February 24 2008 Email

hey everbody. how is everything going? i appreciate your emails and letters and packages. they make life here so easy. the MTC is tough, but i love it. it is only as easy as you want to make it, if you really get in here and study hard you forget about everything else. every night when i lay down to go to bed, i check to see if my head hurts and if it does then i know i studied hard enough that day. the chinese is still coming great, my listening comprehension is far better than my speaking, but thats how it usually goes. our teacher teaches us basically all in chinese now. when he says a word we don't know we just look at him confused and then he will write it on the board in english, but he refuses to say it. we are trying to do the same thing in our district. we are going to have english fast this week were we can't speak ANY english the whole day. its going to be interesting because all of us are at different levels so it will be interesting to see how we can communicate.

well we received our new permanent teacher, brother Curtis. he is awesome i love him. for our first activity with him he told us to ponder what our purpose was as missionaries and what our visions were for ourselves as missionaries. we pondered them for a bout 15 minutes and then he had us follow him out of our class and towards the gym. as we walk he asked to remain silent and continue to think about what our purpose is. we walked to the other end of the MTC campus and into a building with a big painting of Jesus Christ teaching his disciples just before he sent them out in to the world to teach. brother curtis asked us to think about how our vision and goals coincide with the saviors vision for the spreading of his gospel. i thought it was awesome! as i looked at the picture i was overwhelmed by the spirit. i always new that i wanted to come on a mission to help others, but standing there looking at this life size picture of Jesus Christ, i realized that i am disciple of Jesus christ. my vision and goals are second priority next to his. there is a scripture i read a little while ago, in the Book of Mormon, in 3 Nephi 5:13 it says "Behold, I am a disciple of Jesus Christ, the Son of God. I have been called of him to declare his word among his people that they might have everlasting life." What an awesome scripture that is for missionary work. I realized though that you don't have to be a missionary to be a disciple of his. Although i have a calling to be a missionary, all of us who have the knowledge of the gospel can be missionaries to. hahaha well thats enough preaching, i just wanted to share with you all that experience. the spirit is so strong here, you can really feel it teaching you on a daily basis.

well nothing too knew has happened. hahaha... o ya. this is kind of funny. we have an missionary from New Zealand here in our district, Elder Lords. He is aweseome, i talk with him a lot. Anyways, in New Zealand, they use words that they don't consider bad words there, but in America we do, especially when you are a missionary. Anyways, one of our subs was teaching us and Elder Lords was writing down the stuff on the board as fast as he could, and he broke his pencil. So really loud he yelled "damn," and the teachers face just dropped. hahahahaha... i couldn't stop laughing for like 5 minutes. i had to explain to the teacher that he was from New Zealand and that Elder Lords hadn't quite yet adjusted to the American culture. At first Elder Lords didn't realize what was going on cuz the teacher was glaring at him and everyone else in the class was just laughing under their breath. Elder Lords figured out what had happened and apologized, but it was quite funny.

well this week, we taught our second lesson in chinese. it was so much fun. the person that we taught, served their missions in Taiwan also. they came in to help us practice. he spoke really fast and i sometimes didn't understand what he was saying so i just smiled my head and nodded because i have figured out that people usually are asking yes or no questions. and 90% of the time they are looking for a yes answer. i sure hope when i get to taiwan i have a companion that really knows the language well.

valentines day was pretty crazy here. we have so many candy hearts it is ridiculous, hahaha... i don't even it breakfast anymore i am trying to widdle down my stash of goodies. i usually eat a bunch of cookies for breakfast. it keeps me healthy :).

it is so warm here all the snow is melting. for like the past 3 days there have been lakes of water all over and the water is running down from the roofs like there is a fire hose loose up there. well i have rambled long enough. i well let you all go. love ya

Elder Anderson