Skype Call

Merry Christmas everyone!! I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas and a great week with your families! Skyping this week was just the greatest and I'm sure lots of you got to experience that yourself! It's crazy to see how much can change in just a few short months.

So this is my last week of training! Yay! Our last week actually gets cut short because the move call got all messed up with Christmas and with the new missionaries coming in but are you ready to hear the news? Well, Elder Fleming is moving away from me! So sad! But I am really excited for my new companion! Everyone in our district is super jealous and they say that I will love him so I am really pumped for that!

Some of you might be wondering what we did for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Well, it wasn't much different than any other day! Except we did have a few miracles involving food so that was awesome! On Christmas Eve we went out to the outskirts of our area to visit an LA with a member and after the visit we needed to get dinner. The place we originally wanted to eat at was like 20 minutes away so we decided to find somewhere by us. We found this place that looked nice so we went there. The give us the menu and it was pretty expensive! Like 5 bucks!!! But they said that since it was Christmas, they didn't have the cheap steaks that we wanted. So the next cheapest was like $8! Crazy haha! So we get that and we weren't really happy. But they had free fountain drinks so that made things a little better. Turns out, we paid for a 7 course meal! Oh man it was the greatest thing ever!!! Haha then on Christmas we went to a curry place and they brought out our food and while we were praying, they brought out a ton of extra food for free! Remember this, prayers bring blessings :)

But yeah, we just planned on Friday (Christmas) and just worked the rest of the day. It was pretty great. 

OH yeah, so last Monday we went bowling with the Zone Leaders out it Da ya. We decided to make a deal that the losing companionship had to buy ice cream. So we did a warm up game to get loose. Then in the first game we tied! It was crazy! So we decided we can't tie, so we bought another game and guess what? We won!! I got 4 strikes in a row and ended with 164 points! Elder Fleming ended around 35 haha (he bowls like Elder Slack ;) ) and that's all we needed so that was awesome! Elder Sng wasn't too happy that they lost and had to buy ice cream:)

 Well I wish I could tell you all about some lessons that we had with investigators, but we didn't have any this week... :( We did meet with one that we thought was a golden investigator! Do you remember Duncan? The one that when we met with him the first time he was asking about Jacob 5? Yeah so turns out he was baptized 10 years ago... so instead of a golden investigator, we have a golden LA! Except he has no time so hopefully we can find time to meet with him and he can find time to come to church. 

Sorry I don't have much to say about this week. It's was just contacting and stuff like that.

I love you all and I hope Christmas was awesome! 

Love

Elder Anderson

Christmas is here!

What a week. Let me start off with a big old MERRY CHRISTMAS! I love Christmas. Especially being on a mission. Everything is better. Presents? 不用, just gotta get out and work! It's gonna be so much fun to work on Christmas!! 

I feel like this week has been the turning point of my mission. I no longer think contacting is 辛苦, I think it is so much fun. I love going out to contact. Even though most people turn us down, it's fun to talk to them. I love asking people if they like the Utah Jazz or Clash of Clans. I still haven't found anyone that does though... Through this Christmas season, I have grown a greater love for our Savior. A love that I have never felt before. I just want to share that love even more now. Also, yesterday was our ward party. I was singing in the choir and while we were sitting up on the stand, I looked out at all the families and I started to think of my own. But then a voice as clear as day said, "This is your family now." I love these people so much. They really are my family. 

I know those are just small experiences to you all, but to me they have changed me. Things are different now. and I like it. I love getting up every morning and being able to go out and serve the Lord all day. As I am starting to come to an end of training, I feel like I don't have enough time to find people here. Even though I will most likely stay for another transfer, I need more time. 24 months isn't long enough. I am so grateful for the time that I have to serve the Lord every day for these 24 months. There is no where that I would rather be than here in Taiwan. I know that the Lord has a will for me here

