Week #2 - Provo MTC

Family and Friends,

So the week started off with Thanksgiving.  They had a super cool dayplanned for us so that was dope. After breakfast and class we hadthanksgiving lunch (whatever that means) and it was decent.Definitely wasn't a Thanksgiving at Grandma Rass's house but it wasokay, and at least they tried to offer us a similar experience haha.We had turkey and stuffing and potatoes and stuff but I think half ofit was fake... who knows.  But I'm happy we all got some of the foodbecause it at least felt like Thanksgiving. And then after that we dida service project and I'll post a picture of us at it at the bottombut we made small meals for families that were in need and for hungrychildren! And it was so fun! We like formed assembly lines andeveryone added an ingredient and then the last people taped andpackaged everything. And my district was the first one done... I meanwhat can I say? Haha but it was really fun and humbling.  As an MTCtotal we made 359,000 meals! So then later we went to the devotionaland Elder Neil L. Anderson gave a really cool talk and the coolestthing he said was "If you're struggling with forgiving yourself forpast sins or you don't feel adequate, forget about yourself and go towork and serve!"  It was so good and I needed to hear it.  He thenpromised that if we did this, we'd feel the love and forgiveness fromour Savior. and then at the end he was going around shaking people'shands and he got like 5 feet away from me and my comp but he didn'tshake our hands. Stressful. I was hoping he'd see my name tag and thenwe'd have a moment or something but nevertheless it didn't happenhaha.  But yeah the devotional definitely made up for the port excuseof a Thanksgiving dinner.   And then after we watched the "Light theWorld" video and we were the first people to see it! It's one of thenewest videos on LDS.org and it challenges us to like the world andfocus on a different characteristic of Christ everyday!  The video isreally good so everyone go watch it and join us in the 25 dayadventure to come closer to our Savior.  During this devotional, theMTC choir sang Come Thou Fount, the same version Mac Wilberg composefor the Mormon Tabernacle Choir and it gave me the chills.  Music isstill my favorite thing in the world.  Except now I love hymns insteadof J Cole and Young Thug.
So after that we kind of had a normal week of getting up and eatingbreakfast, exercising, studying, classes, lunch, classes, dinner andthen more studying haha.  Surprisingly we aren't going to have anyculture classes which is disappointing but I'd imagine my first weekin Africa will be my culture class.  We had two really gooddevotionals though so I'll share the thoughts I had from each ofthose.  The first was by Stephen B Allen, the Managing Director of theMissionary Department,  and the big thing I got from that was when hesaid "If you're having trouble forgiving yourself, SHAME ON YOU, forthinking that YOU performed the Atonement!"..... this like shook me inmy seat.  I was still thinking this way even after Elder Andersonstalk so this was an amazing reassurance.  And such a profoundstatement!  And then the next Devo was last night but Jorges B.Zepallos and he taught that we don't invite people to "go" to Christbut to "come" to Christ. So we need to be as close as we can to ourSavior at all times. And as Elder's, it's our responsibility toproudly and worthily represent the name of our Lord that we literallywear on our chest every day.  I've felt the spirit so much and it hitme hard that I need to be as obedient as I can and come close toChrist myself.  And then after that devotional we were talking as adistrict and we had Brother Ricks (of our branch presidency) who isalso related the the Ricks that Ricks College was named after. Andhe's friends with Steve Young.... crazy. Anyways he was talking to usand reviewing the devotional and for some reason he started talkingabout the first chapter in Moses when God appears to him and tells himthat he is God's son and was formed in the similitude of his onlybegotten son. And then when Satan appears to him right after and tellsMoses all this stuff about how he isn't good enough and tries todeceive him and make Moses worship him.  he declares Satan to "getthee hence" for he is a son of God formed in the similitude of Christ,the only begotten son! And Satan roars and weeps and cries throughoutthe land because of it.  As Brother Ricks told this story it allfinally hit me.   I had been praying to know that I was supposed to behere and to know I was adequate enough and worthy enough to serve theLord.  I finally realized that my prayer was answered through thesethree people that taught me.  I realized all the thoughts ofinadequacy and unworthiness were from Satan.  After the devotionalreview last night I felt so happy and knew the Spirit was helping methrough this mental struggle of mine.  Really builds my testimony thatif we pray with real intent like Moroni teaches in Moroni 7:6,9 thatGod will answer us.  I finally felt that influence in my life stronglyand now I know that God loves us.  Such a cool week now that I lookback on it.  Another cool thing we watched was Elder David A Bednar'sstory of the 20 mark bill in Germany.  If you haven't seen it youshould watch it.  He tells an amazing story about how we can't alwaysworry about feeling the spirit but just go to work, be obedient, andcome close to Christ and we'll look back and notice the Spiritsinfluence on our lives.  Crazy that the same week I heard him saythis, I learned it for myself.  The church is true haha.  Love it.
