Elder Caleb Anderson

Caleb the Missionary- The End

2010-08-24T18:25:00.000-07:00

The plane arrived over an hour late but a large group awaited Elder Ballam. Caleb had 3 of us waiting for him. Caleb didn't didn't come with the crowd and someone told us they saw the Elders in the bathroom.We borrowed signs from Elder Ballam's family

Finally, someone to play with Kay! Sunday, Caleb saw friends he served with in Korea right here in Salt Lake City.

Macguyver

2010-08-16T11:53:00.002-07:00

Upon saying good bye to people, Koreans tend to turn to food to satisify their sadness. Yesterday was my last day in my last area and we basically ate from the time church ended until we got home at 9:00 that night with a slight break where we thought we were going to knock doors but then got a phone call from our investagator saying we need to go eat. By the end of the day we both had headaches from all the food. It was a good week. We basically got a baptismal date with our 2 investagators for next transfer. It was a really good lesson.

Even though it is the end of my mission I am still learning things about Korean culture. For example, most would never guess what an influentual roll the TV show Macguyver played in Asia. When it first came to Asia, Koreans sucked it up and most of all the older people know exactly who he is. It was then in reruns a few years back and so now everyone and their dog knows and loves Macguyver. A Swiss army knife is in fact call a Macguyber knife here. A fitting name for all it's many uses. The think I learned something this week I always have wondered about. Why do so many asian kids have mullet haircuts? My companion informed me that it is not called a mullet but "Macguyver style" You can go into any barber and he will know what a Macguyver style is. Koreans are so funny. Sometimes I will just start humming the Macguyver theme song and someone will point it out all excited. Korea is amazing. See you the end of this week!

Last week of Missionary service

2010-08-08T21:17:00.002-07:00

Hello! So this is my last week of missionary work in my area. Next week Monday is transfers so the new elder will come and I am bumped out for a week. Anyway, point is that things are coming to an end quick and it is frightening. This week was really good. We had branch conference and since we are the branch presidency we had to organize and invite people. We had 21 people show up which was really good for this area. We had our two older couple investigators show up and it was a really good experience for them to see the branch functioning under the stake. 강병철(the husband) is still trying to quit smoking which is nearly the only thing keeping them from being baptized. 이금녀(the wife) and I had a really nice chat after Church during lunch (*note: Koreans often have lunch after church with the whole ward). She thanked me for the small time that I have served in this area and said that she will tell God that I taught her when we all meet him together. She also promised to call me when she gets baptized. Such an amazing couple. She is working on getting her son to come to church and take the lessons and fully believes that he will be baptized and that her line of members will go on forever. You may be able to tell but she reads a lot of the Liahona (church magazine) Ha. Amazing couple who have been slowly prepared for years. It is amazing to see this work go forward.

Less than 3 weeks left

2010-08-02T02:34:00.001-07:00

Hello! Today we went and visited a famous village out a ways and so now I unfortunately don't have much time. This week was good. We have been able to meet a few new people and we are still having success with less-actives in the area. I love this area and I am sad that I only have a few weeks left. This work is amazing. We see so many modern day miracles and tender mercies of the Lord. The church is true. I love you all and am praying for you! This gospel is so amazing and is really fun to study. I wish I had more time to just sit down and study the gospel. Naturally we do as missionaries but only an hour a day by ourselves and it always is left wanting. Love you all!

Branch Presidency

2010-07-26T03:30:00.001-07:00

Hello, I'm going to have to make this short because of time. This week the branch presidency changed and we were put it. My companion is Branch president and I am the counseler. Small branch. This week we had an amazing 23 people out to church. Usually we run around 10-13 so this week was pretty darn good. We had 3 investigators come out to church as well. An old couple and a high school student. The old couple said that they plan on coming out every week and they should be baptized soon after the husband gets over his word of wisdom issues. They are a miracle and I wish I had time to talk more about them but just know that the work is going forward!

Elder Anderson

Jehovah Witnesses

2010-07-19T10:45:00.003-07:00

This last week was good as they usually are. Unfortunately our best two investigators have been having some health problems which has prevented them from meeting with us this whole week. We were however able to meet with some other investigators that have not been able to meet for a while due to school. It is now school vacation so it will be easier to meet with students. The problem is that when it comes to Korean High School they don't really have school vacations. It is just not all day like usual. I can't believe how much they study. It is an insane competition to enter Collage and so they have to take school seriously very early.

We were also able to have some really good lessons with less actives including two that ended up coming to church this week after along time of absence. One of them has been meeting with Jehovah's Witnesses every week. We actually have had some interesting experiences with Jehovah's Witnesses this week including meeting them with this investigator and getting invited to their church or "Kingdom Hall" for a tour and a religious chat. It was a very educational experience and once again solidified my belief that this is Christ"s living church. I especially love that we don't have to guess or rely on the words of ordinary men. We have the words of prophets, new and old, that clear up and testify of doctrine. When we met with our less-active man, he prayed at the end and truly asked which church he should be going to. The spirit testified to all of us there that this is the true church. Missionary work is amazing. Elder Anderson

Just a few more weeks in Korea

2010-07-12T08:41:00.001-07:00

Hello family! I am now settled into my new area. It has been a little strange. We actually had to go back to my old area on Saturday to help out with the mini MTC that we planned but everyone that planned it wasn't going to be there on that day so they asked me to go back. Saying bye wasn't too hard as I was there only one transfer.

I had a really good last talk with an ex-preacher who likes talking with us. Naturally he knows more than us pertaining the Bible but it was really amazing how much I know and have known since I was 5 that astonishes even the greatest of scholars. He likes to talk about salvation with me and I was able to have a good 30 minute one- on- one talk with him while elder Kim was helping out the family. We sat on the couch and talked about salvation. We didn't use many scriptures as we both know what they say but we talked like I have always wanted to talk to a preacher.

He loved me and wanted to adopt me so he was willing to truly listen to what I had to say and I had a lot of respect for him and his family so I felt like I was also willing to actually have a talk with him. Too often we get into conversations with other churches and there is no level of trust or respect and that can quickly turn into an argument. Nearly his first question was, "Have you received salvation?" I didn't answer immediately as I have never really thought about salvation like a thing you can receive here on this Earth. I explained that only after judgement can we truly receive salvation. He told me that he has received salvation for sins that he has committed and ever will committed. That was quite the claim so we chatted more about works and grace. I didn't have to point out any scriptures for him to know exactly where they were but his claim with that was that if we have received salvation we will naturally do good works. I then asked him a question that popped into my mind. "So what if a preacher like yourself went out and killed his wife?" His eyes went wide and he asked "Did you see the news yesterday? That happened!" I then went on amazed where the conversation was going and asked if that preacher who no doubt believed in Jesus will receive salvation. He leaned back, shook his head, and said, "I don't think so."

I was then really able to talk about acts and that if he does not receive salvation it will be because of his acts. I was able to be fairly blunt with him because of our relationship and the fact that my Korean isn't that great so I can't smoothly get around things. I explained that Satan also believes in Jesus but it is because of his actions that he cannot receive salvation. He nodded his head and mumbled "Satan believes in Jesus..." It was a pretty fun lesson. Unfortunately his still is stuck on his old church and doesn't want to change. I think he now has an answer to some of his questions. I really felt like I was being led by the spirit to answer his questions so I believe that God still wants him to find the fullness of truth. Missionary work is amazing. I am so glad that I have been given this opportunity to share the gospel of Jesus Christ. An-dong is amazing and I am really excited to serve here with elder 진(Gien). The church is true.

this is what you do if the bugs bother you

Elder Anderson

off to my 7th area and 15th Companion

2010-07-04T22:12:00.002-07:00

Hello! This week we had quite the surprise. We got 2 transfer calls and our area will be replaced with Sisters next transfer. I will be going to 안동(aun-dong) to serve my last transfer. Elder Kim is off to 경주. I was only able to serve in 구미(gu-mi) for one transfer but life changes. That is something that I have come to love. Change. 안동 is the furthest area north in our mission and covers an enormous land mass. It is a small branch of about 15 people. My next and last companion will be a Korean, Elder 진(Gean), I am excited. I will still be in the same district so I will be able to help the sisters if they need. It was quite the surprise for us and the ward but I think that the sisters coming here will have a lot of things they can do that we could not. It will be good. We both gave our little talk in church that we give if we come or go. It was sad to leave. I really tried to get to know the ward quick because I knew I did not have much time but this was even less than i expected. Elder 진 will be my 15th companion and I will go to my 7th area. This week was pretty good. We had some good appointments with a lot of people. We had 2 investigators come to church and both should be baptized within a month or two. I was a good full week. I cant believe that I only have a transfer left. I guess you just have to follow Brigham Young's teachings, "Work hard or go to Hell" Simple right? :) Love you all!

My last transfer.....

2010-06-27T21:02:00.001-07:00

Hello once again from Korea! Yes, I know that you are all wallowing in despair after Korea lost to Paraguay in the world cup but cheer up, there is always next time. Besides, I heard America is doing well. I really want to learn how to play soccer. I am fairly coordinated with my hands but my feet just aren't that good at kicking a ball. Hopefully I can fix that someday. So this is the last week of the transfer. Elder Kim with probably be transferring but we are not 100%. Who ever comes will be my last companion. Pretty crazy. Fight till the finish. Recently we have been meeting a man named 성기웅(song kee oong) He is a owner of a small academy for Jr High school students. He is a really religious man and we have meet him quite a few times. He has a wife and 3 daughters which is quite a big family for Koreans. We have talked a lot about the book of Mormon with him and the plan of salvation. He enjoys listening to us but has not yet accepted our invitation to read and pray about it. He really likes the book of Mormon because it is similar to the Bible and it teaches about Jesus. He has also been talking to his wife about it but because they both work all the time it is really hard to meet the family together. That is our goal right now. This gospel has blessed so many people's lives in so many different way. Everyone needs it. He is a pretty funny guy. He is thinking about moving his family to Canada to drive truck as it pays better than his job right now. We also have a different kid that we are currently working with who is progressing but then didn't show up to church like he promised and we haven't been able to get a hold of him since then. We are praying for him lots. The work is going along well. This is the true church and I am so glad that I have the opportunity to teach it to the people I can. Korea is amazing.

A baptism

2010-06-20T21:13:00.001-07:00

Hello! I hope that everyone is still paying attention to the World Cup even though Korea lost. I know, it was fairly upsetting, but that is no reason to turn it off completely. I hear America is doing well. If Korea wins their next game they will be able to move on to the actual tournament. Korea is so into it not because they are that into soccer, in fact most of the people I have talked to do really watch soccer except for when Korea is warring against a different nation. It is amazing what sports do to a people. Anyway, soccer was hardly the highlight of this week. 이돟하(ee dong ha) got baptized this week! It was really good. Everything went so smoothly and it was a very spiritual experience. He is a good kid and will be very blessed as everyone is when they get baptized. It is quite the commitment. Saturday was a pretty crazy day for us. 2:00-4:00 was president interviews. 4:00-5:00 was a ward primary activity. 5:00-6:00 was the baptism. 6:00-7:00 was a meeting where president Jennings came and spoke to our ward about the "to the rescue" program. 7:00-9:00 was a ward dinner where the youth sold food and random items to raise money to go to a Korea wide EFY next month. They are pretty excited about it and I definitely think it is worth it for youth to go. It was a good week full of spiritual experiences.

Elder Anderson

Preparing for a baptism!

2010-06-14T08:19:00.002-07:00

Surprise! Preparation-day has in fact changed back to Monday and so I will be sending e-mails at the old time again. Sorry for not letting you know last week, totally forgot to mention that minor detail. Anyway, I hope is all going well back home. This week was really good for us. There have been very few times on my mission that I have sat down and studied chapter 11 of Preach My Gospel (how to get people ready for baptism) but this week there is a need. 이동하(ee doeng ha) has a baptismal date for this Saturday! He is a 20 year old boy who has been coming to church for around 3 years now and moved to our area at the beginning of this year. We went though and taught him everything and he accepted a baptismal date after refusing a few times. He really feels like people care about him in our ward. He is not very socially mature which makes it easy for people to not get along with him but our ward has done a really good job of friend shipping him and helping him progress. Hopefully everything goes down as planned. We have a few other people that we are working with who we are also really excited for. I really like this area and my companion is pretty amazing. I hope to have more good reports for you all next week. We have been pretty busy which makes things really nice. I hope all is well back home!

America is just no fun.......

2010-06-10T04:19:00.000-07:00

I like Korea in so many funny different ways. When I pass by a construction sight and have to dodge the back-hoe and jump over the rubble I can't help but think that America is just no fun. Always having to watch out for motorcycles while walking on the side walk makes you always have to be thinking which is a good thing. Sometimes thinking is not what you want to be doing, usually while eating. Usually the food is really good but sometimes not, the weird thing is that I kind of enjoy eating crazy foods just to say that I can.

If the Amazing Race is still going on I think that dad and I should try to sign up. I was thinking about that this week as we were rushing from one appointment to another and I kind of realized how funny I must look. A white guy running around with a backpack in the backstreets of Korea. I love Korea. I hope everyone is preparing properly for the World Cup. I tell a lot of people that I have a friend serving in South Africa and they just go off on how they want to go down and watch it. Korea is way into Soccer and Base Ball. I'm still not sure why Asians are so into baseball but more power to them.

This week was really good. Our stake has devised a plan to teach all the members all the lessons in a matter of about 5 months. We will be meeting with our ward to fully plan out how they want it is to be done. We are going to have to split to cover everyone and not have it take up all of our time. I am really excited. We have been teaching quite a bit lately and I feel like both Elder Kim and I are improving. We are working well. I am excited about the potential in this area and pray for the ability to help. I love this work. By the way I just took a body test at the city hall and am in the average area in everything. Basically i am really healthy right now and i am really grateful for it. Love you all!

Elder Anderson

Still making language blunders......

2010-06-02T20:24:00.001-07:00

Hello! I am now settled into my new area of gu mi. It is a really nice area with lots to do. The ward is solid and is made up of mostly returned missionaries and so they kind of know how things are supposed to be done. It is good to have people expecting things of you. My companion, Kim gyeong soo, is a really good missionary and is naturally really good at Korean. I am continually learning and am never perfect at everything. Yesterday we had Zone Conference where so many people I know gave their mission farewell talks. Sad that we have to go. Yesterday we had our meeting with the ward mission leader and we were talking about the youth programs. I then meant to ask if they talked about spiritual things when they meet during the week but rather I asked if they talked about sexual things when they meet. oops, still make mistakes. You can usually tell you made a mistake by the surprised look on peoples faces when you get done talking.

In this area there is a 20 year old the missionaries have been meeting for a while and should be baptized soon although there still isn't a date. We also have met quite a few less actives and one member referral! The members hear are really willing to help out the work in the area. We had 65 people out to church this week which was quite a different feel from my last area of 20 on average. Lots of peoples names to memorize, whew. It is kind of funny because my companion is 28 but everyone still thinks I am older that he. Most people put me from 27-32 when they guess. Its OK because Korean 20 year olds still look like they are 15 to me. Strange how that works between countries.The gospel is still being spread. It is true and amazing. We are so blessed to live in a time when the fullness of the gospel is restored!

Farewell Gyeongsan and Hello Goomi

2010-05-27T05:40:00.007-07:00

Hello! I have more time than I expected. I am currently on a train from Busan to Goomi. It is in the furthest northern district in our mission. My next companion is Elder Kim. He is 28 years old and only recently started his mission. I will probably only be with him for one transfer before he leaves as he has already been in that area for 3 transfers. I am really excited to serve there. I hear the work is going really well there. I will still be in the same zone. This transfer there were many changes and they will continue as the size of our mission continues to decrees. The last estimate I heard was 69 missionaries to be the plan. When I started we had about 110. Quite the change of things but we are coping.

