Letter #32

Hey family,

I'm glad to hear y'all had so much fun out there in Salt Lake and back
at home too! Please tell Omar and Victor I said, "Como estan chamacos." 
(they should laugh) chamacos means kids in Mexico. I miss them :p And yeah,
our church starts with Sunday School, then we split to Priesthood and
Relief Society, then we have Sacrament Meeting at the end!! Ours starts at
1:40! So yesterday was horrible cause it was Fast Sunday and I almost
died!!! I fasted for about 27 hours!! Haha, I know that the Lord will bless me even that much more.

This week has been a lot better than the last couple of weeks. We had
a lot more lessons and we had a couple investigators at
church too! This had been a big blessing. We are really working with this
family The Penillas. Brother Penillas has been watching the Discovery channel and
it has really changed him to believe that there is no God. We have
been working with him so much -- the funny thing is that his wife is a
firm believer and she knows there has to be a God! So it's pretty
opposite with them. He is a less active and she loves the church; we
are really trying to work with them. We feel like they are close but
there is just this one last thing we don't know about. I told him what
he has to do to find if there is a God. I just told him straight up,
that we visit him to help him out to find if there is a God or not,
either we are out here wasting our time on helping people and there
is no God, or what we teach is true. He told me a joke about his
job and I turned that joke to him. He is a welder and he said he faked
it till he made it. I told him that when I grew up in the church, I
faked it till i made it (or till I found out that it's true) that the
more we put our faith in things, the better things come to us. And I
told him even if this is all a fake, I rather be a good person in this
world that people can look at and say he helped a lot of people and he
was a firm believer. I hope that really helped him out.

Miracle this week:
Many of you know I had some bowel movement problems and when I was
taking all the medicine they told me to take, it wasn't helping at all --
It seemed to make it worse actually! After complaining about it one night,
Elder Preece told me that I should get a blessing. I was like how
did I not think of that before?!? So the next day I woke up, went to
the bathroom and that was the worst it ever hurt and I cried because the
pain was really bad! I came out and asked for a blessing and Elder
Preece gave me that blessing and by the end of the blessing, it didn't
hurt and by the end of the day, it was all gone. -- There was no pain when
I went to the bathroom and it just magically disappeared (I have had this
problem the last month or so). I have a strong testimony that
Priesthood blessings are real and they really work. That if we put our
faith in the Lord, miracles really do happen! Jesus wants to heal
us all but we can only receive that help if we do all we can just like
in 2 Nephi 25:23. After we do all we can, we can receive grace or that
healing that we need!

I love y'all so much!!!

Love Elder Andersen

This picture is of Acirema Malacara. She was baptized by Elder
Bushman and I confirmed her in Sacrament meeting. She is a member and
her dad wanted us to perform it.