Anyways, on a less serious note, I've kind of started to eat a lot offood.  The other day we had Subway cater our lunch and they just gaveout 6 in subs and told us to take one.... I ended up eating 4 and thenfinished off my companions..... and had a few bags of chips.  And thento make it even better the next day for dinner there were two options,either bacon hamburgers or personal pizzas.... I had 1 1/2 personalpizzas and a hamburger and the dessert... I was so happy.
Also this week I had a chance to give my first priesthood blessing toa sister in our district.  She hadn't been feeling well and wasgetting pretty sick and I just gave her a simple blessing that she'dbe comforted to sleep and that the sickness would pass speedily.  Itwas really cool! Amazing how I'm 18 and am still pretty immature butcan still use the power of the priesthood to help a sister in need.And I'm happy to say she's been feeling way better recently!
In other news I shaved my legs from the knee down for the first timein my life last week. I don't know if I shared that in my last emailbut now you know haha.  Good bonding moment for the elders in ourgroup as 5 of us participated.  A Picture will be attached.
It snowed here! Snow ball fights break out at random times and it'sreally fun to just chuck one at some kid I see. Hahahaha just to do mypart in the festivities.  Makes me miss throwing water balloons atcars. And throwing the football around.
It was super cool seeing The Connor Rockwood here! For those of youwho don't know, he was one of Austins companions in Spain and now heworks at the MTC here in Provo.  It was so crazy and out of nowherebut I'm glad he got to send a snap chat home to you guys!  He's socool.
Despite what I said in my first email, I've really come to love mycompanion.  When I got over the little things that annoyed me, I juststarted to try to learn as much as I could about him and we have somuch in common from our taste in music, to an amazing appreciation forspace and the mysteries of the cosmos! We've had long convos aboutspace and how science and the gospel are very different but when youthink about it they go well together! Also listened to a talk about itin Sunday during our spare time and it was awesome. So yeah I love mycompanion a lot and love my district so much. There are no hardfeelings and it's just always a loving and happy environment.  Whilewe're on the subject, Elder Aldous and I have realized soooo manyweird similarities between us.  Like it's crazy. I don't wanna take hetime to explain all of them but from music, to favorite movies andcandy and sofa and foods, to weird songs we know about, to How we bothover analyze everything, to weird mutual friend connections and wejust always like think the same things. It's crazy. But so cool. He'san amazing missionary too. All of my districtis.
We finished teaching Leyla and we committed her to live the Word ofWisdom so that was cool! And now we have two new TRC investigators.Samuel and Kouji. Kouji is a Buddhist.... with no Christianbackground. So it has been hard but kinda fun to teach him. He's likean Asian uncle Matt haha. Love it.
Fun fact, Elder Aldous and I planned a road trip to drive up toWelling in Canada to hang out with Elder Bullock after we get off themission.  Like it isn't an idea, it's a plan. So that'll be fun.
Also saw 12:34 a few times this week.... still haven't figured outit's meaning. Stay tuned.
Well sorry for the long email. If you made it to this point i commendyou and appreciate your patience with my way of writing.  Sorry forthe scattered ideas but I hope you understand how cool this week wasand overall how fun the MTC has been for me.  I'm so happy that I'mhappy.  Haha and as a lot of you know, I love talking about thehappiness this gospel brings.  It's been fun to already practiceteaching it! You guys all stay in my prayers and I hope that all isgoing well!  Thank you so much for the packages and the emails lastweek. It all means so much to me and I can't thank you enough for allthe support.  Elder Johnson (my companion) and I just saw an updateabout our mission and they had 86 baptisms last week..... whaaaaat.The church is growing so much and it's so cool to see how it canchange lives even with just a little bit of faith.  We all fall shortbut through Him we can have eternal life and eternal happiness.
God bless!
-Elder Anderson.
I will admit it's weird. It hearing my first name. Reminds me of thebeginning of each football season when we had to write our last nameson our helmets so the coaches could tell who was who.
Okay now for some pictures.

