Week # 94, 5 weeks, 35 days LEFT !!!

Why, Hello UTAH!

   This has been a swell week, but it`s always weird getting a new companion, changing all the patterns of behavior, inside jokes, way of doing things, and stuff. It always takes a week or so to re-adjust to each other, but so far, we are just doing peachy!

 

But, let`s get to know Elder Ospina: He has 2 years of membership in the church and 9 months in the mission, he is the only member of his family, and is from Meyelling, Columbia. (I hope that`s how to spell it, it`s pronounced like May-Day-Zzzhhing! Rather like a quote from an action movie or something)  This is his first time as a zone leader, and is a pretty calm guy. He`s good.

SO!   Let`s start with Email Questions!

1- About the release date!  I assume it`s July first, but my paper last week said June 28th.  And I`m unsure when I get my official flight plan papers... maybe next week during our zone leader council. I guess we`ll see! (35 days!)

2- Yes, I got the school schedule, and it doth look good! Thank you Chantel and your rad planning skills!

3- A mighty congratulations to every one of my sisters for their grand extracurricular extravaganza! You are all making me so proud!  Keep doing good things!  According to Elder Oaks, wholesome recreation brings variety, happiness, and relaxation to life, and are very necessary, just as air or food.

So it`s good to see everyone is well, and may I just wish a Very Merry

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY to MADISON!!!

 

How wonderful! 

So why was this week so good?

6 People with a baptismal date and 7 that came to church!  It was very grand!  Here`s our current star players:

Family C: the father refused to be baptized for 14 years and his wife later became inactive, and then later their parents.  And then what happened? Two stalwart Elders came along, activated the parents, which activated the daughter, which renewed flow of blessings enticed the husband to be baptized.  And he wants to so bad!  He has been prepared for years!  So we are thrilled to baptize him and his 2 daughters this week!

Luis :  he`s a 35 year old son of an old investigator family we had.  He is very artistic, and very philosophical.  We say one thing to him, and takes that one simple thought, and complexifies it with bizarre comparisons and tangent theories.  But aside from that, he is great!  He truly needs to gospel. for his past life has led him quite astray, and now he is making a grand return.

Luis : Another husband of a less active wife.  He`s just good.

and last,

Mario :  The one we found while contacting last week.  Since we met him, he`s been diligent in reading and praying, and has great desires to guide his family to choose the right also.  If we can get him, then his family will follow.

So that`s the mission work here at the moment, and we also did a service project with a couple other Elders in Condado (one of them was Elder Housley!) We made waffles in an electric sandwich maker, (they turned out more like little pillows of happiness!), and went to do service moving bricks and shoveling sand and cement for the bishop building a new house. It was dusty and great!  And actually, right when we got got there, we went to knock and the door and before we knew: BAM! BLAM!

 

Had a couple of tanks gone off in the street? It sounded as if the electric box on the power line had exploded twice right in front of us.... AND IT DID!  Yes, two unfortunate pigeons landed on the cheap electrical box on the telephone pole and made it burst into a spray of sparks!  It didn`t blow into little pieces, but it did manage to literally FRY to poor birds!  It was quite the spectacle of the morning.

And as a final article for the week, a quote from our Annual Stake Priesthood Conference:

`People generally are happy, when they decide to be happy.`

-Abraham Lincoln

Elder Sanders the Brave

ps_these are the only photos I managed to take this week, it`s us making the most delicious homemade burritos ever known to Ecuador

!Boy Elder Sanders got some SUN !!!!

Week # 93 The end is near 6 weeks left !

Greetings family!  Well, I do not much time to write today, for it is:

CHANGES!!!

So what happened?!  Elder Bloxham is no more!  He has left to my old sector in Guamani!  And now I am with the mighty Elder Ospina, a fine lad from Columbia who has about 9 months in the mission.

But, I say the end is near because now my last Change in the mission has officially begun!  Like camping, it is `in-tents`!

SO! As for news, the family Z were at last baptized!  And may I say, one of the most spiritual baptisms I`ve ever had!  

All the testimonies were powerful, and all the messages as sweet as honey with brown sugar.

So! Instead of writing, I just have some photos:

-Baptism!

-Me rather sad that Elder Bloxham has left me to fend for myself.

-

Until next week, I love ya all, now I must use the rest of my internet time to fill out my TRUNKY PAPERS as they are called.

(All the stats the mission needs to know so I can finish my mission.)

-Elder Sanders

Week 92 Mothers Day , 7 weeks left !

Good evening one and all!

What a fine day it is to be here and writing to you! 

And might I say what a pleasure it was to speak to everyone yesterday!  It was good to see you all and hear your luxurious (yet 2-year aged) voices!  And that game of BOMB did make me quite jealous, for I may be the only one in Ecuador that knows about that game!  Perhaps I`ll teach it to the missionaries someday...  

    So I hope the call will keep you all in tune for the next 7 weeks, for it shall be a grand 7 weeks for me!

So, all in all, this has been a busy yet good week.  So you may ask, what happened?  Here we go!

-Marriage!  Yes, the family Z are officially married and ready to be baptized for this Saturday!  ( I would send photos, but just this morning my SD card got a virus and all my recent photos are trapped in an invisible jail cell of misery!)  So we`re way excited for them.

