SPECIAL MISSIONARY EXPERIENCES

SPECIAL MISSIONARY EXPERIENCES
NOV. 12, 2012 - MAY 2014. WE ARE EXCITED TO SERVE OUR HEAVENLY FATHER . WE KNOW THE CHURCH OF JESUS CHRIST OF LATTER-DAY SAINTS IS TRUE!! IT IS A BLESSING TO US, OUR CHILDREN, AND GRANDCHILDREN. WE KNOW THAT OUR HEAVENLY FATHER LIVES AND LOVES US! “I think there is no place in the world where I feel closer to the Lord than in one of His holy temples. In addition to the closeness we feel to the Lord when we are in the temple, we can continue to receive blessings even after we have returned to our everyday lives. Attending the temple gives us a clearer perspective and a sense of purpose and peace." President Thomas S. Monson

Tuesday, December 22, 2009

We had a great office vilet with President and Sister Slovacek, Elder Hicken & Fruehan, Elder Williams and Elder Mittanck, and Elder and Sister Robbins. We were able to go to a beautiful city, Karlovy Vary. We visited the castle and drank the medicinal hot springs mineral water.

We also had a great experience singing in St. Mikulas Cathedral in Old Town Square of Prague. We had a missionary Choir singing the Christmas Concert. We testified through song of the Birth of our Savior Jesus Christ. Our last hymn was "I Believe in Christ". The Spirit of our Heavenly Father was strong. We hope we touched some hearts and made their Christmas a little better.

Sunday, November 22, 2009

A wonderful day for Baptisms


The pictures above are (Left picture) Elder Williams, Dad (Kenton - Elder Anderson), and Elder Briggs. They taught Kennedy. Kennedy is in the next picture. Kennedy wanted Dad to baptized him.


The picture below and to the right is dinner at our apartment with Lula, far right, (she is investigating the church and from Ethopia, (she just committed to be baptized), She came to church today for the first time and came to dinner afterwards. Next to Lula is elder Peart, Elder Hicken, Dan, a new member , Milan (who was baptized November 21, 2009, (the same day as Kennedy, Sister Tate and Sister Wheeler, and Dad (Kenton) back right. The picture to the right is Elder Williams, Dad (Kenton) and Elder Briggs just before Kennedy's baptism on Nov. 21.


Below is the train that we took to go to Lubimer's baptism. First we walked to the Metro and across town to the Train station to get on the train. It was a very modern two story train. We enjoyed seeing the beautiful country side as we road together with about 15 people on the way to Lubimer's baptism. e came to dinner after going to Church for the first time. Ken is back at the left. We had a nice spiritual thought about the importance of eternal families and the purpose of temples.
Above I'm sitting in the train on our way to Lubimer's baptism. The train has two stories and was really nice.

The ride was smooth and it was great to be there with members of the branch and some of the young missionaries.

As Lubimer walked down into the river, two large white swans came swimming down the river and stopped right by the baptism. The Swans seemed to be signs from Heaven telling Lubimer and all of us how pleased Heavenly Father was. It was the most beautiful sight.

Lubimer said that the swans represented the two beautiful sister missionaries that taught him the gospel, Sister Austin and Sister Magidson, along with all the other people that had helped him. Dad and I were able to help teach Lubimer several times. We also helped him pack up his belongings and then visited him in his new cottage. We visited him at the hospital after he had hip surgery. He is a Kingdom Builder, a wonderful person who has a very gentle spirit. He use to be the Minister of Defense in the Czech Republic.

It was a great baptism. Lubimer is such a wonderful person. He's very thankful to have found the gospel and we are thankful to have an eternal friend.

Monday, November 9, 2009

Sister Anderson, Elder Erickson, Tonya, Elder Anderson and Elder Grimshaw. Next picture is Sister Wheeler with Diane who was baptized and Sister Tate


Picture at the left is: Elder Anderson, Sister Anderson, Tatyana, who is from Kashikstan and who was baptized November 7, 2009. Tatyana is an angel and said that her baptism day was the happiest day of her life. Next is Elder Erickson, and Elder Grimshaw. The pictures below is: Sister Anderson, Elder Erickson, Tatyana, Elder Anderson, who was asked to baptized Tatyana, and Elder Grimshaw.
Publish Post
Below is Sister Wheeler, Diana, who was baptized on November 7, 2009, and Sister Tate. Diana is from Peru. She is expecting a baby on November 27. She's so thankful for the gospel.



The next picture below is a castle in Slovakia that we went to when we went to the Senior Missionary Convention in Slovakia. We had such a nice time.

Trencin Castle and Wonderful Baptisms



We've had a wonderful last few days. We were in Slovakia for a Couple's and Senior Missionary Conference. It was great. We were there with the three missionary couples in our mission. They were the Irwins, Robbins, and Alexanders. The senior sisters were Sister Richards and Sister Miller. We visited the Trencin Castle which was amazing. We were blessed to go to the site where the land of Slovakia was dedicated by President Deiter F. Uchtdorf for the preaching of the gospel. He dedicated it 12 May 2006. There was a very special feeling there. We read the dedicatary prayer for Slovakia and for the Czech Republic. Elder Russell M. Nelson rededicated the Czech Republic on 6 February 1991. Elder John A. Widtsoe dedicated Czechoslovakia.

He testified at one time according to some accounts: "Communism is the work of the devil. The Lord is using it to break down the hold of the Catholic and the Russian Orthodox churches; over the minds of men. When communism has completed it's task of breaking this hold, it will pass out of existence almost over night and then the church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints will send missionaries by the hundreds into the Slavic lands of Europe including the mother lands of Russia." "There is more of the blood of Israel in western Russia than all the rest of Europe put together, and when the time comes to do missionary work there, the people will come into the church by the thousands while villages and towns will join the church in groups." "This mission (Czechoslavakian)is important because it is opening the door to the Slavic nations. This language is the key to all Slavic languages, and some of you in this room will be called to do missionary work in Russia." (There were eleven missionaries present with Dr. Widtsoe and Mission President President Arthur Gaeth.)