Elder B and Elder Myers

Elder B Provo Temple

Packing meals Thanksgiving 2016

The District Provo MTC

You Will Be Here!!

Elder Anderson with former Elder Rockwood!

Elder Anderson ran into a former mission companion of his brother, Austin.  Conner Rockwood served in Madrid with Austin and now works at the Provo MTC.  Got this picture this morning. 

Elder B and Conner R.

MTC week 1 recap

Hello everyone sorry it's been a while since you heard from me. My district lucked out and had to wait the whole week for our P day lol.  So the first couple days were insane.   And not necessarily in a good way.  It was such a change from my life of watching Netflix until 4:00 am and sleeping in until noon.  But weirdly enough, I love following a schedule.  And even though this first week has been a huge change, I have been able to stay focused in all my classes which is crazy because my attention span usually is very small.  So that's been a huge blessing that I've already started to see.
So my companion, He's from Brigham City and his name is Taylor (Elder) Johnson.  I will admit that when he walked in my first impressions told me we were not going to get along.   He's kind of like a not good mix of Uncle Matt and Tanner.  And has a higher pitched voice and was super in to drama
and acting in high school.   Like he was in 12 productions and took a couple of them to state acting.  Seriously could not have been more polar opposite from myself.  But I put all that aside and it hasn't bothered me at all!  We've been able to accept our differences and help each other learn and grow as missionaries and teach by the spirit. I'll attach pictures of him and my district. And honestly I could not have been more blessed with my district.  The first person I met is named Dallin Aldous and he lived in Nampa and went to Vallivue.... crazy. And later we found out one of the other elders (Elder Richardson) in our district is from Rigby... weird. But super cool. And Richardson is probably the funniest guy I've met here! Elder Aldous is probably my best friend friend out here.  But I love all my district.  There's another Elder from Alberta and he has a low key Canadian accent and says "Eh" a lot and it's really funny.  We all started using Canadian accents as a joke.  I don't have time to tell
you guys about everyone but they're all amazing people who have amazing testimonies and I look up to each of them a lot! So the whole first week has been a lot of studying how to teach and what to teach to investigators.  We have teachers for like 1/4 of the day and then the rest is basically for personal or companion study.  A lot different from what I expected. But I love it! Pretty much wake
up, study, eat, study, eat some more, study some more, eat, devotional, sleep, repeat. Our district stays on task and we all love each other and our teachers and it's been going really good!  My
testimony has grown so much this week.  Oh and the food here is surprisingly good.  Not amazing but I'll give it an A for effort. Also yes I have an IPad while I'm here. So I can read everyone's emails all week but can't reply until Wednesday.  It's so cool to use gospel library and other church apps that all work together and make my iPad an amazing study tool and just makes everything easier. I was
a little cautious about a bunch of 18 year old guys with iPads but one of our teachers justified it by saying, "If God our Heavenly Father can trust these young elders with the Holy Melchizedek Priesthood.... then I think we can trust them with iPads" hahahaha made me laugh pretty hard.
Couple cool things happened yesterday!!
We went to the referral center and we legit got to call people who requested Bibles or Books of Mormon off of Mormon.org and confirm their address and then kinda try to throw in the Restoration lesson or invite them to order a Book of Mormon along with their Bible and to pray about it to know that it's true.  Missionary work in a call center basically hahaha.  And it was awesome!! My companion and I called this guy named Nelson Smith who wanted a Bible and I'm nervous to the point of shaking and this guy answers and I told him my name and made sure of his address and what he requested and I immediately noticed this guy is black. And has this deep voice and a thick accent. It was so weird because as soon as I heard his voice I was like happy instead of nervous and then the  conversation proceeded and I asked why he reached out to us to order a Bible and he said he likes reading it and learning about how God works and said he had talked to a couple of guys in white shirts about the church so that's why he went to Mormon.org and I'm like, "Thats awesome! So I'm guessing you've heard about the Book of Mormon too right?" And he's like yeah I know that.
And then Invited him to order it too for free and the pray about it and promised that if he did this that he'd come to know of its truth and to feel it.  And he's like "Alright then, throw one of those in
there I'll read it". And then I asked if he was okay with the missionaries delivering the books to him and he's like "Yeah and can I call them to set up an appointment"..... I'm like holy crap.... and
then I said that we'd let the missionaries know to call him and set that up and then he was just so grateful and told me happy thanksgiving and told me to tell everyone in the call center to have a
happy thanksgiving! And he was just so chill and nice and had the coolest Detroit accent.  My goodness I was so happy after that. Nelson made my day hahahaha. But the day got better.
So we also started teaching TRC investigators and that stands for "Teaching Resource Center" and its basically members and non-members who get paid to act as real life investigators for us. Our first one is Leyla Marin and she is so cool.  We started off with the Restoration and she said she felt peaceful afterwards and then we ended the first lesson inviting her to read the Book of Mormon and
pray about it to know its true.  And the next day we taught her the Plan of Salvation but before the lesson she said, from her reading she was reassured that God loves her and that he is a fair God.  And we were so happy for her and then after we taught the lesson and felt the spirit a lot and did an amazing job of answering her questions, I boldly asked her if she'd follow the example of Jesus Christ by being baptized by someone who holds the priesthood authority of God.  And she was like "Wow that's a big step....." and then smiling she's like, "but yeah I can do that". Wow Amazing thing.  Then we bore our testimonies to her and left that lesson so happy. Later that night we had a Devotional and I learned really cool things that helped me so much.  First off, Satan wants you to look back and dwindle in depression about he past whil Christ wants you to look forward and see potential.  Also, Faith and Fear cannot coexist... coolest quote regarding missionary work I've ever heard.  And lastly the Lord qualifies who He calls.   Amazing day to say the least.  I honestly had been doubting my testimony a little bit but this week and the spirit I've felt and the blessings I've received have put all those doubts out of my mind.

Anyways I love you all! Feel free to email me throughout the week!
Shout out to all my friends in the mission field! So happy that we're all able to invite people to experience the true, eternal, pure happiness that comes from this gospel!  I pray for all of you and hope all is going well! And Mom I love you more!

Stay tuned.
-Elder Anderson

Idaho missionaries unite!

The first companion, Elder Johnson, from Brigham City

The zone.

See ya in 2!

And he is off!...to the MTC...in Provo...not Johannesburg like originally discussed. Visa issues.

Love you Elder B!