Iphone 4's and self reflection

Well, January is already coming to an end!
I guess this was the perfect winter for me to be gone! It sounds like things are still not a winter wonderland!  That’s a bummer. Here in Cambodia the "winter” season is almost over and its quickly turning into the HOT season where the water is all gone and everything just burns!  I’m excited to suffer through my first Hot season. Right now the temperature is climbing steadily and I haven’t run into any flooding in weeks.  I haven’t had to bring any rain coats or plastic bags with me in a while for rain protection either.. Just lots of water.

Ok, so now for my week--
We did a lot of inactivity work with the senior (missionary) couple this weekend. Elder Christian and I had an exchange that went wrong!  And Sunday we had some interesting visitors.  So, this week Elder Christian and I planned an exchange where we would focus our efforts on using the Book of Mormon. So, we spent all our study time planning lessons and planning…  Then, in the middle of the day, the other elders call us and say the senior couples are here and we don’t have anything for them to do with us, so we left them at the church for you to go pickup.  Great, there goes our exchange. It turned out to be pretty good anyway, but we had to completely change the plans and we didn’t get the training/learning opportunity we wanted.

However, on Saturday, we went with the senior couple to go visit a man and his family who have actually been to the temple! That’s pretty rare! Right now he is less active and has no calling. That’s a problem. We drove in a car for a half hour. Think if we did that on the bike! We had a lesson planned to share with them but the senior couple wanted to share some thoughts with them first. I had to translate. We talked a lot about the Covenant of the Priesthood and his covenants he has made and we encouraged him to be active again. He did come to church the next day. 

Saturday night we had a meeting with the Elder’s Quorum President to talk about home teaching and visiting teaching - which has not yet been established in Cambodia. Nobody has ever been around long enough to get these people to start it and stick with it. But here we are determined to do two things in Siem Reap and have Siem Reap be an example to the rest of the Country. We want to start Home teaching and using the Branch mission leader and branch missionaries to their full potential.
There are a lot of false assumptions right now about these callings and as many times as we nudge them in the direction to study about these callings, they never do. And we don’t have the authority to straight up tell them what to do.  It frustrates me.  Anyway, we had a special meeting arranged this Sunday to have all the men and young men meet together and we had a big meeting about the responsibility of home teaching and how this calling is given to every man who has the priesthood and it is a calling that you are never released from! That along with being a father. Those are the two callings you can’t ever be released from. The home teaching program was first mentioned in the D & C when revelation was given to Joseph smith in 1830!!!  This apparently is important to the Lord.  Sunday at church the crazy drunk woman who makes us call her mom actually came to church sober!!  This week she had a "wedding" at her house for her daughter and she wanted us to join in on the drinking and Buddhist festivities.  We politely showed them our nametag and said we respectfully decline.  But she came to church!! After sacrament meeting we saw her leaving and we asked her what she thought. She says she felt at peace and has felt the most real love she has ever felt in a long long time. Who knows what will happen from there. 

Dad about the Referral I got last week I haven’t been able to contact them yet because the directions she gave me were crazy! So tomorrow she is going to direct us there.  I don’t know how anyone finds anyone in this country!!  I bet like 80% of the country doesn’t have an address.  I also looked up that statistic again in my Cambodia book I told you about over Skype and it actually says that 50% of the population in Cambodia is 16 years old and under!!  and that 80% plus of the country is still agricultural.  That was really random but I wanted to tell you.. And it’s so true.. I don’t know if I have said this in any past letters but when I sit at church and I look over all the faces of the members I think to myself it looks like a center for women and their children who have no fathers! for every 5 kids there is 1 woman and a half of a father.. Generally not all the time but that is kinda how it is..

Ummmm, as far as attaching photos and stuff, I know I’m horrible, but I’m trying to get organized here and I only have like 2 hours a week to think about this stuff. I’ve got a system now, thanks to the memory (hard drive) from dad and I think I’m all set now. I don’t even remember what I last sent you on a flash card.?  By the way I loved the photos you sent me on the flash card of the house!  I can’t believe you painted over that red wall!!! I would have died!  But it looks nice!! That’s a much smaller countertop in there.  I’m glad to hear your actual furniture is coming soon!  I hope Jared will get his crew of men to help you move it all just like I used to do. 

Oh, I almost forgot to tell you! At church we had two families come to church that were from Utah and California.. They are currently living in Singapore for business I guess, but it was super weird to see two big Mormon families again!!  And you know what else I noticed..

