MTC Week 8 - Less than 7 days left in the MTC!!!

A lot of good things happened this week. We got our travel itineraries and reassignments. I got my travel plans along with the missionaries going to Canada. Most people got notices saying that they will get reassigned because the visas are so slow right now. My companion got reassigned to Indianapolis. We don't know why I am going straight to Australia and he is not. I know he will do well in both places. My flight is long, and I have a couple of layovers, but I am so excited. I leave the MTC on December 1st at about noon, and I will arrive December 3rd. Even though the Taiwan missionaries got reassignment notices, they may get their visas if they stay in the MTC for a couple more weeks. It's all in the air right now.
Thanksgiving is coming up. We are going to do a service project and watch a couple of devotionals. There is a rumor going around that David Bednar is going to speak. That would be so cool. We all love him because of his talk "Character of Christ". But it's just a rumor.
I ran into Keenan Kanahele from my home stake. I did not know we were going to be in the MTC at the same time. He is going to Samoa! I was so glad to see him.
We got another wave of missionaries this week and the MTC is so crowded now. There are over 2000 missionaries here now. The 4 square line is so long it wraps around the court, so I decided to spend half of my gym time in the weight gym. I split with another companionship, and we work out. Then we still get to play 4 square a little. It's nice to change up the routine a little after doing the same thing for 8 weeks.
This Elder in our district got bad shin splints, and he chose me to go to physical therapy with him. We went to a hospital way across from BYU. They made him do all these exercises. The weirdest part of this whole experience was seeing the outside world. We passed by my old dorm, the place I got my hair cut right before I went in the MTC (Craig's Cuts), and the place we used to have family evening at BYU (Fat Cat's). It just felt weird.
I got a bye bye shu (book) which is a notebook that people sign like a yearbook. One of the nice things about staying at the MTC for so long is that you make really good friends with people. I am sure many of these people will be my friends for the rest of my life.
One of the members of the MTC presidency is traveling somewhere for business, so we won't be able to see him again. We all love brother Seow.

I saved the best for last. We finally committed one of our mock investigators to baptism. The teachers are the mock investigators, and they pretend to be an investigator that they baptized on their mission. So it is more realistic than you might think. This "investigator" is named Ye Hong and he had no religious background because he was from mainland China. This is why it took us a long time to commit him, but most of the people on Melbourne are going to probably be from mainland China.

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http://elderjordanandersen.blogspot.com/

Elder Jordan Andersen
DEC01 AST-MEL
2007 N 900 E Unit 19
Provo UT 84602

MTC Week 7: 2 weeks and counting down til departure to Australia.

Greetings! All is well. Our district was freaking out a few days ago, and we are still freaking out, because reality hit us. We are leaving the MTC in about 2 weeks! And our Chinese is not that great. For me, most worries are drown out by excitement.
Apparently the New Zealand flag looks very similar to the Australian flag, and we took a picture with the New Zeland flag because it was in our classroom, thinking it was Australian. Haha. I'll have to find an Australian flag.
We have started Skyping members in Taiwan and teaching them. It's really cool. There is still a language barrier, but it's a lot of fun. We now do Skype for TRC. We are Skyping a member later tonight!
Elder Brinton is our new District Leader, and he will have that position until we leave. He is smart, and has a lot of the same interests as me. I'm glad he's our district leader.
The MTC has been a great experience so far. I have learned so much. Even though there are a lot of rules, they keep you safe, and focused on your purpose. I have met a lot of good friends. But I know the best is still to come.
Everybody is excited for Thanksgiving. We are going to have a devotional, and then we are doing a huge service project, which will be making meals for other people. We still haven't had an apostle speak to us yet, so we are hoping that we will have that opportunity in the next couple of weeks.
Apparently the Dear Elder machine is broken, so I haven't gotten any for a few days. If you send me a dear elder, please put my email in the box, so it gets sent to my email, as well as the hard copy.
My cousin Nicole Peng is coming home from her mission in Taiwan soon! I wish I could see her. Too bad our missions overlap.
Miss you all!

Elder Jordan Andersen
DEC01 AST-MEL
2007 N 900 E Unit 19
Provo UT 84602

MTC Week 6 - Besides temple walks, we left MTC campus for the first time.

Hello Everyone,

This week we got to leave the MTC campus for the first time in 6 weeks (if you don't count the temple walks). We saw a devotional at BYU.

The talk was by Elder David F Evans. He talked about being tenacious, or stubbornly determined. Everyone from the MTC walked to the Marriott center as a huge herd. Going back to BYU campus felt weird, but it was a good devotional.

People on my district were spotting their siblings and friends in the crowd. After the devotional, I saw Sister Lonas from my home ward.

Everyone seems to be sick. I have a cough right now. About half of our district is sick. Combined with the lack of sleep, it sucks. Luckily most of us are still are able to go to class.
Oh yeah, and Halloween happened, but we didn't do anything special besides wear fake mustaches.
I was talking to another elder, and I asked him how long he had been in the MTC, and he said "for awhile . . . 7 days". That made me crack up on the inside.
The snow last week was short lived. There was snow on the mountains, but now it is all melted. But it is getting cold and windy. My family sent me a sweet jacket. Thanks!
The language is coming along quite well. We are supposed to speak our language everywhere we go, but that seldom ever happens. But I can now understand almost all of what the teachers say. The language still has a long way to go though.
Elder Bates and I apparently have a good mutual friend at BYU, Josh Quinton. We saw him on our temple walk and talked for awhile.
We saw another devotional called "Missions are Forever by Elder Holland. It was really motivational and made me want to work harder.
It's sad how short my letters are getting. Hopefully I will have more to write about when I get to the field.
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Elder Jordan Andersen
DEC01 AST-MEL
2007 N 900 E Unit 19
Provo UT 84602

MTC Week 5 - Already more than half way over......

Hello everyone!

My time here at the MTC is more than half way over already. Wow. This was a great week. Today was my first time doing initiatories at the temple. It was an interesting experience. When we were walking back from the temple, we saw snow falling. The weather here is getting cold, so they are requiring all of the elders to wear suits.

We are going to a devotional at BYU tomorrow by some Elder Davis. Apparently this is the time of year we start seeing apostles for devotionals. We are all excited for that.
We are teaching two investigators right now, and they aren't too receptive. We have a hard time finding people's needs. I think we are going to change our method. We are going to use about half of the first lesson just to get to know the investigator, so we can better determine their needs. This method is what we use when teaching less-actives, so we are already good at telling people about ourselves and getting to know people in Chinese, and we know it works.
Another group of Chinese speaking missionaries left our zone. Most of them got called to Taiwan, but they are getting reassigned for a couple of months. Many of them got reassigned to Arcadia, CA. After they leave, we will be the oldest group. It feels weird to already be the oldest group. We also have new missionaries coming into our zone next week, and the week after that.

Every Sunday, two people get called at random to give a talk on the topic of the week, all in Chinese. So every week we need to prepare talks, and church is very nerve racking. They usually call people from the oldest group, so we are going to get called more frequently.
We got new Chinese teachers again. For some reason they change our Chinese teachers almost every week.

My emails are getting shorter, because most of the stuff we do now is routine. I feel like when I get into the field, I will have more to write about. Until next week.



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Elder Jordan Andersen
DEC01 AST-MEL
2007 N 900 E Unit 19
Provo UT 84602