Week 14

Dear Family,                                                                                             10/15/2012

This week in the great TMM has been full of tender mercies of our Lord.  Elder Bybee and I had a hard week last week and we prayed and fasted for the Lord to help us turn that around. We worked hard and our Savior has blessed us with wonderful families to teach and who have accepted the Gospel. One of these families is the Medrano Family. This family had been investigating the Church on and off for about 9 years and have never committed to a baptismal date. We were going through our area book and found them. Under the reasons why the last missionaries had dropped them we read things like, "don't waste your time, they wont change and are unprepared". At first it seemed as though we shouldn't waste our time and move on to better prospects. The Spirit filled the room and we knew that we needed to visit that family.  So we go visit them and after about 10 minutes they had baptismal dates and were super excited about the promised blessings of the Gospel, It was another testament of what our beloved Prophet said in his talk about "seeing them in white". I've always tried to do this as a missionary and the love I have for the Latino people is wonderful.

So a little bit about my new companion Elder Bybee. He is kinda like my last companion Elder Ellsworth, he is way quiet but always seems to be very in-tune with the Spirit. It is a joy to work with him and he has taught me so much. He is very supportive in my new leadership position and is always asking what he can do to help me out. He is from Salt Lake City, Utah , or as I like to call it "The Factory". He went to Brighton High School and is a BYU fan. We get along pretty well haha companionship inventories are always fun because we don't have any problems with each other. Oh and he is an awesome cook. Luckily we bike a lot so I am keeping all the weight off. But yeah, he is legit, maybe President will let me stay with a companion for 2 transfers.

Thanks again for the constant love you show me. You are always in my prayers. Have a wonderful week and remember to always act in ways to show our love for the Savior. For the day will come when He will ask all of us individually, "Lovest thou me?" May we live in accordance with the Gospel so that we might boldly and confidently answer our Redeemer at that day.

-- Les amo,

Elder Sanderson

Texas McAllen Mission

Week 13

Familia,                                                                                                  10/08/2012

This weekend was nuts to say the least. Wow! It was another testament to me that the Lord is truly always aware of what his children need. So stoked for the wonderful announcement of our beloved Prophet of sending missionaries out younger haha I wish he would have said that just 1 year earlier ;)

The Apostles have such a wonderful way of applying the Doctrine of Christ to people of all spiritual understandings. So many times they hint at deep doctrines and yet even for the first-timer at the church their messages apply to them as well.  I loved Elder Cook's talk about what we must do to sing the song of redeeming love. I loved his soul searching question, "Can you feel so now?" Can we feel the presence of the infinite atonement in our lives? Do we actively partake of our Heavenly Father's great and vicarious gift? This conference was everything that I needed to hear as a young Missionary as I have struggled for direction in leading my young district. Revelation I think is a very over-looked fruit of the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

So I apologize for the short letter, we were hit by a huge storm so we are limited on power and computer time. I love you all so much and thank you for the love and support. The theme of this conference was centered around building the Kingdom. Let us follow the divine council of our prophet and move this great work along.

les amo

Elder Craig Sanderson

Week 12

                                                    10/01/2012

I have some crazy news, I am actually not getting transferred but am now the new District Leader up here. I am super scared and feel out of my league but the Lord prepares his servants...so I hope I am prepared. So My companion is leaving to go train up in Portland.  So I don't know anything about my new companion but hopefully he is awesome. President Trayner said in my interview that this Elder will really train me how to be a leader...not quite sure how to interpret that. Anyways I will meet him tomorrow and I'm excited. A new transfer is like starting over and I am looking forward to that.

This last Sunday was the baptism of Lilly Catherine Sallam and Isabell Garza Flores. These two women have wonderful testimonies of the Restored Gospel and it has been amazing to see it really change their lives. When I first meet Lilly, she had horrible anxiety and was even scared of us. Now, only 4 weeks later, she is the most sociable person ever and has really fit in well in the Ward. Isabell is the cutest abuelita (little grandma). She's the best. Every night we would call her to follow up on her reading of the Book of Mormon and she was always so excited to tell us she read from the "Mormon Book" and tell us all the new things she'd learned. Their baptisms went great, but our ward mission leader forgot to tell everyone who was supposed to speak so that was a little hectic as we were trying to find people to talk.

This past week the Lord truly blessed us with wonderful people to teach. One of our new investigators named Jose read about 50 pages in the B.o.M and wants to get baptized. He is just lazy and has a hard time getting to church. When we met him he was reading his Bible in Hebrews when it talks about God being the same then, now, forever. He asked us that if God is the same, then why are there so many churches? haha GOLDEN!!! We taught him the restoration and he just loves loves loves the Joseph Smith story. He said he wants to be just like him haha so legit. So yeah the Field is truly white and ready to harvest!

les amo,

---

Elder Sanderson

Texas McAllen Mission

Week 11

Familia,                                                                                   9/24/2012

Este semana fue una lucha creul con la cuidad de Kingsville!

