Thinning the Herd...And Heading to Morton!

 The big news for the week is transfer news: Elder Bennett and I are staying together (WOOO!!), but we are being moved to Morton, IL. It's super exciting, because they just got a new bishop who is really fired up to do missionary work, and Elder Bennett has served in Morton before, so he already knows a bunch of the people in the ward, so that will be a good start. Unfortunately, since we won't be at ISU anymore, it will put a damper on the hashtag efforts, but we'll see what we can do in Morton! I'm sad to be leaving Normal, but and excited to start a new adventure in a new area!

For service this week, we got to relive both my dream and nightmare as a little kid: We went to Home Sweet Home Ministries and were in charge of sorting through stuffed animals (like ten 100 pound boxes of them). We had to look at them and determine whether they were in good enough condition to sell, or if they were a collector's item, otherwise we threw them away. The dream was that there were hundreds and hundreds of stuffed animals (for those of you who don't know, I have a personal herd of stuffed animals at home), the bad news is that we had to throw 80% of them away...I did snag the best prize of the day though, I call my new homie Banona-Mon. A cool side note of working at HSHM is that a couple weeks ago, they gave all of the missionaries a gift basket with a $5 gift card to their thrift store because of the service that we've offered. We went there today, and I walked out with a pair of dress shoes and a purple Jordan shirt for free because of the gift card!

We got the opportunity to teach a couple of member families that we haven't been able to meet with before, so that was really good! We also met with a couple of different less-active members during the week. No exciting news for investigators for this week, but hopefully we'll have some good ones to report on next week in Morton!

So I've yet to keep y'all informed on my Fit For the Kingdom for the transfer--I ended the transfer with over 400 points, which is the best that I've done before! I'm really excited for the upcoming transfer, because our apartment clubhouse has a gym that we can work out at in the mornings, so exercise is going to be great!

That's pretty much all that I've got for the week, thanks for all the love and support! Let me know if there is anything that I can do for you guys!

Love,
Elder Dallas Anderson
#MovingToMorton

Gosh, Janet!

What's up to all you fans out there!?

We're hot off the charts with the drop last week, hope y'all enjoyed that! Just to let everyone know, I probably will use the word "finna" in my homecoming talk (probably both intentionally and unintentionally), because you can take me outta the hood, but you can't take the hood outta me, you know what I'm sayin'?

Good stories from this week: First, I got approval for my idea of proselyting through hashtags, so if you start seeing a trend on social media involving the missionaries, you know who got that going! We hope to start implementing it here on campus within the next week, getting the members to kick it off first. It will be interesting to see if we can get things rolling, but I'm excited!

We went on exchanges twice this week, and had good experiences with both of them! I got to work with Elder Ashcraft in the Spanish program (no "como se dice stories this time) and Elder Neve. We were able to find a bunch of potential investigators on exchanges, and on the one with Elder Neve, I don't think I've met as many crazy people in one day in my entire life...We met the most drunk person I've ever seen in my life, he was soooo out of it; we met a man that told us that he was in the Army, got blown up and thrown into a tree 45 feet away, and his scalp was barely on his head, but he got fixed up and played in the NFL the next six seasons. He also told us that he was 3rd in the world for weight-lifting, his best efforts were a 617 pound bench press, a 1500 pound squat, and a 3000 pound deadlift...Freakin' yeah right sir. We had a member look it up for us, and the world record deadlift is just over 1000 pounds. Haha, he was out of his mind too. 

We also got the biggest door slam of my mission thus far, to be honest I'm surprised that the door is still on its hinges. And we also went to one of our investigator's homes and he and his girlfriend were cussing each other out and talking about cheating with their ex's, keep in mind that all of this was one day during the same exchange. If that wasn't good enough, we went to a building that had four apartments in it, and 3 of them were blasting music; it was as if they were trying to out-do each other, it was hilarious! And if you don't know, it's tough to preach the gospel in a hallway when 2 Chainz is blaring in the apartment next door.

The title of the email comes from our dinner on Tuesday this week. We always have dinner right before MCM with the Albrechtsens (Brother Albrechtsen is the ward mission leader). We're having dinner, and there's a member from another ward eating dinner with us, and he was asked if he had any plans that night after dinner. He responded, "I have to go home teach Janet," but it sounded like, "I have to go home teach, da***t." HAHAHA, everyone at the table thought he said the latter, it was so funny! After that, we started making jokes about it, such as "Gosh Janet!"