They had a few girls and a bunch of boys… the girls all made friends with the youth here, even though they can’t speak the same language. But the boys, on the other hand, had their noses stuck to iphone 4's the entire time!!  playing games and checking status updates all through church and for a few hours afterward when the members and the families mingled and we translated for them.. The boys all sat together not saying a word to each other or anyone else...  To be honest, I saw myself! I had flashbacks of when my parents would tell me to put the electronics away and I didn’t see it hurting anyone so I ignored it. But now I felt like I was on the other end.  I looked at these young men and my heart just broke.. I think there are a lot of parents who feel that way a lot now a days!  I know mine have.. It made me think for the rest of the day.. What have I missed because of some stupid electronic?! I don’t even know because I wasn’t paying attention.. I can think of dozens of experiences in school and in church, just like these young men, experiences at family parties where I should have been mingling with those I love getting to know them better but I didn’t... Who knows if I will get the chance to do that again.. ?  It was a serious cause for reflection!! I love and hate when this happens to me here in Cambodia when I have experiences like this. I like it because I learn and my vision is broadened. But I hate it because it brings me pain. It’s painful to know that there have been so many opportunities and experiences I’ll never get back now because I chose to pick playing a silly game on an iphone or texting my friends, pointless conversations, when there was real experiences with a much longer lasting effect happening all around me.

That is my soap box and message for you all this week!  Again, as we make choices every day I encourage you to think and ask yourself, what’s the worth of this activity vs. something else I could be doing that has a much greater lasting effect on my life and the lives of others.  I would give you examples but I think you all know what I’m talking about!  Love you all,
                                                            Elder Anderson!!!

BONUS LETTER!

Hey group,

I was just sitting at my computer and another letter came through from Ryan, so the one I just sent was all from two weeks ago, here is this week’s letter.

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OK, sorry about the mishap last week! I’ll try to send those photos still if I have time today!  I got dear Elders from Grandma V and Natalie! Thanks so much! I have not heard from Dr Hansen yet, but I think he is here already according to grandma. 

During the week I feel like I have so much to share and I even take notes to help me remember, when I sit down at the computer but my mind still goes blank!  This week was a different one here for me in Cambodia.  I’ll start with the beginning. Monday, after Pday, all of our appointments fell through, so we had 100 percent effort that day and nothing to show for it. We were supposed to have a specialized training on Wed., but last second it was moved to Tuesday instead, so we had to cancel a few things and move stuff around. I personally feel the training was a letdown. They had a few good points about planning and not getting prideful, but most of it was about contacting. I don’t like contacting at all and I struggle everyday to open my mouth and do it, so I was just bored and irritated almost. 

Anyway. President actually pulled me aside and said, Elder I need you to do me a favor.  I am giving you the permission to make a phone call tonight. In my mind I was thinking, oh no, who in my family died! What’s going on!  But then he said, I feel like you should be the first to know that Elder Clark is going home for good this time and I’d like you to call him. You are his best friend out here and I think it would be good.  My heart sank! I thought to myself why? He was doing so good?! (When Ryan’s group left from the MTC) he went home for surgery for 6 months then came back (to Cambodia)for 4 months, what happened?  After a super stressful night, filled with riding my bike like a mad person all over Angkor wat and siem reap, I got a chance to call him. He is doing fine and he said he had some doctor tell him he isn’t fit for service and President Smedly took his advice and they pulled the plug on him.  Right now he is probably home looking online for where to go to school.. My heart goes out to him. I admire his diligence. 

Anyway- Thursday, Friday and Saturday were HARD days.. Not much success at all! I’m tired of people who say they will be home and we make appointments to go meet them and when we go.. .not there..  in consequence I had a record low across the board this week!! Super tough to swallow!  However, we had a few miracles happen this week that made up for it a little bit. We got to visit a few inactive people and invited them to come to church.. They didn’t come, but at least we actually got to have a lesson with them and we made good impressions.. with members there!! Which is super good. 

This week at church we had over 200 people in attendance! There was a big tour bus of members that came. A group of guys from Australia that came and the senior couple from Vietnam came.. So they helped us out a lot with attendance.. they also participated in lessons as well as we translated!  Sunday is very much judgment day for the week. It’s how you can tell how your week was. 

News from home this week was exciting! Luke (Wilson)is home.. And ya know what.. I think I’m with Jared in the fact that its hitting me that I could be home right now. My group that I came with the first time (first MTC group) has three Sundays left until they go home.. It’s going to be a mental barrier to get over that one and continue doing the work.. Sometimes I get thoughts like maybe I’ll get sick and they will have to send me home with my group anyways and that was God’s plan all along?  But I really have no idea. God knows I don’t..  I just keep pluggin along one lesson at a time, one day at a time, January is already gone. I’m already half way through my stay in Siem Reap (predicted).  And time goes on with or without us!! 

