holy smokes! i can't believe it has already been another week. it was a pretty standard week here. We had exchanges twice, though which was kind of cool. Two older Elders came to my area and so i was the senoir companion which was fun. I got to decide what we did. Plus it was fun showing someone around our area. I didn't feel like such a newbie.
Chinese is coming great! I feel like i improve a little everyday, i can basically get any point acrossed that i want. And i almost always understand what is going on in a conversation. Except yesterday when this guy started talking about water wells, i sure as heck didn't know the word for that, but i learned it yesterday after i asked him what it was.
My chinese is still pretty bad, but i can get by. Last Wednesday was pretty funny. We were getting ready to teach our english class, so we were setting up and everything. I realized that we only had 1 chair so we walked over to the front desk of this city hall building. I went to ask the secretary if we could use this spare chair. so i said "Women ke bu keyi jie yong nage yezi?" She looked at me really strange and was like "What?" So the word for chair and coconut are very close. So what i actually asked the lady is "whether or not i could use her coconut", we all had a good laugh about that one. It is so easy to make a mistake in chinese when you speak. All the words are so similar, and then you have tones which is even more intense. I hate tones :)
Well the young man that we have been teaching that is preparing to go into the army, leaves in about 2 weeks. we are really working hard to try and get him studying the scriptures everyday. we figure if we can help him get a testimony of jesus christ before he leaves, he will make it through the army and still be interested when he comes out. I am glad that America doesn't force all young men to go into the army for a year, i wouldn't wanna do that. There army is pretty sissy though. Seriously, though they work in like Retirement Centers for their army service. Very few of them actually do combat stuff, and the ones that do it is so weak. We always see them on the roads and we cheer them on, and they cheer us on. The soldiers usually have backpacks and are hiking and then we pass them on our bikes. We yell to them "Jia you," which i guess if you had to translate it means "hang in there." Kinda doesn't translate but ya.
No pictures today! i have the same old mean lady. she is lazy. if these computers weren't all in chinese i would, fix it myself, but i can't read the characters yet. I just started studying them, so i only recognize about 400. There are 3000 i have to learn before you can read fluently.
Mangoes are still spilling out our ears! People will give us mangoes, boxes of mangoes. We were cleaning up the street doing service work 4 days ago and this guy basically pulled us into his shop and made us sit and eat ice cream with him. Then he gave us a big old bag full of mangoes and told us that we work to hard. Thats a compliment over here. Anyways, he is our friend now.
Funny story, people here like to yell out random English phrases that they know. Sometimes good phrases sometimes bad. Anyways, we theorized that if you yell out anything to a Taiwanese person and smile and wave they will yell it back at you and smile and wave. in order to apply the scientific method to this hypothesis of ours, i gave it a try. On my bike the other day i saw this old man that we often see. I got my smile ready, waved my hand and said "Alabama," he looked right back at me smiled and yelled "Alabaamma." It made me laugh. Now we often yell out randon states and stuff just to see if people will yell them back. I am going to give mississippi a shot. ;)
Taiwan is awesome! You just got to do the work, but have fun while you do it. Missionary work is hard. People are mean, its hot, and it smells. But with the right attitude it is the most fun thing i have ever done. Some days are tough and i just want to sleep for 10 hours. It is weird, i never thought of sleeping as a temptation hahaha. I know that what i am doing is the more important than anything i could be doing. It is amazing hearing the conversion stories of the members here. Some of them were the skum of the earth before, but now they are converted to the gospel of Jesus Christ and their entire lifes and their families lifes have been changed.
sorry if this hurts your head to read. I am sure my grammar is terrible, learning chinese will do that. plus i have a headache right now, from all the annoying little computer games people are playing all around me. I wish they would wear headphones.
peace
Showing posts with label Email. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Email. Show all posts
Wednesday, May 21, 2008
Wednesday, May 7, 2008
Email May 7, 2008
first off let me just say that i stinking love mangos. we have been giving so many mangos it is ridiculous! I eat like 4 a day. They are good. They aren't like the mangos we have in the states, they are like perfect. juicy, crunchy, mmmmm...
Hahaha... anyways. Fang Liao is pretty sweet! It is really small and we have to bike like 40 minutes to get to all the other cities around us. All those cities are pretty small too. This week the odometer on my bike reads 414.3 kilometers. So in 1 week we biked about 200 or so km. That is about as much biking as i did in 2 weeks in my last area.
We do a lot of biking. Usually about 4 hours a day of straight biking. We are planning a trip to go down and visit the very southern tip of the island. See if we can do some contacting down there. Anyways that trip is probably going to be about 7 hours of biking. Needless to say i am getting into shape in a hurry. My legs are so tired!!! It is fun though.
Missionary work is a bit different down here. We can't really go contact as much because first everyone speaks Taiyu and we dont and secondly because they have already been contacted by us and won't answer the door. Oh well. So what we try and do is just find a lot of service opportunities that we can help out in the community.
We taught some awesome lessons the other day to this young guy named ricky. He is about 24 and is one of the most amazing architects i have ever seen. He built this house for his grandma that is styled after a traditional japanes house, but is super modern and just amazing. Anyways, we taught a lesson that he just totally understood. He was just absorbing it. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and how it has changed our lives and how it can change his. He seemed to totally understand the period after Christ's death when his disciples died off and there was no one left with God's authority on the earth. We showed him the scripture in the Bible where it talks about christ laying his hands on his disciples heads and setting them apart to do missionary work. And then he turned to us and asked us "Have you been set apart by the laying on of hands?" and we were like "Yes." Everything just seemed to click for him. An awesome guy!
The only bummer with him is that he has to go in to the Army for a year. Over here all the young men have to spend a year in the army. Anyways we are trying to help him develop a really strong testimony of Christ before he goes so that he won't forget all about it when he is in the military.
He is probably our best investigator right now. There is another family that we are teaching they are also doing really well. Their daughter who is 16 wants to get baptized, but the parents are quite sure. So we have been teaching them as a family. The dad is loving it, he loves having us come over and talk about the scriptures. The mom is indonesian and is a little confused sometimes because her chinese isn't the best and neither is ours. Anyways, this Saturday we are going to go help them on their mango farm so that they don't have to work on Sunday and can come to church.
I love this place it is so cool and the people are really nice as long as you don't try and preach to them. Haha kinda makes my job hard.
gotta go love yall
oh ya i have gotten 1 letter so far, so i think you have labeled them all correctly, it takes usually about 10 days for them to get to me. sometimes a little longer especially now because we live in the boonies
Hahaha... anyways. Fang Liao is pretty sweet! It is really small and we have to bike like 40 minutes to get to all the other cities around us. All those cities are pretty small too. This week the odometer on my bike reads 414.3 kilometers. So in 1 week we biked about 200 or so km. That is about as much biking as i did in 2 weeks in my last area.
We do a lot of biking. Usually about 4 hours a day of straight biking. We are planning a trip to go down and visit the very southern tip of the island. See if we can do some contacting down there. Anyways that trip is probably going to be about 7 hours of biking. Needless to say i am getting into shape in a hurry. My legs are so tired!!! It is fun though.
Missionary work is a bit different down here. We can't really go contact as much because first everyone speaks Taiyu and we dont and secondly because they have already been contacted by us and won't answer the door. Oh well. So what we try and do is just find a lot of service opportunities that we can help out in the community.
We taught some awesome lessons the other day to this young guy named ricky. He is about 24 and is one of the most amazing architects i have ever seen. He built this house for his grandma that is styled after a traditional japanes house, but is super modern and just amazing. Anyways, we taught a lesson that he just totally understood. He was just absorbing it. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and how it has changed our lives and how it can change his. He seemed to totally understand the period after Christ's death when his disciples died off and there was no one left with God's authority on the earth. We showed him the scripture in the Bible where it talks about christ laying his hands on his disciples heads and setting them apart to do missionary work. And then he turned to us and asked us "Have you been set apart by the laying on of hands?" and we were like "Yes." Everything just seemed to click for him. An awesome guy!