This week was a pretty sad week. I have been in Gyeongsan for 7 months and it was sad to go. I almost couldn't believe the amount of friends that I had in members, investigators, and random people on the street. A neighbor lady tried for about 10 minutes to give me $100 because that is what Koreans do when they are sad to see people leave. Naturally I couldn't take it but I appreciated the effort. She kept praising my parents for raising me and told me to thank them so, thank you mom and dad. It was sad to go but I like change and I know I will like my next area and companion. Elder Kerrigan and I served together for 3 transfers which will be the most of any of my companions. it was really fun and he is an amazing missionary. I am glad I got that time with him and in that area. I hope that all goes well in America. Don't worry about what you hear on the news. Koreans don't worry about it. They have seen these types of things over and over again.

It is so crazy that Lauren is now in the MTC. I have been telling everyone and their dog. Its pretty cool. I am trying before I leave to have the signs on our churches say "Visitors Welcome." The campaign is going well I think. President told the whole mission that he mentioned it to the area authority and stake presidents but I'm not sure how it will go. It got a few people who knew that I have been pushing it to look at me and laugh. I hope it gets up someday.

Love you all!

Goals

2010-05-19T20:33:00.003-07:00

Hello! We had a really good week this last week. We were able to complete nearly all of our goals which is a fairly rare thing. We met a few new people and hopefully we can continue meeting. We also had a few stop meeting with us, one is moving to the Philippines.

Our best investigator right now is a 79 year old grandma who has come to church for the last 2 weeks. She is the mother of an active member and is a really fun lady. We as teaching her but she is old so it is taking a little bit to get things across. Luckily the family is full force behind it so they are always willing to help out. She said she plans on going to church every week and has changed because of the example of her daughter and grandchildren. It is amazing what a simple good example will do. She was so proud that her children don't smoke, drink, or swear. Apparently see was very against her daughter joining our church but has only recently had a change of heart.

She will likely be baptized in the near future but I am probably transferring this week. This week I was able to go on splits with Elder Hamilton. It is so interesting to be with him. I thought Koreans were surprised to see me being a white boy but Elder Hamilton is black and Koreans just openly stare. It makes for a good conversation starter. ha. I hope everyone is doing well!

Korea loves my......

2010-05-05T19:24:00.004-07:00

Hello! It has been a good week for me. I got plenty of great complements on how huge my noes is. It is pretty funny because I don't think I have ever been told my noes is big in a bad way. Usually they say it while giving me a thumbs up. Ha. I love Korea and Korea loves my nose, it's a good relationship. Summer is coming and I am not too excited for it. I find that I am more of a winter person. I really liked this winter. We had some pretty big news at Church. Our branch President is moving. We are pretty sad about it. Another family is moving away as well. That will be the branch president, relief society president, primary president, and all the primary moving. Plus our only young man is going to Canada on a mission. It will be quite the change of scenery to say the least. Hopefully we can keep our heads above 10 people at church. We were able to see a few small miracles this week which keeps the spirits up. It has been good. Unfortunately I don't have a ton of time so I will talk to some of you on the phone this weekend for my Mothers Day call.
Elder Anderson

The picture is of a kid that stole my helmet and wanted to fight for it. ha.

things are good in Korea

2010-04-28T20:18:00.005-07:00

Hello! I hope everyone is doing well. Today is a pretty good looking day. Sun shining, light breeze, 65ish degrees. Korea is amazing this time of year. This week was really good as they usually are. We had 3 less actives show up to church which we were really excited about. 2 of them seemed like they liked it and participated in the lessons. We have been pretty busy lately.

One thing we had to do was to go check up on the youngchun house which we are currently looking after while missionaries are not in that area. It is pretty out of the way but we have to go there once in a while and pay bills and what not. On the way back we had to take 2 different buses for a total of and hour and a half. On the bus we were able to teach 3 different people quite a bit because of the length so that was a blessing. We actually met a lady that I had talked to previously on the same bus line. I had showed her my picture book which she still remembered and talked about families. She especially remembered Franny's twins. That made it really easy to be able to continue to teach about the Book of Mormon and the restoration. Unfortunately she wasn't too interested and lives forever away. I think she will look into it more and if she has questions she has our phone number.

Yesterday we had a really good lesson with the lady and daughter that we taught last week. The lady understood a lot better than we could speak Korean. I don't know how we would survive without the spirit. She now needs to read and pray which she is hesitant to do. I really hope and pray that she does find out about the truth of the gospel for herself. It it amazing. Unfortunately as foreigners we make a few mistakes with the language. It is a lot easier to notice your companions mistakes and this week he had 2 which made us laugh pretty hard afterword. The first is where we were teaching about Adam and Eve and he was trying to explain that Adam was our first parent but rather he said that Adam was in fact the first Buddha. That could cause all sorts of confusion. The other was when he was asking about a certain table in the house. He thought that they respected their ancestors with it but when he asked about it he asked, "Do you commit suicide on this table?" Korean is awesome. We defiantly need the spirit to translate a few things still. The church is true!

It's just ringworm, no big deal.....

2010-04-22T07:59:00.005-07:00

I am good, except for the ring worm growing on my leg. It looks pretty cool, I've never had it before but I am in the process of trying to destroy it with anti-fungal cream. Pretty sweet. Besides my little extra stuff on my leg the week was good.

We met with a Jehovah's witness and talked about our churches. It was actually amazing to me as to how much of what he had to say we already believed. For the most part I felt like he had truth and we were just adding on to what he already had. I think the thing that struck us the most was when we asked him to read the book of Mormon and pray about it he said that he would but that he could not receive revelation to tell him if it was true or not. It is interesting because that is exactly what we tell people they need to do. They don't need to trust our knowledge on gospel subjects but they can simply ask an all-knowing being and we believe that he will answer. Wow, I am so grateful for a church based on active revelation. Trust God.

This week we were also able to meet again with a mother and daughter. With them we talked a lot about Adam and Eve, a subject that is quite different in our church. We explained the fall and they accepted it and understood. Now they need to read the Book of Mormon, its hard when they don't, but this time they promised with interest rather than just told us they would. We have a few things that could quickly turn into good things. We had neighbors recently move in as well who are very friendly (bring us food). The mother is really nice and they have a JR High boy who thinks its awesome to have two American friends he can point out to his friends. Ha. We are living and growing. I hope I always feel that way. The Church is true!

Still here…

2010-04-15T04:02:00.005-07:00

Hello from Gyeongsan! I am still here. It is transfer day and I am going on my 5th transfer here. That means I have been here 6 months and witllcontinue for 6 more weeks. Time keeps ticking. I am still with Elder Kerrigan which I am really grateful for. We have a lot of fun together and get a lot done. This will now be the longest companionship on my mission at 3 transfers. It is fun because we are "mission brothers" as we were trained by the same Elder Snyder. I still have the birthright. Wow, we are a strange group. Anyway. The biggest news of the week is that English class has been completely slashed (canceled) by our Branch President. I haven't ever had this happen so it will be quite the experience. We were told to come up with another program so we will now be studying the Bible and then the Book of Mormon on Tuesdays and Fridays. We had our first test yesterday and it went well. We had 5 members show up and 1 non member. Hopefully it will be a good way for the members to refer their friends to us easier and will be less pressure. I am excited for it. I don't have much time but I thank you for your prayers.

A day in the life of a missionary

2010-04-14T15:40:00.037-07:00

Climbed a Mountain and tried to find lost sheep

2010-04-11T12:40:00.006-07:00

Elder Anderson and Kerrigan

Hello! Today is exactly two years since I opened my call letter which told me I would be serving in Korea. It's strange to think about then and now. Very different. I can't believe some of the things that have happened. It has been amazing and I am so grateful for the time that I still have. This week has been pretty busy which is always good. We have been teaching quite a bit compared to the past. We haven't been able to get any of the people that we teach to really progress though but that should come. Unfortunately transfer week is next week and it is somewhat likely that I transfer since I have been here for 6 months. Longer than any other area. We will find out tomorrow if we move.

So every once in a while we decide to try to find some less actives in our area (we have pages of names) Yesterday we went on our bikes and tried to find 3. The first 2 were not too easy to find and the 3rd seemed impossible. We spent most of our day to decide that the first two had moved and we were about to give up on the third. We decided as our last attempt we would go to the police station and see if they couldn't help. The were naturally shocked to have us roll in but they were more than willing to help. They found it via their computer and then attempted to explain where it was. We couldn't really follow so one of the officers offered to take us there. Police are a little different here. Not quite as much to do as in America. It was really interesting to ride in his car. I still don't think I have ever seen a Korean man use a seat belt or really follow any traffic rules. Well, I guess they are more traffic suggestions than rules. We found the house pretty quick and found that it was abandoned. Cross them off the list. That was our Easter egg hunt. We enjoyed it. I hope all is well back home. I love being here as a missionary. The work is amazing.

Another week of miracles

2010-03-31T20:15:00.002-07:00

Wow! Another day full of miracles.We had president interviews yesterday which are always fun. It is weird to think that I only have a few interviews left. Anyway, this week we met this really prepared girl. We contacted her a couple of months ago but she was really busy so we couldn't meet. This week we decided to go through all our old investigators and recontact them. Through that we got appointments with 3 people this week! including this girl. She actually went to high school and college in the US so is a fluent English speaker. She went to a catholic school in Washington for HS and then ended up at Boise State University. Naturally she has been around a lot of Mormons but still had a lot of crazy questions. She is really interested in religion and has some questions that she couldn't find the answer to in the US. We met her 2 days ago and answered some of the crazy questions. We also introduced the lessons to her and she agreed to listen to us and learn what we are really about. Everything in her life seems to be building up to answers. We are really excited for her.We also started meeting with this Chinese gal who is here for college. It is pretty weird for us to only be able to communicate through our second languages.We have a few other potentials. The area is really looking up.

Unfortunately it is likely that I am leaving soon. Last week we went to a museum about a man who assassinated a Japanese official. It was really interesting. They consider him a national hero. He died exactly 100 years ago. Missionary life is good. Hope all is well at home. That is way exciting about Lauren's mission call. Thanks for the shoes and package. I gave the jerky to my companion who has now been in country a year but we got my package today. Poor-boy.Thanks!Elder Anderson

Happy birthday to me

2010-03-26T09:16:00.006-07:00

Happy Birthday to me! As you may know, Koreans don't really consider birthdays important. I think one reason is because of the lunar calender. Every year they have to figure out what day their birthday is on! Way too much of a headache. The day before my birthday we had Stake Conference and after, a few members threw me a little surprise birthday party at their house. It was really nice of them. On my actual birthday we had lunch with a few other members including Jeff Wansguard who used to be a missionary here and now is teaching English. We lived in the same house early in my mission so we we meet up every once in a while now.

This week we saw quite a few miracles including meeting 3 people randomly on the street that we talked to a while ago and were able to talk again and plan on meeting with them. We also had a strange experience with a certain less active. Actually it wasn't him in the slightest but it was what happened twice while trying to contact and meet with him. Once we went over to where we thought his house was. We didn't know the exact location and I had only been there once so we just started knocking doors in the same small apartment complex. The one door that answered happened to be the home of these 2 kids that we saw on the street and said "hi" to. They were so excited to see us there. We chatted a little and found out what we needed to know and left them, planning on going back the next day to bring them bread that we made. When we came back the kids were even more thrilled to see us. There was an 8 and a 10 year old boy as well as an 11 year old girl. We sat in the stairwell for probably a half hour while I played with the kids a few steps down and my companion taught the mother the first lesson. It worked out really well. We are not sure how interested they are but she said we could come back later but didn't know her time schedule so we will make something again and bring it over soon. That was number one.

Number two was when we were attempting to text him and meet. He said he could, but right before the appointment we realized that we had been texting the wrong person who's name was similar to the less active that we were looking for. We couldn't remember who this person was but they wanted to meet so we met. It turned out to be a contact that we got about a week ago that we had completely forgot about. Luckily the Lord didn't forget about him. We have met him once since then and is a really nice 19 year old kid. He comes from a broken family which is fairly rare in Korea and just needs some direction in his life. That is definitely what we are here for.

It was really neat to see these miracles and a few others that I don't have time to mention. Missionary work is amazing. Life is full of miracles but sometimes we just don't recognize them as that. We are so blessed. Korea is AMAZING! Just look at my pictures! They are of a temple that we went to last P-day. I was told that this Buddha is the biggest in south Korea. If so then I have now been to the biggest and the highest. I can't even tell you how much I love this place. Wow. I hope all is well at home. Love you all!

Elder Anderson

the cake was good but a bit rich for what we are used to.

Happy Birthday to Me on the 22nd

2010-03-18T08:20:00.003-07:00

Hello! Just so everyone knows, this week is my birthday. I am totally OK with getting a letter 2 weeks late by the way. So, if you have been wondering when to write me now is your chance! Wow, what opportunity you have, to fill the mailbox of a missionary on the other side of the world. Don't miss your chance!

So the weather is getting warmer which is amazing except for that after warm comes hot. Right now though its pretty nice. I actually decided I like all kinds of weather as long as it is not too extreme. I found myself leaving the house everyday telling my companion that the weather that day was my favorite and that I wish it could be like that every day. I think I really may like winter a little better than summer though.

This week we saw some pretty amazing things including 23 people at church! It may not sound like much but it was above our transfer goal so it was exciting. 4 less-actives came and 2 investigators so we were pretty happy. I actually only saw them at the end because I went to our neighboring area with a member to support their branch of 3 families. They had a bunch of people recently move so it has been pretty rough for them. We were able to meet 3 of the less-actives two days ago and talked about missionary work with them. 2 of them are serving in the military and debating on serving a mission after but they still don't know. We talked over lunch about the mission and the infinite amount of blessing that we get. Missionary work really is amazing.

I am so blessed. It is amazing to be able to serve among the Korean people. Sometimes I get down because of the language but then I just look at the other foreigners trying to learn this language and realize how insanely blessed I am to be able to speak how much I do with only a year and a half study! That is only one of the many blessings we receive. We can never get ahead of the blessings, Heavenly Father is always so willing and we really never deserve it all. I love the work and all that we are able to do. Elder A

Missionary shoes

2010-03-12T09:45:00.003-07:00

This week was a good one. We are still trying to figure out what to do with the neighboring area with no missionaries but its being figured out. There was somewhat of a dilemma when we couldn't find anyone to go to Youngchun with us. No missionaries could afford the time so I went back to the members. Unfortunately no one could so I had to make a decision between our ward or theirs for sacrament meeting. I called the investigators in the other area and none said they could come to church so we decided on our area.

It turned out to be the right decision as we had 2 girls we invited to church come off the streets. The ward was so nice to them and they said they would come back but because of school will only be able to come to sacrament meeting, they can meet us later on Sunday nights. We were really excited for them. The Relief Society taught a really good message on the spirit. It was great to be talking about it and then have that confirmation. This church is so amazing and can bless the lives of everyone. In the future the Stake President will be sending someone to help us out so that we can attend both wards. Poor Youngchun. I have been in contact with their branch president through this and when I called him Sunday night he said no one besides his family of 3 made it to church this week.

