Letter From Whitney 08/26/2013

I am so happy to write today and just be so excited for my little bro! Pat I am so proud! My trainer is from that mission! Fort Collins is supposed to be so beautiful! My brother Elder Sanders, I am just so happy! The best present I could have gotten this week! I was also so excited to hear that someone my companion and I found and taught got baptized this week! So exciting. Especially after alot of walking and wind and dust this week ha ha. We are working really hard. Its been a good week and God is leading me and my two companions in this work. I can truly testify that I could not to the work without Him. I feel so priviledged to be a part of this work right now. I am going to try to send pictures this week. I am sorry there isnt a ton to update on this week but I just want to say that the people here are so great and are like family to me and always look forward to seeing my beautiful kind people. 

I love you all thank you for all you do!

New Letter 8/12/2013

Hey everyone! I hope you all got my email last week and that it
answered some of the questions you have had for me. The time here on the computer is really short and I have tried answering all of my emails but sometimes I run out before I can get to everyone.  I am learning so much here in Peru with my companion. I am learning to be the missionary I need to be through having so many experiences. We have a baptism coming up hopefully in two weeks. Each baptism takes so much faith, prayers and miracles. My companion and I have been blessed to find some really great people that have been waiting for us. Peru is so beautiful. The people are so beautiful. The lifestyle here is totally different. We eat breakfast, lunch and dinner everyday in the house of our pensionista who is so tiny and cute and reminds me of my mommie. She takes such good care of us and we are so spoiled she even does our laundry. We walk alot everyday and its usually hot in the day and cold at night. Sometimes we are lucky and take moto which is a motorcyle with a little seat behind it that we ride on. I have finally mastered how to yell the directions to them and to bargain the price with them. We have been working lots with the members here who work really hard with us in missionary work which is great. I´m learning more and more everyday about the scriptures and how they are the best missionary tool ever and have helped me train my companion too. We are learning so much and having so many wonderful experiences.
I love you all and hope that you too are having missionary experiences everyday too. Its the best thing I have ever done. Thank you all for your support and your examples that lead me to where I am today.
 Love you all Cuidense y vayan con Dios siempre! Con Cariño Hermana Sanders

 (My new companion Presidente y Hermana Risso)

New letter from Whitney 6/10/2013

Wow what I cool trip and experience. Those places and things are so important to me and must have been so cool to experience first hand. I have been reading in the Book of Mormon about how God said the people that would come to this promised land would be lead by His hand here and have felt so blessed to be a citizen of the country. You should ask my companions I have so much American pride its annoying ha ha. It is so beautiful and am so glad you got to enjoy those things because you deserve it! So I was so expecting my visa to come this week but it turns out that I will finish another transfer here unless it comes this week. I do believe it will come soon though. We had some amazing miracles this week. One was that we recieved a referral from elders in our district and we looked forever for this mans address and gave up and decided to go knock on a door of someone we had contacted before. They weren't home but then we were handing out cards and just outside we asked this mans name and it was the same man we had been looking for and couldn't find! We taught him this week and set a baptismal date with him and he told us that he had given a fake address and number to the Elders and that God really wanted us to teach him because we found him! That was so cool! Then the next day my companion ran over a staple and got a flat tire and we were so annoyed because we had been in the bike shop earlier that week. While we were standing there trying to figure out what to do this woman came up and told us she was a member and that she hasn't been able to come to Church because she has really bad health issues. She told us that she would like us to read some scriptures to us because she can't read and told us that in the morning she had prayed to have some happiness in her day and that we were the answer to her prayers. I just felt so blessed to be guided by the Spirit and to know that Heavenly Father has so many details in His plans ... even flat tires. It was so cool! We also got to take out the youth and do splits and go contacting. It was really fun for me to watch a young woman share her testimony and truly be like my companion! I hope the youth at home can have a chance to do that. Also we have a funny companionship. Its been a great week. We also had a lesson in the park with one of my investigators and he bought me Elote! So good! I will send pics! Anyway that was my week and I know that Heavenly Father needed me to stay here for this week!

Pics! 05/06/2013

 

Letter from Whitney 4-22-213

Familia y Amigos mios! I am so happy here in North Hollywood to be a missionary and to be doing the best thing for my life. It has been a good week and am always amazed at the revealation and life-changing experiences I have had in just one week. This week we had Zone Conference where our Mission President Hall trained us on planning and teaching simply. He also told us the changes that will be coming in our mission. We were blown away by how small this mission is going to be with almost double the missionaries we have now. There will be almost 10 missionaries in each ward! WOW! The First Presidency also announced that there will be leadership positions for Sister missionaries too! How neat! Well this week we have been praying really hard to find a way to help our ward have better unity and a stronger conversion to the gospel so that they will have desires to help us in missionary work. Our answer came and it was so wonderful. We had district meeting with the 8 missionaries in our ward on Friday and our Disrict leader told us how he and his companion gave a committment to read the Book of Mormon everyday for 30 days. When they thought about it later they realized that, that is what our ward needed. The Book of Mormon is so powerful and is what we need to help them become converted and united. Hna Zepeda was asked to train us and had called a few days before trying to figure out what to train on. The morning of the meeting she changed her training to be on The Book of Mormon. It was inspired because we didn't know about the challenge until right before she trained us and so it was a confirmation that The Book of Mormon challenge was an answer to our prayers. We had a very Spiritual testimony meeting after that and we have been so excited to be giving this challenge. We'll in my thoughts about the 30 day challenge I felt like I should invite my family and friends to do that also. Just about 10 to 15 mins a day read the Book of Mormon for 30 days, then ponder on the changes that come from those few minutes it took everyday. I know The Book of Mormon has converting power to change peoples lives, no matter how many times you have read it. It has contained many answers to my prayers and many revealations. I know the days that The Book of Mormon hasn't been read are days missing divine, personal, life-changing revealation. So I "exhort" you to not miss a single day. I can promise you many blessings in your home, ward and family from taking those few minutes to do that. Don't miss out on your most needed guidance. I love you all so much and am so grateful for all that you have done for me. As always I wish I could share every moment with you! Stay faithful and Strong! Con Amor, Hermana Sanders

Message From Whit!

Taco truck pics!
So I don't have much time left but I will write you all a letter today. I got your package and Jenny's and Angie! Holy lots of chocolate and goodies! It was great! I love my socks! Thanks so much! How was your week? You look different in your pics. Everything is going great here. I feel like I'm learning more Spanish. I got an email from the visa department at the Church travel ce...nter. And they said that they check on it everyday and they they will let me know when my visa will be granted which means they haven't heard anything yet. Just know that I am happy here and know that I have a purpose here so I am not very worried about it. We believe we will be here for the whole transfer which is the next 5 weeks. I'm okay. We are learning lots. The work is hard here but we are trying and we were happy to see lots of our people at church yesterday . That was the best Easter present. I will write you a letter today! Love you all and take care. Hope you had a wonderful, meaningful Easter!
Hugs and kisses!
Hermana Sanders —