Elder Benjamin Anderson

B is home.

2010-02-07T09:13:00.002-07:00

We love him.
We are happy.
The end.

B writes his last email home.

2010-02-02T07:40:00.000-07:00

so i guess ill just see you guys on wednesday? im nervous, its gonna be sad to go, but it feels right. time to move on. i havent been in my area for a week now, ive been with our zone leader, so im going to get everything finished up today and then go to the mission home tomorrow. said my goodbyes, got a couple of pictures, i think the only thing left is packing. ill see you soon.

B is going out with a bang.

2010-01-26T07:39:00.000-07:00

1/25/10
yowsers. 9 days till the big one. everyone i see keeps reminding me, missionaries, members, everyone. i lined up an all star dinner schedule for my "last suppers" so i can go out with a bang. and a big gut. we took one of the youth, alvin, out with us for a 24 hour showdown which he enjoyed. hes the coolest kid ever, a mexican from el salvador that was born here in the states and talks more spanglish than anyone ive ever heard. hes awesome tho, before, he didnt want to serve a mission, but now hes excited for it since weve been bringing him with us all the time. his older bro, hyrum, is taking a bit more work cuz hes such a slug, but it will all turn out. we cover the singles branch now, which kinda bites, because there are 3 people were going to be teaching, one just came on sunday for the first time and the other is coming next week. the third was already being taught, so the elder replacing me will be comandeering her with barfuss. now all the teaching is starting to happen since im going, which is fun. i was surprised to get some letters from a couple of my converts last week, it was pretty awesome, and one of them gave me a bag of smarties... yum. still not trunky. getting nervous tho. why did they line me up to speak so many times? i thought i was going to get out of it with just one at the home ward. oh well. ill be a little rusty, but i guess i can make it thru.
los angeles is full of weird people. even the ones you would think were normal. makes me dig the promised land (k-town, and utah in general) so much more.

B has a good week.

2010-01-19T15:24:00.000-07:00

howdy folks. its raining really hard. good fun. things are going well, we're working hard, im staying not trunky (miracle: im less trunky now than i was 8 months ago), and its all going well. we found this girl a couple days ago that were going to be teaching, she is way cool and her boyfriend is a member from encino, so she knows a lot about the church already and wants to learn more. we knocked on her door while tracting but she was leaving so we set up a return appt and she was there, which is surprising enough, but she wanted to talk about it all, etc. finally found someone after like 40 hours of tracting these last couple weeks. im on the 15 min computer, the others are full, so this email will be kinda short, sorry. ill send another in a little while when i get back on.

B will give a speech detailing his adventures in Tinseltown.

2010-01-16T09:23:00.002-07:00

If you would like to come see how fat B's gotten and hear some Spanglish, come to Francis Ward on February 14 at 10:45 am. Free grub afterwards.

B wonders what happened to humanity.

2010-01-11T15:56:00.000-07:00

hi everybody. Thanks for the birthday card, it reminded me it was my b-day. i used up most of my time taking notes on the small scraps of paper the library gives out, so this will be short. and i have nothing to say.

driving through inglewood we pulled up to a stoplight and while we were waiting for it, i was watching this bum sitting at a bus bench while some lady (who i dont think was a bum by tradional standards, but a bum nonetheless) staggered over to him on the bench and started talking to him for a minute. when he looked away she snagged the bottle of vodka next to him and pounded as much as she could, then put it back and staggered away. the bum gave her the dirtiest look ive ever seen but wasnt in much condition to beat her down, so he held on to that booze as strong as he could, in case she came back i guess. i think thats the lowest ive seen society reach, someone stealing from a bum...

we had a dinner this week so we went there and helped get everything ready while it finished cooking. we started with salad, and when our host got up to check on the main course, he went quite, then called out, "honey, i think you forgot to turn the oven on." i felt so bad because i wanted to laugh, but it would have been the worst time to do so ever, and the lady was so embarrassed. it all worked out fine tho, i even got a vanilla frosty out of the deal.

B is a 21 year old wordsmith.

2010-01-04T15:41:00.000-07:00

hi everyone. happy birthday gina. youre getting old.
sorry i didnt write last week, i was pretty sick and my guts were getting rid of everything out of both ends all monday and tuesday, so i wasnt much up to sending an email. oh well, nothing exciting has happened yet anyway. another anecdote:
we were visiting this less active kid last week and he was messing with a spherical rubix cube where you make the patterns into hexagons. we got started talking about shapes and his brother said to try to make one into a 5 sided shape, and he couldnt remember what you call that, so elder barfuss pipes up with a "thats what we call an octagon, champ". so after laughing my guts out (remember the "that would be dutch" statement) i informed him it was actually a pentagon.
still not many people to teach here in westerchester. we are having success with hyrum (the less active kid) he comes to church now and we take him tracting, so hes doing super well considering he hasnt been to church in 8 years but this sunday made 5 in a row with him. other than that, its back to the grind in the white areas. im still not trunky, and im actually less trunky now than 5 months ago, which is well, but it makes me nervous...
hope everybody's holiday season went well. i havent come up with new years revolutions yet... and im working on the resolutions, but neither seems likely. if you set goals, youre just setting yourself up to fail, so i stay away from that kind of stuff.
im almost thru all my junk food from christmas, i only have another 10k grams of sugar to go and ill be done. and a bottle of orange shasta.
hasta next week.

B wishes YOU a merry Christmas.

2009-12-21T17:19:00.001-07:00

hehe, number one reason why there are so many churches? when we were riding our bikes back from a dinner, we passed through inglewood, and there was a set of duplexes with a 4x4 sign over the door that said "Latin University of Theology" must have been for do-it-yourself ministers. thats all. happy freakin christmas everyone.

p.s. if a mexican from nicaragua who only knows the numbers 1-10 in english shows up at home, dont worry. his name is anastacio.

B reaches a new low...in more ways than one.

2009-12-15T15:25:00.000-07:00

hmmm kay. i ate a raw egg last week. nasty. i didnt swallow it as i drank it in because i thought it was less than it actuallly was, so it filled my mouth and i had to strain the nasty yolk and yolk sack through my teeth and take 3 huge swallows. gross. the taste wasnt horrendous, but the viscosity of it going thru my teeth but not separating and getting stuck halfway down the tube while the other half was in my mouth was horrible. fun tho.

we ate dinner with a couple we had eaten with once, so she said she wanted to give us something new (spaghetti was first) and she pulls out a chicken enchilada and said "have you ever had a chicken enchilada?" the answer in my head was, yup, sure have, and it didnt look like this. it was real. anywho, it was good, the first time ive had "mexican" food in a long time (mexican made by americans, not even similar to real stuff) then she pulled out some bread with cheese and jalepenos on top and said, "i put this mexican topping on, i hope you like mexican."
yup, sure do.

we were tracting one day and i was picking at my unibrow, and elder barfuss wanted to pull it out, so i let him pluck it as we waited for someone to answer the door. fingers only.

we told one of the recent converts , alice, this 70 year old used to be gangster, that the plural of mooses was not mooses, but meese. then we gave her the example of goose and geese, so she bought it and we have since then heard her say it.

elder barfuss got sick, the double dragon. its where it comes out of both ends. fun-nee. i called sis blackburn to let her know, and she isnt the type to smile or crack a joke, rather serious, but i was laughing too hard when i left her a message that i couldnt get out what i was trying to tell her. when she called back the next day she told elder barfuss she hopes i get sick because of how much i was laughing.

B forgot his planner and has nothing to say

2009-12-10T13:27:00.000-07:00

12/09/09

whats kickin j? i had stuff to write about, but i forgot my planner in the car, or maybe at home, im not sure, so i dont know what i was going to write about. anywho...
its been 10 minutes now and i havent thought of anything...
we found our first new investigator this week, we found her tracting on wednesday, taught her again thursday, then set a bap date on friday for the 20th. she didnt come to church, however, and she hasnt been home for us to visit, so...
thats about all i can think about. i had a better list, sorry. maybe next week. if i remember any more ill send it on out.

B aspires to be a director.

2009-11-30T15:27:00.001-07:00

ok... laughables of the week.

1. there is an elder that is in our ward named elder bustamante, the most humble person ive ever met. hes from chile and has been on a mission for 26 months, and he goes home dec.10 hes been in this ward for 7 months, so you think people would know hes from chile... elder barfuss and i tease him a bit about being mexican, because everyone knows that spanish speakers are mexican right? well, of course, just like all the other people not from mexico, he doesnt think its very funny. one night we were eating dinner with a family in the ward and he was brought up as the subject of discussion and one of the parents gives us a weird look and asks "hes from mexico, right?" without hesitation, we say, in unison, "yup" and the person says, "ok, thats what i thought"

2. elder barfuss had surgery on his toe last week, he had a nasty ingrown toenail. i asked the doctor if i could film it, which he declined, but he let me watch anyway. it was cool.

3. one night as we were walking to our car, we turned around to go talk to this group of people on the other side of the street. we walked up and we said "hey we want to talk to you about jesus" either they had prepared already what they were going to so, or they were some of the fastest thinking liars ever, because without missing a beat, one girl says "im a druid" and the other "im a buddist gay." i still find no reason to not believe them, those things dont come to your head in an instant and its really hard to keep a straight face after that. we couldnt. we told them that those were bad excuses to not learn about jesus, but they didnt believe us.

thats about it. thanksgiving was good. ate a lot. our zone won the turkey bowl for p-day. hope all is well.

B is coming home! (someday)

2009-11-28T11:44:00.003-07:00

Wednesday, February 3, 2010

Salt Lake International Airport

Arrival time: 1:05 pm

Flight number: DL1176

B eats a lot of spaghetti.

2009-11-23T13:05:00.000-07:00

?que honda wuey? alls well here. last week was a complainer email, hopefully this one will be better... weve been doing pretty well on our dinners, 6 of 8 have been spaghetti. i guess its a white people thing. we have knocked doors for countless hours, no success yet, but were having fun while were at it. i think members here think of missionaries as an annoyance, which is the complete opposite of where we were at. we would show up to someone who hates the church and all the members but they get so happy when we stop by and want to feed us and everything, here, not quite. active members shoo us away, which hurt the first few times because we werent ready for it. i do have a couple of stories to tell, however.

1. we are eating dinner (which in itself is a foreign experience, having to use forks and table manners and be super polite and uptight instead of being normal and laughing and having a good time with the members) with an old couple in the ward (spaghetti), and the guy was telling us how he served his mission in sweden. me, trying to mosturize the incredibly dry atmosphere, asked "so you learned swedenish then?" the couple looked at me weird (they dont get humor) and elder barfuss looks over and says in complete sincerity, "uh, that would be dutch."

2. eating dinner with an older lady and her daughter and son in law. they were pretty cool actually, so it was a fun dinner (spaghetti). they lady was making pineapple upside down cake and was finished with everything except the part where she needed cake mix. when she looked in the pantry, all she could find was carrot cake mix, so she made it and was warning us that it might taste funny, we dont have to eat it, etc. elder b nods his head and assures her, "its ok, i like potatoes".

both of the above experiences were sources of great enjoyment, both then and now. kids say the darndest things.

B is pooped.

2009-11-16T15:17:00.000-07:00

we dont belong. rich white areas are too weird for us, we just dont belong. and of course, once the area i was in started to get people baptized, i leave to where there is nothing going on. every time, works like a charm. so here we are. white people are not cool. oh well. so, im now in the westchester first ward, no spanish ward, and we dont cover the tongan ward, although the boundaries are in our area. boo! i wanted to come home 260. anywho, not much to report. weve just been tracting and visiting members, neither of which are receptive. we have a car now. its a huge boat that guzzles gas and cant turn the tight corners on the streets. im really tired right now, so i dont feel like writing much. next week

B is fond of the weather.

2009-11-09T15:41:00.000-07:00

fast sundays here scare me. im really apprehensive about bringing my investigators on those days, for fear of what they'll think. it starts with the assembly line of all the jovenes under 18, they all go up and state, usually with little variation, "me llamo 'name' por los que no me conocen. (everybody ya te conoce, kid) se que la iglesia es verdadera y que me padre celestial me ama. se que el libro de mormon es verdadero, en el nombre de jesucristo, amen." i dont know what newcomers think about the odd sounding brainwashing going on... however, sometimes the adultos are worse. who knows what they will say. talking about visions and dreams they've had, voices they've heard, odd supernatural experiences, etc. to me, it all sounds like a nut job type of thing, but to them, regardless of religion or background, its the norm. we hear the same type of stuff from the people on the streets, so its just my outsiders viewpoint i guess. i thought utah was off... one thing i have seen, however, is there is a big difference in some of the youth. there are kids, 13 years old, younger, older, that have a really strong testimony, and not one leeched from their parents, but their own. its cool to see that they even tho they're young, they can still think for themselves. i think its becuase theyre all converts...
wednesday had the most perfect weather i have heretofore experienced.
getting transfered on wednesday, hopefully for the last time. ive got 2 more left, so i will probably finish my mission in this next area. president told me who my companion is, and for the first time, its someone that i know. it will be good, this elder and i are as close to being friends as you can get on the mission, so im looking forward to it. hes actually sitting next to me emailing, how bout that? were flushing an area too, my fourth time doing so.
thats all i know about for right now, i dont know where im going or anything. ill let you know more monday.
i guess i just mail my stuff home. were going to chopping today so i can stock up on cheap stolen goods before i leave downtown area for the last time...
see you next week.

B celebrates Halloween in style

2009-11-02T15:15:00.001-07:00

ok. 2 weeks ago (i forgot about this last week) on our way home from the temple, we were riding with our DL and his comp because we dont have a car, and claro that we were on the farthest freeway from anywhere when we ran out of gas. the person that was driving just happens to be the worst cali driver ever (or driver period, girls excluded) so it took us 10 minutes at 69 MPH to get to the side. i was afraid we were going to have to get out and push us off the road, but we crawled to a stop on the happy side of the white line. that was pretty fun... i laughed, driver laughed, others didnt. we called other elders to see if they could hook us up with some help but they were unable to, having just been towed from the library. the elder driving that car chased the truck down on foot, but the driver just waved and kept on keepin on. no biggie, the Metro tow truck showed up 3 minutes later and gave us some gas to get to the gas station.

there was something else too, but i forgot it and i dont have my planner with me to look it up, so i guess it will wait till next week.

someone come pick me up. the plane ticket reimbursment should cover all expenses and a pair of shoes from downtown. the 3rd of febuary is my release date, thats when that transfer ends, so thats when they ship me out.
halloween was the most boring holiday i have ever had. we werent even allowed to give out candy. over the voicemail sent to the entire zone, the ZL said something to this effect: "be in your apartments no later than 6.00, not allowed to go outside, to go to parties with members, no giving away candy. you are allowed to change out of your whites, but you have to change back at 9.00 for your nightly planning. it has to be at 9.00 and you need to be fully dressed. basically, you're not allowed to do anything fun, elder anderson" they know how i stand on being boring. bye

B has a nondescript week

2009-10-26T13:22:00.001-06:00

yup yup yup. funny that you got a letter. was it really a chastisement or just a standard "dont make the missionary trunky" one? anyway, i was thinking to have someone come pick me up, not everyone, because i have lots of junk to pack home and would need the extra room to fit all the crap. that is why one should pick me up, so i dont have to find boxes for it all to mail it (too expensive) or take it with me (no way its fitting into one suitcase). ill see how much i can whittle away this week and give you an update next week. i think everyone will be rather disappointed when i dont have a funny accent or slip in spanish words when i talk. i spend like 30 minutes a day talking in spanish, so im not too metido. whoops, i just did it. oh, wait... that was a fake slip... i told you. any big plans for halloween? we are going to... do missionary work. im thinking about dressing up as a seventy. that would be cool. or something like that. i was on splits yesterday with our ZL and when we got to our house for lunch, my neighbor brought some tamales over. shes makes good ones too. that was probably the most exciting thing that happened this week. other than that, pretty much the usual, ride our bikes, talk to people who dont want us to talk to them, wish there were cuter girls in our area (just me, my companion doesnt like girls), and hope we find someone who is interested. we had our best week so far this transfer teaching wise, we found 2 new investigators, hopefully something comes of it. thats about it, not doing too shabby, still keepin on keepin on. hope all is well.