I was just given squid jerky by the owner of the barber shop we are in. Its pretty chewy but I like it. Now I'm just trying to soften it by sucking on it, but it's not working. Chew chew chew. We met a few more potential investigators. Wow, if we wanted to we could be so busy just teaching English. The Koreans are so thirsty for it. Life is good over here. Hope it is for you as well. Going to Costco today, I'm pretty excited. REAL CHEESE! I actually have discovered that I really like Korean food and I am quite worried that I wont be able to find what I want in America but Asian markets should have everything from what I hear. Red pepper paste is something I don't remember seeing over there but they uses is in EVERYTHING. Everything is spicy, so good.
Elder Anderson Pictures:

Missionary shoes, and 5 1/2 months left to go. My Heal hurts when I wear these so I quit wearing them

this is how we get around

two areas to cover

2010-03-03T22:14:00.006-07:00

We have had some strange changes on my mission including a couple emergency transfers, a couple 3- somes, and a lot of companions. This week was transfer call and we were quite surprised with more news. Our mission is decreasing in size and so our neighboring area is disappearing. It is an extremely small branch that is an hour and a half bus ride away. President called us on transfer night and informed us that we are now in charge of both areas for this transfer. Suddenly our area doubled in size. We will probably need to do splits weekly in order to keep missionaries in the branch because the 2 missionaries make up nearly half the branch! Elder Kerrigan and I will be staying together as co-seniors and we are being put into a different district. I'm excited to have 2 houses, 2 phones, 2 areas, and such things. Change is always an adventure. The hard thing will be the large amount of travel that could possibly be spent to get there and back. I'm not a fan of buses and it takes 2 to get there. We are now out here by ourselves.

This week was good. We were able to go to a Korean style giant Bone fire this last week. The whole city gets together and basically wishes the city blessings and they burn a 20 foot pile of trees. It was pretty fun. Naturally we got to talk to a lot of people as the whole city was all there squished together for us. That same night we also met an Indian man who had lived in America for 10 years and now is teaching at a university near here. He had only been in Korea 2 days and was expressing his frustration with not being able to communicate and wondering if he could really do his 2 year contract. It reminded me quite a bit of missionary work. We don't currently have any really strong investigators but we do have a few. Most just want us for our English. I can't believe that I only have 4 transfers left. It is scary but then I realize that it is still a quarter of my mission. I still have time. Life is going good here. The church is true and brings happiness to EVERY ONE'S life.

Korean Olympian

2010-02-24T22:39:00.002-07:00

Hello! I hope all is well and everyone is watching the Olympics. Korea is apparently doing quite well especially on ice. Pretty much everyone has it on and they are all quite excited about 김연아(Kim yun ah) She as been in the newspapers for months now in anticipation for this. By the way, if you are a male in Korea and win a medal you are considered a national hero and do not have to go to the mandatory military 2 year service. Its a pretty good incentive. Anyway, this week was good. At church we had 2 less actives come that we have been working with and one says she plans on coming from now on. We were really excited to see her come back and begin the repentance process. This gospel brings so many blessings into peoples lives. It makes it a lot easier to share when you have a testimony of that. This week we had a lady come to our English class that we had contacted a couple of days ago. It is surprisingly rare to try to get people to come to a free English class. I am convinced that if we had people pay for it we could get more members. Weird. Anyway, we knew she was coming so we got a member that is about her age to come as well so it wouldn't be so awkward. It was really good and hopefully she can meet her sometime outside of English class and not about English. She said that she doesn't know her time schedule though. The member we brought is amazing. I mention her a lot because she is probably the best member missionary I know. She is always trying to visit less actives with us and has taught investigators with us many times. She even found 2 investigators that we are teaching now. A member like that can make or break a small branch like this. We had a good week. I hope that all is well back home and that you are paying attention to those Olympic Koreans! Elder Anderson

Happy New Year (In Korea I am 22 years old. 20 in America)

2010-02-17T19:43:00.004-07:00

Hello! I hope that everyone had a fantastic New Year this last week. It is quite a big holiday here. It is a 3 day holiday and lasted from Saturday to Monday. It was fun to be with members and we were able to meet a few less actives that we had never met before and invited them back to church.

On Monday we went to Tague and on the way back we had an interesting experience. We took the train back to our area and as we were getting off we noticed white guy getting off at the same stop. it was fairly odd because the area we are in is pretty countryside and there aren't a lot of foreigners. We started chatting and found out that he was a German foreign exchange student living in Seoul. He and his Korean friend had taken the wrong train and got off at the first place they could, bought a ticket to go back and had an hour and a half delay in our little city. Previous to this we had planned on spending some time with a less active woman. She told us that she could take us to see the World class soccer stadium. The only problem was that because there was no one else we were not able to drive with her alone. We explained the situation early but she insisted on meeting us at the train station. Our new friends quickly fell into our plans and we were definitely blessed for following the rules. The 5 of us then crammed into her car and we went to the stadium. It was perfect for everyone. The German was 24 and had met the missionaries before. We chatted quite a bit about Korea and our church. He was Catholic and knew a bit about our church already. He was really fun to talk and we cleared up a few important misunderstandings about our church. We also talked to his Korean friend a bit and exchanged numbers as we left. It was a really neat experience. Missionary work is amazing.

Martial Arts and needles

2010-02-10T20:55:00.002-07:00

Hello from Korea again. This week has been good. Last P-day we went and played screen golf as a district. I got +4 on the front 9 and that was all we had time to do. I was pretty proud of myself.

That same day we had a less active invite us to his Martial arts studio where we could learn with his regular class if we wanted. We got permission and went. It was really fun. We were there to add English to the class and try to get them to speak,but learning ju jitsu was pretty fun. I don't think many people can say that they have thrown their companion. It was all safe though. Mats, safely landing, and such things. Hopefully we can bring an active member that is his age so they can chat and be friends because we can't keep doing this especially since he soon wants us to start kickboxing and we definitely can't get permission for that. This week we had a different less active come to church for the first time since I have been here which was exciting. She said she can come often as well.

One of our members offered to take us to a traditional medicine shop. I personally don't enjoy traditional and medicine being used in the same sentence. We walked in and the place was full of old people waiting. We thought it was going to be a long wait but it wasn't because all the old people had already been treated. Nearly half of them had needles poking out of their hands. I really don't like needles and there were people with up to 20 running down the back of of their middle finger down to their wrist. We talked to a few and apparently it helps blood flow as well as arthritis. The miracles of acupuncture. I'm not willing to try it out but fun to see. We also had president interviews yesterday which are always fun. It has been amazing to serve under President Jennings. Hope all is well back home.

Concert, visiting and wishlist

2010-02-03T21:16:00.004-07:00

It is cold but starting to warm up here. It is around 0 degrees C, so not insane. I like the cold especially when I think about summer. This week was a good one. We got the opportunity to go to a Korean concert at the university with a part member family which was amazing. It really made me realize that I am not anywhere close to America. Very Asian. I actually think that their concerts are more entertaining than ones in America. They almost always have music and dance or singing. They wouldn't let us take pictures which was a disappointment but still it was really fun.
There was an old Man that was dancing and yelling nearly the whole time they had the drums and dancing going on. Luckily they had guard rails that he couldn't figure out how to get over so he stayed in the audience.

This week we spent quite a lot of time with an amazing member that brought us around to some less actives that she wanted to visit. We have gone around with her on the bus with her and it is always an amazing experience. She is such a wonderful member.

This week we had Zone conference. It always gives us a big spiritual boost for the transfer. I have so much respect for President Jennings. Missionary work is amazing. I love my area and the members here. Things I would enjoy: New journal, taco seasoning smashed up Doritos (to take up less space maybe just smash them up into little crumbs and zip lock that and send it. If it is too hard then don't.)

New Companion, Elder Kerrigan

2010-01-29T21:31:00.003-07:00

Sorry for the lack of a letter last week. Elder Kerrigan is now settled in. He has a goal to not speak English so we have been constantly speaking Korean since he has been here. It will be good for both of us. He is in his 8Th transfer. Right now in the mission we have loads of older missionaries so we have the opportunity to be more effective with the language especially.

We had kind of an interesting first night together. I set the Ipod alarm before we went to sleep but something happened and it went off at 4:00 in the morning. Elder Kerrigan didn't have a watch so he got up, turned on the lights and started exercising. I didn't wake up until 4:30 but by then he was pretty convinced that I was a terrible missionary sleeping in. I looked at my watch and was so confused with my new companion. I eventually realized what happened and got up at turned the ipod off in a half daze and we went back to sleep and laughed about it in the morning. Ha.

This last week I had the opportunity to go on splits with the Zone Leaders in an old area of mine. It was really fun to see people I hadn't seen in a while and to be able to understand them. My companion is really outgoing and can to talk to pretty much everyone. One time we found ourselves in a table tennis joint with a bunch of armature players. It was incredible to watch them jumping around with there short shorts. We were watching and one of the players came over and we had a thirty minute lesson with him. Too bad he already thought that he had reached the state of being God. We have a lot of potential investigators right now. I'm really excited about this transfer. I love missionary work!

computer problems...

2010-01-24T06:26:00.001-07:00

So I wrote this email already and sent it but it didn't send and got deleted. I don't have much time but I am still in my area. Elder Morrow transfered to Elder Rockwood and I am now companions with Elder Kerrigan from Las Vegas. I am really excited about this transfer. Sorry I couldn't write more this week but I will catch you up next week.

no phone, banana bread failure, practice practice practice

2010-01-13T21:34:00.005-07:00

This week has been the last week of the transfer. We still don't have our phone so it has been a little interesting. We should be getting a new one from the mission home any day now. Hopefully.

We have recently been going over to a older member of the ward who is always home and teaching him for practice. I won't lie, it is testing my humility to the extreme. He wants us to be good teachers so he will stop us after nearly every sentence and tell us how to better say it. It is helping and to prove to myself that I am humble I am forcing myself to go back again and again. Whew, its hard but I need the help.

We tried making banana bread to take around to people but the salt we had was affected by the humidity so it was hard to stir in and.... we didn't feel comfortable giving it to members. Ha.

This week in church the stake presidency came and it nearly doubled our attendance! The second counselor gave a really good talk about the Book of Mormon and told a story of going to Mongolia when they only had a small portion of the book of Mormon but their faith was still strong. They knew it was true. I talked to him after about it and mentioned that my grandpa was mission president there a while ago. I think it happened before him though. Although, I herd "Call" which could have been Clark when I spoke to him. I am also giving a talk in sacrament meeting this week about the Book of Mormon. I love that we have been given such an amazing evidence of the power and proof of a Heavenly Father. The church is true! Elder Anderson

The picture is of the one river running through our city. When it freezes people go out on boards with blades and push themselves with sticks that have metal spiked ends. It looked pretty fun, I wanted to go.

We taught a lesson!

2010-01-01T20:24:00.000-07:00

So this will be the usual time for me to email. It is currently our Thursday morning. I don't have a ton to report on as it has only been a couple of days since my last email. We did have a really good lesson yesterday with a 16 year old that we met while knocking doors. This was the first time we have been able to meet him because he has been so busy but he is already through Mosiah 15 in the Book of Mormon! We met him with a recently returned missionary and taught him the first lesson. The problem is that today he is going to Seoul for a month to just study and take his school break. He told us we could give his number to the missionaries up there so hopefully he can meet with them a few times while he is up there. He is a really nice kid and it was amazing to have a member there because he joined the church at about his same age and could give his experience as a convert. Member lessons are so needed, especially in Korea where there is a language gap that the member can fill easily. Anyway, that's all for now. I am actually on splits now with Elder Singleton my MTC companion for the day. Anyway, hope all is well back on the big boat.

Christmas Party preparations

2009-12-20T19:14:00.003-07:00

So this is kind of weird because I called my parents and family yesterday but I guess I will try to push out an email as well. I have been informed that my emails are not entertaining. Sorry, I will try but I am simply not an entertaining person especially when comparing with Elder Travis Gowen. Anyhow, this week we have spent a lot of time as members. By this I mean that we have been planning our Christmas party. It has taken a little more time then we would have liked but it will be good and hopefully members will invite there friends. We have some less actives that have promised to come. I think it should turn out well. It will be the day before Christmas so pictures should follow next week if I remember to take them. We went over to the branch pres. house this week because they have been asking us to make root beer for them and teach them how. Not many Koreans like the stuff but they both do so they were extremely appreciative for it all. On the way out they gave us as much stuff as we could carry including salsa from Costco and money for the taxi. I have found it a problem in the church that people are more than willing to serve but when it comes to being served not many will let it be. I really appreciated all the stuff they gave us but when that kind of thing happens you leave the house feeling good because you got a lot of food rather than feeling like you helped and served them. Anyway, that was just my thought for the week. We will definitely put that salsa to good use. :) Hope everything is well back home ya all.

(note from mom: Caleb called for our Christmas call as we will not be available on Christmas day. He took the cards and ornaments we sent and turned them in to invitations for the ward Christmas party inviting many people to the party. I asked him if he gives talks in church. He said he just gave one on Family Home evening. I asked him if he talked about our family- we're pretty good at FHE-- he said "no" and then said "of course I did" He gets up at 6:30 and eats a hard boiled egg for breakfast! that is all. I asked him how much he weighs. He went from 180 to 153. We hope we have some of our boy when he gets home 8 months from now. He does like Korean food and eats it regularly. He was in positive spirits. Laughing and having a good time.)

Christmas cards

2009-12-13T21:34:00.004-07:00

Hello! This week was good as usual. My mother has informed me that I do not write enough stories. Sorry but perhaps I just don't have enough stories. We were told to go back to America in the lowest form possible this week via text. We got a good laugh out of that one. Lets see... This week we were able to meet that guy who showed up at church randomly. We went out to dinner with him and talked. We taught the first lesson but it turns out he has already talked to many missionaries before us and just wanted us to help him with his English letter that he needed to write. He is a really smart man but thinks he is too smart for religion. Sad. This church make so much sense. It's fairly incredible to be honest. There is so much truth. Spiritually and factually. It's true!

This Sunday we went and found some less-actives in the area with an old guy in our ward. It was an hour and a half of straight old-man-Korean. It was so hard, my brain was mush by the end of it. It is so solid but it's hard to get things across between us. Well he understands everything I am saying but when it comes back... Wow, it was fun. We were going up an elevator and he just busted up laughing. I asked him what he was laughing about he said "I don't know where we are going and you don't know where we are going, we need the branch president" It took us a while to figure out who he knows and who he doesn't know.

Korean is awesome. We had a good week. Hope all of you are doing well. Thanks for the prayers. I appreciate everything Elder Anderson... thanks for the card stuff. this is what we did with them... (note from mom:Rachael and her kids made ornaments and I sent some Christmas Cards.. notice our calendar in the background. Those are Rachael's kids)

Any ideas... Christmas party for 20 people?

2009-12-06T23:52:00.002-07:00

Transfers came and left. Elder Morrow and I will be staying together but Elder Ballantyne has come up with Elder Singleton and will be in my district. I'm excited, I served in the same district with him for 3 transfers when I was in Chinhae. This week was good. We weren't able to meet the kid I talked about in our last week but we have an appointment for this week. We have been going around and practice teaching with members for their benefit and ours. It is a good way to get to know them and build trust. We also had a neat experience while knocking doors. Fist of all we actually got into a house. We have came up to 1/1000 doors we get into. Its a rounded number but its almost dead on. That's a lot of doors so we are quite excited when we do get in. We came in and told them about our book. They let us and and immediately sat us down to eat dinner. There was a 15 years old kid and his grandparents. They were really nice and the 15 year old took a quick liking to the Book of Mormon. While we were there he read all of the introduction and the testimonies in the front. Apparently he likes reading. The grandma was really nice and actually invited us to their Church which we may take her up on later. She called us again Sunday to see if we could come but we had a thing in Tague so we couldn't go. We should be able to meet him as well but because of school he is busy. I really hope we can meet him soon. We have also been commissioned by our ward to do plan the Christmas party... Any ideas for a branch of 20 people? We made Halloween pretty good so they have high expectations. It should be fun but we need to come up with something quick. It was a good week. I'm excited to be with Elder Morrow for another. He has now been here for 4 transfers and it's the only area he knows. Pretty crazy. I really like the area which is good because i should be here for a while. Hope all is well back home.

Thanksgiving

2009-11-30T06:14:00.002-07:00

Much of this week was spent in Tagu. We had Zone conference where elder Choi came and spoke to us about having the spirit with us in all of our work, it was really good. I then went with Elder McKenna on splits that same day and met with Elder Bae from the second quorum of the 70. Basically our whole day that day was with 70s (Leaders in the LDS church) It was quite the day. The next day was Thanksgiving. We got permission to have a Turkey bowl (football game) before eating with the foreign branch. They made us an amazing Thanksgiving dinner. Extremely American. It was really neat to be reminded of what America is.