-Then, baptisms!  Not for us, but for a lovely little zone!  3 different sectors baptized thus ending a 4 week no-baptism drought, and this next Saturday we are expecting 7 more in the zone!  So all shall go well!

-Zone Interviews!  So, last Friday president Ghent and the assistants had a visit to our zone. We had a training meeting on how to teach lessons more effectively and had interviews with the President, which are always very refreshing.  And it is odd, the next time I have an interview with the President, It will be my last!  EGADS!  Not too many trunky thoughts for this letter!

-We also had an activity in Cangahua on Saturday, which is a sector of our zone up on the mountain, in which we left with all the members there to go `rescue` some 150 less active members!  We split off into about 10 groups, and conquered the area!  It was very nice indeed.

-And for a final announcement.. this is the last week of the change! Next Sunday are changes, and whoever will be my new companion will be (as the missionaries say) killing me!  The term kill as in they were my last companion in the mission, not literally nor in a bad way!  Just like your first sector is where you are `born`, so is the last sector where you `die`.  

So why would missionaries use these type of terms to describe mission life?  BECAUSE! The mission is just a mini-plan of salvation!  Our life before is related to pre-earth life, and after is just like post-earth life, and just as our life choices prepare us for the eternities, so will those 2 years be like a preparation for our home life.  The mission is just a life-preparer, in many ways!  So serving a full time mission faithfully will ensure that you can serve the rest of your mortal life faithfully!  Neat, right?

So this week we hope to find some new investigators and meet with many members!  And we are going to contact like crazy!  Many doors are just itching to have our soft knuckles rap them!  So we`ll share our success next week.

SEE Y`ALL LATER!

-Elder Sanders

And, a bonus mother`s day gift!  Tis a video from LDS.org, I hope you haven`t seen it yet, for you will enjoy it!

http://www.lds.org/pages/mormon-messages?cid=%20HP000061&lang=eng#to-every-mother

Marriage

Baptisms

sundaycall

Interviews

Sat. Activity

Changes

It snowed ! week 91 / 8 weeks left

A great and mighty greeting to one and all!  It`s a pleasure to write you everyone once more!  

So, first things first!  

-Congrats to everyone that made the temple trip this last weekend!  What a great experience, our ward is going to go the temple at the end of the month, but it`s a shame that we won`t be able to go with them.

-And I`m greatly enjoying the spoils from last Monday!  I started to read the book you sent me for my birthday, about the continuous conversion, and it is great.  We also managed to find and buy a strawberry cheesecake on Monday to finish off the celebration, but unfortunately, I remembered we live in Ecuador and that $14 cheesecake was awful! Blaugh!  But we still had a jolly good time.

AND ALSO!  This Sunday is the Mother`s day call! So, we are going to do it in the afternoon, around 4:00, so be ready!   

And as a notice to the title of the email, we did get snow here in the Ecuador!  It`s just a little harder and more frozen, accompanied with a violent lightning storm.  Most people just call it hail.  So yes!  On Thursday our sector got totally destroyed!  (Not literally, but the storm was a once it a lifetime kind of thing!)  We had to run home through the cold little hail pellets, and it was rather like running through a hundred man air soft war, and then the front of our house turned into a river of ice and water!  And was sweeping mightily!  We were very glad we were inside.  I hope you enjoy the photos.

But aside from that fun day, we have to wait yet another week to baptize the Family Z!  They were just waiting for one of their clients from work to pay them so that they could get married, but the person didn`t show up until the weekend!  Too late!  The wedding place closes on Friday!  So we must wait another week, but they WILL BE BAPTIZED!

We also did find a sweet Haitian family last week, who consist of 2 sisters and a brother who are from Haiti, and whose mother lives in the Bahamas. During the first lessons, the eldest sister named D (french name) told us that only a week ago she had lost her baby daughter, and through the doctrine of Christ we explained about the plan of salvation and how living the gospel of Jesus Christ ensures that we can live with our families together forever.  And they accepted baptism!  All went well until Saturday, when D later explained that she actually felt anger towards God and would not attend church, but would keep listening to us.   So we hope this next week she will change her heart!

We also have been teaching a few other investigators, a family of Adventists from Peru, a husband of a less active member, and the 9 year of from the partial member family.  

So many good things are happening, but Elder Bloxham and I are striving for more!

  Lately, although we`ve been having success, we`ve been poorly using our time and not being as successful as we could be.  SO, once again, we are going to do a 40-day fast-like purification.  So, during fast Sunday, we made an extensive list of all the things that have been inhibiting us from being the best missionaries that we could be, and then covenanted that we would strive to Not do those things for the next 40 days, which is pretty much until the end of our missions.  So, we hope that by the process, we can be, in a sense, more purified.  We just started today, and will be updating you on how our process is doing.

Thank you all for your prayers and support, you all mean so much to me too!

-Elder Sanders

ps.photos: my last birthday cake of the mission, some shots of the hail storm that struck the city, and some homemade corn dogs we made today

A day and a life of a missionary, Week 90, 10 wks left

What a wonderful Week!

