Whitewashing and Greenies: The Missionary Color Code

 So thank you for all of the winter stuff, it's really coming in handy. There hasn't been any snow lately (I don't count 5-10 minute flurries), but it has been brutally cold. I'll attach a picture with the temperature from last night. (See that 2 degree mark?) It's currently about three degrees outside, and we've received severe wind chill warnings for the past few days. The boots I have are fantastic, and they must be like the best boots that you can buy, because people from the ward are always telling me things like, "Those are some sweet boots!" so thank you for those!

First off, I've got some big transfer news! I am whitewashing an area in the Naperville 1st Ward (if you don't know what whitewashing is, it's where they take both missionaries out of an area and put in two new missionaries, rather than only swapping out a single companion), because I was called to train a new missionary! I don't know who it is yet, I'll find out tomorrow at transfer meeting, but I'm super excited! This is really crazy though, because this is my 4th transfer, and it will be my 4th companion, 3rd area, and 2nd time whitewashing. I guess I'm just to much for President Fenn to handle, LOL.

The Smith family in St. Charles ward

We had a really good week here in St. Charles! Elder Morgan and I have been working very well together, and he taught some of our best lessons over the last few days. Last night, we were able to put James Minerly on date for baptism on March 7th, and we're working with Barbara to get her on date as well. She is a little hesitant on being baptized, but James has definitely received an answer to his prayers, and is super excited to move forward, so that's great! We weren't able to teach Tim, because he is out of town for the next couple of weeks, but we did email him a list of scriptures to read, because he wanted to learn more about the apostasy. We had a great lesson with Brother Weber on Sunday, where we had to be really bold with him and tell him that if he wants to learn, it's going to take effort on his part, he's going to have to study the scriptures on his own. He told us that the Spirit hit him really hard, and so he'll work on being better at studying.

Also, another cool side note: the Cannon family from Bourbonnais that Elder Olsen and I reactivated has two kids I taught that were put on date to be baptized on March 21, so hopefully I will be able to attend that as well as the baptism for James!

So I'm pretty sure I told you that St. Charles is a pretty wealthy area. Well, last Monday I had my first real experience where I saw money come into play. So a lot of the members of the ward own companies of some kind (some own real-estate agencies, there is a couple that owns a restaurant chain, some own their own health care practices, etc.). There is a member of the ward, his name is Brother Temple, and he's so cool, I love the guy. Brother Temple is the owner of a hearing aid company that has over 200 locations across the country, and his company is worth over $65 million (we learned that from our ward mission leader, because Brother Temple is too humble to say anything about it). They had us over for dinner last Monday, and it was EASILY the nicest house that I have ever been in: it has an entrance room with a curved staircase like you see in the mansions in movies, the house has about 25-30 foot ceilings, it's just incredible. He has a Ferrari, a Porsche, a Range Rover, and at least one other car, and he's pre-ordered next year's Ferrari already! I guess owning a business is the way to do it, because he says he pretty much stays home all day and makes a few phone calls and texts, so maybe I can do that someday!

I love you guys, and I really hope that everything back at home is going well. Please let me know if there is anything I can do for you or for anybody else at home.

Much love,

Elder Dallas Anderson

#TheChicagoConverter

Short on Message, But Not on Snow

So we had another pretty good week this week! We were finally able to sit down with Barbara and share a lesson with her. She's about 40 years old, and she lives with her brother James, who came into the lesson at the end and told us that he wants to start being taught as well, and we have an appointment this next week! 

We weren't able to meet with Tim this week, because he was busy all week, but we have an appointment set up with him on Wednesday, so it will be good to see him again! 

We had a really good lesson with a less-active member in our ward yesterday. He's a really nice guy, but he doesn't have very good self-confidence. He has a real desire to learn the gospel, and to learn deep doctrine, but he gets frustrated at himself a lot, so we're trying to teach him really simply, and we hope to start getting him to seminary classes over the course of the next week or so. 

It snowed some more this week, so Elder Morgan and I were able to shovel some snow for service. We ended up shoveling like 6-7 driveways over the course of a few days, so that was good!

I hope that things are going well for you back at home. I pray for you every day. I love you! Talk to you next week!

Elder Dallas Anderson
#TheChicagoConverter

Super-snow Sunday

Notice the snow depth -- my boots are in it to win it.

Hey from Chicago!

So I'll just jump right into the details of our week! Yesterday, our church was cancelled because it snowed all day (literally, it didn't stop from the time we woke up until the time we went to bed--we got about a foot and a half). President Fenn didn't want the missionaries out driving in the bad road conditions, so we stayed in and studied all day. 