We also had a really neat experience last night with a old investigator. I was calling through some old records and I got in a conversation with a 27 year old about receiving answers to prayer. We talked for about 20 minutes when he finally just asked if we could meet at the church right then. We ran over there and then continued our talk for about an hour. It was really fun. He had obvious ally thought about this. He said that lots of missionaries have called him but that Americans and Koreans alike can't answer his question. We went though much but I felt like I was able to see more of the "iceberg". I talked about what we do before prayer to receive an answer. Studying, pondering, and such things. I gave him Alma 32 from the Book of Mormon to read and he said he would and we will meet again on Sunday. I really liked him, questions are amazing, especially since our church really can answer them. He thinks his questions are unanswerable but hopefully he can have an open enough heart to see and hear the answers. It was a good week like usual. Hope all is well back home, glad to hear about BYU. Did anyone else make it in the top 25 besides TCU?

Elder Morrow's 6 months and mini General Conference

2009-11-25T07:42:00.003-07:00

Another week gone by. This week was Elder Morrow's 6th month mark so we went to dinner and burned a tie(soaked in bug spray for pictures). Ha, I have never done stuff like that but it is pretty common for missionaries to burn something for important events. This week we got punked a few times but we also saw a few good things happen including meeting with a less active and she let us in to talk. It may not sound like much but most of the times less actives are harder than investigators. We also had a really neat Korea-wide stake conference via video broadcast. President Uchtdorf and Elder Holland spoke along with 2 other 70s. It was really fun for them to speak directly to Koreans and we even got to hear it in English. They have been pushing Koreans to stay in Korea and build up Zion in the nation of their birth. It was really good. It felt like a mini general conference. It was comforting for Koreans to know that their leaders really know their problems and even their culture. President Uchtdorf talked about eating Kimchee in Seoul on a day or 2 lay over. It was fun. I love our leaders. Still going strong. 2 weeks until the end of the transfer. The mission moves fast. I love it.

I love the work

2009-11-16T07:22:00.003-07:00

This week was a good one as usual. We got punked (tricked) by our investigator, people blocked our calls, we got rejected at the door pretty harshly in perfect English, and didn't meet anyone new. I love missionary work! No sarcasm.

It really is fun but sometimes we see the worst side of people. It's kind of like dad says about seeing the worst side of renters. I'm sure these people are great and have lots of friends but we just see a different side unfortunately but it does make me really like those people that let us in and talk to them even if they are not interested. This week was president interviews and we talked a lot about the English program because my ward wants to push it and while I don't want to stop it I don't want it to be a main focus for us. He agreed and gave me some stuff to tell my ward which worked like magic. President Jennings is amazing.

We were able to meet that old man that we met knocking doors again and taught him the first lesson. He really understands he just needs to look for and receive that personal revelation and then we will see him progress. It's so fun teaching the truth. I really love missionary work. Its crazy that I am a somewhat of an old missionary. I just keep going.

Halloween party in Korea

2009-11-11T10:19:00.004-07:00

This week was a good one. We spent a bit of time preparing for our late Halloween party for our ward. Usually the ward plans and does most of the parties but they wanted this one to be American so they gave it to us to do. It naturally wasn't huge because the ward size isn't that big but the goal of it was to get members to invite families to come. We had about 4 little girls come that weren't members, their parents didn't come. The party went pretty well. I made sure everything was as American as possible. We had candy fishing, pumpkin bowling, donuts on a string, bobbing for apples, a cake walk, an eating contest, and carving pumpkins. It seemed like everyone had fun and we got a lot of complements. We had to make things like cookies, donuts, and root beer (which turned out really good but still Koreans think it tastes like toothpaste). Elder Singleton and Olsen came from Youngchun to help us out so everything went smoothly.

Yesterday we had some really neat experiences as we found 2 new people that we will be able to meet again and keep teaching. One of them is an old lady in the branch who is really nice to missionaries and everyone simply thought she was baptized because he husband is one of the strongest members in our branch. We were able to teach her the first discussion but we are pretty sure there is a reason she is not baptized so we will teach her. I really stressed baptism while I taught and the importance of the authority to baptize being restored. It went pretty well and we had a member to help teach which is always nice. The older lady absolutely ardors all the pictures of my nieces and nephews. She looked and talked about them for about a half hour. Cute little kids. Oh, I need root beer extract with a recipe for sparkling water on the box. It is the best way here since dried ice is only used in science and the yeast hasn't worked. Yesterday we were also able to meet a man while we were knocking doors. It actually works sometimes. Wow. Korea is doing good. We are doing good. Thanks for the love and prayers.

Cleaning day at our new apartment. Everything you hear about missionary apartments is true.

I'm settled in Chinhae (just east of Pusan)

2009-11-01T20:35:00.004-07:00

I am now settled in here in my new area. I am with Elder Morrow from New Mexico. He is in his 3rd transfer. Our branch is pretty small but the members are really nice. I will probably be here for a while so I have been cleaning the house with all the free time I have. It was pretty bad but I've seen worse missionary houses. It's a problem when everyone knows they are going to eventually get transferred. The area is similar to CHINHAE but the members are about 1/4 of what my last area had. This week we had to buy bikes because the ones they were using before got stolen. I also updated my lenses in my glasses, now I have completely Korean glasses. about $25 for everything and no waiting time. They don't have any of the eye Doctor stuff that is in America. They have a machine that goes over your eyes and in about 3 seconds finds your prescription and prints it out. Pretty cool. We have a couple of investigators that may be good but I have only met one because of time problems. Koreans think they are so busy. It's insane. I would actually say that they are but they take the excuse and use it for everything. Our district is just my team and Elder Singleton's team. It's as countryside as Korea gets. I like it out here. We are both really looking forward to this transfer. We will both learn a lot. This is the first transfer where I have a companion that can't speak Korean as well as me. I definitely will learn a lot. I'm excited.

Transfer-new Companion

2009-10-26T05:27:00.000-07:00

I have been transferred back up near Daegu in a city called Gyeoung San. I am now with a 3rd transfer named Elder Morrow from New Mexico. I'm really excited but sad to leave chin hey.

reminders to myself that I am a missionary, I year in Korea

2009-10-18T20:03:00.003-07:00

In honor of my 1 year anniversary in Korea this past week, I have come up with a list of things that happen and make me realize I'm a missionary. I Don't know if you will find it funny like I do.
1. Walking my bike across crosswalks with a helmet and a suit.
2. Being chased by dogs on my bike.
3. Dogs in general, they all hate us but not as much as I hate them.
4. Sprinting alongside a bus to catch it at the next bus stop.
5. Feeling awkward without a Book of Mormon in my hand.
6. Panicking if I cannot see my companion.
7. Stopping and looking at every neck tie I see.
8. Saying at least "Hi" to every person I pass.
9. People literally running away from us on sight.
10. Being called everything from angles to Satan himself.

I love missionary work! It really is fun. We are still preparing for our open house for this coming week. Transfers will be this upcoming week so who knows where I will be next week or if I will still be here in 진해. This week we had a stake choir competition. Music is pretty big here among our church. The stake choirs are really serious about it and compete nationally. Our wards took first and second places out of something like 5 wards. Ya, we're pretty cool like that. It was really fun to go listen and sing.
We were able to have a first lesson with a 12 year old that has been coming to church with her friends this week. Hopefully her family comes to this open house. It can be a really good opportunity to introduce people to our church with very little pressure. It should be pretty good.

conference, hike and fishmarket

2009-10-12T17:29:00.007-07:00

Pictures: Elder Anderson on a stinkin high mountain, Korean fish market.

I hope everyone listened well to Elder 죄(Che)'s talk and thought about me and then Elder Sitati's talk and thought about Travis. Elder 죄 visited our mission in my first or second transfer but spoke in all Korean so I had a translator. He is a really great man and a real support for the Koreans. I loved general conference. I feel like Conference is completely different as a missionary. We are all so excited for it and every 2 hours fly by so fast. I especially liked the analogy with the heart surgery in the Sunday afternoon session. It's amazing how bold our church is with our doctrine. We are bold because we can be. Our claims are such that we are either right or wrong. No in-between. It is so amazing to be led by a prophet who says that this church is founded upon the rock of revelation. We have so much and are so blessed. Elder Holland's testimony on the Book of Mormon was also really powerful. I can't wait to read them all again. A foreigner in our ward should be able to get them to me with audio as well. Listening to others testimonies really can strengthen your own. It is one of the ways the spirit works through us. This week we had zone conference where we got to hear President Jennings speak. He is a real light to us missionaries and always has the spark that we need to get us moving forward. We have been going through all our old investigators and have found a few that we will hopefully start teaching again. It was a good week. Love you all. Thanks for the prayers and support.

Choo souck- Harvest holiday

2009-10-05T04:40:00.004-07:00

Because of the regular P-day along with a Full P-Day and 3 days of 추석 (choo souck) Today we are only e-mailing and shopping. It was a pretty fun week though. I went on splits with Elder Bordman our district leader. We have been in the same district for over half my mission and he has been my district leader for all but one of those. It was fun and we were able to meet with a member's friend and teach them, with the member over dinner. Teaching is fun.

The next day we were called in the morning and were told we had President Interviews in an hour. In an area that is about an hour bus ride away. We got there fine and the interviews went great. We are so lucky to have President Jennings right now. For our full P-day we went and tried to climb the tallest mountain on South Korea's main land. Unfortunately because of the traffic we weren't able to make it there in time to climb the whole thing. I was actually more pleased because half way up the mountain there was a temple that we got to see and then turn around at. It was really amazing. This temple was built in the 1400's and they said it is the highest temple in Korean. I have no clue how they carried all that stuff up there. It was quite the hike. I wish I could have taken pictures of inside the temples. They were amazingly decorated with all sorts of colors. It kind of reminded me of some of the Mongolian things I have seen but I defiantly did not tell them that. Most of our week was spent at members houses eating and talking. The holiday is a harvest holiday like Thanksgiving and is always with the full moon. It is also kind of the end of summer and I can feel it. The weather is really nice right now. A hot sun with coolish air if that makes sense. The leaves are going to start changing which I am really excited for. 진해 is a smaller city and so it has a lot more trees and scenery. I wish I could be here for spring. They have a huge festival which is what the city is known for because of all the budding cherry blossoms. Korea is amazing. I love it.

knocking knocking knocking

2009-09-29T05:25:00.003-07:00

Just so you all know this next coming week is the Korean version on Thanksgiving. It's pretty huge. We had a good week. We haven't had much success as for investigators but we were able to have some really good less-active meetings. Two specifically.

The first was on Saturday. We were walking around talking to people and a lady walked straight at us and began talking and didn't stop for about 30 minutes. Turns out she was baptized when she was a young adult but hasn't been to church for 20 years. She didn't know where the newer church in the area was so we walked her over to the building where we were headed anyway (to help clean) and we toured it with her. It was really cool, she was one of those people that can talk endlessly. We got her information because we had absolutely no record of her living in the area. Hopefully we can meet more often with her.

The other one was just yesterday. We had decided on an apartment complex to visit but we didn't know which one. I felt like 109 or 104. We were closer to 104 so we knocked on that but nothing. We then had to decide where to go again. We said little prayers and I went through and numbered all the apartments in my head. 109 stuck out again so we went and did that. Nothing. We were on the bottom floor of the last line (6 story apartments) and were were headed out when the second to last door we knocked on opened well after we had knocked on it. A lady opened the door and I went back to the door and explained who we were. She quickly informed us that she already believes us and invited us in. We had a really good chat with her about our church and invited her back. We got her information (once again we have zero records of her) and were able to leave her with a spiritual message and a prayer. It was amazing to see that we were able to be led to her. We will try to meet her with a member of the relief society later. She seemed like she would be willing to come back. The message we are sharing is true. That is what I know and I'm just trying to share it. This opportunity is amazing. Thanks for the love.

Visitors at the door

2009-09-21T04:23:00.002-07:00

Another week in Korea. Right know I am e-mailing from the middle of a Korean war battle ship. Cool huh? Only Korea would have a couple of rooms for computers in a battle ship museum. Anyway. This week was good. I had quite the interesting experience a couple of days ago. We had stayed in a little past 10:30 AM because we were making some things for some members when we got a ring at the door. I went and opened it and there were 2 Korean college age girls standing there. The quickly started talking to each other about how they don't know how to speak English when one of them got enough courage to say "God's Church" I didn't recognize the name until I translated it back into Korean to "하나님의 교회." In Korea if there was one church that we butt heads with most it would be 하나님의 교회. Mostly because they we are linked to them in many people's minds and they are pretty crazy so we try to push away from them. I quickly introduced that we were missionaries as well and introduced our church a little. When they found out I could speak Korean they just went off.

First was Heavenly Mother. They believe that she is currently living is Seoul right now. A little strange. I started questioning that and and asked what will happen when she dies. They replied back with a prompt, "She wont die." Guess that solves that problem. I then asked what they believe about Jesus Christ and if he was the son of God. They said yes to which I then asked if he was the son of Heavenly Mother. They then turned back and said that he was only just a man and that he was in a kind of substitute for God. Ha. It was really nice because I had all of my English and Korean supplies at the house for a friendly chat. My companion wouldn't come over because he knew it would just turn into an argument but because I'm an American and can't understand absolutely everything it couldn't get too heated. I then began to talk about Prophets and turned to some scriptures which they also had well marked. They also believed in prophets but they also said they were in fact prophets. I didn't think I had caught what they said right so I cleared is up with "Your a prophet like Moses?" "Yes" was the reply.

They talked about the Sabbath and how we should be worshiping on Saturday and not Sunday but unfortunately I only had a few things I could say about that but I made sure to study up on that for later reference. We kept going back and forth and eventually I introduced the Book of Mormon and explained what it was and why we need it. I talked about that for a while and testified about how I read it and got and answer for myself. They then said, "That answer was from Satan." That was kind of a rude turning point when I kind of just stopped talking and just kept explaining our church. They eventually walked away themselves. I wasn't going to be the one to tell them to leave. It was fun and really good Korean practice. Anyway, I'm going to go explore more of this ship. Thanks for the support and love.

Faith and Pictures

2009-09-15T06:32:00.003-07:00

So..... the family is gone hunting and they expect me to write an email. humph. I guess I shall. This week was a good one like the rest. We were able to teach Ferenando again and talked a lot about faith in Christ and the faith that through Him, he can actually repent and get over his habits. He has always been very religious but it surprised me when he couldn't answer yes to the question, "Do you believe that Jesus Christ can help you through your trials?" It is actually a fairly difficult question if thought about deeply. It is much different to ask, "Can you give up smoking and drinking" than "Can you give up smoking and drinking with the help of Christ." Anyway, we talked a lot about that and repentance with him. On Saturday we were able to be a part of a stake mini MTC (Mission Training Center) for the youth at a different ward. It was really good, especially the 2 hours of real on-the-street time. That's when the youth realized how hard it is to be rejected over and over and over again but most everyone saw at least one person who showed enough interest to teach a little and whatnot. It was good.

So in Korea we carry around a picture book wherever we go. Koreans like it and it is great to build the relationship a little. I think it is funny because nearly every Korean has the same reaction to every picture. On the cover I have a picture of me when I was 8 with my dad in front of the church going to get baptized. SO many Koreans have asked if my dad was a movie star. Ha. Everyone gapes in awe at my gigantic family of only sisters and adore all of the little white kids. No one knows who marry Poppins is. Sorry. Everyone here likes fishing so Alaska is usually good as well as the bears that are 50 feet away from us fishing. The older ladies can spend a while looking and Rachael and Franny's kids. They have never seen anything so big and cute. Anyway, just thought it would be interesting to know what Koreans think of my family. That's all for this week. I lost my adaptor so no pictures this week. Sorry. FYI the silver suit is being sent home for future use.