So to begin, I would just love to say...

HURRAH FOR CHANTEL!!!

Who knew? Paraguay!  It looks like we`ll all be Spanish-speaking-masters in no time at all, I bet everyone is way excited! I will spread the good news to everyone,   And I am very glad to hear that I`ll be able to get home to see her before the Grand Departure. Life is just an adventure of excitement!

 In accordance to the title of the email, this has been a very Rainy Week!  We`ve been traveling in cascades of water all week!  So we`ve been a bit wet, but happy. :)

So!  A news update on the family Z.  They haven`t got married yet, but they are doing their papers today and will be ready to marry late this week, and if all goes well, Baptized by Saturday!  So we are excited!  

We also have another person with a baptismal date named Luis Z (no family relation!)  He heard the missionaries a few years ago, and his wife is a less-active member.  So we hope that he`ll be able to progress and baptize! It seems as if he wants to know which church is true, and is just begging to be taught about Joseph Smith and the Restoration.  So we will be ready!  We go back this Wednesday.

Aside from that... hm.  Nothing really happened this week.   I`m just not too sure what to write on!

So... here is an overview of a normal day in Carclen, but Dramatized!:

´The day was tranquil, and the soft sky warmed as the sun brimmed above the skyline.  The early morning was quite serene, and we did find our two Elders peacefully dreaming soundly of memories of home.  But their serene sleep was shattered by the violent blaring of the alarm clock!  The Elders were recklessly launched out of their beds by gigantic hydrolic springs and they were cast to their knees onto the hard, cold, tile floor.  They shivered and blinked sore eyes, they were so tired!  But the time to rest was over, for the day had begun!

Hands clapped together and their groggy voices rang out in humble prayer.  But the prayer ended quick, good things cannot last for too long!  And they found themselves on their feet, straining their bodies in cruel exercise!  They breathed hard for the air was so cold and dry, but soon began to warm as blood began to speed through their numb limbs.  Then it was over!  Beads of sweat ensured that it was time to shower!  The electric shower head sparked and sputtered out smoke as cold water went through a pathetic heat transfer, issuing a slow trickle of warm water.  But it was enough to carry out the deed!  Within minutes the Elders were dressed in sharp, ironed suits.  With shining shoes and taut ties, they commenced to cook a mighty breakfast, but halfway through they realized their feast had robbed them of time, it was time to study!  

Dirty plates shattered as they were thrown into the sink, and the study sessions began!  Their minds became encased in an orb of spiritual energy, and they filled their craniums with precious, prized knowledge of the gospel wonders!  After hours of being enriched by this ritual, they stood stalwartly at the door.  It was time to head out!  Another prayer ensured the spirit would be with them during the day, and with a large stride they embraced the world!

The first item on the list was to contact.  They walked up to a mighty fortress, with tall spiked walls and heavy bolted doors.  They rapped three times upon the metal surface, and a figure partially emerged from one of the high towers above.  `How goest thou?!` yelled the stranger.  `WE BE MISSIONARIES!` came the reply.   In disgust and fear the fortress keeper slammed shut the partially open window. What a loss!  But they did not fear, for there were many more fortresses to be contacted! 10 houses gave the same raw rejection, but alas!  The eleventh house had been softened!  The bay doors opened and a heavy bridge dropped across the moat, and there stood a young family.  They let the Elders into their castle and they did teach them the wonders of the Gospel, and they were enlightened!  Veils of doubt were thrown from their heads so that their spiritual eyes could be opened, and though the light stung their retinas at the start, they did see the glory of the church as they adjusted to the new light!  

The first job was over, a new family had accepted the Gospel!

The next task that lay ahead of them was to teach the family with a baptismal date.   They continued onward, the noonday sun scorching their soft gringo skin, but they did accept it with joy!  Soon they found their way to the designed location, and did teach the family!  They were well and happy.

Only a few hours left in day!  Too late to contact, no lessons planned, what is a duo of missionaries to do?  Visit and strengthen the members of course!  On they go their abodes!  The houses are strong, but some of the bricks have become brittle as wafer cookies!  The missionaries Spackle the cracks with the cement of Family Home Evening, and build stronger their foundation! (gospel symbolism) The members become thrilled at our service and provide with them with more people to visit and teach, to the Elders they give maps and strategies of those that are lost in trenches who need their help and caribeaners! !  But they will have to wait until the next dawn, for the day is at it´s peak!

They rush home, knowing if they arrive late all our missionary powers will disparate!  The Elders made it on time, and throw heavy packs to the ground, and slam their planners to the table.  It is time for battle strategy!  They plot and plan until their attack strategy for the next day is complete! but their planning has gotten the better of them for it is time to return to their soft beds. They change out of their suits and into more comfortable clothes, but in bed they wiggle, they just have too much energy within them!  At last, they finish with one last prayer, and then feel the heavy waves of sleep drag their eyelids closed.  They switch on to sleep mode, and wrap into cocoon like shapes in their warm beds.  The day has been won, and lucky for them, another one waits in the morn!

Well!  I hoped you liked it!  that´s a day in the life of a missionary in Carcelen. 

Until next week!

-Elder Sanders