August 26, 2013

Sanderson Family,                                                                                          8/26/2013

Stacie and Megan, thanks so much for your letters :) That is so cool that you are all going off to school all ready haha crazy how fast time is flying!

This week nothing crazy happened haha it was pretty mellow. We found a few families that we are going to work with, but all week it was raining so we were not allowed to work (new mission rule). So I just did a lot of studies haha I am almost through El Libro de Mormon in Spanish again. For some reason its not as cool as in English but reading it out-loud really helps my accent. Some day I will sound Latino :) Oh by the way I am going to stay and Elder Killpack is going to Santa Gertrudis in Kingsville. Its pretty cool because that was my first area. He is going to do great! I don't know who my next companion will be because I might be training or something so I don't know.

Ok so Dad in response to your letter I think the lack of Home Teaching or anyone fulfilling a church calling stems from faulty discipleship. Those who fail to fulfill callings have the attitude of "my will" instead of "thy will" be done. That is "lukewarm" discipleship and that type of commitment cannot save us at the last day. It is a form of pride, and condemned of the Lord. In Moses 1:39 we learn the vision or will that our Heavenly Father has for us. The Prophet Joseph Smith caught this vision when he said in D&C 18:10 that the "worth of souls is great in the sight of the Lord", and they are! "Every soul is precious, so precious that our Savior would descend from his throne to willfully die for them. If they are worth that much to the Lord, those precious souls deserve all our energies. They deserve our love, our service, and our best. We are the Lord's hands here on this earth. We have taken upon us his name in this last fight against the adversary. Those precious souls in which the Lord has entrusted to our care need our all. They need to know there is a way back, a way back to our Father in Heaven. No matter what they have done in the past or if they feel if life has passed them by, they need our message. They need the spiritual support that only we can provide. Something that we are trying to do down here is really focusing on the Plan of Salvation because this is really why we do Home Teaching. The Plan is at the center of all we do, and as our knowledge of The Plan grows, our desire will grow to help our brothers and sisters.  We live in a critical time in the world’s history. As you know, Satan and his forces are busy. They are doing all they can in an attempt to thwart this work.  They tempt our loved ones.  They deceive them.  They put fear and doubts into their hearts and minds.  Our day today is not totally unlike that time when we, as captains of tens and fifties, helped spread the gospel message of hope and joy to our Father’s spirit children, our brothers and sisters.  We used The Plan to conquer those fears and doubts.  We used The Plan to help our brothers and sisters to see through the lies and deceptions that Satan used in the pre-mortal life.  Christ was and is at the center of The Plan.  We raised the banners of The Plan high as we marched forth and bore witness of its beauty, simplicity, and power to redeem!  We must now raise the banner of The Plan again more courageously and more faithfully my dear friends.  It was and is our message.  It was and is our hope in Christ! This is the vision that our Father in Heaven has for his precious children."

I am convinced that if we do not do all we can to fulfill this calling we will stand stained and ashamed before the judgment bar off God. We will be ashamed that we allowed Satan to blind us from what was truly important. I believe it was President Kimball who said that "if in this life all we do is build an earthy kingdom that is all we will inherit in the life to come". The Lord wants and expects so much more from us. This is a labor of love and the only work that aligns us with the will of our Fathers :)

I love you all :)

Elder Sanderson

McAllen Texas Mission

August 19, 2013

Sanderson Family,                                                                                         8/19/2013

Happy Anniversary mis queridos padres! That's pretty neat haha. Glad you had a fun time in Jackson Hole and I hope Nate was paid extra for his sacrifices. Before I forget my address is, (Elder Sanderson 902 Chinese St. #6 Edinburg, Tx) I don't know the zip code but I am sure you can Google it. The only thing is that transfers are next week and I have no idea if I am staying or not so if you send something just send it to the mission office until after transfers. If you want you could still send your letters by mail, its always nice to get letters throughout the week. haha um you can come pick me up if you want....the only thing is that it will be really hot and personally I would like to come back later in like December or something, maybe take some recent converts through the temple! Do you remember Mandy and Luke? I just got a letter from them and they are preparing to get sealed in the temple soon! So proud of them!

