Illinois Tornado

A large tornado struck a small town about an hour from where Elder Anderson is serving. We received an email from the mission home that all missionaries in the surrounding areas are fine. They will likely be providing service to the people in this community where there has been severe damage.

Thanks for your concern about Elder Anderson! Please keep him, all the missionaries, and the many people affected by these storms in your prayers.

Transfer News - Not!

This is an earlier message from Elder Anderson received while his family was out of town. His negligent mother forgot to post it sooner. Sorry!

March 31, 2015
For my week here in Naperville, we did a lot of tracting and finding new people. On Friday, we knocked into a woman who was babysitting some kids, and she didn't have a lot of time to talk, but she accepted a Book of Mormon, and we plan to go see her again this week! Hopefully we'll start being able to find a few people that are interested and start progressing in the gospel over the next week or two. 

On Saturday, Elder Sonzini, Elder Gibbs, and Elder Sorenson and I helped two of the senior sister missionaries move into a new place from their old apartment. It took a total of about 6 hours, there was so much stuff to move, and we had to fit it all into one trailer and bed of a truck, but we did it!

So we got our transfer news on Saturday: both Elder Sonzini and I are staying here in the Naperville 1st Ward, and I'm finishing his training, so nothing too new there! The big news for this transfer though is that we are being taken out of our car-share, so we won't have a car at all, it will all be on foot or on bike.

Love,
Elder Dallas Anderson
#FindingChance

The rebelliousness continues. Every minute with me is livin' on the edge. #WifeMe

#Biking Is Life

Hey from Chicago! 

First off, no, I still don't like biking, although it will be good for me because I won't get fat (hopefully). We have a couple of bikes that just stay here in the area that we are using, so I don't need to buy one. I'll be physically ready for a bike trip up St George's Bluff Street when I get home, but don't get your hopes up, it's probably not going to happen (unless it's a bullet bike, then sure). Funny but sad story, our first day on the bikes, Elder Sonzini's pants tore up the seam from the bottom of has leg to his knee, so that's brutal. He was a good sport about it though, and we should be able to get it fixed.

We had a Mission Conference yesterday at a forest preserve park, so it was kind of like you were in the Sacred Grove. It was really neat, because President Fenn told the story of the First Vision using Joseph Smith History, and he talked about a lot of the different things that we learn from the First Vision. After he and Sister Fenn taught for a couple of hours, they fed us lunch from KFC (it was a lot of chicken to feed 200 missionaries), and then we had a testimony meeting that was about 3 hours long. We were supposed to be done with the meeting at 4:00, but we didn't finish until 5:30, so that was pretty interesting.

Besides the Mission Conference, there wasn't a lot that was too exciting in our finding efforts this week, other than we did tract into another woman that we gave a Book of Mormon to, and we're planning to see her tonight. We haven't gotten back in touch with Gina yet, but hopefully she's interested in learning more. One of the best parts of the week though was watching General Conference! I learned so much from this Conference; a couple of my favorite talks were from Elder Holland (which pretty much told the story Brockbank and I had) and from Elder Pearson. 

I'll be on the lookout for this next package, although you might have to slow it down on the candy a little bit. It's so good, but I'm going to get fat if I just keep eating all of it! I never thought I'd say this, but could you maybe send some protein bars instead of 100% candy? 

I love you all, thanks for everything you do!
Elder Dallas Anderson
#FindingChance

Tooth Talk and Cool New Convert

Hi everybody!

A few things first before my week: First, I had no idea that JB (Elder Engler) got engaged, that's awesome! I must tell you though that Elder Engler is one of the slowest ones to get engaged after they get home from this mission. There are a few missionaries that I know that have gotten home recently and been engaged within the first 3 weeks of them being home, so I don't really know what to tell you there, haha. 

