deer, drivers and classes

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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