Crackdown...

Well another week down!! Each day gets faster and faster!! It is so crazy! Its been a lot rougher of a week, we had the whip come down on speaking in spanish more from our teachers so we have been working a lot harder on that! My spanish is coming along rather well, I usually do a lot better when i am actually speaking to someone and have to puch myself to get them to understand me. But when i try and use gringo spanish with other Elders it doesnt go to well. Each day is packed with classwork which sucks...im so sick of the classroom. But luckily we try and make the most of it in all that we do. Monday was a rought day, i had to say goodbye to my two really good native friends, Elders Castro y Maldonado! i came to love them so much and got so close to them which has been way fun!!! they helped me so much with spanish, and they made it so easy to understand, i now have to go find new natives! well Sunday we had a broadcast of a talk by Elder Holland, it was intense haha he really knows how to put you in your place and he is not afraid of saying it!! but it was very strong and spiritual which i really enjoyed!!! not a whole lot is new, just picking away at the spanish and trying not to fall asleep in class, mornings here are extremely early! but i do the best i can. Some of the other missionaries are very loose kind of people and have a hard time staying focussed but its been good for me to learn that patience. We got a new investigator this week, and he is one of our teachers so its extremely hard to take it serious because we joke around with him a lot and now he pretends he has no care in the world for religion. so that will be a interesting experience to see what me and my companion can do. Other than that im just so ready to got get fully started by getting to Texas, i love the MTC and everything but i cant wait to be out in the field. i love you all and hope all is well!

Con amor,

Elder Anderson

Call Me..... Elder Ginger

Hola mi familia!! buenos tardes

Mi companero es Elders Danielson! The guy from LA I was talking about!  He is way funny and kinda out there! But in a good way!!  He has lived in California his whole life but went to BYU this past semester as a music major!!!  But I love him and we have a great time!! I'm definitely is learning patience though. I get interrupted every time I talk haha and some of the elders are very loud and have a hard time focusing, but no major problems!!  Tenemos dos elders en nuestro casa (we have two elders in our house), Elder Jugler from Ogden going to South Dakota, and Elder Tracy from Payson going to Oklahoma!!  We have such a blast!!  It’s been a party since we got here!!  We are always hanging out and talking and joking around!!!  So in each house apartment there are three rooms so six total people but we only have four which is way nice cause I took a pillow from the other room! pillows here suck!!!  So the first week was pretty crazy!  They still are working things out here so we kinda didn’t really have a schedule haha but that’s okay it was nice to have the first few days easy.  I have been assigned as district leader!!  Which is pretty weird for me cause I feel it is a lot more stress!!  I have to make a lesson plan and teach every Sunday in district meeting, which is rough since I hardly have time for anything else!!!  It is so brutal to be in the classroom all day!!!  Your head just wants to explode!!!!!!!  All the elders in my district are way cool, and we get along all so well!!!  It’s really a blast!!!  Hermana Johnson is way fun and loves the elders. Her companion, Hermana Newman is pretty cool too, she gets alot done too. Everyone together  make for some interesting times!!!  in my  district I have 5 elders going to Oklahoma, Elder Jugler going to South Dakota, and me and Elder Danielson gong to Texas!  The Hermanas are going to Virginia Chesapeake!!! So it’s been interesting talking with them!!  So no one in my district took Spanish hahaha so I have been helping them a lot cause I have some back ground in it hahahah and surprisingly I am doing very well with it!!!  I can pray and bear my testimony and hold a conversation rather well!!!!  I’m guessing that’s why I had to give a talk on Sunday....in Spanish ha yeah a bit soon but not too bad luckily!!!  And it was all off the top of my head because I didn’t have time to write a talk cause I had district meeting!  Anyway the food here is sooo good!!!  Beans rice and torillas every day hahahaha and then a ton of fruit and weird meat but havent skipped a meal yet!!!

