Saturday, August 31, 2013

PHOTO OF THE WEEK...Friday, August 30, 2013

I am going to start this thing called "Photo of the week" Because... WHY NOT? And they will probably be in back and white or sepia because I can't edit them so why shoot in color:D


Friday, August 30, 2013

Forever Stuck.

Haha The last week here in the MTC has been quite the experience. :D I mean it was full of some completely awesome times as well as sometimes that I wish did not have to happen. First off we (Elder Lee and myself) were able to have the opportunity to head up to salt lake and get our visas from the constable. That was a pretty fun time. And I was just called to be the district leader for our remainder here at the MTC (The one thing that I didn't want to be). I didn't want to be the district leader because everyone in our district thinks that it is a roll of power and that I am "above them". LAME if your askin' me. But ya know it is what it is. Spanish is coming along great! I mean as great as 3 weeks of spanish is. But we are teaching as well as we can and I don't ever feel like I have learned anything until I look back and see that it was just small and simple progress. Personally the best time of the week is P-day (because we wake up and go to the temple in the morning) andsunday because.... Not sure probably just the 2 most enjoyable days here at the MTC. Oh and tuesday and wednesday are pretty good as well. :D Because Tuesday we have a devotional and twice already members of the twelve have come and speak to us. And then Thursday is not to bad because it is P-day Eve. What other place than the MTC do you get the opportunity to have a holiday and a P-day Eve. I mean Its practically candy. 

Oh! HAHA something funny is I just read in Elder Hewetts E-mail that he is getting a companion that is waiting for his visa, and an Elder in our district just got re-assigned to Long Beach california while he is waiting for his visa:D and he was in my room while he read me his re-assignment. So... Elder Hewett have a fun time spreadin' the word with Elder Leoneti he is a fantastic person:D

I also had the opportunity to host Elder Butters on wednesday. That was pretty sick. It was awesome to get to talk to him and feel his excitement!:D The only downer thing is that he is living on West campus. So... Elder Christiensen and myself will not get as many opportunities to visit with him as we would want to. But ya know life keeps goin' forward you just choose how to live it. 

This week our district only had one bad moment. I don't say this to complain. I just say it how it was and just to let ya know what happened this week. It was when our teacher Hermano Voyack (Hombre de santanas) came back from California. I really enjoyed him before this incident, because he was not mean but wasn't rude and he really pushed us. :D But on Tuesday he came in after we were teaching Toby (Hermano Voyack) and said to our whole district "Do you guys even know how to teach with the spirit?" Yeah... Ouch... That was a stinger. And then he continued on to say that we can't just teach the Gospel we have to see the needs of the investigator and then teach then what they need to hear. (Which is what I thought we were doing right?) But afterwards I went up and talked to him and said that all of us are just trying our best to learn how to first try and get our message across as well as improving on our "conversationing talk" and the response I got was... "You should talk with your hands and use items in the room to explain the message and apply it to your investigator. Just start trying or maybe you shouldn't have even come here in the first place" Double ouch... So I just walked away from him and.... Yeah just continued on with my day. :D Because why worry about his problems when I just needed to keep movin forward:D But that was the most eventful thing that has happened this week. :D So... :D Life just keeps on rollin':D

OH!!! So in our district we watched some Mormon messgaes that maybe we could tell our investigators to go watch that would apply to our lessons and while we were watching them I wrote anther hunka junk of a thing that is kinda like  the end of my farewell talk. I decided to name it.

"Children"

They awake... 
Feeling the void of something that once was.
Unknowing, un-remembering... Utterly lost. 
Not knowing the past, nor the future. The present is their gift.
Learning to adjust to the new while forgetting the old. 
The plan I will provide shall be the path. 
They learn. Grow. Discover.
Finding right from wrong, light from dark, left from right.
Pain, Sorrow, Guilt... Joy, Relief, Gladness.
The Choice. Its up to them. The path is set.
They walk. 
All while I wait. I'm Far but close.
Always Here. Always Listening.
All I do is for them.
Trials and hardships I will give.
All in hope that they may grow. They see so little of how it came to be.
The gifts that I give and time that's spent draws us closer.
As the sun sets and again they come close to feeling the void that once was.
Only now... Knowing, believing, and forever following...
Although some may have never really understood WHY I let them go.
All the pain and sorrow.
One day they will know. 
That I let them go.
So that one day they may...
Become. 

So... yeah... Berkeley feel I hear that you have stared a blog about these random hunka junks that I sent home so... Feel free not to post the embarrassment above if you feel the need.I know that it is not really that good but.. Ya know.. You do what you can to entertain yourself and still stay close to the savior.  

I would just like to say thanks again for all the letters that everyone sends. I don't have much time between teaching and learning learning a new language... But I will eventually respond to all your letters (Berkeley:D:D)

Oh... And for the record.... Berkeley I don't miss you yet (;D).

Audios y bueno suerte hasta proximo semana. (Ummm not sure if that was what I meant to say but... It was worth a shot.) #mygrammern'spellingisnogood. 