This week was pretty slow, we didn't have much time to work in my personal area because we have been having some problems in the other companionships that needed to be fixed. Some less-active who thinks he is a  witch doctor in the sisters area like keeps following them around and supposedly casting spells on them. Super weird but crazy creepy stuff started happening to them so President came with me to fix the problem. We sat down and were teaching him and President handed him the Book of Mormon and he wouldn't even touch it...super weird. It wasn't like he didn't want to touch it, but that he was afraid to touch it. Anyways we demanded that he leave them alone and he refused so President rebuked him which was pretty intense and then I gave all the sisters blessings...pretty intense stuff. But they are all safe and doing great so that is good. The elders in my area got into a car accident but luckily everyone was fine, I spent a day in McAllen with them meeting with a church representative about the accident and then went to a medical appointment with one of the elders and gave a few blessings to some members there.

Thursday I went on an exchange though with Elder Folsom one of the Zone Leaders and we had a really successful day in my area. We found this woman, Hermana Salinas, whose husband passed away this past December, she broke down into sobs when she answered the door and saw it was us. She explained that she had been going from church to church for almost 8 months looking for the simple answer of where her husband now was. Moments like these make me so grateful for the Book of Mormon and how it contains the fullness of the gospel. I bore powerful testimony that we had the answer to her question and so she allowed us to go inside. we read with her some verses from Alma 40 and how righteous souls are now in a state of rest and paradise. she grabbed the Book of Mormon and hugged it as though it was a precious treasure and said that she had not felt such peace in so long. We taught her about God's plan for us and that if she wanted to be in that state of peace with her husband again she needed to do certain things while on this earth. She accepted to be baptized on the 15th of September! Definitely a miracle that confirmed my faith in the Book of Mormon. I've learned to use it a lot more effectively now that I am out here on my mission.

Love you all so much,

Elder Sanderson

Texas McAllen Mission 

Pictures!

Veronica's Baptism

Juan and I with Elder Killpack and his mini Johnathon

August 12, 2013

Sanderson Family,                                                                                      8/12/2013

So sorry about you not receiving the letter....I'm not sure where its at but I accidentally sent it to Robert Trevino (the man who is in jail) haha so if I ever get it back I will send it to you. I have some time today so I will cover some things that happened last week as well.

So 2 weeks ago I went on some exchanges with the assistants to their area and so since tie trading is such a huge thing here I packed all my ties into a duffel bag and thew it in the back of their truck. On the way to their area (2 hours away) we stopped by and had to move some luggage down to McAllen and so the back of the truck got stuffed so we had to throw a net on it to hold it all in. Anyways we arrive in McAllen and by bag is missing and so we figured it fell off. haha so all my ties are gone! That sucked so the past week or so I have been shopping to get some new ones. If you ever go to Mr. mac again or something you should send some ties my way haha Ted Bakers are my favorite and they sell those at Dillard's ;) hint hint haha.

2 weeks ago we also had mini missionaries with us. My minis' name was Juan from McAllen. He was baptized just a few months ago but already has a burning desire to share the Gospel. It was such a blessing to be able to serve with him. Last Sunday night they had a testimony meeting for all the mini missionaries and Juan did such a good job!  After the meeting I had the opportunity to meet is family. They took us to lunch and there I found out that his dad actually wasn't a member. So I handed Juan my scriptures and had him teach the 1st lesson to his dad. His father accepted baptism and wants to learn more about the gospel! I'll send a picture of Juan and I.