Elder Ellsworth labored hard and the Lord did truly humble us this week. I feel as though we maybe slacked a little bit in our finding efforts because we had been having so much success lately. This Sunday we had 0 investigators attend church. Zero! Zilch, Nada haha! it was absolutely horrible and I felt like a failure. We even left right after the sacrament to go wake everyone up, but they used their agency and never even opened the door. It was heart-breaking and I have never felt so down, but that wasn't the end. We had been teaching a large family down in this small town called Ricardo. They were supposed to be baptized this Sunday :( anyways the father was never home for any of the lessons because he had been on an oil rig for the past 2 months. So when he got home and learned about them taking lessons, he blew up. When we came by to visit we received the most vile and harsh verbal bashing ever. The whole saying "sticks and stones may break my bones but words will never hurt me" is so lame. His words cut me to the core and as we got back in the car, Elder Ellsworth and I just sat there, defeated. Not only did all of our investigators miss church, but our most promising family is now unable to listen to the gospel. That night I was just furious and frustrated out of my mind. The Zone Leaders were just hounding me and I was so lost as to what to do. I was heart-broken like never before and I felt so far away from my Savior. I had reached my breaking point. The strong prompting to pray came and with the last once of faith I had left I fell to my knees and offered up I think the most humble prayer I have ever uttered. The answer came so clearly and the spirit whispered to me, "Elder Sanderson, now you understand how I feel when my children don't follow the commandments....now you know how I feel when you don't follow mine either."  A rush of peace flowed over me as I realized the essential lesson my Father was trying to teach me. I felt horrible guilt for even the smallest of sins I had committed now knowing the fraction of the pain it must cause my Father in Heaven when he sees me deviate from his divine plan.

So that was my spiritual moment of the week that I will never soon forget, I feel as though I have spiritually matured so much lately. On a happier note we had an awesome ward activity and a great turnout. Everyone loved it! The ward members are now a lot more open to letting us teach their friends and well as teaching lessons in their homes. This week is looking very promising and I feel confident the Lord will bless us abundantly. Hope all is well :) I love you all so much!

--

Elder Sanderson

Texas McAllen Mission

Pictures

Us at a missionary activity. The girl in the grey is Stefany and she's a less-active we've been working with. 

This is Brandi. She is the Broadnax's little girl haha. She's awesome and calls me her boyfriend haha. 

Some Tree.

Cool picture of my buddy Mikie.

Week 10

9/17/2012

This week was pretty eventful so hopefully I have enough time to explain it all haha.

K so this Sunday I got a call from President Trayner telling me that I needed to go pick up some sisters who were stuck down by the Sarita Check-point. He didn't give me any details but just gave me permission to have them in my car. So we drive down there and pick them up. Turns out the Sisters had neglected to put gas in their car Saturday night and didn't want to break the Sabbath and buy gas. So they stuck a water hose in the gas tank and filled it full of water. They then prayed and exercised their "faith" to turn the water to gas. hahaha yeah turns out they ended up just destroying their car. All President said to them was that there was a difference between faith and stupidity haha.

Satan pulled out all the stops this past week to prevent our investigators from attending church. One of the Flores family named Lupito was stung by a scorpion as he was walking out the door and had to be rushed to the ER, as well as his brother developed this weird skin rash about 30 minutes into sacrament meeting. Another family suffered 2 flat tires on their 30 min drive to Church. Luckily everyone was okay and some even managed to attend the later classes.

We had a baptism this Sunday! So legit! His name is Lee Membreno and currently lives with one of our less-active families the Rios'. So awesome to finally get baptized. Lots of Elders and Sisters have tried in the past but the Lord finally prepared him for us. I'll send pictures.

If you ever get the chance, go to Lds.org and check out Elder Holland's CES fireside address. As always his talk was absolutely amazing! He talked about how throughout history, out Heavenly Father has followed the pattern of getting the saints to "Zion" as a physical exodus of the people as they ran from "Babylon". Examples like Moses leading the Israelites out of bondage, or the Pilgrims fleeing Britain, or the Saints moving west. Elder Holland listed off a ton of examples and then said, "That divine pattern ends today! we no longer flee from Babylon, but attack it!" It was so powerful and I hope you all get the chance to listen to it.

So that's about it. I will send pictures soon about what all went down. Love you all :)

--

Elder Sanderson

Texas McAllen Mission