Transformers!

The transformation of Optimus Sydney!
We started with this...

Getting closer...

Isn't she beautiful?!

Sydney participated in the Desoto Central Middle School Pageant last night. She didn't win anything but she was definitely the most beautiful girl there!

Yes, Brett and Kyle are still alive

It has been a very long time since I posted anything from Brett and Kyle. They are doing great. Brett is on his last transfer in the office. He has really enjoyed taking care of the financial side of things in Bilbao. And he says he has more landlord negotiation skills than anyone should ever be subjected to! Kyle is in Roxas as the Zone leader as you can see from the picture below he is really enjoying the Philippine culture!



From Kyle:

Happy Monday! I’m feeling good right now. We had the wonderful opportunity to play basketball this morning and I totally dominated under the rim (It’s probably more due to my height than any physical prowess). Then I was put on the team with some other Elders who had been talking it up a bit and even had their own uniforms custom made. They just camped out in our end and waited for me to try and defend and steal under the goal on my own and then chuck the ball to them. So it was okay. At least I got a good work out.
Speaking of workout, I’m officially on a diet. That basically means I take one less scoop of rice. No, we go jogging in the mornings and I work out as well. Just on abs and upper torso. I’m trying to get in shape so I won’t be too shocked when I go back to ROTC. Also, I need to be able to get chicks right away so I can write cool stories to Brett for five weeks that will make him mad.
This all boils down to, it was perfect timing for a package full of candy and pancake mix. Thanks a lot. It was awesome. And the cookies too. And I’m also happy to see that the Walgreens truffles have welcomed the new year with a brand new blue box. Also, I’m assuming the cheese sauce is for mac and cheese. If it’s not, you should try it. And throw in some ground beef and peppers. Actually pretty good.
About the trip. That sounds totally sweet. Chilling on boats, getting a good tan back that doesn’t have a really high collar mark. And the program for dad. I think one thing for me to learn was not to get mad at people when they break the rules. Because that’s our whole purpose as missionaries, to help people keep the rules. It extends to missionaries as well. We had to fix a problem this week, and it was interesting. It wasn’t big, it just kind of bums you out. Fortunately Sunday was awesome.
We had a zone wide fast for people to come to church. It turned out awesome. I learned a lot about fasting. Like, it really works. Okay, so I already knew that, but my faith was strengthened even more. I made an effort this time to think about specific people whenever I felt hungry (not often) and thirsty (the second I started). The thirst is really what gets you, especially because we were going to teach a family on Saturday at 11 and they randomly invited us to eat first. So our schedule got thrown off, especially because I planned to down a liter of water first. Unfortunately their water was from the well, which makes my tummy sick when consumed in large amounts. It was good though, fried salted fish cooked in tomatoes. There was supposed to be eggs added in, but the family is really poor. We offered to go buy some but they didn’t want us to. They ended up coming to church.
Sunday morning I got dressed up. Wore the sweet gold tie. Did my hair for the first time in forever. Wore the shirt I got tailored that’s just a little bit too small. (I’ve lost weight since then so it fits nice). And then we walked to church. And then we waited for the investigators to start pouring in. But first we had to wait for someone to grab a key to unlock the front gate. Mind you this was 20 minutes after priesthood is supposed to start. There were about 4 of us.
But they came eventually. And so did the investigators. We got 9 to show up. Our other family of 4 didn’t show because they had helped to welcomed a new baby into the Christian world by getting plastered after his baptism. It’s okay though, because they were just there to cook and didn’t get back until 3. Which is really late for a culture that’s usually asleep at 7. It’s good though, they’ll come next week. I was extremely surprised to see someone show up that we haven’t taught for 2 weeks. And she brought 3 relatives with her that we made sure to visit after church so we could count them investigators.
All in all, good Sunday, good week. Except for when I randomly heard this jimmy eat world song that made me stop in my tracks while all these middle school memories flowed through my head. Also, trevor check out the band al city. The new missionary brought a cd and I like to wait a couple seconds before reminding him to turn it off because it sounds good.
I love you all. Take care.

From Brett--

So everybody....sorry about last weeks email being so short. I know it probably totally devastated all of you and killed your spirits for a while not being nurtured by the sweet words and spirit of your favorite Elder in the field. Man. As Jackie Kennedy once said, "Bummer Dude!"

