Weeks 9 & 10!

Family!

This week I think we can say is another routine week. I look through my journal to get the highlights of the week so share home with you and there was only a few exciting things. Number one was we got to be host missionaries last Wed. for the new missionaries. I got to see my first day all over again but from the perspective of a 8 week veteran of the MTC. It was helpful for the English speakers when we told them we have been here for 8 weeks and you will still leave before we do. It was pouring rain the whole day which made it fun!  Another thing is outside gym! finally the weather is good so we get to go out in the sun and play! Sand Volleyball is the best! Shoes off in the sand, in the sun, for 45 minutes. It’s like heaven to get out of the classroom.  In the classroom however since we have three teachers now we have another progressing investigator we practice with. So we will teach him three times a week and try to get him to progress. Even though it’s one of our teachers it still feels way real! To the point where we even pray for him without thinking. I can’t believe we only have about ten more days of class before we are off to Cambodia. I can say ten because we don’t have class Sunday, Tuesday or Saturday. OH! I almost forgot. My buddy Elder Elder wrote me from Cambodia this week! HE told me that he didn’t get any of my mail.  And that any time he would see anyone from my old District they would all ask about me. Has anyone heard from Anderson yet? ha THEY REMEMBER ME! he said they post the pictures of the new missionaries coming in the mission home and he saw mine! So he wrote me and told me how excited he was to be able to see me in June and that there were lots of others waiting with open arms to greet me!  It was a major morale booster! My language is steady. I can pretty much carry on a decent conversation with anyone now. I have to talk my way around words still which is ok because Cambodian is all verbs and hardly any Nouns! for example. if you wanted to say Furniture, you would say desk shelf chair. Desk shelf chair really is how you would say furniture! It’s crazy! we are practicing teaching commandments, first lesson second lesson helping to resolve concerns! It’s crazy what we can do and we don’t even know it!  I’m not sure what else

I can tell you and I can’t sit here and think because there is a big red timer on the screen that counts down and when it hits zero if your message isn’t sent, oh well, ya have to wait till next week! I don’t have a spiritual though prepared to share with you this week but next week I definitely will I love you all and love to hear about home. Tell me what’s going on!

    Elder Ryan Anderson

May 31, 2011

Family and friends!

 only 14 more days until I’m done with the MTC can you believe it’s been two months already! We are estimated to get our flight plans and exact departure info this Thursday! So next email I will give you more details because I’ll know more! I want to know about Aarons mission call ASAP! I’m way excited for the Boy!  The weeks get less and less busy as we get closer to leaving. For example, our district has been invited to Host for the new missionaries for the Third week in a row. Which means we have to miss a class shift again. The teachers are totally confident in our language though, the other day one of our teachers was just talking giving us instruction and we were all following along giving comments back, when he stopped and said Elders, do you realize its week ten of your missions and I haven’t spoken a word of English all day and you’re understanding everything I say? Your all speaking Khmer right now and you weren’t even thinking about it.  It was a huge wakeup call! Like holy cow! we really are just having a class in Cambodian as if it were totally normal. We all couldn’t help but smile and be happy for ourselves. We all got down and prayed as a District right then because we know we had help.  As far as reading Cambodian, for all of those who have seen what it looks like, I think we are all on a 2nd grade reading level. I think I finally have the alphabet of 100 plus characters memorized to the point where I can read slowly. I don’t know all the words I read, specially not in the book of Mormon because they have some hard words in there! So slowly 15 minutes everyday I’m getting better. We had our Malaria instruction this last week. A doctor talked to us about listening to our mission Pres. and doing what he tells us to stay risk free.  He told us to never think you can just "go native" and not take any precautions.  He said pretty much all day everyday we are going to be applying and  re-applying bug spray and sun screen! There was lots more said but I won’t mention it all.  Don’t worry I don’t plan on "going native"!

Last Tues. we had Russell M. Nelson visit us and on Sunday we had Stephen B. Allen. It’s always way sweet to have an Apostle come and speak!  Elder Nelson talked about a wide variety of things pertaining to missionary work. From how to make a good first impression to making sure you keep track of your contacts even after your mission. "You want them to remain so they can obtain!"  Missionary work isn’t about baptisms. It’s about building the Kingdom of God. Not only is it good for missionaries to baptize, but to help your new members stay true and stay on the path to much higher ordinances. Like things in the temple. I can’t give an apostles words justice but that’s what he said to an effect.  Of course he also talked on obedience, in fact, Sister Nelson gave an excellent quote, " Obedience brings blessing, Exact Obedience brings Miracles."  Such a good way to look at it. But in Elder Nelson’s remarks he was talking about missionaries and the daily little things that might not be as big of a deal to be obedient about as some others, like how you present yourself. He said, "having character is better than being one."  I thought this was so true! 

Mom I loved those photos of my buds it was way fun to see what’s in store for me in the mission field.  Dan Miner and I are emailing each other through our ldsmail so maybe if you could get my friends ldsmail accounts that would be sweet! Um, I have to wrap this up and get to dinner. speaking of which I haven’t really gained or lost any weight in the MTC. An Elder Named Elder Clark and I use our gym time to play Volleyball and pump some serious iron so I think I’m ok! Don’t worry. Oh, and my teachers, all 4 of them each lost an average of 40 pounds in Cambodia so I don’t even think that’s a question anymore. I’m going to be losing weight. Some missionaries lose even more!  Last thing! It’s always been a challenge of mine to open up and not be so shy and reserved. And I’ve definitely gotten better over the past few months but still nowhere near where I need to be. So it the TRC this last weekend it was game time. We were about to knock on the door and my teacher stops me and says, “Anderson!  I know you have something in that head of yours that this investigator needs to hear! I know you really want to help this person and if you don’t open your mouth you can’t do that! So open your mouth and don’t be content with letting your Companion say everything.”  He then told my companion to not say so much and give me chances to speak.  And in a 40 minute lesson, I taught 80% of it. And it felt good.  My time is up! I must say goodbye until next week. I will have lots of exciting news about going to Cambodia.

                                                           Elder Ryan D. Anderson