So I got permission from President Fenn to go to the baptism in Bourbonnais on Saturday, but I didn't end up going, because I felt like we should try to find some more people to teach here in our area. We aren't teaching anyone solid, or really anyone at all right now, it's been a couple of weeks since we've had a lesson with an investigator. We might end up dropping more of the people we have. The thing that has been going well for us is that we've been teaching a recent convert named Shante who was baptized just over a month ago. She comes from a really tough background: grew up homeless in the south side of Chicago, pretty much all of her family except for her is really into drugs and have messed their lives up pretty bad. Shante was into that lifestyle for a little bit, but missionaries tracted into her and she wanted to turn her life around. She's awesome though, she has such a strong testimony, and is really sincere in wanting to do everything she can. She has an 8 year old daughter named Dekira that was baptized a week after she was, and a 1 year old named Dejayla who's a real cutie.

About my interview with President Fenn, one of the questions I asked him is why I was chosen to be trained by Elder Engler, who was obviously one of the best missionaries of the entire mission. President told me that he saw a lot of potential in me, and he wanted me to have the best trainer so that I could learn as much as possible in my first six weeks.

I'm excited to hear all about Landon's tournament in Dallas, that should be a good time! I wish I could go with all of you, but that's alright, you'll have a lot of fun! When you see them, will you please tell Marc's family thank you for the cards that they sent me? I don't have their email, but it was great getting letters from different members in their family. Their girls are so cute!

Big news about my tooth: so I went to the dentist's office yesterday, and learned a few different things. The part of my tooth that looks like it has a hole isn't a cavity, WOOOO! I learned that it's actually my gums that are a little receded and a part of the root of my tooth is exposed, which explains why it is a little sensitive, but that's good news! I'm really thankful for the members of the Church out here though, they're truly amazing. He looked over my teeth for me and didn't charge me anything. I don't think I told you this, but there was a member in Kankakee that was a dentist that cleaned our teeth for free too. When I get back from my mission, I want to be the guy that helps the missionaries out like that, that would be sweet!

I can't say anything crazy happened this week in Naperville, although it did snow another 5-6 inches yesterday! We weren't able to teach any lessons to investigators, and we didn't find anyone who was really interested when we were out tracting and contacting people on the streets. But we're working really hard and contacting a lot of people right now, so hopefully we'll find someone who's ready to hear our message soon! We went to the temple for P-Day today, which was a great experience! After that, there is a huge Harley-Davidson store in town, so we went inside and looked at a bunch of different motorcycles that they had. I can't tell my mom that I want to get a bullet-bike at some point when I get home or she'd kill me, but I'm just saying that it got me thinking a little bit, haha!

So that's about it for my week. Here's a picture of Elder Sonzini and me on St. Patrick's Day, hence the green ties. Thanks for that package again, the ties are sweet!

Thanks for writing, I love you! Talk to you again Monday!

Elder Dallas Anderson

#TheChicagoConverter

#Lou-E-ville

#CardsOverCubs

'Nuther Week in Naperville

Elder Anderson keeping Elder Oaks' plants alive.

Hey from Chi-Town!

So to start off with, I did get permission to go to the baptism of James on Saturday back in St. Charles! It was fun seeing past companions and members of the ward I served in. It was such a neat experience, they asked me to be one of the witnesses, so I'm really grateful that I got to be there. I'm asking President Fenn on Tuesday if I can have permission to go to the baptism for the Cannon children this upcoming Saturday. 

For our week, we actually dropped a couple of our investigators (in all reality, two of them dropped us--they told us they were no longer interested), but we did find a couple of people that we hope to start teaching in the upcoming week! We didn't see Bob or Domingo this week, so hopefully we'll have better luck next week. 

We had a great zone meeting on Friday, where I had a really good one on one interview with President Fenn. There is a new missionary training meeting this Tuesday, which means that I get to hear more from President Fenn! Next Tuesday will be our P-Day, because we are headed to the Chicago Temple. 

The "funny-looking-back-on-it-but-not-so-funny-at-the-time" moment of the week: on Tuesday, the fire alarm went off at 2:30 in the morning, and we had to evacuate the building for half an hour... This is the third time that it has gone off in the past two weeks, all because someone is smoking in the stairwell...Word of wisdom kids, keep it real.

The other "funny-for-us-but-not-so-funny-for-them" moment of the week: our district leaders had their car towed and had to pay a $218 fine. Ouch.

