A MUST READ BEFORE CHRISTMAS!

In Cambodia here, sadly it doesn’t feel like Christmas at all. In fact yesterday at our district lunch, it was discovered that Christmas was in only 5 days. We had all completely forgotten. It’s sunny and hot and so my mind wants to keep telling me that it’s still summer and fall hasn’t even happened. That, and I’m pretty sure they only deliver packages every Monday to the mission home. So I think my boxes won’t make it in time.  We have our "Christmas" on the 23rd in the city. Then we stay the night and have an area conference in the morning of the 24th. Then it’s back on the bus and back to regular schedule..until who knows when? The Cambodian New Year in April I think…  Anyway I don’t know what will happen. I’ll get them eventually. I might get luck and have a Senior come visit Siem Reap soon and they can bring them with them.
I’m not worried. 

I have been thinking about an aspect of Christmas lately, however, that has made me reflect on my own life.  The kids here have no toys. Never have and never will. They play with garbage and old food as their toys. Specifically Styrofoam, that is their favorite.  I’ve watched kids over the months play with rocks, dead bugs, shoes, garbage, bike and car parts. I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Legit toy! This last Sunday there were a few members from America that came to our branch and they gave each kid like a 15 cent toy and it was the greatest thing in the world to them…and for me I’ve always considered that garbage.  It’s made me think back on my life and all the things I have had and how maybe I should have appreciated more things than I did! To see a little boy treat a tiny toy Dinosaur like his most prized possession he has ever had just makes your insides turn to mush. And you just want to find all those things you overlooked and give it all to him! This Christmas for me has been focused on appreciation and recognizing major blessings that we don’t see as blessings at first until we see the bigger picture, until we get a larger, wiser understanding. It is a part of life! Everyone must learn it from childhood to adulthood and this is just another step in my learning experience of learning to appreciate. And it’s been a big lesson.

Anyway, not much progress in the area this week. We have made a lot of progress contacting lost people and inviting them back to church and we are being patient with finding investigators. We have like 4 and one came to church last week.  Chin up! Press on! No effort is ever wasted! That is my and Elder Phans motto for this transfer.

I’m still getting organized and planning an attack on this area! Right now I’m still gathering Intel and learning the streets..  Finding out who is in to help and who is not.  We have an area right by Angkor that we love to go walk around in because its filled with people who have lost their mind. Like last week I mentioned a woman who calls us her children and we have to call her mom or she gets super upset!

There are several people like her who have drank so much or have experienced so much famine that there is nothing left of their sanity. You never know what is going to happen when we go there to try to teach a few people. They fight, they dance, they sing, they freak out, who knows.  Um, I don’t have much else, I want to have something to talk about when we Skype! By the way I’m afraid to skype! I don’t know what to talk about! I don’t know if I’ll be happy or just bust out crying because I miss all of you so much! I have no idea! Nervousness fills me. I’m doing well another week…only like 65 more! Make the most of it while I can!

Love you,
Elder Ryan Anderson

FINALLY transfered!

December 3rd

Dear family! 

A lot is about to happen and I am excited!

But I will wait to tell you. First of all, my birthday went well. I waited patiently to open the package I got from all of you! I opened it first thing in the morning! Calendar, perfect, smell goods, awesome, Rain jacket AMAZING! And will be perfect for the rain here! chocolate, to die for! Thank you very much! 

Elder Wright and I had the baptism of Bennion and a family of 5 I have been teaching out in Bakuu forever!  What was really cool was that we got members to do most of the baptisms! Which means they feel friend-shipped and close to the other members! score. Elder Wright and I still were able to get into the water ourselves so we had ten people in white that day! After that we went to the city where the Elders in the city put together a music performance and invited anyone and everyone to come and listen. And that pretty much took up the whole day! So I had presents bringing wonderful amazing people into the gospel and I went to a music concert. Sweet 21st Birthday if you ask me. 

OK so from there all you can think about it transfers! We have spent the last week making predictions on where we were going to go and with who and in what position! It’s very stressful!  I have to tell you, like 90 percent of my predictions were correct!  So here it goes. In Takhmao, Elder Ott and I have been here together for the last 6 months. We have grown super tight! He is a big influence for me and has been an awesome leader! He has been serving in south zone for a year and he got called to 5th branch which is still in south zone. He will be zone leader over south zone and he will be training a new missionary AND whitewashing aka starting from scratch. Super cool and he is excited to take the challenge.  I predicted all of that. Besides the white wash part.

As for me, the President called me (which means something significant)! He says the Lord would like me to go to Siem Reap West! I will have a native Khmer Companion and he also asked if I would be the District leader for him up there! Without even thinking I said, YES I WOULD LOVE TO! After I hung up the phone, I sat down and thought wait a minute... WHAT!? Oh well, I’m excited to take up the challenge. To have a native companion is hard, but you learn a lot of Khmer! Siem Reap is super far away, and you never come to the mission home, and you only get mail once a transfer!  District leader shouldn't be too hard. The only thing is doing paperwork and baptismal interviews! Not excited for that!  So I go from the farthest south area all the way to the farthest north! Angkor Watt is in my area apparently as well. I have heard its more expensive to live there though. Major tourist location, so they like to rip off the white people. A lot of places in Cambodia have two prices for everything. The price for a Khmer and the price for the white person. I don’t know in the next few weeks to come I should have a lot of news for you!

