Mi Familia y Amigos!

May 31, 2012

Mi Familia y Amigos!

This week in the MTC has flown by so fast! The days are long but the weeks seem to come and go so quickly. Its crazy to think that I have been in here from over 3 weeks already. I'm loving my time here and I witness more and more miracles every day. Thank you for all the care packages you send me. It funny how happy a letter can make me. Its so nice to hear about you and what has been going on in your lives so yeah, keep them coming. I haven't received my slides yet but the cinnamon rolls and cookies where nice, my District and I will celebrate with them sometime. They have grown to love the Sanderson family because of all the goodies you send.

I love teaching the Gospel, mainly because when I come out of a teaching appointment, i have learned so much more than i taught my investigator. We have been teaching Esperanza and Ariel everyday for the past week and it has been going amazing. Its such an amazing feeling to receive inspiration for what and how you should teach your investigators. One night I woke up at 3 a.m. and began to write a lesson plan for Ariel. He is a construction worker and so to help make the Gospel more applicable to him i taught him about how the gospel is much like construction. God takes raw materials and when done in the correct and proper manner, God can take those raw materials and build them into something amazing. He loved that analogy and wants to follow the example of Jesucristo and be baptized! It was such an amazing experience. Esperanza is a struggle. She has no belief in God so she is really skeptical of praying to him. Its amazing to look at our two investigators and watch how prayer really is one of the most important aspects of conversion. If they don't pray then they cannot receive revelation.

We got a new district yesterday and they seem pretty legit. Our zone leaders left for Florida wednesday so it has fallen on the District leaders to help do the orientation. Did i ever say i was the D.L.? haha well I am and since Im the youngest i got stuck with orientation today on my P-day. We have 4 sisters in the new district and no offense to sister missionaries, but from what I've heard they can be a pain sometimes haha. Hopefully everything goes by smoothly. The elders usually follow your word to exactness because they are still so nervous but the sisters are older and sometimes don't even show up haha

Went to the temple today and participated in Sealing's. That was such an amazing experience and I had never done them before. The sealers last name was Brother Sanderson and we tried to see if we were related and I don't think we are. The temple is so amazing and I'm so grateful for the fact that I get to go there every week and help build the kingdom. There were a few weddings going on while we were there so the celestial room was so packed it was awesome to see everyone so happy and I can't even imagine what heaven must be like. We had Elder W. Craig Zwick come talk to us in devotional and he talked a lot about the blessings of the temple. He told us that even though missions are great and amazing, it is only through the temple that we can be saved. His wife talked about how we as missionaries are the main symbol of the Church. Even more so than the Book of Mormon because everyone knows who the missionaries are. I strive everday to better reperesent Christ so people will better learnmy lessons. I've been reading the New Testament a lot lately and trying to study how Christ taught so I can be a better Missionary. We all as members of the Church have been called to be disciples of Christ. We should all strive and learn more about how the Master Teacher went about spreading his Gospel. Love you all so much!

con amor 

-Elder Sanderson

Familia!

May 24, 2012

Mi Familia!
 
Hows it been going in Idaho? Any fun news? Mom told me a list things that I needed so here it goes 1. a need a pair of good flip flops, the pair you sent me on the first day broke on the 2nd haha, my roommate has been letting me borrow his so yeah some nice slides or something would be great! and thats really all I need. Thanks for the food! My zone really enjoyed it
 
A lot has happened this past week and its flown by so fast thats its hard to remember it all. We "baptized" on of our progressing investigators and received a new one called Ariel this past week. We went into the lesson wanting to get to know him better and he just absolutely humbled us. We got no where with him and with my limited Spanish it was hard to explain to him the Gospel when he had so many questions. He had taken his son to a Catholic priest to get his new born son baptized and they told him no, so he is pretty cold to Christians. He invited us back and didn't drop us so he must've thought we can still maybe teach him something.
 
This week we had our first Teaching Recourse Training (TRC) and it went amazing. Its when we have the opportunity to sit down with members of the Church and give them a lesson on what we feel they might need. We have never met these people before so we use the Spirit to help direct us to thier needs. Just prior to going to TRC I was reading in Predicad Mi Envagelio under the section about asking inspired questions. My companions (now consisting of Elder Barth and Elder Handy) and I prayed that we might ask inspired question. So we sat down with this sister named Mariah and began getting to know her. Elder Barth and Handy were asking amazing questions and soon it was my turn. I had no idea what I should say but I remembered that in Moses 6 God promised Enoch that if he just opened his mouth, it would be filled. So I opened my mouth and asked, "How is your health?" My companions gave me funny looks and I felt dumb because it seemed like such an odd question. Mariah broke into tears. She has suffered a car accident a few months ago and it has caused her much pain and she now has heart problems. It was amazing because then we could teach her about the Atonement of Jesus Christ and how it heals all wounds. Such an amazing experience that I hope never to forget.
 
Elder Ronald A. Rasband taught the devotional this last Tuesday night and it was so amazing! He talked about the Holy Ghost and the converting power that it has. He gave us a 3 step formula to have the Spirit always with us: 1. Bridle our Passions, 2. Let Virtue garnish our thoughts unceasingly, 3. Ask for the Holy Ghost! This applies to all of us and not just missionaries. Many of us have to make major decisions everyday and God has offered us direction, the real question is, will we accept it? I know this is only possible through the Spirit. 
 
