Farewell Message from President and Sister Judd

Dear Georgia Atlanta North Mission Family,

We have officially ended our role as Mission Leaders for the Georgia Atlanta North Mission. We are eternally grateful for the opportunity we have had over the past 3 years to be associated with such fine missionaries. Each one holds a special place in our hearts! What a blessing and a privilege it has been to serve with you! We treasure the experiences and memories that have strengthened our faith in Jesus Christ, and helped us deepen our understanding of God's love for each of His children. We love you!

We know that the work of Salvation is the greatest work taking place at this time! What could be more important than inviting and helping others come unto Christ to fully experience the blessings of His loving Atonement which are available as they live His doctrine. “Oh how great the importance to make these things known unto the inhabitants of the earth.” (2 Nephi 2:8)

There are many uncertainties which lie ahead for us, but we hold on to, and receive comfort from the things we know for certain.

We know that God is our loving Heavenly Father. He created us and knows us perfectly. He wants to bless us. He provided a plan for our happiness and eternal progression. He sent His beloved Son, Jesus Christ, to redeem us from sin and death. He makes it possible for us to have immortality and eternal life.

We know that the Book of Mormon is the word of God. It testifies of Jesus Christ and bears witness of His reality with power and clarity. As we read from it’s pages we can find the fulness of the doctrine required for our salvation. We can also come to know our Savior better and experience His love.

We know that God calls prophets to be His representatives on earth. They receive revelation from God to teach and lead the way. Jesus Christ continues to lead His church today through living prophets and apostles. Our current prophet, Dallin H. Oaks is the “watchman on the tower”.

As we follow living prophets we will never go astray!

We know that the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored through the prophet Joseph Smith after centuries of darkness. In response to Joseph’s simple question and sincere prayer, light and truth once again emerged and flooded the earth. Joseph saw God the Father and His Son, Jesus Christ.

As God had done with many previous prophets, He called Joseph Smith to be a prophet through whom the fulness of the gospel would be restored to the earth. This restoration would help God’s children find joy on earth and eternal life in the world to come.

We know that God’s power and authority have been restored to the earth again. This priesthood authority allows God’s children to participate in sacred ordinances and make covenants which are binding on earth and in heaven. Honoring these covenants gives us access to Christ’s redeeming and enabling power throughout our lives. We renew this covenantal bond each week as we worthily partake of the Sacrament, thus retaining a remission of our sins and the companionship of the Holy Ghost.

May you feel strengthened by the Lord as you faithfully live His doctrine.

With great love,

President and Sister Judd

The Cheater Upstairs and More Frogs of Course - Lilburn, Georgia

Hello!

If you want the juicy stuff skip to sunday lol

Welcome back everyone! Happy second transfer!!! Sister Balls and I get to stay together for another awesome transfer in Lilburn.

Monday: Yay P-day!! We went to the Hindu temple in our area with our district and it was so beautiful. Like wow. All hand-carved white marble inside and out. I got a couple souveniers from the gift shop :) We played games at the church building afterward yippee! I got to play rummikub and smoke everyone in the lightning round per usual. (I love you grandma Janna) We went to the Baron's for dinner and I learned how to make a malted milkshake :) Brother Baron is from England and knows how to make it gooooood. We had the opportunity to visit my Aunt, LaRae's cousin Andy and his wife Angela! We got to know them and shared a scripture with them!

Tuesday: Whole day felt like a fever dream. We watched departing devo for all the departing missionaries in the morning (so sad) then went to work at the co-op! We love Beanie so much. Literally the cutest old lady everrrr. She threw her hands up and squealed when we walked in the room. We scared her when we told her we didn't know if we'd be back next week due to transfers. We didn't eat lunch but instead napped during our whole lunch hour. It was great. We had a member message with a unique family afterward. They're both pilots and met in a flying club. He was a member of the church beforehand, and it wasn't until they honeymooned in SLC that she started to express interest in wanting to go to church. How interesting. She was endowed in December, and they both have super strong testimonies, and they come to church when work allows them to :) Then, we had a member message with the Calloways! They took us to Bruster's for ice cream in the rain while we shared our message. Then... TRANSFER CALLS! We will be staying together this transfer yay!!! I'm killing my sweet companion.(For those who don't know, I'm not actually killing her, that just means I will be her last ever mission companion)

Wednesday: The day started slow and gloomy with a bash at wendy's. Lovely. We decided one of the ways we want to try finding this week is by leaving brownies on people's doorsteps, so we went to walmart for supplies and baked them during lunch! We had a lesson with our friend, Michalle, and Sister Paulukaitis. We got through a bit of the plan of salvation in an hour and we put her on a goal date! We went to the ward mingle afterward and Michalle came! She brought a food too! The mingle was fun as always, and then we did basically a billion stopbys. 