This Friday I leave Takhmao and ride a bus for 6 hours! up to Siem Reap! I’m going to be left out in the middle of nowhere for the next 6 months! It’s going to be fun! As far as leaving Takhmao, I am left very, very sad!  I remember when I first got here and I would come into these people’s houses and sit on the floor look at them all and feel so out of place! They barely even felt like people to me!  But now as I have started to say goodbye to my convert families, I die on the inside because I have to leave them and just pray that they will be taken care of after I go.  Bennion even calls me his son. The Son he wishes he had but never did.  On a mission you really do make friendships that make a lasting impression on who you are and who you will choose to be for the rest of your life!

Anyway that’s all for this week. 
With love From Takhmao for the last time, Elder Anderson

December 10th

Dear family,

Wow wow wow is all I have to say.

This is quite the change! I spent so long in Takhmao doing the best I could to fix it and leave it as a place where it had success, now I’m going to have to do the same thing all over again here in Siem Reap.  It is a really cool place! Even though it is super far away from anything else its super cool! I ride my bike past Angkor Wat everyday and meet people in their houses that live right around it. My Area is huge but only has like 15 members in it. I have no idea where they are yet because, 1. My Khmer companion, (who is sweet) has only been here 6 weeks and wasn’t trained in the area very well. And two, ALL of the paperwork for Siem Reap is a mess! The CBR Member books are all over the place, there isn’t anything useful in the area books either. Looks like I have got some work to do. We don’t have many investigators or really any direction or schedule at all right now, but I am hoping to get through all the paperwork because there are a ton of former investigators that could have potential.  Already I can see the wisdom in the Lord in sending me to Siem Reap. There are clearly different types of missionaries and the Lord needs certain types in areas at certain times. Right now It’s my time in Seam Reap. I am going to turn this place around and start making stuff happen!

In order for Siem Reap to become part of a Stake with Battambong in the future, Sieam Reap needs to split into two units. Right now it’s far from it! Because it’s so unorganized! Give me a few weeks to get things organized and to get to know the area and we will have something to work with.  Being a District leader in Siem Reap means nothing because there are only 4 of us in the entire zone.  We all put our heads together and are currently making plans to shake things up. My new companion Elder Phan is super sweet. He is like my best friend Andrew Fonda, but in a Cambodians body!  It’s creepy sometimes!  It took a few days for me to get used to speaking the language constantly but it’s getting better. I still get frustrated because I can’t explain things very well sometimes, but it is a work in progress.  It’s a whole different style of missionary work having to speak the language 24/7.  He doesn’t know any English. Usually after a lesson I would talk to my companion about whatever in English until the next lesson, then we would switch back to Khmer. But now there is no switching. I have a lot of time to myself to think! Especially when the other two elders aren’t around. Speaking of which, the other two elders in our zone/district right now are Elder Christian and Elder Kuhn. Sound Familiar?  Christian was my Companion in the MTC the first time I went. And Kuhn was my MTC companion the 2nd time I went. Weird huh? 

OK, couple of stories. I’m teaching a guy from England. His name is Andrew and he has a super heavy accent. I teach him alone because we teach in English. He owns a school that teaches an all English school curriculum so that when kids graduate they have actual certificates they can use to get jobs. The school system here is super corrupt and this guy has sacrificed so much and spent a ton of his own money getting his school going. Apparently just recently he got a huge grant of money from the government to expand. Anyway, He knows everything already! He has read the Book of Mormon already and teaches me the lessons pretty much. He has a Wife that is a return sister missionary she is Cambodian. I’m not sure what to do with him really but I’m being very cautious!

Second story. I have a recent convert here who lives in the coolest house!~You ride your bike through the jungle and across a rice patty and it’s in the middle of nowhere. We teach her at night using flashlights and she is amazing. However, Elder Phan didn’t warn me that there was an incredible amount of Mosquitoes at her house. That night after I showered I had so many bites on my legs you couldn’t tell where one started and another ends. I had hundreds!!!   Bad news, Siem Reap is Expensive! Since I’ts a tourist place everything is more! Another bad, I wasn’t able to take my bike with me, so I had to take the one that was already here. And to no surprise it’s falling apart! It’s terrible! And it’s stuck in a super high gear! So it’s impossible to pedal! My legs and back ache every night because of this thing! I’m afraid I’ll have to buy another! new bike! The bike policy in this mission needs to be changed, it’s a joke. 

Dad I love the Jacket! It was a perfect idea! I have not had a chance to test it out yet though, however. It’s out of the heavy rain season and up here in Siem Reap it’s actually a great temperature! It’s nice and cool right now!  That’s all I have time to tell you this week family! I m glad to hear that you will all be home for Christmas! I haven’t heard back from president on what is going to happen with the Siem Reap Elders Yet. I have put in a request to find out. But I think we won’t have any huge problems other than the fact that the computers in this country suck! If I can make a request. Can I get photos of the Basement and the outside of the house. I don’t have a picture of my home at all.  For Christmas, I have no idea what you can send me. The only things I can think of are, new music player that plays music by removable microSD cards like my last one. Music because I lost all I had on my last player, Mom any research on Electronic Dictionaries? BLUE POWERAIDE DRINK POWDER!You know what you could do that would be really nice is get something for my companion. HE has nothing and his family has nothing. Nothing to send him at all. He doesn’t even get to Skype them because they can’t afford the 2 dollars to use the computers. Maybe go to a skate shop in the mall and get him a Cool tie accessory or a cool wallet. I dunno. That would be nice. I think that is all I have. If I remember anything else I will bring it up next week! Love you all! I’m doing fine! Thanks for your prayers and support!