I hope that things are going well and y'all are staying busy, but not too busy! things have been going good out here in Paonia it was a real busy weekend for us.. but it was one of the best on the mission i think! So we had Zone Confrence on friday and that was up in Grand Junction and we learned about a few cool things and then Saturday and Sunday we had the chance to watch General Confrence and it was amazing! i absolutely love watching General Confrence i can't believe i never really watched it before the mission, i watched all 10 hours of it including the Priesthood session and i agree that there were a few that spoke in that session that were hard to understand! but the messages that they delivered were amazing and it goes to show how important families are and what love means! dang it was a great weekend, i didn't fall asleep once in the whole thing! ha.. i loved M. Russell Ballards talk on father son relationships and i thought it was so ironic cuz the night beforre that confrence i wrote dad a letter and told him how gratefuly i was for him! it was like exactly what i was sayin in the letter. i also loved Jeffery R. Holland's talk on the Book of Mormon, talk about powerful! i've always loved listening to him cuz he says it how it is and doesn't care! so yes it was just a great confrence. oh i also got to meet with President Christison at zone confrence and have an interview with him and that was a great experince also cuz he helps me so much, i went to him with somethings i have been struggling with and he can comfort me. I can really feel the saviors love through him. Oh and zone confrence i got up and bore my testimony. so everyone knows how great of a weekend this past weekend was, well this upcoming isn't gonna be so great! lol i have to give a talk in Sacrament meeting, and y'all know how much i dont like talkin in front of people. but i got most of it done and it's right around 10 minutes and so it will be plent long cuz there are 2 other speakers.. but make sure y'all pray for me.. i've been praying that i can say what Heavenly Father would have me say to touch the hearts of the people listening and for the comfort im gonna need! ha just the other night we went over and visted a family and the husband wasn't feeling well so he asked us to give him a blessing, so i gave him the blessing and it was a spiritual experince and then the next morning he called and told us that he was felling tons better and so he took us to our district meeting in delta. but it was so great to see that he got better.. the people around here are really nice. we have had some really good appointments this past week and i think that two of the people are so so close so hopefully we can see something happen. we do lots of tracting but cuz its such a small area everyone we talk to is like yeah 2 of you guys stopped by like 2 months ago! haha so they hear it quite a bit! for meals we get fed by members of the ward everynight, and it's pretty sweet cuz the family we live with buys all of the food and tells us to eat theirs. so yeah the people here in the ward take care of us, they are so nice im actually gonna go milk a cow at one of the members home this friday! lol im pretty excited. well i got to get goin but i cant wait to hear back from y'all, i hope things continue to go well. thank you for all the letters of love and support! it means so much to me and helps a ton! bye bye.. LOVE YOU ALL!!! MISS YOU!!!Love,Elder Randy Anderson

Hey everyone! im here! lol dont worry.. it has been pretty crazy this past week, having to say goodbye to lots of people and then trying to get familar with this new area.. but things have been goin pretty good.. i hope that things have been going good with all of you!ell i live in a small town called Paonia and we are living with a family named the Van Vleets, they are in there late 60's probably and there house it was old school i think it was built in 1904 or something like. we live up in there attic and we have king size beds to ourselves! :) it is awesome the biggest bed i've ever slept on! they are nice people. they have a son who lives up in Colfax and works for WSU so i was talking to them about the area up there and everything. they are really nice people, as well as everyone else in the area, we cover a few small towns that kind of remind me of Lind and Wastuchna type of towns, not really really small but not big i htink they have like from 1,000 to 1,600 in the different towns each. the towns are Paonia, Hotchkiss, Crawford, and Somerset.. but yeah it reminds me lots of back home with the small town feel. it is a good area and the work is going well so i just gotta keep on truckin through it! my new companions name is Elder Jensen and he is from Houston Texas he ahs been out on his mission for 19 months and heads home i think in march. we have a car in this area, it is a 2010 Pontiac Vibe and we do still ride our bikes around some.. There are some old farmers and tons of ranchers around here but not too many acres on the peoples places.. we email at a brand new library that just got built a couple months ago so that is really nice. we do lots of tracting and trying to visit people. the ward building is right here in town, which reminds me Paonia used to be in the guiness book of world records cuz it has the most churches per capita.. there are like 23 churches here in town! haha its crazy! but yeah it's a nice place and we have lots of inactive members that we are trying to work with and lots of part member families.. im not sure how many people would be in the ward if everyone was active.. we have about 100 coming weekly though.. so yea thats the area i can tell you more later.. oh but real quick i had to introduce myself at church and i told thm all bout myself and how i lvoe to snowmobile and i got offered to go snowmobiling! lol it is too tempting, we dont have snow yet but we will have lots of it soon! and there are deer all over the place. i have a talk on the 11th its on repentance ha so if y'all have any good ideas let me know! im glad that things are going well for all of you back home, its sounds like your staying busy and doing well.. we helped move a lady this morning so i didn't have time to sit down and think bout what i wanted to tell you specificaly, but we have lots of potentionals in this area and i think i can relate with lots of them so i hope that is why the Lord sent me here, its been a ruff week but i hope it continues to get better i just have to be positive.. thank you for all the letters of love and support! i hope things keep going good for everyone! i miss you all and love you so so so much! :( have a great day! bye Love, Randy

Randy has a NEW ADDRESS!