Thursday: Holy craziness. Transfer day, but we couldn't go to transfers, so we went to IHOP for breakfast! We shared the yummiest omlette and pancakes ever (the cinn-a-stack. go try them) We headed to the park for contacts and ended up on the phone with someone for 45 minutes. A productive 45 minutes, though. This girl has had a ROUGH life. We headed to the library to finish contacts and study :) When we got outside, it looked cloudy but not too bad. We stopped at QT to pee and it starts to DUMP rain outside. We could barely see anything out the car windows. Then, we got a tornado watch on our phones and started to freak out a bit. We called a sister in the ward to ask what to do if a tornado touches down while we're driving, and she just said drive safe... so we drove to the church lol. We made a bunch of pamphlets and stuff inside while it continued to dump rain. We headed to dinner with Sister Brackett at Always Fresh and holy actual MIRACLE!! Our waitress, Tonya, was asking questions about what missionaries do and what church we were from. Then, she asked if she'd ever see her mom again. She let us know he mom passed away last October. Sister Brackett (Sweet, old, strictly turquoise-wearing 93-year-old Sister Brackett) said "I know!" and told her all about how she'll be able to. We got Tonya's information and set up an appointment to teach her more. YAY!!!! Then, we headed to Ashley and Yi Ming's house! Our lesson was an hour and a half long because Ashley had SO many good questions and also translating into Vietnamese takes time lol. We were gifted a million snacks per usual. When we got home, Sister Balls and I wanted to go frogging. So we did! We grabbed a tupperware and filled it with 6 frogs and toads. We got so wet and had a blast. 

Friday: We talked to a guy named Skip at Chick-Fil-A and he politely bashed us but we left him with a Book of Mormon lol. We did studies at a big park and walked around the whole thing twice. We ended up in the woods lol. We weekly planned for three hours then stayed at the church for our member meal! The Noahs brought food to us because the restaurant they wanted to go to was outside the mission! We ate in the young women's room lol. I tried collard greens for the first time and I actually loved them. So good. After dinner, we did a couple stopbys and got caught heart attacking someone. We got so scared haha!! We ended the night calling members and friends at the park :)

Saturday: What a blessing to have sisters in our district now. Like holy moly. We ate lunch at chick fil a after DC and can I just say they have the best everything ever? I love chick fil a. We met a cool fella at Wendy's named Jaden. Pray he reaches back out. We were literally dead and could. not. focus. during our studies because our upstairs neighbors were at it again all night long. (Stomping, getting it on, etc.) We had a great day after we took a 20 minute power nap lol.

Sunday: Oh boy. So, those upstairs neighbors I just talked about... we woke up to some crazy stomping, crashing, and yelling. Suddenly, a partly-dressed man JUMPS OFF THE BALCONY into the bushes. We're like 99.9% sure someone got caught cheating lol. On Father's day too?? We told the elders at church and they were gobsmacked. We had three of our friends come to church! So good. The primary kids sang the cutest song ever. We had a great lesson after church with one of the friends that came. I got to call home for Father's day! Shoutout dad! We had a member message with a sweet old lady in a 55+ facility who we had the best hour-long discussion with about how incredibly grateful we are to have modern prophets. We went to do a referral stopby later but the spirit was absolutely absent so we said peace out. Super heebie jeebie. Overall a great day though lol. Pray for our upstairs neighbors. 

I love yall, the Lord loves yall! Email me 

xoxo, Sister Anderson

IHOP for breakfast

This eagle made me giggle. Why is he sitting like that

Hindu temple

Parris cousins!

Frogs and More Frogs and Miracles!!!! - Lilburn, Georgia

 This week was sooo busy!! Let's get right into it :)

Monday: P-day! We played games as a district and went to a friend of a friend's house to shop in her closet!!!! I got like ten billion things all for free. How awesome.