The only bummer with him is that he has to go in to the Army for a year. Over here all the young men have to spend a year in the army. Anyways we are trying to help him develop a really strong testimony of Christ before he goes so that he won't forget all about it when he is in the military.
He is probably our best investigator right now. There is another family that we are teaching they are also doing really well. Their daughter who is 16 wants to get baptized, but the parents are quite sure. So we have been teaching them as a family. The dad is loving it, he loves having us come over and talk about the scriptures. The mom is indonesian and is a little confused sometimes because her chinese isn't the best and neither is ours. Anyways, this Saturday we are going to go help them on their mango farm so that they don't have to work on Sunday and can come to church.
I love this place it is so cool and the people are really nice as long as you don't try and preach to them. Haha kinda makes my job hard.
gotta go love yall
oh ya i have gotten 1 letter so far, so i think you have labeled them all correctly, it takes usually about 10 days for them to get to me. sometimes a little longer especially now because we live in the boonies
Email May 7, 2008
first off let me just say that i stinking love mangos. we have been giving so many mangos it is ridiculous! I eat like 4 a day. They are good. They aren't like the mangos we have in the states, they are like perfect. juicy, crunchy, mmmmm...
Hahaha... anyways. Fang Liao is pretty sweet! It is really small and we have to bike like 40 minutes to get to all the other cities around us. All those cities are pretty small too. This week the odometer on my bike reads 414.3 kilometers. So in 1 week we biked about 200 or so km. That is about as much biking as i did in 2 weeks in my last area.
We do a lot of biking. Usually about 4 hours a day of straight biking. We are planning a trip to go down and visit the very southern tip of the island. See if we can do some contacting down there. Anyways that trip is probably going to be about 7 hours of biking. Needless to say i am getting into shape in a hurry. My legs are so tired!!! It is fun though.
Missionary work is a bit different down here. We can't really go contact as much because first everyone speaks Taiyu and we dont and secondly because they have already been contacted by us and won't answer the door. Oh well. So what we try and do is just find a lot of service opportunities that we can help out in the community.
We taught some awesome lessons the other day to this young guy named ricky. He is about 24 and is one of the most amazing architects i have ever seen. He built this house for his grandma that is styled after a traditional japanes house, but is super modern and just amazing. Anyways, we taught a lesson that he just totally understood. He was just absorbing it. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and how it has changed our lives and how it can change his. He seemed to totally understand the period after Christ's death when his disciples died off and there was no one left with God's authority on the earth. We showed him the scripture in the Bible where it talks about christ laying his hands on his disciples heads and setting them apart to do missionary work. And then he turned to us and asked us "Have you been set apart by the laying on of hands?" and we were like "Yes." Everything just seemed to click for him. An awesome guy!
The only bummer with him is that he has to go in to the Army for a year. Over here all the young men have to spend a year in the army. Anyways we are trying to help him develop a really strong testimony of Christ before he goes so that he won't forget all about it when he is in the military.
He is probably our best investigator right now. There is another family that we are teaching they are also doing really well. Their daughter who is 16 wants to get baptized, but the parents are quite sure. So we have been teaching them as a family. The dad is loving it, he loves having us come over and talk about the scriptures. The mom is indonesian and is a little confused sometimes because her chinese isn't the best and neither is ours. Anyways, this Saturday we are going to go help them on their mango farm so that they don't have to work on Sunday and can come to church.
I love this place it is so cool and the people are really nice as long as you don't try and preach to them. Haha kinda makes my job hard.
gotta go love yall
oh ya i have gotten 1 letter so far, so i think you have labeled them all correctly, it takes usually about 10 days for them to get to me. sometimes a little longer especially now because we live in the boonies
Hahaha... anyways. Fang Liao is pretty sweet! It is really small and we have to bike like 40 minutes to get to all the other cities around us. All those cities are pretty small too. This week the odometer on my bike reads 414.3 kilometers. So in 1 week we biked about 200 or so km. That is about as much biking as i did in 2 weeks in my last area.
We do a lot of biking. Usually about 4 hours a day of straight biking. We are planning a trip to go down and visit the very southern tip of the island. See if we can do some contacting down there. Anyways that trip is probably going to be about 7 hours of biking. Needless to say i am getting into shape in a hurry. My legs are so tired!!! It is fun though.
Missionary work is a bit different down here. We can't really go contact as much because first everyone speaks Taiyu and we dont and secondly because they have already been contacted by us and won't answer the door. Oh well. So what we try and do is just find a lot of service opportunities that we can help out in the community.
We taught some awesome lessons the other day to this young guy named ricky. He is about 24 and is one of the most amazing architects i have ever seen. He built this house for his grandma that is styled after a traditional japanes house, but is super modern and just amazing. Anyways, we taught a lesson that he just totally understood. He was just absorbing it. We taught him about the Book of Mormon and how it has changed our lives and how it can change his. He seemed to totally understand the period after Christ's death when his disciples died off and there was no one left with God's authority on the earth. We showed him the scripture in the Bible where it talks about christ laying his hands on his disciples heads and setting them apart to do missionary work. And then he turned to us and asked us "Have you been set apart by the laying on of hands?" and we were like "Yes." Everything just seemed to click for him. An awesome guy!
The only bummer with him is that he has to go in to the Army for a year. Over here all the young men have to spend a year in the army. Anyways we are trying to help him develop a really strong testimony of Christ before he goes so that he won't forget all about it when he is in the military.
He is probably our best investigator right now. There is another family that we are teaching they are also doing really well. Their daughter who is 16 wants to get baptized, but the parents are quite sure. So we have been teaching them as a family. The dad is loving it, he loves having us come over and talk about the scriptures. The mom is indonesian and is a little confused sometimes because her chinese isn't the best and neither is ours. Anyways, this Saturday we are going to go help them on their mango farm so that they don't have to work on Sunday and can come to church.
I love this place it is so cool and the people are really nice as long as you don't try and preach to them. Haha kinda makes my job hard.
gotta go love yall
oh ya i have gotten 1 letter so far, so i think you have labeled them all correctly, it takes usually about 10 days for them to get to me. sometimes a little longer especially now because we live in the boonies
Wednesday, April 30, 2008
April 29, 2008 Email
1st transfer is over! this morning i got up at like 5 and headed to the train station to go to a little tiny tiny tini tini tiny so small town called fang liao.
the way there i was by myself for about an hour, the first hour of the ride i was with another Elder, but the last hour i was all alone. it was kinda weird not having another missionary to talk to.
i got to fang liao about 15 minutes ago and we headed here to come email. So far i haven't got to see much of the town, but i here it is super small. i love small! its gonna be so awesome. there is just a little branch down here and i think our area spans over like 50 kilometers. i am not quite sure yet since i haven;t really seen any of it. i saw a little on the train, it is all rice fields and coconut trees.
well last week was quite a special week. Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles came and spoke to our mission. We had to take a train from Tainan (my old area) to kaohsiung (the mission headquaters) to go see him. It was an awesome talk. it wasn't actually a talk, it was more like a conversation between him and 120 missionaries. He is such an inspired man.
Anyway, of course what do you think happens to his laptop just as he goes to start? ..... It crashes! I was sitting a little towards the back and i saw it happen, but i figured i would just let them handle it. But President Hsu wouldn't stand for that. About 10 seconds after it had crashed, he jumped up and in front of Elder Scott and everybody, he was like "Elder Anderson, where ever you are can you come help us?" I was a little nervous, but i ran up to the front and fiddle with it for a minute, no luck, they had the wrong adapter so the battery wouldn't work. Anyways, long story short, they went and grabbed another computer and i helped them set that up and get Elder Scotts presentation working. How cool is that though I got to fix on of the 12 Apostles computer?!
