An Email Home (from the MTC #3)

4/26/2014
We've been given a little bit of time to email right now, but not long, so I'll make this short and give you a blog entree next week. 
I've grown lots! This week has been a lot more lax feeling ever since Monday. We're teaching more instead of just learning in a classroom which is nice. And we're leaving at 2:30 in the morning for South Dakota on Monday morning! I've grown so much and have come to a better understanding of how the spirit works and a little bit more of a reminder of what the atonement is. I've been learning my strengths and weaknesses and it's been great.
GOD LOVES YOU!! 
Write you later!

K! Writing until everyone leaves. I'm doing awesome. :)  

I've come to know the spirit more, like how to know what it is, how to explain it and I feel more comfortable with the idea of the spirit governing the lesson. Because lots of times I like to think that I am the one with the thoughts you know? That I would totally come up with them even without the spirit. But it was pretty crazy because last night I prayed to know how to better understand the spirit and them BAM!! We had a lesson on the spirit today! 

And I learned that the spirit often speaks and you don't even know it and it's a prompting and you don't even know it, because he's just using your own self, what makes up you, in order to do God's work. And I already knew that, but this time there's something associating with it. It comes when you're a "good boy or good girl," just keeping your covenants and striving to be better. That's when and how the spirit is able to work through you. And if you're not supposed to say something you would otherwise say, you'll have a stupor of thought. 

And THEN! I taught a lesson today and was kind of struggling to explain the atonement and I was talking with my companion saying that I wished I understood the atonement more. AND WHAM! We had a lesson on the atonement! Ask and ye shall receive? I think a solid yes this time round! God answers prayers and it's great when the answers kind of fall into you lap like that.

I also think it's cool, I didn't know this, but at the MTC they have people with golden tags and some of them are members just pretending, but some of them are actually investigators seeking for truth! I didn't know there were potentially real people at the MTC who needed teaching! I'll explain this in my blog entree, but there was SUCH A COOL LESSON that we had with a gold tag investigator that Sister Kendrick ran into and we accompanied her to her lesson. And Sister Kendrick has a stutter, and so did the investigator! And it was soooooo cool to hear and see two people with a stutter talk back and forth to each other.

I've gotten so close to my district!

(Okay dad, you can use this as a blog if you really want but, yeah. I'm gonna do one next week. That is if we don't have time Monday, which we probably won't. Title it: An Email Home)

It's been awesome. We laugh all the time! And I'm going to be soooooooo sad to leave them all.... We are all going to South Dakota (with the exception of one, Elder Johnson) so we can't email them, cuz they're in our mission. At least, that's my understanding. At least not without special permission. But yeah. 

Oh and Elder Autrey's mother is an author! How cool! Her name is Clover Autrey! (And his dad's name is Patrick. How cute is that.) And soooo someone should look her up and see what she writes! Cuz you know how it is, Elder Autrey doesn't know. XD

Elder Bright is hilarious. He just came on Wednesday, going to Tennessee??? But in our zone. He's 6'6". He's presence is massive. And he's lanky and just hahaha he looks like a deer in the headlights all the time. He's so weirdly animated. I can't handle him!! hahahaha 

And I've successfully accomplished my mission to be known as the Sister with the cute hat. It's awesome. I always get comments. And Elder Bright Lights lol peeked into the room the other day and said, (I love his speech pattern, it's so like... lol, I don't even know, calm but ridiculous.) "Your hat it different.... I don't even know who you are anymore. 8C" hahahha And today hahah I was like "I have four hats and .... three no...... two... yeah... two out of the four have bows on them." he's like hahahah "That's 50%. That's a failing grade (in this funny booming low voice). It you were in bow school, you'd fail." hahahahahah Aw man.

And then there's peaches. Which is our code term for flirting. There's an Elder Peaches we're calling him that we see all the time in the lunch room flirting with all the girls. Sinneeeeeer! lol And this guy, it MADE MY DAY! Elder Nutter lol, and he stopped me to compliment me before going into the lunch room saying "You're outfit is fabulous (not in a gay voice, though that would be funny). It looks really nice." And it was such a genuine compliment and it made my day! And then we bumped into each other a minute later getting food and started chatting and I was just laaaaaaughing and whatnot because I mean, he made my day! He was super nice! And hahahhaha my district saw me, and the Elders just shook their heads at me and teased me calling peaches. "No, what you did, you just trampolined all the way to the top of the peach tree!" -Elder Autrey Aw man, it was hilarious. I was laughing soooooooooo hard. Oh my goodness. I've seen him a couple more times, and I've hoped that they would notice my other contacts with me for laughs hahahha, the Elders in my district I mean, but hasn't happened. Buuuuut yeah. 

