Monday, July 11, 2011

The Last 2 Letters


sorry i'm getting behind!
these next 2 letters are definitely worth reading!

 July 8th 2011

Hello family and friends,
This week I want to explain more specifically about what I have been doing here in Cambodia.  My area Tak Khmao is an area that has been established in the past and use to have many members. But since then, most of them have fallen away.  So my district has taken it upon ourselves to fix this problem and help the branch get a stronger foundation. They only have branches here, no wards or stakes.  I’m having to learn a lot about leadership positions and organization of the church because one thing we are doing is helping the leaders know what they are supposed to do. Right now the missionaries are doing most of what the members are supposed to be doing.  It’s hard because in order for the missionaries work to be effective and have their recent converts stick and stay active they need the support system of the branch and it’s just not there. Nobody wants to help, nobody wants to learn what they should be doing because they don’t really want to do it. They have all lost the vision of what a branch should be. So we have an action plan to ease back on teaching new people and we are focusing on working with the branch council. Training them, teaching them, trying to get them excited about the work and the part they can play. And so far the ones who have taken it to heart have seen success. One return missionary we taught is now helping us work with the Branch council because he has more say than we do. We can’t tell them what to do, even though we would like too. But he is helping us get paperwork done that hasn’t been done forever, getting people trained and organized, he has the vision. We are also meeting with the members to get them to bring referrals to us! Because member referrals are almost always success stories! For example we have one guy out in Bakuu, were we ride out to twice a week, doing missionary work for us. He brought an entire family to church and set up a few appointments for us to meet them! Such a good guy and he can barely read and talk. But he has the vision!  I’m probably going to be here for the next 6 months and be able to see more progress like this hopefully so that in the future when missionaries bring people to church, they don’t have to do everything while the Cambodians eat rice, talk on the phone, get dressed and breastfeed in sacrament meeting. and yes that all happens.  The Branch will be able to take them in and they will stay! VISION! I pray that the Lord will help us with this one because a lot of days don’t feel very successful.  Anyway, I’m having fun and still haven’t gotten sick- thank heavens! Yesterday we had a 4th of July lunch and had our own celebration! It was fun. The only thing that gets me down at this point is language and learning my area  and the people! I want to help my companionship but I just can’t yet and it’s a bit frustrating. OH well I’m working hard and trying my best to learn!

One quick story of a crazy lesson I had this week! Sitting on the “table thing” everyone has here, the Lady we were teaching was holding a naked baby boy which is totally normal! And he starts to pee all over the table! and he is jumping and splashing pee all over the place! The lady takes a shirt and just mops it up. next thing, a deaf guy tries to talk to us and he is super weird! next thing some super weird lady walks by and makes a very sketchy money exchange with the lady we are teaching, next thing, some little girl gets naked and keeps yelling my companion’s name trying to get him to look at her! Super distracting! I don’t know what else could have happened to distract from that lesson! It was just crazy…

Anyway I have to go get my food for the week and such so I must go now until next week! Love you all!
Elder Ryan Anderson




July 1st 2011

Hello family and friends! From Dads email it sounds like I missed a lot of fun at home! And Holy Cow I'm an UNCLE!! It doesn’t feel real yet! I’m glad Meg and the baby are healthy and doing well!
STORY TIME
One cool story for this week. We went and visited a less active member who has been having trouble with his wife. When we got there lucky for us his wife wasn’t at home. He is LDS and his wife teaches at a Christian church. She keeps on throwing out his book of Mormons and makes him sleep outside. (not like inside is any better) but we talked to him and taught about the atonement of Jesus Christ and lifted his spirit a little. We gave him another book of Mormon and promised him that if he would read and pray everyday and keep his faith his wife would have her heart softened. We ended with a prayer and left.  A few days later when we came back to follow up, his wife was there and they were both just glowing! There was a definite light in the family now! The wife invited us in with a smile and we asked the man. What has happened, what changed?  He told us that he prayed and got the feeling to just talk to his wife from his heart and she would be softened also. So he did, and apparently they came to some agreement for now and they live in total peace and love! He also told us he went to his wife’s church because he wants to go to church with his wife but she won’t go to a Mormon church. And he said people were asking him about his book of Mormon and that he was preaching the gospel to other people at a different church! This man has such a good heart and such a desire to do good it’s amazing! So we gave him a bunch of pamphlets that we hand out about the restoration and the plan of salvation and we told him to go preach the gospel! Talk to people about the true gospel of Jesus Christ and of the restoration by Joseph smith. We even had him practice on us like we were strangers. It was so funny! He got into character and started to act like us and held up the book and started to say. This is Jesus Christ the son of god, savior and redeemer of the world. Flips the page. This is Joseph smith, so on and so forth! AHH it was so cool to see such a big change in someone so quickly and to see the blessings from god in his family.

2nd! We teach a family right now who is so good! All except the mom. She is missing an eye thanks to the Pol Pot regime and I personally think she’s missing half her brain too. She doesn’t speak, doesn’t read, doesn’t do anything. Won’t answer questions. She just likes to look at pictures.  The past few times we have visited she has been absent and they don’t know where she is. They say she just leaves and usually comes back in a few days.  So Weird! Anyway their house is incredibly poor Big Rats and big Roaches! In our lessons we sit on the floor so we have rats brushing against our backs as they scurry by and this time I had a Roach friend decide he wanted to hide under me! In the middle of the lesson a big Roach come runnin at me and stops under my crossed legs! I didn’t want to jump up because that’s super disrespectful to the head of the house. So I played it cool hoping it would leave! But no it decided to explore my pant leg a little and hang out for a bit! I had to slowly lift my leg and shake my pants! It felt in danger so it decided to make a break for it! Right out into the circle of people when..... WHACK a little girl had taken her book of Mormon and smashed the thing!  Everyone laughed the dad was super upset at his child for using the book that we gave her to smash the bug and the spirit was gone. So we testified Prayed and left. It was wild! 

Twice a week my comp and I have to ride 13 miles out to a place called Bakuu to visit some members and try to build up the kingdom in that area. We stay for the day and then ride 13 miles back to our apartment.  They are the hardest days but for some reason they feel the most rewarding. There are a few awesome families we love to teach. They are preparing for baptism. By the way we have 9 people with baptismal dates and we have like another 12 lined up to commit. But anyway Bakuu is just an awesome area and we love the people there!

I’m the administrative elder for our branch I don’t have enough time this week but next week I'll tell you more about the branch. But anyway part of my duty it to take care of our apartment. And I have to make sure we have water. Guess what? Between 4 Elders we go through 20 5 gallon jugs of water a week!!! Pretty crazy! 
I’m out of time and must go but I hope you enjoy this email for this week and I look forward to hearing from you next week love you all!!


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