Happy Birthday Surprises!

Well Happy Birthday to Melissa, Mother Dear, and Grandpa Apostol! Hope you guys are having the time of your life!

Suzy better have gotten the stuff that I told her to get for you... but I will probably still send you a card today and all. Well it has been quite the week. Very strange actually. Well, Monday was pretty much a service day where we helped a bunch of people move. Tuesday was P-day. Wednesday was weekly planning and then Elder Rowland and I both got sick from our lunch (leftover buffalo wild wings). And then Wednesday night we headed up to Springs for a mysterious meeting for all of us visa waiters. We got to the meeting Thursday morning where we found out that we were headed up to Denver to go to the consulate and get our visa's! So we drove up and sat at the consulate for like 6 hours, filled out some paper work, took our fingerprints, and that was it. Just like that. So I will be leaving on the 21st of May. I am waiting that long because that corresponds with the transfers there in Tijuana. But I am way excited that I have a date now to look forward to. It is also nice that I can stay here and work in Colorado for a while longer. There are some great people here and hopefully we can get some more of the work really going forward these last couple weeks that I will be here.

Well yesterday I was asked to sing in church. So I sang "I'll go Where You Want Me To Go". it was really fun. I had another Elder accompany me who is an incredible pianist! He is graduating in piano performance. So they are now trying to put together a Missionary Musical Fireside before I leave. That would be a lot of fun. Hopefully we can get that all worked out before I leave to Mexico!

Well this week I have been doing a lot of studying from the Book of Mormon, I feel like any spare second I get I am reading it! It feels like I am back at home reading Hunger Games or Harry Potter where I just can't put the book down! There are soooo many great lessons that can be learned through the Book of Mormon! One of the things that has really stood out to me this week as I have been in the end of Alma through Ether is that with all the wars and contentions there is something that the when the people were righteous were able to do to help defend themselves. That was that they would always make defenses and preparations for war. That is one thing that I have really thought that we all need to be doing, not necessarily in a literal physical sense, but that we all need to be preparing ourselves, we all need to be strengthening our testimonies, fortifying our lives, and living righteously so that we can be protected.

I really hope that this is a great week for you all! I love you all sooooooo much! Remember who you are and act accordingly!

Elder Anderson