Silver is the color to wear

2009-09-07T13:37:00.004-07:00

My companion and I bought silver suits on sale. Very Korean.

This coming week is transfer calls! Crazy. I'll most likely stay here but you never know. I'm betting on us both staying together actually, which if together for 2 transfers, this will the first time that has happened. Last P-day I went out and got a hair cut by a Korean. That was a mistake. Usually I do it myself with whatever is in the house but nothing was there so I just gave in a did it. I told her good luck and to do it as American as possible. I should have brought a picture or something. It ended up extremely wide on top and tapered down to the ears. Very Korean style. I handled it for about 10 minutes and then went to our local store and bought hair thinners. I finished the job although not too perfectly. It will grow out. Ha. The life of a missionary.

This week we were not able to meed Franando because he had a friend leaving that he said good bye to. I have been staying in contact with him and he has done well but is having a problem with social pressure. Society vs. God. It seems like an easy choice but as we all know things are quite a bit more difficult than that. He needs a testimony of the healing power of Christ first. It is so much harder to change your life on your own. We also had a girl show up to church and we set up an appointment to teach her next week with a member. She came with a friend. So much more effective then us going out and finding. Anyway, it was a good week. We worked a lot and still many things fell through. We did the choir concert on Saturday at a different ward. It was successful and well done. I love being a missionary. I love the work. Elder Anderson

any ideas to quit smoking?

2009-08-31T03:08:00.002-07:00

So I got this giant bundle of letters from a lot of different family members. Thanks so much. It's fun to hear from all of you and I really appreciate the support. I would really like to respond directly to all of them but there were like 30 different people and I don't have all day to write. I really appreciated them though.

This week was really good. On Friday we had President interviews which took up a good chunk of the day. We were also practicing for a zone choir fireside so we had everyone there. I really like President Jennings. After the interview we chatted a little about space, sci-fi, and my future business idea dealing with such things. My kinda guy.

On Saturday we went and did that fireside in Chinju and we will do it again this week in Chongwan. It is a really neat little program they have put together and really spiritual. Sunday was probably the best day of the week. We were able to meet with Fernando again and teach him the first half of the second lesson. When we got to where we were talking about our life on earth I introduced the Word of Wisdom. I had been debating it in my head all day and when it finally got to it I felt like it was right. I was at the blackboard explaining the plan of salvation, took a big breath, and laid it down for him. He likes it but is currently doing about everything on the lists. We talked a lot and made a list of why he doesn't want to smoke and drink which came out to about 6 ideas. He then couldn't come up with any on why he does except for addiction. I honestly had no clue what to tell him to do. He wasn't willing to just stop so we made a deal to slow down. He is going to try to only smoke 5 a day and he will call me tonight on how he did. He likes the Book of Mormon but is a little afraid of change. It's difficult sometimes but always do-able. The spirit was so strong during the lesson. I love this work and trying to help people find this better way.

If anyone has any good quitting plans that have worked for people I would appreciate the info. Right now I am just going off PMG, high school health class, and what he and I think of it. He will slowly be able to overcome it. Anyone can with the help of Christ.

note to LeAnn Albrecht from sister Jennings about Caleb

2009-08-27T18:48:00.000-07:00

Sis Jennings sent me some recipes and information this morning about her mission that I requested from her at the Mission Presidents seminar. She had this little paragraph about Caleb that I thought you might like to read it. I cut and pasted so these are her words. You may want to save this for Caleb. They were out doing zone conferences last week and she saw him."I got to see and talk with Elder Anderson as he waited for his interview with Kenneth just day before yesterday and he's doing great. He's healthy, he's working hard, and he seems really happy in the area where he's currently serving. He has a Korean companion who is very intelligent, hard-working, and sweet and I think the two of them are enjoying the companionship. Elder Anderson has also called me twice this transfer about health issues his Korean companion is dealing with and I've been impressed with his kind and caring attitude on behalf of Elder Kang. He really is a sweet young man. He's one of those missionaries that the members (and the mission mom!) just love because they are so cheerful and positive. He has been a good, positive influence in the areas where he's served. I'm not sure his mom knows about a nasty abscessed boil that appeared on his backside in the MTC because he didn't tell the medical folks at the MTC about it for fear of delaying his arrival in the field. We have been treating it here (he got permission to see a local doctor about it) and he reported to me on Tuesday that it was completely gone now and all he has is a funny little nickel-sized scar. I don't know if you want to report that to his mom or not! I leave it to your judgment!"

updates: physical and language

2009-08-24T05:26:00.004-07:00

A quick update of my physical self: I left the MTC and a solid 185lbs (5'10"). I just recently weighed myself again. Ever since the field, my weight has slowly been declining to more of where it should have been. Last week I weight in at 152! That's over 30lbs! I'm pretty impressed with myself. It's definitely not a lack of eating either. Leg muscles have increased while my upper body has shrunk. Nose is still there. Before my mission my mother would always get mad at me because I would sit cross-legged (Indian style) at the dinner table. It has definitely got worse. All the men do that here if they are on a chair. I have actually formed callouses on the sides of my feet because of the sitting style. Ha.

Anyway, this week we had a lot of traveling. Monday I went on splits with the Elder Brown from another area because the Koreans who have already done military service went to Busan for some meeting they have to go to every once in a while. Tuesday we all (All the missionaries in the mission) went to Busan for a huge zone meeting. Usually we don't do that but it was President Jennings birthday so the AP's and Mom planned it behind his back. Pretty impressive to pull something that huge off without him knowing until he walked into the room.

Thursday and Friday we were able to work in our area but Saturday we were called in by the Changwon Elders to help out with a bunch of things. Busy week but unfortunately not too much in our area. Franando said he told his family about our church and the Book of Mormon back home but they didn't know what it was so hopefully next time we meet we can get their addresses in Sri Lanka and refer them to the Elders there. We have a few people we may be able to start meeting which we need. The work is chugging along. Korea is amazing. It would be even cooler if I spoke Korean! Ha, no, the language is coming. I was talking to Elder Brown about it and he said before his mission he knew a guy who had gone to this mission and he asked when he felt like he got the language. He just laughed. Elder Brown then asked, "About a year in do you start to feel comfortable?" the reply: "About a year in you start to understand sacrament meeting." Go Korea!! I really do love it. It's way more fun than it is difficult. We get blessed in many different ways. Hope everything back home is going good!

update on Caleb from my friend who visited with Caleb's mission President

2009-08-19T20:42:00.004-07:00

my friend just started their 3 year adventure as mission President in Tokyo. She went to a training in Seoul. " "We didn't have a chance to take off and "see" or visit with Caleb...so close yet so far away. I did see his mission president and asked about him....he said "he is an excellent, obedient Elder. A real strength in this mission. I love that Elder, and I can put him anywhere in the mission with anyone and know they will work hard and find success." So it sounds like he is on track...but did we ever think otherwise??? I told him he comes from "good family stock"! He said..."I am sure they are.....his mother trained him well... do they have any more sons to send.....?" I had to tell him No not this generation. So tell Caleb to keep it up...push to the end.

Korea is the best baptizing mission in the Asia North area. They are Christian which is a first step, and respond well to the missionaries. Korea isn't as clean as Japan at least in the big city. They are having lotst of rain right now...flood stage.... in one day the water was over 18 inches but also went down to level in 24 hours. I asked his mission president about N. Korea, and he says they hear more from home about N. Korea than they do living there. I don't think they are very concerned....but we as missionaries live in this cocoon, and only get out in 2 or 3 years so you may have more insight than I got from being there."

Elder MacGyuver

2009-08-17T13:33:00.004-07:00

We have been teaching more Sri Lankans. Strange but true. We taught an amazing lesson to a man named Franando. The spirit was so strong, I was teaching in English but we had to go really slow to make sure he understood everything. It is so fun to see the lights come on in someones eyes. This gospel is amazing. We have done a lot of traveling this week. We had zone conference and all the Korean missionaries ran off to Seoul for a conference so we had to manage around all that. We have been doing a lot of reactivation work recently. A few may start coming back to church which would be amazing. Our goal is to really have them remember what they felt when they were baptized. Most remember the missionaries that taught them and the feelings they had at that time. We just need to rekindle that flame.

Right now I am actually with the 2 elders in Masan because my companion had to go to do a military thing in Pusan. Because everyone must be in the military they have to do little things every once in a while to keep them up on it I guess. We will meet back up in Busan on Wednesday.

My companion and I get along well. He is pretty convinced that I could be MacGyver. I randomly fix things around the house like the toilet or the fridge or the lock on our door. He thinks it's amazing. When I fixed our bikes with only a roll of tape he started singing the theme song to the show. Ha. Now it's an occasional thing to hear him humming it when something that used to be broken is still working. Ha, Koreans. Anyway, the work still moves on. I love it out here in Korea. Its so crazy and foreign sometimes but then I look at American things and that's pretty crazy too. I don't know what to believe anymore. I'll just stick with the gospel. Thanks for the support and love.

another week

2009-08-16T05:16:00.005-07:00

I will explain a little about my current situation. I am still in 진해(chinhae) but i got a new companion. His name is Elder 강창 혼 (Kang). He is from Seoul. He is 22 and has already done the mandatory military. He has been out for 5 transfers. He will probably be a senior this next transfer or the one after. He knows very little English so we have to get by via my Korean and his scattered English vocabulary. It's fun. He is a really fun and nice person. It's really interesting to have a Korean junior. I'm still the first one to talk to most people and he always hands me the phone but if we get in a real bind it's nice to have a fluent speaker. This week we have done a lot of member and less-active visits. The wards have given us lists of the people they want visited. Some have moved and some we are able to talk to and some flat out reject us. That is depressing. It's one thing to get rejected every day by random people on the street but it's much different with a member. We also got 3 new investigators this week. We were in a big shopping mart and I started talking to this group of foreigners. It turns out they are all Sri Lankans working at the huge ship building factory near by. I don't know what it is with me and Sri Lankans but I have met quite a few after Roshan. I now always keep a Shinali(sp) Book of Mormon at the house. We met the next day with 3 of them and talked about why we are here and our message. They actually called us to make the appointment to meet. When they called I could hardly understand but I knew they were trying to speak English. I thought it was just a random person speaking English to me and I only spoke back in Korean. Finally he gave the phone to a Korean and we could clear that up. Oops. They are really nice but busy so we will have to play that by ear. It was a good week. Thanks for the support and love.

New Companion, Elder Kang

2009-08-03T05:21:00.004-07:00

I'm going to have to make this short because I am short on time. I have a new companion. His name is Elder 강 (Kang) I am really excited to serve with him. This last week was good. I am finally back in my own area which is really nice. It was a fun week. I really love the work. Thanks for the support. I can feel it all the way over here.

Restitution

2009-07-27T04:22:00.001-07:00

This week will be one year for me. I have many mixed feelings about that. On one hand time has flown. Insanely fast. On the other hand I feel like life before the mission is a haze and that I have been here for 15 years. Anyway, time is a strange thing. This week was pretty interesting. I am currently with Elder Bordman and Ballantyne. We are covering 2 areas and 3 wards which is pretty rare for our mission. Its been a lot of traveling but it's working out. It's kind of strange to be back into a threesome. Elder Ballantyne is really young, only second transfer so it is fun to remember where I was back then. It has been really good.

I think the highlight of the week for me was yesterday. It was Sunday and we had found out earlier last week that the kids that got caught had to pay $1000 fine or work it off at the church. They have been working it off and the bishop told them that they could come to church as part of there time to work. Yesterday 2 of the boys showed up and one of them had is mom and sister. It was pretty funny. They smelled like smoke and what not but the ward was really nice to them even though they looked like fish out of water. They went to the first 2 meetings like normal and then Elder Bordman and I took them into another room for 3rd block and talked to them about us and our church. They were pretty fun and I was glad I didn't wasn't mean to them when we kicked them out of the church. It wasn't too awkward of a situation. They were good and well behaved. They said they would probably come back next week. Speaking of next week, I will have a new companion then! Things change quick. I love this work. It is amazing. Thanks for all the support of love. I appreciate it.Elder Anderson

break in and another transfer

2009-07-22T13:03:00.005-07:00

Elder Rockwood

Another fairly crazy week for me. Two big things happened that threw us all off. First of all our church was broken into. Elder Rockwood and I were first on the scene. They had spray painted a lot of the outside and wrote on the front mat in Korean "We hijacked." They had somehow gotten into the building and messed it up pretty good. We made our way upstairs to the second floor and found it a mess. They had used the kitchen to make who knows what and also used the font as a bath. Other stuff had been scattered all over. We then went to the 3rd floor where the chapel is. On our way up we started to smell cigarette smoke and saw it had been messed up as well. What surprised us is that we walked into the chapel to find 5 Jr high students chilling near the piano smoking. There were 3 boys and 2 girls. I'm pretty sure they were more surprised than we were. They had burnt an umbrella in the middle of the floor and spray painted a few things. They kids quickly removed themselves from the scene of the crime. Only one kid seemed to be sorry. As he left he kind of looked at us and said "It's a church!" in Korean. As they were leaving I grabbed my camera and got 2 pictures of them all. One was good and got most of their faces. I gave it to the police when they came and about 2 hours later we found of that they brought the picture to the schools in the area where they were identified and caught. They next 2 days were spent helping the bishop out in cleaning up the place and repairing a few things.

Second crazy thing. Transfers 2 weeks early! President called up on Thursday night and informed us that Elder Rockwood would leave to another area. Quite the surprise but it's happened to me before. An Elder has to go home early for school so they had to do a little adjustment. For 2 weeks I will be in another threesome with the other area in our district. Elder Bordman and Balentine. Pretty exciting week. I really enjoyed Elder Rockwood. He was a great first junior. On to new things. This will be 7 transfers and 9 companions. I am a pretty troublesome missionary apparently. :) Our investigator ee ien gol(이인걸) is doing good. We were able to meet him with sister Olsen(She is Korean but married an American and has forgotten most her Korean) It went well. He is really nice and willing to listen These next couple of weeks we will have to cover 3 areas rather than just the two so it will be a little more difficult but fun as well. Elder Rockwood and I are sending our emails to the other's families. Hope everything is still going good for ya all. Korea is awesome. I love this work. Hard but it has a lot of rewards with it.

(note from dad: I taught Caleb in the areas I have apartments, a camera is more powerful than a gun)

My first talk

2009-07-13T22:31:00.001-07:00

Welp, mom is out of the country and won't get this for a while so I debated just not sending one but she would probabaly consider me dead so I will inform you on my week. Relations with the wards are getting better. It is sometimes hard to show both wards we are working because they only see half our work but we are going good. We got a new investigator this week from a referal from a different area. He is in the Navy as a diver for his profession. He is really cool, very built. He has a lot of English interest but we taught him the first and he followed along and asked questions. We will see how that goes down the road.

This Sunday I gave my first talk in Korean. In every ward you go to you give a greeting talk and a leaving talk. Every once in a while we also give other talks like this one. I spoke on smiling and being willing to talk to people. It was good. I felt like it created more of a bond with that ward. It was hard though. I really like giving talks and making them entertaing and good but doing that in Korean is a bit more difficult than in English.

This last P-day we went to an island that had 3 little museams on it. There was a restored battle ship, a navle battle museam, and an ocean museam. It was really fun to see. Korean museams seem to have quite a bit more technology shoved into them. In the middle of the battleship there was a room full of computers and a full stage simulator game in the navel musean and other fun things. Korea is fun. It was a good week. Life is still good. Thanks for the letters and support. Love you all!Elder Anderson

4th of July and no root beer

2009-07-06T02:23:00.003-07:00

Two weeks into this transfer, things are still chugging along. This week I think that I got my first real member referral since coming here. It was pretty fun. I did something I have always wanted to do. we met with the investigator and talked about our church, he is a business owner and so was the member so we were all pretty professional about the whole thing. He asked for our business card, I asked for his and we set up another appointment. It seems simple but I have always wanted to set up an appointment like that. I think it's the business side of me.

