Think as BIG as you can!

January 5th 2011 Letter

Happy New Year! 

For my new year I got up at 11:55 and watched the clock change years at midnight, then tried to go back to sleep, but the neighbors were setting of huge fireworks right in front of our house outside so it sounded like the civil war in my bedroom with cannons and gunfire until about 1! 

It has been confirmed that this Thursday I will take a bus to the city for leadership training until Saturday… So I will be able to get my Christmas boxes and any other mail that anyone has sent in the last month and a half!  I’m pretty excited about that.  It will make 2 more 6-7 hour bus rides, worth it.  Sounds like your Christmas was awesome this year!!!  I have one question I want to ask..  If Jman got a new iPod what happened to my 80gig that I gave him? And the stereo to go with it? Is it dead?! I say that in all sarcasm by the way.  I will have to say that after our Skype call last week there was so many things I wanted to tell you about but just totally forgot!!! I’ve come to find out that if I do not write something down I will not remember it!! There is so much going on in the brain that it just doesn’t want to remember little details like that.  So I’m learning to organize my brain outside of my head on paper and whiteboards!  It’s really helping!  I was really glad to get the chance to just see all of you! 

Ok, so story time!! From Thursday until today there has been no water in the house! We have drinking water, but no water to shower or do our dishes or do laundry! So we have been using our backup water supply aka a few 5 gallon jugs filled with dirty water, sparingly.  We wash our faces and armpits at night and brush our teeth in the morning and all of us are out of clean clothes.  We came home from doing service on Saturday in the middle of the day and we had to hurry and shower and change to get to our next appointments and we had a prayer that there would be water! We were all muddy from moving a lot of mud and dirt at a members house.. NO WATER. Splash the pits splash the face and lets go..  We called the landlord again and even called someone in the mission home to get more pulling power on the emergency.. But still no results.. Anyway.. that is part one of the story. Part two is, while we were on  the phone with the senior couple that serves in the mission home telling them we had no water. They tell us, you know from one Elder to another, I think I should tell you that President is Visiting Siem Reap right now with his family.... AHHH  We knew he was going to come to church with who knew how many people.. Sure enough, the next day he comes with his son and his wife and their daughter. Also, another family showed up that didn’t know Khmer so we had a ton of people to translate for..  Luck for me a return Elder was able to translate and I thought I had gotten away with not having to because I am terrible at translating!!! It’s like playing the piano with both hands! I can do one or the other but not at the same time.. I haven’t practiced enough to be able to listen in Khmer and speak in English at the same time.. Anyway.. I had forgotten that president and sister Smedly were sitting up on the stand and I made the mistake of making eye contact because President waved his hand at me then pointed to the chair between the two of them.. CRAPPPP!!!!!!! Was my initial thoughts.... My next thoughts... What if they get up to bear their testimonies? I’ll have to translate for them out to all the members. My heart pounding I walked to the stand and sat and translated the best I could the whole meeting and I think God blessed me because neither president or his wife got up to say anything! I dodged that bullet. 

Part three of the story.. Last night Elder Phan and I had a Lesson with the most recent convert in Siem Reap. Her name is Sii Don she has two kids, one girl 11 yrs. and a boy that we call “Elder heh heh”  because all he does is laughs. President and his whole family went with us! We walked in the night sky down a long path through rice patties which are now hay fields because it’s a different season now. We arrive at her house and she is thrilled as can be!  In our lesson we talked about the repentance of alma the younger and his repentance and how his father, along with loved ones, fasted and prayed to wake him from the stupor the Angel left him in. Then, we taught about the law of the fast again with her. In this whole lesson I was trying to teach, listen, comprehend, translate for the 5 people that didn’t understand a thing and not lose the groove of teaching between my companion and I. The spirit was there strong! This woman is amazing..  She said she wants to fast because she wants all of her family that she has not seen in a long time to receive the gospel as well as her husband. She said fasting is no problem because her family sometimes doesn’t have food for a few days anyway and she was in great spirits!  Her faith and testimony is a good example for all of us I think. A simple woman who lives in a house the size of my bathroom at home with two kids and a drunk husband. She works all day to make sure there is food for tomorrow.  Sometimes even after a full day’s work they come up short and have nothing to eat. She has no TV, no phones, no toilets, or running water, no air conditioning or carpet, has never had a single luxury her entire life; but now she says she has everything because she has GOD!  She has explained that there were many times she wanted to just go to sleep and never wake up because there was nothing to live for. But now I see a woman who is always smiling and is always thanking her heavenly father for what she does have and has a renewed sense of worth in her life. That is the hope and love our Heavenly Father provides for us.