B eats chihuahuas

2009-10-20T09:25:00.000-06:00

10/19/09
happy birthday on wednesday papa smurf.
ummm..... as for what to write.... i dont know, nothing slightly interesting has happened in the last forever, so theres not much to say. still no progessing investigators, finally taught a couple lessons, well see if any of the people are there for our next appt. theres a stupid rooster that hangs out under our window and asks to get killed every morning. there are tons of chickens and crap around here, people raise them for food. i thinks that why they have chihuahuas too. i cant see any other reason for the annoying things. ima get one. ive now achieved super dork status. now this is different than a super nerd, which title i already bear, but super dork. these are the people that get made fun of. what happened? well, my seat is now higher than my handle bars. not just a little, but ridiculously higher, so i look completely foolish as i speed around with my super cool helmet and super cool backpack and super cool white shirt and tie. well, to be honest, only the tie is super cool. my bootie still gets kind of sore, but not too bad. still chubby, even tho i swear my calorie count cant be higher than 2k a day, and im hoping im burning more than that... thats pretty much it. if i think of anything else ill let you know

B wears damp shirts

2009-10-14T07:39:00.000-06:00

10/13/09
well... today is raining! how cool is that? its practically pouring, the sidewalk is even almost all the way wet. this is my first rain since january. winter is here!

went to a baptism of a guy i taught with elder tuttle. it was hilarious. so elder tuttle told me before hand that it sucks a lot more having to do stuff on his own now (hes a trainer, just like my last 5 companions have been after i leave) and he doesnt really know everything he needs to do. so, that means things dont run smoothly for the baptism. let me break it down. the guy who is baptizing Abdul doesnt bring any white clothes, nor a change of clothes. Abdul doesnt bring any extra clothes either (tuttle forgot to mention it). They go get it all after church and show up 15 minutes late for the baptism, which is being held with a baptism of a member turning 8. this one isnt really a slip up on tuttle, thats just how unorganized these wards tend to be. the bishopric doesnt have the member baptism on saturday like normal, so its with an investigator baptism (this will come into play later). finally, the baptism starts and after an incredibly long talk on baptism by the girlfriend of Abdul, we have the baptisms. tuttle never had a prayer meeting before the baptism, which is where you take everyone going to participate and you run over the program, tell people how to do the baptism, how it happens, etc. so, what happens is that the member goes to do the baptism (after about 4 minutes of getting the hands in the right spot) and he says: Abdul, by the power of the holy melquisedec (i dont know how to spell that in english) priesthood that i posses, i baptise you, amen. not quite correct, it should go: Abdul Guzman, having been commissioned of Jesus Christ, i baptize you in the name of the father and of the son and of the holy ghost, amen. so, there was a minor slip up. one of the old bishops jumps up from the crowd and goes up there to correct it, and after about the 7th (not exaggerating) try, he finally gets the prayer right. now, they never explained how to do things beforehand, so Abdul goes to bend over while the hermano tries to tip him backwards, but all that happens is they end up fighting against each other and Abdul dips his face in the water. im sitting in the back with elder barfuss dying and trying not to be too loud about it, but they eventually got it figured out 5 minutes later. the whole process lasted about 15 mintues or so. then the members turn. the girl gets in and the water is up to her chin and she can barely see out of the font, and another 5 mintue hold up occurs while they get everything worked out. she finally gets baptized (she just leaned back and put her head under) and then some missionaries, elder barfuss and his new companion, elder isaacson, get up to do some teaching while they get dressed. barfuss told me right before it started he was going to make elder isaacson do it himself because he never told barfuss what they were doing it on, or even that they were doing it. he changed his mind because this is only elder isaacsons' second transfer. afterwards, they bishop was supposed to give the welcome to the ward but he didnt show up again, so the second counselor gets up to do it, and some people start making a fuss that they didnt confirm nely (the member that got baptized) which is supposed to happen right after the baptism. there ensued quite a long arguement about that, even after the counselor said " we will have the confirmations next week". if there were any shreds of the spirit left after the baptisms, they were gone shortly thereafter. after the heated debate about the confirmations, the girl was confirmed and Abdul will get confirmed next week in sacrament. what a day.
what else...

my spray bottle doesnt work anymore so i cant use it to iron my shirts, so this morning i took my shirt and soaked it under the tap before ironing it. worked alright. our iron sucks tho and can barely dry up the spray bottle, so i was damp all morning. wrinkle free, but damp.

still no investigators. we set bap dates with some people that we found last week and they were really excited, but then werent there for church or our appointment later that afternoon. i guess we find out tonight what happened.

B is growing up...and out

2009-10-06T07:40:00.000-06:00

10/5/09
howdy. i just watched my last general conference as a missionary. it was quite a good one. i watched it in spanish and was the only missionary in there, the rest were in the english room. i was almost the only person there on the saturday session, besides the bishop (in a t-shirt) the ward secretary, and 3 other members. i got a kick out of pres monsons sunday speech with the fuzzy ball things. the translator said, "the kids sent him a jar of... well, i dont know what those are, but they sent them to him." i burst out laughing and people gave me wierd looks. i dont know what the deal was before i came out here but apparently everyone has decided to give better speeches the last 4 conferences because i know general conference wasnt this good before my mission. i guess they finally got the hang of it. spent like 5 hours riding back and forth from the church to our area on saturday and sunday. its a good thing i really like being on bike or it would bite. and i hate being all sweaty from the ride by 8.30 in the morning. the mornings and evenings are getting cooler, but the day is still pretty dang warm when the sun is shining. my new companion is elder bluth, from riverton. hes another utah-kid, ran track and cross-country, spent most of his high school years trying to kiss girls, went to BYU for a year before his mission. he at least talks, so its more entertaining. i think well be fine while we here. had to leave 2 baptisms in my last area, which stinks, but hopefully we can find some people here. we didnt have anything when we came in but we have found some cool people already. hopefully we can keep finding more. some members challenged me to a race today, so hopefully i dont hurt my fut again. i wish i could cut the piano im dragging (tomas, my food baby) so i could run faster, but ive grown to like him. ill bring him home to meet you all. you'll like him, hes cute.

B is a revolutionary and secedes from the zone

2009-09-21T13:19:00.002-06:00

howdy. mom, to answer your question, no, elder halls isnt my companion. he hasnt been for 3 months now, and im not in the same area, i left 3 months ago. gina, this is my first little mexico. all the other ones were rich white peepuhls, except MLK, which was little africa. african shops lined the streets and there were only 2 white people there. here in HP is little mexico. im leaving in a week to south central.

a week-ish ago, elder tuttle and i were looking for an apartment for new missionaries so we went to talk to the manager of one. we knocked on the ghetto door, the normal one already open. we could see the people inside, could hear the TV, voices, everything. they saw us and all got up and left because they saw missionaries. elder tuttle still isnt quite used to how people respond to missionaries knocking on their door, he thinks theyre just not home, so i told him to wait and see if she would answer. we knocked and knocked and called in and everything, and no one answered us for 5 minutes. then i said, " were looking for the manager for the apartment for rent" and without hesitation the lady opened the door and came out.

i had an entire large pizza for dinner one night. and used most of a bottle of hot sauce on it. delicious.

a couple weeks ago i drew up a rough draft for the Huntington Park Zone. us 8 elders (6 HP and 2 at USC) have split from our mother zone, Central, and formed our own zone. we hold weekly zone meetings like normal, have zone p-days, like normal, we even made a copy of the declaration i wrote (the original is on a yellow napkin from wendys) and sent it to president. we are thinking about annexing the koreatown elders, and will be getting at least 2 more new ones next transfer. our declaration is signed by all the current missionaries, and we uphold our freedom. The Central zls have tried to force us back into their zone, but have little power to enforce any of their idle threats. Elder porter (central ZL) has declared war. so be it. Viva HP Zone!

B gets some culture

2009-09-08T07:56:00.000-06:00

hi. no baptisms on sunday. mom still wont let them.
so we were on the lookout for apartments one day, driving around and calling numbers, and we were on a pretty large street, passing a bus stop and sure nuff, some homeless dude with no shirt was there with dropped trou and taking a wizz right there at the bus stop. just standing there peeing at the road. pretty cool.
mexico won another game. streets closed down. flags flew. crowds thronged the streets. we had to drive all the way into southgate to find a road to get across the closed streets. too us 35 minutes to get to our house, which was only 7-ish blocks away.

we had PEC on sunday, the one were the elders quorum pres, RS pres, high priest GL, YM and YW prez, primary, etc, basically anyone with a calling, is supposed to show up. there were 6 missionaries, the bishop and his 2nd counselor. who knows...
we were in an apartment building going to visit some dude and as we walked down the hall, we stumbled upon a man in his wheelchair snoozing away in the middle of the hall. we tried to be quiet, but when elder tuttle opened my backpack to get my camera so i could take a picture, he woke up. it was the dude we were looking for.
played some classic mexican games a few days ago with one of the families we are teaching, marbles in the dirt, some sort of top thingy, etc. it was pretty cool to get some real culture, not spangish style.

B makes plans to be a loser

2009-09-06T20:27:00.000-06:00

8/31/09

its hot. this is day number 4 that it has hit 102. and humidity. ive become accostumed to it, i dont even sweat any more. just my butt. i dont know when my release date is, but according to the ordained minister card signed by pres. hinckley that they gave me in the mtc its feb 3rd. i wont get flight plans for 2 more transfers probably. do you all realize i still have a long time to go? a few transfers ago i started thinking, man, im going home soon, but ya, no. ive still got 6 months.

i had a baptism in jefferson park yesterday, and next week ive got 3 more. elder halls and i taught a ton of people that couldnt get baptised for various reasons, but now they have gotten everything taken care of. this is the right way to do things. teach them everything then leave just before they get baptised so i dont have to do all the crap for the baptism :) the 4 investigators we have here with baptismal dates are all going well, even bianca whose mother wouldnt sign the form. she is going to come to church next week. as well, we got the mother of another investigator (rosa) to church yesterday. alls going well.

and yes, i like my companion. he is really not talkative, but we get along well and everything :) after seeing all the losers in this ward, the 24 year old dudes that live at home, dont have a job and are currently "filling out their papers", a job which has been taking 5 years, ive decided its the life for me. ill just stay in my room until the rentals (mom and dad) kick da bucket. like a cockroach, you cant get rid of me...im only have joking, who knows. ill tell you in 5 years.

so about my foot. i messed up the metatarsal bones, but i havent gone to the doctor yet. ima give it another week and if i still cant walk on it ill see what the doc says. im not sure what the deal is, but its possible it could be broken, its swollen on one side, it hurts in the same spot when i bend it or my toes, etc. ill let you know next week what the dealio is.

ps gina, not that i will deny the title of the bigger nerd, but why do you think i deserve it? im sure there were 2 participants in our nerdy activites. as long as you are still getting plenty of offers from girls for me, i dont care how big of a nerd they think i is.

B is not the only one with digestive problems

2009-08-29T17:35:00.000-06:00

8/24/09

howdy. i think i told you this last week, but i had 2 baptisms sunday. i did adrianas, which goes against my whole credo, but she asked elder halls if i could and he told her i would do it so she called me and said "elder halls said you could baptize me, will you?" i thought i trained him better than that. he performed the other one. oh well. it was cool. we have 2 more people with a baptismal date, one for the 30th and one for the 6th of sep. i dont think the 30th will go down, her mom refused to sign the permission form, (she, bianca, is only 15 so we need her parents approval). she told us she did her homework (read and pray) and when she prayed, she got her answer, so now we have to work around the mother... fun. as well, we have 3 more people we will be setting a date with for september, really good ones as well. all is going well.

i think i broke my foot. no joke.

a fellow missionary in my district got hit with some pretty dangerous liquid poo, couldnt make it home in time, so they pulled off the side of the road and he let it out against a tree. got it all over, didnt have anything to wipe with and a car was coming, so he hitched up the trou and rode home to clean up. i saw his stains today at laundry. funny!

this morning i put my zone leader in the banana splits and got him to say "im a codfish" it was his going away present.

spanish wards have the worst hymns ive ever heard. i think i mentioned to you before how they have the most horrible singing voices and are dangerously off-key, but today i sunday i saw the all-time low. im not quite sure how it happened, but we were singing a hymn and at the end of the first verse everyone was as confused as crap, but what they didnt realize is when they were ending the verse, the music was halfway through the second verse, so everyone was warbling a half a song off time. but, they didnt correct themselves. you know how there are those people who think they know how everything is going on, well, all the old people, the worst singers of the bunch, start belting out the second verse at the top of their lungs so everyone else would just on the wagon and follow them, thereby keeping the mob from correcting itself. suffered thru four whole verses of that. the music was not even playing the tune they were singing, but it didnt stop them. (since no one knows how to play the piano, we listen to the music on CD. at least its better than the a capella wards) tons o fun.

B is called a rocket scientist, which he secretly loves

2009-08-12T09:21:00.003-06:00

8/10/09

hi. im glad to hear everyone is normal and there is still plenty of drama about stupid things. this week has been normal here. plenty of sweating. we had a baptism on sunday for our investigator eusebio munoz. it went exceptionally well, which surprised me. we are in a latin ward, so the bishopric wasnt there, nor did some of the participants show up, but we got it smoothed out and started only 10 minutes late. it was a record time. i found ants under our toilet and found the tiny little hole they live in, but took compassion on them. 2 nights ago i fed them honey and cholula (my hot sauce) and salt. it turns out ants dont like spicy or salty, just sweet. then next day was a bit of sugar water. theyre doing well. yes, my companion is still quite soft. im trying to toughen him up a bit, but these things take time. hes doing well though. he asked me a dumb question the other day but before i could reply he realized what he asked then said "oh great, here comes the sarcasm."im trying to get my distric leader literate. he spells baptism babtisum. those arent even the embarrasing ones. hes from idaho. he lovingly refers to me as the rocket scientist. "have elder anderson pop the popcorn, hes the recket scientist." it might sound like we dont get along, but we do, very well actually. some 17 year old emo punks tried to make fun of us the other day after we walked by, but they got really quite when i turned around and walked back over to them and asked "you ladies have something to say?" they didnt say anything so i said "i didn't think so" and we walked away. not my most christlike moment but i made the exception this time because they were dumb emo kids. that will be my last one. probably. i was wondering how much corey weighed because when you mentioned he was wakeboarding i remembered the other times we have gone and his hunched up chicken stance and awkward attempts at tricks. then i imagined his man boobs flapping in the wind. i must say, the image in my head is quite entertaining. and disturbing. i caught myself pouring cholula onto my finger to eat. i didnt think i would ever eat hot sauce like that. gina, send me a picture of lauren. ive adopted the habit of only showering once every 3 days as well. i get itchy too, but i think mine is from wearing my garments that long as well. now that i have to pay for laundry again im trying to cut back on expenses.ok by

B is a ninja

2009-07-30T08:59:00.001-06:00

7/20/09

hola, all is well.

hmmm. went on splits this week. we set a goal to eat 5 dinners, fell short with only 3. i ate a bunch of chiles that day to win the trust of the members. whole habanero, plain. burned a little. whole chile verder, plain. didnt even feel it. many tamales verdes (tamales with habanero salsa) warm. all that chile burns twice, btw.

we had a party at our apartment building on saturday, it was the baptism of these 2 catholic "life partners" dudes. music at the max, mariachi band yodeling it out, all sorts of awesome mayhem. didnt stop all night.

i laughed to myself when in priesthood they had all the young men stand up and talked to them about going to do baptisms for the dead next week. wait, let me correct myself. it was all the young men without kids. that made me giggle.

its really hot here

ive been playing the prelude music for the last 2 sundays for the baptisms. dont ask me why. i made up these 2 songs a few transfers ago that apparently are well liked, and since im the only one who knows how to play anything, im in charge of prelude. luckily no one but the elders realize that the music repeats itself every 5 minutes.

im still hunting, but know its cucarrachas. im getting quite skilled at judo kicking them before they can scurry out of view. im trying to learn to hover about 6 inches off the ground so i can kick furiously with both feet as i float in my "left-handed dragon" pose. one foot just doesnt pack enough ammo to take down the hordes.

bye

B sure likes his kool-aid

2009-07-20T09:25:00.001-06:00

7/13/09
howdy folks. its me. elder anderson. so im now settled in to my new apartment, mostly, and its not too bad. other than its at a constant 95ish degrees. whats more sad, however, is that its usually cooler to walk into that than be outside. this area seems pretty cool, i dont know which one i will like more, here or Jefferson park. my companion is elder tuttle, from someplace missouri. he fenced in high school. this is his second transfer, so he is really new, more so than my previous companions, even elder halls. :) we live across the street from the church which is really handy, and i remembered to buy sugar so i can make my kool-aid now. we dont do anything with the english ward, the bell ward, but its in the downey stake so if there is a stake deal i will see my peeps from downey again. ill send more in a minute. nothing too exciting has happened since ive been here, or at least nothing that stands out enough that i remember it. we are teaching some cool people that ill tell you about later, but no one is ready to be baptized. not sure what the elder before was doing, everyone was stagnant but i dont know why, they all are progressing now. anyway. its going to be fun breaking elder tuttle. more updates later.

B corrects a stranger's pronunciation

2009-07-07T07:31:00.000-06:00

howdy. the baptism didnt happen for the kids. after sacrament, a member ran over to their house to get the extra underwear they forgot to bring and the mom told him that she had changed her mind and they couldnt get baptized... yup yup. thats about it. im getting transferred on wednesday, going to huntington park. that area is 100% latin, which i dont know if im happy about that or not. ill finally get to speak spanish, but latins will never give you a straight answer.

for example:
1. Q. Are you interested in learning more?
A. solo hay un dios.
A. ya creo en dios.
A. lo que pasa es...
A. ya tengo mi biblia.
A. si, yo leo la biblia.

2. God called a prophet.
A. solo hay un dios.
A. ya creo en dios. A. lo que pasa es...
A. ya tengo mi biblia.
A. si, yo leo la biblia.

3. We are white.
A. solo hay un dios.
A. ya creo en dios.
A. lo que pasa es...
A. ya tengo mi biblia.
A. si, yo leo la biblia.

point being, you will never get a straight answer, while every other color (white, black, yellow) will just say no and to go away. more harsh, but much more welcome to hear than excuses. oh, and i will get to eat more latin food :)once again, my companion will be a green missionary, this one, elder tuttle, has only been out one transfer. im leaving here on wednesday so ima spend today packing. fun. ive got insiders who let me know on friday i was leaving, which is good to know so i dont have to cram pack everything until 1 in the morning the night before i leave. hope everyone in various parts of the mundo are safe. adios

p.s. as i was getting ready to send this, someone's laptop started talking, not very loud, but this dude that has been sitting here talking about nothing important just as loudly turned and self-righteously said "excuse me, sir? (as if he was mortally offended) you need to turn that down, this is a liberry." me, being the caustic wit i am, butted in with, "No, this is a libRARY, not liberry." then went on my work of typing this. ok bye.

B is an annoying neighbor

2009-06-19T11:56:00.003-06:00

6/17/09

howdy. this week...