This week we had a 3-day leadership training in McAllen with all the Zone Leaders and District Leaders in the mission. It was so much fun to get to see everyone again. This was President Maluenda's first conference and so I think he struggled a lot. He would give 2 1/2 hour trainings on Exodus 4 and so it was just super boring haha plus it was in Chilean Spanish and so it was hard to focus. It was sad because a lot of the Zone Leaders were getting mad. All 9 zones had prepared trainings and role-plays for us to do but President Maluenda kept interrupting the trainings and would go off on this entirely different subject. We started at 9 a.m. and ended at 11 p.m. every night haha I was going to lose my mind. 6 of the zones never got to do their trainings and so everyone was pretty mad. The assistants were really ticked because President had them stay up late every night planning the schedule for the next day and then he would just interrupt and throw everything off. I love President Maluenda and respect him, I guess it will just take time getting used to his style of leadership. I learned some cool things I want to implement into my district so that will be awesome.

This week we had the baptism of Veronica Perez. I know I haven't talked a lot about her but its because half-way through the teaching process she moved into the sister's area and then she moved back into ours this Wednesday. I will send a picture of the baptism. Veronica is awesome and I admire her faith. She is often abused physically and emotionally by her husband but stays around because she has all the faith in the world that the atonement will change him. We have been talking to him and things have been getting better. He actually just broke his clavicle playing soccer and so he and I now have something to talk about haha. I am so grateful for these great miracles that the Lord of the Vineyard so readily grants us. The Lord had prepared Veronica while we prepared ourselves to be worthy to receive this blessing. He is so ever-present in this work. One of my favorite missionaries scriptures is in Jacob 5:70-74:

 And it came to pass that the Lord of the vineyard sent his servant; and the servant went and did as the Lord had commanded him, and brought other servants; and they were few.  And the Lord of the vineyard said unto them: Go to, and labor in the vineyard, with your might. For behold, this is the last time  that I shall nourish my vineyard; for the end is nigh at hand, and the season speedily cometh; and if ye labor with your might with me ye shall have joy in the fruit which I shall lay up unto myself against the time which will soon come. And it came to pass that the servants did go and labor with their mights; and the Lord of the vineyard labored also with them; and they did obey the commandments of the Lord of the vineyard in all things. And there began to be the natural fruit again in the vineyard; and the natural branches began to grow and thrive exceedingly; and the wild branches began to be plucked off and to be cast away; and they did keep the root and the top thereof equal, according to the strength thereof. And thus they labored, with all diligence, according to the commandments of the Lord of the vineyard, even until the bad had been cast away out of the vineyard, and the Lord had preserved unto himself that the trees had become again the natural fruit; and they became like unto one body; and the fruits were equal; and the Lord of the vineyard had preserved unto himself the natural fruit, which was most precious unto him from the beginning.

We may be few and at times may feel completely overwhel
med by the evil that surrounds us, but the Lord of this Vineyard has spared it "a little longer" so that we may bring others or the "natural fruit" unto him.  He is in charge, and labors with us in this work. There are people that our Savior has prepared for us to find, teach, and baptize so that they may be heirs of the Kingdom of God. In verse 74 its describes the fruit as "most precious".  It is now our chance to share in this bountiful harvest!

les amo mucho!

Elder Sanderson

Texas McAllen Texas

July 29, 2013

Sanderson Family,

So glad to hear of all the good time you are having without me haha who would've thought that it was even possible ;) I'll be honest and say I miss boating on the river and please don't let Nathan break my wake board, its the closest thing to a child I have. 

This week we had the wonderful baptism of Jennifer Luna! It was an awesome service and it was even Elder Killpack's first baptism. haha he was so excited and giddy all day. So excited that he messed up on the baptismal prayer like 5 times haha. We forgot to rehearse that before. But he did awesome! I ended up doing the talk on baptism and even played the interlude music on the piano. Surprised mom? I was....I haven't practiced my entire mission haha. I finally had an opportunity to use that talent I developed over all those painful years ;)  Saturday we got permission to travel to the Jail and meet Robert, It was so awesome to see him. Robert has been exercising to keep his mind off the marijuana and so he's looking pretty good. He figures he will be in there another 2 months or so. Hopefully I am still here for that. He is one of the greatest people I know and it was hard to see him cry. I feel sorry for him and hope everything goes well for him. He is in a cell with 7 other men and he has made them so interested in the Book of Mormon that Friday we are going by again to drop of like 30 copies that they can handout to the inmates there. 