Tuesday: We found a little froggy in the hallway on the way to the gym! We went to the co-op and saw mother beanie (love her, she's my co-op mom) We said a prayer for guidance and Heavenly Father led us right where we needed to be! We ended up finding someone! (She cried when we read  from 3 Nephi 11) Then we had the silliest lesson of all time at the church. We ended it feeling drained and like the spirit was gone... but oh ye of little faith just wait until sunday!!! Then we packed up for exchanges!

Wednesday: Exchanges with the Hermanitas!! First time getting bashed in SPANISH... kind of fun though hehe! The PMG app was down all freaking day and that made it so hard to do contacts but that's okay we pushed through. We saw a snake crossing the road! I think it was a king snake? Then we went to english class! I love pronouncing the words for the students because their eyes are laser focused on my mouth lol it's so funny to me. 

Thursday: WOW what a great day!!!! We had DC in the morning then we headed to GUSTO!! Literally the best food ever holy moly. We had a lesson with our little 9yo recent convert Gimena and she talked about her hermit crabs the whole time lol. We went to dinner with the Brandeaus!! They took us to a mexican restaurant that made our tummies hurt lol but it was so great to talk to them. After our lesson about sharing the gospel with those around us, they went out and bought a bunch of copies of the Book of Mormon to give away! Ugh so proud. After dinner, we went GUITAR FINDING! Holy crap it was so much fun lol. We walked around Lilburn City Park and asked people if we could play them a song about Jesus. Who would say no to that?? (like 5 people would but whatevs) So we played them a song and invited them to church with us! It was so great. We went to my Aunt's cousin's house but he wasn't home. We left our number and he texted to set up an appointment for monday night :)))) I'm coming for you andy and angela!!! We knocked probably one billion houses and I could have knocked one billion more. 

Friday: We went to the foot doc in the morning to see if sis balls can finally stop wearing her boot, but they scheduled an MRI for it instead. Pray for sis balls foot everyone! Then, we headed to 5 (really 4 because this transfer is a short one) week followup!! I finally got to see Sister Lord again!!!!! I also saw DR. KEVIN QUARANTA!?!? My eye doctor from back home!! He and his wife got temporarily reassigned while they wait for their visas to Mozambique! How coolio!! I finally tried boiled peanuts. They just taste like salty beans. We stopped at whataburger for studies on the way home and a worker guy plopped two cups in front of us so we could get free drinks! How kind! We went to Jackie Watson's place for dinner and she should literally be a professional chef I swear. She makes chicken like no other. She has cancer so she has to eat clean, so she can cook clean. And boy does she rock it. 

Saturday: I woke up grumpy as heck but God gave me two frogs on the way to the gym so I couldn't be grumpy anymore. We went to a McDonalds for comp study and we went up to the cutest and I mean cutest family ever. They have a baby boy that's at the age where he can't stand up on his own quite yet and is slobbering all over the place with the biggest brown eyes of all time. UGH I have baby fever. Anyway we talked to them and they said they felt like it was supposed to happen that we met. Yes, Tyrone it was! We set up a time to meet next week and we are so excited! We got stood up for two lessons with our friends but oh well :( We had dinner at the Brito's and holy cannoli we ate the yummiest greek bowls EVER. Wow. I need the recipe like yesterday thanks. 

Sundays: HOLY busy day. We had one of our friends come to church (the one with the silly lesson on tuesday)! She was able to go to relief society and ask a million questions. So great. Sister Balls and I taught Young Womens! They ate it up. We had an early dinner with the Nefs and ate the yummiest homemade pasta and cobbler. After dinner, we headed back to the church for a Juneteenth celebration. Can I say I love it here enough? Probably not, but this was literally so cool. There was a political panel of representatives of different parts of Georgia telling us things we could be doing to improve our state. Then, we had the honor of partaking in real soul gospel music where we were up on our feet with our hands in the air singing along. God bless America. Our friend came to that too! Then, we had to rush over to Ashley and Yi Ming's house for a lesson. Our translator, Sister Bui was late so we ended up trying a bunch of crazy foods like needle mushrooms and octopus... it was nasty but I'm glad I tried it lol. We started our lesson using google translate but when Sister Bui showed up, we were saved. We were stuck on the first principle of the plan of salvation before she showed up, but after she came, we got through the whole thing and Ashley was explaining it to us at the end. Thank heaven for Sister Bui. After our lesson we went FROG HUNTING! I wish we could go real frogging where we're waist deep in a pond catching big ones, but the tiny ones are fun too lol. We caught like six in the first 5 minutes. One of them only had three legs!!! So silly. 