1. we played a prank on our neighbors about a month ago, we snuck into their apartment and hid an alarm clock in their bedroom behind a wall clock set for 1.00am and left it for them to find. (they dont go to bed until then, thats why it was for 1) we found out just about a week ago that they never found it so at one every morning they are waiting for it to go off so they can try to find it. i snuck in later when we found out and took it back so they didnt break my alarm clock if they found it.
2. we were on our way to an appointment and a cop car rolled up next to us and they guy rolled down the window and in a really serious voice asked us if we knew what neighborhood we were in. we replied yes and he asked us if we new what type of hood we were in. my companion loves telling people that we live just down the street in the same hood (hes really bubble from utah so he still gets really excited to see ghetto for once and wants everyone to know he lives there) so when he told that to the cop they just rolled up the window and drove off. hes been telling everyone we know about it in really excited tones.
3. we went to visit a referral we received and as we talked to this lady, about 40 years old witha daughter who is 19, she was telling us how her drunk cousin, who she cant stand, was trashing her "baby car", meaning her daughters car, while she stood inside to wait for the police. as she described it; "i was here watchin im trash my baby car and i had a gun in my hand, a .38, i swear i did, i felt da devil pullin me one way and god da udder way and i woulda kilt im, i swear i woulda, i woulda kilt im. you young mens wouldnta been here wit me if i had walked out dat door." shes getting baptized soon.
4. willie, the first baptist minister *(side note: first baptists are very anti-LDS, they teach it from the pulpit) is getting baptized on the 21st of june. we were sitting in priesthood and i went to ordain jeremy to the priesthood and when i sat back down willie leaned over and whispered "that, right there, what you just did, i saw that in a vision last week." he is pretty awesome. if he asks me to baptize him im going to say yes, because on the 8th of july he is moving back to luisiana with his family. he has had so many different things happen to him to know the church was true its amazing, he has a super strong testimony.
5. we have some of the coolest investigators ever. one, vigdali, is already telling her family to start praying about the book of mormon and she keeps telling them how she got her answer and all that stuff, so now we are finally starting to get the family involved when they werent so eager before.
6. on the 28th, another family, minus the mom, is getting baptized. TJ, 14, Wasani, 10, and Narini, 8. the mom, veronika, is getting sundays off so she can come to church and then she will get baptized, she has already accepted, we are just waiting for the new lady at her job to get trained then veronika gets sundays off.

thats all i have (or remember) to write. bye

ps did i tell yall that i have a girlfriend? or 3 of them to be more precise. one, dakota, age 10, is my first one. she tells me im her favorite elder. she cant remember elder halls name. her sister, crystal, aged 13, is the next. she said she would find a girlfriend for me and suggested until she found one, she would fill the vacancy. their aunt, pelene (they are all samoan) who is 37, is the third. she has a major crush on me she told me. elder halls got annoyed that she talked to me more than him and so one day after church he said "do you have a crush on him or what? i like how you dont talk to me, just him" (he is a sensitive type of guy, the type that is readily labeled "metrosexual" so he gets hurt feelings quickly). anyway, so pelene confessed that she had a crush on me, and even had written me a card to say she thought i was a wonderful missionary. once again, elder halls was insulted that she sent me one and not him. im glad im a lot nicer now than before, or else elder halls would hate my guts because he would think im the biggest jerk ever. turns out, im not, just the biggest joker ever. :) dakota is my pick, shes just a little too young. i remembered to write to you about it because elder halls mentioned just barely that he needs a girlfriend to write to, so could he borrow one of mine? one another note, were on fire this transfer. we had interviews wif da prez and he said the the zone leaders were impressed with our work. the reason that makes me glad is that the majority of the time, when 2 missionaries get along, they are buckets, so we thought everyone else thought we were buckets because of that, but it turns out we arent. ok bye

B is split in half

2009-06-09T07:21:00.000-06:00

howdy folks. all is well here. jeremy was confirmed this week in sacrament. im still in the same place, jefferson park. prez split our area, i dont know if i told you that, but now we only have half of what we did have, and we lost all of our latin investigators and the latin part of our area. now its just black people, no more browns. we have some really cool investigators however. this one guy, willie, we started teaching him about a month ago and now we are teaching he and his sisters and a sisters daughter in law. he is a minister for another church, but he is reading the entire book of mormon in 2 weeks, finishing by tomorrow (9th) and will get baptized after fasting and praying for an answer. he knows the book is true because of the previous chapters we have left him, so now he wants confirmation on the entire book. he is a pretty cool guy, im really excited for him. as well, we have alfonso montalvo, who is this old ecuadorian guy that we havwe been teaching for about 2 months. he is the most stubborn person ive ever met (including mom and dad and gina and corey and matt) but he is really excited about us teaching him because he loves learning so much about what jesus taught. his stubborness will be the only obstacle for him, but well find some way to get around it. he is a great old man. ok, thats all, we have to go, too much to do and so little time. bye

B confirms that Russia does not have the monopoly on crazy people

2009-06-02T14:10:00.003-06:00

howdy. pretty much everything is the same. we had a baptism on sunday, which was fun. they guy, jeremy, asked me to baptise him so even though it was hard i followed the rules and asked him to consider a member to do it. o well, sacrifice for the better cause. we have quite a few baptisms that are going to go on this transfer, 11 planned with a few more that could happen. here is a weird thing, normally we are supposed to have at least 12 hours tracting per week, but just a week ago we were told that that number is no longer a "key indicator" which means its not something we are required to do. i thought that was crazy because tracting is something this mission focuses on so much. thats about it. one last thing. we had this investigator, belinda, who we taught a while ago. she is 60ish, kinda chubby, well really chubby, a little odd, but pretty mellow. we were at her house for like 15 minutes sitting in the front room while she put her stuff away (she had just arrived) because she moved so slowly i was imagining who would win in a race between her and a sloth. anyway, we taught her, she was kind of odd, so i didnt feel like going back, i saw no point to continue to teach her. last friday, we came home and the corner we live on was all taped off and there were cops and fire trucks and ambulanci all over the place, but we didnt know what was going on. then the bomb squad rolled by in a huge black truck, which was cool. the next day, we went back to visit belinda, who lived just a few houses down, and as we walked to her door some cholos who lived in one of the houses in the complex told us she wasnt there, she was locked up. what had happened was belinda got into an arguement with her neighbor about the neighbors dogs so belinda came down with a razor and slashed the lady up. the cholos showed us the blood on the ground and everything. then she locked herself in the house and wouldnt come down, so when the police finally got everything taken care of they went through her apartment and found guns and knives and razors in large amounts. she was apparently a little more loca than we thought...

B is a lazy butt and thinks he doesn't need to write because Mother's Day is coming up

2009-04-29T11:29:00.001-06:00

That's all.

B thinks he is funny, but his companion disagrees

2009-04-07T14:05:00.000-06:00

yes, we got to watch conference, it was great. i laughed when the nooby apostle was so nervous that he forgot to read all of the prompt and got stuck with like 4 seconds of the most insanely embarassing silence of his life. i wonder what went through his head. i didnt play any tricks on bushman for april fools day, he doesnt really have a sense of humor (and by doesnt really i mean not at all) so he would have just cried or gotten really angry and annoyed. its a lose lose situation. it has been a very quiet transfer with him, hes not a talker or a sociable person, doesnt really like interacting with others, so he tends to keep to himself while i talk at him or crack hilarious jokes that he doesnt get and then gives me weird looks when i burst out laughing. he works hard at leats. we went on another hike for p-day, this time to the hollywood sign. it was alright, nothing special. another elder and i decided to hike up the side of this cliff to get to a road at the top, so it took us like 15 minutes of pretty sketchy climbing to make it. i thought i was going to lose him once but he luckily he could reach my hand when i leaned far enough and pulled him up. im fat again. not as bad, but ive definately got a bigger pooch than when i left downey. im working on it.

B goes von trapping in the mountains and charms a snake

2009-03-31T16:35:00.002-06:00

hrmmm. this week we went on a hike for p-day, it was quite enjoyable. we went to malibu where there is some greenery, and it reminded me very much of k-town. it was cool to be up where you cant hear traffic (first time in my mission) and it was green all around, hills, mountains, trees, cabins covering the mountains. just like home. i took a picture of a snake, and when i tried to grab it, it spun around and tried to bite me but my cat like reflexes were too quick. and i got a picture of a lizard, which i touched, but its reflexes were too quick for me to grab it. dumb lizard. i sent pictures home. they are from over six months ago, starting with elder espindola. elder kiestler isnt pictured, we never got around to taking a picture then he got the boot pretty suddenly so we didnt think about it. hrmmm. while we dont have any bap. dates yet, we are getting really close with 4 people. darlene, a lady from belize, who is doing really well, and wassani 10 narini 8 and tj 14, who are going to get permission from their mom and then they will get baptized. ill explain more laterz, we have an appointment soon. the liberries were closed yesterday and i still have more email to read before we go.

B eats Thai food and pats children's heads

2009-03-25T15:01:00.001-06:00

howdy folks. well, this week, we didnt have a punching contest, but we did have a towel whipping fight one morning. i think i took too much advantage of elder bushman, because he cant really snap a towel, but he wouldnt give up. i offered to cease 2 or 3 times but he insisted. he now has 7 really nice welts in various locations across his arms and midsection. early this week we went to teach a less active lady and her daughter, who apparently dont get along super well all of the time, and they got into a huge screaming match during the lesson, which was a little awkward to witness. we eventually had to interrupt, just in case they killed each other, so we suggested a prayer, the daughter said it, and all was after that, they got along just fine. we had stake conference for the huntington park west stake, which is the spanish stake, which was great to go to. i realized as i sat there listening to the speakers, i understood everything they were saying, even the wierd spanish phrases they use, and then i thought back to my first few transfers in the cabrillo branch where i would only understand half of what was being said and even less of what they were talking about. now i just need to work on understanding kids when they talk. thats the hardest thing ever, understanding a child speaking spanish, so i just laugh and pat their head. we have a dinner appointment today with a lady that is taking us to a thai restaurant that is so dang far away from us, its going to be like an hour and a half bike ride, and we have an appointment right after to which we will probably be late. i love riding bike, just not when i have to hurry for long periods of time. just to clarify, because i believe there was a misunderstanding that i just remembered, i was called spanish speaking, but its a bilingual mission, so i do english work as well, for instance, in all of my other areas it was almost pure english, this is the first time ive been in a heavy spanish area. its half spanish and half black. i saw a white person this week, however. we went over to talk to him. it was cool.

B punches his companion, leaving a nice bruise

2009-03-17T07:46:00.004-06:00

3/16/09
well, what has happened this week...

1. we went to an appointment with the family mejia, and when we got there, there was a mariacha band in full swing, but without all the sequins and matching outfits, so i thought it was just people from the apartment complex making music for a friday night. there were 4 band members and 2 random guys standing there drinking beer, so we talked to them for a second and he said they were having a party. a mariachi band that looked as if they just got off work at the recycling plant, 2 drunk guys, a cooler full of beer and a grill going with half an onion on top. hot party.

2. this was one i forgot to write about for 2 weeks, so its out of context. as i was getting ready to leave downey, a bunch of people were having us over for lunch and dinner one last time before i left and one of those people was a woman named yesenia and her two young kids, kayla, 8, and xavier, 5. we had finished eating and kayla had made a chocolate cake with chocolate frosting and was serving us a piece. she gave one to xavier and he looks at it for a second and looks at elder gardner, points to his cake and says, "hey, youre the same as the cake"

3. elder bushman and i had a punching contest. he gets a free punch, then i get one, first one to give up loses. he wanted to go shoulders first, so i let him hit me, except i think it was the first punch he had ever thrown and missed. then i won. a few days later at a dinner appointment, the member asked him to pass the lemonade but he couldnt reach up to grab it because it made his shoulder hurt. it left a nice bruise.

4. i took my suits and shirts to the mission home to get tailored, and we got the call today that they are done, ill be getting them on wednesday and hopefully dry cleaned and ready to go by next monday. right now im wearing a $200 suit that i bought in lynwood, way back when i was in downey, on a street corner for 12 dolla. fits perfectly.

5. im getting fat again.

B goes shopping on Rodeo Drive and falls in love with a suit

2009-03-10T14:13:00.003-06:00

3/9/09
i was transfered this wednesday from downey to mid-city, which is quite a change of scenery for me. ive spent my mission in white rich areas but now im right outside of downtown. it was weird to go out on the street and see a ton of black people, even tho i just had a black companion. here its all black/latin, the only other white person is my companion, elder bushman. he is from salt lake, your pretty textbook missionary from utah. lots of siblings, has a hard time talking to people, etc. when i asked him our 2nd day what he did for fun he just shrugged and answered, "watch tv". i was pretty sad i didnt flush another area, until i got here and realized it was just as bad. the area books hadnt been updated in months, so there was no record of any work that had gone on. in january someone named melinda got baptized except there was no paperwork done on her so she officially is not a member. elder bushman has been out for 5 months, been in this area his whole mission, so he didnt really know what was going on i guess. the area is a car/bike area, so i still get to ride my bike sometimes. we cover two wards, and english and spanish, but its a bit different than my last area. instead of us being the only missionaries in the english ward, there are like 5 or 6 companionships, and just as many in the spanish ward. thats kind of a bummer because it makes it difficult to make the type of relationship that i had with the downey first ward. too many elders to go around. this place is pretty ghetto yet it still has its rich spots that just kind of spring up out of nowhere.
mom, to answer your question about if i had planned on doing anything like going to switzerland or something like that, the only thing i have planned is taking a nap. after that my schedule is pretty open... today was p-day, so a few of us elders went to rodeo drive, which is the most ritsy street in the universe. the cheap ties at georgio armani were starting at $140. nothing really had price tags because i guess when you can afford to buy crap there, you dont look at the price. it was pretty cool to look at that stuff, but we pulled more strange looks than i have ever had in my mission. i love looking at suits, and the ones there were so dreamy, make me wish i had a high disposable income. even if i did, i dont think i could bring myself to drop $595 on a pen. thats about all that has happened since i have been here, except for being accosted by many angry black men. i guess its a good thing im a big boy, more intimidating than a short pudgy guy.

p.s. no i dont need new clothes, michelle bought me shirts and shoes as a going away present, and no, not yet have i dry-cleaned my pants. i still need to get them sewed, so im going to get them ready today because we are on our way to the mission home to get a new cell phone. ours is broken :( i came here with so many presents and gifts from the members in downey, and no, contrary to what you guys are thinking right now, i didnt ask for any of it. i made so many good friends in that ward they gave me stuff to say goodbye. for instance, an italian book to learn italian (one member new i wanted to), a song was written about me, for me and a part left in there for my own guitar solo (they knew i played guitar) a few pairs of shoes, shirts, 10-ish ties, framed quotes from speeches i had given in sacrament, etc. all without me dropping a single hint, thats ametuer. it was kind of sad to go, i loved that ward.

B falls off his bike, ruining his clothes and his dignity

2009-03-02T15:17:00.002-07:00

well, this week... on tuesday, we were trying to make it home in time so we were riding pretty hard, and as i was standing up pedaling going mach2, my chain slipped off the gears and the pedal dropped out from under me, dropping me off my bike and into the pavement. tore some holes in my shirt, in my elbows, all down my legs and arms, all sorts of good stuff. we estimated my slide distance and 20+ feet. when i finally stopped i got up, didnt say anything, elder gardner was trying his best to not laugh, i picked up my bike and we rode off like nothing happened. i was wearing my good shirt and shoes as well because we had had interviews that morning. bad deal. now my shoes are all scratched and shredded, as well as one of my new shirts. my first wreck yet. then 3 days later i ate it again, but instead of shredding my left side again i landed on my right side this time. ill send pictures, but its really nothing too grotesque. the reason i said that ginas handwriting looks like superchicks is because on that bag of valentine cookies you sent, mom wrote "from someone who loves you" and gina underneath put (superchick). thats why i mention it. i went with michelle to the temple for her first time on saturday, which was great. elder gardner would have gone too, but he didnt bring his recommend... it was great to be able to go with her, ive been here in downey for a long time and i could see all the progression she has made so it was a great step for her to complete. thats about everything exciting that happened this week... more later.

Sleeves on your head

2009-02-23T16:06:00.000-07:00

hola. how is everything in k-town? (or the west side for gina). all is going well here. weve been fairly busy this last week teaching a bunch of less actives from whats called the perry plan, created by L. tom perry. i dont know if you guys know what that is, im not sure what stakes across the states have started, but there are a few in utah. anyway, were teaching a lot of less actives because of it, but ones who are at least mildly interested in being taught, not the whole hit and miss of getting everyone off the ward list. elder gardner spoke yesterday at a girls farewell then felt bad because no one told him good speech and he said he didnt like me anymore because they all told me that. he still likes me, however. i think it was just because everyone was too busy trying to say adios to the future missionary, but he doesnt believe me. were having a good time, getting a lot of work done. i dont know for sure if im getting transfered, but i think its probable, considering the amount of time ive been here. i got to go to the spanish branch again yesterday, we finally got the other elders to go on splits with us. i miss being in a spanish ward every sunday, i havent had that since harbor city. most of the people recognize me there, but only a few remember my name, thats how little we get to go. i got the packages on friday, thanks again. (gina, superchicks handwriting looks much like yours, what are the odds?) when i opened the box and saw the sleeves i got so excited and slammed one over my head, it was a flash back to the past. that, coupled with my soccer cleats made me so trunky that night. i was just dreaming about playing soccer from 9.30 when i got them till i fell asleep. i have my soccer socks, some white sleeves, red ones now as well, and my cleats. it was great. my cleats are so beat up, and they still smelled slightly :) wouldnt trade them for the world. the cookies were completely unsmashed and the frosting didnt smear because they were sandwiched together, which made for easy eating. tell grandma thanks for the card and the dough as well. greatly appreciated. this morning, elder gardner and i had a killer run, we jogged, did some sprints, jogged more, did more sprints, it was tiring. im not in as poor shape as i thought, however. all is well.

Rain and hail

2009-02-17T13:31:00.000-07:00

not much new has happened this week. im taking pictures with all the families that i can before i go, so ill send them home when i finish. it has been raining a lot here lately, and it hailed this morning, but thats about it. i was able to go to the spanish branch again this week for the first time in like 2 months. when i got back for sacrament meeting in the downey ward the bishop asked me to fill in as a speaker because the guy who was supposed to couldnt make it, so i had a few minutes to prepare a speech from preach my gospel. ive noticed that before my mission, when i had to speak i had to prepare everything, all the scriptures, quotes, all that stuff, but now i can just teach it and go to whichever scriptures comes to mind because i know the material so much better. quite handy for giving last minute speeches. i believe i told you about a family we were bringing back to church, the arteagas. well, two weeks ago they told me they were going to park city (which is where i tell people im from because no one has ever heard of K-Town) and the said they were going to be going on a sleigh ride there, so i told them to ask for grandpa. i dont know if they went to the one he does or what, because they just got back and we havent had a chance to visit them and find out if they saw him. no more interesting news as of now.