Anyways, I'd imagine you would all like to hear a funny story? Yes? ok, stop begging. So this weekend I went on an exchange with our Zone Leader (and he is actually Bryant's grandson so that was cool) and we had a blast. As we were waiting for the other two Elders to come to McDonald's to do the evaluation, we see them come up the stairs with this white guy. That's when we knew something was weird because there was a white guy. He has these two little metal cane things around his neck and it was really interesting. So we were all talking to him and he told us how the Lord told him to make these things and to go and give them to people to bring them to Christ. He does this thing with the two canes where he swings them around saying how it's a J for Jesus, then makes them into a heart, and then into an infinity sign and then a heart again. Really weird but he was an awesome guy. He said you can use these things for anything. To rub your body out, play hockey, poke stuff, I don't know just about anything you can think of. So yes he gave us some and they are really weird but hilarious. He was such a great guy though. Even though we aren't of the same faith he kept saying how awesome we are because we are wanting to bring people unto Christ. He loved us for that. Haha and then he said he would love to come speak to our ward and we were like "haha yeah......." good thing he doesn't speak chinese ;)

OH yeah our ward party! It was awesome. There were so many non members there and it was so great to talk to all of them. They all had a blast so that was awesome! Everyone loved it and there was so many spiritual shares and stuff. They announced to everyone that if they have interest in our church then they should come talk to us haha. so awesome! Hopefully people set up because we need new investigators really bad!

Speaking of investigators, one of ours got dropped this week because he started his military service. It was really hard to see him go because we wasn't just our investigator, he was our friend. We would go play basketball with him in the mornings and then go eat breakfast and then teach him.I really hope he calls us when he can come home. He is such a bro.

Well I don't have much time, but I really hope you all have a great Christmas. Remember to go out and be charitable in all that you do. You will find more happiness in that than in any gift that you give anyone. Be happy and have fun! 

I love you all so much! 聖誕節快樂！！！！！！！！！！

Love

Elder Anderson

The "J" canes turn into a heart

The "J" canes

Gina made these for Miles and his companion

The Christmas tree we sent (minus the "star")

Ward party

Their USA jerseys for preparation day fun

The week before Christmas ...

Yep this week was our mission Christmas Activity! Yay!! We went up to a place called Sun Moon Lake. It is soooooo pretty and it kind of has a Park City kind of feel to it. We went and took a picture at this Buddhist temple thing on top of a mountain and let me tell you, that might have been the scariest hike I have ever done. The way up wasn't too bad, but the way down I seemed to notice a lot more things. If you were to look up while walking, you would see the webs upon webs full of banana spiders. I literally saw 50 in like 5 minutes. They are really poisonous spiders and if you get bit by one, then you have to leave Taiwan and you can't come back because the antidote only works once.. Good thing I didn't get bit!! Oh and if one lands on you, you can't brush it off because you might crush it and then the poison will be on your skin so you have to blow them off. These fellas are not little spiders either. Most are about the size of my hand and some are bigger. Straight up demons. But other than the spiders it was really awesome. We got to go into a small town on of of the sides of the lake and buy stuff and that was really fun. Then we all went to a buffet for lunch/dinner. Here in Taiwan, if you want to go to a nice restaurant you go to a buffet. These aren't your typical Hometown Buffet or Chuck a Rama garbage, these are really really nice buffets. It was soooo good and we all felt really fat afterwards haha. Then after that we all went down to Yuan Lin for our Christmas devotional. That was also very scary because I was selected to play the piano... we sang about 7 hymns and I had to play in front of the whole mission. I didn't even know how to play one of them so on Tuesday after DTM I was able to practice for an hour... it was rough. But it was a really nice devotional and it was great to learn from President. He talked a lot about Christ, obviously, but it was so simple that it just made my appreciation and love for our Savior increase exponentially. It was awesome.

We had an interesting experience on Saturday for dinner. One of the Sister's investigators invited us all over for dinner because it was her daughter's birthday. She is from 'Nam and so her and her family fed us a bunch of Vietnamese food which was good but interesting because we had no idea what we were eating... but one of her relatives was just so creepy and tried to flirt with Elder Fleming and it was just awkward for everyone. Good thing we had a lesson so we couldn't stay long! 