I have done a lot of fixing of computers here so far. That was like the first thing President had me do when I got to Taiwan was help them with some computer problems they were having in the Mission office. I almost got transferred into the Mission Office this transfer. But i barely escaped, it was a close one. President Hsu called me and asked me if i wanted to do work in Microsoft Excel, and I told him i knew how to, but i wasn't like the master of Excel, so he let me off the hook. It would have been tough to be stuck in the office for the 2nd transfer.
I don't think i have told you all my full chinese name yet. It is Zhang zhi yue. Zhang is just a last name and doesn't really have a meaning, but Zhi means ambition, and Yue means Tall Mountain, so that is kind of cool.
Taiwan is so crazy. it is probably one of the most unique places in the world. it has a little of so many cultures. it is a little japanese, a lot of america, and of course chinese. Taiwan also has a special feature that comes equipped on all of the streets and roads here. I call it the 10 "foot rule." Because you can't go 10 feet without smelling something new. There are a lot of smells, some good, and some very very nasty. hahaha what can you do?
So i got an odometer for my bike about 2 weeks ago today. In my last area we didn't bike much, but in the last 2 weeks we biked 207.1 kilometers. In my new area, i will be biking A LOT more. I was in the city, but now i am in the country. It is the most rural part of the mission.
The work continues on. In Tainan we're working with this young man that was about 24 and helping him to get ready for baptism. We helped him to set a goal so that he could slowly become a little better. Changing doesn't happen over night, so we have been working with him to turn his life around, he is a good kid.
I am officially no longer a greenie. I have a new companion and i am no longer with my trainer. Sometimes i wasn't sure if i was the trainee or if he was. He was a goof, good guy though. I am excited to be with somebody new, it will be fun to work with people of all sorts of personalities.
Sorry no pictures this week, i just tried and the USB ports arent working and i don't have time to switch, i am gonna try and send a package maybe in a couple weeks and i will put my pictures in there.
Well i am loving it out here, somedays are really tough and you just want to sleep for like 20 hours, but usually it is great. I think the people will be a little nicer in this smaller town, maybe.
2 days ago i made a phone call to a member to set up a time for him to come help us visit some members, and i understood everything and he understood everythin. It felt awesome! Usually, i have a hard time understanding people on the phone, it is just really hard, but i stinking did it. So cool, people understand me usually when i talk, i don't always understand them, especially if they start talking about vocab i haven't learned yet. It is coming! I am getting more and more comfortable everyday.
Well i love you all. hope everyone is doing great!
Peace
the way there i was by myself for about an hour, the first hour of the ride i was with another Elder, but the last hour i was all alone. it was kinda weird not having another missionary to talk to.
i got to fang liao about 15 minutes ago and we headed here to come email. So far i haven't got to see much of the town, but i here it is super small. i love small! its gonna be so awesome. there is just a little branch down here and i think our area spans over like 50 kilometers. i am not quite sure yet since i haven;t really seen any of it. i saw a little on the train, it is all rice fields and coconut trees.
well last week was quite a special week. Elder Richard G. Scott of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles came and spoke to our mission. We had to take a train from Tainan (my old area) to kaohsiung (the mission headquaters) to go see him. It was an awesome talk. it wasn't actually a talk, it was more like a conversation between him and 120 missionaries. He is such an inspired man.
Anyway, of course what do you think happens to his laptop just as he goes to start? ..... It crashes! I was sitting a little towards the back and i saw it happen, but i figured i would just let them handle it. But President Hsu wouldn't stand for that. About 10 seconds after it had crashed, he jumped up and in front of Elder Scott and everybody, he was like "Elder Anderson, where ever you are can you come help us?" I was a little nervous, but i ran up to the front and fiddle with it for a minute, no luck, they had the wrong adapter so the battery wouldn't work. Anyways, long story short, they went and grabbed another computer and i helped them set that up and get Elder Scotts presentation working. How cool is that though I got to fix on of the 12 Apostles computer?!
I have done a lot of fixing of computers here so far. That was like the first thing President had me do when I got to Taiwan was help them with some computer problems they were having in the Mission office. I almost got transferred into the Mission Office this transfer. But i barely escaped, it was a close one. President Hsu called me and asked me if i wanted to do work in Microsoft Excel, and I told him i knew how to, but i wasn't like the master of Excel, so he let me off the hook. It would have been tough to be stuck in the office for the 2nd transfer.
I don't think i have told you all my full chinese name yet. It is Zhang zhi yue. Zhang is just a last name and doesn't really have a meaning, but Zhi means ambition, and Yue means Tall Mountain, so that is kind of cool.
Taiwan is so crazy. it is probably one of the most unique places in the world. it has a little of so many cultures. it is a little japanese, a lot of america, and of course chinese. Taiwan also has a special feature that comes equipped on all of the streets and roads here. I call it the 10 "foot rule." Because you can't go 10 feet without smelling something new. There are a lot of smells, some good, and some very very nasty. hahaha what can you do?
So i got an odometer for my bike about 2 weeks ago today. In my last area we didn't bike much, but in the last 2 weeks we biked 207.1 kilometers. In my new area, i will be biking A LOT more. I was in the city, but now i am in the country. It is the most rural part of the mission.
The work continues on. In Tainan we're working with this young man that was about 24 and helping him to get ready for baptism. We helped him to set a goal so that he could slowly become a little better. Changing doesn't happen over night, so we have been working with him to turn his life around, he is a good kid.
I am officially no longer a greenie. I have a new companion and i am no longer with my trainer. Sometimes i wasn't sure if i was the trainee or if he was. He was a goof, good guy though. I am excited to be with somebody new, it will be fun to work with people of all sorts of personalities.
Sorry no pictures this week, i just tried and the USB ports arent working and i don't have time to switch, i am gonna try and send a package maybe in a couple weeks and i will put my pictures in there.
Well i am loving it out here, somedays are really tough and you just want to sleep for like 20 hours, but usually it is great. I think the people will be a little nicer in this smaller town, maybe.
2 days ago i made a phone call to a member to set up a time for him to come help us visit some members, and i understood everything and he understood everythin. It felt awesome! Usually, i have a hard time understanding people on the phone, it is just really hard, but i stinking did it. So cool, people understand me usually when i talk, i don't always understand them, especially if they start talking about vocab i haven't learned yet. It is coming! I am getting more and more comfortable everyday.
Well i love you all. hope everyone is doing great!
Peace
Wednesday, April 23, 2008
Email April 22, 2008
i have been waiting and waiting to see some pics of this new little member of the fam. she is so cute! i wish i could see her. wow does she have some hair. holy cow, is that thing real? its dark to so it really sticks out. well congrats to amy and jeff. i dont really have time to do personal emails, especially today because the myldsemail system crapped out this morning (my morning) so we had to come back a little later. its about 4 in the afternoon right now, pday is almost over. but ya little kaylie is a cutie.
well well well, this week was a blurr, i can't believe i have almost been here for a month. things are starting to seem a little more normal, but i still think they are weird. one thing that i don't think i will ever get used to is their dog problem here. they have dogs everywhere, i love dogs, but i hate these dogs. a lot of them have like mang and gross crap, someone needs to put them all down. one tried to attack me yesterday, but i started running at it and that scared it off. then 2 days ago at like 9 o clock at night we had just left a members house and it was super quite in this alley way and out of no where this dog freaked out and started coming after me, right before it got to me it reached the end of its chain and it got yanked back, it yelped... i laughed. hahaha
i decided something this week, i decided that this missions really isn't about me giving back to the the Lord. because you really can't pay the Lord back for everything he has done for us, it is about the Lord making you into a better person. the mission isn't a sacrifice at all it is a blessing. i have grown a lot, spiritually, mentally, and physically. don't worry i am still craig, but everyday i change for the better just a little bit. i am still cynnical, hahah i don't know if that will change. but it is awesome having this opportunity to change myself. one of the things i know Heavenly Father wants me to work on out here is patience. not just patience with others, but patience with myself. chinese is tough, tougher than i thought at times. i can memorize vocab pretty well, but their pronunciation is killing me. i guess down here in the south since it is a little bit lower class, people don't announciate and they pronounce things a little more slangy. i am working on it though. i like talking to people from taipei, they have great chinese hahaha. thats about the only thing that is frustrating me right now.
