To Grandma Elke & Angie

Yay!  So much fun to get letters from Hermana Sanders in the mail!  Please excuse the "lovely" cell phone pic.  I'm not very good at doing those pics of myself.  LOL!  We just got in from taking Dash for a walk around the block in 28 degree weather and checked the mailbox before going in.  What an awesome surprise!  Thanks, Whit!  We love you!!!

"Dear Abuela!
Su espanol el muy bueno!  Estoy muy impressed!  I'm sorry that work has been so hard but at least you've started your career and you can work your way up to where you want to be!  I've been lucky to be pretty healthy other than a little cough, but I'm healthy and can go to class so I'm so glad for that!  What else have you been up to besides workin'?  How's baby Gavin?  Tell Kristin to send me some pics!  I'm still so sad that I was never able to hold him.  :(  It sounds like the branch is doing well.  When I think of your mission I think abou tthe scripture that says, something like, how great is the joy over one sinner that repents than he that needeth no repentance.  Heavenly Father is so happy that they're there and that your there with a willing heart to serve them!
Awesome!  Te' amo!  (heart) HNA SANDERS"

"Dear Angie!
Como esta?  Estoy muy bien en la MTC y muy animada estoy compartiendo mi testimonia aqui!  Thanks for the Whitney Wednesdays (weird to write my first name ha ha)  I love receiving dear Elders.  Sorry that I haven't been able to write very long letters but I'm doing laundry and have aabout 2 minutes left ha ha!  I'm excited about the Australia trip... send pics!  Oh yeah, tell Blaek that Hermana Horlacher is one of the sisters I room with it's so funny he ran into her family.  She actually told me that before I got the letter ha ha!  Well it's very possible that I will stay here fo rthe next 5 weeks since my visa hasn't shown up yet.  :)  I love it here it's just SO COLD & we never see the sky except for when we go to the temple ha ha. 
Your photoshoot sounds awesome!  I'm glad you're so busy!  Te' amo!  (heart) HNA SANDERS"

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland dedicated three newly renovated MTC buildings on Jan. 15.

Elder Jeffrey R. Holland dedicated three newly renovated buildings at the Provo Missionary Training Center.

The dedicatory prayer was given as part of his devotional address on Jan. 15 to missionaries at the center including 18 departing couples gathered for a week-long seminar for new MTC presidents and visitors' center directors.

"We have just completed the Matthew Cowley Instructional Building, the Addison Pratt Residence Building and the Dan Jones Residence Building, as part of the upgrading and renovation going on at this center," he said.

"In those three names we celebrate three of the greatest missionaries that have ever served in this dispensation."

He gave brief sketches of each of the three men.

"Addison Pratt joined the Church with his wife at age 36, went to Nauvoo, and at age 41 was called by the Prophet Joseph to leave his wife and go to French Polynesia," Elder Holland said. In 1844, three years before the Saints got to Utah, Elder Pratt began to see the first converts in present-day Polynesia, he said, "and he is to this day a legend, having given his life to service in the Pacific islands."

Quoting President Gordon B. Hinckley, Elder Holland said that Dan Jones was perhaps the single greatest missionary of this dispensation. Young Elder Jones was with the Prophet Joseph Smith when the Prophet was about to be martyred at Carthage Jail, Elder Holland noted. On that occasion, Joseph uttered his last recorded prophecy: that Dan Jones would yet live to serve a mission in Wales and bring great numbers into the Church. "In two missions to Wales in his 40s, Dan Jones saw 5,300 people come into the Church," he said. "Not all of those came single-handedly from Elder Jones, but many of them did."

"Matthew Cowley is the only one of those three that I knew personally," Elder Holland said, having heard Brother Cowley speak when Elder Holland was a Primary child. "I was spellbound by his mesmerizing pulpit oratory and enthusiasm for the gospel," Elder Holland said. At age 17 Elder Cowley went to New Zealand as a missionary, stayed for three years, then went back to serve as a mission president for eight years. "He became a legendary favorite among the New Zealanders," Elder Holland said.

Elder Holland suggested that the lives of those three men could provide inspiration to the missionaries gathered in the Missionary Training Center and that some future day buildings might be dedicated to missionaries just like them.