The next day we taught him a really good lesson in a park. He seems pretty interested, especially in the book of Mormon. He said he would start reading it every day along with his every day reading of the bible. Can't argue with that. His name is 이인걸(lee ien gol). This week was also the 4Th of July. We happen to have a military base in our area and we were invited to go in the evening to eat and watch fireworks. It was like going into America. Suddenly everyone could understand me and I could understand them. It was a really cool experience.

We have a member that lives on the base and the sisters have an investigator there too. The member brought us to have a giant steak. The fireworks were really fun as well. Good old America. It kind of reminded me of the little things that made Korea and America so different. Although when we asked if they had root been on the base the waitress still went and checked the wine closed and came back to inform us that they don't. That is truly only in America. This week was good. The work still goes on even with 2 young Americans that can hardly understand the language. We are blessed. Love you all. Thanks for the prayers and support.Elder Anderson

Chinhae (just east of Pusan)

2009-06-28T20:36:00.005-07:00

This week has been a blast. Elder Rockwood and I are very similar. Koreans even think we are brothers. For all those who know Travis Gowen he is similar to him. Naturally we have a lot of fun.

We have been doing a lot of finding since we have had no real investigators. Finding is always good. This area is a little hard to proselyte because we have no colleges and not many people are walking around. We still do fine though. The area is smaller and less populated then most. Being a part of two wards is interesting. We both went to one ward this Sunday and we will go to the other next week. A little harder to manage but at the same time easier because they don't rely on us as much since they know we have 2 wards to cover.

Yesterday was probably the craziest day of the week. We were in church and for the third block the bishop brought us into his office and explained that a kid had been coming to Church for quite some time now and he wanted us to teach him all the lessons... right then... It was pretty rough but there in the bishop's office we taught all the lessons to this kid. He listened to it all and it seemed good. The bishop wants us to baptize him this coming Sunday. A little fast for my liking but the bishop knows him more and he believes the gospel is true so... ya. We should be having a baptism this coming Sunday if all goes well. We still need permission from the parents and also the interview.

We had a few other interesting experiences this week. I think my favorite was while we were proselyting we came across a lady that was convinced we were the devil. Like.... she called us "Satan." It was pretty strange though because she was basing all her arguments on the fact that the Book of Mormon and our names on our tags are translated into Korean so we can't be right because it means different things. I thought it extremely strange when she said she believed the Bible but not the Book of Mormon. We had a small group of older women watching as we talked to this lady. It was really funny because I would glance at them and they would give us a big smile and kind of an apologetic look because this lady would never let us talk.

The work is still going good. Hard but still moving along. This gospel is true. That's why I'm out here. I love Korea. Korean language is coming along, it's getting more fun. Love you all, hope things are good.

new companion new area Elder Rockwood and I are in Chinhae poonghoe

2009-06-22T04:42:00.006-07:00

Wow, so our whole MTC district is now senior except for one sister because she didn't have to. Fun fun. This last week in 상인 was good but a little rough. Because of my companion, Elder 이태희's surgery on his foot we did a lot of sitting at home and studying. I'm all for studying for forever but it gets pretty boring pretty quick. I was sad to leave the ward. They were really good to me and very patient. We had a really nice area... but now I am very far from there. I am now in 진해/풍호 (chinhae/poonghoe.) I am with Elder Rockwood from Indiana. He is really good and we are very much alike. He went to Stanford and is pretty smart (That's our biggest difference) He is 4 transfers below me so we are not that far apart at all. I think it will be a good transfer for us. It may be interesting though because when we meet people they like to get to know us. We each bring some pictures representing who we are. In both of our sets of pictures we each have a picture of us riding camels, people may think that all Americans ride camels. Ha.

I am really excited for this transfer. We are the only Elder area to cover 2 wards so that should be interesting. We don't even really have sisters in our area although they may come here because of some investigators that they have(they just barely moved them out of the area.) Our area is right to the west of Busan. It is basically a bay surrounded with boats and ship building stuff, surrounded by houses/apartments, and surrounded by mountains. Its a pretty beautiful area. This last week the humidity just came rolling in which makes it really hot. It's not insanely bad though, still bearable. I think we will have a lot of fun and do tons of work this transfer. I'm really excited. Hope all is going well!

Culture warts and fire

2009-06-15T10:16:00.000-07:00

This week we had interviews with the Mission President. It is now 90% sure that this will be my last week as junior companion. I will probably have an American Junior and I will be the senior. Pretty exciting. I think it will be fun, quite the adventure.

Because of all the missionaries leaving this transfer, our 4 man houses will be a thing of the past. Next time you hear from me I will be with my next companion.

This week was good. We were able to go to a cultural dance/singing event at the university here. It was really cool. I consider myself at least somewhat knowledgeable about music but I honestly wouldn't have been able to tell if they were playing those instruments upside down and backwards. They were pretty fun. My favorite was this group of male dancers with drums and hats that had a long ribbon coming off a stick that twirled around. It is hard to explain but it was really neat. Korea has so much culture behind it. Many of the older generation are worried about the Korean culture being lost as Korea progresses. I feel this is true in many ways but there are still many everyday cultural things that differ from the US.

This week Elder 이 had 3 warts removed off the bottom of his foot. They told him to avoid walking as much as possible. I've done a lot of studying and splits with the other missionaries in the house.

One time Elder Asay and I were going to visit a member we haven't seen in a while who works in a fire station. We were on our way to the fire station when we saw a building billowing smoke out of it. It must have just started because no one was there yet. About 30 seconds after that came the sirens and the whole fire station to take care of the fire.

It wasn't very big but still our friend was a little busy at that time. We didn't know what to do besides watch for a little and then try to go visit someone else. Funny how that works. Well thanks for all the support. Anyone who has been debating on writing me a letter recently I am calling you to repentance. Any mail is appreciated. :) Thanks.Elder Anderson

Here buggy buggy

2009-06-07T20:45:00.000-07:00

Since being in Korea all my hopes and dreams of being a pro soccer player have been smashed.... However, I do believe that I would be pretty good in the NBA here of course. This week was pretty good. In one of our English classes a man showed up who comes every once in a while. He is a religion expert, well.... he knows a lot about different religions and thinks he is pretty cool because of it. We taught him a while ago and he told Elder Mckenna and me that we were spiritual babies.

Ha. I think it's funny when people try to convince me that I am wrong or that I don't really believe what I believe. You think that I would come to Korea, learn Korean, give up my life for two years, actually pay out of my own pocket to come here, and not first know that what I have is the truth? Come now. Anyway, he is pretty funny.

Currently our house consists of half Americans and half Koreans. Its pretty fun. A few days ago we were knocking doors. We were on the last door when out of nowhere this giant of a bug plopped itself right in front of the door. It was probably a good 3 inches long. When we would approach the door it would get into attack mode and start flapping its wings in anger. Elder 이태희 was pretty convinced that the bug was from the devil and that it was guarding us from getting into the door, we had to attack. We started throwing all sorts of paper at it and other things but it wouldn't move unless we got too close. We were just about to give up when I threw my pen at it and missed. I then wouldn't leave because I wanted my pen back. The garbage we threw was beginning to pile up when the door flew open pushing the pile and bug out of the way. A girl was leaving the house to go to school. We were a little stunned but quickly started introducing ourselves. She got her mom and we talked with her and gave her a pamphlet to read. When the door finally shut the bug was gone because it had failed its purpose and I was able to get my pen back. Success. Hope all is well back home. Elder Anderson

Time flies, you are the pilot

2009-05-31T19:49:00.000-07:00

Another week gone, another month gone, time flies. I'm already 10 months out! Wow. As Elder Uchtdorf said to us in the MTC "The bad new is time flies, the good news is that you are the pilot"

Recently we have been visiting a part member family. They have 2 daughters and a little boy. The 2 daughters aren't members. About a month or so ago the oldest girl was put into the hospital for about 1 week with a problem with her intestines. At that time we went and visited her many times. Through those visits and caring about her the Lord has softened her heart. Its really exciting and fun to so the Lords work going forth. The changes people make for what they know is right is amazing and it blesses them so much.

I love the work I love Korea. It's spiritual and fun. This week I weighed myself. When I came on my mission I weighed just over 180lbs. I then gained a little weight in the MTC as most people do and then lost a bunch since I have been in country. I am now 162lbs. That's over 20lbs since the MTC! No, it's not because I'm starving or anything like that. Its just that I had that much weight to simply loose. I probably will loose even more I'm guessing. I feel like I'm constantly eating though. I guess rice doesn't fatten you up very well. ha.

In Korea there are a few English phrases that everyone knows. One is " You are handsome boy." We get that a lot over here. I think the elders here go home still thinking that everyone thinks they are handsome. Ha. Little Jr high and high school girls love us. We had some follow us for probably a mile this week. Its really awkward sometimes. I'll admit it though. It's nice to have a bunch of little kids think you are great after a day of rejection. Good ol' Korea. Hope all is well back home. Good luck with being married Ben.

lost planner

2009-05-25T05:28:00.000-07:00

This week was good. I lost my planner which was pretty detrimental. We live from those things. I was able to go with Elder Asay (his grandparents live in my ward in Orem) to another area where he performed a baptism. It was really fun. I got to see Elder Wells for the first time in about 6 months I think. He has been on the Island for the longest time. He is now senior with a second transfer! Wow, that will be all of us once this big group leaves. I'm excited/scared and am doing everything I can to prepare for it.

We started meeting with a lady who has quite the interesting situation. She lived in the US for quite a while and converted while she was over there but never told her husband. She got back recently and now wants us to start teaching him. He is really cool its just that he works in an office building for another church. That is why she has yet to tell him. She wants us to just start teaching him and go from there. Kind of an awkward situation and I pray it doesn't blow up on anyone. He does seem interested though. We are teaching him both English and the Gospel.

BYU friends visit Teagu Korea

2009-05-18T03:24:00.000-07:00

Our city, Home sweet home

Noele and Hanna, BYU Choir and Wind Symphony

This week the Wind Symphony from BYU came and did a concert in our area. It was really fun because on Monday night we got to go with them and split off to random members houses to do family night. In the band I knew 4 people. The director, Hanna Bates, Noel Reed, and Courtney Moses. (not sure on the spelling of those listed) It was so cool to see them.

Our group went to a young married couple's house. They speak pretty good English so we didn't have to do much but just enjoy the English being spoke. Ha. It is so weird to understand everything. Even when a Korean speaks English you still don't get all of their thoughts so to understand someone who in not a missionary 100% was a little strange. We were also able to go to their concert on Tuesday night. We brought a few people including a man in his 70's who hadn't attended church for a long time. He really liked it.

At one point the symphony played a Korean traditional song that got most people in the audience to cry because of the feelings of trying to overcome suppression and all of Korean history that it represents. It was really good.

They also played a few American songs and other songs that I have played. It made me a little American-sick. It lead to a lot of talk about our countries with some members and this older member. It really makes me realize how much of a patriot I am.

This week I got to confirm Roshan a member of the church in sacrament meeting. It was really good and he is as excited as ever. The ward is really good with him. They all try out their English with him. Some people that I didn't even know spoke any English were talking with him. It's a bit of a hard situation but it's working out. The work is still chugging along. I love Korea. Keep praying for me. Especially the language. :) thanks. I don't know if its legal to ask for prayers but I need it. Love you all. Elder Anderson

May 10, 2009

2009-05-11T13:19:00.000-07:00

Stake Races: Caleb (Elder Anderson) is running in the red shorts and blue shirt.

random missionaries. Caleb is behind the guy with the guitar.

This week was a rather good week. It was the final week of the transfer and yes, I am with 이태희 again. By the way, if any one's computers can't read the Korean properly you should be able to download a program that allows you to do so. I guess that's also if you have the desire to read the Korean or if the question marks and money signs you may get instead make more sense, good for you.

We were able to go this week with our stake to the sports day. All the missionaries went and it was a big gathering for everyone. It was really fun. Most of the time was spent either eating or running relays. I guess they really like that. We also got a few Koreans together to play American Football. It's starting to warm up but it hasn't hit the real heat from what I have heard. The real heat comes with the storms and humidity. That should be fun. We started going on semi regular splits with one of the young men. He is really shy and just needs something to get him interested in the church. Elder 이 said that he has done this same thing before with a lot of success so we will hopefully be able to help him. I am really excited about this next transfer. Kind of scary though because there is a possibility that I go senior next transfer. Pray for me :)

Korea is amazing, I love it here.Love,Elder Anderson (if you send me anything make sure to write "Elder Caleb Anderson, there are a few Andersons in the mission)

from mom: We spoke to Caleb on Mothers day for about 2 hours. He is allowed two phone calls a year. Our next call is on Christmas. Caleb is well, positive, upbeat and his usual cheerful self. I asked him what he does when he gets homesick and he said he doesn't get home sick (stab?) He loves letters and packages. He said he gets the more packages than his companions. I reminded him that when he was 5 and I was packaging up some candy( Jelly bellies and other really cools stuff) to send to my sister Christina on her mission to Guatemala, I promised to send him a package a month when he went and it was then and there he determined to be sure to go on a mission.

Me translate?

2009-05-03T21:29:00.000-07:00

This week was full of big meetings. On Tuesday we had zone conference where we had some physical and mental health people come in and talk to us. Making sure we are all OK. The other thing was Stake Conference. We recently had our stake president go to the second quorum of the seventy so this was kind of an emergency stake conference. It was really good although i didn't quite understand most of it. President and sister Jennings talked along with Elder Evens, the area authority President. He was really good and talked a lot about less active work. Members are much more effective at that than we are so we appreciated it. It is something that President Monson has stressed recently. Roshan was able to make it to the last bit of it and then he went to visit some other Sri Lankans that are investigating the church. He is amazing. I had a strange experience with him.

We were talking and a Korean came up and started asking him some simple questions. Roshan doesn't know Korean so the Korean just kind of stared at me to translate. I have never really had that happen, usually they look to someone else but no one was there. Luckily it was pretty simple but I understood everything he said and could translate back what Roshan was saying. It was a pretty fun thing for me. Simple but fun. I've been learning a lot from Elder 이. We are doing well. Thanks for the support and prayers. Love you all. Elder Anderson

Baptism of Roshan

2009-04-26T21:04:00.000-07:00

Elder McKenna, Roshan and Elder Anderson

Elder Anderson and Elder E. Tay Hee (Elder Lee) (current companion)

Highlight of the week: Roshan's Baptism! It was on Saturday and was my team's first baptism since the start (about 6 months ago) It was really exciting. It was a humble gathering of 6 missionaries along with the bishop and ward mission leader. It was really good though. We did it all in English. Elder McKenna was able to baptize him. Roshan talks a lot about God's plan for him and how he has no idea how he really came to Korea but that it was God's plan for him. So much faith.

The rest of the week was good. We have been doing a lot of member work because we are both so new in the ward now. We were going around and visiting people one time this week and we were trying to cross a 5 lane highway. There was a light so it was fine but the problem was that there was a drunk man staggering his way to the middle of the road yelling at cars as they went by and around him. He was backing up a lot of traffic and causing quite the problem so Elder 이 went ahead and called the police. We were just going to walk away but he thought the police would get there in under 2 minutes and frankly I didn't have that kind of trust in the Korean police force. They'd be at lest 10 minutes in the US. He proved me wrong, about 30 seconds later there was a police car with it's lights on. They popped out of the car and semi-aggressively put him into the car. That's us doing our part in the community.

