MTC Week 6

Hello everyone!

I'm just writing a quick email before I leave to let you all know that I love you and you are in my prayers!

I leave tomorrow and I'm so excited! I cannot wait to be serving those people in the Philippines!  The experience at the MTC has been fantastic, but I'm ready to go on to the real world (at least I hope so).  Thank you for all your love and support!  Thank you for the emails, letters, and packages, they have been greatly appreciated!  I love you and I will let you know as soon as I can when I've arrived safely in the Philippines!!

I love you all!

-Elder Anderson

MTC Week 5

Kumusta po!

Many things happened this week,

Last Thursday, I wrote about TRC over skype with someone in the Philippines. It was fantastic!!!!!!  My companion and I taught a return missionary in Manila, who was actually one of our teacher's companions.  He was very friendly and quite hilarious.  It was so awesome to hear a native speaker and to hear what Tagalog is really supposed to sound like.  I realized, however, that the teachers at the MTC speak quite a bit slower than Filipinos...  Oh well, I'll be able to adjust when I get there.  We have another opportunity for skype TRC tonight, and I'm sure it will go well.

On Friday, after lunch, our zone received our flight itineraries!!!!!!!!! I'm also the travel leader for my group, so that'll be interesting.  We leave on Wednesday, August 17 and we depart from the MTC at 1:50 pm. Our flight doesn't leave until 6:56 pm, so there will be a lot of downtime at the airport.  I'm so excited, but I'm also a little nervous, but I guess that's normal.  This is actually my final "official" P-day before I leave the MTC!  The countdown has begun and I cannot wait to head out!!  

Saturday was class, nothing out of the ordinary happened.

Since this Sunday was fast Sunday, we had a mission conference and were addressed by the MTC presidency.  They actually released our second counselor in the presidency due to health concerns, so a new one was called and he seems pretty neat.  The presidency shared a lot of great messages, and the former second counselor and his wife shared their testimonies with us.  It was fantastic, the Spirit was very strong.  I won't go into detail with what they shared, but I do have it written in my journal. Then, that evening we had a devotional by President Holland, Jefferey R. Holland's son, and he gave a wonderful talk about Joseph Smith's life and all that he went through before even receiving the first vision.  He challenged us to become students of Joseph Smith's life, and promised that if we did so, we would be able to more fully appreciate the Book of Mormon and the marvelous work and wonder that is the restored gospel of Jesus Christ.  I realized that anything that I might come to experience in my mission will be nothing compared to what Joseph Smith had to go through in his life and mission to bring about the restored gospel through the power and authority of God.  Keeping that thought in mind, I know that I can overcome any of the trials that may fall upon me on mission as the Lord is on my side, no matter how bleak the circumstances may seem.

Monday we had more class and nothing too exciting happened, our teacher was sick so our investigator lesson turned into a follow up kind of a visit.

As usual, we had a devotional on Tuesday, but this one was special.  This devotional was broadcast to all of the MTCs in the world!  Elder Neil L. Andersen of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles came and spoke to us about missionary work.  He shared many scriptures and gave a lot of great advice.  I'll share a couple of quotes.  The first was, "Learning how to be a missionary is not complicated, but it's not easy."  This is definitely true.  There are so many things you need to do as a missionary, and, while being pretty straightforward, it's difficult to have to experience such a new lifestyle and learn how to adjust so quickly.  However, through prayer, scripture study, and faith, I know that I can overcome anything that is thrown at me.  The next quote is "Don't be discouraged, have great courage."  This was followed by him giving advice to not blame yourself if doors are slammed in your face or if a "golden" family suddenly decides to no longer hear the message of the gospel.  You should feel sad, but you shouldn't blame yourself for their decision, each of us is given agency and those who decide to no longer hear the gospel exercise theirs, even if it was a sad decision.  

That's all I've got for this week, I'm not sure if I'll have another opportunity to email you all before I leave for the Philippines, so if I don't, I want you all to know that I love you, and I'm so glad to have made the decision to serve a mission.  It has been a fantastic experience so far and I know it will only get better from here.  