So I will deflate my head a bit now and begin to recount my past week. Eduardo did not get baptized, and I´m still bummed, but the best part is that we have had 3 visits since and in every one he has expressed a testimony and a desire to get baptized still. He just needs more time. In the last few weeks his marriage has fallen apart (nothing to do with the church, which surprises us) and he decide to wait until things calm down. Don´t know if it´s the best decision, but it´s what he´s doing. So we have a tentative date set for the 13 of Ferbruary. That is forever away, so hopefully he will in a week or so get good and we will just say, ok, this Saturday. It´s my dream.
Other than that, we have found some cool new people to teach. One muslim from Morrocco. I love Morroccans. And muslims. It´s funny cause it really seems like they would be the first people to recognize the truth of our message and convert. I am convinced that if we just flooded the middle east with the first lesson folleto (pamphlet) and copies of the book of mormon, we would have stakes there before we could have missionaries. Also my professor at BYU beleived that the angel Gabriel really did appear to mohammed and there was just a general apostasy of truth. Go figure. I could see it being true. So his name is Joseph and the best part is that he speaks spanish(kind of a requirement, since we don´t speak arabic.) He´s tight, so we´ll see if he gains a testimony when he reads the book of mormon. It is the best book to give somebody a testimony of the role and mission of jesus christ. So he also taught us some muslim customs and phrases. One "Insh´alla" is one that I have read and heard in countless movies and books right before the terrorist blows himself up. Luckily those books and movies are overdone, cause nothing really happened. No, but he´s tight.
So I have also been going crazy around the office, trying to get stuff tied down and resolve a whole bunch of lio´s(my favorite word, like a complicated jumble mess). And I have put an extra effort into organizing my desk and getting solved many problems that are long and complicated. Why you ask? Cause I am training, starting next Tuesday. Elder Holmes, in my group, is coming to be the new financial secretary, but I will be here training him for 1 transfer. I was shocked when Sean mentioned how he trained for 5 days. So I want everything to be in order so that he can start learning. Unluckily for him, we are still going down in missionaries, 73 in the whole north of Spain. We are closing some cities and sister missionary areas, henceforth we must take care of all the dumb piso closing stuff. And we have to baptize lots of people this transfer, and we have to meet the mission vision which is 1 baptism, and every week 15 lessons, 3 new investigators, and 3 in church. Not going to be easy. They never said it would be easy, they only said it would be worth it. And Actually they never even said that.

Roadshow?! That´s very exciting. Also I felt the long arm of Uncle Sam grabbing me and beginning to tug, I got a letter from the BYU ROTC det. It´s the monthly newsletter, or maybe the semester one, but it clearly outlines the rigors of FTP training sophomore year. Hint, Hint.
So I will try to ignore it and pretend that my meager physical excercise every other morning will get me ready. I also got granddad´s package and it seems like he knows exactly what it is like on a mission. It was the most brilliant package I had ever seen, very well done. Most of it is already gone. I love you all and hope you don´t get sick and I will be praying for all of you. Take it easy.
-Elder Anderson

Rite of Passage

Yesterday Sydney and Trent entered that phase of life looked forward to and hated by all preteens and teens--

BRACES!!

Isn't she beautiful. Is this a great picture for the wedding reception slide show, or what?

Trent tried to avoid the black mail picture but Dr. Shawn was faster! At least it isn't as bad as his sister's.

The Rain in Spain falls mainly on the Philippines?