i was talking about pronunciation with my companion and i feel bad for people that have to learn english. just think of the way you so 'want to' wanna, is how most people say it. oh ya we have english class tonight, that is gonna be fun. we teach an english class on wednesday.
apart from the attempted murders committed against me by rabid dogs, this week was pretty standard. not only were the dogs angry this week though, but so were the ama's. (ama is grandma in Taiyu). you call old people grandma and grandpa. anyways, i got reamed out by a ton of old ladies, it was hilarious because they yell at me in Taiyu and i tell them i don't speak Taiyu, but they continue to yell at me. so usually i just start laughing, and sometimes they will start laughing so its not so bad. my favorite thing to do here, is to just smile really big at specific people and wave. cuz as soon as you give them a genuine smile there semi-frowns, turn upside down, and they give you a big old smile back.
its fun! a lot of people don't like the missionaries here because they have heard lies about us and the church. so i figure if i can at least make them smile and be happy then maybe they won't we so cold to us. my favorite rumor that i have heard about what people think we do so far is that, we don't really belong to a church, we just run around talking to people so that we can practice our Chinese and so that we can come back to taiwan and be business men. I wish someone would have told me thats what i was doing out here, becoming a business man, then i wouldn't have to learn all this super conplex religious and philisophical vocabulary. i wanted to say that to this guy the other day that told us that we didn't really follow Jesus Christ. i didn't i just smiled and told him to have a good day.
well i think i have rambled on long enough. i love you all.
Wednesday, April 16, 2008
Email April 15, 2008
another great week in Taiwan. We had a little bit of success this week. We challenged a man who has been investigating the church for about 6 months to baptizim and he accepted. We told him everything that he needed to start doing and he has gone a week and obeyed all of his commitments. That is amazing! he reorganized his work schedule so he could come to church, we have a hard enough time getting members to do that. I hope that the awesome spirit that he has will continue with him for the rest of his life.
As with most investigators he was entirely oblivious to Christianic ideas. for example he thought that moses was jesus. we have sorted out most of his doctrinal issues. Unfortunately i am going to be transferred before he gets baptized, but i will here about him from other missionaries.
Apart fromt that success it was kind of a tough week. I am having a really hard time speaking. I can usually understand most of what people are saying, but when i go to speak the words just aren't there. over here too there are some people that have some really bad accents. If you think people slurring and mumbling in spanish is bad, try listening to them in chinese. Basically all the words sound the same. I think i told you all already, but there are only 404 noises that are made in the chinese language. Most of them sound like gong chong zhong jiang zhang chen zhen shen, so confusing sometimes. In english we have a ton of sounds like 10000 or something ridiculous.
I really feel like i should be progressing faster in the language, that is one of my goals this week is just to talk as much stinking chinese as i can even if people don't understand me.
This week we also faced a lot of rejection. People lie to your face a lot here and that really bugs me. Especially old ladies. Some are way nice, but usually they don't want us talking to their family members who are church members so they lie to us and tell us that this isn't where he lives and that they don't know who he is. Of course when we ask them what their last name is it is the same as the person we are looking for. Who would have thought?
yes it is really hot and humid here. and yes i definitely like the cold and dry better. o well though i am here. I here it is going to get a lot hotter too. Like really hot. Like hot hot. Like 100 F degrees somedays. on those days though we aren't supposed to bike to hard. and we need to drink a lot of water.
Ya i do have to pay to use the computer, but is is only like 50 cents for an hour so don't worry about sending a lot of snail mail. And the reason i gave you the mission home address is because thats where all our mail goes first and then they send it out to us. We do that so mail doesn't come to the write address after the missionary has already moved.
I am so excited to see pics of my new little niece. There is so much i want to tell you about, but i am going to be in taiwan for a while so a lot of it can wait. I attached a pic of me chillin at the beach. Of course we can't go in the water, but we went and played frisbee and put our feet in the water and that was kind of fun.
I will try and take some more pics and stuff this week, like of me on my wicked cool bicycle.
Oh ya we went to the retirement home again and did a play this time. It was hilarious, i was a villan and elder schwartz was a hero and elder britt was the damzel in distress and my companion was the narrator. it was so good, we had a sword fight and we chased each other around and fought like right next to the old people. That kind of overdramatic stuff is huge here. the old people laughed and laughed they thought it was great. the plot of the play was lame because we made it up and we don't really know a lot of fairytale vocab, but it was good.
Well i am doing good. Whenever i get down or discouraged i just think about all of you and that helps me remember that right now i am a missionary, but i used to be a real person too hahaha. Seriously though, it is tough somedays you don't even feel like human because people like run away from you and look at you weird and yell at you.
So funny story, we went to dinner with a member and an investigator the other day and the investigator brought her 7 year old daughter. all of the sudden the little girl just started crying and was like trying to hide. She was really scared of white people ha. And then when the investigator started speaking english with us the little girl just got so scared that she started crying. so that was pretty funny. the mom talked her back to her senses and then the little girl liked us and thought we were funny.
there arent very many white people here. i have met 2 so far and they have both been named Joe. Both are super nice, but not necessarily anxious to sit down and talk with us. One i think might, but i haven't run into him in a while to ask. My companion is scared to talk to white people because he forgot how to be normal. He tried the other day and he said hello and how are you like a taiwanese person. So the new rule is that I get to contact all the white people we see.
An even funnier story is that i went up to this white guy the other day and started talking to him. i introduced myself and he got this really confused look on his face. And then i asked him in english if he spoke english and of course he didn't. he was from germany so i quickly told him that i spoke a little german, obviously not enough to convey the gospel message, but i told him that we were from a church and that our church is in germany too. that was about all i could say, we both laughed at the language barrier and i wished him a good day and said goodbye. how terrrible is that? i thought he would have been one of the few people that i could have talked to, but nope. O well, soon i will be able to talk to chinese people, that will be awesome. well i love you all.
peace
elder anderson
Wednesday, April 9, 2008
April 9, 2008
if you didn't get my email last week ask my mom for it.
well its being a pretty cool week. way fun! two days ago we went to this government run retirement home and sang and danced and did some magic tricks for the people there. We were on exchanges, i was with elder schwartz and we sang a bunch of Hymns to the people there. They loved it! they asked us to come back every week. we probably won't be able to go back everyweek but everyonce in a while maybe.
when we first walked into this retirement home, there were all these chairs in the middle of the big hall. they were kind of in the way and i thought it was a little strange. then i realized that they were all pointed at these 2 other chairs. i realized that the 2 other chairs were for us. and that the home had set them up for us. they were so excited to have us there. so when we got there the workers started running around like crazy, they brought us drinks and one of them got on the intercom and announced over about an entire 10 story building that there would be a singing show in the big hall.
about 50 people came out of their rooms to come watch us. luckily elder schwartz knows a lot of chinese he has been here for a bout a year. we went around and introduced ourselves to everyone. and then we started singing our little hearts out. it was so amazing to see these little grinns start to form on all their faces as we sang. they became so happy. we shared with them a little about ourselves, the gospel, and why we came to taiwan. they thought it was very nice of us to come do service for them. some of them weren't very coheirent, but others were still very sharp, they were just not very mobile.
it was great! i think we really made them happy for a time. we sang mostly in chinese, but we sang a couple songs in english. like rudolph the red nose reindeer. we made them laugh a lot by doing silly dances to the songs and doing handstands and stuff. all the elderly people were sad when we had to leave, but we promised them we would come back in a couple weeks.
we had zone conference yesterday. it was awesome! we got to eat KFC. so good. normally we eat some rice and a little meat of some sort from a little restaurant on the street, but yesterday we got some real food. the food here is good, but its just not like american food. you feel full after eating, but that rice doesn't really stick to you. i bought some milk the other day. it was way expensive, like 3 dollars for 2 liters. anyways, that was pretty tasty too.