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

more from @graydenpapers




























Friday, August 23

Week 3 or... 2? Who knows.....

The last week has been absolutely insane!!! I mean I thought that eventually things might begin to start getting easier. But... They did:D:D Haha you thought that I was going to say that there is no hope here in the MTC. But I would like to say that there is hope here in the MTC. Even though it is not easily found. :D I mean I have found it in the last week through reading my scriptures on Monday and on Thursday was rough because the investigator we taught in the morning I didn't understand at all.. And then I found out that the whole morning that I had forgot to pray... I KNOW RIGHT?!?! I mean I even ate food unblessed! SHEESH... What is this world coming to? But we were singing a song before we started our second session of 4 hours in a class room. And I would love to tell you the song we sang but... I cant remember the title.. Because it was in Spanish. But somewhere in that song I just started to feel better and feelin' more up to teachin our other investigator that night (Mario). In that lesson we taught Mario that he can talk to his Padre Celestial whenever he wants even when he earthly father can't be there for him. And it was amazing because you can't just teach someone what is right. You have to ask the right questions in there so the investigator feels involved and will discover the answers that you want them to feel by themselves. Because if you give a man a fish you feed him for a day, if you teach a man how to fish you feed him for a life time. So by letting Mario discover what he needed to know through the guidance of the spirit he was able to feel like he was the one who is finding answers thus creating a close bond between him and Heavenly Father. Elder Lee and myself really needed that good lesson because studying Spanish and being limited to what you can teach because you don't know the vocabulary to tell what you really want to tell is lame and hard. But ya know... What eva. Spanish has been going really well over the last week. Last Saturday we were told that we were not focused enough and needed to push ourselves further and faster and go into the lessons with more faith than knowledge. (Believe me we had no knowledge so it was complete faith with teaching our beginning lessons). But after that little lecture I decided I needed to pick up the pace. And over the last week I was able to memorize 120 verbs 17 different phrases as well as memorize our purpose solidly and almost have the first vision down word for word, and can teach the first lesson with an investigator pretty solid.. I am able to understand completely what someone is saying if they talk mediocre slow and only talk about what they like or questions about the gospel. Yes that means if you asked me how to get to the bath room I would just sit there and stair at you blankly because I only know how to ask where the bathroom is and teach you how to follow Christ. So... There is still so much to learn... I will start being a lazy missionary once I feel like I know everything about Spanish and the gospel (which we all know 2 years isn't enough to learn everything about the gospel so no worries about me being lazy:D:D:D) We had another missionary head home this week. I feel like with the age drop down to 18 boys feel like they need to leave right after high school and head on a mission. And I would personally have every boy coming out a high school to think about going right after. :D:D But don't just come on a mission because everyone else is going.. If you are not ready wait until you are. Because I have seen some missionaries that were not ready to leave their family and just break down. The MTC is a great place. Its like a purgatory. If you can survive it you are strengthened and continue to move on. But if you aren't... It eats you up and spits you out:D:D:D:D HAHAHA yupp:D:D I have come to learn that with out the power of God and the pure truth that the Holy Ghost can testify to people sharing the gospel would just not be possible. Our district was told this last week after some boys in our district did some not to mature things. That we are not reporting to our teacher everyday if we are good or not. We are reporting to God every night about if we have served and put in our all today or not. :D I thought that was a cool way to put it. Because its the truth. You can get away with quite a bit here at the MTC, but its not the mission president or the MTC president that you are reporting to. Its your Father in Heaven that you committed yourself to for the next 2 years. :D Oh and speakin about headed out for 2 years... Elder Lee and myself are headed up to SLC on Monday to get our VISAS! :D So.. I guess we were meant to go down into Mexico and convert the drug lords... Or... not. But things are hard but well. Have a great week:D:D:D:D

Elder, Anderson

Tuesday, August 20, 2013

Pictures from the MTC

Gray still doing his jumpergram pictures even while on his mission!

At the Provo Temple.

Walks to the temple. 

 Chillin at the Provo temple.

 E L D E R S



 Gray's companion, ELDER LEE

 ELDER ANDERSON

 ELDER 

 Gray still manages to get awesome pictures of the sunset, even while in the MTC.



 Elder Anderson and Elder Lee


 Look what my mom put in my suitcase! Thats what I get for not packing myself!

 She is the closest thing to a "Girl" allowed in our rooms! 

 One of our roommates went home so now she has a bed of her own!

When you open your suitcase and she is looking up at you! 
We will sign her head and hide her up in the tiles on the ceiling!
When you come to the MTC if you find her, sign your name and hide her again!

 Head and Shoulders Above the Rest!

 Your Mother is watching!