Mother, I appreciate the address for Shane. I was actually looking through the letters I have to write (now a very backed up qeue) and saw the returned one from about 7 months ago. And then I sighed with regret because the pictures, topics, and questions were all outdated and yet I still had no idea how to get it to him. So I’ll get that one sent. With a current events stickynote on the top.Speaking of current events…. We were mentioned in Conference!!!! Yeah. It wasn’t bad at all. We just trudged through impromptu rivers all day Thursday and finally got power back on. It was actually pretty fun at first, but you can only sing the one line of “singing in the rain” that you can still remember so many times before it gets a little old. Then your companion tells you about a friend who suddenly died one day because she had fed chickens and the feces got into an open wound in her foot. Then you think about the cuts you just got yesterday on your feet and the fact that the now submerged bridge two branches wide without handholds you are crossing used to have a couple pig pens next to it and you wonder what besides water is rushing past your feet. You would also figure people would have pity on us and let us in. The effect was opposite, as now they didn’t even want to come out and tell us to go away. They just kind of waved from the doorway. So when we got home my companion cooked us a big pot of sopas (soup for those of you who don’t speak Tagalog) which is an ethnic dish here in the Philippines, faithfully cooked from Filipino generation to Filipino generation since it was ethnically imposed into Filipino culture by the Spanish Rulers.Also, I had a good talk with the Pratts, senior couple here in Roxas Zone. After several corrections to call him Elder, and not sir, he suggested that I look into sorbathane inserts. I don’t know what they are, but they sound like a good idea. As well as cookie dough and apple cinnamon poptarts. Also I am supposed to ask you if you know brother John Erickson, their son in law that is studying at Memphis for optometry. Apparently he served in Baguio and is fluent in Illokano. So if you meet him tell him: napintas ti balasang ditoy. That’s if he looks like a fun guy. If he looks a little more serious tell him to lighten up, and then tell him that the girls here are pretty(see translation above).So I had a great time at General Conference. It was great. I especially liked Elder Hollands talk. (I originally had his whole name, but wasn’t sure of the spelling [two f’s or one?] and decided that wouldn’t be very missionary like if I spelled it wrong). But I know that everyone probably had that as their favorite, so I’ll choose another to be original.….…Ok, so I can’t get past it. That one really was my favorite. It was really great to hear so strongly seeing as we usually hear the opposite side just as strong. Also I can’t remember anyone else specifically by name. Yes, once again, not very missionary-like. But I really enjoyed the whole theme of being recognized as disciples by our love for others. I helped me think a lot. Also the parenting thing, because In my new responsibility I sometimes have to deal with child-like behavior. I’m trying to find a balance between the carrot and the stick. The thing is I don’t have that many carrots. Also, Filipino carrots are about the size of dad’s smoked weenies with barbeque sauce. So I don’t know how appealing that is. Also I liked the treatise on the attributes of the Godhead. Very smooth reasoning, flow, and presentation. I wish I was that good at explaining it.Also, I enjoy the fact that Filipinos are not shy about singing in public at all, especially if they’re watching music videos on the computer next to me while wearing headsets.I’m doing well with my companion, and his family owns an extremely cheap seaside hotel thing with free cooking for only 20 bucks a night. Possible vacation destinations…. I love you all. Take care. Also congratulations to Kyle Taylor on his mission call. He's grown up so fast. It seems like only a couple summers ago that we were hiding jugs of milk in bushes outside the primary room and seeing if we could get it to solidify over time.

The Latest from Bilbao

MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!I AM NOW LEGAL IN SPAIN!!!! I have for the last time(unless I go serve there) gone to the wonderful city of León and picked up my last residency card. No more will I be shackled by the chains of illegal residence and expired visas. I can now stay and live here for 3 more years if I wanted to. Feels good. That is one of the benefits of having a close relationship with your residency secretary....like being his companion. My card has been waiting at an office in León for 2 months but i haven´t been able to get there. A few missionaries went to try, but the people wouldn´t let them, even though they had a signed copy of my passport. So i finally got tired of waiting and I was like. Okay, Elder Strickland I´m going this Thursday to get it. And he was like, Alright. So wham! That´s that. It was a pretty good trip to. Right before i got on the 4 hour train ride we met some folk singers from California that are touring Spain and one lady grew up in Shreveport, Louisiana. She went to Captain Shreve high, so I was like, sweet. I am totally going to convert these people on the train ride. So I sit down in my seat and it is on the complete other end of the train than them. And I was getting ready to go over and sit in a seat by them, when i remembered that the train stops 1 hour into the trip and changes cars, where everybody gets out and stretches. So I was like, I will wait until then. Then a 32 year old spanish lady sat by me so I started talking to her and found out she just got married on Saturday. So I talked a lot with her then when we switched trains I talked to the folk singers. They really didn´t want to talk to me(I´m not taking it personally, it´s the badge) so I got back on the train and spent the next 3 hours talking to this spanish lady. She was really nice. It was cool, cause I could tell her a lot about myself and missionaries, but in a friendly way. It´s not like I just stopped her on the street and want a visit with her, but that I wanted to talk to her and create a friendship, then share what I knew with her. Because of who we are and what we are doing and how we dress, the topic will always eventually drift to the church. And so she started talking about bad stuff that happens in life and her friend who lost some children and I was able to then testify about the plan of Salvation. i didn´t teach the lesson, but as a friend, I let her know that there was a point to this life, that there is more than just working and living, and that knowing this purpose and being happy with it is only possible through following Heavenly Father. It was super tight. And super scary. i think i felt how Dad must feel a lot when he shares the gospel with everybody and i have to say, I give him major props. Especially knowing that it would be so easy if you weren´t a missionary to just let those opportunities go by. So she didn´t really want to talk to the missionaries or anything, but now she definately will know where to go that time in her life when she needs the gopsel. I had fun in León, cool visits, awesome elders there. Really good friends. Elder Nestvogel and I went and played basketball yesterday morning(I just shot around cause I knew he would cream me.) We started playing pig and then 3 cops come out of nowhere (7:30 in the morning and still dark) and two come from behind us. So we talk to them and they tell us it´s too early to be playing basketball and neighbors called to complain from the noise. So we tell them we´ll stop and they ask for our residency cards. I hadn´t brought mine so I told him and he looked really surprised and asked where I was from. So we told him, USA and Germany and he was like, oh. Then they let us go so we went home. But a Spanish Elder told us that it´s illegal to go somewhere without your residency card and he could have fined us a few hundred euros each for that. I thought it was stupid, but oh well. Weird laws in spain. The rest of the week has been pretty crazy. On Tuesday we got new missionaries and that was fun. They are excited. What else? I can´t really remember. I´m just having fun and this weekend is going to rock. And monday I will have to catch up from being out of the office for a few days : ( Alright. I hope you all have a great week and I love you all. General Conference was amazing. Study it. Especially Elder Scott´s first talk on following the spirit/receiving revelation. Good stuff. And halfway through he laid the ultimate smack down on pornography. They know what´s up, and exactly what we should avoid to be able to respond to the spirit. Well, i love you. -Elder Anderson