 

Link to this article: Here

Lead Kindly Light

Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer

Letter #5 From Whitney!

Wow so much to tell you all as always but not too much time so I will try. Today is PDAY! YAY! We had our heavenly meal at the temple again and I love Provo... otra vez. This week has been so crazy and wonderful at the same time. This week Jeffery R. Holland came and spoke to us and dedicated 3 renovated buildings hear in the MTC. I was singing in the chior again and we sang Precious Savior, Dear Redeemer by H.R. Palmer and Brett Stewart... look it up, and I had this huge overwhelming confirmation that he is an Apostle of our Savior Jesus Christ. Wow... chills. His talk was powerful and motivating. I continued to tell us that we are in the most exciting time of missionary work. There are so many of us here now and it is so crazy. He told us that the Lord is hastening his work. He stressed the importance of our obedience and that our mission doesn't end when we go home but that we should continue to live the way we are now so that we can continued to qualify ourselves for the Spirit we have now. He said, "this is Real Life, capital R and capital L" they don't want us to go home and change but to have this be a forever life changing experience. His testimony on his mission is so powerful. After the talks he gave the dedicatory prayer which was then really powerful as he before spoke about the missionaries that the buildings were named after. Please look them up too; Addison Pratt, Dan Jones, and Matthew Caley. That was a beautiful experience. We are also supposed to have someone special coming tonight too.

 

I love the MTC chior and the director. Tonight we will be singing a beautiful verson of "Lead Kindly Light". As we start practicing these songs the director likes to give us a background of the song to help us feel it. To be honest I didn't understand this song before. The Author of the words was a missionary of another faith before the church was restored. He felt he had a mission to do and new he could accomplish great things, but got so sick that he could hardly move. The songs speaks of how through his sickness he realized he was looking for his glory and for something he had planned but then he says " One step enough for me...." he decided to let the Lord choose his path and he just wanted to be able to do every little part the Lord wanted him to. I love this song! Read the words!

 

So this week we did a district scripture study and we read in Helaman 5:6 and one of the Elders pointed out something that struck me to be so true. It talks about why Nephi and Lehi were given their names. Then he related it to us and our nametags. It doesn't have my firstname and it has Jesus Christ's name on it. I'm not serving for me but for my family and ancestors and for my Savior Jesus Christ. This has been so motivating to me this week. I want you all to know I love you so very much and that this work is SO hard but I love it.

 

Yo se que este Iglesia es la Iglesia que Jesucristo restuaro por medio de Jose Smith. Yo se que Padre Celestial y Jesucristo viven. Ellos quiere no ser feliz y tener la vida eterno.

 

Te Amo mucho!

Love Hermana Sanders

Letter #4 From Whit!

Hola mi familia y amigos! Como estan? Estoy muy bien aqui en la MTC! Hemos aprendido muchas cosas este semana! Ha estaba muy loco!

I cannot believe we have been here for 4 weeks already! It really is flying by! The days are so long because we do so much in a day but weeks fly by like its nothing. Im so jealous of you all in Disneyland but looks like you are all having a good time! It's wierd that Olivia looks so different to me already!? Wow . Um yeah and I've been telling my district that the Elders remind me of my crazy bro Pat and then I just showed my companera that pic . She laughed. Its funny for here because she has no brothers so she died one night when I came back from the bathroom and I was like ... don't go in there  I just tore it up... she just kept saying, I cant believe you just said that ha ha. 

Today we went to the temple and I loved it! And the food there is muy bueno.... like I really think it came from heaven. I decided on vacations I want to stop there for breakfast ha ha. Not that I'll be having any vacations anytime soon!  Last night another pipe broke in our residence hall so at 12:00 last night we heard the fire alarm going off and we had to move to the gym for about 45 minutes and  then we had to get up at 5:30 this morning to walk in the cold to the temple. Its so beautiful in Provo! So much snow! Most days haven't been much over 15 degrees I think. FREEZING! Hopefully no more broken pipes though.

