Sister Anderson Mission Blog: Time Flies!

Friday we did some weekly planning and went to go visit some people but they must have forgot because no one was at home. But that's okay! Because on the way to visiting them we met this little old lady from Peru who didn't speak Italian. Lucky for us I took two years of useless Spanish. But she got the point that we were missionaries and was happy to see us. She's only here on vacation but she was happy we stopped to talk to her and gave us a hug goodbye.

Saturday was another day of things falling through but falling into place at the same time. We met a 15 year old girl on the bus and she gave us her number so hopefully we can get her involved. She was super sweet. And then we went home a bit early to do some calls but the first potential call we made told us we could come over. At that very second! We booked it as fast as we could. It was about a half hour walk. And it gets cold at night. Humidity cold is so much different. It really does hit you to the bones. My eyeballs were literally cold! It was a great lesson though between my glasses fogging up because they were defrosting and bearing testimony of the restored church. Their names are Livia and Guido. They invited us back for next week and so I'm excited to see them again!

Have you ever eaten so much that you're in pain? Haha. Although I have to say, no regrets. We went over to the Mongiovì's for lunch on Sunday. Here's a little Italian culture lesson for y'all. So they eat in courses. We eat the pasta, then after that they usually bring out the meat and put it on the table. Usually it's with potatoes or some other type of side. Then they usually finish with fruit or a dessert. In this case we had both. We tried a new type of fruit from Asia called cachi and it was delicious. The Mongiovì's are amazing. They are like the mission parents. They have always been involved with the missionaries and Sorella Mongiovi was the one who wrote our mission president to ask for Sorelle in Muggiò.

Monday we were able to see the Ponce family again. They are from Ecuador and have a son who is 15 who still lives there and they are trying to get him documents so he can come live with them and they can live as a family again. As people they amaze me. They work so hard and are content with the little things in life. They don't want anything grand or big but just to be together as a family.

Tuesday we were able to see Juana and she's doing great. She said she received an answer! She said she wants to get baptized she just needs to pick out a date that she feels is good for her. She doesn't want to have a date and then not go through with it. It's amazing though because she received an answer the same day that we were fasting for her! Then we were able to see the Alvarado's and Marzia after that. They were really good lessons. It was a great day!

This week I found this quote and liked it so much that I thought I would share it with y'all. "To fully receive these gifts our Savior has so freely offered, we all must learn that suffering in and of itself does not teach or grant to us anything of lasting value unless we deliberately become involved in the process of learning from our afflictions through the exercise of faith" It's from last general conference from the talk called "God Shall Wipe Away All Tears".

I love this quote because no matter who you are, you're going to have problems in life. Just because we have problems and sufferings does not make us better. Instead, it's our attitude and what we strive to learn from our problems and the faith that we develop as we pass through the trials.

I love you all!