Thank you very much for the St. Patrick's Day package, I appreciate it! The ties are especially cool! Elder Sonzini and I will be sure to send a photo or two on St. Patrick's Day!

So that's pretty much how the week went here, thanks to all of you for your emails! 

Love,

Elder Dallas Anderson

#BRBConvertingDRose

Our Naperville apartment. It's newer in the mission; 
it's nice, but doesn't have a lot of furnishings yet.

People Who are Gold, Plants that are Still Green

Hey from Chicago!

We had a full session of church yesterday, and the weather finally hit above 35 degrees this week, so you can say life is treating us pretty well! We dealt with a bunch of adversity yesterday when finding: a man bashed on us for a couple minutes about how we can't tell others to read our book if we aren't willing to read the Quran and other books of scripture, another man went on and on (and on and on and on...) about how Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are one God, and how wrong we are, and another lady drove by us screaming profanity and threw a ripped up pass-along card at us. It's funny how Satan thinks he can get us down by throwing all these bad things at us, but it doesn't phase us. Call me Macklemore, because you Can't Hold Us (OHHHHHHH! *EPIC RAP BATTLE CROWD GOES NUTS*).

We were able to teach Bob again this week about the Restoration, and it went pretty well! We explained priesthood authority the best that we possibly could, with analogies and everything, but we don't know how well he really understood it. We also are teaching a high school student named Domingo! He actually came to the church tour a couple of weeks ago (more on that in a minute). He seemed really interested, and accepted a copy of the Book of Mormon after we taught him about the Restoration. We also taught a man named Roy this week about the Plan of Salvation. He was very curious, but had a few concerns about life after death because we don't have any proof of that. We're planning on teaching him more this week and teaching him that he has faith in a lot of things that he doesn't have physical proof of.

To answer your question about the church tour a couple of weeks ago, we taught two ten minute lessons on the Plan of Salvation (the kids were split up into two groups). The other Elders that were there to help taught their sessions on the Restoration. We got a lot of good questions about baptism, such as: "Is it possible to make it to the celestial kingdom without baptism?" and "What things do you have to do before you get baptized?"

Anyways, that's about it for the week. I'm still a slacker, I forgot photos of the apartment again (we do our emails at the church building, otherwise I'd just go take them right now). I'll get them to you next week (unless I forget again).

Love,

Elder Dallas Anderson
#BRBConvertingDRose

P.S. Here is a picture of our chapel. Just sayin' those plants look good! This is our last week watering them though, we don't have to do it anymore (probably because if it looks too good when we're transferred, the new elders won't be able to compete). 

Not so fast, Sunday...

Hey everybody!

News report for the week: Church lasted all of 20 minutes Sunday. Right after the sacrament, we were informed that there was a report of a gas leak in the building, so everyone had to evacuate. That makes 2 fast Sundays in a row for me where there has been no testimonies shared (last month, church was cancelled on fast Sunday because of all the snow). 

On Wednesday, we taught a group of about 100 students from Naperville North High School about the Plan of Salvation. They were all in a world religion class, so they had a field trip to come to our church and learn more about what we believe in.

Our records (known as the Areabook) were really messy, so we spent a lot of time this week trying to see potential investigators and figure out if they were still interested in being taught or not. We ended up dropping about 15 people this week from our Areabook. Some of the records were so outdated that when we stopped by, we learned that the
people we were looking for had moved over five years ago... 

Anyways, we did see one miracle come out of it: on Wednesday, we stopped by a man named Bob, who told us he wasn't interested, but that we could check back with him in a month or so. We felt like we needed to leave him with a Book of Mormon, so we asked if that would be okay, and he said that was fine. We immediately because giving him a bit of a background about the book, and it turned into a 30 minute lesson on the Book of Mormon and the Restoration, so that was pretty neat!

Other than that, nothing too crazy this week. Although we did get a few more inches of snow, and we found these awesome snow creations (it's two snowmen fishing on a boat, and they caught a whale! Pretty sweet!)!

Elder Dallas Anderson

#BRBConvertingDRose