Transfer to Taegu new companion- Elder McKenna

Wow, transfers are sudden, as usual. On Friday night I got the call and I'm headed to 대구(Taegu) the hottest and coldest place in Korea! "Wahoo!" I left Elder Robb, he will be training this new transfer. I am now with Elder McKenna from Farmington Utah. He is only 2 transfers older than me so I think were both going to learn a lot. Ha. I think it will be good though. When you have to learn Korean I guess you learn it. He is really good at the language but still only 2 transfers ahead. Elder Singleton is going to be in my zone still. The end of the transfer was really good with Elder Robb. It was kind of a bummer to leave because I was just getting close to the ward and "bam," I'm gone.

I have heard only good things about the 대구 (Taegu) ward. Also, our neighboring area has a Costco in it. Sweet! We have about an hour and a half travel time from the mission home up north. It is really far inland, basically the heart. We are going to have a good time I think. I am his first American Junior.

Back with Elder Robb the big thing of the week was Trivia Night. We tried really hard to get people out but the ward was split. Only about half of what we wanted came but it ended up being really fun. Our investigators all came as did a less-active who also came to church two days after that! Those kind of things make it worth it. Korea is awesome, I'm really excited. Thanks for the prayers and support.

Caleb turns 20 March 22, 2008

Elder Rob and Anderson, Caleb's 20th birthday. We sent the cakemix and reeces peanut butter cups.

Trivia Night plans

Hello! How are you all! This week has been great for us. We are still planning out Trivia Night and we hope its going to be great. I'm excited. One of the main things we needed was a huge roll of paper we could lay on the tables for people to draw on for fun. We were looking around for anything. I had one place in mind but they ended up not having it. Korea however has a lot of copy shops. Copyright laws aren't exactly enforced so they pretty much do anything you need. As we were walking I glanced into one and saw exactly what we needed. We went in, 3 white people with one Korean, and asked if we could buy a roll of their paper. After looking at us strange and asking why we needed it they sold it to us. We were pretty excited with our 3 foot giant roll of paper. Ha ha. We meet again with some 15 year old boys and played basket ball with them to brt(build the relationship) and then taught them more about Joseph Smith. I feel like we have become friends with the cool kid at school. One of them actually wants to meet with us and always brings a new friend. What kind of 15 year old does that? We were thinking about bringing back English class for them on Tuesday and be basically told us, "How many friends do I need to bring." Ha. He is one of those really nice, popular, sporty types of people. Him and his buddy even carry a Book of Mormon around in their backpacks. They have a lot of potential. We have also been working on 성한명's family. It was really cool, this week we taught them how to have family night. We and the sisters demonstrated for them. I made them a little 4 person Family Night chart like our family had that spins around to who does what. They are an amazing family. The sisters are still working with her to get baptized. It will happen eventually. Missionary work is so exciting. I love it. Thanks for the prayers and the support.Elder Anderson

oh my, mom forgot to post this week

I felt like this week was really productive for us. Usually that's the way it goes with the weeks that just fly by. We have been preparing more for our combined ward trivia night. I hope it goes well. Things look like they are going into place. We hope to get less actives to come out and we are encouraging everyone to bring friends. This week was also interviewed with President Jenkins. Our meetings are always so amazing. This time we got on the subject of language and he talked about the atonement of Christ. He explained it really well. We can use the atonement for so many different things. Christ is always there for us. When we do everything we can he will bring us the rest of the way. He is really an amazing person.

This week our branch had a lot of people out to church which is always good. Our investigator (Luffy as he likes to be called) has been meeting with missionaries for nearly 4 months so we kind of pushed him this week. I think it was really good. He had a few barriers that he put up but he eventually agreed on a baptismal date. It was really exciting. It is for next transfer so I can't be sure that I am still here but it's awesome to see him progress. Also I recently heard that the investigator I was teaching in my last area was recently baptized and his wife is now investigating. He is the one that randomly called us one day if you remember. I love the work. It is so exciting every day. I am praying for you. The church is true! Thanks for the support. Love, Elder Anderson

good quick week

This week was pretty good. It went by really quick though because we had so much stuff going on. Always good to be busy. On Wednesday we went on splits with the district leader so the seniors went off in our area and I went to theirs. Jr splits is always fun especially since it was with my MTC companion Elder Singleton! Ha, it was a blast. We ended up having 2 lessons and knocked an apartment. It was really fun. When we were knocking doors we ran into this one lady that was a little crazy. She swung open the door and told us to come in and speak English to her son. It really kind of frustrating to have everyone think you are teaching English. We evaded that though and just started talking to her about religion. She wasn't interested at all but we still taught her and near the end she told us that the doctor wouldn't let her come to church because of her head. We took to mean that she is clinically insane. It wouldn't have surprised me to be honest. Ha ha, good times with Elder Singleton.

I'm not sure if I have explained this before but Koreans don't really get sarcasm in any way sense or form. Americans are pretty much all about although we try not to but it makes for a good laugh. We were talking to some people on the street and this missionary from another church came up to us and starts telling us to believe in the bible only and the we should change our lives right now on the street. We don't really argue with people like that so we just start speaking English to each other. Its fun because they can pick up a little of the English but they still don't quite get it. Its going to be weird to go back and everyone understands everything I'm saying in English.

I really think its funny when people try to convert us. Its like, OK. You think that I came all the way to Korea and am learning this extremely difficult language and I don't absolutely believe 100% what I'm teaching? Come now. They make me chuckle inside. This weekend was stake conference for the Busan stake. It was pretty exciting to see my old members from 해운대. We also had an area 70 come and speak to us. It was even in English translated to Korean so I could actually understand everything. It was weird to see him and the mission president and his wife on the stand. I haven't seen that many Americans on a stand for a while. Ha, strange. Korea and Korean is really fun. I love the work. It's exciting to see and be a part of this work. Thanks for the prayers. I love you all.Elder Anderson

grandmas, unusual map and Go her!

This week was a good week. Our ward is going good. We are working with a few part member families still. Hopefully we can get them together. Lately we have been getting sick of English class being our only service we are doing so we dropped a class and decided to try something new. I saw a building a few weeks ago with "social welfare" in English written on it and so we decided to take a shot in the dark and check it out. It ended up being pretty fun. They were more than willing to accept our service. We basically went around and visited room to room these old grandmas. It was a blast. They were all really cool. It was basically just a regular old folks home in America but they spoke Korean! It was really good Korean language practice as well.

Koreans are seeming more and more the normal. For a while it has been like, "WOW! there is a white person!" Then we would usually make fun of them until we realized that we were white as well. Ha ha.

Different story. A couple days ago we were trying to find a member's house and we couldn't figure out where we were headed. We knew the address but we couldn't find the place. We were all confused when I saw this little pizza shop with a huge map. We went in and they said we could use it but we still were confused. The owner then slit out pizza box and drew and nice big map for us. It was pretty funny to be going around trying to figure the roads out with this huge piece of cardboard.

Last story. We were sitting on a bench preparing to go and pass some stuff out and this old lady comes up to me and starts yelling, "Believe in Jesus" Over and over again in Korean about 6 inches away from my nose. It was pretty funny but I refrained from laughing and just stared back at her and kept say "yes" or "OK." It was so random but the lady really wanted me to believe in Jesus I guess. Go her!! Anyway, I love the work, I love Korea. Thanks for the prayers and and support. Love you all. Elder Anderson