Super Week!

Well this was a super good week for us in Xihu! Recently, President Blickenstaff has been focusing on helping us have good and diligent studies. He has given the whole mission tons of invites and such and wow, he sure knows what he's doing. I really have noticed that when we make the most of our morning studies, then the rest of the day goes super well. We have been working on that really hard and this week we got lots of lessons set up and got more numbers from people this week than in the past two weeks combined. Super awesome

This week we met with a former investigator named Cruise. We biked out to his house which took like 30 minutes (woo!) and we sat down to meet. Before we could even introduce ourselves he pulled out a list of questions that he wanted answers to. Questions about gospel and stuff that he should do. This was probably the best lesson of my mission. Every single question that he had we used the Book of Mormon to answer them. Literally every single question that he had we found answers to them in the Book of Mormon. I always knew that we could find answers in the Book of Mormon, but my eyes were really opened up to the power of that book after this lesson. It's truly amazing and is most definitely the word of God. Anyways, Cruise is super cool and wants to get baptzied. He has even read the entire Book of Mormon. But he is just scared that he is going to sin after baptism. I really hope that when we meet with him this week that we can give him a baptism goal and help him a ton.

We also did a little bit of tracting this week and it was really good. We were able to meet lots of cool people and some even had interest! But most of them all live in Taibei and they were just here on break. So referrals haha. Team Jesus. That is about the story of my mission. Every single golden person that the Lord has led me to has not lived in my area. Some missionaries get super upset about that, and I mean yeah, sometimes it is a bummer, but I don't even care just as long as they get baptized. We also went to drop in on a family that we tracted into but they were busy. So we tracted their neighbor instead! And he was really interested! So many miracles

We had a really good ward council this week. The ward is really working hard to get bigger and to rescue all those LAs out there. The entire focus of the council was directed towards missionary work. I loved it. Xihu is so awesome and I love this ward so much! Especially our ward mission leader! He is a beast!! He goes to school in Taibei but come back here every other week. He is not only the ward mission leader, but he is also the gospel principles class teacher, and the ward secretary. He is so cool! His name is Mike and he just got back from his mission in Minnesota and his english is super good. I love him so much!

This week I have been studying a talk called the Fourth Missionary. It's so great. It is super long but I recommend reading it. Yeah it's applied to missionaries but you can also use it in your life. My favorite part is talking about us changing ourselves and becoming a true disciple of Christ. He said something to the effect of, "Christ will make us into a masterpiece, when we would only make ourselves a smudge. We will make ourselves and ordinary man. Christ will make us a God." I love that so much. As long as we are willing to truly dedicate our life to the Lord, we can become like him.

I hope you all are continually striving to be better and help those around you become stronger in this gospel. 

Last thing regarding those pictures of my arm. There is an LA here that does this stuff called gua sha. basically he rubs your arms with his knuckles and tells you what you need to be healthier. It hurts SO BAD. Literally my arm has never been in more pain. Basically I need to drink more water and not eat as much chocolate. He said that is what every missionary needs to do. Haha lots of missionaries come to this guy. It's super cool but it hurts so bad. He was rubbing my right arm and hit a place and asked me if I had an injury there in the past. I was really surprised and said that when I played baseball that was the place on my arm that would hurt really bad. Crazy that he knew that.

Anyways, I sure love you all so much. Keep being great!

Love

Elder Miles Anderson

This pictures don't do this justice, but I will talk about it in my big email. Be patient haha

One year older ...

I'm pretty sure that's how the song goes right? Anyways, lots of people have asked what it feels like to be 19. It feels the same as turning 18 last year except now I am speaking chinese. Great.

Well, on Saturday we had Hubert's baptism!!! yeah!!! He is so awesome! Me and Elder Osborne started filling up the font and the water was yellow (just like Elder Burns a few weeks ago) so that was fun. Haha we just drained it and started again. Still yellow. Oh well. 

Yesterday I had to give a talk for 10 minutes so that was scary. I can hardly give a talk in english. Luckily the Lord helped me out so that was great!

This week we had interviews with President Blickenstaff. He is just the greatest and always has the best advice. One thing I realized though is that he is just a normal person with an extraordinary calling. For example, he started quoting Nacho Libre during the interview. He is the best :)

Sorry I am very low on time, but I just wanted to say that I know that God has a plan for each one of us. Even though we might not like His plan, He knows what is best for us. I hope you all can always remember this. Be patient. Alma 26:27

I love you all so much. Keep adding oil

Love

Elder Anderson

Just a bunch of amahs (grandmas) doing their thing. I guess none of you will understand that unless you have been in Taiwan. Anyways, just laugh because it's funny

Super pretty river out in one of our secondary areas

cool Asian and ghetto building that we walked by while tracting

No smoking sign in the internet cafe. If this doesn't spell irony, then I don't know what does

What is this?! Grass??????? this is a rare site to behold in Taiwan. This is proof that the island is not made entirely of cement. I love grass haha

Xihu has so many rice fields and it's so beautiful!! I love this area!!!

General Conference

This was such a great week. I really love my new area Xihu and my companion. It's still hard to adjust from being in the city to now being in the country. Normally, you have a stoplight every minute that lasts longer than a minute. Here in Xihu, there is one stoplight that is longer than 40 seconds. The work is done a lot different here. We tract a lot! That is super rare for our mission. No one ever goes tracting, but it works very well here! 

A cool miracle from tracting happened this week. We went out at about 11:00 to go tract. This is a hard time to do things because everyone is at work but we went out with faith. Every single home that we went to was just an old amah (grandma) watching tv, telling us she was too busy. Literally every single home was just and amah or agong (grandpa). We get to this one house and they had their zombie doors closed. Side note: in Taiwan every house has these metal doors that they pull down at night or when no one is home to protect them and such. I call them zombie doors. anyways, we figured no one was home but we buzzed in anyways. The doors started to open and this guy welcomed us in. He was so cool and he really had interest in the church! After a day of rejection, this one guy made it all worth it.

This week we are having a baptism!! woo!! His name is Hubert and he is just about the most awkward guy that I have ever met. It has been really hard for the elders to get him to open up and answer questions. But he had his baptismal interview this week and he was talking to our district leader and it was so cool. He told him that before he started to investigate the church he felt that there was no purpose to life. He would wake up every morning with the feeling of a giant rock on his chest and he had that feeling the entire day. But he said once he started to learn about Jesus Christ, he said the rock got lighter and lighter every single day. It was so amazing to hear him say that. It's so true. Because once we learn about Jesus Christ, He takes our burdens away from us. He puts them on His shoulder. So awesome

Also watching conference was just so great. I have never enjoyed conference this much in my entire life! Normally I just looked forward to eating smarties and m&m's all day, but this time I was looking for answers. Totally changed my perspective. I feel as though every single talk was directed right towards me and the questions and needs that I have. It really helped increase my faith in the Lord. I am also so grateful that we have a living prophet today. President Monson truly is God's prophet. 

Just like Elder Rowe said in his talk, I loved the talk by Elder Owen. Being a leader is so key because you can really impact others. I look at the leaders I have interacted with in my mission and I have learned so much from them. Not because they are the best missionaries or have the best advice, but because they follow the Lord as best as they can. Lots of times we will we have to be the best at something or be super popular to be a leader. But I can tell you that those kind of people have had no lasting impact on me. The best leaders are the silent leaders that lead by example through their devotion to God. 

General Conference was amazing. I hope you all learned as much as I did and had your testimonies strengthened. This church is so true. Never forget it. 

I love you all so much!

Love

Elder Anderson