Ya know I have a lot on my mind but it’s all just junk about people here and problems that we have to deal with and I think if I told you all it would just be super boring!!  It reminds me of when I first came to the country and all the other Elders would talk about were investigators and people they met and boring stuff! I was thinking.. is this all they talk about?  But I soon learned after a while it is ALL you have to talk about.. There is no new movie or party people went to.. No new cars coming out, video game technology thing.. In this life soon all you have to talk about is your investigators and the work.. 

I don’t know if all the little details about people here are interesting to you or if you want to hear about them. We are also told to be careful about what we say about people in our email home and to not disclose too much info. Tell me your input.. Make a list or something of what you want me to tell you about.. That would help me get things organized..

Sorry this week is kinda lame but I am behind in staying organized right now and I need to use this pday time to get some desk work done!

Family don’t worry I am well! Still not sick! There is a thing going around the mission right now, where Elders are getting parasitic amoeba's! Hospital with IV's, ha ha, I haven’t even gotten a tummy ache in months…  No worries. Jared I’m proud of you for doing awesome with you talk bud!  I wish I could have been there to hear you. Maybe when I come home I’ll ask them for you to speak with me.. What do you think? You’re a man after my own heart as well, choosing to talk about families.. That’s what I would have done.
Elder Anderson

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!  

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! 

RYANS BIRTHDAY!

HEY EVERYONE! We have a BIG favor to ask you! Ryans Birthday is coming up so we asked him what he'd like us to send him, you'll read in his letter that all he REALLY wants is LETTERS!! Writing Ryan is really easy! You go to dearelder.com, enter the Cambodia, Phnom Pehn mission, press "write letter" and then enter in Elder Ryan Anderson, write Ry a letter and then press send! It's just like email but the church prints it out and puts it in the mail for you!

 For Ryans Birthday would you PLEASE take 5 minutes really quick and write him a quick letter?! He would love nothing more than to hear from those who support him! I'll make it REALLY easy! Just click the WRITE RYAN button on the side of his page and it will take you right there!!

OCT 26 2011

Hello Family!

Natalie thanks for your dear elder!

Natalie I think today is your wedding anniversary! Hope it’s a good one!

Sounds like things are still changing at home! and again I wish I could help out! it seems like the basement will be awesome! I’m glad Aaron made it to his destination ok as well! I remember when I had trouble in the LA and Hong Kong Airports and it was scary! I was the travel leader for a lot of people! And none of us had cell phones of course!  This week was a huge success for my companion and I. Since we are both un- seasoned missionaries, we are learning everyday better ways to do this missionary work thing! It’s amazing how just by getting out there and doing it every day slowly broadens your vision on how to do missionary work.  This last week I have made even more progress on my ability to work through the members and the branch to help out the church here. We are part of a revolution in Cambodia missionary work right now. We are working as hard as we can to get branches self-sustainable and running without missionaries. Especially Priesthood holders! The Mission Pres. has asked all of us to strive to find adult males to teach and bring back into activity and whatnot. Also, to teach all members about the blessings and tithing. And with Priesthood holders and tithing you know what that means? A stake, and then someday a temple! The church will explode in Cambodia if it had a temple!

We have a bunch of investigators that are progressing right now and we are learning to do other aspects of the work rather than finding and teaching. And I enjoy it. We get to prepare lessons to help members! I was reading about my responsibility for members out of the Preach My Gospel the other day and an example came to mind. It goes like this: Working with Members and less actives is like bowling. The lane is life, the ball is the person, the pins at the end are heavenly father and eternal life. The gutter is Satan and hell! The Missionaries/other members are the Bumpers! The job of the bumpers are to keep the ball from falling off into the gutter. However, the bumpers do not guide the ball all the way down the lane, they simply bump the ball in the right direction away from the gutter. Make sense right?! I thought it was pretty cool!

I have been in TaKhmao for almost 6 months now and I think I only have a few weeks left! I feel like I am just now getting to the point where I can talk to these people enough and we know each other well enough we can start doing some real work! I love all my investigators here too. Visiting a family three times a week for six months, ya kinda get attached. It’s super sad! I don’t really have much to say about the area other than that! The rides to Bakuu are fun, Elder Wright and I are having a Blast! Probably going in the top three favorite companions of the mission already! We get along so well and both are learning a lot!

Dad, I don’t know how you want me to label or mark my photos?  I don’t really have a lot of time to fuss much with anything, so I dunno?  I have had a few white shirts get ruined already so I am down to like 6 shirts. In your next box will you send the extra ones at home I had. I can get shirts cut and made here for 6 bucks a piece in the future. I don’t know what your status is for your package sending but I did have an idea for like a birthday package. You can just put the money you would send for a huge box on my debit account and I can get myself something here! Other than that, all I would really want for my birthday is mail from people at home. What do you think? Jared I heard that there is no NBA season this year! What are you going to do?!?!?!?!?  Sorry it’s short, but I’ve been trying to backup photos and every single computer in this country is a piece of garbage! I’m doing better at photo taking so the next card home should be more full! PS - what is the status of music?