Brett's Words--"Number Crunching"

Ok, so promise you won´t freak out. I swear I had no idea. I´m just kidding, I kind of knew, but wasn´t sure so I didn´t mention it before now. What am I talking about? let´s go back to last Thursday during weekly planning:

Elder Garcia and I were having a great time planning for all of our awesome investigators and chowing down on some homemade fruit salad, and we are just about to finish up when...We get a call from President Clegg. So we look at each other and Elder Garcia answers it "Hey, President. How are you?"
"oh I´m fine. Elder Garcia are you sick?"
"no" "oh, well is Elder Anderson sick?"
"no."
"oh...well you´re going to be sick when I tell you this!"

I have to say that our President is the coolest mission president ever. He then proceeded to tell Elder Garcia that he was going to have the opportunity to train a brand new Elder here in Pontevedra and how important it is. So after praising Elder Garcia immensely, he then let him know how serious and important this calling is. And then he passed the phone to me.
"hey, Elder Anderson, are you out of bed yet?" (it was 2:00)
"yeah, kind of president."
"really though?"
"well I actually have a hard time with that President."
"you should probably try a little harder with that"
"ok President"
"Well, I wanted to tell you that you will be leaving Pontevedra. And you will be getting a lot closer to us than you probably ever wanted to be."

I repeat, coolest man ever. He then proceeded to tell me that I am leaving Pontevedra on Wednesday and taking an 11 hour train ride to----------Bilbao! Actually a part of it called Las Arenas. And that I will be the new financial secretary for the Spain Bilbao mission. What!? Ok, so I know I´m good with numbers, but I really don´t want to be jumping on the Elder Gilmore bandwagon(I heard through the rumor mill that he was secretary or something, maybe you could send me a bit of his recent emails or whatever). But yeah, all joking aside, I am stoked. President Clegg told me that we are still missionaries first and that we are "teaching and baptizing missionaries" so I can still do the fun stuff. He also said we set the example in the mission and, "as the office goes, so goes the rest of the mission". He also told me what a big responsibility it is to be in charge of the church´s money and that I should avoid stealing all of it and escaping to France. I repeat he rocks and now I am going to be working with him and Hermana Clegg a lot.

I am super excited for this next step. But that brings me back to leaving Pontevedra. When I left Logroño I didn´t have too many ties, left my first area to go tear up my second one and be better. I also didn´t have too many cool investigators or close member friends to leave. But this is different. I think in a big way I grew up in Pontevedra. I love the members, I love the city, I love the investigators. I have seen the best examples of how people´s lives are better by following the Gospel than I have ever seen. I have met and worked with members who are some of the strongest, best people I have met.

This last transfer we have been throwing up the best numbers and best success that this city has seen in more than a year, and between that there was almost nothing. I don´t want to leave. I gave my farewell testimony in church yesterday and it was super sad. Christian, the man we baptized back in February got up and had Elder Garcia translate his testimony(Christian is from Ghana and doesn´t speak much spanish) and Christian thanked God for bringing the missionaries to me and thanked me personally.

This has been the happiest time of my mission, this last transfer. But I know I have done what I needed to do, I have left the area better than how I found it, I have left the Rama (branch) better than how I found it. And I worked my guts out here, and because of that I don´t want to leave.lol. But yeah. Asi es la vida. Or C´est la vi (I have know idea how to spell that, but it´s french) or é o que hai (Galego) or é o que temos(Portuguese) or that´s the way the cookie crumbles(American). So yeah, just wanted you all to know that.