Thank you to all who have sent me letters, packages, emails, etc. they have helped me so much and reminded me that I am loved ;)

Mahal Kita

-Elder Anderson

MTC Week 4

Kumusta po kayo!

I'm almost finished up with my experience in the MTC, only one more full week!! I"M SO EXCITED!!!!!!!!!!  

Sorry for the outburst, I'll be moving on to my letter now :)

On Sunday, we had Stephen B. Allen speak to us. He is the Managing Director of the Mission Department and he was also the head of many of the departments for Church advertising.  He showed us many of the "Homefront" advertisements for the Church, which are the old advertisements from the Seventies or something.  At the end of each of those advertisements, there was a little tagline that Brother Allen would expound upon that tagline.  They were really good and I have many thoughts in my Journal about it.  The thing he said that stuck out to me the most was this "Being yourself is being great, but that means to be your best self, and your best self is becoming like Christ."  I felt that was very profound. It's true that we need to be ourselves, but that doesn't imply that we don't need to change.  Instead, "being ourselves" requires change, change for the better and working on bettering our Christlike attributes.  I mean, what's the point of eternal progression if you're content with remaining the same throughout all eternity? I don't know about you, but I don't want to have a flat line on my eternal progression graph.  

Monday was class, we taught our investigators as usual and the lessons went really well.  Our teachers are really pushing us by asking questions that cause us to improvise our lesson, and my companion and I are getting better at those improvised lessons as we have to completely disregard our original lesson plan.  Oddly enough, those improvised lessons turn out to be the best ones (possibly because my companion actually has to listen to the investigator) ;).  

Tuesday we had Bishop W. Christopher Waddell come and speak to us about the difference between "going on a mission" and "serving a mission".  It was fantastic!  He talked about how the mission was going to be hard, quite possibly the hardest thing we'll get to do in our life, but it will also be the best thing we'll ever get to do in our lives.  He talked about his own mission (Barcelona Spain) and how he only witnessed 3 baptisms for the entire time he served.   He served in areas where there weren't any members, and by the time he finished the transfer there were still no members.  He said it was hard to stay positive while they were rejected so often, but then he said that he came to realize that as long as he was working hard, doing his best, and serving the Lord, the number of baptisms didn't matter.  He realized that he was not called to harvest, but to sow.  It was a time for him to understand the purposes of God and better himself, as well as invite others to come unto Christ.  In fact, our purpose as missionaries isn't to see how many baptisms we have on our missions, it's to baptize those children of God who have become truly converted to the gospel.  Bishop Waddell said, "[The converts] need to start with baptism and end in the temple." It's not enough for people to simply be baptized because the missionaries said to, it's vital that those we baptize go on to finish their ordinances in the temple and endure to the end.

Wednesday was a pretty boring day because the Elders didn't teach that day.  We used the language learning software (TALL) pretty much all day.  But I was able to learn some new words, so that's good. However, our district did get to host new missionaries, and that was pretty fun.  It was so exciting to see all of the new missionaries coming in, it was actually the largest drop off of the year with 819 new missionaries coming in (The cafeteria is EXTREMELY crowded now).

And that brings us to today!  We're able to go to the Temple every P-Day and it's such a blessing in my life.  For the past three weeks, several Elders and Sisters in my zone have gone early to eat breakfast at the temple, and it is SO DELICIOUS!  Just thought I'd let you know ;) After being physically fed, we then go participate in an endowment session and get spiritually fed.  It's wonderful :)  Later today, our district has TRC, only this time we have a Skype call to someone in the Philippines and teach them for about a half hour.  I'm really excited for it and I'll let you how it goes.

OH! I've also seen Elder Scott, Elder Craig, Elder Bailey, Elder Doman, and Sister Cluff :)  I have yet to get a picture with them on my camera because we run into each other at the most random times.  I'll see if I can later this week.

Love you all! Mahal ka kayo!

-Elder Anderson