Elder Ryan Anderson

OCTOBER 19TH 2011

Hello Family! Sounds like another fun week at home! Grandma Vincent I got your Letters! Thank you! 
As soon as someone finds our Aarons LDS Email please give it to me!   I wish I could be at home to help out! It seems like you are going to enjoy having an empty house but at the same time find that all your help is gone!  Mom, I loved your experience with personal revelation and how you may receive some for another time and may not know it!  It’s super cool as missionaries to hear actual experiences of revelation and being guided by the spirit!  It’s more strength for us to press on and keep pushing through those hard days and be patient with the Lord. Well, this week I don’t have very much exciting to share but that’s ok because I have my Quotes from Conference I wanted to share!  I’m not going to take much time to write down who said them and when, but I’ll let you go find and read about the ones you like.  Here we go:

General Conference:
Pondering on the scriptures are the key to unlocking revelation.
We have a great responsibility and opportunity to serve others in this life.
Young people today are being raised in enemy territory.
You will never make a major mistake in your life without first being warned by the Holy Ghost.
Man is nothing!
Combine all the currency in the entire world and it will still not be enough to buy even one loaf of bread in heaven.
The lord uses a different scale than man to measure the worth of a soul.
We have a covenant responsibility to seek out our ancestors.
Families and raising children is a commandment not just something we do if we have to time to do it.
Where is your faith?
Time is never for sale, its value is immeasurable, we all have the same amount of time as everyone else. (what are you doing with yours?)
Cease to be idle! And make sure that to be busy means to be productive!
It’s better to look up.
We must look up and step up, and in doing so we will cheer up!
It would be mocking the sacrifice of Jesus Christ if we expected to be forgiven without any effort on our part.
Each individual can and must share what they know by letting their light shine and speaking up!
Don’t let fear keep you from helping the ones you love.
Stand as witnesses of the name you took upon yourselves at your baptism.
Satan is real and his motives are Malicious!
We are all at war!
In this battle you cannot play for Satan and then in the championship game trade teams to the saviors side!
Be active in the church and be clean, If you’re not, Then get active and get clean!!
Men serving in callings in the church are as capable of fulfilling those callings as they are expected to be.
No other labor in the world compares to missionary work!
This very hour there are members of the church who are suffering. Do not think that this is someone else’s responsibility. We are all in this together!
There will never be enough experts to solve all the problems.
Any man within the sound of my voice should not have any doubt on what is moral and what is not!
Wherever we go, our priesthood goes with us.
Morality is not old fashioned! We are still responsible for our actions!
Our code of conduct is not negotiable.
Decisions determine our destiny, in everything that we do, are we choosing eternal life?
In reality in this life we have 2 choices and 2 consequences. Eternal life, or, a life of captivity.
Its never too hard or too late to make correct choices, your eternal destiny will not be the result of chance, but of choice.
That’s all I have! I hope you all enjoy my notes and find one that will help you!

Some other exciting news is that my family of 5 that I have been teaching was baptized this last Sunday and they are doing really well! That,  and we had transfer calls yesterday and we thought Elder Ott and I were being moved but we are both staying in Takmao for another transfer! The only one leaving is Elder Khan. He is the best Khmer Elder in the whole mission! I’m going to miss the guy!  That’s the exciting news! Mom you’ll be happy to know that I am trying to take more photos and such! I hope you will all continue to do well this week!
Love Elder Anderson! 