The studying wasn't bad, but it gets a little boring after you stay in the same place for 16 straight hours. I seriously had time to watch two and a half hours of Mormon Message videos, study two full chapters from Preach My Gospel, read from the Book of Mormon, write down 7 pages of notes from past meetings in the mission, and memorize two more scriptures. The killer part of the whole deal was that it was Fast Sunday, so even though there was food around us in the apartment, we couldn't eat any of it!

For the first time in the four weeks that I've been in the St. Charles area, we saw some success tracting this week! We met four new potential investigators that we have times to meet with this next week, and we met another man, Tim, who let us right in when we knocked on his door, and we taught him the Restoration! Tim just lost his job, so we recommended LDS Employment Services to him, and we scheduled another teaching appointment with him this week! Besides all of the people that we tracted into, we have gotten permission to teach two 12-year-olds that are the adopted son and daughter of members in the ward. It should be a great week, I'm excited!

You asked about teaching via Facebook. We teach lessons by messaging people. It's not nearly as effective as talking with people face to face, but I've done it a few times now, and you can still have a good lesson with them by teaching principles and showing videos and things like that. Our mission was one of about 15-20 pilot missions to use Facebook (that's why we have the iPads and almost no other missions do yet. 

One thing that I don't think I've mentioned before: President Fenn really turned this mission around obedience-wise. This mission used to be one of the least-obedient out of all of the missions in the world, but now it's one of the most obedient. That's why the Church chose this mission to be a pilot program for Facebook and for the iPads.). 

Anyways, I love you all, and I hope that all is going well at home! 

Love,

Elder Dallas Anderson

#TheChicagoConverter

Souls. Homes. I Save Them All.

 The big story of the week is that I saved a house! 

Let me explain: so we're going around tracting, because that's what we do, and we come to this one specific house, but nobody answers. I thought I heard some water splashing inside the house, so I looked in the front window, and there were two broken water pipes spewing water everywhere. 

Now here's the funny part: this isn't the first time I've seen this on my mission--I think I forgot to write home about it the first time, but when I was in Kankakee, we came across a house where water was gushing out from under the front door (to the point where there were puddles on the lawn)--so I knew what to do! 

I called the city of St. Charles, and they connected my to the 911 dispatch, and I told them the problem (It's really funny, because they always ask who you are and how you know about the problem, so you have to say something along the lines of, "I'm a missionary for our church, so we go around knocking on everybody's doors, and we saw a problem."). 

Anyways, the city sent over a fire truck and like 3 police cars to the house, where they broke into the side door of the house with a crowbar and went inside to shut off the water. It was pretty cool, and it makes you feel like a police detective investigating the scene. I just can't believe that it's happened to me twice in three transfers!! WHAT ARE THE ODDS!?

Beyond that excitement, this week has been a tough week as far as numbers go (and I do know it's not about the numbers). As of right now, we only have one investigator and three potential investigators. I've never met Barbara in person, we taught her on Facebook once, but it seems like she has been avoiding us lately. We might have to drop her this next week. We spent a lot of time tracting this week, but we weren't able to teach any lessons or find any new potential investigators. It can be frustrating sometimes when you aren't finding anyone to teach, and where you're spending 8 or so hours a day tracting and finding. Hopefully we'll have more success this next week.

To answer your questions: I always eat a bowl of cereal, a banana, and a cup of yogurt for breakfast. For lunch, it's usually leftovers from dinner from a member's house, soup or a sandwich, so nothing much has changed there, (sorry Mom...). In regards to service projects, our mission doesn't have an assigned service activity, and right now, our area doesn't have any regular service that we do, but we are looking into that.

Here are a few pictures: my desk at the apartment (notice how clean it is), our bathroom (it's ridiculously tiny), and the bedroom (yes, I realize that it's not that great of a picture, but there isn't a place in the room where you can see everything; but also, notice how clean my half of the room is). More pics to come next week! 

Thanks, I love you!

Elder Dallas Anderson
#TheChicagoConverter

Totally Pumped: Investigators, Invites, Inspiring Cleanliness

Elder Morgan from Vancouver, WA

 Hey all!

This week, Elder Morgan and I dropped all of the investigators and potential investigators that we had except for three, so we don't have a lot of people that we are working with. The investigator that Elder Morgan and I have taught since I've been here is named Barbara, and she's great! She said that her family is pretty against her joining the church, so hopefully we can work with her to get over that fear. 

Besides Barbara, we have a new potential investigator named Al that we met on Friday. I was filling up the car with gas, and he was at the pump next to us, so I just started talking with him, and he told us that he'd love to sit down with us sometime and hear a lesson!

The weather has been so much better this week! For pretty much every day, it's been about 40 degrees, so I'm not freezing to death.

To answer all of your questions: 

1. We travel by car. We have a 2013 Subaru Legacy. 

2. Elder Morgan is really into board games, especially ones that require a lot of thought and strategy (I haven't heard of hardly any of them, so I can't really name them, besides "The Settlers of Catan"). His favorite food is lasagna, and he goes through 15-20 cans of Mountain Dew per week. 

