March 10 2008 Email

well well well,

this week was another millisecond in time. i think i blinked and then it was over. its crazy, 2 weeks from today i will be in Taiwan, time is flying by too fast. i almost wish i had more time to learn the language better, but o well. i am so excited to go i can't even tell you. we have been learning about culture and stuff this week which is awesome. we know a lot of the food etiquette and gift giving etiquette and etc. learning that stuff just really gets you excited to go.

well i am trying to think what happened this week. it is so hard to distinguish. o ya, we had an apostle come speak to us from the quroum of the 12. Elder Jeffery Holland came and spoke to us, it was by far the best talk i have ever seen in my life. no joke it was amazing. he just like every missionary out there is an "elder." all of us were ordained to be an elder, and what he said was really cool. he said that even though his title as a leader of this church is Apostle, he said that every single missionary is an apostle with a lower case a. although we as missionaries arent called to be leaders of the church, we have been called to represent christ as one of his apostles/disciples. and that our actions and words should be as if we were speaking for and in behalf of Jesus Christ because we are representing him. this is his gospel.

he also gave a portion of the talk about how Jesus was abandoned right before his death, by everyone. even some of his disciples, like judas. anyways he gave us a challenge that day, that we may never abandon Christ.

well lets see, i am trying to think what else has happened. the new missionaries in our branch have been here for about 2 weeks, they are funny. sometimes i can't believe i sounded like them at some point. truly though 8 weeks ago my chinese was terrible, now i feel quite comfortable having a brief conversation with someone in chinese. its crazy how much you can do with the Lord's help.

hahaha...so i just remembered yesterday was daylight savings time here, so we lost an hour. anyways, elder fronk forgot to change his clock. our zone leader, elder kitterman, went around sunday morning and knocked on everybodies doors at 7 just to make sure they were all up. when he got to our room he knocked and no one answered so he came in. we were all sleeping, because our alarm hadn't been changed. anyways, we all woke up, i had changed my clock so i looked up and saw that it was 7, but elder fronk had forgotten so it still said 6 on his. so he was all mad because he thought that elder kitterman had woken us up early. so elder fronk was like "what are you doing in here, its 6 in the morning?!" well, elder kitterman refuses to speak english, he always speaks in chinese, its good practice, but he doesn't have very good tones so he is rely hard to understand when he speaks chinese. anyways, he is trying to tell elder fronk its 7 oclock, he keeps saying in poor chinese "xianzai shi qi dian." which means right now its seven oclock. so here these 2 sit arguing over the time for about a minute. elder kitterman just keeps saying "xianzai shi qi dian, xianzai shi qi dian." finally i just got tired of hearing them and i was just like "elder fronk, its 7 oclock." and then he realized, it was just really funny because it was the first chinese arguement i have ever heard. quite entertaining.

well sorry my typing is horrible, i hope that it makes sense. i only have 30 minutes to write all my emails so i try and rush through them fast. well i love you all and appreciate all your emails, and letters and support. the mission is great i love it.

Favorite scripture of the week is James 1:5.

love ya all

Elder Anderson