It's One CRAZY Holiday!

Hola familia! Congrats to you Noah! Startin' up the college life! Which is definitely the second best type of life, right below the missionary life. haha ;) Ya, I had heard that Julie is serving in D.C! I'm super excited for her! Sometimes, I feel like all of my friends are still back at home, going about life as normal, but then I remember that half of my friends are actually scattered around the world right now serving their own missions. So cool! So this week we had the close of the Ganesh festival, and I gotta say, this is THE craziest holiday I have ever seen in my life! And I don't mean "crazy" as in these people are all lunatics, I mean crazy as in the type of crazy people say when they come back from a party and say "Whoa man, that party was CRAZY!" Normally, missionaries are locked down on the last day of the Ganesh festival, because that's when things get really awesome, but President Barrett seems to be moving away from missionary lock downs, because we were out and about as normal on the last day of the festival. It was INSANE! Everyone was getting big trucks, and using those trucks to haul their giant Ganesh statues to the ocean (they dump all the Ganeshs in the ocean, which "baptizes" Ganesh, this forgiving their own sins somehow... haha I don't really get it either!) But the trucks travel slowly, and as they travel herds of people will surround the truck with the Ganesh inside. All the people have their faces covered with paint/chalk stuff, and have bandannas wrapped around them that make them look like a teenage mutant ninja turtle. Then they all whip out their drums and stereo systems and start playing music as loud as they possibly can. And the people that aren't playing music are having what looks a lot like a stake dance. haha I quite enjoyed seeing some of the kids do the Dougie! :) And then, to make it even crazier, the heard of people is launching fireworks while they march to the sea. And these aren't little sparklers they are lighting off... they are all enormous motor fireworks. hahaha of man, I'm surprised these people don't kill themselves! Whenever going past one of these giant crowds of parting Hindus, I would just keep in mind what the penguins from the movie Madagascar taught me: Just smile and wave boys, smile and wave! :) My new companion Elder Thompson is grand! He really is TOTALLY opposite to my last companion Elder Watts, but that just makes life that much more exciting! He tells lots of stories as we are traveling around, and we have a lot of fun together! He is from Washington D.C. (well, an hour north of it, but he tells everyone D.C.) He is also went to Utah State before his missions, so we enjoy comparing college stories with each other. :) He also is good at using examples and visual aids in lessons, so I have definitely been learning how to be a more entertaining teacher with his help. AND, he is helping me learn how to get better hand writing! My hand writing will look like a girl's by the time he's done with me! woo woo! :) So, these past few weeks we've been working a lot with less actives. Time and time again, I see the sane thing. People stop coming to church because they were... "offended". Ugh. :P We've been visiting with the Batina family recently, and slowly but surely we are making progress with them. The dad says he knows the Book of Mormon is true, but he still doesn't want to come back to church... How does that even work?! In my missionary mind in makes so much sense: If the Book of Mormon is true, Joseph Smith must have been a prophet. And if Joseph Smith was a prophet, everything he taught must have been from God. Which means, this must be God's true church. Simple. But, the trouble is getting others to see this logical chain reaction. We'll keep working with them though! :) The computer shop I'm in right now is blasting Justin Beiber and Selena Gomez. Haha being on a mission is definitely a party! :) Have a super duper week family! Love, Elder Anderson