Love you all! Thanks for all that you do, and for the emails and packages! Love you tons!

Love,

Elder Dallas Anderson

#HashtagsOnHashtags

Dandy vs Drake (The Rap Wars)

So it's finally arrived! The hot new track is dropping today, and no track is complete without official album artwork. Finna hope you enjoy it, more fun email ideas coming at ya soon!

Album Artwork (if you don't get it, look up Drake's album)

Started... [Dandy on the track]

Started from the bottom, now we here.

Started from the bottom, after 16 months, I be here.

Started from the bottom, now we here.

Started from the bottom, now the long-awaited track is here.

Startin' off this drop with somethin' clean,

MJ, 'Bron, and D-Rose, they all wanna join my team,

Cause we ballin' e'ry Preparation Day,

They call me Mr. Clutch because winning is my way.

And you know I'm always finna lookin' swag,

My man Macklemore be jealous with my skills at poppin' tags.

Now we finna move another couch, yeah here we go,

Mornin' workouts payin' off, you see these guns ain't just for show, cause we

Started from the bottom, now we here.

Started from the bottom, FFTK points all up in here.

Started from the bottom, now we here.

Started from the bottom, see my rhymin' skills are striking fear.

Supa Hot Fiya's where I'm at,

They told me, "You white boy, you don't stand a chance at rap."

I'm just brushin' off the haters as I go,

The language of the streets is just somethin' that I know.

And we're stackin' cans and boxes each Tuesday,

Service at the food pantry, we stockin' food for days.

Yeah we're workin' hard like my boi Patrick Kane,

Story stays the same through the freezing and the rain, 'cause we

Started from the bottom, now we here.

Started from the bottom, after finding service, now we're here.

Started from the bottom, now we here.

Started from the bottom, now I'm steppin' up my game in here.

You'd think we're serving in the 80s with our phones... (Yeah, it's rough)

B.o.B. and Kanye, they got nothin' on my zone.

The YSA peoples are our crew; 

Elder Bennett's hard at work, teaching kids at ISU.

Exchange in Woodridge with the Assistants,

Elder Cluff and Elder Adams in the clutch with their two cents.

President's vision's gonna take us to the top,

Baptizin' left and right, yeah we never gonna stop! Cause we

Started from the bottom, now we here.

Started from the bottom, now we findin' lots of people here.

Started from the bottom, now we here.

Started from the bottom, you'll have to wait 'til the next track gets here.

[Last name: Ever. First name: Greatest.]

*Drops mic* *Leaves stage with one arm raised*

==============

So I'm calling my man Brockbank out to step up to the mic! I want to hear him spit a rhyme or two, so I challenge him to a rap battle! Gimme the best you got Brockbank, I've got another challenge in store for you in the upcoming weeks, because I'm still not taking a loss in the #HeismanPose2k15 contest. Yeah, I'm still not bitter.

Anyways, I love you all and hope that life is treating you swell in the 801, or wherever life has taken you! Hope to hear from you all soon!

Thanks for all of your thoughts and prayers, if you could pray that we'll be able to find people to teach this week, that would be much appreciated, thanks!

Love,
Elder Dallas Anderson

#LastNameEverFirstNameGreatest

#ButImNotARapper

#ServiceNeverLookedSoFine + Other Hashtag News

#ManCrushModels at Home Sweet Home warehouse

This week was a little bit slower for us as far as teaching goes, we weren't able to meet up with Bri, and Steve just got a job as a truck driver. He'll only be in town about 1-2 days a month, so we dropped him because it will be hard to meet with him regularly. We did have the chance to meet with two less-active members in the ward this week and have lessons with them, and we had another less-active member of the YSA group that came to church! The YSA class started up this week at church, so we're hoping to get the news out and bring the rest of the crew in the future!