10-11-11

I knew you would be disappointed with my picture taking! I’m sorry! They have made it clear that we are NOT in any way supposed to look like tourists! And during the day when we are out doing some work I don’t even think about my camera! But I will try to do better! Mom I don’t have my Scriptures on me at the moment but what comes to my mind is Doctrine and Covenants 130 vs's 19-21 or something? I do have a few more things that you could send in a package. Small English Book Of Mormons like 4 of them. like tiny, tiny- a few inches by a few inches. They had them in the mtc but they don’t have them here.  I’ve already mentioned a calendar for next year probably! One with cars on it if possible, Jared knows what is up. The rain jacket you explained sounds perfect! Thanks so much for tracking that down. For whoever is helping out with music for me, I would love it if I could also get ALL the conference talks from this conference! They were all awesome! Powder drinks were good, but pink lemonade gets old fast! Can you find blue power aid?!  Sunflower seeds were awesome too!  The photos were great too. More family photos are always sweet but make sure they are regular size so I can pack them with me to lessons and stuff more easily!  A few of the missionaries here have bought electronic dictionaries that can speak words to them in khmer. You can also type in words in khmer and English to look stuff up! That would be such a time saver for me, but the ones they sell here, they try to rip us off. so maybe mom you could use your amazing online shopping skills and tell me what you find! Just an idea.  That’s all I could think of. Everything else in the last package was good!  As far as the bike goes I’ll take a video tour of it and tell you all the problems I had with it! My new bike, after fixing it 15 minutes at a time everyday, is finally up to standards and ready for full service!  My new bike I bought I needed to raise the bars on them since it’s previous owner was smaller than me. But upon trying to fix that the bars were stuck! They couldn’t do it. Great. So after a few days and thinking I went back with my old bike and the new one and I showed them very specifically that I wanted to cut this bike here and put this piece here so on and so forth. Long story short I had them take parts off my old bike and throw it on the new one. Not long after that I was riding down the street and suddenly both my tires were totally flat! Two holes in the front and two holes in the back! These bikes are money pits!! All of it has to come out of personal funds too. So right now it’s doing well. We did a full trip to Bakku and back yesterday and had no problems. Dad, its funny that you mention the basket and the bell on my bike. I can honestly say I would not be able survive without them! The Basket is to put your bag in and cover when it rains which is every day, and the bell is for my personal defense! Everyone here drives scooters and there is no drivers education! SO it’s crazy! You have to keep your eyes open at all times and ring that bell when someone isn’t seeing you! I’ve seen so many crashes already! Anyway.  I’ts so cool to hear about all the change going on at home! New callings, new Neighbors! New adventures. Mom I think an American history trip for Jared sounds cool! I just hope he'd be down for something like that. Anyway. This week went by super fast because of conference! We spent all Saturday in the city at branch 5 where they have an English branch and we watched in English! It was the first time I had ever watched all 5 sessions of conference! I have a ton I want to share with you about it but it would take me to long to do it right now. I plan to take personal study time to organize myself a little bit more in my study notes so maybe next week I'll share with you. All I have to say is that. Like always Elder Holland never lets me down. "WE ARE AT WAR!!!" Sent chills down my spine! The entire conference I had all my investigators running through my mind and even some friends and family back home. I would think, I hope this person is listening to this talk right now because it just answered a question I know they have had. It was a good break from the normal for a few days but then soon it was Monday again and its back to work. Elder Wright and I are the YOUNGEST companionship in the mission. Meaning that every companionship has someone in it that has been out longer than we have. It’s pretty cool. Believe it or no,t I had my Buddy from High School, Sam Elder come and proselyte with us. He can do that because he is AP right now. We had a ton of time to talk about the good ole days and how much things have changed! He stayed at our house that night and the next day gave us a report on what he thinks about our area and our work. Almost perfect tens across the board. He said for being so young we are doing great work and we teach well! It was a fun time! 

Other than that, nothing out of the usual happened! The usual stuff..OH! this Sunday I have a family of 5 being baptized! If they pass the interview! So don’t get your hopes up! I’ll let you know more about it next week. 

That’s all I have for this week family. Dad, you better leave some stuff for me to do when I get back! Don’t wear yourself out when you have two young boys who can do that! 

Love you all! Hope all is well! Love Elder Anderson

OCTOBER -4-2011

Well Family another week it is! How is everyone doing? Good I hope!

 This week has been tough! In the mission the more busy you are the easier! And for some reason this week we had a lot of stuff fall through and time we just couldn’t fill! Elder Wright and I would do our best everyday to put our heads together and think of meaningful things to do to use the Lord’s time.  We had some success but not much. Both him and I are "new" to the mission, so we are still learning all this as we go! For this next week we are going to use some of the weekly planning time to think of things to do to get more investigators and to fill in time where we don’t have appointments. Mondays from 1-6 are the worst! Nobody wants to meet us at that time and nobody even wants to talk to us! We feel so ineffective! However, it’s not just us. Talk to anyone in the mission and they will tell you the same thing. Everyone has trouble filling Mondays!  Wel,l this week we had specialized training in the city and I decided I would finally get a new bike! So I took my buddy Elder Khon, a Khmer (Cambodian) Elder who is freakin’ sweet and I wish I could take him home with me at the end of my mission! Anyway, since they love to rip-off the tall American with golden hair wearing a shirt and tie, I sent him in to do the deal. 28 Dollars baby! they were asking me for 45 a few weeks ago for the same bike! I picked it up and on my way back home after training it broke. Just like I said it would. But I got it fixed pretty quick and it hasn’t had a problem since; which is a miracle, because we rode to Bakuu as well yesterday and, of course, it dumped rain the whole way home again! Small miracle happened last night too. When it was dumping rain, we were in the dark, Elder Wrights bike has his chain fall off and it gets stuck! We are trying to fix this thing and like 15 minutes go by. We were about to give up when Elder Wright says a little prayer to himself to help us! And right then, pop I got the chain loose! His prayer then changed to THANK YOU! Now please help us to not have any more problems on the way home! And we didn’t!

