Monday, October 13, 2014

57 weeks- loving life

Holy cow!!!!! What in the world is going on in the world! That is
awesome that you guys got orders! I am excited but that also brought
tears to my eyes when I thought about not being in DC anymore. I'm
going to go with option 1 right now: Report back to DC after the
mission, but we can definitely talk more at Christmas about it and I
will pray a lot about it!

Okay, with that out of the way, I will respond to the email from the
top. The question about meeting new people definitely put a smile on
my face haha we meet a lot of new people every week, but usually only
a handful will stick around long enough to really know them. I'm doing
great and the week was great! We marked 5 baptismal dates in one
lesson, one more the next day, and have more plans to mark at least
one more today =) All of our hard work is paying off in the form of a
small world (investigators who know people that we know, references
asking to be baptized, etc.) as well as blessings from the Lord. What
was the name of that Sister you met at the temple from Porto Velho? I
think we are going to baptize her sister! Porto Velho has a lot of
members, so maybe not, but it's been a very small world lately!

I know exactly why it feels like I've only been gone only a week and
Joe a month, Elder Bednar taught us when I was serving in Utah. He
said, "We are eternal beings. As such, we don't like the concept of
time or endings. However, as we get more closer to Heavenly Father
through our service and our sacrifice, we are living up to our eternal
potential and time will seem to fly by for us because it is only a
mortal concept." At least that's why I think it is the way it is =)

I don't remember Bishop Cole, but he sounds like a pretty good guy
haha. I'm glad the Church is such a small world =) it makes the
progression of the Gospel that much easier. I like Brother Merrill's
analogy about the raindrops and the cups that we all have. We get
rained on enough in our mission, but in the end, you feel the
blessings and watch them spread to the lives of others =) Elder
Bednar's talk was great! I need to watch it a few more times in
English, but will download it this week or next week, depending on the
internet today.

Thanks for the Sports news too! That really sucks that the Dodgers and
the Nats are both out of the playoffs, but at least I didn't miss them
winning the world series. Crazy about the NASCAR news too! I wish I
would have seen all of that! Did Manning break that record? Or is it
this Sunday?

Alright, onto my week!

We were blessed beyond measure to be able to mark so many baptismal
dates!!! It's right before transfers and a little bit after transfers
for their dates, but we'll see what happens! We don't have transfers
until the 26th, but I think I'm heading out this time, so we'll see
what happens. However, 5 of these 6 dates were marked after watching
President Uchtdorf's talk from the Saturday Session of Conference! It
was like an atomic bomb of the Holy Ghost went off in our lessons! In
one of them, our investigator began testifying of the truthfulness of
our message to her whole family! In the other, we marked a date with
someone we've been teaching for 4 months and hasn't really been
progressing! After all of that, we got a call today to hear that we
have a reference from Porto Velho to teach a 22 year-old whose sister
served a mission, returned from that mission, and taught her sister
who now wants to be baptized. She lives on our very own street and is
just waiting for us to stop by and teach/baptize her!

I also received a package from Aunt Kim this week! It was full of good
stuff! I'm going to send her an email saying thank you, but please
make sure to tell her that I said thank you when you talk to her =) I
especially needed the flashlight, so that was perfect! She also sent
me lots of snacks, bug spray, sun screen, and Gold Bond, all of it was
perfect!

Other than that, the week was pretty much just full of rain. The
houses of some of our investigators flooded because there was so much
rain! Luckily, our apartment is on the 2nd story, so it wasn't a
problem for us, but holy cow it was a lot of rain! We also saw a
pretty funny video on TV during our lunch appointment the other day.
This family has small kids, so they were watching MAD on cartoon
network. The show is mostly for Americans because it makes fun of
American things, but I was okay with that haha. As it was on, I looked
over and saw the nephews of Scrooge McDuck: Hughey, Dewey, and Louis
sitting around doing nothing. The next thing I know, Scrooge comes in
and asks why they aren't working and it turns into McDuck Dynasty! I
laughed so hard I almost fell off the couch haha! It was hilarious!
You guys should look it up if you get the chance =)

That was about it for the week =) We are loving life and life is
loving us! Have a great week everybody!

Love always,

Elder Sanderson

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