Letter #34

(I have added my dad's comments to Elder Andersen in RED so you can know what he is referring to)

Hey Family!

Dad,that is a super sweet quote.(“It is difficult to find anything more healthy to drink than good cold water, such as flows down to us from springs and snows of our mountains. This is the beverage we should drink. It should be our drink at all times.”)  I remember being at the Menedez' house this week and they asked if we wanted soda or something else to drink. I said water please, and then they insisted that we could take something else. I said that I want to go on a diet, and Sister Menedez said ok fine and gave us water. 

The Hispanics are out to get me even bigger than I already am! They give us so much food!! Hearing about what mom cooks the missionary's back home makes me a little jealous! :p haha I do like the food here, but don't get me wrong, mom's cooking is always the best!!!!

(Wednesday evening was very nice though. We had the missionaries over for dinner -- both the English and Laotian. One of the elders (Rivas from New Jersey) told about being a convert at age 17. He had been rather active in the Catholic church and even helped the priests. A friend invited him to our church and he attended for some time until he decided that he needed to be baptized. He had to talk his mom into signing the permission slip. On his baptism, he had to walk 45 minutes to the stake center because his family didn't go to the service. It was very interesting to hear his story. His family is still non-member but he continues to write to them and pray for them. We hope that he will be blessed by their conversion when he returns home.)

That story you shared is sweet. I might have to tell that to some
investigators so that they have some "ganas"(I don't know the word in
English, it is kinda like oomph) to be baptized. That is a super sweet
thing, we have had some people in the branch not go to their own
baptism.

So this week was a little crazy Yesterday we came out of our car
and we were about to go in the apartment and these "morenos" (black people, I say "morenos" cause its not racist here) They are Pentecostal and they called us over and we ended up talking for them for 40 min, well more like arguing for awhile! So everything they were saying to Elder Bushman and I brought everything back to what they said with scriptures just in the bible! They would go onto different subjects and bring different questions but we just destroyed them with our knowledge. One of the things they talk about was that the trinity was one person. We brought them so many different verses and showed them so much but they just didn't understand. The thing that irritated me the most was they said that we just had to believe in Christ and we are saved, and that it is not in our actions! Of course we showed them James 1:5 ( If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not; and it shall be given him.) He made something up and we

just said look man the only way we can make it to Heaven is through
faith, repentance, baptism, receiving the holy ghost, and
enduring to the end. Then he went off on this tangent about how what we were telling him was not true. I really wanted to fight him, finally we left before I got myself anymore upset with this guy! I spoke some Spanish to him and Elder Bushman had to shut him up but it didn't work! We just eventually left! I hope he finds the truth somehow!! haha We were also able to have some super sweet lessons with some other investigators, so hopefully we can see things pick up!
Love y'all and keep up the good work!

Love y'all,
Elder Andersen