There are a few things that I've picked
up during my time here in Italy. The first and foremost is the ability to speak
Italian and to translate better than I did with my Hat/chapel blunder mishap a
few months ago. The second would be the need to have to shave every day. I
remember in the MTC when I could get away with just over twice a week and then
how a few months ago it became every other day. This transfer past however,
it's been every single day because you can see it if I don't. Guess this means
I got some hairy genes from you after all!
I don't really have a super big reason
for writing this letter. I just realized that I have less than a year left and
that my Sorelle are going home in five months from two days ago. Is that fair
in my book? Not really. But, it just means I'll be that much better at the
language when I make it home. I do have a few questions for you about your
mission because as I go about my time here, I realize how much you
haven't told me about the logistics of your time in the
Philippines.
For example, did you ever train? How did
you get along with companions who really didn't mesh well with your
personality? How often did your AP's get switched out? Did you ever serve as an
AP? Were you ever emergency transferred? What was the big talk or
preferred apostle/general authority going around your mission? I realize that
you didn' t exactly serve with technology the way I am, and you certainly were
not in the same part of the world, but I want to know more about how your
mission worked as a missionary in the field.
One thing that we have in common now
about the way that our missions work is how our mission presidents don't speak the
language. President Smith served here forty (?) years ago and told us he's done
nothing to keep up the language. This is evidenced by the fact that I've
translated for him twice since I've seen him. Both times for about a hour, but
he speaks enough to get by. Sort of like a missionary in their third transfer,
mid fourth.
I'm doing what I can on my own whenever
I have a companion that really doesn' t want to work. Last transfer was rough
with that, because I didn't know how to help a missionary who was being very
apostate and it didn't help that he was my companion. I feel as though I wasted
the six weeks that made up my last transfer because we rarely left the house
barely taught, and just had opposing ideas on everything. I saw the way the justification
can be used to attempt to make apostasy ok. No matter what you say, infinity
war clips are not missionary appropriate. This was something we disagreed on
hotly. I can go on, but I was trying to be the one to advance the work.
We met with a man who had interest
fairly often, and these teaching visits were usually the only reason we would
leave the house. In our second lesson, I felt overwhelmed while bearing
testimony to extend a baptismal invite. I knew we hadn't talked much about
baptism up until this point, but we had just taught the plan of salvation, and
as I was testifying I invited him to be baptized. At first, he was a little
confused because Italian is also his second language, so he asked for me to
repeat the invite, but slower. My companion was glaring at me and shaking his
head at me while sitting just behind our friend and tried to talk over me to
cut out the invite. But, the man asked e to repeat myself a third time, so I
did. He accepted the invite, and all the other things we asked him to do before
he left.
Once he left earshot and was down the
stairs of the church entryway, my companion started to swear at me and just
tell me how horrible a missionary I was, and how we both needed to feel
prompted to extend the invite because he heard it in some non-canonized BYU
talk. While I realize I stepped on some toes there, I know a prompting when I
feel one. Immediately after I said that, he pushed me out of the way and got on
the church computer to look up some marvel music or something, so he could
"de-stress". This lead to an intense discussion that I don't want to
type out in which we called each other out on the things we weren't doing and
those which we were. Happy to say I was in the right in most everything I said,
but I had to convince my past companion that the way he was acting was not
becoming of a missionary. I just don't know if there was something else I could
have done, or should have done.
And while those six weeks sucked, I will
never allow them to happen again. Patience was tested, I never resorted to
physical violence or threats, and I used a lot of cold anger whenever he would
blow up to remind him that he shouldn't be here for himself. That's something
else I learned from last transfer. I'm not here for myself. If I was, I would
be a much worse person. Thanks to the close proximity I had with someone who
right now, is only here for themself. It reminded me of myself at the start of
my mission honestly, and I hate that it does. I'm doing better now, and my
current companion and I actually have history together in the mission. It's
awesome stuff.
I hope you have a wonderful day and
that the weight loss is still ongoing! I don't know where you're sitting with
that right now, but I'm excited to see you and the family in just under a year
when you come to get me! I also want you to know that I love you, I respect you
and I didn't show that enough or at all in the year or so before I left on my
mission. I know we don't always see eye to eye, but I'm glad we don't. Because
sometimes, different ways of looking at the same thing can be a blessing in
disguise. May we learn this blessing together!
Your faithful son and servant of the
Lord,
Anziano Anderson
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