Hey Dad,

Well, I found out where I will be going and what I will be doing. I have some big responsibility ahead of me. I was hoping that I could have gone through my mission without being in leadership positions, but I guess the Lord has different plans. I will be going to Clarksburg West Virginia. I actually will be working in the city of Bridgeport but living in Clarksburg. I will write to you and give you the address as soon as I get there. I am going to be a Zone Leader up there. I am really excited and really nervous.
I guess I should tell you what a Zone Leader is. Right now I am a District Leader which means that I am a leader over four other missionaries. As district leader you teach a district meeting once a week. As Zone Leader I am going to be a leader over about twenty missionaries. I will be teaching a Zone Conference once a transfer. Zone Conference is when President Thornock and the Assistants come a watch. I am really nervous about that. I hope that I can do everything that the lord needs me to do.
It has been a great transfer here in Blacksburg with Elder Hofheins, but I am ready to go. I am really tired of living out of a suitcase and sleeping on the floor in Dublin. It is going to be great to have one area that I am over and I know that I will be there at least two transfers. I will be able to see people progress towards baptism and come closer the Christ.
I love missionary work. It is really exhausting sometimes, but really rewarding all the time. I am so grateful for this chance that I have had to serve the Lord. And I can't wait to continue to serve him for the next five transfers.
I love you very much!!!
Love
Elder Anderson

Hello Dad,
It has been another crazy week. As I told you last week, we were told that we needed to pack everything up and move it Dublin. Well, guess what, things have changed again. We had President Interviews last Wednesday and everything that we were told was changed. We are back to our normal routine now. Blacksburg on weekends and Radford during the week. The only difference is all of our stuff is now in Dublin and we live out of suit cases when we come to Blacksburg. Talk about throwing a stone in the pond!!
This week was really hard for missionary work. We have still been spending a lot of time tracting and doing follow ups, but nothing is coming from it. In Radford people are very content with their lives and in Blacksburg, everybody says they are to busy to sit down and talk. I guess we will continue to press forward and hope for the best.
I wish I had some cool stories to tell you but I really don't. Oh, I take that back. We met the best banjo/mandaline player in the United States. We went to some members house for dinner and they have a family band called "Tossin' Possum". And this guy was over there helping them make a record. Hopefully I will be able to get one of their CD's so you all can listen. Good old bluegrass music.
We have been meeting some very interesting characters while we have been tracting. Yesterday we were tracting to finish out the day, around 8:30, and we had some people tell us that we were breaking the Sabbath and then one of them said "I guess that means we have to stone you now". Wow, some people are really special. I don't think that they think before they say something.
Well the bugs are starting to come out. We have been killing spider, earwigs and mosquitos like crazy. We even had some bug spray in the closet so we sprayed it around the house to try and keep the bugs out. You all know how much I love the little critters.
We have been having some really intense rain storms the past couple of weeks. One minute the sun will be out and then the next there is a huge black cloud rolling in with lightning and thunder. I have never seen it rain this hard in Utah. It floods the main roads and fills all the ditches. You can barely see when you are driving. It seems like we have a storm like that at least twice a week. Thank goodness you sent me out a rain coat!!
Well hopefully things will start to go back to normal. I love you very much. Have a great week!!!