That's All!! Congrats on making it to the end of my email. I love yall the Lord loves yall! Email me! ️

xoxo, Sister Anderson

Study with the Spanish Hermanas

Guitar-finding!

Eye Dr. Elder Quaranta and Sister Quaranta!

Frog on a bush

Three-legged frog

Baptism cleanseeee and I'm gonna be famous - Lilburn, Georgia

Hola muchachos y muchachas!

This week was so short lol! Let's get right into it!

Tuesday: TEMPLE DAY!!! I have literally been counting down the days for so long. It felt so amazing to be back in the temple with our whole district!! We did a session and then we sat in the celestial room for like 30 minutes. I have never been in a quieter celestial room. The Atlanta temple is so incredibly beautiful!!! After the temple, we went out for tacos at Talpa :) We did our P-day essentials (we went to Aldi and did laundry) and then had dinner with the Halls at Los Hermanos! Double mexican food in one day. We learned all about dog shows and how much they love the temple :)

Wednesday: Sister Balls and I both woke up feeling nauseous and crappy in general so we took the morning off. I realized I had forgotten to take my meds the night before so I took them and they knocked me out for three hours. Once we were feeling better, we had our GANM devo, mentoring meeting, and then did contacts at the community garden! The garden is right next to the train tracks so we got to see two trains!!!! So cute. We ran into the elders at the park later (we're psychically synced I swear this keeps happening). At night we had the first ward mingle of the summer!!! Everyone brought food and we had some good conversation with Sister Burke's friend Ellen whose house we're going to go to today to try on her clothes! I'm so excited!!! After the mingle, we went knocking in a nearby neighborhood. Sister Balls followed a prompting to knock on a particular house just as we were driving away. We ended up meeting Brent and Missy! They are both children of pastors and are married with a son. We went on a walk around their neighborhood with them while exchanging beliefs! I thought it was so fun. We gave them a book of mormon! They were not interested in the slightest but it was great to meet them lol :)

Thursday: We started the day with DC where we reported on our laziness of last week (we seriously were so lazy and so pooped out) so we decided to work real hard this week. (we've already exceeded our finding goal hehe! 5/3) After DC lunch at Chick-Fil-A, Sister Balls and I headed to the community garden to film with the social media sisters! Sister Balls sang a song and I shared a message :) Look out facebook!!!! We comp studied at wendy's after and got frosties! Yuuuum! We had a member lesson with a 9 yr old convert afterward and she handed me the tiniest little kitten ever. I held it while teaching her the ten commandments and I was literally just thanking God for everything in that moment. It was the cutest kitten I have ever seen. (I still love you watering can <3) We went to do a member stopby but ended up finding her sister! She had been taught by some sisters in new york before moving to Georgia! She had a baptism date three times but it fell through every time. She still really wants to be baptized and we're going to help her :) She was so happy to find us! 

Friday: We comp studied at a park with a pond full of turtles!!!! They kept poking their little heads out of the water. So cute! We weekly planned while the elders TRIED to weekly plan.... (Elder Alder threw out his back so Elder Hogan made him a bed out of chairs) We had dinner with the Forseys! They're senior missionaries that also happen to be our next door neighbors! Dad, Mom, they fed me Japanese Curry. You can imagine the shock on my face when I smelled it and the shock on theirs when they found out I knew what it was. I literally almost cried. I couldn't stop saying thank you. They also gave us Calpico!!!!!!!!! They made me play my violin if I wanted to eat. So I did. After dinner, we took home a crap ton of leftovers then went knocking! We found someone at the first door we knocked!!! Denise is the sweetest old lady who finds the love of God in her family! She loves what we do and wants to learn more. We knocked like 10 more doors and got yelled at but what's new! Live laugh love.