Switching gears now. Dad I love what you said about the Christmas season and, well, any season in general.  How you spend so much time and effort preparing and executing events in your life, but then after its over it feels like it was just a glimpse of time. I feel the same way as you do and I’m sure Millions of others do as well. As a missionary you think ALOT about time. As I have thought about time over the last month I thought about this crazy thing that happens in life. School, Parties, Work, Events like weddings and birthdays, a MISSION! Leading up to them feels like this huge tremendous thing! Preparation, study, losing sleep at night, dealing with people, money, stress, tears, TIME. But then as soon as it’s over. With every passing day after, all of it is a glimpse of time, a few photographs, maybe words written in a journal, material items that get old, break, and are thrown away, forgotten.  Then, what is it all for is the question? Why do we spend our precious time sitting in a classroom, sitting at a desk, putting things together like celebrations and parties, being away from our families for a few years in a far away place?  The question that many people ask and not enough people have the answer to, in my opinion.  For some, their answer is, so I can eat tomorrow. Others is, so they can pay the bills. And what I think is that the answer all depends on the perspective.  Many people here in Cambodia only see today and tomorrow. Money today, food tomorrow, repeat. Some people see larger. Save and go to school now to be better off later.. For Latter Day saints its "This time is the time for men to prepare to meet God." That is about as big of a perspective as you can get. We have the knowledge of our Heavenly Father’s plan for each of us. Therefore giving us a much larger perspective on this life we live in today. So we know that the reason why we spend our short time in this life is to prepare ourselves. By filling our lives with things that may only last a day, week, year or 50 years it all helps us prepare to have something that lasts an eternity. A gift that only God can give, Eternal life with our families.  I challenge everyone this year to Endure! Not only Endure but Enjoy.  Lift up your hearts, be of good cheer, when the days get rough think as big as you can and try to remember why we are even here.  I love you all and I hope this year we will all be able to prepare ourselves by filling our lives with things that will help us achieve eternity.

                               Elder Anderson

January 10th 2011 Letter

Hello family! I had a super great week!

I got mail from just about everyone I think! And I got three packages! Two from home and one From Aunt Becky and the family! Question, is Nichelle really engaged?  I Loved the packages and I have to say I feel really spoiled! Dad, I’m assuming your gift was preparing for the future?  My first thoughts when I saw the memory [external hard drive] you sent me was… well, that’s a little overkill isn’t it?  Ha, I don’t know, but it’s perfect!! and will be very useful!  Mother! the dictionary [electronic pocket translator, Cambodian to English/English to Cambodian] was super unexpected! It has already come in handy multiple times! Especially with the Khmer companion.. I LOVE it!  Is that what you had to wait for in the mail?  Natalie the music player is perfect also!!! Its super easy to use and has a micro sd slot.. However, since you put all the stuff on the device itself and not an external memory, I can’t do anything with it.. Its stuck there.. but I can put things on a memory card and use it just fine anyway! Thank you so much!  Dad, I used my birthday money and some extra I have been setting aside and I got on the boat with the family..  There are elders in the mission who have Itouches and they are wonderful as well.. turns out that LDS.org has a ton of Apps that are super useful… pretty much every book you as a missionary would need, you can get.  So… I have been doing research since I got here and finally made my decision.  And I saved about 500 dollars as well! I got a 64 gig fully legit iPod touch and he threw in a pair of Dr. Dre beat headphones for 10 more dollars. Those are like 360$ in the states.  A brand new 64 gig touch as you know is expensive! But I got my whole deal for 300.. That’s my birthday/Christmas gift to myself and kind of a confession too, since I used more money than you gave me to spend for my birthday but IT WAS SUCH A GOOD DEAL!  Love you!