Hey Mom your email just came in! I’m sorry to hear about your computer! That’s a real bummer! Jared what were you thinking hitting a hill like that before you let your big brother look over your gear first! Silly kid! Maybe a helmet next time bro? But I’m proud you had the guts to go big! That’s also important. I’ll do my best to send home hand written stuff! Next week I'll have a little list for you for the next package! I’m in need of some things you just can’t get here. Any sign of my memory card yet? I sent it a few weeks ago! I hope it makes it to you alright!  Sounds like you all have enough to keep you busy with life for the next while. 

We have actually not seen conference yet! We get to see it this weekend. They take a week to translate it into khmer so we have to wait. But on Saturday we get priesthood session and Sunday the usual. We have to ride into the city and meet with our entire zone to watch it in English. So next week be prepared to be blown away with my thoughts on conference. 

I think that’s about all I have for this week! Onward and upward Family! Brandon you’re the man! Way to stick with it and get that big 27 on the MCAT! whoot!  Love you all!

Elder Anderson

Playing Catch up!

SORRY!

I am so far behind on letters!

Getting on the computer for more than a few minutes is a real task for me right now.

Here are Elder Andersons last 3 letters, all are definitely worth reading!

(If you are going to skim read any of these letters at least read that part that is underlined 

he's a wise man)

SEPTEMBER 23RD

Dear Family, 

I have not gone to the mission home yet to see if the package you sent has arrived! So you won’t get to know if I got it or not until next week! Sorry. But I am super excited to go see if it came!  Again I’m super sad that I am missing out on all the fun parties going on at home and helping out with the projects.  Sounds like you all have enough to keep you busy! 

Shout out to Aaron Vincent, I kick myself in the butt every single day because I didn’t study from my scriptures and from the Preach My Gospel before I came out here!!!! You HAVE to have those books Memorized front and back in order to do this work.  Wise word of advice, if you haven’t already started to train yourself on getting up and studying and reading, I would start.  You would be doing yourself a Favor. Ask any missionary. Love You! I’m excited for you to leave soon! 

Jared I am way excited for you to be out of primary! Now you get to be a real man!  Dad mentioned that you have been learning a lot about priesthood this week I hope you are paying attention!  Priesthood power is real and is something that will help you everyday if you let it.  Mom I hope with all the organization you are doing none of my stuff goes missing. I know how you like to throw things out!  Ha Just kidding I trust you! I love organization! In fact this week I don’t remember if I told you this last week or not but Elder Wright and I have been moving around the stuff in our room to make it way more ummmmm... Cool?  Before it had bed frames and closets and desks in there that weren’t even being used. We took everything out besides our desks and our closets, Cleaned up the place and have started to turn it around into an awesome study area! (and a movie theatre for p day). Anyway! Its super fun and we like change, it helps make life more livable here. 

Mom I have to say you would NOT like to live here.  Since I got off the Airplane In this country I have been wet. Wet from sweat and rain, you are never dry!  And you know what else is crazy, The people here are so super afraid to get dark skin! Especially the women.  They will wear a knitted hat with a jacket and sweat pants when it’s over 100 degrees!  It’s getting into the middle of Rain season here so it just pours buckets everyday! When it rains the world stops for Cambodians. They don’t go anywhere, do anything, visit anyone, don’t go to church!!! They avoid it like the plague!  It’s the funniest thing!  Elder Wright and I right now are facing some difficulty, a lot of the recent converts we are supposed to visit refuse to meet with us. TO the point where they run and hide!  So we only have our investigators to fill our time.  We need more investigators!  oh ya and we have a part member family that I have been teaching since day one that will have 5 more people baptized in the next few weeks! we will see how it goes.  It’s super hard to tell if these people are really, really ready for baptism or not. Ya just have to go by the spirit. 