Saturday: Sister Balls pointed out the fact that I'm nonverbal from the time we wake up until around lunch time. I swear it isn't on purpose. My brain just doesn't fully wake up until then lolll. We attempted tabling in the morning but turns out nobody goes to the park on saturday mornings anymore... anyway we talked to one guy who said he finds joy in martial arts. You go guy. We knocked and knocked and knocked some more (literally nobody answered their door) until the last house. We met Dave! He grabbed his heart when he read 3 Nephi 11:10-11 and said "oh wow". Yes Dave. Wow. We talked for like 30 minutes on his doorstep and left him with the same Book of Mormon he read the verses from. The next day he texted and said he doesn't want to meet with us and doesn't need to be saved. He just needs to cook a lil longer :) He's a really cool guy though!!! We visited an elderly woman named Shirley with the elders in an attempt to pass her off to us. Blind, basically deaf, can barely stand, etc. So, we did what we could. We went to the adult session of stake conference! We heard some great talks. I have 30 billion bug bites. 

Sunday: I always love Sundays here. My watch tan is horrendous. It looks like a window into the past. One of our friends that has been taught by missionaries since march finally came to church for the first time! She fell asleep and stake conference may have not been the best first impression of church but she showed up!!! Yes!! After lunch we headed to a park to do contacts and called an interesting woman named Raquel. She put in a request specifically to be baptized. We thought, "great!" We called her and she kept saying "I'm in need of a baptism cleansssseeee." She explained to us that she had already been baptized via sprinkle and via dunk but wanted to do it again because her coworker apparently had bad aura to her. So, we explained to her that baptism isn't a treatment you can get anytime you want but we can still help her get it!! We have a lesson with her on tuesday... I'll report back. Some members invited us to their daughter's third birthday party! We made her a card and ate the most delish nigerian food everrrr!!! Their backyard is so beautiful holy moly. We were going to go tabling with the elders but it was raining too much so nobody was at the park. We ended up calling a bunch of grey dots instead! 

I hope yall had a great week!! Email me!! 

I love yall and the Lord loves yall!!  

- Sister Anderson 

Atlanta Temple with my district

Weekly planning with the Elders (Elder Alder threw
out his back so Elder Hogan made him a bed out of chairs)

Filming at the Community Garden

With Sister Balls at the Community Garden

Kudzu!

Flirty old men and the waffle house of good luck 🪙 - Lilburn, Georgia

A day late because it's TEMPLE DAY! I don't think I've ever been so excited to go to the temple ever. Mom, is this temple 12?

What a rollercoaster of a week. Holy moly. 

Tears were shed and spanish was spoken. 

LET'S GET INTO IT!

Monday: P-day! We played volleyball (finally) but unfortunately the Tucker building AC doesn't work so we were dying after 5 minutes. I don't think I've ever been sweatier. I had fun though! Walmart was out of bananas. (booooo ) We had dinner with the Ellisons and it was so freaking yummy. We had ham and cheese roll up croissants and IF YOU KNOW. YOU. KNOW. Earlier in the day we were at the Ellisons' house and learned how to make bagels from scratch! So goooooood.

Tuesday: EXCHANGES WITH THE HERMANITAS! I went with Hermana Johnson to their spanish area! I had an actual blast it was so much fun. Hermana Johnson is so good at spanish it's crazy watching her speak to people in it like it's nothing. We met up with their district at Talpa for taco tuesday! My tacos were only $1 each eeeek!!!!! We did lots of knocking and I learned very quickly how to tell if a house looks spanish. At night we went to english class! I made friends with a little girl around 6yo and I spoke spanish with her. She's so precious. She also drew on my white shirt with pink highlighter but I'm seriously not even mad. She's too cute. We also helped set up a baby shower for the bishop's sister :) Before bed, Hermana Baker recruited me into the cool tag club. (The outside got filed down so it has a white outline that makes it easier to see my tag when I have a black shirt on)

Wednesday: I ate three bagels total this day. We drove back to Lilburn and met back up with Sister Balls!!!! I missed my mission mom. We comp studied at the library and saw the elders there so we jump scared them. Then we went to the carwash! I sweated more than I have ever sweated (worse than P-day) but our car was so shiny and clean. We bought ice cream at walmart to cool off lol cause we had places to BE! At night we headed to the church for a ward missionary event! Members of the ward set up booths to showcase their missions and we set up one to show what it's like being a stateside missionary today!! It was so much fun. People brought food from their missions and I tried a hot sauce that made somebody almost die and it literally wasn't even that bad. Thanks dad ;)