Elder Randy Anderson
P.O. Box 334
Paonia, CO 81428

I googled Paonia, Colorado and found that it is a small community of close to 2000 people located 4 hours west of Denver and 1 hour south east of Grand Junction.. Fruit orchards and coal mines are some of the businesses. The closest Walmart is 26 miles away. I'm sure country living will be a change for Elder Anderson after serving in the Denver area for almost 8 months.

I can't wait to hear about the many wonderful people in Paonia, Colorado

Randy is being Transferred!!!!

well how is everything going for the family and friends this week? im doing pretty good kind of bummed that im gettin transfered cuz i love this area and i've grown close with lots of people here but i know the Lord knows what he's doing so just gotta put my trust in him. so yes i am gettin transfered to let you know.. This week has been pretty crazy i believe it was Monday morning we woke up and it was raining really hard and it was about 39 degrees and then within like 2 hours it started snowing and it dropped down to 33 degrees. It snowed for like an hour but we didn't get a whole lot it melted off later that day, but it was so cool to get snow on the last day of summer! so crazy.. I heard that it is supposed to snow here again today but i dont know what will happen.. it has just been overcast for the past week so the seasons are definitely changing down here.. we got to go to Mike and Linda's last night for dinner and then we shared a lesson with them afterwards. It is so great to see how much he has warmed up to us over the months, he jokes with us and acts like we've known him forever! He is such a good guy.. That is what is gonna be hard is leaving all of these people that are so close with me and then who knows if i'll see them again, maybe if i get to come back through after the mish. We haven't heard from anyone else really besides mike this week, we've been trying to get ahold of them but people jsut dont feel like answering there doors i guess. i hope to have a greater knowledge of the Gospel by time i come home haha, that should be pretty easy though cuz i didn't really know ANYTHING when i came out! lol We had Stake Confrence this past week and it went really well, it was the first time this Stake had broadcasted it to other buildings and i was like what? we've been doin it for awhile back home! ha There are gonna be lots of changes here in Highlands Ranch though, like they are switching up the areas and things like that. I'm really curious to see what will happen.. i cant believe that im gonna hit 8 months like next week sometime that is so crazy!!! thats 1/3 of the way done.. and these past few months have literally flown by so fast! i think that these next ones will go by just as quick. you asked if Elder K goes home in a couple months, yes he does he'll be home exactly 1 week before Christmas he is excited but dreading it at the same time cuz he says he has nothing back home to go home to really... it seems like a lot of missionaries say that at the end of there missions, they say they wish they could stay out here and not go home.. but i dont think i'll be one of those! Anyhoo i hope that everyone is doing good and that things are going well.. i'll let you know as soon as i can as to where im gettin transfered to.. thank you for all the love and support you give me i really appreciate it! it means so so much to me! i miss you and love you all!!!! take care, have a great rest of the week! LOVE YOU!!!Love, Elder Anderson

hi everyone!!! so how are things going this week? what's new that has been going on up that way? i've been doing pretty good lately just been taking one day at a time enjoying it. yeah things are going good for me in Highlands Ranch, we got the chance to go over and play kickball with a bunch of families in the ward on monday night for family home evening and it was way fun.. Mike and Linda came so it was good for them also.. there were so many little kids there and then all the adults, i didn't know at what level i should play if that makes since? ha but it was so frustrating tryin to teach the kids how to play and everything, it made me think i can definitely wait to have kids. ha but we have been visiting with lots of families both inactive members and active members just tryin to get to know everyone better so that way they can find us some people to teach. and also we just like doing service for people so that way they feel like they can trust us.. it's always so nice going into someones home and knowing that they care about you, even if we are perfect strangers to them.. im glad to hear that y'all are keeping up on the scripture study and are saying family prayers, it is so important and it will make your day so much nicer.that is great that the youth is going to the temple this next week, like i've said before it is always so nice to go to the temple and Morgie gets to go for her first time! thats exciting! this past Sunday i got to say the prayer for sacrament meeting! that was a first time ever haha so that was a neat experience nothing special but it was a first time.. i know this will be hard but i want to challenge the family and friends, whether its personal or as a family to finish the Book of Mormon from now until Christmas.. we got the challenge as our mission and it is so great to be able to read through it and study its messages. i also started reading the new testament like a month back and have been going through that, it is so great to read both of the books and to see how much they are alike and they both talk of Christ.. it disappoints me when people say that we aren't Christain and or that we dont believe in the same Christ. if they would only read the Book of Mormon they would understand how Christain we really are.. but anways let me konw what y'all think of the challenge.. I hope that everyone continues to do well and that work and school are going ok.. i miss you all so much and pray for you everyday.. let me know what everyone is up to.. and for all of those that follow my blog i hope that things are going well for you. thank you for keepin in touch with me! :) miss you and love you all!!!!Love, Randy