So recently, finding has still been really rough and we haven't found a new investigator in a long time. So on Saturday, me and Elder Fleming came up with a plan for this week to find some. We said a prayer that through our plan, God will help us. The next day at church, they were talking about the ward Christmas party and they said that there will be 76 potential investigators are the activity! and since our ward is so awesome, they made a thing on Facebook for it and for people to RSVP they had to give them their name, number, and address :) So sneaky I love it! But I really feel like that was an answer to our plan and our faith in God. We don't know if anyone will even want to meet with us but it was just comforting to me to know that God is looking out for us.

Yesterday we were able to watch the First Presidency Christmas Devotional! It was really awesome and I loved seeing all the lights and stuff. The two things that I loved the most from it was when the first speaker said to figure out what our inner Scrooge is and get rid of it. Be more charitable and serve others. And then I think it was President Uchtdorf that said that we should let all of the wonderful lights about Christmas remind us of our Light and Savior Jesus Christ. 

Christmas time is such a special time and I love it. Make sure that you all get rid of that inner Scrooge, be charitable, and always remember Christ. I hope this week will be a very happy one leading up to Christmas. I hope all you procrastinators can find last second gifts! 

I love you all so much! It has been said time and time again, but remember the true meaning of Christmas!!

Love, 

Elder Anderson

Temple Trip

Yep! Elder Stevenson came and visited our mission this week! It was so cool! The whole mission got together and he spoke to us and it was just awesome! The spirit was so strong the whole entire meeting and he really spoke some comforting words to my heart. I could go on for a while about what he talked about, but that will take too long. So I'll just tell you my favorite part. At the end of his talk he gave us all an apostolic blessing. He blessed us with peace, comfort, confidence, power to endure, and to allow us to love fully the people we are serving. It was so amazing. That was only 4 days ago and I already am seeing the results of the blessing. I feel more confidenct when I go to contact someone on the streets and just yesterday in our ward activity I just felt an overwhelming sense of love for the people here in 潭子. It will be hard to leave this ward but luckily I still have a lot of time left. The people in Taiwan are just the best! I love them so much!!!

So also this week we had a really awesome lesson with a new investigator. We shared the first lesson and we had him read the page in the pamphlet about Joseph Smith. Then him and the member we brought with us started talking and he was saying how before, he didn't really understand much of what we were saying but after and while he was reading that page he said he felt something special. Oh man the spirit was so strong and I know for a fact that he felt it!!! We recited the first vision and then invited him to be baptized and he accepted!! But the bad part is, we didn't set up a date because he thinks it will take him a while mainly because the member said they met with the missionaries for 2 years so he thinks he needs to wait that long. So hopefully when we meet with him this week he will change his mind and set up for around Christmas!

OH AND THANKSGIVING WAS THIS WEEK! Woo! I just remembered!! So while all of you were pigging out on good food, we went out to eat with a member to a little Italian place. Of course I couldn't read the menu because it was all in characters but in the pizza section there was some Italian and it said traditionale or something like that so I figured that was safe to get. Nope, wrong choice. Instead of cheese and pepperoni, I got a little bit of lettuce and a bunch of little dried fish things on my pizza. Yeah it was disgusting. So be grateful that you all got turkey and pumpkin pie. :)

I don't have much time to write because since we are going to the temple this week we only get an hour to email today and then an hour on Wednesday (so if I don't email you back today I'll get you on Wednesday) but here is a really great story for the week. So we were meeting with and RC that has been rather less active and then this random guy wanted to come and talk with us so we were like alright cool! We started talking about baptism and this guy said he was baptized before but it was only a sprinkling baptism. Our RC was super confused! He was like "I was baptized by immersion like what?" and they kept talking for a while and then our RC said, "But I think your baptism counts too. Like you should be ok!" We were like noooooooooooo!!! Come on! Don't you remember the stuff about the priesthood and being baptized with the proper authority??? We didn't say that, but we were definitely laughing on the inside.

Well sorry this doesn't really have much detail in it. The best two parts of the week were definitely our lesson with our investigator and Elder Stevenson visiting us!

Hope you all are happy and holding to the rod! 加油！

Love，

Elder Anderson 孫長老