Thursday: ZONE CONFERENCE! I got to see my cute friend Sister Adams!!!!!! Sister Balls and I won a walmart gift card for cleanest car. Booyah. They catered chipotle and I think my heart did a little jump for joy. So fun. After zone conference, our district did a blitz of Lilburn! (everyone goes finding in lilburn at the same time because the elders need people to teach DESPERATELY) Sis balls and I knocked a million houses and talked to a guy named Sal about how he refused to say "prayer" instead of meditation and that we shouldn't believe in Jesus Christ because that puts a barrier in between us and God. Annnnyyywhooo.... I hope Sal finds out Jesus rocks cause we could barely get a word in.

Friday: Such a good day. We listened to christmas music in the car in the rain and it was so magical because the rain sounded like a crackling fireplace. More specifically like the AI fireplace my mom puts on the TV 24/7. Love you mother <3! I did lots of scrapbooking and such. We weekly planned with the elders and made a makeshift capo for Sis Balls' guitar with an expo marker and a hair tie I accidentally stole from the temple! Elder Hogan and I switched shoes because we have the same sized feet. It was awesome. We went knocking with Vienna! She's the cutest ever. We knocked some of her neighbors and most didn't know she existed lol. We had Gusto for dinner (basically Aubergine Kitchen) and holy smokes it was yummy. Thanks Smith family!

Saturday: Horrible day I'm not even gonna lie. It felt so heavy. I stepped on a frog but it didn't die. We named him Splat. We had DC in the morning and that was fun, but things just kept going wrong after that. Sister Balls and I were sat in a chick fil a forced to make a list of things that were going right for us so we didn't feel so awful. It was hard to think of things . We said so many prayers for guidance and comfort. We ended the day with taking a whiteboard to the park with the question "What is your favorite name for Jesus Christ?" on it. We talked to people of all different faiths and backgrounds. That definitely lifted our spirits. When we got home, my day got worse so I finally just cried. We went to bed an hour early that night 

Sunday: I've never been so excited to take the sacrament. If I ever needed a spiritual boost it was this sunday over all other days. Let me tell you something. Being a missionary and talking to people is something different. People are not afraid to tell you their deepest and darkest secrets. They will take any opportunity to trauma dump all over you. Our job is to listen!! I've become so good at listening I can sit for an hour and a half straight while someone goes on and on about their family farm. Awesome sauce right?? After church we went to a park for comp study and saw a squirrel carry an entire piece of pizza up a tree. Ok! We decided to go knocking because if we learned anything this week it's that talking to people will lift our spirits so quick. We even found someone yay!! We had dinner with Delirio and Brother Cook. (She didn't take his last name). Mom, you would have LOVED what they made. We had chicken marinated in cream cheese and parmesan with quinoa and cranberry kale salad. I played with their cat Dante. He made a nest in my skirt. Daquan sent his nightly goodnight text.

Monday: Not p-day because we're going to the temple Tuesday! This morning, to combat our extra day that isn't p-day, we ate breakfast and comp studied at waffle house! I RAN OVER A DEAD SQUIRREL ON THE WAY THERE  HIS POOR LIFELESS BODY . A nice old man named Mike heard us reading scriptures so he gave us cards of good luck with the name of his jeep in Vietnam and our names on them! Then he paid for our food!! Then his wife asked us to pray for their brother in law with cancer so we prayed right then and there!!! Then we gave them a book of mormon!!!! I love waffle house now!!!!! After waffle house we went to the co-op to work in the food pantry. I was packing a produce bag and I went to hand it to an old guy and I asked him if he wanted it but he said no and goes " I LIKE YOU " and i just stared him in the face for like 5 seconds and handed him a bag anyway. Okay pal. We went straight to a member's house for a 30-minute turned 1.5 hour member message. Always fun.  Sister Balls and I came home and did feet masks. Flirty feet!

Thanks for tuning in to the pod everyone. I love yall and the Lord loves yall!!  

Zone Conference

Gift card for having the cleanest car!

Sister Adams from Mesa AZ

Knocking with Vienna

What is your favorite name for Jesus Christ?

Daily message from ward member Daquan

Waffle House!

Homemade bagels

English Class with the Spanish-speaking missionaries

Gusto!

Zone Conference