we have been teaching a couple people. this isn't like a south american mission though. The people here aren't really used to religion, matter of fact, if you ask them what the purpose of life is, they get kind of a confused look on their face, almost like they have never thought about it before. some of them probably haven't. a lot of people won't talk to us either because they have heard rumors about us. its very frustrating. some people are very nice and just tell us that they are not interested, some think we are crazy, and everyonce in a while we will spark a little interest in someone and they will want to hear more. out of every 100 contacts we probably get 15 that don't respond back to us or wave their hand in our faces and tell us to go away. 40 that just keep saying, i dont want it i don't want it. 20 that are nice and will talk to us. 10 that seem somewhat interested, but don't have time another 10 that only want to talk to us so they can practice english and 5 people who are generally interested in our message. i have discovered that younger people are far nicer than older people here. younger people actually have manners still, all the old people have gone crazy and have forgotten that you are supposed to be kind to others.
most everyone is buddhist or daoist, but few actually believe in it. they still do all the traditions and stuff though. one thing that you see over here that is just absurd are these barrels with fire in them all over the place. they are usually outside of grocery stores. the grocery stores put the barrels there so that people can worship their ancestors. what they do, is they go into the store, by food that they want to give to their ancestors, then they go outside throw it in the barrel and watch it burn. now if that isn't the most retarded thing ever then i don't know what is. they are throwing away food sometimes they even just burn money. and the ridiculous part about it is that the majority of the people that do it, don't know why they do it, they just do it because they are stuck in this rut of idol worship. they don't believe that the burnt food actually goes to their ancestors, but they do it anyways just for the heck of it.
if you are a member of our church over here, you are not allowed to participate in this. the good thing is almost all of the church members here think that it is a ridiculous tradition too.
well i wish i had more time, but i only paid for a little bit of time today because we are going to go play some ping-pong with a member. its our preparation day so we can go have a little bit of fun until 6:00 pm then we get to start proselyting again. i always do my laundry and stuff today too. i love you all
elder anderson
well its being a pretty cool week. way fun! two days ago we went to this government run retirement home and sang and danced and did some magic tricks for the people there. We were on exchanges, i was with elder schwartz and we sang a bunch of Hymns to the people there. They loved it! they asked us to come back every week. we probably won't be able to go back everyweek but everyonce in a while maybe.
when we first walked into this retirement home, there were all these chairs in the middle of the big hall. they were kind of in the way and i thought it was a little strange. then i realized that they were all pointed at these 2 other chairs. i realized that the 2 other chairs were for us. and that the home had set them up for us. they were so excited to have us there. so when we got there the workers started running around like crazy, they brought us drinks and one of them got on the intercom and announced over about an entire 10 story building that there would be a singing show in the big hall.
about 50 people came out of their rooms to come watch us. luckily elder schwartz knows a lot of chinese he has been here for a bout a year. we went around and introduced ourselves to everyone. and then we started singing our little hearts out. it was so amazing to see these little grinns start to form on all their faces as we sang. they became so happy. we shared with them a little about ourselves, the gospel, and why we came to taiwan. they thought it was very nice of us to come do service for them. some of them weren't very coheirent, but others were still very sharp, they were just not very mobile.
it was great! i think we really made them happy for a time. we sang mostly in chinese, but we sang a couple songs in english. like rudolph the red nose reindeer. we made them laugh a lot by doing silly dances to the songs and doing handstands and stuff. all the elderly people were sad when we had to leave, but we promised them we would come back in a couple weeks.
we had zone conference yesterday. it was awesome! we got to eat KFC. so good. normally we eat some rice and a little meat of some sort from a little restaurant on the street, but yesterday we got some real food. the food here is good, but its just not like american food. you feel full after eating, but that rice doesn't really stick to you. i bought some milk the other day. it was way expensive, like 3 dollars for 2 liters. anyways, that was pretty tasty too.
we have been teaching a couple people. this isn't like a south american mission though. The people here aren't really used to religion, matter of fact, if you ask them what the purpose of life is, they get kind of a confused look on their face, almost like they have never thought about it before. some of them probably haven't. a lot of people won't talk to us either because they have heard rumors about us. its very frustrating. some people are very nice and just tell us that they are not interested, some think we are crazy, and everyonce in a while we will spark a little interest in someone and they will want to hear more. out of every 100 contacts we probably get 15 that don't respond back to us or wave their hand in our faces and tell us to go away. 40 that just keep saying, i dont want it i don't want it. 20 that are nice and will talk to us. 10 that seem somewhat interested, but don't have time another 10 that only want to talk to us so they can practice english and 5 people who are generally interested in our message. i have discovered that younger people are far nicer than older people here. younger people actually have manners still, all the old people have gone crazy and have forgotten that you are supposed to be kind to others.
most everyone is buddhist or daoist, but few actually believe in it. they still do all the traditions and stuff though. one thing that you see over here that is just absurd are these barrels with fire in them all over the place. they are usually outside of grocery stores. the grocery stores put the barrels there so that people can worship their ancestors. what they do, is they go into the store, by food that they want to give to their ancestors, then they go outside throw it in the barrel and watch it burn. now if that isn't the most retarded thing ever then i don't know what is. they are throwing away food sometimes they even just burn money. and the ridiculous part about it is that the majority of the people that do it, don't know why they do it, they just do it because they are stuck in this rut of idol worship. they don't believe that the burnt food actually goes to their ancestors, but they do it anyways just for the heck of it.
if you are a member of our church over here, you are not allowed to participate in this. the good thing is almost all of the church members here think that it is a ridiculous tradition too.
well i wish i had more time, but i only paid for a little bit of time today because we are going to go play some ping-pong with a member. its our preparation day so we can go have a little bit of fun until 6:00 pm then we get to start proselyting again. i always do my laundry and stuff today too. i love you all
elder anderson
Monday, March 24, 2008
March 23, 2008 EMAIL
well today is my last day at the MTC! I leave tonight at 6pm to head to the airport. I am so excited I can not even tell you. I have worked hard here to prepare to get out ther. It is so much fun to see something that you have strived for happen.
The MTC has been awesome. It has been heck of fun, it has also been hecka hard. There are times when you just want to scream because you are so frustrated with the language, and then other times when you can just rattle off for 30 minutes in chinese. Its truly amazing. I never would have that that learning a language would have been so much fun, but it is.
Today is my last preparation day here. We have a lot of stuff to do before we leave. I need to do my laundry, which is what we are doing right now. Then we have to pack. I already started packing all my books and stuff that I don't need access to right away. Obviously, there are the weight limits on luggage on airplanes so we have to be really careful not to exceed that.
I have a ton of journals of people that i need to write in. We are all writing just brief notes in eachothers journals, its fun. It feels like the last day of school, when everybody is running around trying to get everybody to sign their yearbook. Its much more sentinmental than that though. These are people that I have struggled with for the past 3 months. I have grown really close to some of them. And I hope i get to see them after I get home.
Well on Saturday, we had our final teaching practice. We taught an older Taiwanese lady. I could not understand her. There is a word in chinese that is pronounced like choo. And she said it, but when she said it she kept saying tsoo. It was so strange. It really threw me off. In these rooms that we teach in our teachers watch us from another room. There are cameras and mics in the room so that the teachers don't have to sit in and interupt our lessons. Anyways, after the lesson we went back and found our teacher. We found him and he just started laughing. We didn't know what was going on. So he told us that I guess Taiwanese people, especially older ones, have really strong accents and they mix some of the Taiwanese language noises with Chinese, so all of this lady's "ch" came out as "tss." He said very very few people do that now days, but there are a couple. That made me feel a lot better because I could not understand her much.
It still doesn't seem real that I am leaving today for Taiwan. I won't get there until tomorrow sometime, but hey who cares I am going to Taiwan!