Wrestling

2009-02-11T13:59:00.001-07:00

howdy folks. i dont have much to write about this week, sorry. glad my last story sparked a few comments. elder gardner and i were riding down the road yesterday and when i pulled on my brakes to start slowing down, it was apparently too much for my front tire, and the whole side wall blew out when the inner tube popped. that was crappy, because we were slightly far away from our apartment and even farther from the bike shop. luckily, i know all the hook ups and called a member, one dave dwelley he is called, and he came and picked us up in his huge truck, and even went so far as to take us to a bike shop to get a new tire and tube and paid for it to boot. he said he didnt want me to go hungry because i had to pay for a tire and not food. i guess he noticed that i tend to eat slightly larger portions than the samoan rugby team and i needed every penny to provide for myself. what a guy, ill tell ya. this ward is pretty great, most everybody would go out of their way to help us out like that. (a few members have asked for the blog address, i need to redeem myself for previous entries) (just kidding brother rafferty). thats about all that has happened. michelle sosa is getting ready to go to the temple in a couple of weeks for her first time, which is exciting. im going to get permission to go with her so that will be fun. my second year is starting so all of my baptisms, which are still active, according to a good elder friend of mine who is in harbor city, are preparing for the temple as well. im going to see when they plan on going and get permission to go with all of them as well. i felt like an old grandpa today when we were leaving the mission home after the temple and i saw a guy that looks like this elder i knew that has gone home, and no one in the car knew who i was talking about. thats only now, i wonder what it will be like farther down the road. elder gardner and i have been wrestling in our miniscule front room in our apartment for excercise at night. im 5-0 as of yet. its really hard when there is no room to throw him anywhere and our manager calls and says we are being too noisy. were going to have to start doing it out in the parking lot or something. im down 25 lbs since i left santa monica, thanks to a restricted diet, which i am now breaking. food is too good. ive lost my big floppy gut, so i dont have to suck in for the ladies anymore, thankfully. it was getting annoying having to do it 20 times a day. thats about all i can think of to write so ill talk to you next week

Poop and peaches

2009-02-05T07:38:00.000-07:00

2/2/09
1. we were eating with the bishop who has 4 children under 12. the youngest is a little terror, and he was running crazy around the dinner table when he stopped and walked over to the bishop and whispered incredibly loud "i pooped" the bishop said "no you didnt" and he said "dad, i pooped" really loud and impatient. the bishop picked him up and carried him to the bathroom when the next oldest, scott, who is 8ish, followed. he tried to go in the bathroom with them but the bishop told him to stay out. he said "but he gets to watch when i do it!"

2. ward correlation with the samoan ward when i was on splits with elder vaca-guzman. the ward mission leader was in there and i thought, "when youre a gangster, you dont care about how you look. he had on a bright maroon suit with olive socks and black snake skin shoes, which combined looked terrible. not only that, he had a mexi-stache, except the top half of it was shaved, so it looked like he had drawn on black lip liner with a sharpie on his upper lip. pimpin'.

3. we were eating with this family and their grandma lived with them so as we were eating our peaches and cottage cheese for dessert i looked over to see how she was hanging in. she is ridiculously old and decrepit, so i was wondering how she managed to eat pork earlier, so i observed he with the peaches. as i watched, her nose, which was running, left this really long snot drop into her spoon as it hovered near the maw of her mouth and then she slurped it all up, snot string and all. it didnt release from her nose, so it splattered across her upper lip and she just kept slurping it thinking it was peach juice or something until she gave up and wiped it with her napkin.

4. how much would it cost you to send my soccer cleats?

5. before i left, i packed a bunch of crap up in boxes and put them in the garage. is it possible to take them out and store them inside our house or VR's or something, there are a bunch of books and papers and crap in there that probably wont take that weather very well. dont let corey (or matt) steal my crap. the stuff in there is the stuff i want when i get back, thats why i packed it.

5. i think thats all for this week. elder gardner is much like bubba, but a million times louder. were having a great time, and it is nice, i dont really have to say anything, except when we talk in spanish. he is still learning. i spoke pretty well when i came out of the mtc (relatively) so now i understand why my trainer told me it was nice to have a greenie that could teach. its good fun, the latins like big white guys, so we do pretty well.

Another companion from 'Bama

2009-01-27T11:29:00.001-07:00

1/26/09
ok, so my new companion. hes from alabama, hes black, he was a cheerleader, and he talks a ton. really, really loud elder. hes been out for 4 transfers, so no im not training but i still have a greenie :) his name is elder gardner. he loves alabama and loves to talk about it, so ive heard lots of info on it, how it has the second biggest watershed in the US (second only to Minnesota), how to pick cotton, what type of soil it has, all sorts of interesting facts. hes a strange duck, but were having a lot of fun already. im still here in downey, which is nice, i like this joint. a couple of the families we eat with told me they are praying i stay again, and i thought they were joking, but they assured me they werent. there are a lot of people who have my type of humor so they told me that first they were praying i would leave but then changed their minds because they felt bad. theyre all pretty awesome, so im happy i got to stay at least one more transfer, plus they all dig me, what can i say? we had 3 LA come to church this week for the first time, one of them for the first time in like 20 years and he was dressed up in a suit and everything and stayed all 3 hours. our investigator still calls me all the time just wanting to talk, especially when she gets really upset, which apparently happens every day. it is so awkward to talk to her on the phone because she just cries and asks for advice and help and the only thing i will tell her is that she should ask help from god, not me, hes better at it. im trying to keep each call under 5 minutes so they dont run long, but it doesnt always happen. this week we are taking our RS pres and her hubby, the larsens. on sunday, we did 7 hours of tracting, because we didnt have much of a chance during the couple days we have been together. weve spent a lot of time at meetings for some new plan they are implementing here so we had to do it all on sunday to meet our goal. thats a lot by the way. ill hit 1 year this week, then we can say ive been out for a year. it has seemed like more than a year for me, so its weird to think its only one year, halfway. out of my whole district, ive been out the longest, and there are only 5 in my zone of 16 with more time than i. that seems really odd to think about, because i still feel like a youngster sometimes. the back wheel of my bike got jacked one night, which was pretty crappy. luckily i have 2, but now im having to use the crappy one, and then ill have to pay for a new tire if i want to use the good one. such is the luck. thats about all thats happened lately... toodles. elder anderson

Elder Calhoun

2009-01-21T15:13:00.003-07:00

1/20/09
howdy folks. this week has been much the same, im still with elder vaca-guzman, i dont get a new companion until tomorrow. i dont know what transfers are going to be, but i think ill stay in downey. we have been super busy since last tuesday, covering 2 areas and everything, so its been pretty cool to be really busy for a change. ive been on splits with so many different people, to church, to meetings, to appointments, tons of stuff, and it was fun to go with members for a while to get to know them better. there are only like 3 youth in our ward that are able to go on splits with us so i had to start calling in the reserves, returned missionaries, married people, all sorts of good stuff. its been fun. there was a referral we got a few days ago that i was finally able to contact and she has a lot of potential, and i say that from the reason that before i had even met her i talked to her on the phone and she asked what she needed to do to be a member. we taught a great lesson on the restoration and it all went down really well. she couldnt come to church this sunday because she was out of town, same with next sunday for the same reason, but after that, shes going to start coming and bring her 5 year old son so he can learn as well. the only problem i forsee at this point is an awkward one. she has had a pretty rough life (she is 23) and made lots of poor decisions, and now is trying to change. ... anyway, ill let you guys know how things progress. spencer querry emailed me this week. when i talked to him in the mtc, he said he couldnt speak spanish and then in his email he still couldnt speak it but he is getting called up to be a zone leader. i thought that was pretty cool. i was going to write a bit to shilo but i havent gotten around to it. there is a lot of letter writing i need to do, but there is always something else i can do instead i have come to find out. next week i will tell you all about my new companion, the one like elder calhoun. that would be so fun. things should be back to normal then, although, this change in schedule was quite enjoyable. it was a good break from the same day to day routine. good luck at home. vamoose

Going home

2009-01-15T13:09:00.003-07:00

1/14/09
well, not much news to talk about, just one or two matters. about two weeks ago elder kiestler told me he was going home soon, he had talked to president and they decided to send him home because he wasnt obeying mission rules and wasnt going to start. president said by last friday he was going to be gone, however, after talking to elder kiestlers parents, he moved the date to the 20th of january because his parents wanted him to come home near the 21st, which is when his older brother gets off his mission. that was the plan until the 12th when at 6.30 am president and the APs knocked on our door. i was awake and starting to do my excercises so i let them in while elder kiestler got out of bed and they told us that he was going home that day at 11.30. now i am on splits for a week with another elder whose companion is the new ap and is at the mission home being trained, so between the 2 of us we are covering both areas. its been pretty hectic the last couple of days going back and forth so much, but we have a car so its not as bad. the reason elder kiestler went home was, as i said, he wasnt keeping missoin rules, such as he wasnt going to bed on time or waking up, listening to music from home, playing his PSP and gameboy instead of studies, watching movies on his portable dvd player, etc. there was a lot more that was going on before he got transfered to me, and president still knew about it but didnt do anything until now. elder pico, our DL, called president to tell him that elder kiestler was sleeping in when one morning elder pico came by to drop off some papers at like 10.00 and elder kiestler was still sleeping so thats when pres made the decision to send him home. transfers isnt until wednesday so i will be with elder vaca-guzman until then covering the 2 areas, then i dont know if i will stay in downey or not. so thats what has happened this week. today, after the temple, we went down sunset blvd towards hollywood to hit up some music store, so that was the closest i have gotten to seeing the california that everyone knows about. i was really close to my old area in santa monica, its just 2 minutes from the temple, and then from from there we headed east a bit. almost got to repass the old stomping grounds. thats about it. it was great to hear from you all this week even tho you had 2 extra days... toodles

Birthday boy

2008-12-29T18:50:00.001-07:00

howdy everyone. sorry i hurt your feelings mom, i wasnt trying to be mean, so dont take everything so personally please. not much has changed since i talked to all of you last, we havent had much going on. we are finally teaching a few lessons while tracting, which is a nice change of pace from the last couple of months, but we havent had a 2nd with any of them yet, that comes this week. mum, dont worry about keeping my room unchanged, because i dont care what it looks like when i get home, nor will i be heading off to good ol uvu, sorry. its the van down by the river or bust for me, after i spend my one year as a bum in NYC, (just to try it out) but before i get my job at the video store. gina, how old are you turning 29? man, thats pretty close to 30. if i were you, thats the one i would be dreading, not 29. 30 is so old... im only 20, so i dont have to worry about getting old :) my goal is to go the whole transfer without anyone finding out its my birthday, and i have succeeded so far. i wonder what will happen when i am suddenly not a teenager. will i wake up jan 1 and feel really mature, slightly sore in the joints, full of wisdom, all of that? im thinking 2 out of 3, i probably wont feel very mature. i finally convinced my companion to go running with me in the mornings, which i dont know why i tried so hard, i hate running. today was our first time, and we ran for 28 minutes. im not in horrendous shape, because of being on bike, but im still way out of the "good ol days" shape. my gut gets in the way and weighs me down. i weighed myself 2 days ago and you will never guess how much weight i have lost in the last 3 months. 0 pounds. can you believe it? i was so excited that i could hardly stand it. but really, i have gotten a lot skinnier, but i have more muscle because i have been lifting my weights for more than a month now, however, im still a little pudgy. slowly but surely, now in addition to a morning jog, ill be back to modeling for mens health. thats about as exciting as the times are right now. someone not quite as wise as me once said "i know, not every day is an eventful uplifting spiritual experience...even as a missionary. been there, done that." how true. hmmm. this sunday, the speakers in sacrament meeting finished around 11.45, so we still had a few minutes to go. the bishop leaned over to one of his counselors and whispered to him for a second, then he got up and stood at the pulpit. he looked straight into my soul, piercing it to the core and said, much to my confusion "elder anderson, would you please come bear your testimony?" well, i was glad to do so, because even tho i have worked with this ward for 4 months, they dont really ever get a chance to hear my testimony. it was a good way to let them know that the good looking yet enigmatic elder laboring in their neck of the woods was more than just a pretty face. good times, good times. well, i cant think of anything more to write... except ask grandpa if he has any cute girls ready to write me yet. ok, toodles

Gym rat

2008-12-17T08:25:00.001-07:00

12/16/08

howdy. well, my new companion is elder kiestler, whom i have never met before now, like all my other companions. his dad is in the navy so he has lived all over, and his family currently is in virginia. hes been out for 1.5 years, and he was sent to me so i could "excite him about being a missionary" as quoted by my zone leaders. apparantly for the last long time he has been not working or anything so they shipped him to my neck of the woods so i could fix that somehow. we get along great and everything like that, he would just rather wake up at 9.30 and not work. it will probably be a challenge but i am looking forward to it, so you wont hear me complain. im just going to have to drag him out of bed and out the door, but it will keep me working hard too, so im glad. hes senior companion, but so far ive called all the shots and he just kind of stares at his digital picture frame and grunts or says "sounds fine". i forsee myself doing most of the work, but like i said im glad about that because it will keep me from getting lazy. im still in downey and on bike, which im happy about. cars are nice when youre late, but i much enjoy my bike. p-day today was kind of a bummer. they told us on saturday that it would be on tuesday instead of monday when we had service and stuff planned then they told us last night the activity was cancelled... ive realized i dont get many pdays here in downey, usually 1 or 2 a transfer we have to go to appointments or service all day. ive started an exercise routine in the morning i got out of a mens health workout book, so maybe in a few months my flab will be gone. ive lost some weight lately because im not pigging out and im lifting weights in the morning, but there is only so much i can do with a couple of dumbells. we got in contact with some old investigators of mine 2 days ago that invited us to dinner the second time we went over and then to turkey day the 3rd. this time we hadnt seen them in like 3 or 4 weeks because we dropped them, but we went over and they invited us to christmas dinner. theyre a way cool family, rich latins, and because im white and speak spanish they love it. the dad is called benjamin, the mom veronika, and they have a 6 year old son name... benjamin. i told them that was my name when we went over 2 days ago and they thought that was the coolest thing since sliced bread. or a white kid speaking spanish. weve gotten 2 referrals from HQ this last week, one that we are trying to contact and one that is in hawaii for christmas, so maybe we can get some new investigators from that. other than that, all the LA are coming back to church, ben and eliana arteaga, cesar lopez, yesenia curiel and her dad jose and yesenias 2 children kayla and xavier, ramiro villanueva... i think thats it. i havent had any baptisms here but in 1 transfer we got 6 people coming back to church every week, so its just as good. this is the first time ive had success with LA so im excited about it for once, normally i hate going to visit LA because they are retarded, but its great once you get results. hmmm. yesterday we had a christmas zone conference, prez read how the grinch stole christmas. it rained so dang hard all day, in the gutters on the side of the road there were 8 inches of standing water, it flooded the streets, everywhere. when we walked out of our apartment it was coming down so hard that even tho the water was draining out of our parking lot, it filled up so fast that it was at my ankles when we ran out to our DLs car. reminded me of snow back at K-town. i saw snow for the first time since leaving the mtc, it was just on a safe driving movie that our fleet coordinator showed. guess who narrated. none other than Mark Eubank himself. that tripped me out to see him talking about missionaries and safe driving in bad weather.
geez, i dont know what it is but i have been in an unsuppressable good mood for weeks. im feelin it right now. ok bye

Yak hair

2008-12-08T09:03:00.001-07:00

12/1/08
we ate with a member for thanksgiving, but had to be home by 6. it was pretty uneventful. ummm... elder espindola leaves in one week. ummm...

i dont know what to write, alls the same.

this less active we are teaching liked us so much he gave us ties, 3 each. he had a million from his job but now he only needs 1, for church. im going to have the biggest tie collection when i get home. im going to break 100 by next week. all gifts. im expecting to receive a fair few for christmas, if the members have been catching my hints. except from our ward mission leader. he and his wife play warcraft, and i was never going to tell them i used to, but espindola let it slip last week, so now they are going to get me a warcraft shirt or something. however, i dont want any ties from you guys, i wont except them if they cost more than $10. im straight up thrift store ties, theyre the best. i have one that i suspect is made out of yak hair. its brown and some shade of yellowish color. found another thrift store this week, so we are going to hit it up soon hopefully. i think thats about it.

Future plans

2008-11-28T17:50:00.000-07:00

11/24/08
congratulations on the condo. you will own it eventually right? its not like an apartment where you just throw fistfuls of cash at the crappy landlord? maybe ill come live with you and we can base camp from there for our travels. im trying not to be like corey and live at home forever... however, i could totally see myself getting home, getting a good job at a video store and living in my old room until mom and dad die and i get the house. that would be cool, girls like it. i went to the singles branch here in downey this sunday. 3 girls 6 boys, not much. im not gonna go to a singles ward i dont think. i would assume its similar to BYU, a mad meat fest of people trying to find a mate. not for me. im a bachelor for life. i just need to get a wrist brace so i dont get carpul tunnel from the video store. send me a ton of those pumpkin logs, those things are bomb. im confused by your frequent referrals to world of warcraft. i havent played it in almost a year and i probably wont be playing again for another, if not forever. i had to give up hitting on girls and warcraft, and now i have realized what i miss more. just one more year and i can finally unleash the mojo, make them go crazy. this dumb spanish thing has messed up my english spelling. im dumb now, i cant spell anything. i wrote yesterday about a crozz and didnt realize until i went back and looked at it again. now that im paying attention to it i realized im making a ton of mistakes, so i dont know how many i have missed... o well. mom im glad youre doped about a teenager book about vampires. sounds awesome. why do you assume i wrote a funny joke to allan? im funny all the time, i dont have to tell jokes. when we dont have appointments to go to we knock doors. missionary work is really quite dull, 4 hours a day knocking doors, ride to an appointment and theyre not there, knock another hour, go to dinner, visit less actives... however, we have had great LA success here, 5 of them coming to church every week now and doing what they should be. 2 couples and a recent convert whose hubby didnt get b'tized. never done that before, all the LA that ive tried to help in the past didnt want us to help, so i have had a badditude to LA work. its not too bad once you see success. papa smurf, how was the concerto? did you take any vid clips for me? i got some of the metallica concert from aimee, they are awesome. that reminds me, buy their new album, Death Magnetic, and have it ready for me to listen to when i get off the plane, i want to hear it. who did you go with? ok thats all i believe... bye

Dungeons and dragons

2008-11-20T15:07:00.001-07:00

howdy foolios. with the fires, yes it was bad where we are. there were a couple of days where it snowed over night, at least it seemed so with all the ash, and where you couldnt see very far because of smoke and it burned your eyes and throat, especially while biking, but its over now. the skies are cleared (for LA at least, theyre still a healthy brown color) so were doing fine. nothing about prop 8, downey is too quiet of a place for anything major to happen. elder espindola and i have found a few good families (finally) that are doing well, so we finally have some appointments, the only bad thing is that we go all week with just a couple of return appts that dont show but everyone can only meet on our p-day, so yesterday when we got back from the temple we had to go to appts and we didnt have time to wash or email or get food or anything, thats why im writing on a thursday. we have some good investigators now, so things are picking up a bit, we havent had many people to teach for a long time, just 1 or 2 good appts a week, but were getting more now. we have been doing a lot of less active work, and have gotten a few people reactivated and going to church, paying tithing, etc., all on their own choice, we just helped them to turn themselves around so it didnt seem like we were pushing them but that they made the choice themselves. with one couple, we ate dinner with them and they were so excited and said "weve decided we want to start paying our tithing, where can we get envelopes?" hehe, it was great. things still arent too exciting, just normal missionary work, so ya... there was a member we were eating with who is just like me, sarcastically funny, gives a little, takes a little, and he said he had a dungeons and dragons meeting that night. i asked him if they were all going to dress up for it and he said, yes, but at least in this game there are no winners or losers, to which i had the best punch line in a week. "Ha" i replied with a smile "youre all losers" it was quite funny, he and his wife laughed harder than i did (she teases him about it all the time). theres your joke of the week.