A few weeks ago I wrote home talking a lot about Receiving Revelation.  I have been doing a bunch of studying and Experimenting on the matter and I must admit. It’s hard!  Even as a Missionary where you live a lifestyle that is so closely in tune with the spirit as you can possibly be. Sometimes I look at a teaching record and I think about the family and pray for the inspiration to be able to discern their needs and teach the right things. I get stumped! And sometimes I get impatient and irritated.  I’m saying to myself, Father these are your children right here with your missionaries, why aren’t you helping me help them by giving me anything to go on?  I have been missing something however.  The link between Revelation and Faith.  As you also remember I have talked a lot about faith and how it’s a principle of action! It’s one of my favorite things about the gospel!  Well, through some experience and trial and error it came to me.  Our Heavenly Father isn’t just going to give us all the answers. He wants us to give it our best first, moving forward in faith.  Then, if additional guidance is needed, he will give it. That is where the revelation comes in!  After we have shown our faith and put forth action, revelation follows. It’s a promise from our heavenly father.  My whole life I have been learning about the gospel but never really applied many of its principles like this one.  My hope is that as I write home what I learn and I gain a Testimony of, Anyone and Everyone that reads them will take the time to ponder about it, but then act. Actually pick some things to change or start doing. I love the quote that says. “If you keep doing the same things you have always done, you’re going to keep getting the same things you have always gotten.”  As children of our heavenly father, we have a great opportunity on this earth to 'never settle', and to always continue to improve ourselves.  Sometimes we get too comfortable and forget how short this life really is and lose sight of what is most important. Which leads me to another quote. 'Don’t sacrifice what you want most for what you may think you want right now'.  Family and friends I challenge you all to take some time and think of some things you can act on! Stir up some dead spots in your lives and change! Always strive to see the broadest perspective you possibly can! I promise anyone who does will find greater joy and happiness in their life.
                                                    Elder Anderson

SEPTEMBER 14TH

Dear Family,

Thank you Natalie and I think I got mail from Megan this week as well, I can’t remember it all runs together!  Mom I would say don’t worry about the photos for right now. They sell a photo book here in the city that is perfect for teaching it’s just a little big but I can deal with it for now. Thanks so much for letting me know though. What is the status on the other things I’ve written home about? Anything else to report?  The news about that package is super exciting! I’m very very excited for next Pday now!  When I read your emails from home, I so wish I could be home for all the fun stuff going on at home! Like forget the pool party, I want to use the big tools to rip apart the basement!  That reminds me of a thought I had the other day while riding my bike.  Every single person that we talk to we always ask if they have anything that we can do for them. I’ve done everything from moving tons of dirt-  one basket at a time, to wiping off palm tree leaves so they can use them to make numes. A nume is the name for anything that is a baked good. Like a cookie or something.  However, they only use rice for EVERYTHING!  Anyway my thought was, I ask people so much if they need our assistance that I bet that habit will carry on even after my mission.  I thought, this is one of those attributes that the Lord helps you develop on your mission, and then I can use it after my mission to bless the lives of others as well as my own.  

NEWS: Elder Conway is transferred to the north zone! A place called Kompung Jam.  And my New Companion is Elder Wright.  He came to the country one group before I did. Meaning, I’ve been on the mission for 6 months and he has for 8.  Right at first the change was very weird, but after a few days and a few trips out to Bakuu we are totally good with each other.  The last few days we have been setting goals and making a vision for the next two transfers and I’m excited! This mission is still very new so young missionaries are really pushed to the limits and are expected to learn fast!  That’s what both of us plan to do! We have plans to keep the work fun and enjoyable so we do work and grow together!  There are a lot of details that I won’t bother to tell you, but I’m optimistic.  I know there are going to be a lot of terrible lessons, contacts, and mistakes to be made ahead.  But that is how ya figure this thing out!  Towards the end of my last transfer, I couldn’t really see every day my growth. But now after this change, I am put into a clutch situation and I can see growth again. This is definitely the hand of the Lord working with us missionaries!  Everyday like I have said before, I think, “Don’t take counsel from fear" and don’t worry. Move forward in faith, don’t doubt yourself!!!!! Anyway that’s my soapbox again.  

I lied last week; I didn’t get that memory card in the mail. We ran into some problems in the city and we couldn’t make it to the post office.  But I have it all ready to go right now for today! Oh and I’m not District leader by the way thank heavens! You have no time to do anything and you don’t even get to study what you need to study for your personal study because you have to prepare lessons for district meeting!  That would kill me!  

I want to give you a little insight on what a few of my goals and plans are for the next three months.  Branch: All callings are filled out and leaders are trained in their duties. All priesthood holders are taught and trained on how to use their priesthood and what their part is in the branch.  Train all members how to share what they know and to be member missionaries. Cambodia has one of the Highest baptism rates in the church in Asia, but has the lowest retention rate! I, we are all trying to build stronger foundations to hopefully get better retention and reactivation.  I am trying to work through the branch to get home/visiting teaching started both in the city and Bakuu. There are many other things to do, but we can only do so much and a lot of it depends on the help of the Members and leaders. 

Personal/Language: At the end of the next two transfers I want to be able to use only my Khmer Book of Mormon and not even have to use the English. I want to become a way better teacher! The last three months I hardly taught at all but now I will get a lot of opportunity!  I want to have finished the New Testament (how do you spell that?) and get to Alma in the book of Mormon (I’ve already read the whole thing once, I finished like a month and a half ago).  I want to be a much stronger teacher from the scriptures! I want to be a Book Of Mormon Missionary.  I want to be able to teach all the lessons in the language, probably not very good but to know the words to get the message across. For example, I don’t know ANY words to be able to teach Chastity or Modesty!  Basically prepare myself to be ready to get a companion younger in the mission than me be the time the next transfer comes around. It could very well happen.  My main Topic for the next three months is Confidence! Confidence in my Language, Confidence in my ability to receive revelation for my area and investigators and then act on it!  Get this thing under the belt so we can start doing some real work!   