After our conference, we drove home from Slovakia so that we could be back to Prague for the baptism of Tanya and Diane who I (Sister Anderson) have been teaching. They were both so excited. Heavenly Father has blessed them to be prepared in their lives to find the gospel. We love them so much. They are great spirits of our Heavenly Father. They both said that their baptisms were the "Happiest Day of their lives."

Saturday, September 12, 2009

Baptism for a great young man. Elder Nowland, AP and Elder Peart, Office Elder, sang for the special musical number.





We were excited to be able to walk home from the mission home the other night after working all day. It was a beautiful walk. Funny thing is we thought we were taking a lot of videos with the camera but at the end, we realized that we forgot to push the start button. Your right!!!! We need to read the manual to the camera. The first picture is of Dad by "our wish car". You see a lot of these cute little cars in Prague. They look like you could go anywhere in them. The next picture is of some beautiful scenery. Then we have a picture of us eating dinner last night with Elder and Sister Robbins, the outreach missionary couple here, and with Elder and Sister Wilkinson. They came from Germany to train Branch and District Presidencies on how to do audits, etc. They are missionaries over a section of Europe. We met them in the MTC. They are a great couple. Interestingly enough, Elder Wilkinson's brother is Kris (use to be Sessions') husband. His name is Dave Wilkinson. We went to Kris's wedding. In the MTC, Sister Wilkinson and I kept saying that we looked familiar to each other. Finally after saying everywhere we lived and everyone we knew, we finally figured out that we met each other at Kris and Dave's wedding. Small world, huh?

Today we are going with the Wilkinsons to a Crystal manufacturing company. We'll hopefully take some pictures to show.

Monday, September 7, 2009


This is the beautiful Vltava River.

The Vltrava River is behind us.

Prague is such a beautiful city,. The Vltrava River runs right through the middle of Prague.

Thursday, September 3, 2009

Beautiful Prague

We love to walk along the river and watch all the people.

Friends with Elder and Sister Anderson

It's funny how you can be so far away from home and come across people you know. Here's a picture of David Griffin and Levi Smith when they visited the Czech Mission Home while on their travels in Europe.

This picture was taken close by our apartment. Our apartment is right across the street to the right of the Cathedral and about half the way down the block. We ride on the tram when we go to get groceries or to some other parts of the city. There are trams and metros going everywhere. It's a pretty busy city. We love being missionaries and serving our Heavenly Father. People are being prepared to hear the truth. The Elders and Sisters mainly street contact and are having some great success. We are helping them teach. The other picture is inside another Cathedral. There's some pretty amazing buildings here.

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Wonderful blessings in our family and Missionary Life is Great!!

First off: We found out that our son, Matthew, and his wife, Yvonne, are expecting a baby in September. (Sept. 27) That is only a month away. We were so surprised and very happy. They are always surprising us with something. We had noticed that they hadn't sent very many pictures of Yvonne lately. They had identical twin girls a year and a half ago. That was a wonderful miracle. Now we will be having another special miracle. Just a couple weeks ago, we found out that Matthew had received his Master's Degree. That was another surprise. They love to surprise us!

We also found out that our daughter, Michelle, is having a baby boy. She is due January 12. Then, a couple days ago we found out that our son, Kenton, and his wife, Brittney, are having a baby girl. They are due January 18. Lots of fun and excitement. They'll have to send us lots of pictures.

We had a really nice Sunday today. In sacrament meeting we had a sister who spoke in French who had a translator that translating it into Czech, and then we had ear phones to hear it translated in English. It was great! We had a very spiritual meeting. We saw some friends of ours from Rexburg - The Papworths were visiting. Tanner and his wife, and Turner Paperworth and their dad and his wife, and two of their cousins. We were surprised to see them walk in the door. They were visiting the Czech Republic, Slovakia, Germany, and some other places for about 10 days. One of their sons served his mission in Slovakia, which is part of our mission. The other one served in Berlin. They were on a trip for two weeks visiting some of the people and places their sons had been.

The Last Sunday of the month they have "FAT" Sunday. Everyone brings something and the whole branch eats together. (It reminded us of Munch and Mingle that we had with the Single's Branch when we served there.) We took some potato chips and some plums. It was fun to visit with everyone and be able to eat too.

We met the CES Missionary couple, Elder and Sister Rust, who had taken a group of youth to the Freiberg Temple to do baptisms for the dead. They said that there was about 60 who went. The youth loved it and they all had a wonderful time. We went on a walk with the Rusts and their brother and wife who are visiting. They've been on a Temple Mission to Madrid Spain. They are on their way home. They brough another sister who was on a mission their also. We walked around Prague and were able to see one of the Cathedrals that is very famous here. It was very beautiful. The Vlatava River runs through the middle of Prague and we walked across the Charles Bridge.

The missionary work is going really well here. We have the best elders and sisters in the world. They are amazing. Elder Anderson and I are enjoying working in the office. We're trying to learn all our responsibilities. We are blessed. We are grateful to be here.

Friday, August 28, 2009

Welcome to Our Blog

Welcome to our blog.
We are excited to finally be part of the blogging world.
Here are some of the pictures while we were at the MTC.

Emma and Henry came to visit us at the MTC before leaving to the Czech

Ken trying to show off lifting himself on the pole
Jon showing off his muscles
Jon & Melissa with Henry, Emma, and Charlie at the MTC

Dinner with the Mission President and his wife and some of the elders
Ken on the balcony of our apartment