I Moved

i am in the heart of the city of Kaohsiung. Its huge. and guess what, i wil=
l be right next to the mission office in case of computer problems. coinc=
idence, i think not ;). i am really excited our area is so city like. i h=
ave a new companion who is way cool, his name is Elder Yen and he is from=
taibei. i am so excited.

seriously our area is like down town new york. kinda,. we have a costco, su=
bway, ikea, all sorts of fun stuff. it almost doesnt even feel like a for=
eign place. it is definitely very westernized. stink ya, lots and lots an=
d lots of people.

well my last week in Ping Dong was my best week i have ever had on my missi=
on. for one thing we had a lot of really good lessons and met some great =
new investigators, but the best thing of all was that rick got baptized. =
it was so awesome. On saturday we had his baptism and he asked me to bapt=
ize him. As we waded into the water i started to get a little teary eyed =
because i was so moved by the transformation i have seen in him over the =
past couple months. he followed me into the water and as i said the bapti=
smal pray i was so choked up i could hardly say it. it was so awesome. th=
e best part of it all was that Ricks mom got to come. it was a miracle th=
at she could come. i am so happy that his family is somewhat supportive o=
f him becoming a christian.

on Friday night, i warned him that sometimes when the Holy Spirit is really=
strong it makes people cry. He laughed and said, yeah right i will not c=
ry only sissies cry. hahahaha... well lo and behold, as soon as he came u=
p out of the water he started crying hahaha... i did too. then when he bo=
re his testimony he bore a really powerful testimony and we all laughed b=
ecause he told the congregation that when i told him friday night that he=
might cry he didnt believe me. it was so great.=20

sunday, he was confirmed a member of the church and received the Holy Spiri=
t to be with him as long as he remains worthy. he will too, he is such an=
awesome guy. We all just have got to endure to the end.

(Hey Rick if you are reading this, I luv ya!!)

The last lesson i taught in Ping Dong was with Rick, we taught him a new me=
mber lesson about enduring to the end and honoring our baptismal covenant=
s. Really great, i wish i could send you pictures, but the internet cafe =
we are using is really not very good. one day i will get you some, maybe =
next week. actually i will try and mail some because they printed a bunch=
out for me.

well goodbye to ping dong and hello kaohsiung. talk about excited! its goin=
g to be an awesome move, i might actually learn how to speak chinese now =
that i have a native companion.

i love you all, thanks for the emails, i will email you in 9 days.

love,
Elder Craig Anderson

June 14, 2008 Email

hey everyone,

i totally forgot to tell you about my up coming move. i didn't know where i was moving until 3 days ago, so i wouldnt have been able to tell you about anyways. but it is monday here and i normally email you on wednesday, so it will be 10 days until i can email again.

i just arrived in me new area about 1 hour ago. it is called Ping Tung, its pronounced Ping Dong. wow, its awesome. it is still raining like crazy, but the city is really neat. lots of cool shops and what nots. it is also very clean, which is a welcome change. my last area was really dirty, it had open sewers and stuff, which was really gross. i always teased my last companion that if i got really mad at him i just might push him into it. so there is really much to tell you about my new area because i dont really know it yet.

my new companion is awesome. his name is Chen Wei Yang. and he is taiwanese! but his english is really really good, which should make it really easy. we talk in a mixture of chinese and english, standard chinglish. but he is a way fun guy, i think we are going to get a long great, and i think my chinese is going to improve tons too.

well since i emailed you all earlier there isn't much to tell you about. i packed up all my stuff and moved, i was a little sad to move from my last area because i really started to love the branch, but i am so excited that i have a native companion. i am going to make his ears bleed with chinese language questions.

i have been soaked for the past 3 days. its awesome, i feel like i am swimming. i love the rain, it keeps everything cool. when there is no rain, i get tired really easy because the heat just sucks all the energy out of me. i am definitely a cold weather dweller.

i know this email is early and that i didn't warn you so dont worry about not emailing me this week, it was my fault. i will email you again in 10 days. bye bye love yall

Elder Craig Anderson