Tie thief

2008-11-12T14:02:00.002-07:00

11/10/08
howdy folks. we havent gotten any bad things from prop 8, all good (welcome to downey) but it looks like i got out of santa monica in time. besides, what are they going to do, limp wrist me and call me mean names..? big whoop. its been another week in downey, all the talk at doors and with members has been about prop 8, which drives me nuts because i dont care and its over with anyway. soon everything will return to normal, here at least, and we can get back to people just saying no instead of no but good job on prop 8. i went to a samoan ward this sunday on splits, which was awesome. i didnt understand anything, but samoans are loud, even in church. they would guffaw so much, just big ol belly laughs, especially after one kid got up for a program, didnt say anything for almost 3 minutes, then said (in samoan) in the name of jesus christ amen. thats the only part i understood because one of the members told me before what it meant. that was pretty cool, and as well i spent an hour in one of my spanish branches for sacrament meeting, which is only the second time i have been able to go in 2 months, and the first time to this branch. we cover 2 spanish branches, as well our english ward, in which we are the only missionaries, so we have to have at least one of us there, and its hard to get to the branches with one person. my tie collection is growing, im well past 50, and still adding. i recently swindled a member out of one of his ties and he didnt know it until i put it on and he said "wait, i thought i wasnt giving that to you, why did i? " hehe, so scandalous am i. we have a lot of investigators now, most doing pretty well, and we have a few less active families (4) that we have gotten back to church. we are doing very well. one of the less active fams, a hubby and a wife, just found out the wife is pregnant, so they are really excited about that. they found out 2 weeks after they came to church for the first time in a while, so it was pretty cool. Elder Espindola goes home in 30 days, which i remind him about every day so he doesnt get trunky on me. ive had one companion get more trunky than me, and it was a hard battle to keep him from making me more trunky. all my companions have been just about to go home, so i have had it my whole mission, being trunky. im been here long enough i might start getting companions younger than me, but who knows, maybe just soon to leave ones the whole time. eh, well see. im doing well, hope all is well there, bye.

Changes

2008-11-03T15:06:00.001-07:00

life will be so wierd in a year. the house will look different, moms hair will look like a boys, corey will be too big to walk... so many changes. for halloween we had to be in our house at 6 and we couldnt leave, but i did the most dressing up i could do. i put on a huge black wig and wore it under my helmet to dinner and back, that was about it. nothing too exciting has happened lately, same old stuff pretty much. i got that package on friday, thanks. i have a huge bag of candy from like 4 months ago that i havent touched in forever, and now im adding to it. when i get back around to eating lots of sugar, it will be great. we were trying to contact a referral yesterday evening, we were supposed to be there at 6, so when we showed up, it turned out to be an apartment complex with 100 doors, and they had failed to give us a number. we spent an hour and 45 minutes knocking on doors until our bishop finally called and said he had found the number. it was one we had knocked already, they just didnt answer because they were watching a movie. they asked to reschedule because they had already started, so we have another appointment in a few days. thats pretty much it...

Pumpkin shirt

2008-10-28T07:42:00.001-06:00

10/27/08
well, my bike is in the shop finally, getting fixed. it should be done this week, which is nice, because although the beach cruiser is a good ride, it is really hard to pedal especially uphill, which is the way that we have to go to get into the good spots of our area. ill be back onto a mountain bike so i can mess around in first gear again, the only bad part is the way the elder before had it set up was for a big fat kid, so its kind of uncomfortable for me to ride. my butt is up higher than my hands are, so its like im about to fall forward when i get on. oh well. when we asked cheryl if we could help her out with anything (the standard thing to ask as we leave an appointment) she asked if one of us was handy with a hammer and nails, so i said yes, i am. anyway, long story short, im building a huge wheelchair ramp to her door so her mother can come stay with her. im looking forward to hit, havent pounded a nail in 6 months. transfers is in 2 days, but its almost certain that elder espindola and i are staying together, which is good, we do really well together. we have had some good success already, so next transfer we can have some more. bike elder is the way to be, i dig it. the only bad part is we have to do what ever the DL wants on pday because we cant drive to go get food or to the buildings we meet at. other than that, its great. its fun to ride a bike again, but it makes me miss my haro (the one that got stolen) thats why i was contemplating buying another so i could ride it when i got back. but im going to stay with the one i have, so dont worry about anything like that. yesterday we went to an appointment we had set with a family because they were busy when we talked to them the first time, so when we went back, chivas and C.A. were playing and they had a carne asada going on. they gave us a bunch of food, which was so good its unbelievable and we met a bunch of their friends and a guy who was baptized in mexico, as he told us, when he was 6 or 7. they had this chile pica their which they told us we had to try so we slathered our rice in it and ate it. elder espindola cant handle la picosa at all, so his eyes started watering and he was putting down drink after drink. it made my mouth and throat burn, but was actually quite tasty. i think my taste buds are either dying or something or im acclimating to the food because it wasnt as bad as i thought it would be. then they told us it was habanero chile. they all thought it was funny that they white boy didnt burn but the brown one was dying. they didnt think i could eat more so they gave me another tortilla to eat and i ate a tortilla with just habanero salsa. they thought that was great (they were a little drunk) but they all invited us over to their house again so we set it up. we didnt teach them anything because its slightly pointless to teach a drunk mexican anything. chivas won. latins are more awesome than most white people, especially when they drink a little, but not too much, then its not awesome any more. we havent had any white people ask us to eat with them, but those mexicanos thought it was the best thing since sliced bread. papa smurf, it was your birthday last week, no? one more year and you are f-f-fi-f-fif... half a century old! congratulations, and happy birthday.

something i forgot to add: on friday, the ward had their primary halloween party with the 3rd ward (we are the 1st) so we went their to get food and donuts. there was a raffle for a few pumpkins, only the kids and the missionaries were allowed to enter, and i won the grand prize! it was this pumpking that is almost 3 feet tall and wheighed like 45 lbs. it was funny as everyone left the church and honked as they drove by, becuase i was riding my bike with this baby whale of a pumpkin on my shoulder. its a good thing we are only a half mile from the church. im going to carve it at dinner on thursday and put it out for halloween. its big enough that i could carve arm holes and wear it, but it might get my shirt dirty. ok, thats what i forgot to say, bye

Speecher

2008-10-20T13:41:00.002-06:00

hello. i got the email written last week, calm down, just be patient people. you have to realize i only see stuff on monday (or possibly wednesday, like last week) and so im a week behind everything. im thinking about buying my own bike so i dont have to use the crappy one im on now. if i do, im going to buy a bmx bike :) ill let you now if i need money or anything like that when i make my decision. you can just put it on my debit card and i can take it from there. i gave a speech on sunday in the downey 1st ward, which went well. i was the last speecher and they other people rambled forever so we skipped the rest hymn and i had 5 minutes to speak, which was retarded because i couldnt say anything i had planned to say, so it was weird. plus the bishop asked me to speak on *surprise* missionary work by members, which is all they hear from us, so im sure they all thought, eh, i can continue my nap for 5 more minutes, hes just going to tell us how bad of missionaries we are as members. eh it was true, thats what i told them... im just kidding. because i couldnt talk about what i wanted i told them all that because they have all felt the power of the atonement in not only repentance but in support and comfort (alma 7:12) that is why we do missionary work, so others can have that as well. it was pretty decent for what i had to work with. that was such a hectic sunday. i taught the preach my gospel class that the ward wanted to start, while my companion was in with the investigators in gospel principles. before that, we had to explain this dumb reading chart to the relief society that the previous missionaries had written out so it would look like they did something the 3 months they were here. my companion didnt know what it was because the bishop didnt talk to him about it, so i spent 20 minutes explaining this chart to old ladies that didnt get anything (they probably couldnt hear me). it was so busy, but it was quite nice, because it made me feel like a missionary, all busy and running around to get to places. normally its just the preach my gospel class that i have to worry about, which isnt too bad. its a good thing im not a shy person or i would be terrible at missionary work. i spent 3 hours talking in front of people, and i didnt even get sweaty palms... anywho. we are working with a lot of less actives here. i think when i get home im going less active, there must be a good reason to do it or there wouldnt be 70% of the ward that hasnt gone in 10 years. hehe, im just kidding, they all have the dumbest excuses ive ever heard, which annoys me out of my mind, but there are some who are ready to come back. we have 5 that we are teaching right now, and only 3 investigators, all of which have ditched our last appointment with them. not much else to tell about... right now elder es and i are riding these beach cruisers, which are so ghetto awesome. we look like fools/pimps on them, im not sure which. ok, thats all, bye

Baptism

2008-10-17T13:56:00.002-06:00

10/15/08
howdy. today was temple p-day, so its a wednesday. this week, i got a call from elder seaman that kevin, one of the kids from harbor city, was getting baptised. i had taught him for 4 months and so i called pres to get permission to go back for it and he let me. one of the members from the downey 2nd ward took me, it was great. it was so exciting to go back and to see him. he saw me and the first thing he said was "long time no see, i thought you went back to utah" it was funny the way he said it, no nonsense matter-of-factly. ill be sending pictures when i get around to it, calm down. pdays are the busiest days we have, so its slightly a pain to get it all together and mail it. especially when i have been wearing these garments for 4 days now because we couldnt wash... things take precidence. we have some good investigators here, we have 3 strong ones, and one, cheryl, is on fire. she went to utah because her son went to the ER with a bleeding ulcer, and so when she told us we suggest he get a blessing (he is already a member of a couple of years) so they got one from his bishop and she said, now we just have to use our faith. the next morning they walked out of the hospital just fine, the doctors said that his ulcer was gone. every time she goes to utah she sees amazing things. thats why utah is so great, these bums out here all wish they could live there, but theyre stuck in california with hi rent and too much sun. well, thats about all for today, ill talk to you on monday

No news

2008-10-07T07:36:00.000-06:00

well, not much has happened this week. conference was awesome. its amazing how much more i like it as a missionary. this was my second conference here now, it was great. thats all i can think of. i got a few emails this week about my poo story, i didnt know people looked at that blog... whats the address again? i have a few female friends that need written back, so i decided it would be ideal to refer them to that for an update instead of writing my history a bunch of times... ya i know im a slacker, get over it. ok, bye

Addendum

2008-10-01T11:22:00.003-06:00

*note from the editor: as you may or may not know, any content posted on this website undergoes extensive censoring before being published. the following email was deemed inappropriate by our head censor (mom), but after much deliberation between the editor and author, the decision was made to post this highly controversial message. enjoy.

9/15/08
thx for the email, that was a good one. i didnt hear from anyone last week, at all. kamas was the only one who sent me an email. ive been depressed lately. he told me that metallica was coming to utah, and as well i heard the other day that metallica released their newest album, and its awesome. im shaking it off tho, cant get me down. well, last night, i was hit with another attack of destructive diarreah. i dont know how to spell that now i think about it. we were out in the streets at 8.30 pm and it hits me like a 'dump' truck. so i run over to the nearest house and pound on the door, but no one answered. i looked around panickedly as elder todd is like hey, whats going on. so i run across the street while telling him my ordeal and knock on another door. a guy opens it after a second and gave me an odd look, i was having cold sweats and my face had a look of intense concentration. i said, heyweremissionariesfromthechurchofjesuschristcaniuseyourbathroom? hey gave me another odd look like he was going to say no, but his heart was softened so he let me. 15 minutes later i stagger out and he smiles and asked 'feel better?' i was so thankful. thats about all thats been going on. were working with a spanish family and theyre getting baptized, we just havent set a date, so thats cool. we have done all our work with the 5 spanish families that live in santa monica, white people are too mean.

Horrendous tan lines

2008-09-30T13:54:00.003-06:00

9/29/08
work is going well still, had another miracle fall into our hands. there was a lady taking english classes from some other elders but she lived in our area, so they were teaching her and we didnt even nkow she existed. one day they called us and said they had a lady with a baptismal date that they were giving to us because she was in our area, so that puts one more in our teaching pool. her date is set for oct. 19, so were really excited, we needed a lot of help to bring this area to full potential. dont send my helmet if you havent already, it will be a pain to pack around transfer to transfer, and im fine with this nerdy one i have now. you guys wouldnt recognize me now, i wear a nerdy watch on my arm, given to me by a less active we went to visit named benjamin arteaga. he saw i was without one (the face of my old one fell off a month into los angeles) and gave me one of his. he is a watch collecter, so he had a ton of bling watches, and i think this one embarrased him so he unloaded it. the bike i ride puts my rear end at the same elevation as my elbows, so im not riding with any dignity, and its as low as it goes. my hair is short (im still the only elder who doesnt wear gel) and i have horrendous tan lines. i wonder how my picking up on girls will be affected when i get back. now i know what other people feel like! my butts not sore anymore, it was for about 2 days then i got over it. we went to a bike shop today and i saw the same bmx bike that i bought back in the day there and i started drooling and wishing i could ride it instead. we cover 3 branches here, 2 spanish and 1 english, although technically the english ward is a ward, its small enough to be a branch. the stake is divided into like 7 wards, but everyone is moving/has moved because there is nothing here. this neighborhood is a lot like a utah neighborhood, except theyre all mexicans instead of white people. its a fairly wealthy place, quiet, no ghettos :( spread out, but its all brown. most of the people here are pretty nice, which is something that is different for me. even the richer people are at least polite, but just like with any other place, there are the bad apples. last friday, we didnt have any appointments until dinner, so we left the apartment at 12 noon like normal and tracted for 6 straight hours to our dinner appointment. it wasnt too bad except it was ridunculously hot. that reminds me. this week downey shut down all the water for everything, they found e. coli in the water, so everything shut down. couldnt drink normal water, all the resteraunts were closed, all the produce and meats from stores were gone, everything. we have been without water since last tuesday, but elder espindola and i didnt find out til friday about it (no news, no radio) but were okay, not too broken up about it. everybody got a little taste of what a disastor would be like, no water, no food, prices of everything went sky high, so here is some wisdom you should take heed to. make sure your food storage is adequate and up to date. LA is predicting that some sort of natural disastor (earthquake i believe) will hit november 11 or around there. well see in a few months i guess. elder espindola and i got along well enough, were were fasting during some of that week so it wasnt a big deal not to drink water.

to answer your questions (for once) i was only in santa monica 1 transfer (6 weeks) and then they moved me, and every time i have moved, i have flushed (3 times) how weird is that. it hardly ever happens here and i have been the one to do it, but it starts to grow on you, i like it. i have had 4 different companions now (elder fennell, elder seaman, elder todd, and now elder espindola) all within a few months of going home, so im pretty trunky too. sounds like we have had a similar mission experience so far, i get the problem areas where there is no work being done. santa monica there was nothing all year and we got 2 baptismal dates there. i left before they were baptised, which was the only thing disappointing about leaving (i dont like white people any more...) and here the elders hadnt gone tracting or taught or anything in 5 months. the only time they would leave the apartment was for dinner appointments. our Dl is so happy to have new elders so he doesnt have to get on there backs every day.

Hard work and miracles

2008-09-23T08:47:00.001-06:00

9/22/08
this week has been a long week, it feels like forever since ive emailed. i got transfered out of santa monica, into the downy first ward. this is a different transfer, now im on bike. im here with elder espindola, who is bolivian, but was made in canada and moved to utah at 7. we were flushed in, again, im 3/3 on transfer flushes. the elders before us werent doing anything, there has been no work here in 5 months. we got here with no appointments, just a lunch appt from a member. however, we have seen a lot of miracles already. our first day here, we didnt have a dinner appt, so when we got hungry, elder espindola wanted to bike back home. we were pretty far, and since im not the most energized person, i wanted to call a number from the phone and ask for an appt. so i called it, and the guy answered, and invited us to his house, so we ate with his family. they were disappointed in the last elders and were so excited to have new ones they gave us 5 referrals. that is unheard of, i dont think i have had 5 all my other transfers put together. we have a baptismal date with one, and will be setting one with another next week. thats why missionaries ask for referrals, it works. that was pretty cool, and the next night we got a call from the visitors center sisters with another referral, so we checked him the next day. we got to his house and no one answered the door after a couple of tries. we had been biking and knocking all day so we were way thirsty, so we knocked the rest of his coul-de-sac trying to find someone to let us in so we could ask for water. bunch of rich old people denied us, and we walked dejectedly to our bikes. i was hesitant to get on again because my butt had, gotten ridiculously... beautiful... from riding for 3 days, so as a stalling technique, i walked to his door to try again. i was half turned to elder espindola telling him that i was resting my behind when the guy opened the door. we told him we were talking about eternal families and he was quite interested. he told us that he wanted to know how to keep his son after he died, or if something happened, so we talked a little how the gospel can bless the family etc. we set up a return appt and he is solid. now here is the miracle. he gave us each 2 bottles of water! saved! we are having a lot of success, and the lady who we have a date with, her husband doesnt want to hear anything from us, but when we went to visit her, he hid in the kitchen and listened, and as she told us on sunday, he was impressed with us while we were there and he wants to start joining in on our lessons, while before he would just watch tv and turn it up really loud. the ward heard about our success already and they have made a 180 turn. its so awesome, we are having a great time. im using another elders bike while im here, but i need you to send me my motocross helmet, and the gloves if they are in it. ive cleared it with prez blackburn, as long as i dont wear goggles so people cant see my face, he is totally fine with it. hrmm, what else has happened...? elder espindola is pretty cool, as i said, his family is bolivian, but they were in canada when he was born, and when he was 7 they moved to clearfield utah. he goes home soon, so it makes yet another companion that is about to leave. all of my companions have been just about to go home, and so im just continuing the tradition. downey is a fairly wealthy area, not quite so like santa monica, it has more homes and is more spread than the closeness of everything else like my last 2 areas, all apartments and really crammed. thats about it, all is going well.