I met the Freemans the past week and President Oswald. They are such wonderful people and it was such a tender mercy to be able to see them. They sent me a package with a small book in it. Inside was a letter about the book. The book is called "The Book of Evidences" in this book they told me to write down when I have seen "Evidence" of the Lord in my life. The prophets had did the same and really thats all we are studying, "Evidences" of God's work amongst his children. I've already seen so many miracles these past few weeks. Its amazing how many tender mercies our Heavenly Father blesses us with. He is so much more willing to pour us out more blessings when we acknowledge them. 
 
Love you all so much and I love reading your letters. I re-read them often and they keep me motivated....so keep them coming! Always seek to have the Lord walk with you and I know you will be blessed. I want the scripture Moses 6:32-34 on my mission thingy, I think it is so powerful!  Love you all!
 
Con amor
-Elder Sanderson

Waz Up Mi Familia y Amigos

May 17, 2012 

Sanderson Family and Friends,     

The MTC is da Bomb! I love it here so much. The days are super long but they are totally worth it.  It was so hard to tell everyone bye but I know there is nothing else I should be doing. Thank you so much for the letters, they really help me stay motivated and focused on being better at Inviting others to Christ. The first day was pretty nerve racking and extremely overwhelming.  The MTC presidency talked to us about how our purpose and God's purpose are exactly the same.  They made us where this ugly orange dot on our name tag which means you are new. This then doubles are a giant flag for every other missionary to tell you "Welcome to the MTC!" or ask you if your lost when clearly your not.  It's funny to see how much this reminds me of my first day at BYU. My companion is Elder Barth, he is a pretty swell guy but is a tad bit weird at time. Es todo tranquilo (its all good) though because I'm guessing he thinks I'm a strange specimen myself. He is from California and insits that since I am from Idaho I must love potatoes and have no idea how to cunduct myself around "common folk." The sad thing is....he is probably right, but I'm working on it. The showers are by far the worst thing here though. You either bathe in ice water or lava, or if you are lucky, you can get both in 10 second intervals. They sure do help you wake up though!

My new district is great and they are all so different. There are 2 other Elders from idaho, one from Driggs and the other from Pocatello. The one from Poky is awesome and I pray he and I can be companions in Texas. My spanish teacher is Hermano Davis and I swear he is one of the 3 Nephites. His is fluent in over 6 different languages and is only 22. What a stud. The craziest thing is the fact he played basketball for Duke! He let me look through a mission binder of his and Coach K sent him a letter and a picture of the Duke team.  He doesn't like to talk about it though because he had this freak accident in the middle of the season so his basketball days are over. He comes and plays ball with us on our gym time and can almost hit his head on the rim and he is only 6 feet tall.  He teaches Spanish so well and I've heard from other elders that he is by far the best Spanish teacher, so very greatful for the blessing. Spanish is coming along good and I love the language so much. I think its so beautiful and so thankful for the opputunity to learn it. Its funny because I realized how truly worthless my 2 years of Spanish has helped me. I walked into class and everything I had learned in High School was on the board. We taught our first investigator on the 3rd day in the MTC...In Spanish! I was amazed how much I had learned in such a short period of time. I can now carry on a pretty good conversation with someone and its only been a week! The gift of tongues is real and I know every missionary here has been blessed with it.

Our first Devotional was this past Tuesday and we had a wonderful surprise. L Tom Perry was the speaker and I was on the second row! Elder Perry is such a big guy and looks so healthy even though he will be turning 90 this year. His wife spoke with him and she talked about the Book of Mormon. I loved when she said the the Book of Mormon is the greatest gift from God that we have recieved in the Latter-Days. Its crazy to think of all that we ahve been blessed with and this wonderful book of scripture is the by far the greatest. The Book of Mormon is the best missionary and I am simply the Representative of Christ that gets to bring it to people. Elder Perry talked about the Priesthood and the history behind it. He talked about where it came from and how to use it properly. So inspiring and his testimony of the Book of Mormon was amazing! The spirit at the MTC is unbelieveable and it is such a blessing to be here.

As pertaiing to my schedule, I have breakfast at 7:20, lunch at noon and Dinner at 5. Everything between that changes everyday so its hard to plan anything. If Bill and Bonnie want to see me, tell them to walk straight into the cafateria and they should see me somewhere amoungst the tables. I will keep my eye out for them because they should walk right past me. Wish I could write more but my time here to write letters is very limited. Love you all so very much and I'll be sure to keep you in my prayers. Let me know how everyone is doing and tell Steph to post this up on my wall for my friends!

con amor,

-Elder Craig Sanderon

Mission Farewell

These are just a few of the pictures of Craig's Farewell Dinner. There were lots of friends and family and best of all - FOOD! We made our own version of Cafe Rio and just enjoyed our time together.

 Texas Sugar Cookies!

The family...

All of Craig's wonderful friends who came to support him on his big day!

The after-dinner crash

Opening The Call

The Envelope

Craig about ready to open his Call

- McAllen Texas, Spanish Speaking -

Family Picture

Celebrating the News at Tucanos

We are all so proud of Craig and his decision to serve as a missionary for The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. The people of McAllen Texas are so lucky to have him!