This coming week we are doing what we call a "mini mission" in my area. Its where they send 16-18 yr old young men out to our apartment and they live with us and work with us for a week. I believe I am getting 2 youth from La Joya. It should be alot of fun. Elder Killpack is a little nervous because he will go off on his own with a "mini missionary" and work by himself. definitely a growing experience. It should be alot of fun. We have a ton of lessons set up with members and less-actives so hopefully we can make it fun for them. The members are starting to let us come over more now. I think its because they see that we are hard-workers and are serious about the work. Member missionary work is the most effective way of doing things so hopefully we start picking things up in our area. 

Love you all :)

Elder Sanderson
Texas McAllen Misson

July 22, 2013

Sanderson Family,                                            July 22, 2013

Nice to hear from you all! I sure do miss those 50 mile hikes, hopefully they will be doing one next summer. All those lake names sound familiar, have we hiked that one before? I think that was the first one that i did back when I was 12 or something haha I'm not sure though. That's sweet that Cody went along too to keep the bears away ;) I bet he has grown up so much.

I'll be honest and say this week kinda sucked haha but it had its silver-linings as well. Thursday morning I got a call from Jennifer that Robert had been arrested : ( Wednesday night we had a lesson with Robert and basically told him that he had two choices, the Lord or his addiction. He chose to serve the Lord and allowed us to take all of the marijuana that he had on him. It was pretty fun destroying it haha. Anyways I guess later that night he started having really bad withdrawals and asked Jennifer for money to go buy some marijuana. Luckily she told him no so he began to get aggressive so she called the cops. The cops just went by to calm him down but I guess he got aggressive with them also, they handcuffed him and so he will be spending a while in a jail somewhere. Super sad story, but at least in jail he can't get any marijuana so maybe he can conquer his addiction. Jennifer is awesome and so strong through all of this and so her baptism is still on for this Sunday!

Daisy did not get baptized so we are going to let her go, which is sad because with all of the spiritual confirmations she has received, she still chose to turn from the light. She went to another church and just loved it so that didn't help at all. She is just almost numb to the spirit and just fails to see the "why" of the gospel. So her family is headed to the temple next week without her which is so sad. Her parents are amazing and are so heart-broken about all of this.

haha so that was my week. It was a big bummer but we are trying to keep our faith high. Elder Killpack is struggling a little bit with that. Its a hard thing when you are such a young missionary. He has been pretty silent lately, disappointments come and he will learn that. But we are going to have an amazing week so super excited for that! Thanks for all you do.

con carino,

Elder Sanderson 

Texas McAllen Mission

p.s. sorry I cant send pictures from this computer for some reason....I'll figure something out and send you some :)

July 15, 2013

So if you want please show this part of the letter to mom and Dad because I don't have much time to write you both. Robert and Jennifer are doing awesome. Robert is having a hard time because he is going through the refiners fire. Last night he told us that his life has only been harder since he met us. We helped him realize that trials are a blessing. He has had a really rough life and so he smokes marijuana to get away from all that. Keep him in your prayers. He needs to start receiving some divine blessings. Robert has so much faith, he is one of the greatest people I have ever met. I love that about the mission, you get to meet and love so many wonderful people. We also found another family this week and they came to church. Robert referred them to us. They are named Mimi and Bianca. The father is in jail for life so they are just looking for change and help from God...perfect haha. They have a baptismal date for August 11th. Sadly Daisy did not get baptized. She passed the interview and was ready to do it but then her father, instead of encouraging her, told her she could wait if she wanted to wait she could. So thats what she chose. haha i almost lost it on that man. I know he is trying to do whats right but He has got to want this for his daughter enough to push her a little. We had a talk with him about it so it won't happen again. We haven't had to talk to her since but hopefully her baptism will be within the next few weeks. 

Sorry that once again its short. Love you :)

con amor,
Elder Sanderson
Texas McAllen Mission