Gina + Owen = True Love Forever and Ever

2008-09-04T15:15:00.001-06:00

9/3/08
... i need the info for the new bishopric, like names addresses and phone numbers so i can give it to the mission office. still havent gotten my pants cleaned yet, but thats ok, im wearing a different pair. theyre the big heavy ones that make my legs sweat just looking at them, but im used to it now. tell matt gratz on playing and getting announced for his tackle! ill send some pictures soon. i have everything but maria elenas baptism on there, so ill try to get them from elder seaman, i didnt have my camera with me... if i can get those soon ill put them and and ship it off, if not, you will have to wait for them. tell gina i have a leaf from the hedge that walls owen wilsons house for her. he is in our area, so we went and tried to talk to him. ive realized that missionary work in santa monica isnt real missionary work. we dont knock doors, we ring call boxes. the people are all jerks and dont let us in, they shoo us from the second story or from their mile long driveway. not at all like they make it out to be where people are just dying to meet with us in their dirt floored home and such. eh, thats ok, we have a car. brand new 09 corolla. got it for having the cleanest car at zone conference. thats how i roll. tonight were eating dinner with our resident billionaire. hes 32. im taking lots of pictures. hrmm. ok bye

Finally...a transfer

2008-08-24T10:28:00.004-06:00

*sweetpagene here...sorry about this post being out of order, i was experiencing technical difficulties when ben wrote this and by the time i was able to post, i'd forgotten all about it. forgive me please. life is now back to normal and i will dutifully return to my posting responsibilities.

8/13/08
well, i got transfered... i went from harbor city way up north to santa monica, which is the only thing separating hollywood and the beach, so its a pretty wealthy area. its quite different than harbor city. once again i flushed sisters, this had been a sisters area for over 7 years, so everyone was quite shocked when we came rolling up for church. we didnt have any investigators or anything when we came in, but now we have 1 family and then a couple of return appointments that could turn out. well see. my new comp is elder todd, from mount pleasant. hes 6'5, 270, played tons o' video games, not a big sports fan, hes just a big teddy bear. so whats going on with corey thats making him move back? that reminds me, i think matt has my ipod, so who, if anyone, is using my computer? tell matt congrats on the lifting test, does he know what position hell be playing? i was going to get my pants fixed/cleaned but then transfers happened and now were still working on figuring out our new area. we volunteered for an old people house da udder day, elder todd and i, it was way fun actually. we pushed wheelchairs across 2 streets to the beach for a picnic. i pushed bob. elder todd doesnt know who he pushed because you cant understand him when he talks, and elder todd had to feed him because he cant move his arms. i enjoyed it, bob wasnt too high maintenance, he just told me stories of the golden years. he invited us to his room on the way back to hang out with his girlfriends... we were too busy unfortunately. my time ran out with elder gene, he is getting transfered, and his snocone machine goes with. maybe when they inspect our new place i will win again. we live in a mini studio, our beds are in the living room, along with our minifridge, its all that will fit. our kitchen has a sink/burner combo and no counter. we dont have a table or anything like that. i can shower and poo at the same time, which is excellent in the mornings. i took a video of it on my camera. since im sending my pics to all of you, and they were on our computer, will they all be gone when you get it back? they erase the hard drive usually so everything will be deleted, like my itunes (:( im gonna miss my music, took me ages to get it all) and my pictures? or will they still be accessable? let me know if they are gone, and i will just keep all my pictures on my sd cards so they wont get deleted when the computer breaks again. hmmm. i dont know what else...

...until the sun comes up over Santa Monica Boulevard...

2008-08-21T19:23:00.002-06:00

8/18/08
here in santa monica, i only speak spanish about 1 time per week, which stinks, but its cool. the white people here arent very humble, so its difficult to teach any. we came into the area with 0 investigators or less actives to teach, but now we have 2 spanish families, which is odd. latins are just much better than white people when it comes to missionary work. i went to my old area this sunday for yahairas baptism, and it was weird, even tho i had only been gone for like 10 days it seemed like forever. we do a ton of stuff during the day so only a week seems like much longer. it was cool to see the branch again, i was excited, they were a pretty awesome branch. that makes 4 baptism with 2 more with dates where i was the one who started teaching, so im not doing too shabby. now i have to start from scratch again in santa monica, where it is slightly less productive, but its all in a days work. its odd coming from harbor city, which is a dirty hood, to santa monica, where there is nothing with graffiti on it, no loud music, no shiny rims, nothing that was awesome about harbor city. even tho its close from here to there than from our house to park city, there are 2 different worlds here. santa monica is bomb tho, we have the resident gazillionaires in the ward, which is cool when you eat in their mansions on the beach with elevators and everything. i think its funny that dad mentioned "left over sno cone syrup"... as if. we had a deep cleaning day on saturday, and we scoured our hobbit hole, so now its nice and shiny, hopefully elder gene and his sno cone machine will come stay with us again. not much interesting has happened since last wednesday... ok bye

Earthquake!

2008-08-11T04:40:00.002-06:00

8/4/08
ok, so about the only thing that has happened lately was of course, the earthquake. elder seaman and i were sitting at our desks and i felt the floor vibrate a little. the apartment next to us and under us are being rebuilt so i thought nothing of it. it happened again, really faint, so i asked "did you feel that?" elder seaman gives me a dumb look and replies "feel what?" as soon as he asked that the big wave hit and everything started shaking really hard, and it lasted for like 10 seconds. the only thing i could think to say was "i think its an earthquake." we got up and looked at the window, the telephone wires were swaying and the trees were shivering, so we stood in the doorway as a few more waves rumbled through. that was about all that happened, so we packed our stuff and hopped in the car to go to visit eileen. when we got there she said she was in the shower when it happened but turned on the news when she got out and it said it was a 5.8 on the good ol' richter scale, it started in chino hills (which is near where the ryan from the OC is from) and in just those 20 minutes it took to drive to her house there had been over a dozen aftershocks. i thought it was pretty cool, my first earthquake. the only people who were really freaked out were the kids we say in the streets through the day "is jesus coming?" "i hear the world is ending, is it true" it was fun to freak them out and tell them wild stories. one of our investigators, maria elena martinez guarrneros, from the spanish branch was baptized on saturday. she is already super strong, and i have been working with her since my first week, and she has a big testimony already. we have another on the 17th, this one is yahaira, the girl whose date elder fennell moved back. she is doing very well too, she went to maria elenas baptism and really liked it. transfers are tomorrow, elder seaman thinks im moving, i think im staying, so i guess 24 hours will tell. today we have a dinner appt with prez and sis blackburn, a bonus from having the cleanest apartment. were leaving for that soon, i hear prez is grilling steak. thats about all, ill let you know next week what happens with transfers. tell Dan good luck with his visa, we have an elder here that has been here for 2 transfers now and he is waiting for his visa to go to buenos aires also... ok, thats about all, bye

Necesito lavar la ropa y tengo un acento.

2008-07-25T17:36:00.001-06:00

7/23/08
package recieved, thanks a lot for the sno cone stuff. after i polished off 3 bottles myself in the last week and a half or so i was getting worried about having to find more, so that package was truly inspired. everything is going well, other than my pants ripped da udder day. i was getting in my district leaders car to drive and they drive a little corola, so i had to step all the way down there and they split at the seam. the only thing i could think to do was wear my other pair the next day, and sure enough, they split that day, same spot. so without mom here to fix them im not sure what to do now. i guess just wear them until they fall off or wear off. i started making eggs benedict for us in the morning for breakfast, its better than toast. now i know why papa smurf whines about his egg pans so much. the only pan i have is convex, so the eggs just run to the rims and drip into the flame. i still can get a little bit to cook tho, so im not doing too bad. and i really dont know what eggs benedict is, im really just putting a fried egg between 2 pieces of toast. my pants are quite dirty, i have realized. when i rub them or scratch them, it brings the dirt to the surface, and it shows well. elder mullins (my district leader) and i spent sacrament in the spanish branch playing tic tac toe on them, but its hard to get it removed. ill wash them one day, but i need to sew them up first, so once they get sewn up somehow, ill dry clean them. my jacket and my pants dont even match anymore. i think its funny that you are happy for me that im not getting sick, because ive had the boo more here than in my entire life put together. 2 weeks ago i spent from 9.30 pm to 11.20 ish on the toilet, destroying it. i took a shower, its easier than wiping in this case, and got in bed, and as soon as i laid down i was up again for another go. ya ya, this is the US, but the food is still prepared the same :) my spanish is doing well. ive realized the difference between serving here and in native spanish countries. those elders come back accent perfect, while everyone here has the worst white accent ever (my companion included) one of my good friends elder simicich is from chile, and so the last 2 transfers i have gotten my accent pretty close to non existent. i can talk with everyone just fine, teach it all whatever, the only problem is when they say stuff back to me... there are like 30 different dialects here in spanish, 3 or 4 from each country, i wish they would all just speak normal spanglish. people who go out of the US only have to learn one language, here i have to learn a million, especially in harbor city where all the mexicans and chapines come. the chapines are the worst because in there (guatemala) there are like 23 dialects of just spanish, not counting all the indian ones people still use. thats ok tho, when i can finally understand them all i will know spanish pretty well. ok, thats about all for today, this is a temple preparation day so its on wednesday by the way. thanks for the packages.

And the winner is....Ben!

2008-07-16T21:37:00.002-06:00

7/14/08
howdy fam, hows it goin? hey, thats good to hear. things are going well here. we have set another baptismal date with a lady from mexico that has been investigating since the first week we got here, 2 august for her, her name is maria elena martinez. the other one, yahaira, has hers set for 17 august, which is her birthday. we are still working with heather and viktor, who are doing well. they are the odd couple, heather, the giant samoan, and victor, the tiny mexican. the work is going well, despite minor setbacks, such as saturday night we blew a tire on the way to an appointment. im the driver this transfer and my companion hasnt ever changed a tire, the task fell to me, so i was laying in the dirt in my black pants and white shirt so i could jack the car. i got pretty dirty, and it looks as if i may have to finally dry-clean my suit... dang it. we got a 3rd companion with us, elder hyrum gene. we call him elder hygene... he is made out of cardboard and stands just under 6 feet tall. he is in our apartment becuase during apartment checks the last week of last transfer, mine was found to be the cleanest in the whole mission. he stays with us and he brought his snow cone machine! i have eaten so many in just a week, ive gone thru 2 bottles of cherry flavor. he has a journal that i am supposed to write in for him (ugh) and i have been cracking some good jokes like, "when i got here, i found out i had the quaking elm disease from my last apartment, which was scary. i thought i was going to lose a limb" or, "when we blew a tire, it was so scary. i was in the back shaking like a leaf" hehe, get it? he is made out of wood? whew, i need to write more of these down. so anyway, we have met some cool people this last week, and we met with this mom and her daughter who are pretty interested, and with this group of 6 people living in the same apartment and we got a return appointment with them, and they seem pretty interested too. we went to the doctor this week so elder seaman could get his shoulder checked out, he hurt it a long time ago and he is seeing the doctor. its not hurting him, he just doesnt have a lot of motion range with it. thats about all with us, so i guess ill talk to you next week.

New Companion

2008-07-07T18:57:00.001-06:00

ok, for housekeeping. yes please send eye drops, no dont send my backpack. please send my retainers if you have them. i need the names and address and phone number of the members of our new bishopric. you asked what special things we did for fathers day and they are as follows: nothing. we did a normal work day, just like always :) for 4th of july: picked up trash for like 4 hours as a district, then had normal work. holidays are a blast here... ive seen the first ice cream trucks here, they are all over the streets, and a ton of helado carts, who get paid like 5 bucks to push a cart full of frozen stuff and tons of junk tied on all day. there are loads of those too. i guess i should tell you i got a new companion almost 2 weeks ago, his name is elder seaman, he is from palmyra new york, from a tiny little farm town near palmyra technically but its the same deal with me, im from park city because no one has heard of kamas, he is from palmyra because no one has heard of where he is from. the palmyra temple is right across the field for him. he is another old missionary, he goes home in a couple months. im still in harbor city, but i like it now. we have a lot of fun together, which was different with elder fennell, but now i am enjoying harbor city which is good becuase i still have another 3 months here probably. i realized this month that on the 30th of june i hit 5 months, in 3ish more weeks it will be 6. it seems like ive been out so much longer than that. i heard from kamas and shilo today, which was cool, but now it means im going to have to write a couple letters because i cant email them back. weve been meeting with this couple, victor, a skinny mexican that weighs probably 125 lbs and his girlfriend heather, a samoan that is no less than 450, dead serious both ways. they have a 1 year old son who is huge, he takes after his mom. he is twice as big as a normal kid, not fat ways but tall ways. he looks like a mini football player. theyre not married yet and victor has 10 months of parole left, but after that, theyre good for baptism. we have to wait til he is off parole so i wont be here, but we set a date for next year. ill have to call them then and see how theyre doing. the girl who was going to be baptized on the 22 didnt get baptized, because elder fennell cancelled it because he didnt think her testimony was strong enough, even tho she told us when she prayed the first time she got her answer and wanted to get baptized. dunno what he was thinking, but we dont have to worry about that now, were setting a date with her tonight. there are a couple more investigators that were working with who we will be setting dates with during this week, were having a lot of success. i realized that ive been here too long, because even on the super busy streets where tons of people go every day, 8 of 10 of them recognize me when we try to teach them, and every door we knock i know the persons name and their excuses before we open the door because ive heard them enough. i always quote them to elder seaman while theyre coming to the door. thats about it for today, ill talk to all of you later

I love Tom Cruise

2008-06-24T05:03:00.000-06:00

6/23/08
i dont have much to write about today, just a couple of things i remember. i dont have my planner with me so i dont remember the notes i took to write about. ok, so first, sitting here in a library waiting for my comp is so tempting, i want to read all the stuff in here, especially the book that has a huge picture of Tom cruise and is titled Tom Cruise. thats the hardest one to resist so far. ok well cant really think of much else than that, ill write more next week, bye

Crying about transfers...again

2008-06-13T21:47:00.002-06:00

i have pictures of eileens and jennas baptism, ill send when i think about it. i have no clue who any of those people are you mentioned, so ill just nod along like i know who youre talking about. dont know cindy canon or adel woodard so...the reason im most likely staying in the same area for 6 months is this: when elder fennell and i got here, we replaced 2 sisters. our area hadnt had elders for like 3 years, so they got 2 new ones, and elders at the same time. elder fennell leaves this transfer, so they wouldnt put 2 missionaries here who had never been here before after only 2 transfers of new ones. i will stay because i know the area and they will send me some fresh meat. well be together for 2 transfers, so it will be 6 months total for me here, which really stinks, cuz i dont want to stay in the same place more than one, possibly 2 transfers, and i dont want to stay with the same companion every time, it gets old. o well, gotta deal with it. ok, well be having another baptism on the 22, so ill get pictures from that one too. this week was temple p-day, thats why im writing on wednesday and not monday. gina told me she would send me a package before she left, if she hasnt left yet then tell her i want some double stuffed oreos and cheetos. thanks :)

What to say if...