Here is something interesting for all readers. Pretty much every Korean knows who MacGuyver is. Turns out that the thing that we call a Swiss army knife to them is a MacGuyver knife. Well it's more like "Mik-gai-bu" in Korean. Fun stuff. Korean is really fun. It was nice to see McKenna again for the baptism. Thanks for the support.

From Elder Josh Bocchino's blog about the baptism: Saturday, we went up to Taegu (I'd never been there before). It's a HUGE city up north of Pusan, and is a major concentration point for the US military presence in Korea. My companion needed to go up to baptize a man he was meeting with before he transfered down to me. The man is named Roshan and is from Sri Lanka. He is sooooooooooo cool! He's maybe 30s or 40, and had to leave Sri Lanka due to the ethnic war that has been raging for years. His religious background is Roman Catholic. He used to be in the Sri Lankan military. He has so much faith and is thankful that the Lord led him to Korea to meet with us. He's so thankful to have found the Lord's Church. My testimony was definitely strengthened from meeting with him. It was a very humble but very spiritual baptismal service. Man, it pretty much made my week. Elder B

Don't worry mom, life is good

2009-04-20T08:37:00.000-07:00

It's really nice to have a Korean companion. Its pretty fun. I definitely wouldn't call him a hard companion by any means. I've been really blessed. Life is still going good, 이태희 is really fun. We both are teaching each other a lot with our languages. He only has 2 transfers after this so he is pretty good but not near to fluent in English so we struggle together.

(picture: Caleb with Elder McKenna)

I don't know if I told you this but I broke my glasses last transfer. Luckily it's way cheap to get new frames. I went to a store and they popped out my lenses had me choose new frames and put them in. All for under About $6. I was pretty excited and I like them. The BYU wind symphony is coming to Korea soon and so there are posters all over the churches. I was looking at one and I noticed Hanna Bates was on the picture! Ha, we wont be able to see them unless the whole ward goes together and we bring an investigator but that's OK. Is there anyone else I know in the group coming? The director does the tours to Europe (Don Peterson) so I know him as well. This week has involved a lot of Sri Lankans.

We meet with Roshan again and he will be getting baptized next week. We also set up an appointment to meet with him and some other Sri Lankans that other missionaries are teaching. That same day we were walking around and I saw an Indian-looking person so I went up and started talking. Sure enough he's from Sri Lanka as well! He even knows Roshan. He said he would be willing to meet us with Roshan. Roshan has a lot of respect in the small foreign community because of the type of person he is. Maybe that may be able to open some doors.

Yesterday we also had president interviews. I really like President Jennings. We talked a lot about my companion and the language. He always has amazing things to say. He is such an awesome person. Well, that's about it from me for this week. Hope everything is still going good. Thanks for the support. Love you all. Elder Anderson

pictures: 1)Elders Anderson, Clarke and Singleton (MTC comp)

2)Elders Robb, Anderson, Clarke

3)Elders Bocchino, Anderson, Clarke, ?

4) Our Orem Utah Korean Friend Julia and son Jaemin and husband make a special trip from Seoul to visit Caleb in Busan in February

6th companion- E. Tay Hee (Elder Lee)

2009-04-13T15:37:00.000-07:00

So..... for the second time we received a random call from presidentJennings and for the second time a drastic change occurred quickly. We had a mid-transfer split with another team. I am now with a Korean companion named 이태히 (Ee Tae He). The call came on Saturday and I am now with my new companion. It's going to be good I think. Forever more Elder McKenna will by my 2 week companion. My new companion is an older Korean. I think its going to be a good rest of the transfer. It was sad to see Elder McKenna leave, we got along really well but this is the plan for me. This means that in 5 transfers I have had 6 companions and I was with 1 for 2. Ha. I am definitely going to learn a lot. Roshan is doing well. We had general conference this last weekend and he was able to come to one of the sessions. He is so strong and has so much faith. He firmly believes that it is God's plan that he is here meeting us in the random country of Korea. Wow. Because we have been in a kind-of rush these last couple of days this letter is going to be short. Hopefully I have more time next week to read all your emails and what not. Thanks for the support. Elder Anderson

A great week in Teagu

2009-04-05T20:08:00.000-07:00

First of all I left my camera at the house because it is charging so no pictures this week, sorry. This week has been amazing. I really like Elder Mckenna. He is only 2 transfers older than me, he is still pretty good at the language and good at working. We get by most of the time. We are having a blast and working hard. We have done a lot of street contacting and are having a lot of success. The Lord blesses if you do your best. A couple of days ago we got 8 contacts, more than any other day on either of our missions. Not that stats matter, it's about how people progress.

We have one progressing investigator who got a baptismal date about a week before I came. He is incredibly prepared. He is from Sri Lanka and speaks very little Korean so we teach him in English. I Haven't done that since the MTC (Mission Training Center in Provo Utah). He has an amazing amount of faith and knows that God put him on this path for a purpose. He loves the Bible and I'm about 50 pages from finishing the whole things so it's fun to talk to him about that. Other than him we have one semi-progressing investigator. It's going to go really slow with him but everyone is different and that's OK.

Right now the weather is amazingly perfect. I'm enjoying it because from what I have heard this area is the hottest in Korea in the summers. Wahoo! Its going to be fun.

We are going to watch LDS General Conference this next weekend on the regular schedule because of translation time. I'm really really excited. Conference is amazing, hope you all enjoyed it! Life is good, language is still hard but coming, the Lord is really blessing us. We need it. ha. Thank you for all your prayers and support.

Transfer to Taegu new companion- Elder McKenna

2009-03-30T08:37:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-23T05:59:00.000-07:00

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

Trivia Night plans

2009-03-22T19:41:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-21T13:50:00.000-07:00

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

2009-03-09T07:45:00.000-07:00

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!

2009-03-01T22:39:00.000-07:00

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

1st week of the transfer- all is well

2009-02-22T21:48:00.000-07:00

The first week of the transfer went well. I'm really excited for our ward. We have 4 part-member families that we and the sister missionaries are really working with. Elder Rob has been really good. He is willing to help me out with the language whenever I need it. That happens to be often. He knows much about the language so I am going to try to learn from him. We have many goals this transfer and we're both excited.
This week we went and visited Elder Rob's convert from this area. He is a really solid guy. He is the only member in his family, we want to talk to his wife. She actually comes to church fairly often and he really wants her baptized. I love new members. This week we have been working with the sister missionaries. We talk to them about the ward and are trying to help them out.

Our investigator, "Luffy" as he likes to be called, is leaving for Busan University soon. We will hopefully be able to refer him to the missionaries in the area. He should be moving either this week or next. It will be sad to see him go. It's hard because we get really close to our investigators but life goes on.

The picture is from the massive fish market. I think it's the biggest in Busan. It's really nice, for a fish market. These are live sting rays. I think the coolest/weirdest thing is seeing people buy a few eels, skinned in a bucket still trying to get out. Ya... haha. I love Korea!

A Foreign companion

2009-02-16T08:52:00.000-07:00

Pictures: Singing "Let it Be", Fish Head soup, Elders Rob, Anderson, Clarke.

Ha, I bet you all thought my new companion would be Korean, but no. He's Australian. His name is Elder Rob. He has been out about a year and a half. He actually served in this area about 6 months ago for a transfer, now he is back. I'm really excited. Elder Snyder served with him in this area and loved it and I trust Snyder so I'm excited.

We spent pretty much all Preparation-day at the mission home which is really fun because we can see people we haven't seen for a long time. This past week was pretty busy. We went around and said alot of "good bye's." Elder Clarke will be home Wednesday. We had a kind-of Valentines party at the church on Saturday. It was way fun. It was basically just a music festival.

The Elders and the sisters sang "I will follow him" from the movie "The Sister Act". It was really fun. At the end they busted out the Karaoke for anyone to sing. It was so funny and interesting to hear older Koreans get us and sing Korean songs out of the 70's. Not quite the oldies I remember, but it was fun. We as missionaries got up and sang "Let it Be" by the Beetles. It was awesome. Koreans seem to really like Karaoke. It's definitely an Asian thing. I look forward to this transfer. Thanks for all the prayers and support. Love you all. Elder A

2009-02-08T20:52:00.000-07:00

This week was another good week. I think that the most exciting thing was that the sister missionaries asked me to baptize their investigator. Well... the investigator asked me. It was really good. It happened yesterday. She is a 14 year old girl, the hardest thing was the prayer. It was my fist baptism. Anyway.

Our investigator came to church again and watched the baptism. We were really excited about that. He still has a bit to go though. It's really exciting to see him progress and to change his life for the better. I love seeing the gospel work in peoples lives. This week I am kind of preparing for the "death of Clarke" (meaning his companion will complete his 2 years of service and go home). I will have to know the area pretty well, I am still working on it. We have had a few run-ins with some foreigners as of late. It's really strange. This one time we were walking down the road and crossed a small 4 way stop. While crossing we here to the left of us someone yelled "HEY MORMONS!" from a distance.

We both were a little stunned and we saw this white guy kind of jogging toward us. He apologized for the frank introduction and it even turns out his name was Frank. What a coincidence. He just wanted to tell us that he appreciated what we were doing even though he didn't have any interest in our church. It was pretty funny and surprising. Sometimes we get used to being the only ones that speak English. This next week should be interesting. Next time I write I may have my new companion or at least know who it will be. Exciting. Love you all.

Elder Anderson

Bump- My 1/4 mark of my mission

2009-02-01T21:34:00.001-07:00

6 months gone away. It's pretty crazy to think that I have already gone through 1/4 of my mission. Ha, definitely cannot speak this language yet but it's coming. I still need a lot of help though. I didn't really do anything except go to Outback Stake House to celebrate. It was fun because Elder Singleton (My MTC companion) was there plus it was both of our senior's 2 year mark. It was all sorts of fun. A lot of missionaries burn a tie or something like that but I didn't. I'm glad to hear that you did things for it. You're so lucky to be able to go to the temple whenever you want. From here it is a solid 5 hours to get to the Seoul temple.

The biggest thing that happened this week was our investigator came to church finally! It was pretty exciting. We taught him on Saturday a lot about the sabbath day and what we do. The spirit was so strong that when we finally got around to asking him again if he would come to church I kind of just knew he would. It was really good. He is really shy though so he just tagged along with us the whole time. The ward was great to him and really made him feel welcome. Well.... except one member that kind of attacked him when he found out that was his first time. It was overall good and he said he liked it. Progression! Ever so slowly but that is the way to go. I am really excited for him. Life is good here in Korea. I love the work. Thanks so much for the support and prayers.Elder Anderson

Thumbs up for Korea

2009-01-29T22:41:00.001-07:00

I got this from Elder B's blog! Caleb is on the far left giving a "thumbs up"

Solar- The Lunar New Year

2009-01-28T06:48:00.001-07:00

Sorry for the slight delay but this week was one of the biggest holidays in Korea called Solar. It celebrates the lunar new year. It is 3 days long and most Koreans go to visit both sides of the family. Its pretty crazy how packed the roads are. Everyone in Korea was on the move trying to travel. We did a lot of eating with members over the 3 days. The main day we had P-day and so we went with a bunch of missionaries to a college and played sports, mostly American football. It was really fun.

We usually get a bowl of their traditional soup along with other random foods. It's pretty good. I just barely starting to like the traditional rice drink that they serve all the time. Its pretty fun to be in the middle and a part of this culture. This is also somewhat of a memorial day for them where they go their ancestors graves and do little ceremonies to respect them. The main day was on Sunday so church was only sacrament meeting. Everyone is gone to see their family.

Family is so important to Koreans. Whether they are passed away or not everyone seems to have a lot of respect for family. Genealogy is something that is really big. I have heard multiple times of people getting baptized and having over 1,000 years of records of there family. It's been a really good week. We went and knocked doors this one time and I got a solid door slammed in my face. Its a pretty rare thing here because of the cameras at every door so they can just not talk to us if they choose. I had this one old grandpa that didn't look at his camera and just opened the door. I started to introduce us and as soon I said Jesus Christ he opened the door a little more and then gave it a hard slam that shook the floor we were on. Elder Clarke and I just sat there for a second and then just busted up laughing. I don't know why it was so funny but it was. This work is fun but hard. I love it. I hope all is well. Elder Anderson

deer, drivers and classes

2009-01-18T19:24:00.000-07:00

Hello from the great hanguk. This week has been good. We met again with our investigator and he said that he will try to come to church the week after Solar (This Sunday) so he should be coming in about 2 weeks. We are really excited about that. This week we did a lot of organizing of records for our area. We have records of people back to 1998 spread out so we compressed them all into one giant folder, so it is much easier. We started a writing class and that has been going well. They think I'm amazing at English. Well, compared to them I guess I am but they still correct my spelling. Ha. Our normal English class in on Saturday and our writing one is on Tuesday. In our normal class we have a variety of people show up so we needed to separate into 2 groups. I taught the more advanced class and basically just free talked and tried to get them to talk. There was one man that showed up that liked it and seemed pretty interested in the church. Hopefully he comes more and we can talk about it.

We saw deer!! Out of our window! We live right next to a fairly seep mountain and about 100 yards out we saw some little Korean deer. It was quite exciting. Wildlife is pretty rare out here. This week was the first time I went with the branch president to visit less active members and it was quite the experience. I really like him, he is a solid member and really cares for people. He works as a police officer so when I got in his car I didn't quite expect to run 4 stoplights, no seat belt, and all the other crazy driving. Korea is definitely not quite as safe on the roads as the US. You are required to be licenced and there are laws, but no one really enforces it. Kind of interesting. Pretty much everyone runs stop lights if no one is coming, I have seen cars get honked at if they don't run the lights. Ha ha.

Speaking of driving. I was in a bus a few days ago and this little yellow car squeals past us going the other way, fish tails, and comes to a stop in the middle of the road. We were at a stop light so I got to see a man with a clip board jump out of the passenger side, run around the car in the middle of the road, and kick the kid out of the drives seat. I don't think he will be getting his licence any time soon. Some things about Korea are a little different but everyday I see things and think that we are really the same. Same emotions, feelings, thoughts, etc. We all really are children of God. I hope all is well back home. I love it out here. It's hard but rewarding.Elder Anderson

mom: from Caleb's questions this week I learned: He is assigned to one branch, they are encouraged to teach families, the temperature is right around freezing, not too bad. His companion is Elder Clarke, is from Riverton and runs track for UVU, red hair, taller, "everyone likes him" "willing to do."

a favorite saying of Caleb's: "kae kit hal suie sumnida" it means "can be clean" like from sin or your apartment.

Week 2 in my new area (gwae jung) Elder B and Elder Clark is the one with the red hair

2009-01-11T19:21:00.001-07:00

I am now a week into this transfer. It has gone pretty well so far. I really like the ward and the area. My first week in church was good. Every time we leave or come into an area we give a short testimony/get to know you talk in sacrament meeting. It went well, Korean is still coming along. We have one investigator that we are teaching but we can only meet him once a week. He is really cool and seems to really like what we have to say. The next step for him is to get him to start coming to church. That is so important for people. Many people think that going to church is just a place where good words are said and we sing but its so much more than that. The sacrament is so important and we really go there to learn. A lot of things are repeated but I think every week I realize something more and things hit me in different ways. It's an amazing time to just stop from the world and focus on spiritual things.

I really like our district. I think its going to be a good transfer. Right now Elder Clarke and I are working on organizing records for missionaries so we know where people actually are. Korea recently changed the way it does addresses so we need to go through and re find people. There aren't nearly as many apartments here as my last area so it is a lot harder to find members we can visit. It will be good though. I am still getting used to the new area but I really like it thus far. Things are going well here. I hope all is well with everyone back home.Elder Anderson

PS from mom: I asked Caleb some questions and here is some more information:

He lives on the 8th floor, the apartment isn't as nice as the last one. He sees a mountain out of his window. They are on the edge of a valley. He doesn't usually come home for lunch as they have to climb a big hill to get home. His companion Elder Clarke is from Riverton. Pictures to come in the next week or two.