One of the best things about down here are the natives!!  We have become really close to Elder Castro and Elder Malondoa!!!  They are hilarious!!!  And all the gringo elders told them to call me elder ginger hahahah which is pretty funny and they always talk about my pelo de fuego!! hair of fire hahaha I’m sad they will be leaving this Sunday but they said we have to come back after our missions so they can show us a good time!!! haha  So as you probably know my pday is on Wednesday and we got to go to the Temple today!!!  It was such a cool experience!!!  It feels totally different down here, spirit is so much stronger!!!  A bit weird that is was in Spanish, luckily the lord knows we did our best  in understanding it  hahahah other than that not a ton has happen!

Oh yeah I got sick already that sucked hahah but getting better now, not really sure what happened but it’s all good!!  We have an investigator named B**** and yeah doesn’t speak English haha but I’ve done very well in the lessons not so much elder Danielson, but he is getting there. we are asking him to committed to baptism tonight!  So we will see how that goes or if he throws a curve ball again haha

well not much more to talk about things are going really well and I’m loving! I know this is where I’m supposed to without any doubt in my mind.  It feels so good to feel that I finally belong!  And to have a purpose!!  It’s so amazing down here and everything about it is incredible!!  

Yo se que la iglesia es verdadero!!! el espritu santo es muy fuerte aqui, y me gusta que mucho!!! yo se que Jesucristo es tu hijo de Dios!! yo se que Jesucristo es mi la salvador!! estamos agradacidos para el evangelio aqui!! el evangelio es verdadero!!! puedo sentir Dios amor para me!! (I know the church is true.  The Holy Ghost is very strong here and I like it a lot!!!  I know that Jesus Christ is the Son of God and my Savior!!  We are grateful for the gospel here!!  The Gosepl is True!!!  I can feel God’s love for me!!)

con amor,(With Love)

Elder Anderson

Culture Shock

hola!! i made it safe!! it was way cool to see all the elders as we waited at the gate! it was a lot of fun talking with everyone! tell james randall that i sat next to the girl he told me about, that was going to virginia! she was way cool!! i was bummed! i met a lot of people going to virginia, and they were all so nice and friendly!! no one from utah was going to texas, but we met up with another flight in dallas where i finally met someone going to texas! he is from LA and he is way cool! we both got the change on calls so it was cool to talk to him and what he thought about it! on the flight to mexico i sat next to a kid from virginia which was reallly cool!! he was the only one from his high school to go on a mission!! i thought that was crazy! well now the part where you guys all laugh! so we got to mexico and had to walk forever to get to the customs part, and once we got there we had to fill out all this paper work, and none of the workers spoke english!! it was a bit of a test! then when we finally got through that we picked up our bags and had to go through another check point where dogs sniffed us... that was awkward! finally after all the security we met the president of the mtc, and a few of his workers.....yeah none spoke english... took us an hour to get everyone checked off with them as we stood around sweating to death! but we finally got to these buses where we had to pack ourselves in!! haha it got pretty intense!! we took a half hour drive to get to the mtc where we went through the city.....totally different from sandy!!! haha graffitti everywhere!!!!! like every three feet!!! and everything is falling apart and yeah it was crazy! all the elders kinda sat in silence as we all were checking out the guys trying to sell us things from the street! mexico city is SO FREAKING HUGE!!!!!!!!!! i was blown away as i saw it from the plane!!! it just went on forever!!! its massive!!! so we pulled up to the mtc and saw all the barbed wire.....seriously looks like a prison!! no joke!! we got off the bus checked in got our dorm rooms, which are seriously ridiculously small... i can jump from one side of the room to another....and im white.... anyway there are six to a dorm room and split into three seperate rooms. i havent met anyone in my room yet. we all went straight to dinner after dropping our bags off. first night food....costco pizza!!!!! so stoked hahaha but then there was this weird pudding.... dont really know how to explain it haha well thats about it for the night! i took some pictures dont know how to send any to you guys....but no big deal. ill talk to you guys soon!! i love you guys and cant wait to hear how all is going!!

love,

Elder Anderson

p.s. i look sweet with a name tag!!!

And he's off!

Tuesday July 9, 2013

After a long awaited adventure and a few months filled with change, Elder Anderson set off on his adventure. He will fly to the Mexico City MTC where he will prepare before he returns to Texas mid august.