We had an awesome week to cap it off, lots of cool progress in our investigators and lots of fun, a big Spanish fiesta Saturday night to celebrate the beginning of the bull fights. In the fiesta everyone got in teams with the same shirts and threw wine and coke and water all over everybody, mostly wine. Yeah, we stayed away from that one, with our white shirts and all.

I will get to Bilbao and be in a trio (3 missionaries) for a transfer (6 weeks) while I get trained up, then the old financial secretary leaves and I´m on my own. I will be with Elder Barber(the old one) and Elder Strickland(the travel secretary). They usually only train you for 3 weeks, but we are also getting a new senior couple to help us out and so they want a little more stability for a bit.

But yeah. I love you all, take it easy, trentin don´t die in band camp. Trevor, play some Call of Duty 4 for me while listening to the old Mayday Parade cd.(actually it seems like the cool one to me, but when I get back it will be really old). We are going to Vigo today to spend my last P-day with the district and eat at a chinese buffet. Oh yeah. Also, toma kyle( eat it), I am making bank eating at members houses cause I´m leaving.lol.

Well, have a good week, and pray for me to not get frustrated working with computers and numbers all day. -Elder Anderson

Kyle's Words--"I am Sparticus"

This has been a great week. With a new record. You will be impressed. We had a dinner appointment EVERY single night this week except (of course) Saturday (fasting). But we had two Sunday so it makes up for it. Yep. After a year in the Philippines I’ve figured things out. It was great. Monday was probably the best. I just mentioned to a member that in Mississippi we eat fried catfish and okra. We show up Monday and we have:Catfish Curry! It was actually really good. With lots of okra. Great dinner. It also had a dessert\soup with coconut milk and guavas (dulce or something?). Nice hot dessert on a rainy night. The second night it was just some hot dog imitations from a stand, but we got to ride in the sweet car of a rich member. We hopped into his 100% tinted car (no laws on window tint here. Life is sweet for the rich people) and then he asked my companion “Do you like the Eagles?” My companion says yes, and he pulls out a random DVD player and sets us up with the Eagles Live in Concert. We got him to switch eventually, but his playlist was only stuff like Nelly, Snoop Dog, and Akon. This guy’s like 40. Way cool though. He also told us he was going down to Manila on the 17th (right after transfers) and asked if we like Pizza Hut. AHHHHHHHH!!!!! I sooo hope I’m not transferred. I’ll probably slip him a thousand pesos and tell him to get as many krispy kreme as he can. It’s only 20 bucks, but here that lasts us a whole week with food and travel. And that’s eating well. So it seems a lot to me. But I’m still doing it. Don’t worry, I’ll work for four hours when I get back home to make up for it. That is, if I can find a job.

It’s way easy though. You just have to ask the right questions. What are you going to use that kamote for? Oh yeah? That’s funny, I haven’t ever seen it done that way. Yeah, I guess we could taste some but we have an appointment right now. Sure, we could come back later. Done. That simple. They love it when you know what ingredients are. So for this past year I have been asking like crazy, and now I just have to say random things I know about different ingredients or ways to cook it. Once they’re on the topic of food, its about a 95% chance they will offer you some. I also learned on my own how to cook torones this week Way good for breakfast with bananas picked fresh off of our tree.I promise we actually have done work.

A lot of let down’s this week. I want to work on my hope, but there is a point where it’s just foolish and you’ve got to drop them. Especially when they won’t be honest with you. On a plus though,Bubert decided to get baptized!. We’ve been teaching him forever. He’s always known, but has been worried about his nonmember aunt that basically raised him. We commit him almost every time we visit, but recently he’s said that HE will be the one to tell us. So we’ve been focusing on the importance of baptism. This week though, because of scheduling we haven’t been able to teach him. Then we went to a birthday party for some food yesterday and he was cooking the duck. We ate inside and then went out to talk to him, just check up on him because he didn’t come to church. I told him we missed him and he said “But I can still be baptized at the end of the month, right?” And I was like, “Really?” not wanting to get my hopes up, because he likes to joke. Then he asked “What’s the date of the last Saturday in August?” I whipped out my wallet like my life depended on it and checked my cool little pocket calendar I got from the smoothie shop in Santiago. “The 29th”“Ok, that’s when I’ll get baptized.” Holy Cow. I was so happy. It was awesome. I guess he just needed some time.

So let’s keep working, and make sure he doesn’t change his mind again. That’s all. I love you all. Bye.