Well I had better go, but I just want to tell you all that I love you and that I appreciate your support. You have all been so nice with your emails and letters and packages, it has really kept me sane here. Before I sign off I just want to tell you all that I know that what I am doing is what God wants me to do, I know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true and that through him we can all find the greatest happiness. I love you all so much!
Elder Anderson
p.s.-Next time you here from me i will be in Taiwan :)
The MTC has been awesome. It has been heck of fun, it has also been hecka hard. There are times when you just want to scream because you are so frustrated with the language, and then other times when you can just rattle off for 30 minutes in chinese. Its truly amazing. I never would have that that learning a language would have been so much fun, but it is.
Today is my last preparation day here. We have a lot of stuff to do before we leave. I need to do my laundry, which is what we are doing right now. Then we have to pack. I already started packing all my books and stuff that I don't need access to right away. Obviously, there are the weight limits on luggage on airplanes so we have to be really careful not to exceed that.
I have a ton of journals of people that i need to write in. We are all writing just brief notes in eachothers journals, its fun. It feels like the last day of school, when everybody is running around trying to get everybody to sign their yearbook. Its much more sentinmental than that though. These are people that I have struggled with for the past 3 months. I have grown really close to some of them. And I hope i get to see them after I get home.
Well on Saturday, we had our final teaching practice. We taught an older Taiwanese lady. I could not understand her. There is a word in chinese that is pronounced like choo. And she said it, but when she said it she kept saying tsoo. It was so strange. It really threw me off. In these rooms that we teach in our teachers watch us from another room. There are cameras and mics in the room so that the teachers don't have to sit in and interupt our lessons. Anyways, after the lesson we went back and found our teacher. We found him and he just started laughing. We didn't know what was going on. So he told us that I guess Taiwanese people, especially older ones, have really strong accents and they mix some of the Taiwanese language noises with Chinese, so all of this lady's "ch" came out as "tss." He said very very few people do that now days, but there are a couple. That made me feel a lot better because I could not understand her much.
It still doesn't seem real that I am leaving today for Taiwan. I won't get there until tomorrow sometime, but hey who cares I am going to Taiwan!
Well I had better go, but I just want to tell you all that I love you and that I appreciate your support. You have all been so nice with your emails and letters and packages, it has really kept me sane here. Before I sign off I just want to tell you all that I know that what I am doing is what God wants me to do, I know that the Gospel of Jesus Christ is true and that through him we can all find the greatest happiness. I love you all so much!
Elder Anderson
p.s.-Next time you here from me i will be in Taiwan :)
Monday, March 10, 2008
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
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
Monday, March 3, 2008
March 4, 2008 Email
ni hao well team,
life is going good. mtc is pretty awesome still, i have been here for almost 2 months now. we were talking as a disctrict and it definitely takes a certain kind of person do be able to make it through these 12 weeks with out going crazy. but it hasn't been that bad at all, occassionally i here the little new elders whining about how hard it is and then i ask them how long they have been here, they are usually like "4 weeks and its so tough," i giggle quitely inside as a inform them of my 8 week stay thus far.
well i am starting to feel like a senior in high school, it is coming down to the wire. we have been here longer than anybody else and we are almost ready to be sent out. the only difference between us and being a senior is that we aren't getting lazy. there is no senioritice here. matter-of-fact yesterday i was thinking about how much time we have left until we leave and it kind of scared me. i have always been working hard here, but these last 3 weeks are crunch time. i leave on the 24th of march, so i have exactly 3 weeks from today to be able to speak chinese well enough to teach the gospel and survive daily tasks. i think i am doing alright though. my pronunciation isn't the best, but i am working on that. they tell us that we will pick up the pronunciation once we get over there and start hearing it everyday, it is nearly impossible to do so in an enviroment with all none native speakers.
well this week just flew by. i can hardly remember the story i wanted to tell you all this week. it was a funny one. but maybe i will remember it in a second.
the food isn't so bad. once you learn the ins and outs of the lunch room it is wonderful. there are all sorts of things you can get, you just have got to know where to look and when. its great being an oldie of the MTC, we know virtually all of the hidden treasures haha.
o i remembered my story, so elder fronk, one of the elders in my aparment, we were in a mission conference yesterday. it is this really boring 2 hour meeting that is extremely large. there are about 2000 people in this meeting. anyways, yesterday we were all fasting so our bodies were pretty tired, not to mention the room where the mission conference was held was about 100 degrees. elder fronk fell asleep right, no big deal whatever, but he got startled by something and awoke by flinging his limbs in every which way. he ended up kicking one of the people in front of him in the back of the head, who happened to be a Branch Presidenct. Branch Presidents are like the bishops over small little groups of missionaries here of about 60. so this branch president turns around to see what the heck is going on and sees elder fronk just sitting there. elder fronk didn't know what to do, so he just was like "hi" and waved. it was funny trust me.
well i wish i had more to say, but its tough remembering in the morning. we have been teaching about heaven and what happens after this life in the TRC. the TRC is a place for volunteers to come to let the missionaries practice their language. well we were in there teaching this lesson, to a native, and my companion accidently told her that heaven is this "very pessimistic place" it was kind of funny, i started laughing and the lady just looked at him so confused. the words are really close and he got his sentence structure all messed up so it changed the meaning.
anyways i love you all and appreciate your support.
life is going good. mtc is pretty awesome still, i have been here for almost 2 months now. we were talking as a disctrict and it definitely takes a certain kind of person do be able to make it through these 12 weeks with out going crazy. but it hasn't been that bad at all, occassionally i here the little new elders whining about how hard it is and then i ask them how long they have been here, they are usually like "4 weeks and its so tough," i giggle quitely inside as a inform them of my 8 week stay thus far.
well i am starting to feel like a senior in high school, it is coming down to the wire. we have been here longer than anybody else and we are almost ready to be sent out. the only difference between us and being a senior is that we aren't getting lazy. there is no senioritice here. matter-of-fact yesterday i was thinking about how much time we have left until we leave and it kind of scared me. i have always been working hard here, but these last 3 weeks are crunch time. i leave on the 24th of march, so i have exactly 3 weeks from today to be able to speak chinese well enough to teach the gospel and survive daily tasks. i think i am doing alright though. my pronunciation isn't the best, but i am working on that. they tell us that we will pick up the pronunciation once we get over there and start hearing it everyday, it is nearly impossible to do so in an enviroment with all none native speakers.
well this week just flew by. i can hardly remember the story i wanted to tell you all this week. it was a funny one. but maybe i will remember it in a second.
the food isn't so bad. once you learn the ins and outs of the lunch room it is wonderful. there are all sorts of things you can get, you just have got to know where to look and when. its great being an oldie of the MTC, we know virtually all of the hidden treasures haha.
o i remembered my story, so elder fronk, one of the elders in my aparment, we were in a mission conference yesterday. it is this really boring 2 hour meeting that is extremely large. there are about 2000 people in this meeting. anyways, yesterday we were all fasting so our bodies were pretty tired, not to mention the room where the mission conference was held was about 100 degrees. elder fronk fell asleep right, no big deal whatever, but he got startled by something and awoke by flinging his limbs in every which way. he ended up kicking one of the people in front of him in the back of the head, who happened to be a Branch Presidenct. Branch Presidents are like the bishops over small little groups of missionaries here of about 60. so this branch president turns around to see what the heck is going on and sees elder fronk just sitting there. elder fronk didn't know what to do, so he just was like "hi" and waved. it was funny trust me.
well i wish i had more to say, but its tough remembering in the morning. we have been teaching about heaven and what happens after this life in the TRC. the TRC is a place for volunteers to come to let the missionaries practice their language. well we were in there teaching this lesson, to a native, and my companion accidently told her that heaven is this "very pessimistic place" it was kind of funny, i started laughing and the lady just looked at him so confused. the words are really close and he got his sentence structure all messed up so it changed the meaning.
anyways i love you all and appreciate your support.
