Blood and "Cribs"

Hey Mom!

Too late to tell me not to send my winter boots, they're pretty much home now. We actually didn't get any snow this week, and the forecast is all in the 50s and 60s this week, so it doesn't look like we'll be getting any more anytime soon. The members here fed us a good Easter dinner yesterday, and PacSun was having the Blue Dot Sale (Dallas walks up to PacSun, sees "Blue Dot Sale" on the window, *Tiger-sized fist pumps into the store*) for Easter weekend, so I was able to get an awesome deal on a cool sweatshirt! Since we live in Morton now, the mall in Bloomington isn't as accessible, so the Lord was definitely taking care of us with the sale! #PrayForBlueDot 

It was another amazing week of teaching--we had two lessons with Shannon (who is a 13-year-old investigator from a part-member family), and she's keeping all of her commitments and coming to church! Even with all of her sports, she's still making time to meet and to put church and mutual first, which is pretty awesome! Hope had another lesson with us this week, and it was another killer lesson on the Plan of Salvation, and now she's got another appointment set up for Saturday right before Conference! 

Jerry has made some really good progress this week--he came to the Meet the Mormons movie night our ward had on Tuesday (which was my first time seeing the movie, and I thought it was pretty awesome), and he watched the live stream of the Mormon Tabernacle Choir's performance of the Messiah this weekend as well. He still has the struggle of coming to church, hopefully he'll be able to overcome the fears he has of change here in the next week or so!

So here's a pretty good story for the week: we were having dinner with a member in the ward, and got talking about some of the gang activity here in the Peoria area. Now, it's funny that this topic came up, because we've had a few people ask about my forehead this week, and another guy talk to us for 30 minutes about how we as missionaries should be able to carry guns to protect ourselves (LOL sir, the Lord's protection and my pocketknife will be enough, I'm pretty sure). Anyways, we get on the subject of gang violence and places to avoid after dark, and this member says, "The gangs here are pretty much like the 'Cribs' in L.A." He meant the "Crips," but his son would not let him live it down, and made jokes about the "Cribs" the rest of the night, haha!

We helped the Peoria Zone Leaders close up an apartment in Monmouth, and you know what that means: bring out the couch moving crew! I didn't get a picture with the couch, but snagged one in the recliner, which was a close second in my opinion. Also, when we were driving on the freeway to take everything to storage, we drove right next to the Sunday Night Football truck, which tells me that the sports world of ESPN and NBC are still watching out for me for when I get off my mission.

Thanks for the email Mom, I'm glad you were able to have a good Spring Break and spend time with all those guys! Hope that you have a great week, can't wait to talk to you guys next week, and hope that you all enjoy Conference!

Love,
Elder Dallas Anderson

#CatchMeOnNBC #HighlightReel