2008-06-04T15:25:00.001-06:00

6/2/08
so, here in california, which is where i am, is where i am. yesterday we knocked a few doors in the rich corner of our area. we knocked for about 3ish hours and taught 2 lessons. there are so many rich people in the rich hoods, and they all claim to be a certain religion, but only one of the ones we talked to actually practiced it. the other ones just said that so we would leave them alone. people are dumb sometimes, as in when we say what church were from and were going to teach them, they reply with, sorry, im jewish or im presbyterian or whatever, as if it exludes them from our message. duh people, if you were already part of our cult we wouldnt teach you. im been thinking of some rebuttles for those, and i have come up with a few:

1)"im sorry, im lutheran"
a) really? ive never baptized a lutheran before

2)"im jewish"
a)jesus will still forgive you

3)"im catholic"
a)me too, lets go pray to joseph smith

to a less active:
4)"i used to be part of your church, i didnt like it"
a)thats why we have the telestial kingdom

5)"theres no proselyting here"
a)thats good or super!

there was one time after we had been told that from like 5 people in 2 minutes i told elder fennel to just ignore them the next time (we take turns messing with them) so when this guy walked out of his house to tell us this we just kept walking. we followed us still telling it to our backs until he was like hey! you guys! we stopped and turned around and he was mad that we ignored him so i said "were sorry, we didnt hear you, we were just minding our own business." hah! it was so funny, he just got mad and stormed back to his house to call the manager or something. times like these make tracting fun.
a lot of people will see us coming and try to shoo us from a distance, but it got annoying so i started waving back as if i didnt know what they were doing. there are a lot of people who just shout, "im not interested" and these people are fun to mess with. just ask them what theyre not interested in and theyll reply with "you" or "whatever you have" and keep playing dumb until they get mad and slam the door. there are a lot of white people who are really nosy (surprise!) when they see you walking theyll stop and say theres no soliciting or things that they try to imply were soliciting. since were not soliciting, were proselyting(?) i always give them dumb answers, as if i dont understand theyre trying to tell us to leave until they finally just come out and say it "get out of here, we dont like you".

weve been offered jobs a few times while were walking around. one guy drove up and after finding out we knock doors for 2 years while paying for it he said we could do it and make 5g a month selling house repair contracts. another guy from nigeria said that he would send us to africa to sell clothes that he sends there and would pay everything and then give us more for wages. that one was tempting. he buys overstocked clothes and shoes and purses and stuff and sends them to his shop in africa and sells them for a little cheaper than here, apparantly he gets some decent money. he said its about 2k for someone to fly there and live for a year, and he would pay us to do it. i hope the offer is still open in 2 years, that would be cool. most people are really grouchy and lame, but the few people you talk to are pretty cool most of the time. lots of different stories here, somewhat unlike K-Town (kamas).

eileen and jenna lizarraga are being baptized on the 8th :) we had a couple more baptism dates but had to drop them. one lady turned out to be an alcoholic and when she tried to stop, she made it one whole day without a drink before she started again. we found out she drank after we had set the date, but we found out and canceled it. weve been trying to help here for like 2 weeks now but she doesnt want to try very hard to stop drinking. another guy (enos) moved, and we dont know where to. he was such a golden investigator. he was the guy from honduras that did everything we challenged him to, then he moved but hasnt called us from his new apartment. we dont have many set appointments to teach people, like 3-4 a week, so its really lame, we have to fill up a lot of time tracting becuase we have visited everyone in our area book, all the less actives, everybody. we dont get any member referrals, so its difficult to find people that are willing to listen. ok, out of stuff to say, bye
Elder Anderson

Things I've realized

2008-06-02T09:31:00.001-06:00

5/27/08
hehe tunneling smurf, classy. no i havent been getting any emails from granny welch, so thats prolly why im not writing back... this transfer i have realized a lot of things, here goes:
1. 12 weeks is way too long to spend glued to another person. it is also way too long to spend in the same area, especially a small one like this. we have knocked every door already, so were making the rounds again. the bad thing is, i have another 2 transfers here most likely, oh yay. if i dont die from that, ill make it through anything pres blackburn can throw at me.

2. mexicans can party. every saturday and sunday there are at least 10 different parties going on. quincenyeras, mariachis, everything. they like to let people know they are partying, music blasting and you can hear from miles away. not only is it really loud, but all of the 12-18 band members (in matching sombreros and sequined outfits) play whatever they want, all at the same time. the music has no defineable beat, tempo, rythm, or pattern. i like it.

3. brother shipp has a toupee. normally their are a little harder to spot, but brother shipp, a 60ish year old guy in our english ward, has one recognizable from a mile away. he has grey hair, salt and pepper style, which is normal. however, his toupee isnt. it is brown. it sits on the top of his head like a baseball hat, and you can trace the ring where it ends and his real hair begins because it is a solid line where it stops.

4. things we say in english, we dont think about. for instance: another member of our english ward has a fake arm ending in a hook. we were at an activity and he was between me and my companion in a food line. he was struggling to separate two paper plates, so my companion, being so nice, offered help. not, "may i help you" or "do you need help" but "hey, need a hand?"

5. there is a difference between rain in utah and in la. in utah, it washes things, makes them shiny. in la, its the opposite. when it rains, it leaves your car covered in stuff. ours went from silver to brown after one day. it gathers all the junk in the air and leaves it on the car. im no exaggerating here, from a distance, it looked brown.

6. god provides when we work hard. some days we may have dinners cancel on us, or they dont show up. if we work hard, we get fed anyway. almost every time someone has ditched out on us, within the next few houses or visits, someone offers food to us. if someone lives in an apartment with a locked door in front, and we cant get ahold of them, someone always comes in or out the door and can let us in to make our appointment. its really cool how everything just falls into place.

in other news... elder umphress went home. said his knee hurt so he decided to go home, only made it one transfer. maybe hell come back out. an elder in our zone last transfer got sent home also. he didnt do anything, but that was the problem. apparently, the transfer before i came, his companion brought a girl into their apartment and so on and so forth. elder fitsimons, the one i knew, didnt call prez and report him or anything, just let it go. they didnt get along well so he kinda thought that it wasnt his problem. big mistake. its weird how that happens on a mission. apparently, the elder who got in trouble, elder andrews, was pretty shy and anti social, but here he is on a mission with a girl in his apartment. how that stuff happens is beyond me, but it all starts with something little. listening to the radio, staying up 10 minutes or sleeping in a bit, things like that.

gas has reached 4.35 here

the last few days the weather has been bearable. it rained 2x, and then was overcast and windy the rest. nice change. its amazing how circumstances affect outlook, ie. in wyoming, the wind is ridiculously annoying. it makes me want to destroy wyoming from the face of the earth. here, it keeps you from melting, i like the wind here.
ok i think thats all, adios
elder anderson

Mormon doctrine

2008-05-27T15:14:00.008-06:00

Ben hasn't written much interesting lately. He was disappointed that he wasn't transferred, but that's all. Here's something else he said and a few pictures to fill the void:

"There are some ridiculous things people say...One lady said, "I've studied all about the Mormons. I don't like their doctrines." When my companion asked what she studied, she said, "I watched the Southpark episode on Mormons" and she was totally serious. Some people are crazy."

The view from the temple

Another view from the temple

Elder Fennell, my trainer

The harbor near our area

Los Angeles Temple

Nice bike

Happy Mother's Day!

2008-05-11T15:49:00.001-06:00

Happy Mother's Day! Good to see you. How's life? How are the youngsters treating you? ...[Ben wrote nice things to his mama here] I probably will never know [all that you sacrificed for me] but I really want to thank you so much. Without your stubborness ways, I don't think I would be here today. Even tho I was practically the most behaved...he he. I'm just kidding. 75% of your grey hairs are from me. It's good for you tho, gives you grit, makes you stronger...[more nice things] I was going to send a gift, but I looked forever (25 mins. at Food 4 Less) and the only thing I found worth sending, I am now eating. My bad. All is well here. The days are long and hot, and they still won't let me sleep in. That's ok, I'll forgive them. We are teaching a lot of lessons, but only a few are slightly interested, and of them, 1 or 2 let us come back. We do have 3 baptismal dates, and we got them all last week. One is Enos (see email for reference). He is way cool, he's like 26 and has been here as long as I have. Hopefully he will stick it out and get a dunking. The other two, Eileen and her daughter Jenna, the Lizarragas, are having a rough time with her ex-husband, but we set a baptismal date on Jenna's 10th birthday! They are both really excited, which is good, because Eileen's family is Catholic (who isn't?) and isn't supporting her at all, quite the opposite. They're really nice tho, I like them, too. We're going to try to get one with this lady, Maria Elena Martinez. She is the sweetest lady. Gas and milk are ridiculously expensive, but every time we visit her she gives us milk and bread, and tons of stuff like fruit, cereal, bagels, all that. It's so much food, but it's good. She is also a dang good cook. There are some Latinos here that make the best food I've ever eaten. We ate with one lady who made such good tamales and taquitos that it was probably the first time I wanted to cry because I couldn't eat more. They give so much food. She made like a ton of it, and they want us to eat it all or they think that it's no good. If only I could eat more...As you can see, they're taking care of me very well, so don't worry. Tell everyone hello for me.

Elder Anderson

Flashback: MTC pictures

2008-05-10T07:45:00.002-06:00

At last...

2008-05-06T08:31:00.001-06:00

5/5/08
howdy folks. hope all is well. i was told yesterday, on sunday, by one of the members that it looks like i had lost weight. i knew i was chubby after the mtc but i didnt know it was that bad. she said it was something about my pants that tipped her off... thats good tho, that im getting unchubby. so this week, i went on splits with my district leader, and we were teaching this guy from honduras. he moved here the week before we first met him, and we actually came to talk to someone else in the apartment. there is a husband and a wife, plus 4 other people staying there. we came to see the wife, but ended up teaching one of the friends, his name is enos. it was really weird how it happened that we found him because we didnt even really teach him the first time, but the second time on he was the only one we taught. last week my dl and i challenged him to be baptized and he accepted! hes very intelligent for a latin, meaning nothing bad, but when you teach these people, you say, joseph smith wanted to knw which church he should join, and then you ask right after that, what was his question, they think for a second... no no no se (i dont know). its ridiculously frustrating. but enos, when we leave him a chapter, reads it like 10 times and practically memorized it. we had him read the BoM intro, and he told us about it the next visit 2 days later and he told us the story perfectly with all dates correct and everything. it was cool. he had just moved from honduras a week when we met him, and he was looking for a way to change his life around, its a cool story.

we were knocking doors one day and we came up to a door just like normal, we had knocked on a lot of them in that complex, so we just went on to the next one, so we knocked on one door, and a lady answered it. before we said anything, she said, who sent you? how do you know im here? which was trippy, but we later found out that a few days before, her son in guatemala had called her and said he was going to send missionaries to her. it turns out she is a member, but has been less active for 15 years, and we just showed up a few days after that phone call with her son. there have been a lot of cool things like that. its cool to here someone say, whether its a member or not 'its weird you stopped by here today' it happens a lot more than i thought. we started talking to this one lady, and she turned out to be a raging alcoholic. she was so messed up, she just drank all day without realizing it, so we helped her enter detox, and when she gets out shes going to call us. there are a lot of crazy people around here too, i like it. we visited this one lady who isnt active, and we talked to her, and when we asked her to come to church, she said no, just flat out, no games, no. same with reading and same with praying. yesterday, i saw her at church. my companion was in the other ward at the time, but i started talking to her and she had changed a little, she was a lot nicer, told me we could come visit whenever we wanted, all that, which was a 180 turn for her. hmm, lots of other people. when members fall, they do it for the dumbest reasons, and they just use those as an excuse to not come to church for years. we have visited people who have been less active for 65ish years one lady said, and the reason was because they asked her to help teach primary. dumb stuff like that (ill admit, i wouldnt want to teach it either, but come on). shilo sent me an email, sounds cool. ill call you guys on sunday, im thinking at 4pm our time (thats 5pm for you landlubbers). ill have 45 minutes to chat, so i guess see you then

Another non-informative email from the Taco Pig

2008-04-17T09:08:00.000-06:00

4/14/08
howdy. Email and letters are fine, i just need to get with it and write some letters. ill send my camera card soon prolly, i dunno. Tell dad that my area is near Lomita, and there is an L3 comm building near it, i thought that was cool. i got your package about 2 days ago. when i meant black backpack, i kinda meant mine, the new one, the one without wholes all over, but watevs. thx for the ramen, i have a ton now. there was also a tube of bubbles in the box which got all over everything, so now your seive-like backpack smells too :) oh well, i dont really need it now, i just wanted to have it in case i get into a bike area, dont worry about it. now that im here and dont have to worry about my luggage making weight (by the way, i should have brought 2 suitcases, i had to fit everything in 1 and make it weigh 50 lubs, what a joke. o well, made it with a good percentage of my stuff) feel free to send me food. i like food. we ate with a member last night, they had tacos, they had like 4. i had 8. wimps. our area has a spanish and english ward, so we have to hop between 2. and oh ya, im a bilingual missionary now, which they conveniently forgot in my call letter. and could you send me a copy of my patriarchal blessing, it should be in my smallest box in the garage or wherever. make sure you tape it up again when youre done plz....and if matt takes anything else... o you dont want to know. i hear he has taken over my stuff, i guess thats ok if you have my clothes and all my stuff that isnt in a box. tape them back up when you get those...things out plz, i dont want mice in them. ok dont have anything else to say. paz, calmanse. Elder Anderson

2008-04-10T07:25:00.006-06:00

Here's a better picture of pudgy Ben with President and Sister Blackburn and his trainer, Elder Fennell. Click on the picture to see an enlargement.

Welcome to LA

2008-04-08T07:21:00.004-06:00

4/7/08
tell matt good luck for me. LA is pretty awesome, my first area is mostly white, and were bi lingual elders too, so we mostly teach white people, the spanish ward is tiny. However, we have taught a lot of lessons in spanish. listening and speaking was easy in the mtc cuz my teachers used good spanish, here everyone slurs and mumbles and this one old lady had no teeth so you couldnt understand she was even talking except here neck skin wobbled. oh well, it will all come. its warm here, which is cool. our area is one that only sisters had been in for a long time, so now the apartment we are in is covered in long hair, its small and gross but you get used to it. My companion is elder fennell, hes a 5'2" korean guy, pretty cool. we havent baptized anyone but weve taught a lot of lessons so hopefully something will come out of that. there are so many different people here, totally unlike Kamas or even 90% of utah, its not a bunch of middle class crackers. ive taught latins from all over, a russian, korean chinese japanese polynesian, so many different people. its cool, everyone is usually pretty nice cept the white people. ive only had one door actually slammed in my face. usually people at least talk with you for a minute before the close the door on you, but one guy opened the door, yelled something i dont say while he slammed it then we could here him twisting the locks on his door. i thought it was funny. ok, im standing at this computer and my legs are tired. TTYL

Elder Anderson

Miscellaneous

2008-03-31T09:28:00.007-06:00

3/26
Howdy papa smurf
hope gramps is ok, that cant feel nice at his age, sounds like hes not too broken up tho.

How did you fix hot Vixi's sun roof? what was wrong with it. ya i was kinda slack on the maintenance but it ran fine for me, but then again she likes me more.

spencer left (dont know if i told you that) but no, we didnt have gym or anything together, so just when we met up did we see each other.

im still a Bawlla (i play basketball - to those of you who dont speak LA) i dont know if i can dunk, were not allowed to try unless in a legitimate game, and so its a little more difficult, but im better than i thought, i just needed to play a bit to remember how.

Spanish is going great, i made some RC calls in spanish, that was intense, but fun. i did have one lady from puerto rico who talked really loud in a super hi voice, it was so hard to understand her, but we got it done anyway. its good practice. I got my flight plans a few days ago, i wont tell you when i leave cuz i dont know if we can trust mom or gina or gma... o well, the next time i email ill be in LA, ill write before then tho. i guess ill catch ya on the flip side.
Elder Anderson

And later...

do you remember my friend christian? well he is leaving the same day i am, but yesterday in gym he tore is ACL playing 4 square... i know, its deadly. hes gonna finish his time here then go home for 3 months to heal, then go straight to texas after that. just thought i would let you know. im writing a letter today, i was just really bored last week and i dont like writing letters in the first place, dont worry.
Elder Anderson

Counting down...

2008-03-25T15:05:00.004-06:00

March 19-2008

Sup Fam,
Dis is a holler from da hood...of Provo. The most boring place on Earth. Well, at least the MTC is the most boring place on earth. Since nothing changes here, until 14 days from now, I doubt I'll have much to say. Sorry for ignoring you, Papa Smurf, I didn't realize I was. Thanks for the pics, a guy in my zone was amazed. He's a big elk hunter. There is a sister here that looks exactly like Bailie. K**** N*** wrote me a letter. She digs me. Spencer left today to Mexico finally. He, along with a bunch of elders in our zone, had their visas delayed for at least a week, his was for almost 2 so his district left yesterday and I went and got pics with him and Christian who leaves when I do. So nothing has changed here in 2 months, and according to your letters, same there.
There are 2 really annoying elders in our district, they both are in my room. Everyone else is pretty cool actually. Even Elder B*******. One of those really annoying elders is my companion. Just my luck. I'm glad I got the companion I don't like now so in the field I'll get good ones so we can work well together. At first I thought he annoyed me so much cuz we have to hold hands everywhere but when I poo, but then I realized we're with our district that long, too, and they don't bug me. O well, only 2 more weeks.
Tell grandma thanks for the food and letter. Thanks for the camera and Easter candy, but please don't send me more, I have too much. I'll ask for what I need. I'm not going to have room to take everything I have cuz I only have one suitcase and one bag. Wait till I'm in the field before you send me that backpack please. And when you do, send the all black one. The email server is down today so I won't be able to read emails til next week. 10-6 Wednesday is when I have access. Ok. Bye.

Elder Anderson

P.S. I didn't send a letter last week. Sorry.

