ACT in FAITH

Week 7
Dear family and friends, yet another week has gone by here in the MTC. Some of the highlights. The cafeteria is still under construction, so there is still only one menu item each meal each day and there is only ONE line for the entire MTC. So its wait wait wait in line then shovel the food as fast as you can to be on time to your next class! We found out during our service assignment that we will be the last people to live in our residence halls, which is building 14, before they shut it down for renovations. It’s about time if you ask me. They will be converting all the rooms into 6 elders a room instead of just 4. As if they weren’t small enough already. We had Elder Stanly G Ellis of the 70 speak to us and we had Richard L Heaton Some guy in some kind of presidency position in the MTC. Every week we have a progressing investigator and a new investigator to prepare to teach. Our progressing investigator is our teacher but he imitates a specific Cambodian that he had to teach and is very good! every week we have to go more simple, more simple, Cambodian adults only have a few years of school so most can’t read. That our investigator. I knew I had to teach very simple doctrine but I had no idea it would have to be more simple than what the kids are learning in primary in America. Our random investigator was a girl from California whose parents are Cambodian so she knows how to speak but not read! ( I’ve come to find out that Cambodian is so tough to learn how to read, that most people don’t even bother learning how to do it. ) So sure enough my comp. and I had a scripture we wanted to share but she couldn’t read. So we had to give it our best shot! it wasn’t pretty but we got the message across.
My thoughts this week have been about Faith. Last Sunday as I said before we had Elder Ellis of the 70 visit us. He spoke so simply and powerfully about faith! It was amazing and really opened my eyes up on the subject as I have applied it this last week. As we know Faith is the first principle of the gospel of Jesus Christ. Faith is the Basis on which Missionaries and members of the Church of Jesus Christ Believe, gain testimony, promise blessings, and perform miracles. If we have faith that our heavenly father will answer someone’s prayer and we promise them he will. God will fulfill his end. Even if the lord has to do something himself!, he will keep his word. God will direct all of us, if we have faith. God will prepare the people of Cambodia and guide me to them if I have the faith. However, faith is a principle of ACTION! We all know the saying that says " when life gets hard to stand kneel." Most the time you can’t just stay on your knees! You must get up and start doing. Build yourself to have a greater amount of faith by doing. Have faith that as you get started he will see your efforts and desire to follow him and he WILL guide you. When it came down to crunch time to again leave on my mission it was a very rough time. I was feeling such strong emotions I have never felt before. It was so hard for me, all the way up until I took those steps back into the MTC, to actually go through with it. And right now looking back, imp so grateful that my heavenly father blessed me with the strength to take that walk of FAITH. My intent on sharing this experience is to not talk myself up but to bare testimony of a recent example in my life where I finally had to just get off my knees and go forward in faith. ACT in FAITH even when you are not sure and I promise that the lord will bless you with his guidance. I Love all of you and REALLY REALLY appreciate the love and support you have shown me in the last year and helping me become who I am today. Until next week, ( not our will, but his be done ) have faith.
                                                  Love Elder Ryan D. Anderson

BEST letter by FAR!

Dear family and friends,
This week has been an over the hill week for me in the mtc and i guess this upcoming week will be the same as well.  Ill tell about this upcoming week first and then ill tell about the week i just had.  In the MTC there are some changes being made, my schedule that i had just gotten used to is now different. We have been told that missionary work is yet again evolving and that we would be the first to experience it. We were told that when missionaries get their calls they will be given materials to help them prepare much better for the MTC. In the MTC there is now absolutely no Missionary directed time anymore. We have outlined gospel lessons that are to be taught to us instead of us choosing what we do in class for the week, we still get to decide alot of what we get to do as far as language. Our companionshio study is with a teacher instead of on our own. One of the biggest changes is that in addition to the random stranger we teach a lesson to at the end of the week and practice our language, we are assigned a progressing investigator that we will then teach for the rest of the time in the mtc. So in Short, much more busy, very many more goals, 2x the amound of language to cram (even though we were already on double time with that), many more teaching practice opportunities and much better gospel lessons wich is my favorite part. 
Now about the week i just had. This week i have been thinking alot about how i can feel like a better missionary. And almost every day i read something or something is said to help me answer that question i have in my mind. One of them being a talk from David Bednar that we watched as a class.  These are some quotes from his talk i have taken to heart. 
" Your mission was decided in the pre mortal existance, and is not only for two years but for your entire life."
"Return to your home, but do not leave the mission field."
 "Every success in the work is a gift of God."
 There were many more but those were my top. My other source that helped me to recieve an answer to my questions is a talk sent to me by my Best friend Andrew Fonda serving in Chile. Its called the fourth missionary. It talked about missionaries 1-4 and gets really detailed about them. The first one isnt so great, goes home. Second one stays and doesnt make a difference in himself or anyone else. The third makes a change in others but not himself. Its is the Fourth missionary obvioulsy that all missionaries sould be like. it says so much so again ill just share the parts that ive taken to heart very strongly.
"The greatest battles that anyone will ever have to fight will be within the silent chambers of your heart. That is the battleground between what you want and what the lord wants. THE ONLY WAY TO WIN IS TO LOSE. If the lord wins the battle you both win, if you win the battle you both lose."  
"The virtues of mercy, integrity, spirituality, humility, kindness, virtue, diligence, patience, and love become more than principles, they become attributes of his character. (talking about the 4th missionary)." 
"Only in losing yourself, may you find yourself. Only by enriching others, may you be enriched. Only be giving may you recieve. Only in surrenduring you may become free." 
Mom and Dad these last two are for you because i think they are exactly what you have been trying to teach me my entire life and i havent always been very receptive to listen.
" There are two ways of evolving, Deliberately and accidentally. You can decide who you want to become and work for it, or you can just go with the flow in life and become whatever it makes you......BUt whatever you become haphazardly, it will not be to your full potential." 
"In the end, your heart and your will is all that you have to give that the lord does not already have. If you give your time, two years, and your strenght, you give only that which he grants to you with each beat of your heart and each breath that you draw. If you dedicate your gifts and your talents, you only return to him what he already has given you. If you pay tithing you only return to him a tenth of which he has already given you. Everything you have to give to the lord has its origin in him, EXCEPT ONE THING: your will. He does not have your heart, nor your mind, unless you give them to him. It is the only gift you have to offer that he does not already have. And so when you give him yourself, you truly give him everything."
So, how do i become a better missionary? Its by not being a "missionary" at all. Its by becoming a servant. A servant of the lord who gives the only thing that which the lord does not already have, or given me and that is my full heart and mind. Now i know this will be impossible to do 24/7 but im feeling it wont hurt to try and do it as much as i can! Stop thiking about the things at home. The things i packed away in the attick. And focus on the whole purpose of life, because this is the only chance ill get to give it 100 percent. All of those other things can wait and they will still be there later. So, my goal, Focus on my purpose as a missionary to help other come unto christ by helping them recieve the restored gospel, through faith in Jesus Christ and his Atonement, Repentance, Baptism, Recieving the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the end. Let Gods will, and not my will be done. Because when the Lord wins I win and i have complete faith in that.  Family, ive only just begun my adventure as a servant of God and i know there will be hard times. But its my hope and prayer that i will always remember what i have shared witth you today and would ask for your prayers as well. 
I feel the love and support of my entire family everyday and im so thankfull for every one of you because family is what life is about. Its my most prized possesion and im blessed to have one so great!
     Elder Ryan D. Anderson