some really heavy things. We were also moving all of it up a couple flights of stairs, into an old home (old homes have really steep and narrow staircases, narrow doorways, and low ceilings). I can hardly type. I am on exchange with my district leader right now. Just as we got home, we got a call from the mission president telling my district leader that he was going to be a DL in another zone. Then he handed the phone to me and president called me to be the DL here in this area. I am staying with Elder Bergeson, so we are going to tear it up. There are so many really good things that are going to happen here. I love it. This ward is crazy. At church, me and Elder Bergeson had to give talks. Whilst sitting up on the stand, I looked into the congregation. One of the entire middle rows was taken by the Voelkel family. Another entire row was taken by the Zinks. Another entire row was taken by the Forces. Another entire row was taken by the Millers. We have some HUGE families here! We had the Stake President there, our district leader was there, and pretty much all of our investigators and less actives finally came. It was great! I felt like my talk went pretty well. Elder Bergeson did really well too. Our mission has been challenged by President Uchtdorf to have all of our talks that we give memorized. I was cutting it close, since I decided to memorize a couple of scriptures that morning, but it all worked out well. There was this girl that came up after and told me that I was going to be a bishop. It was funny.So, apart from all of that, all is going well. The Miller family, the one that takes up an entire middle row, has asked us to start teaching them. Bro Miller is a member, and some of his kids are members. But his wife is not a member, and her kids are not members. They are super cool. They are having us over on Mondays for FHE. When dinner had finished, all of the kids exploded into action. The entire table was cleared, wiped down, and ready to go for the lesson in like 2 minutes flat. It was like clockwork! So, Mommy, your efforts were righteous. You tried to do that with us, but it always only ended up being you and me cleaning the kitchen.We had a funny experience. We were tracting, and we knocked on this one door. This black guy answers the door, and we start talking to him. He doesn’t really want to talk to us, but we persisted. Then he tells us he is muslim, and expected that to end the conversation. My greeny had no idea what to say. He was silent the whole time. It was weird, because I just knew what to say. I had never met a muslim before. I had never met anyone who has denied that Jesus is our Savior. It was really weird to have someone say that to my face. It was just like it says in D&C 100:5-8. The words just came freely. By the end, the guy was fine with having us come back.The other cool thing that happened was that Mekelle came to church. Mekelle is a girl that we are teaching that is amazing. She goes to the Word of Life church. This church is famous. Pastor Zon has a ton of money from preaching. Mormons are on their bad side, though. There was one time some missionaries went to one of their services. 9:00 rolls around, so they stand up to go home for the night. Pastor Zon stops them and asks, “Where do you think you are going? You can’t just walk out of a service like that!” The missionaries response was not so great. “We are going to study the real word of God.” The Word of Life church was a really big anti-mormon church before, but it is now extra effort. They don’t like us at all. Mekelle goes to that church, but is questioning a lot of their beliefs. I guess there was some TV show where Elder Ballard and Elder Cook were interviewed and answered a bunch of questions. Mekelle got to watch it, and really enjoyed it. We are going to see her tonight. She didn’t understand anything when she was at church, so we are hoping that she didn’t have a bad experience. Love Elder Greg Anderson