3. We have dinner invites all week. Three things I've had for dinner are hamburgers, chicken from Popeye's, and deep dish pizza from Giordano's, yum. I did get the crock pot package, but I haven't needed to cook anything yet, because members have been feeding us pretty much every night. 

4. I got an awesome D-Rose jersey today at a Lids Locker Room store. It was a $100 jersey, but it was on the clearance rack and I got an NBA authentic, stitched on letters and numbers jersey for only $32 bucks after taxes! Call it Missionary living. The jersey is grey, with bright orange numbers and letters, and black embroidery. 

5. A the investigators that we are working with are Barbara, Al, and Ruben.

Elder Anderson's proud Before and After kitchen skillz.

My photo this week is part of my new "Wife Me Chronicles." Check out my before-and-after mad cleaning skills!

So Landon's hockey tournament sounds like it was pretty insane! That's a lot of teams that were involved. And it sounds like Murray is doing well, I hope that they can keep that momentum heading into the playoffs!

Thanks for everything you do, I love you! I hope to hear from you again soon!  I love you all! More photos coming next week!

Deep freeze and Deep dish pizza

Hey family! 

Yes, I got to go to dinner at a member's house my first day out in St. Charles. I'm glad that you've talked to Sister Smith already, their family is really great! This ward is fantastic, everyone is pretty supportive, and we have a full dinner calendar this week, so we're being fed well too!

So my companion's name is Elder Morgan, and he's from Vancouver, Washington. He was originally called to Madagascar, but he had to come home because he got sick, and then he was reassigned out here. He's pretty cool, we've got a lot of different likes and interests, but we get along well!

St. Charles is awesome, it's a completely different world than Kankakee! I miss the people that were in the Kankakee area for sure, but I'll be honest, I feel a lot safer here in St. Charles. There are some houses here that are just insane, easily some of the biggest houses that I've ever seen. The crazy part is that we just go up and knock on each door, no matter how big the house is!

The weather here has been crazy cold though. We weren't allowed to do any tracting, or to stay outside on Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday because it never got above 10 degrees, and with the wind chill, it was between -20 and -40 all the time. There was one night where we were stopping by a former investigator, and if you were to stay outside for more than 15 minutes, I swear that you would have gotten hypothermia or frostbite. 

Also, after our district meeting this week, we went out to district lunch to a restaurant named Giardono's, and they have amazing deep dish pizza. We got If we come out to Chi-Town as a family sometime, we definitely have to go there, because it is fantastic.

I don't have any photos for this week, but I'll be sure to send a photo of something next week. I've got a few really good tweets coming, so you can get ready for those too.

Anyways, I love you guys, and I hope that everyone is doing well at home. I'm always praying for you all. I hope to hear from you soon!

Love,

Elder Dallas Anderson

#TheChicagoConverter

See ya' in St. Charles (#BaptizeTheBulls)

This week in Kankakee, every single one of our set appointments with investigators fell through, so that was tough. We weren't able to teach any lessons to any of our investigators, and we dropped a couple of them because we can't get a hold of them, but we did manage to set up a few lessons for this upcoming week.

The biggest news I have is that I'm being transferred tomorrow! I'm headed up to St. Charles, which is part of the West Chicago area, so I'm stoked for that! I wish I could stay with the ward here, because it's so great, and our investigators are awesome, but I guess that's where the Lord needs me to be, so I'm excited to go meet some new people up there! From what I've heard, and I don't know if this is true or not, St. Charles is where D-Rose (the Bulls player) lives, so I've taken it upon myself to convert him!

The highlight of my week happened last night: We went over to a member's house for dinner, and he had the Cowboys game on TV. We turned it off so that it wouldn't be a distraction (because obviously they're my team), but he told us that he was a little unhappy because the Cowboys were losing. He asked if we were big football fans and what our favorite teams were, so we told him, and then we continued with dinner. After dinner, we were out visiting some less-active members, and we got a call from this member. I thought he was calling to tell us that we left something at his house, or to give me one last goodbye since I'm being transferred, but he was only calling to tell me that the Cowboys won, LOLOL!

Anyways, besides that, nothing too special happened this week. We got our first snow that has stuck (an inch or so, which is pretty weak) on Sunday morning, and it's starting to get really cold. We have an information line on our phone that gives us the weather report, and it says that the HIGH for this Wednesday is -2, so if you don't ever hear from me again, you'll know that I'm a popsicle.

Thanks, I love you! Hope to hear from you soon!

Elder Dallas Anderson

#TheChicagoConverter

One of the typical streets we're tracting.
Several houses have been foreclosed,
and the windows and doors are
all boarded up. Unfortunately, that's a
prettycommon sight down here.