Hello Dad,
What a week I have had. It has been very frustrating and things just seem to be getting worse. I don't know if you have noticed but I have spend a bit of money off of my home card. I'll tell you what, if something goes wrong everything goes wrong. I have five pair of pants for tracting and regular missionary work and every single one of those pants fell apart on me last week. I tryed to get patches and fix them but that didn't work so I had to just get new pants. Then on top of that, my shoes broke as well. Luckily I have a two year garuntee on them so I will take a picture of them and send it to you so I can get some new shoes.
As you know things have been really crazy with missionary work for me and Elder Hofheins. We have been covering Blacksburg University and Radford. We have been staying with the Dublin Elders during the week and driving back to Blacksburg on the weekends. Well, President Thornock has thrown another curve ball at us. We were eating lunch today and we got a call for the Assistants. That usually means bad news. They just informed us that they need our car and that they are shutting down Blacksburg. So we are going to have to pack everything up today and move to Dublin. We will not have our own area. We will be working in Dublin and Radford. Really what we will be doing is following the Dublin Elders around and tracting all the time.
It is going to be a huge change. Missionary work is so unpredictable. I don't really know how I feel about it but I guess if that is where the Lord wants us.
Thanks for sending me Katelyns talk. It was great to be able to hear what she had to say about the temple. I can't wait to be able to come home and go through the temple with the whole family. What a wonderful blessing!!!
I love you very much.
Love,
Elder Anderson

Hello Dad,
Well, I found out some very interesting new yesterday. I am going to be staying in Blacksburg and I will be serving with Elder Hofheins again. That is a really rare thing to serve with your trainer again. I guess President Thornock doesn't think that I learned everything that I should have.
This summer if going to be really different. We will be covering Blacksburg and Radford. I don't know many details but I hope that I find them out soon. We have found out that a few of our investigators will be staying for the summer so we won't be starting from nothing. We still have Eric Colley working towards his baptismal date on the 15th of May. He told his mother about it and she is supportive. Eric is so ready for the gospel. It amazes me the testimony that he already has.
Something that we may try this summer is a English Conversation Class. There is going to be a lot of Asian people here and that is something that seems to interest them. We will be teaming up with two members who served in Korea and Tiawan (? Spelling). We will see how that goes. Hopefully we will be able to teach the gospel as we teach English as well.
I am really excited about this next transfer. We are going to be working really hard. Man is it hot here!! It was 87 degrees and 80% Humitity yesterday. We sweat all the time. It has been rough but the Lord gives us strength to continue in His work.

Hello Dad,
This week has been really great. We are having so much success that we almost feel like we are cheating the system somehow. We are finding so many people that are willing to listen to us, which is really suprising because finals are next week. I think that they are hoping that God will bless them for listening to us. LOL
We had a great Sabbath Day. We had three investigators at church and a member brought a friend as well. This ward is so great for missionary work. Most of them are RM's so they are still really excited about the work. We taught six member present lessons and we taught six other lessons. Then to top it off, on Sunday we went to a lesson at a members home and set Eric Colley with a baptismal date. He is so solid!! He has already read through 1 Nephi, and he said that he has prayed about it and knows that it is true. He will be baptized on May 15th.
There may be a change of plans for me this transfer. There are only four missionaries leaving and ten coming in, so President Thornock has to decide which areas he wants to leave open. If this area stays open it is going to be a completely different form of missionary work. There is talk about spending half the week here in Blacksburg and then spent the other half in Radford. We would just live with members while we were in Radford. Or we would just travel around the Zone and help other missionaries in their areas. That would be really interesting.
The old truck was actually back in Buena Vista. I think that the name of the road was Keyes Mill Rd. It was all the way to the end and there was actually two old trucks. They are just sitting in the middle of a field rusting. I don't know if they would even be worth fixing up. I don't know if they were for sale of not. I don;imagine the owners would have a problem with somebody taking them.
I did get grandma's letter and I am planning on writing her back today. I just seems like i don't have much time to do anything on P-day. We are always running around town doing other things.
Jentry and Racael wrote me an Email finally. I don't really have time to write them back. I have a few people I need to write to first. Have you heard from Kasey Anderson lately? I wrote him awhile ago and he hasn't written me back. I worry about him.
It sounds like you are staying busy with your job and with the yard. I can't wait to come home and see everything that has been done. Speaking of coming home, I was looking at what transfer I would come home and it looks like I would be home on January 12th. That leaves me two days before school starts. I am thinking about asking President Thornock if I can come home 2 weeks earlier. I haven't decided yet.
Thanks for all that you do. I love you very much!!