Recently, as my thoughts have also been on life and all the changes we must have in order to grow. And I got the answer that me being away from home and my family not being able to help them, will help them. It’s a change, and with that change we all need to learn how to adapt and overcome challenges that are presented. I won’t give any specific examples, but I can think of some things that each of you can learn to overcome. I just pray that your hard times won’t be too hard and your trials won’t be too huge! But, like it says in Ether, God gives all men weaknesses so that if men come unto God and trust him, trust in his vision, trust in his will that he will make those weak things strong! My whole life I’ve been looking for the way to become "strong". I have always been afraid of change and new things. Being on a mission has opened my eyes to the beauty of trials, to the way we progress as human beings in the gospel and in life. Changing, Doing the hard things! While at the same time never forgetting our purpose for living this life and remembering our Heavenly Father and his son our Savior and Redeemer, trusting in them through EVERYTHING no matter how hard it may be. The days here are hot and wet and you do a lot of work for almost zero return. When you wake up in the morning it feels like you didn’t sleep at all. There are so many problems, so many things to do that it feels like you’ll never see it done in the time that you’re in that area (and you won’t). But, it’s alright! There is God’s will, our will, and other people’s agency. Family, as long as we try our best to align our will with the Fathers, use our agency to do so, trust in him, and ACT, move, work! We are ok because we did everything we could, we are not perfect and all God expects is for us to try our best. The will and agency of other people doesn’t matter. My Senior Companion/Trainer/ now District leader always gets way stressed! He feels personally responsible for everyone. All the inactive members, all the contacts. I have to keep reminding him that they have their agency. We do our part, what God expects from us to call them unto repentance, what they do after that has to be because they chose it. I don’t know if this is making any sense at all it’s just what has been on my mind and I don’t really have much else to share this week.
THIS WEEKS LETTER
This week I am starting my 2nd transfer in the mission. Elder Conway is still my companion, thank heavens! It is predicted that in 6 weeks, at the end of this transfer, he will leave to another area and I will have to completely take over our area! Who knows who my next companion will be? It could be anyone at any level in the mission. Possibly even a brand new missionary. I’m feeling the pressure now to make sure I can do this thing by myself! Plan the days, make the phone calls, meet with the members, run church on Sunday, meet with our investigator, teach lessons, visit the less active, make sure I know where all the houses are! There are no addresses in my area, so it all has to be memorized! I’ve been in the country for a little over one month, think I can do it? I don’t really have a choice. So this week, at the start of the transfer, I have been setting goals and action plans like crazy to be as prepared as possible! (Note all this stuff has to be done in Cambodian). Feel the stress yet?
Life is great though, we have a good time. There is a new Khmer Elder in our house now like I mentioned last week, so I have someone to really help me with the language. We help his English, he helps us! This week he also helped us figure out we have been overpaying for things! We know most of the time when people are trying to rip us off, but for a few things he has helped us save money! Khmer like to help out their own kind. They love to use a phrase here, they say "Sroak Khmer yeeng" the literal translation is ‘Country Cambodia us’. It’s like saying, ‘well here in Cambodia’ or ‘GO US’! To answer your questions about food and P day, every P day we always go and get rice, vegetables and pork. Pork comes right off the animal. You get to point at what piece ya want and how much it weighs. It’s pretty gross not going to lie. We get pork because it’s the cheapest and it doesn’t have bones. I’ve only eaten chicken here once so far. My companion and I eat 40 eggs a week! But it's only like ten cents an egg. You can put egg in anything they make in this country! When we go into the city, we go to a grocery store that is more modern and has American stuff but it is Way Expensive! So we only get a few things we are craving. We get 30 minutes for breakfast and 1 hour for lunch and dinner. We usually always make our own food to save money. However, when you go to a restaurant here, it’s only 2 dollars for a meal, a drink, and an ice cream! My favorite thing right now that I like to grab if we have a busy day and decide to skip a meal is fried bananas! They are big and are 15 cents apiece! I get 4 of them and it gets me by. On Pday most the time we go into the city and check the mission home for mail and announcements. Last week they gave us a portable DVD player. They issued a DVD player to every single companionship for every mission in the world! It has many rules, of course, and is for training purposes. Anyway, then we usually go to the markets and look at all the movies you can buy for a dollar. You can get a box of 40 Disney movies for 20 dollars! 50 cents a DVD! They have everything super cheap it’s awesome. After that we usually head home with just enough time to watch one movie! I love the fact that we get to watch movies! (only approved ones of course.)
So that’s food and Preparation Day for ya!
This week we had a family that was supposed to be Baptized! Three people. However something wasn’t sitting right so we postponed. And it turns out on Sunday it rained so hard so hardly anyone came to church and there was no support there from the branch for these people. Also a lot of our investigators with baptismal dates didn’t come because of the rain. So it turned out to be really good that we put it off. We still meet with them and they should be baptized in the next few weeks. Right now Elder Conway and I have 5 legitimate families lined up to be baptized!
My thought for this week ties into my thought from last week. In our district meeting, we talked about setting goals to accomplish hard things. So far on my mission I am really grateful for the skills I have learned to use to get things done! One of the biggest things I took away from our meeting is a quote. "Don’t take advice from fear"! As I think about this next transfer and how I MUST try to prepare for the challenges ahead. there is no way I can let fear slow my progression. I won’t bore you with all the details but I know with that mindset my progression will increase - In the language, as a missionary, and as a teacher. In future letters I will follow up with this and let you know how it’s going.
Well family on the 30th of this month is my 6 month mark. Can you believe it? I hope all of you are learning a lot from your adventures I hear about!
Love Elder Anderson
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