Family! :) So how has everyone been doing lately. happy 9/9/09 haha.. anything new been going on back up that way besides the whole livestock show? so yeah this past week has been just a normal week out in the mission field.. besides the fact that we were having a district lunch at Cici's pizza and this guy came up and started talking to us and he was a member and he lives down in Pueble and so i got excited and was like do you know Matt Mackay and he said yes, i was like dang can you tell him hi for me. so i hope the guy did.. since i last emailed we have visited with Mike and his family once and taught them a new member lesson, he blessed the sacrament in church that was way cool. but then him and his family went out of town for the long weekend so we haven't heard from him in a lil while.. one of our investigators Greg Shelton and his mom came to church again for the 3rd week in a row and they really seem to be enjoying it. we have a really hard time getting ahold of them throughout the week cuz they're so busy, so the only time we really talk is at Church.. we went over to Calvin Sonsell's house the 15 year old boy i've told you about and we helped him do some service work for his grandpa so that was good. Everyone seems to be warming up to us that has had a bad taste in their mouth before.. we still get yelled at, cussed at, flipped off, and doors slammed in our face that will never change but it is a testimony builder when all of that happens. it makes you feel bad for them cuz they wont even give us a chance to try and share a message with them.. but im doing good, trying to be positive with everything.. oh we also got to go up and play football with Travis (an investigator) and 2 of his nephews, it was so much fun, i miss football like crazy! but yeah everything is good here in Highlands Ranch. i hope that everything is going good for the family and friends.. i miss you all so much and pray for you everyday and i know that the Lord is blessing you. thanks again for all that you do. i hope to hear from y'all soon.. MISS YOU AND LOVE YOU!! Love,Elder Randy Deloy Lynn Anderson

hey everyone : things have been going alright. not too much has been going on here recently. we have been working with our investigators but haven't seen too much progress so hopefully sometime soon we will start seeing some.. we got to go to the temple this morning, we went to the 5:30 session and then did some inititories afterwards. it is always such a great experience going to the temple and being inside its walls. today i think we are gonig to go and play raquet ball at a rec center with some other elders so that should be fun.. tomorrow is half way through the transfer i cant believe it this past transfer or month has flown by i hit 7 months on friday and it seems like just yesterday i hit 6.. things are going good though. So President called me on monday at about 1 and he told me the news about Daniel, it was so sad to hear that. We talked for about 15 minutes and he helped comfort me. I love President so much he is such a great guy and he told me that he is always there for me at any hour of the day if i need to talk with him or need some kind of support that he is there and i just think it is so great that i have someone so close that i can talk to about whatever whenever i need to. That is one thing that i love about our church and our Heavenly Fathers Plan is that we will be able to see Daniel again someday. This life is just a short time period compared to the eternities. What greater joy is there than knowing that families can be together forever!? and that we will be able to return to our Father in Heaven. Reese and Crystal will be able to raise him in the life after this. I'm sad still but i know things will be ok. Please let Reese and Crystal know taht they are in my prayers and im here for them if i can do anythign to help just let me know. Tell the little girls that i love them. i bet that was a great feeling that you had mom when you felt that Grandma Edler was taking care of him, when i read that i felt like i knew taht too cuz the spirit bore witness to me that it is true. i've been doing pretty good with the whole thing, when prez first told me i started to cry and then he calmed me down and told me things were gonna be ok and then a few other times since then i have teared up but im staying positive.. so yeah i have been doing ok how is everyone else doing back home? is everyone still reading and praying everyday? i hope so but if not then now would be a good time to try and start that routine back up cuz it will definitly bless your lifes.. i hope that everyone is doing well and that things continue to go well for you i love you all so much and am so grateful for all that you do. i miss you and love you all so very much! please keep in touch, love you! bye :(love,Elder Randy Anderson