The Battle of the Bulge

2008-03-06T13:41:00.004-07:00

Familia,
Howdy! What's up? All's well here. We've taught our last lesson in English, so now everything will be in espanol. I'm nervous about it, but mostly I'm really excited. It's going to be a good test of how well I can speak Spanish, and how well I can conduct the spirit speaking Spanish through me. I'm jealous, the spirit is fluent in so many languages and I'm barely fluent in English-let alone ones like Arabic or Cambodian. I saw a Preach My Gospel in those 2 languages, and they're written with a bunch of lines and dots; I'm not going to whine about Spanish anymore.
On Wednesday, we'll have been here for 5 weeks, which leaves 4 more to go before I get to see the real world again! Not that I'm not enjoying it here, but I can't wait to get outta here and get to LA. I've always wondered what other missionaries did to be more "righteous" than me and got a cooler mission, but Los Angeles will be awesome and the people I will be teaching will provide me with so many opportunities to teach, testify, and baptise. By the way, why is it that no general authorities, like the apostles, 12, or 70, served on the homefront (USA)? Looks like I won't be able to be prophet then. :(
Gina, thanks for putting that blog up. That will be cool once I leave here and do something more than sit in class all day. Mom said you're keeping the funniest stuff to yourselves...How selfish! That's like making a whole pot of Ramens then only drinking the juice. It's just not right, it's practically a sin to not eat the noodles. Do you see where I'm going with this? Good.
So I've been playing more hoop now, cuz I need to burn a few (2,384,475) calories. That's a bit harder to dominate at. There are a few really tall elders, and most of them played basketball in high school. I still do well tho, 1 or 2, maybe 3 points out of 7 each game. I've realized why I can dominate 4 square. Most of the kids play 4 square cuz they didn't get into a bball game. Not all tho. There are a few of us that are serious 4 square-ers, and can get some good games in. Umphress, Elder I mean, is getting pretty decent at it, which means I'll have to knock him out ASAP. The last game I played, I hit a nasty left hander at Elder Cooper, and got him out, so he had to go chase it. When he brought it back it was flat. My massive leftie popped it. Luckily we still have the old ball, the old lopsided greenone that is so fun to play with, cuz you can't tell which way it's going to go. I was surprised when the next day they had a brand new one for us already. I didn't get to play with it tho, I was playing basketball that period.
I'm really glad I can memorize stuff really easily. Pres. Monson said during one of his talks that if we memorize a scripture a day we will develop a photographic memory. I'm going to do it since I'm 4 weeks behind, and because on Saturday nights we have 4.15 hourse of MDT time. I memorized 6 scriptures in Spanish and English to get a start, and while doing my 1 scripture in Spanish and English a day. I"m going to work on memorizing as much of the BoM as I can. I had the first 2 chapters memorized during seminary last year cuz Bro. Bennett, my teacher, didn't think I could. Ok, so anyway we have 8.30 hours of study time on Saturday nights, with only dinner in between them so we get out of lunch at 12:15, then we have an instructor from 12:15-2:30, then an hour of PST and CST before dinner. Then at 5:15-9:00 is all MDT time. That's ridiculously long. I worked on my TRC scenario this week, so I memorized a million vocab words talking about food or relating to food in any way, plus my scriptures. That kills about an hour...I've been reading the Old Testament since I finished the BoM last week. Hra. Gallacher challenged us to read it once while we were here, and I finished like 2 weeks after that. No one else has finished yet. Reading it that quickly was actually a pretty good thing. When you finish it that quicklye, you get a good overall understanding of the people, what happened where and when, and a good general understanding of it. So the next time I finish it, I will know what's going on, and can concentrate on doctrine and not trying to figure out what's going on.
So I got a letter from S*******. She digs me, and I don't know why, I haven't worked it with her forever, quite the opposite. Ha, just kidding, she doesn't dig me like that anymore, but it was great to hear from her.
Ok Gina, here are your answers. Yes, we use TALL, doesn't work as well as just memorizing for me. Kool exit sounds tho. TRC is wracking, but I really enjoy it. A couple weeks ago, we were teaching this old guy who used to be Mayan, then the Catholics baptized them, and a while later, he joined the church. His wife died recently, and it was very definitely divinely guided, because we were teaching the plan of salvation. He has such a strong testimony, that we were there till like 9:45, 30 minutes longer than normal. Totally worth it tho. We haven't got to teach him again yet tho, but I really want to. We go Friday night at 7 or 8, so if you're going to volunteer, that's when I'm there. Branch is way cool, my district isn't. Everyone in our zone is going Spanish speaking. I dig my teachers. Hro. Brown is a stud, he teaches so well and he's cool about it too. He's not uber-overbearing. We have fun, but still learn a lot. Hra. Gallacher is the other teacher. I wish we could get a different one instead of her, but then I would wish we had her again. She is way cute and it's hard to concentrate when she is teaching. And she sings like an angel. Bad news. It's ok, I still learn a ton from her. We have the best teachers I swear. There is another very good teacher, but he is too serious, that wouldn't fly with me for very long. Our class is in 18M and 5M is too far out of the way for me to pat it, sorry. Now that there is no snow, we clean toilets too, the chemicals smell so bad. Gross. I clean without gloves, more blessings that way...Just kidding.
What is this summer job in Switz? that would be so kool. What will you be doing, and how did you go about getting the interview? That's what I want to do when I get home, just float around the world working in a bunch of different places so I can keep traveling. That's a ways away thos. P.S. Si, yo tengo un libro de himnos en espanol, no necesitas comprarme.
Mom-just use my money to buy a camera, and get me a cool one. Don't send me your old one. If you can, and it's not more expensive, get it in black or green or something. Or maybe if it's only $20 more or something. But just use my dough for some (or all) of it, and get me a sweet one. I don't want an eyesore to drag around. Gratz on passing your math test. I take it you're not taking an English class. Have someone explain to-too-two to you. He he I'm funny.
That's too bad about the fence and the snow. Too bad I won't be there to help repair it. Tell Papa Smurf that the bonus points would be great and he should use my money to get them...
It's a good thing I'm young and can lose 10 lbs. a week by just eating 1 plate and 2 glasses of juice. If I couldn't lose it that quick, I would be so rolly polly right now. My weight fluctuates so much, cuz I will balloon up, then start eating less and drop it, then reward myself with 3 plates a meal then pop right back up. I've noticed that I'm a pleasure eater. I can be not hungry and put down 3 plates of good food no problem, not counting the gallon of Fresca and orange juice I wash it down with. And on the other hand, my liver and kidneys will gang up on my pancreas and eat it cuz I'm so hungry, but if there is no good food I won't mind not eating. Unfortunately (and fortunately) all the food is great here. I think there has been only 3-4 meals where there was nothing good. Ok, I'm running out of room. TTYL.

Elder Odin
P.S. I think Ramses would be an awesome name for a youngling of mine.

Cow Brain Tacos

2008-03-05T17:42:00.000-07:00

Hello family. as of last wednesday, i hadnt gotten the letters, but i got them later that day, and i sent one on mondayish...If ur going to buy a camera, send me the new one, not a hand me down :) that would be super. good luck with ur math test. Read DC 84:85 (i think, i dont have my scriptures with me) and follow that council, if its the wrong scripture, do what it says anyway. tell matt that i still havent gotten a letter back, so get him to read those scriptures in alma for me and tell me about them. i did get the valentines cookies, thx a lot btw.
Way cool about aimee and jason, i wanna hear all the details please. lemme know when they set a date, but tell them it has to be after im home. sry. So im just over halfway done here i think, its going by a little slow, i cant wait to get out and start speaking spanish. its getting so good, i can already talk to my teachers near perfectly and i can understand everything they say except when they use huge words that ive never heard of. i have realized that since Mac went to spain and taught us spain spanish, all the words i know are swear words in mexico. im going to have a potty mouth for a month till i get used to it, o well. Tell dad that i dont know about cat, but a lady here told me her son just got back from that same mission a month ago and he said they ate a lot of cow brain tacos... cant wait
k, gonna run

Email

2008-02-28T07:26:00.003-07:00

Hello everyone! hows it going? thats cool gina lee started a blog for me (thx dawg) Grandma, my name is harvEy just so you know. this place is so boring, its just class all day, so i cant wait to get to LA and get robbed and stuff, its going to be awesome.
To the bethers! thx for the huge letter, took me forever to read it. hope all is well with you folks :) Happy birthday 4 days ago. this is a little belated but youll get over it im sure I want to encourage everyone to gather as a family and go to the joseph smith building (i think) and watch Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration. its awesome and i think you would like it. i had a chance to watch it last sunday, we get a devotional for an hour then a movie for an hour before bed, its the highlite of the week!
I havent gotten mail since gina's package. what the heck, of all the people i would have thunk would send me mail often... hehe just kidding, thx a lot for it all, its been a week since ive gotten even a letter, whats going on, do i need to come down and whip some ppl into shape?
My teachers are pretty awesome, and so is my branch presidency. Pres Rail is a funny old man, and his helpers are great too. One of my teachers is hermano brown, and the other is Hermana Gallacher, pronounced gallagher btw. they served in honduras and guatemala, respectively. We have the best teachers and the best presidency, so we got pretty lucky. ive been playing hoop in gym instead of 4 square lately. my flub was getting in the way of hitting the 4square ball so i had to play some bball to get rid of it. if the food wasnt so good and abundant i wouldnt have a prob, but they give me as many plates as i want, not counting as much juice or soda that i can handle. its getting hard to fit in my desk, and i cant button up my pants anymore. ok thats an exaggeration, but my pants r become quite snug. ill open the cameras and take some pics, but there really isnt anything that exciting here, ill do what i can. take care and ttyl

Elder Anderson

The District

2008-02-19T08:49:00.013-07:00

2/13/200eight

Querida familia,
?Que pasan? Toda esta bien aqui. Siento, yo necesito cambiar mi pluma. El nombre de mi companero es Elder U-M-P-H-R-E-S-S pero esta bien porque ninguno lo saban en la vez primera. My companero's name is Elder Umphress, but that's ok cuz no one gets it right on the first try:
"I'm Elder Um..."
"What?"
"Um..."
"What?"
"His name is Umphress, he's from Bama, that's why you can't understand him."
I'm glad to hear Matt's okay. Dad had me worried cuz he described the whole wreck before saying Matt was ok, instead of stating right off the bat. Good thing you were wearing a seatbelt. If Hot Vixi (my car) gives you any trouble, sorry. I told her it was ok for mom to drive her, but I didn't think to tell her you [Matt] could. Just talk in a calm tone to ol' Vixi and she'll be fine.
Ok, so my district goes as follows in the order they sit in class. Elder N*****: He is district leader, he's from SLC, kinda weird (but so is everyone else except K******) and he skis. Enough said. Elder W*****: 1/4 Asian from Sacramento, Emo, very weird. Elder L******: From Las Vegas, he has those full face blanks that occur every 2 seconds, they make me want to slap the stupid out of them. Elder S****: from centerville, says "like," I dunno "like" every 3rd word. He and Elder L****** make up the noisiest companerismo. The next 3 elders (L**, B****, K******) are in a 3 way companerismo. Elder L**: 5'2", from some rich Cali neighborhood. The least weird, and a pretty decent fellow. (everyone in my district comes from rich families except the last companerismo Elders H***** and B*******.) Elder B****: [from Virginia] Total fruit. 5'10" says he weighs over 250 lbs...He's actually not bad, but he doesn't stop talking about anything forever, so you just kind of ignore him and let him finish... Elder K******: He's the only one I get along with really well. The others I get along with but that's it. K****** is from Santa Monica, which is right next to LA. He plays volleyball in college, he's pretty good. He plays during gym against these 2 Tongans who play for the Tongan National Team. It's pretty cool to watch them duke it out, but I'm usually busy in the king square at 4 square so I don't get to watch a lot. Elder Umphress: From Opelika, a small town near Auburn...Every morning he shaves, which in itself isn't weird, but the fact that he can't grow facial hair (he has told us this) does make it weird. Then, after 10 or so minutes of shaving, will go into our room and apply 3 different after shave lotions. He then spends 5-7 minutes (I timed 4 days) combing his hair. Again, not that weird, but I haven't seen a single hair on his head change position as of this day. Not only is he a pickier eatier than I, but he is ridiculously slow getting ready. He's soo weird, I could spend pages on all the things, but writing is boring. It's so entertaining to me though. For instance, during our 50 minute gym block, he spends no more than 20 mins. "working out" but then he talks about how much he ripped his "bi's" that day. And he is totally uncoordinated, but he tells everyone he'll beat them up. By the way, 6 nerds trash talking each other all day: hilarious. Elder B******* comes next and is the perfect embodiment of redneck... He just mumbles terrible English when he talks so it's hard to understand him. He spends most of his time picking his butt or the zits...on his neck....or picking his nose. Elder H***** is from Ogden-ish. Not a bad guy, but everytime he speaks in class, he starts bawling and after 15 times a day it gets old listening to him choke out words.
Now, it probably sounds like they all bug me, but we get along pretty well. There are only a few times when I get really annoyed, but I get over it cuz it does no good. It's really not a bad district. I think it's better that I got a few of the pet peeves off my chest that way I can move past them and it won't be an issue...I saw Elder Powers the day he got here. He had a card from his parents for me...I've been talking to Spencer a lot. We just leave our message in the mail boxes, works pretty well.
So my daily schedule runs about like this: 5:30 arise and prepare 7:00 breakfast 7:30 class 11:30 lunch 12:15 gym 1:05 prepare for next activity 1:35 class 4:30 lunch 5:15 class 9:30 review day 10:15 quiet time 10:30 lights out. During class, for one block we we'll have Hro. Brown and for another we'll have Hra. Gallacher, and for the 3rd we have missionary directed time (MDT). Our teachers are awesome, Hra. Gallacher is way cute too, which is a bonus. Hro. Brown isn't as cute, but still way cool. I've learned a lot of Spanish, and right now I've gotten so far ahead of everyone, Hra. Gallacher challenged me to learn the past tenses. I've mastered preterite, along with all its irregulars (there are a million) and stem changers (a lot, but fun to say). Now I'm working on imperfect.
Every Wednesday at 7:00 we walk to the temple, then have breakfast there when we are done. It's so good and I can get a huge plate for $4....Tell Matt "sup dawg" for me, and have him read Alma 37: 36-37 and to think about it. Write to me what he learned.
Love,
Elder Anderson

From a letter to Matt:

...How's life in the outside world? It's pretty much a bubble in here, but not bad. I'm enjoying it....Missionaries are the worst gossipers ever. I was talking to this one teacher, Hro. Smith, and he let it slip that they [Hro. Smith and Hra. Gallacher] are dating. I teased her about it the other day and she turned bright red. It is the most entertaining thing that has happened in 3 weeks. So what is going on out there? I haven't heard anything about anything since I left.

Life in the MTC

2008-02-13T11:35:00.006-07:00

2/6/2008

Familia,
Learning how to do laundry at the moment. Meals are the best and worst times. The food is good, but they usually have both things that I want to eat, so I just munch away so I'm getting fat. They also only give us 30 mins. and most of that is spent waiting in lines so I can't just enjoy my food. I have to cram it. Oh well. I think the reason Matt has trouble breathing during practice is because he is underwater for the majority. At least that's why I had trouble. How did you do Splat?..[to mom] Good luck in math, it's easy so you will be fine. I wish I could see how much snow fell if they closed church, the one Sunday I'm not there it's cancelled. It's weird here in the fact that there are a couple of cute hermanas here, but I'm not flirting it up. This is like the opposite of home: lotsa food but no time, a schedule, things to do, it's all alien. I still have to shovel snow here, which is one thing I thought I could escape. K, laundry is done, I'll fly!
Elder Anderson

From another letter:

...My district...there are 12 of us, which sucks cuz our room is tiny and they have the heaters blasting, it's like a sauna. And there are 2 elders who smell cuz we are producing b.o. like it's our job, but 2 don't shower or believe in deodorant... I always wake up on time. I pop right out of bed...I've surprised myself because I'm working really hard and doing everything I'm asked, which is odd for me.

PPPS I"m legend at 4 square...my wrestling shoes are the envy of the old elders and they've labeled me Elder DANGEROUS.

First Letter!

2008-02-07T17:52:00.000-07:00

We received our first letter from Ben on February 6:

02/03/2008

Dear Familia,
The MTC is so different than the month before I left. It's practically the total opposite, instead of sleeping in I'm up at 6:30 every day and we have no free time during the day. Sunday and Wednesday are the only days where we have any time to do anything other than sit in class. My companion's name is Elder [first name] Umphress. He's from some tiny town near Auburn, Alabama. He's a definite country boy. The other 2 elders in our room are Elder B******* and Elder H*****. They couldn't be more opposite of each other. [One elder] is a quiet, sensitive guy always on the verge of tears. [The other elder] eats his boogers...nothing else there. The food is pretty dang good, and I usually get enough, except when we have to wait in line forever. E. Umphress hardly eats because he doesn't like ANYTHING, so I eat enough for both of us. We wake up at 6:30, are in class by 7:00. Then we are there until 11:30, which is lunch. Then back to class at 12:15 til 4:30 for dinner, then again, class until 9:30. Now that we're past our first Sunday, however, we get a 50 minute gym class, which is awesome. I've noticed that we're not learning Spanish, but the gospel in Spanish, and relying on the spirit to fill in the blanks, of which there are plenty. It's odd to be here where there are so many opportunities, even in the most mundane of circumstances, to feel the spirit. There is only 1 other elder who knows any Spanish, and we're still not very far ahead. Being here for 2 years is going to be so long, at least it seems that way now, but the 4 days I've been here have flown, and I bet CA-LA goes the same. Check out dearelder.com or something like that. It's a place for you to send mail for free, I just found out about it today, so I don't really know what it's about. Today will be the only Sunday I can write, all the other times from now on will be Wednesday. Talk to y'all laters.
Love, Elder Anderson

"...the hour of your mission is come..." D&C 31:3

2008-02-07T17:51:00.002-07:00

Ben was set apart as full time missionary on January 29, 2008. He was set apart by President Rod Sorenson, President Marc Brown, and Bishop Matt Flinders. The next day we went to the Timber Creek Cafe in Kamas to have breakfast before hauling Elder Anderson off to the MTC. Grandma and Grandpa Prescott and Aimee came to see him off.

After a big breakfast Ben reported to the Provo MTC. He walked in one door and the rest of us walked in another. When we met up with him he had on a name tag, a green tag, and, not one, but two dork dots! The green dot and tag indicated that he needed to have a "language evaluation." We waited around for a while and finally filed into the big room. We sang "Called To Serve" and were welcomed by President Boone, the MTC president and his wife. In her remarks, Sister Boone reassured the missionary moms that the missionaries would be leaving their arms and enter the arms of Christ. After their talks, we gave Ben our last hugs and went out our door and he through his.

Fare thee well...

2008-02-07T17:51:00.001-07:00

Ben spoke in sacrament meeting of the Francis First Ward on January 20, 2008. His talk focused on D&C 12:8--"And no one can assist in this work except he shall be humble and full of love, having faith, hope, and charity, being temperate in all things, whatsoever shall be entrusted to his care." His "speech" was very nice, but Ben got nervous and sped read the whole thing. :) There were several family members and friends there to support him...or maybe they just had to see it to believe it. After the meetings we gathered at the Francis town hall and had some grub.

Temple Day

2008-02-07T15:25:00.001-07:00

Ben received his endowment at the Salt Lake Temple on January 12, 2008. Ben's escort was Allan Whitmore, who is his former Young Men's leader. Scott Sorensen (former scout leader and close friend), Craig and Leslie Marsing (Craig is the first counselor in the bishopric), Mom, and Gina also attended the session with Ben.

Called To Serve

2008-02-07T15:20:00.000-07:00

After a 2 1/2 week wait, Ben received his mission call on November 7, 2007.

Photo Shoot

2008-02-07T13:59:00.000-07:00

Ben had his mission pictures taken by Brittani Mitchell in November. He's going for the demure GQ and bed head look.