Friday, August 16, 2013

Life in the MTC after a week... Well it didn't get much easier... but with the power of constant prayer and no time to even worry about all the information things have been flowin pretty well. I have recieved about 10 letters from random people saying that they are now posting instagram pictures daily to carry on the @graydenpapers "legacy" that is cool. But we have taugh one test investigator tottally and the first time we had a complete script, the second time was the same. But the third time we went in there and took nothing but the power of the holy ghost. (sounds weird but it works and helped and taught the investigator what was needed and it may have not been exactly what we planned on teaching but the investigator got what he needed:D) We had one elder in our district terminate his mission completely and another in our zone have an incident that required him to go the ER. So it has been quite the eventful week. As well as we have just received that we are going to be teaching not one not three but 2 investigators now. Oh..... Great. It is just like a maze with a surprise around every corner. :D a good surprise though. Thanks for all the letters and emails from every one and keep on pushin' while the day is.... There.. Yeah. Peace

Elder Anderson



Sunday, August 11, 2013

Friday, August 9, 2013

I just got your dear elder letter that talked about all of the kids and what they wrote to me. I will take as many emails and letters as I can get. It has been insane here. I mailed you guys a letter that I wrote after the first day... And man was I such a child. Because I was just so up beat n' crap. Yeah. Its really not bad here but it is crazy hard. I mean we have already learned how to pray, door scene/ entrance, bear our testimony and all sorts of other things all in Spanish. That was all in the first 24 hours. As well as they told us that we will be teaching our first investigator today and we have to talk to him for a whole 40 minutes and teach him a lesson. And by the way that whole lesson is all in espanol. I was so worried last night that I wanted to puke because I didn't want to mess up and that is when I decided that I was going to pray in english and ask to be calmed. And boy oh man O chilli did that wish come true. I felt almost instantly that I was not so worried and I found out that I am just going to go in there and give it my all and if we slaughter it.... Oh well...  My Prep day is on Fridays while I am in the MTC. And I would love to be written just so I could read other things in my minutes of free time that we have here so I could have an escape. We arrived here on Wednesday and I feel like we have been here an eternity. That's probably because we have learned so much. But in the last couple of days I have never prayed so much in my life... I practically prayed every second of the day and that brought me comfort. And then things changed when our teacher told us that it would be nice and very helpful for us to learn Spanish if we promised to only pray in espanol.... Yeah you can thing what I am feelin.. I wasn't sure if I can do this anymore because I was not able to express my feelings to God and what I am thankful for how he has already blessed my life. But then I decided that I would say all of my morning prayers and... Well just mainly all of the prayers that I vocalize in espanol. And the rest of the millions and millions of prayers that I just say inside of me in English... I know Ima rebel. Sorry for takin so long on telling all of ya who my companion is I just wanted to say the random junk that I have been thinking about for the last 2 days. His name is Elder Lee and pretty much is the bomb.com. I'm pretty sure that he is a boss n' sauce because he enjoys what I enjoy. He played basket ball for davis high and asked if I knew nick emery. Which I did. I said that he was kind and is such a cool dude. We hit it off well.  I can only think that this is the doing of The Lord because of how he knew that I would need a new compaion in order to have the courage to make it through the hellish place. (Hellish in a good spiritual way:D)  We have an hour to write emails and I am going to only take up about a half an hour of it and send this email to you in hopes that you read and are able to email back. I will be on again for about another half an hour and see if you were able to see this email.
Congrats to Keaton on his mission call!!!!!! I'm so excited for him!!!! Don't let him read this letter because I don't want him to know how crazy hard and stressful the MTC is. Let him just stay in his happy bubble of serving a mission for a while:D:D:D
This little section is to Dayton because I asked him if the showers were public and he said yes. What I thought he ment was that the showers were like a cattle shower where it is just a bunch of ment sitting there in a room all naked and showering.... Nastay.. Im' glad that he is wrong. Because the showers are public but they have curtains and some privacy:D and the showers WORK unlike my shower in my room. :D:D:D
And another side note... I went to the doctor today and asked about my ear cuz it es no bueno.  He told me to come back at 1:20 and he will see what is goin down. I tried dads thing he gave me for my ear with no success. And am unsure of where the antibiotics are. :D:D so... Oh well. And... I thought that I would just let you know that this is WAY harder than california and that people said that it would come with time of where I would be missin you mom.. Well that time has come fast and heavy. I love you mom for all that you have done for me as well as for the times that we would go and get drinks from mcky Dee's
As well as we were told that the first talk that we have to give is in all espanol. No first time english go. Just jump into the deep end and go. Yeah... Make sure that you send me everyone's email so I can email them. And make sure that I get Garys as well.
I will be on after lunch to see if ya got this. I'm expecting that you wont but... Have a good week:D:D and thanks for the letter.

Friday, August 9, 2013

Hi everyone!! This is Gray's sister, Berkeley. I will be keeping you all updated on Gray's mission adventures. Here is his MTC address and his email address. 

MTC:
Elder John Grayden Anderson
Provo Missionary Training Center
2005 N 900 E
Box 144
Provo, UT 84604
United States

Email:
john.anderson@myldsmail.net

If you want to send him letters, doing it through dearelder.com is the easiest way.

He said he would love lots of letters and emails from the world outside of the MTC. Since everything around him there is all Spanish, he loves reading the English letters because it is something he can understand!(:
(His P days are on Fridays)