Transfer... New Companion... Elder Clarke and I am 21!

2009-01-05T06:32:00.000-07:00

When I eat the soup on new years day, I turn a year older. I am 21 in Korea but 19 at home.

Well I'm out of 해운대. It was a lot of fun but I'm moving on along. Elder Snyder and Mikkelsen are now together in the same area but I have moved South. I am now about an hour by subway in Southern Busan. The area is called 괴정 (gwae jung.) I am now with Elder Clarke who is in his last transfer so I will be "killing" him. I am really excited. Anyway, most of my week was still spent in my last area. It was a really good week. Our investigator set a baptismal date which we were really excited for but then the next day didn't come out to church. The lady from English Class came to church again and will now start meeting with the sisters. I hope things go well for them. I decided Koreans seem to be very blunt about things. For example: In English Class a lady randomly told me that I would be more handsome if I got plastic surgery. It was really funny but I did not know what to say to that. i just stared into a corner and suppressed a laugh. Also one of our members gave me a going away present that is lotion that will supposedly get rid of my birthmark. Ha. Thanks but I like it.

Anyway, I still love them but it is definitely a different culture. I'm really excited about serving with Elder Clarke. I was defiantly spoiled in my last are but this is more of what Korea supposedly is. It's kind of strange because I have grown attached to that ward and our investigators and now I am switching everything around and will be serving in the same way but different place. It's hard to explain but I am ready to start up. I love the work. Thanks for all the Christmas things from so many people. I appreciate the support so much. Missionaries live off mail. Thanks again.Elder Anderson

2008-12-30T13:35:00.000-07:00

Wow, time really does fly. It's already the last week of this transfer. What is really crazy is that the Elders that are leaving this transfer are leaving a week early for school stuff. It has been so strange to see people leave. Elder Bocchino's companion Elder Hinton left this morning with his parents. Crazy. "The bad thing is that time flies. The good thing is that you are the pilot"-Elder Uchdorf.
So life goes on. I am probably going to be transferred this week out of 해운대 because I am young and have been here for 2 transfers. The younger missionaries move around a lot more. I will miss it. I have been spoiled here. I have no clue where I will go but I did have a dream that I was going to the big island. :) But I was disappointed to find out that many missionaries have had that same dream. Darn.
I believe I talked about English class last email. Well along with that a lady that I have been trying to get to come to church or meet with us randomly showed up to church this week! It was really cool and the other sisters in the ward were really nice to her. She is 45-50 years old and really good at English. I guess she has traveled a lot. A few weeks ago she just randomly showed up to English class and had a lot of questions about our church. She really wanted to go to church but due to her circumstances it was too early. We had stressed it last week and she ended up coming! I really hope us or the sisters can start meeting with her. She is really nice and seems to be willing to try it out. Our other 2 investigators are still progressing. There are so close. I think that it is only a matter of time before both are baptized. I will probably be gone by then but that's OK. It's defiantly not my work. We are just tools.

Elder Anderson

It's the Little Things

2008-12-23T08:37:00.000-07:00

my bed and my new invention: Light switch

So..... Both our investigators canceled with us all this week. One of them came to church and said he is doing really well with the word of wisdom so that gives us some excitement. We have another progressing family. The father is a member but hasn’t been active for about 15 years. He basically is a non member though. For example he didn't know we don’t drink and things like that. The family is very nice and quite wealthy. He is a plastic surgeon and has already brought us to 2 different really nice restaurants. Wow, it's really nice to be in 해운대. I will be sad to leave when I do. Let’s see.... we teach a free English class twice a week at our church for whoever wants. They are on Tuesday and Saturday. We actually have a really good class that shows up. We get between 10 and 20 people. Because it is 해운대 everyone speaks really good English that comes. I usually teach most of the hour. I really like it because it is basically just telling stories in English and explain what people don’t know. I tell all sorts of stories. Lately I have told a lot of winter stories like snowmobiling and snow ball fights. It gets insanely cold here but it doesn't snow. We also try to get anyone in the class to tell stories to practice their English. It’s pretty fun. Something I have taken to realize this week is all the small miracles we see. They are sometimes so small that they could easily be pushed out as nothing but they are so important. For example, yesterday we had a long subway ride. There was a young couple next to me staring at my name badge. I took it off and gave it to them and explained what I could about our church. It was really fun because Elder Snyder was right next to me whispering things to say to them. Eventually they were so interested that Elder Snyder and I switched places. They were writing notes down of the stuff we were saying and they gave us their number. It was really fun and cool but its just one of those simple miracles where someone finds us. If we hadn’t decided to actually go where we were going we wouldn’t have met them. Things like that make this work worth it. I love it here.

Elder Anderson

2008-12-14T11:10:00.001-07:00

our missionaray Christmas card.
































I only have 30 minutes because we got permission to go to a local amusement
park today so I will get right into it. This week has been really good. We had
zone conference where we got our new rule books from President Jennings and a
few things were announced. Apparently it is now world wide policy that all
companionships get a cell phone! This is going to be amazing for us and I'm
sure other missionaries as well. The Korean people are so dependent on their
cell phones and when we don't have one we miss a lot of things. We are really
happy about it and I'm sure it will only help the work. We will get them in
about a month or so. Our Investigators are doing good. The one we inherited is
still having problems with the word of wisdom so we will have to move his
baptismal date. The Other one that found us is doing great. We are still
teaching him but unfortunately we can only meet with him once a week. We are
trying to figure out a way that we can meet with him more often. He should be
able to come to church next week because his wife and baby will be back. This
week we also got a change in the bishopric. The new Bishop will be amazing. We
already work with him a lot. He devotes so much time to the church, he said that
we can expect more calls from the ward now. We are more than willing to help him
out in anything. Overall it has been a great week. We are already starting the
4Th week of the transfer! Wow, time flies. I love the work. Thanks for the
support

Love,

Elder Anderson

I'm feeling success

2008-12-07T22:17:00.000-07:00

Hello from Korea! It has been a really good week. First news with our investigator that we inherited. He is doing well but has a smoking problem still so we will probably have to move his baptismal date back a few weeks. I really hope all goes well. As for our other investigator that we just barely got, he is doing great. I couldn't believe how prepared to here the Gospel he is. It's incredible how much the spirit works on people. He is really accepting to everything we have taught so far and has asked a lot of questions. He still cannot come to church for a few weeks but we are look forward to it. I'm excited.
This week we have done a bit of bus traveling. As some of you know it is really hard for me because of motion sickness. At one point I really thought I was going to blow but luckily a seat at the front of the bus opened us with a window. Whew. Our threesome is going well. We are figuring out how to work effectively and we really worked hard this week. I really do love this work. Sorry for the short letter but we don't have much time this week. Thanks for the prayers and the support.

Elder Anderson

A Threesome now

2008-11-30T21:18:00.001-07:00

Wow, lots of things have happened this week. First of all we are now in a threesome. It's really odd for Elders to be in a threesom but there was an odd number of missionaries and president decided to put him with Elder Snyder and me. His name is Elder Mikkelsen. He is from Ogden I think. We are all tall, white, and balding (from mom- they must have let the rain touch their hair). Haha. He is 6' 4", Elder Snyder is 6' 2" and I am 5' 11". At our height it is somewhat hard to proselyte without scaring people on the street. We are still working out how do get things done but I think it will go well.

We call ourselves a pack rather a companionship. No more companionship meetings, now we have pack meetings. I feel like I'm back in cub scouts! It should be quite the experience. We have not been able to go out and find people like we were able to but I believe the Lord makes up for what we can't do.

We have an amazing investigator that actually found us this week! His parents are Buddhist but lately he has been wondering about God. He is 30ish, married, and just barely had a little girl. He decided to look into religion and started listening to a Christian radio show. He then heard about us through a friend's friend and decided to stop wondering and actually do. He called us at one of the only times we were at the church teaching English. Elder Snyder answered the phone and he asked if he could somehow meet us and find out about our church. Like we would say "no" to that!? We met him on Saturday. We taught the first discussion and answered some questions of his. He is really good at English but we are still told to teach him in Korean because that is his native language. He says he drinks but wishes he didn't have to. In Korea drinking is how you get to be friends with your boss and get promoted. It's just what you do but he says he hates it. He seems like a very sincere man and we hope he sees how the Gospel can bless him. Unfortunately he cannot come to church for the next 3 weeks because his wife is taking care of their baby in another city with her parents. A pretty good excuse if you ask me. We are looking into seeing about going to church there. That would be really nice.

We had a sudden meeting at the mission home for all the close areas because the head of the Korean department at BYU, and probably the most knowledgeable man about Korea in the US came and spoke. It was amazing. He talked about Korean religions and how we can build on what people already know. I love hearing people like him who have a PHD from Harvard and just amazingly smart, talk about religion and feeling. He really made us feel like the religion barriers that appear there aren't really barriers but bridges. I read a short easy book that I really liked called "Drawing on the Powers of Heaven" It was amazing and I really liked it if anyone is interested. Its only like 100 pages but it is really powerful. Anyway. I love it here. Thank you for all your prayers and support. I hope all is well.

Elder Anderson

I am staying put for this transfer!

2008-11-24T09:26:00.000-07:00

The big news of the week is that it is transfer week! That means I have already been here for a whole transfer. So here is the news. I am staying with Elder Snyder another transfer. Our area has been moved to a 2 man area instead of the 4 man it was. Elder Snyder is our district leader.

Elder Bocchino is still in my district and Elder Wells has been moved clear our to jejudo. That was a shock for everyone I think. Jejudo is a beautiful Island in our area but they speak basically another language from what I hear. Elder Wells will do great. Because our house now only has 2 people I think we are going to be able to be a lot more focused. I'm really excited for this transfer. When a team gets closed they naturally give all there investigators and what not to the other team. So we got an investigator that I have never met but has a baptismal date. Haha. From what I hear he is pretty shy. That's all I really know about him. We will see how that goes.

Thanks for the package by the way. I especially liked the Tarragon. haha.This last week I read a really neat book that I would suggest to anyone. It's called "The Book of Mormon on Trial" It's really good and a really easy read. It is a cartoon book about a trial with the Book of Mormon and it goes through a court of law and proves the book of Mormon is correct. Really cool. The author actually did it in college while getting his law degree. Anyway. I suggest it to anyone if you can find it. We gave the book to a member that is really good at English and she read it in a week. She has been really hurt twice by other religions so she is always skeptical about everything, we actually really like it because she is willing to ask questions. After reading it she said that she never understood how people could cry while bearing testimony of the Book of Mormon but now she understands. It was really cool. The book does not make a testimony, it only strengthens.

We should be pretty busy this week because of suddenly being a 2 man area but it should be good. Thank you for everything you have done. Thanks for the letters and prayers. Elder Anderson

traditions

2008-11-16T19:35:00.000-07:00

This week has been great. We got a new investigator this week! He is a referral from some other missionaries, we hope it goes well. He is about 45 and is interested in the gospel. Many Koreans follow the crowd with religion. One of the biggest things for us is to get over that our church is a small church. People look at that and say, "Wow, not many people must like that church." If we came out here and set up a huge church on the top of a hill we would get so many people coming to church. It's a good thing we don't actually. I don't think God is trying to win a popularity contest with the other churches. That is why this investigator is different. He said that he doesn't like how churches here are big and each pastor is different. Yep, that's us. We are small and we teach the same thing all over the world. He is going to bring his son who is our age to our next meeting. I'm excited for him.

We also found a man on the streets that was going to buy some beer and we ended up talking to him for about half an hour and he ended up not buying beer but bought us lemonade. Haha, He didn't seem too keen to meet us again but we left him with our number and hopefully he decides to see.

Koreans are very superstitious. There are things that we wouldn't even think of that they get all upset about. For example, if you burn something, black charcoal gives you cancer. Or you can't sleep with the fan on because you can die.

I don't know where they get this stuff but it's fun. I really love the Korean people. They are a really nice people. They work so hard too. Wow, it is so hard to find a father at home because they always work. They have made a lot for themselves in an extremely short amount of time. This place is still developing like crazy. You can still see some of the 3rd world country that this used to be. I have heard it said a few times that Korea is a 3rd world country that was thrown into the 21st century. It's funny sometimes because you will see a grandma walking down the road and she looks like she is just living on the streets but then she will pull out a cell phone and start chatting away. haha.

Some foreigners in our ward are moving away this week back to the USA. The called us up and asked if we wanted any of the foreign food. We came home with a few bags worth of food like cheese and pickles and peanut butter. Wow. We made tacos last night. So rare in Korea. Anyway, I'm loving it here and the gospel is still going out to the world.

4 Weeks in Korea!!!

2008-11-09T19:18:00.000-07:00

I cant believe I have been out here for 4 weeks! I am now starting to get used to some of the weird things about the mission and the country. I really do love it here. My area is called Heyenda, it is probably the richest part of Pusan so I really do not have it bad at all. It is full of people. The beginning part of this week was pretty tough. We knocked on so many doors and no one would even open them. About half way though the week we decided to go out further from the main city where there hasn't been a lot done. We prayed about where to go and decided to go to this one apartment that was really far away. We went all the way over and found some apartments that have been amazing. We have contacts that we are going to go visit and all sorts of people are letting us in. Its about a 30min walk from where we live, the people are so nice.

It turns out they are full of army personnel. That explains why they all seem to know quite a bit of English. We are so happy the Lord led us to somewhere that would give us a chance and we hope that we will see some more success there. We currently have 2 investigators but neither are really progressing. One of them is getting a hold of some anti material which is really depressing. We are able to answer anything she has given us but she won't stop looking. Heyenda is really nice for me because most the ward and our investigators speak really good English so if i just can't think of it in Korean I can say it in English and they understand. I'm honestly pretty spoiled here.

Here is something interesting: Koreans don't use A B C D E F G when dealing with music. They use Do Ray Me Fa So La Te. It makes sense, they don't use our alphabet but I just never though about it. "Ray sharp" just sounds so strange. Ha ha.
The work is going well and I really do love it. I hope all is well and I appreciate your prayers and support. Love you all! Elder Anderson

random pictures from Korea

2008-11-06T20:46:00.001-07:00

This was part of the first day's activities.... a photo scavenger hunt. Caleb had to have his picture taken with a grandma. When he explained what he was doing (I am not sure if he explained or someone else did) she grabbed him for the picture.
Street tracting.......

An investigator gave Caleb an umbrella, it's a good thing, did you know in Korea the rain makes your hair fall out!

New Horizon

2008-11-03T07:33:00.002-07:00

This week has been good. The highlight of this week was the group New Horizon. They are a singing group of missionaries that went to Korea about 30 years ago. They got back together recently and toured Korea giving firesides and we were a stop. We were lucky enough to have them come to our ward. One of the members of the group came to our Gospel principles class (taught mostly in English for foreigners) and talked about the group. He said that there mission president did a survey to find out how many Koreans actually knew the name of our church. 7%. He wanted a way to boost that so he got together some missionaries that could sing and play instruments well and had them start singing and talking about our church with people. Apparently it was a huge success. The got on Radio and Television. Each time they were on they would tell everyone that they were Mormon missionaries and that all Mormon missionaries were tall, white, and loved Kimchee. He talked about people letting missionaries into their house saying, "Ya, I saw you on TV, come in" The president then did the same survey and 70% of Koreans new our church after that. I kindofwish we had something like that today. They all were there for our sacrament meeting and it really donned on me. This is really going to be with me all my life. It was fast Sunday and many of the members of New Horizons got up and talked about there amazing time here and how Korea has always been apart of their lives. Elder Snider and I were talking about it and its just strange that we will eventually be there. 50 year old returned missionaries with only a memory. I will use my time I have to the best of my abilities. The work is hard but I love it.Everything is well, the work goes on.

thanks for your comments and guest book notes, I forward them to Caleb!

2008-10-31T19:55:00.000-07:00

He loves hearing from everyone!