I'm out of time now. I had more time than I thought, they didn't come get us. >< But yeah, I'm doing awesome, one more full day left, that's crazy! AH! 

Bye! 

God bless!!

My First ACTUAL Blog Entry (from the MTC #2)

4/21/2014
How was everyone's Easter? Well, mine was absolutely fantastic. The MTC, the MIssionary Training Center, or My Time with Christ I think should be the proper acronym... what a wonderful place to spend the anniversary of Christ's glorious victory over death.

And sacrament was pretty much a dream come true because guess what, Elder Uchtdorf was the speaker. For those of you who don't know the significance of that, Thomas S. Monson is the president of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, equivalent to the pope of the Catholic religion. Dieter F. Uchtdorf is his second councilor. Yeah, we were reverently fangirling when we saw him come into the room. I didn't every get super close to him, but still, STILL! This is the first time in at least three years that a member of the first presidency has come to the MTC to speak to us. And paraphrased as best as possible, Uchdorf closed with a blessing on all of us missionaries:

As an apostle of the Lord, I give you a blessing that the Lord will take care of you. He will bless your families at home. He will comfort you ibn your nights, in you dreams as you sleep, in your nightmares where tears overcome you. He will strengthen you, help you, and cause you to stand, upheld by his rightous Omnipotent hand. He will take care of you.

There's hardly ever an opportunity to hear one of the first presidency speak, and directly to you. I wish I could quote exactly what he said because there was a little more. But what he said was absolutely beautiful and it gave me so much comfort to think that I have the specific blessing of an apostle that my family and friends will be blessed and comforted back home, and the simple message which I adore because it is so loving and easy to understand not masked in the language of scripture or Mormon lingo.

"He will take care of you."

What a great way to spend Easter. And have you all seen that video on youtube, Because of Him? Well, you should because it really is beautiful!

As far as how my day to day life has been here, it's been great! You know what it's like? It's like college and camp mixed together, all with a bunch of people learning how to teach about Christ. There's a schedule just like band camp or girls camp, very full of just, stuff. Lots of classes. We do scripture stuff all day till 9:30 and like, when that hits we don't even read our scriptures before bed, it's time to write in journals and shower. That just gives you an idea of how immersed in spiritual classes we are during the day, that they tell us NOT to bring your scriptures back up to your room!

My companion is great! Her name is Sister Hawkes and she's super sweet. We get along very well. I'm rooming with two other Sisters, Sister Kendrick and Sister Devey as well. They're all 19! I'm an old fart 20 year old haha, and they are all going to South Dakota too. And then there's two Elders, Elder Autry, who looks like Ron Weasley, only he wears glasses and is from Texas, And Elder Hunt, who are going to South Dakota too. And then Elder Johnson's the lone missionary right now going to Canada, so he was thrown in with us and we love him! He laughs so hard and has the best laugh hahahah and when you get him laughing he cries, legitly, it's hilarious.

I haven't felt too overwhelmed or homesick which is good. There are some moments where we're learning really fast or something that it's been a bit of a struggle, but it hasn't been too bad. I'm able to sleep well. We get up at 6:29, go to bed at 10:29, which is kind of a pain 'having' to go to bed then, but exact obedience, it brings miraculous blessings everyone, so it's okay. So it's been really really great. I've really enjoyed my stay here and will continue to do so until Monday when we leave at 6:00am in the morning. Yep, meeting at 2:30am to drive over to the airport. That'll mess up our sleep schedules! So I don't know if I'll be able to post an entree Monday of next week. (I can only email on Preparation Day (Monday's usually) and I can only have the computer for an hour. It's official. It's in the missionary handbook.)

As far as what I've been learning...
To tie into my last entree, (my farewell talk,) I am so grateful that the Lord reveals things to us line upon line, precept upon precept, one piece and then the next, then the next. Not all at once. Things stick better that way and you can feel comfort in knowing 'hey, that's cool, that just added on to something that I already know!'

