Love India Style

Hi family! 

Wooooooooow! Now I know what Adam and Jared were talking about when they went on their missions: you guys get all the good stuff right when I leave for my mission! haha :) I'm definitely riding that scooter when I come back! And that flash 

flood sounds like so much fun! You didn't have any flooding inside the house?? If so, that is REALLY great! And sounds like same ole Abbey, having her friends 

take her to super awesome activities. :) Are you still doing your exercises Dad? Hopefully the Ape Caves wasn't TOO hard for you! ;)

Well, I am officially done with my 12 week training! Woo woo! :D Technically, I 

should be considered a full fledged missionary, but the next 3 months after 

completing the 12 week training has been termed by other missionaries as your 2nd training, or your "follow up training". Haha but I am totally fine with calling it that, because I can tell I still have a TON to learn!

Pretty much, I've learned more in these past two weeks than I ever thought 

possible. Even after a month of being in the MTC, and having 10 weeks of training out in the filed, my first 2 weeks as the leader in a companionship were still 

pretty rocky! At the end of each day Elder Watts would spend 5-10 minutes telling me what I did well during the day, and what I could improve on. Every night, he would have at least 3-5 things in which he would say "Well, if I were the one 

leading, I don't think I would have _____", or "It might not have been the best 

idea to _____ " or "You kind of missed out on an opportunity to do ______ today", etc. etc. All in all, I think he gave me around 60 different things in these 2 

weeks of things I can improve upon. SIXTY! 

Wow, at first when I thought about this, I was blown away! I wouldn't say I was 

feeling sad about it, just that I was amazed at how much I still had to work on, even after so much training. But then, I realized something. By the time I went 

to BYU this last year, I had been to church about 900 times. I had gone to 

seminary over 600 times. I had studied The Book of Mormon and Bible for 1,000+ 

hours. I had gone to 8 week long church camps. I had 900 family home evenings. 

And yet, even with all of this "training" on how to be a good person/be a better disciple of Jesus Christ, I'm sure if anyone would have followed me around each 

day they could have found WAY more than 3-5 things I could improve upon! So why 

should I be shocked that I still have a lot to work on as a missionary, after 

only 3 months of training? 

Perfection definitely isn't attained in this life. But, as long as we are 

improving a smidge bit each day, then in another 13.7 gazillion years I'm sure we will finally reach perfection! Good thing we can live for all eternity! :)
 
Another thought I've been having this week. As a missionary, you get to 

experience a brand new type of love from those around you. Before my mission, I 

had already experienced many different types of love. Love from my family, love 

from God, love from my roommates, love from guys friends, love from girls (well, maybe that was just in my imagination... haha),  love from teachers, and many 

others. However, nothing can really relate to the love people give me as a

 missionary. 

There's not a day that goes by that I don't feel loved! Just a few quick examples. When I travel in the streets, I'll have little kids literally running up to me shouting "Elder! Hi! Elder hi! Elder hi!" all running up to shake my hand. Or 

after an appointment when we ask "When can we come back and visit you again?" a 

common response is "Hmmm... tomorrow?" Or it's not umcommon for us to get calls 

from people saying "Hey, when are going to come visit our home??" or when it's 

times for us to leave they will say "No no no! Stay! Just 5 more minutes."

Wow! I've never felt to so popular in my life! haha :)And for me, having all 

these people love missionaries so much just sets the bar that much higher for me. I don't want to let these people down, so I do all I can to truly be the 

representative of Christ that they expect. 

Well, that's all for now. Have a grand week familia! 

Love,
Elder Anderson

P.S. Next Monday I for sure won't be emailing you. We will be locked inside all 

day because of some massive Hindu festival! It's a holiday celebrating the Hindu God Ganesh. It's really too bad we will be locked in though, because the holiday sounds like a BLAST! You should definitely look it up!