We had an awesome service experience on Tuesday at the WACC--they teamed up with another food pantry and brought in two trucks full of food. So the six Elders serving in the Normal Ward unloaded the trucks, set everything out on the serving tables, then went around with all of the people that came in to get their food. It was really neat, because there were probably close to 175 people that came through, so we got a lot of interaction as we walked around with them to help fill their orders. I'll attach a picture of a panorama of all the the food we handed out. By the end of the day, pretty much ALL of the food was gone. But here's the kicker, there was a super cool black guy named Steve Young there! I was going to get him to sign a football and take a pic for Brockbank's #HeismanPose2k16 contest (because he still should have picked one of my entries), but Steve had championships to win, and he dipped out quick.

The other service we did this week was at the Home Sweet Home warehouse, where we worked in the clothing department with Shauna, who's legit! While we were sorting through the clothing, we found some keepers to throw on for a pic. #IWearYourGranddadsClothesILookIncredible

On Saturday, we had a special MLC in Arlington Heights with Elder Suarez, the area president. What made the meeting even more special is that the leaders of the Chicago Mission were there too, so we got to meet the leaders from out east, and they were pretty cool.

Story of the week: I talked to President on the phone this week, because I had this awesome idea for finding (at least I think it's pretty awesome): since we're serving on ISU campus, a lot of the kids are going to be into social media. I proposed to President that we could start a trend with hashtags with the kids on campus, where they'd take pictures with the missionaries and post them up with a specific hashtag. I got to explain to President the purpose of a hashtag. #Winning I also got to teach him what a hashtag trend was, so my pre-mission Twitter skills are coming in in the clutch. #TeachInHashtags #TheHashtagHero President told me that he thought there was a lot of potential untapped in the social media world, and that he would talk to the Missionary Department in Salt Lake about it and get back to me. #PrayForHashtags Just call me #MrHashtag!

Love,

Elder Dallas Anderson

#MrHashtag

Working at the WACC

The new bedbug-free certified couch (left)

Oh So Happy. Oh So Humble.

Hey Mom!

This week wasn't too exciting for us, we weren't able to meet with either Bri or Steve, which is no good. The good news is that we met with Mallory and with Roxy, who are two less-active members that are both YSAs. Even better news, we told bishop last week that we wanted to start a YSA group third hour in church, and he loved the idea and called a teacher to start the class next Sunday! Pretty soon, we're hoping to have a YSA branch in the area, because that's a lot of the people that we're working with right now!

Yours truly killed the rest of the zone in bowling today with a 169! We best stop going bowling as a zone activity, because I don't want to dominate everybody too bad. #AlsoHumble The funny part is that I got a strike to start off one of the games, and one of the missionaries said to me, "That's why you're a zone leader!" Then another missionary went and got 9 of 10 pins, and the same missionary said, "That's why you're not a zone leader!" Hahaha, many are called, but few are chosen, and they are not chosen because they don't have mad bowling skills like me. #AlsoHumble

We had a killer MLC in Naperville this week, a couple of guys from the Missionary Department came in from Salt Lake and gave us some great training on working with members and planning. I left the meeting with a ton of things to implement, I'm super excited for the next couple of weeks! We have been struggling to find new investigators lately, but Brother Gonzalez introduced a new vision to the mission of having 3-6 lessons between the hours of 6PM-9PM each evening, which would mean a ton of new investigators!

For the couch story of the week, the Pontiac Sisters wanted a couch because they didn't have one in their apartment. So we got one out of the mission storage facility after MLC (not that exciting), then took it down to their apartment with the two district leaders who came to MLC with us (not that exciting). One of the district leaders knows how to pick locks, so with the Sisters knowledge that we were going to get them a couch (we didn't give them the details), we broke into their apartment--we made sure they weren't home--and set up the couch for them (pretty exciting). We also saw the member who researched bed bug info for us, and he told us that we had made a good decision keeping our couch!

I've been back on the FFTK (Fit For The Kingdom) grind, scoring a lot of good points lately! Lando knows that I'm finna be huge by the time I see him again.

Anyways, I love you guys, and hope you're having a good week! Let me know if there is anything I can do for you! And the long-anticipated arrival of the single that I'm dropping will be here faster than you know.

Love,
Elder Dallas Anderson
#CountdownToDrake #CountdownToDandy

The countdown is almost over. Don't hate on Drake.
#LastNameEverFirstNameGreatest