I’m glad to hear that everyone enjoyed my last email as well... I was just sitting in the internet cafe and the thoughts kept coming... That doesn’t happen to me very often.. like today for example, I’m not sure what to say! umm… Elder Kuhn my MTC companion that has been up here in Siem Reap with me got called on Saturday and he's going into the office!!! That was close! It was almost me! I dodged that bullet! It’s crazy to think that my group is already being looked at for AP and Office Elder positions! The mission is going to change after this next transfer because my first group is going home!!  All 6 of them and right now, 4 of them are zone leaders and 2 are district leaders! The groups between them and me are really small so they are likely to skip a lot and go right to our group of 11 people...  Elder Phan and I are together for another transfer for sure, so no updates there

Last week was super fun.  Elder Christian and I rode a bus to the city for leadership training and on the way we saw a dog get ran over by a truck at very high speed!  We were car sick after that! Leadership training was fantastic!!  The new year has a ton of new goals! The mission President has set perfect goals for the mission this year to help missionaries fulfill their purpose and to fix the problem of converts walking in the front door and straight out the back.  The vision is to prepare for Stakes!  There are goals for retention and reactivation.  The office elders have come up with a new system to count the recent converts attendance so it will be easier to communicate to the branch on who needs to be visited and who needs callings, etc. 

Right now, as the District leader, I really want to start making a REAL difference in Siem Reap.  I want to go over what we can do to actually get the ball rolling. In the meetings they talked a lot about how it is super easy to play missionary all by yourself. It’s easier to make calls and not have to rely on people as much. Not to have to communicate with the branch members or leaders. It’s much easier that way. But they have challenged us all to start using the branch even more than we have been.  Really try to train leaders, train members. Get people to help you by serving them and strengthening them. Invite the spirit into their home.  We have also talked a lot about where the credit belongs as far as conversion.  The spirit!  Part of the new goals are to help the missionaries get out of the way and to let the spirit work!  A lot of missionaries get headstrong and try to do everything!  But they want us to make a great effort to give most of the load of full conversion to the branch members and the spirit!  I have a lot of ideas so far that I want to make happen! Which means I am going to have to get out of my box even more and be more assertive in working with members and leaders.  It’s going to be something really hard for me to do, but I know that all of my time here will be for nothing if I don’t do it!  And I don’t want to leave here with the thought that I could have done more. That would be terrible!  

Sorry I haven’t sent any photos home in a while! I have really been waiting to get this memory thing from dad, and then its super hit and miss with computers! One day you’ll get a good one the next its crap and you can’t do anything!! So have some patience, I’m trying to get some things organized!

Funny story… The other night I had a dream that I was home at Christmas time and I was talking to you, mom. You were talking to me in our kitchen and I was home from my mission. You said we are going to go see the scrooge play tonight so go find a girlfriend to take with you, it starts at 1 AM.  I said I am, why?!  And you said because tomorrow morning we have to get you back on a plane for Cambodia silly!  You only get one day to be home then you’re going back!  And I was freaking out saying, what are you talking about I’m done already, I’m home, this can’t be happening...   Then I woke up in my hot, sweaty room and I said to myself… Oh yeah... It is happening..    Funny little random detail...

I have nothing really special to report this week. I spent it all on a bus and in a chair!!  I hope you all continue to be fantastic and I’ll talk to you next week....

Elder Anderson.

PSS I can’t believe you sent me top ramen noodles!  I’m swimming up to my neck in noodles here! Everyone laughed at me when I opened the box... But I still love them!  They are good meals! Now I know lots of ways to make them extra good!