Monday, February 25, 2008
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
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
Monday, February 18, 2008
February 18, 2008 Email
well i dont have much time to day. they are slowly figuring out all the ways i can have more time to type. they only give us 30 minutes on pday and the computer are terrible so it is really hard to get them to work in 30 minutes anyways.
nothing to fantastic has happened this week. we just are speaking chinese a lot. my district is pretty sweet. there are 7 of us now. we just got a new branch president. anyways, i played piano for our church meeting the other day, i messed up a lot, but i dont think anyone noticed. i dont like to play piano for the meetings its scary.
well the chinese is coming good. i was praying in chinese with my teacher the other day during an interview. brother dean, who happens to be one of the best teachers in the world, anyways, while i was praying i got the words for laoshi and laoshu mixed. so i ended up in my prayer asking heavenly father to bless all my rats that they may teach me better. hahaha... that was pretty funny.
the language mistakes are the best. they are so freaking hilarious. somebody from our zone was reciting part of Joseph Smith history, and instead of saying "this is my beloved son, hear him," they said "this is my beloved midget hear him." the words for midget and son are the same except the tones are different they both sound like "aihtsa" though.
well insanity has begin to set in. it is week 7 and we have been laughing at everything. the dumbest little things will put the entire district on a giggling rampage. thankfully, we have never had one of these little fits while we had a teacher. they always happen during personal study.
i really have learned to love everybody here. we are all so different, but we are united in the fact that we are all here to bring others unto Christ. i wish i could spend my entire mission with the young men i have met here, but i am sure i will meet many more great young men in the field. well thats all for me. i love you all and hope you are doing great.
love,
elder anderson
nothing to fantastic has happened this week. we just are speaking chinese a lot. my district is pretty sweet. there are 7 of us now. we just got a new branch president. anyways, i played piano for our church meeting the other day, i messed up a lot, but i dont think anyone noticed. i dont like to play piano for the meetings its scary.
well the chinese is coming good. i was praying in chinese with my teacher the other day during an interview. brother dean, who happens to be one of the best teachers in the world, anyways, while i was praying i got the words for laoshi and laoshu mixed. so i ended up in my prayer asking heavenly father to bless all my rats that they may teach me better. hahaha... that was pretty funny.
the language mistakes are the best. they are so freaking hilarious. somebody from our zone was reciting part of Joseph Smith history, and instead of saying "this is my beloved son, hear him," they said "this is my beloved midget hear him." the words for midget and son are the same except the tones are different they both sound like "aihtsa" though.
well insanity has begin to set in. it is week 7 and we have been laughing at everything. the dumbest little things will put the entire district on a giggling rampage. thankfully, we have never had one of these little fits while we had a teacher. they always happen during personal study.
i really have learned to love everybody here. we are all so different, but we are united in the fact that we are all here to bring others unto Christ. i wish i could spend my entire mission with the young men i have met here, but i am sure i will meet many more great young men in the field. well thats all for me. i love you all and hope you are doing great.
love,
elder anderson
Monday, February 11, 2008
February 11, 2008 Email
Hey Everyone,
Thanks for the emails and everything I really appreciate all your support. I am still loving it here. The MTC happens to be one of the coolest places on earth. I didn’t think I would ever hear myself say that, but it truly is. Well, maybe not for everybody, I can see why some people might not like it, but I definitely like it. If you have a cool district it truly makes it easy. My district rocks! I have never become such good friends with people this fast. I think because we are all in here for the same reason, we are here to serve the Lord and when you are united in a common goal it generally makes it easy to get along.
I am not sure if I have shared this story with you, but last week Elder Daniels, one of my room mates, was reading some flash cards with Chinese on the front and English on the back, anyways, he got to one card and he looked at it and tried to say it and said “ta chan ga,” and he looked at it again and said “ta chan ga,” then he looked at his companion and said “where the heck are the tones on this word,” and then his companion, Elder Fronk, looked at him because he wasn’t sure if he was being serious, then he realized he WAS being serious, so he told him, “that says ‘to change’ your dork,” the card had flipped around and he didn’t even know it. Elder Daniels was reading English, but he was too zoned to even realize it. We had a good laughed and we all agreed that we have been here for too long.
The Chinese is coming great, I started a new goal last week, 100 new vocab words a day. Its tough to find the time, but for about the 4th day in a row yesterday I knocked down over 100. Plus with all the Chinese we learn in class, I am really starting to get a good solid vocabulary built up. When people talk to me in Chinese I generally know what they are saying. It is great! I think I know more Chinese now than I do Spanish, that’s not saying much for me, but it definitely doesn’t say much concerning public education considering the fact that I took Spanish for 4 years. Haha…
Well I am learning a ton and loving every minute of it, I miss all of you and can’t wait to see you in 2 years. I really wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Well except maybe the top of an untouched snow bowl with my skis, anyways, I love this opportunity I have to serve and bless the people of Taiwan.
Love,
Elder Anderson
Thanks for the emails and everything I really appreciate all your support. I am still loving it here. The MTC happens to be one of the coolest places on earth. I didn’t think I would ever hear myself say that, but it truly is. Well, maybe not for everybody, I can see why some people might not like it, but I definitely like it. If you have a cool district it truly makes it easy. My district rocks! I have never become such good friends with people this fast. I think because we are all in here for the same reason, we are here to serve the Lord and when you are united in a common goal it generally makes it easy to get along.
I am not sure if I have shared this story with you, but last week Elder Daniels, one of my room mates, was reading some flash cards with Chinese on the front and English on the back, anyways, he got to one card and he looked at it and tried to say it and said “ta chan ga,” and he looked at it again and said “ta chan ga,” then he looked at his companion and said “where the heck are the tones on this word,” and then his companion, Elder Fronk, looked at him because he wasn’t sure if he was being serious, then he realized he WAS being serious, so he told him, “that says ‘to change’ your dork,” the card had flipped around and he didn’t even know it. Elder Daniels was reading English, but he was too zoned to even realize it. We had a good laughed and we all agreed that we have been here for too long.
The Chinese is coming great, I started a new goal last week, 100 new vocab words a day. Its tough to find the time, but for about the 4th day in a row yesterday I knocked down over 100. Plus with all the Chinese we learn in class, I am really starting to get a good solid vocabulary built up. When people talk to me in Chinese I generally know what they are saying. It is great! I think I know more Chinese now than I do Spanish, that’s not saying much for me, but it definitely doesn’t say much concerning public education considering the fact that I took Spanish for 4 years. Haha…
Well I am learning a ton and loving every minute of it, I miss all of you and can’t wait to see you in 2 years. I really wouldn’t want to be anywhere else. Well except maybe the top of an untouched snow bowl with my skis, anyways, I love this opportunity I have to serve and bless the people of Taiwan.
Love,
Elder Anderson
Monday, February 4, 2008
Feb 4, 2008 Email
hey hey hey,
well nothing new is going on here. everything is going really well, it is the beginning of the fifth week, at this point we are basically no longer allowed to speak in english unless it is absolutely necessary like in class and stuff. it is tough, but really fun. we can usually get our point acrossed, but sometimes i think i am using more sign language than chinese. to talk we basically play chinese sharads, you say a couple words until you get to a word you don't know how to say and then you act it out. its pretty funny! all you see is these elders running around trying to act out what they are saying hahaha. think about it, how would you act out the great apostasy? or the gold plates? its tough.
we have had some really neat meetings that are very spiritual, yesterday we watched a film biography on the life of president hinckley, it was so funny. he is probably one of the funniest people i have ever seen on TV. anyways after going to these meetings you just want to get out there and tear it up, but i can't yet.