Oh this week we went to chior practice, which I'm sure is more like 600 to 700 missionaries. WAY larger than the mo tab chior. Its so spiritual to sing with that many people! Music is so wonderful here.

One of the highlights of every week for us is in TRC. It's like visiting teaching or home teaching and we go teach a volunteer that has come in to listen to us compartir un mensaje en espanol. Yesterday we had a Chilean lady who spoke really fast with a really different accent , but the spirit still can be conveyed in our hearts and not in the words. Its wonderful. Teaching is getting a little better for us but we still have a lot to learn and have difficult days still yet in my studies I find so much comfort in the scriptures and in the words of the Prophets. I know Heavenly Father knows me personally because I have had wonderful moments of personal revalation in my times of need. My favorite hymn is espanol is Nesecito a Ti which is I Need Thee Every Hour in ingles but they dont quite have the same words or means so its been fun to learn the himnos.

Jenny, Gracias por su carta. Yo entiendo todo de su espanol! Im going to try to writed back today but I dont have much tiempo.

Jaimie, thanks for your card . I seriously love hearing from the fam!

Jaci, tell par par lu you babe, and that I miss cutting his hair :'(

Angie and Grandma, Thanks for your letters! I hope work gets better for you and Ang Im excited for your trip. I will try to write back soon :)

Okay Olivia, thanks for your letter and I will be taking pics with Gumbie and Pokie soon even though I don't understand why Gumbie and Pokie??

Ok so spiritual challenge for you all this week...

We have really learned the importance of turning to the scriptures , especially The Book of Mormon for guidance. Read 2 Nephi 4:15. How can the Book of Mormon be for our instructions and benefit if we dont turn to is regularly? We recieve revalation when we turn to the BOM with our questions in mind, searching for the answers. Also there is much importance in writing down our personal revealation we have recieved. It shows Heavenly Father that we treasure the things He has taught us  and we have e those things there for us in times when we need to remember them.

Read your scriptures!

Love you all so much!

Yo se que la MTC es un casa de Dios tambien y Dios ayuda nos mucho en nuestra obra de misionera. Mi testimoni ha crecido mucho en este mucho tiempo pequeno. Yo se que Jose Smith fue un Profeta de Dios y el tradujo el Libro de Mormon

Les Amo! Love HNA SANDERS!

Letter #3 From Hermana Sanders

Hola mi familia y mi amigos!
Como estan?
Mi semana ha estado muy bueno.
There is alway so much to tell you and I NEVER have enough time to write! But now I'm doing my laundry and this is the time I have. So this morning we woke up at 4 am to a fire alarm in our building where we live. A pipe had burst and caused the alarm to go off so we had to wait forever to go back to our room. Then we had to get up at 5:30 and get ready to go to the temple. It was wonderful! It made me so happy to have one close and has been the first time that we have been able to go since all of the holidays have been on our P-days and the temple was closed. Its so beautiful! Especially now with all of the snow! p.s. the temperature has been -0 F almost every morning this week! FREEZING! And last week we had 18 inches of snow in three days last week that has stayed forever! I think Provo is muy bonita! Le amo!
Thank you for all of your prayers and Grandma and Angie thank you for the WONDERFUL care package. My whole district and I have been taking advantage of the halls defense and I swear its working! I loved the package! Thankfully I have not been sick but so many missionaries have been and its so sad for them to miss even one day of class because we cover so much in a day! We have been busier then ever! We teach en espanol and its coming slowly but surely. Mi companera and I compliment each other well because she puts sentences together really well and I understand really well. We were put to together through inspired prayer. Yo se que eso! Pero no tengo mucho tiempo pero yo estoy tratando poner picturas en aqui para ustedes! Yo se que Jesucristo es mi Salvador. Yo se que nesecito estar aqui, apredir muchas cosas puede ayudar la gente de Peru! Amo la CCM (MTC) es muy marvilloso a mi. Yo se que Dios bendice a mi con este obra de misioneros. Por medio de El Espiritu Santo he tenido aprendir muchas cosas que tiene cambiar mi vida! Estoy muy agradecida por ustedes.

Los amo!

Love Hermana Sanders
ps please send a card reader for my camera! I had to borrow one!