That is kinda the only highlight of this week is transfers. I now have to spend a lot of time getting my new comp up to speed on the area so we can work together to do this thing.  We will see what happens; next week will probably have a good "epic fail" story for you who knows.  Love you all!

Your most favorite Elder!  Elder Anderson!  

NOTE of explanation for photo –

During the genocide and coup by the Khmer Rouge Regime, many thousands of acres were sprinkled with land mines.  There are a lot of Cambodian people who lived through that horrible era, but have some part of their body missing due to the land mines.  While many of the known mine fields are marked (as shown in this photo) the Elders have been encouraged not to venture into areas that are not clearly known as safe or not.

SEPTEMBER 7TH

Oh boy, I have a lot I feel like I have to say this week! Natalie and Aunt Becky thanks for your dear Elders! 

Dad you can tell Grandpa that I have three Pairs of Shoes. One only for church on Sunday.  And the other two I rotate through. I wear one and they get wet and muddy during the day, so that night I put them under a fan. The next day I wear my third pair and those get wet and muddy so I go back to number 2 pair that is now dry and I polish them up and wear those while pair number 3 gets dry. Easy right?  Your weekly letters are great. They are perfect length. I’m interested in things happening in the news and sports! I love to hear stuff like that. 

Mom thanks so much for getting a package together I know it will be sweet!  I look forward to when I get it in three or so weeks?  As far as other mail? The Dear Elder thing seems to be the most reliable method to get me mail. Anyone that wants to write, just use that. And if you have something very long you want me to read send it via Dear Elder. 

Hey and sorry about those photos!!!! I tried and tried for weeks to get them to you but every week it wouldn’t work.  I’m glad Becca was able to get them to you.  Please forgive me! Dad I plan to send pictures home today! I have them all backed up on a flash drive, so if the card I’m sending you in the mail gets lost... I have them all safe and sound.

News!!! Big news!!

As of Friday I will have a new companion... Sad day! Elder Conway has been my trainer for 12 weeks! And now he is being transferred up north as predicted.  Which means I lead the area. But wait, the new companion that I am getting came to the country only 1 group before me! So he has only been here for a few months more than me! I think we are both going to be learning a lot of Khmer the next few transfers! But wait, it gets better! They haven’t called the District leader for our area yet! There are 4 Elders in our area. One is a new Khmer Elder so it won’t be him. The other, my new comp. doesn’t know the area at all so it probably won’t be him. Elder Ott the other Elder has already been a District leader once.... So who is left?  Shoot. ME!  Ha, we don’t know who it is yet but we all have our guesses. I’m not worried at all, however it goes down, that’s how it is!  I don’t feel as much panic as I thought I would.  I know it’s going to suck and for a while it will take a lot of work to get things going but we will make it through!  As long as you learn everyday and are having fun!!! Fun is so super important for me in my mission so far.  It helps to make the time pass, helps you learn, helps you make better relationships.  Anyway that’s news!

In other news, It’s my Brothers birthday soon! I wish I could be there for his Primary graduation! I’m sure it’s a day he will never forget.  I also hope he fully understands the importance of his role as an Aaronic priesthood holder!  I sure didn’t when I was his age and I wish I had taken the initiative to take up more responsibility. And taken time to learn more about what it actually means to hold the priesthood.  Anyway, happy birthday Little Bro! Enjoy being twelve while you can, you only get to be a Deacon for 2 years. Take advantage of every moment you get to serve! 

Okay, so I had some notes on a spiritual thought for all of you but I left it back at the house so it will have to wait for next week. But I do have a story.  Last night we were in Bakuu and Elder conway was saying goodbye to some people because they won’t get to see him before he transfers and a lady, one of my favorite members, said Elders you must eat the dinner I made you can have it. We protested for like 15 minutes but just gave up.  We should have held our ground.  Dirty rice, soup with baby shrimp, and other mysterious items. These were whole baby shrimp too, eyes, head and everything.  She had some weird Egg thing that was cooked with bad water. And last but not least, she had "chiam" which in Khmer it means blood.  I was shocked! Apparently they take blood and let it turn into a jello somehow and then cut it up and eat it with rice.  It looked like liver!  She made us eat and eat! We were both about to barf so we had to leave!! It was crazy! Right when I got home I had like 4 Oreo’s to make myself feel better! 

Love you all

until next week