THIS WEEK IN FOUR SQUARE: so this week i did a somersault kick and hit the ball back in to the square, i was upside down. anyways after wards an elder from another district said that he had something to give me, so i followed him to his room and he made me kneel and close my eyes, i was a little nervous, but my companion was there so i did. anyways he went and got something and came back and told me to open my eyes and arise. i opened my eyes and before me was the most hideous belt i have ever seen. It was the four-square king belt. it is like a blue weight lifting belt with all these bottle caps glued on to it and the name of all the previous kings. there are about 12 names on it. so i figure it has probably been here for about a year. so now i am the current 4square king and before i leave i have to crown the next king. i am supposed to add my name and something funny and then pass it. hahaha... it made me laugh. well the chinese is coming awesome, i feel like i can communicate pretty well. yesterday i bore my testimony all in chinese and the elders and sisters that are just about to leave were very impressed, so that made me a little less nervous for when i get to taiwan. I can't wait to go! i like it here, but the field is going to be awesome. we have been teaching the first two lessons in english, my teaching skills have really improved. the last time we taught volunteers it was amazing, the spirit was so strong even though it was just a practice lesson. our teacher was very happy at how well we are doing with both teaching the gospel and learning the language.
well i love you all and hope to hear from you,
love,
elder anderson
well nothing new is going on here. everything is going really well, it is the beginning of the fifth week, at this point we are basically no longer allowed to speak in english unless it is absolutely necessary like in class and stuff. it is tough, but really fun. we can usually get our point acrossed, but sometimes i think i am using more sign language than chinese. to talk we basically play chinese sharads, you say a couple words until you get to a word you don't know how to say and then you act it out. its pretty funny! all you see is these elders running around trying to act out what they are saying hahaha. think about it, how would you act out the great apostasy? or the gold plates? its tough.
we have had some really neat meetings that are very spiritual, yesterday we watched a film biography on the life of president hinckley, it was so funny. he is probably one of the funniest people i have ever seen on TV. anyways after going to these meetings you just want to get out there and tear it up, but i can't yet.
THIS WEEK IN FOUR SQUARE: so this week i did a somersault kick and hit the ball back in to the square, i was upside down. anyways after wards an elder from another district said that he had something to give me, so i followed him to his room and he made me kneel and close my eyes, i was a little nervous, but my companion was there so i did. anyways he went and got something and came back and told me to open my eyes and arise. i opened my eyes and before me was the most hideous belt i have ever seen. It was the four-square king belt. it is like a blue weight lifting belt with all these bottle caps glued on to it and the name of all the previous kings. there are about 12 names on it. so i figure it has probably been here for about a year. so now i am the current 4square king and before i leave i have to crown the next king. i am supposed to add my name and something funny and then pass it. hahaha... it made me laugh. well the chinese is coming awesome, i feel like i can communicate pretty well. yesterday i bore my testimony all in chinese and the elders and sisters that are just about to leave were very impressed, so that made me a little less nervous for when i get to taiwan. I can't wait to go! i like it here, but the field is going to be awesome. we have been teaching the first two lessons in english, my teaching skills have really improved. the last time we taught volunteers it was amazing, the spirit was so strong even though it was just a practice lesson. our teacher was very happy at how well we are doing with both teaching the gospel and learning the language.
well i love you all and hope to hear from you,
love,
elder anderson
Wednesday, January 30, 2008
January 29 Email
well the spirit here today at the MTC is somber, but strong. Although I am sure all of us will miss President Hinckley's witty jokes, clever talks, and heart warming smile, I can't help but be happy for him as he goes on to return to live with his wife. I will miss him, but it doesn't change my purpose here. I love President Hinckley and I know that the next prophet will truly be God's servant here on the earth. Pray for the church leaders I am sure they have many long nights ahead of them... Well you all probably will know more about whats going on then me so feel free to email me.
This has been one of the most spiritual weeks at the MTC. Everyone here is awesome! It doesn't matter who you were before you came here, we are all united in one purpose now and you can feel the love that each missionary has for the people they are preparing to serve all over the world. There is no greater work than missionary work! The languages is still coming great, just building vocab and working on the goofy grammar of chinese. Well another week at the MTC is done and we begin another one, the days and weeks are flying by, I love it! I'm gonna be in Taiwan in no time. And the MTC rocks, anyone that says it sucks is crazy haha. The food is good and the people are friendly, what more could you ask for?
Thanks for all the emails and letters and dearelder.com. They are all great! If you wanna save 41 cents just use dearelder.com, it works great.
I love you all,
Elder Anderson
This has been one of the most spiritual weeks at the MTC. Everyone here is awesome! It doesn't matter who you were before you came here, we are all united in one purpose now and you can feel the love that each missionary has for the people they are preparing to serve all over the world. There is no greater work than missionary work! The languages is still coming great, just building vocab and working on the goofy grammar of chinese. Well another week at the MTC is done and we begin another one, the days and weeks are flying by, I love it! I'm gonna be in Taiwan in no time. And the MTC rocks, anyone that says it sucks is crazy haha. The food is good and the people are friendly, what more could you ask for?
Thanks for all the emails and letters and dearelder.com. They are all great! If you wanna save 41 cents just use dearelder.com, it works great.
I love you all,
Elder Anderson
Tuesday, January 22, 2008
Here is another email from Craig. We are also recieving letters, which we enjoy, but are harder to post!
well hey everybody.
everything is going great. The MTC. isn't so bad. My district is super cool and fun. My companion is a little nerdy and hard to communicate with sometimes, but he is a great kid. We have been learning so much here. Every morning we get up at 6:20 so that we can get a decent shower in before all the hot water runs out. Then we get all dressed up in our suits and head to class at 7:15, we study whatever we want for an hour and then we go to breakfast. The food is alright, but it starts to get repetitive after a while. After breakfast we go to class for 3 more hours until lunch. We have 2 teachers Sister Feng, and Brother Ronney. They are both cool, but sister feng is a little mean and i don't think she understands american humor. Today is the 13th day of the Reign of the Feng. Hahaha... she isn't that bad. Brother Ronney, is way cool, he served his mission in Kaohsiung too, so he knows a lot about the mission we are going to. He also has a sense of humor and his classes are great. After 3 hours or so of Language/Churchie stuff, we go to lunch. After lunch we usually do another 3 hours or so of language and then head to the Gym for an hour, I play four square. Its a real mans sport! Lol seriously though, its intense, they have more injuries from 4square than from all the other sports combined, volleyball, basketball, and running around in circles like a dork, i think its called jogging. We shower and then go back to class for another 2-3 hours depending on when our gym time was. After that we do a little planning for the next day, then we wash rinse and repeat if necessary.
well, i just wanted to let you all now that i am doing great. i have made some great friends here, and i think most everyone enjoys my sense of humour. love you all
love,
Elder Craig Anderson
well hey everybody.
everything is going great. The MTC. isn't so bad. My district is super cool and fun. My companion is a little nerdy and hard to communicate with sometimes, but he is a great kid. We have been learning so much here. Every morning we get up at 6:20 so that we can get a decent shower in before all the hot water runs out. Then we get all dressed up in our suits and head to class at 7:15, we study whatever we want for an hour and then we go to breakfast. The food is alright, but it starts to get repetitive after a while. After breakfast we go to class for 3 more hours until lunch. We have 2 teachers Sister Feng, and Brother Ronney. They are both cool, but sister feng is a little mean and i don't think she understands american humor. Today is the 13th day of the Reign of the Feng. Hahaha... she isn't that bad. Brother Ronney, is way cool, he served his mission in Kaohsiung too, so he knows a lot about the mission we are going to. He also has a sense of humor and his classes are great. After 3 hours or so of Language/Churchie stuff, we go to lunch. After lunch we usually do another 3 hours or so of language and then head to the Gym for an hour, I play four square. Its a real mans sport! Lol seriously though, its intense, they have more injuries from 4square than from all the other sports combined, volleyball, basketball, and running around in circles like a dork, i think its called jogging. We shower and then go back to class for another 2-3 hours depending on when our gym time was. After that we do a little planning for the next day, then we wash rinse and repeat if necessary.
well, i just wanted to let you all now that i am doing great. i have made some great friends here, and i think most everyone enjoys my sense of humour. love you all
love,
Elder Craig Anderson
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