You remember the whole metaphor in my farewell talk about being an instrument in his hands? Remember how I talked about wanting to be an effective instrument, just have the spirit work through me as best as possible? Well, I was really struggling... because it's one thing talking about strategies of how to do things, and it's another to actually go in and do it. And it's usually only in retrospect that you realize... aw man, I could've done that, or shouldn't have said as much, or this and this and this. And one of our teachers just gave a stellar example of teaching by the spirit. He had us hold the pamphlet of "The Restoration" and just had us look at that picture of Jesus holding that little lamb and had us quietly shout out words that we were feeling. And then he profoundly said,"That, is the meaning of the Restoration of the Gospel." ...He didn't teach us anything. It was as if the answers just came from inside of us. It was so, sooo incredibly powerful. Well I was trying to figure out... what could I do to let the Holy Ghost guide the lesson? And, it was one of those things where the teacher asked us to write a question down that was in our minds, and that's the one I wrote down, and usually your question isn't answered by the lesson still, or at least not right away but then.... I looked up and right on the board there was a quote:

"Participation authorized the Holy Ghost to teach."

And.... there was my answer. One word! Participation! And, I knew that somewhere in my brain, but I just didn't know how to access it! And sharing that revelation, so direct and powerful, those were the first tears that came to my eyes, that Friday in that classroom with so many wonderful spiritual people around me.

I'm out of time, but I just want to cap it off with a brief testimony. I know my Heavenly Father loves me, and that He loves you, you who are reading this right now. I know that I am in the right place. I'm so blessed to be here, called to serve Him, called to serve others. I'm here because I want to be here. I'm here because I want to teach the Gospel and bring people the happiness and solace that they are searching for. But perhaps most important,

I'm here, Because of Him.

Thank you, God bless.

I'm Alive and Awesome!!! (from the MTC #1)

4/16/2014
This is Raleigh (dad) here.  We dropped Hannah off at the MTC today. Wow, what an experience. We said "goodbye" at curbside with several missionaries at the ready to take her away.

As you could imagine, there are probably several hundred parents who would like to make sure that their "child" is doing alright after the "parting" so Hannah was allowed to send the following email:


I'M ALIVE AND AWESOME!

I am having a great time! It is exactly what I expected, missionary spirit camp. They're allowing us to email home tonight to minimize calls here asking if their child is alive. I can only email one person. We can email for an hour on pday which is Monday. So that will be when I email for my blog.

I am very happy to be here! There are a good few other elders and sisters who are also going to South Dakota and one of them has a speech impediment and she's awesome, I love her and glad she's in our district. I am so excited for choir on SUNDAY! AH I heard general authorities might be speaking! And so I'm SO excited for that! AND they will let us sing in the choir if we come in the morning on sunday at 8:15. :) And there's opportunites for auditioning for musical numbers later in the week, so I'll see what I can do with that for sure! Super excited for choir and to keep my testimony bright and to get to know people and to record my experiences! It's missionary camp, it's awesome. Not overwhelmed, doing fine tired wise, it's awesome! So yeah, that's what's going on!

THANK YOU! I LOVE YOU!! Email you on Monday, and I'll write you too! :)

Alright, back to me...

I've made the first few posts as Hannah while I figure this out.  I'm going to add myself as an author on the Blog, so it will be more clear what is from the "parents" perspetive verses from Hannah.  Just so you know, while Hannah is on her mission, I will be making the actual posts from what Hannah sends to me. I'm not completely sure yet, but I will probably continue to post using Hannah's login.  Not completely sure.  :-)

"Dad" is in The House!

I got my own account setup to post on Hannah's Blog.

I've done this as a transparency measure.  If there is anything that I want to say as "Hannah's father," then I will be sure to say it in my own posting.  I will continue to post Hannah's blog messages under her account.  I will make only spelling and grammatical corrections (especially since I'm sure that Hannah doesn't think that my grammar is all that fantastic. :-) and add the photographs according to her instructions.

I'll do my best to not "usurp" her blog with my own agenda, but I do want to have a voice to support and advocate for her and her family (especially her brothers here at home).

Thank you, again, for your support as readers of this blog.  I hope that you will comment freely with the understanding that Hannah will not be able to be "engaged" in responding to the comments, but WILL absolutely spend hours and days reading through them when she is home from her mission.  She loves you guys! :-)

Raleigh (Dad) Sanderson