Dear Mom & fam.
WOW so much has happened since i got here just so you know mondays are my pdays, and first off the address to the mission home has changed and thats where you will send all my letters to and packages and the packages will take a little while to get to me because they cant always send someone out to where i am....i cant remember the address exactly so ill put it on the envolopes im sending home, did you get my sd card? the first day when we got off the plane they checked us into a hotel and then took us to do so orientation training, the next day we saw some awsome sights such as a memorial to the poineers there are pics on the card the faces are so lifelike its insane, the next one was the winter quarters visitor center it was very cool, then we got to see the winter quarters temple, and the grave yard, and walk around it, we then went over the a place dedicated to the mormon battalion, and its right next to where pres. brigham young gave his talk where everyone knew he would be the next prophet, AND where he was ordained the next prophet, Pres. Kunz and his wife are amazing you can feel the love they have for us, AND she is an amazing cook. Wednesday night we had a testimony meeting the spirit was litterally pliable it was amazing......oh also a couple hours before the testimony meeting, they took us out to go prosolyting for the first time and a baptise yelled at me to go burn...."im a baptist go burn"....it was sad, i prayed for him, anyway after the testimony meeting we were given our assignments my area is the Lincoln zone Seward mission, so im in a little town called Seward, according to my companion it is one of the hardest areas in the mission...which is what i asked heavenly father for, i didnt want an easy area to start off i wanted to work, and i am ......so they drove us out to our areas on thursday morning, i met my training companion Elder timothy smith, elder smith is amazing he is from north carolina, and plays the french horn, he is awesome were are already on the same wavelength, there are times that we will pray to know what to do or say and we both get the same answer, or were teaching and we'll say what the other is thinking its almost scarry but so amazing, we ran into a calvinist with the wierdest ideas but and got a return appointment so we read with him and had a great discussion, niether party wanted to start bashing there was no contention and it was an amazing experience, the spirit was there and he agreed to pray about it....we also have a ward family that are converts that basically are the missionarie parents areound here they are incredible, and whenever we go over there they ALWAYS have someone for us to teach because they have so many pseudo kids and adopted kids (all older) in fact i have started to build a very strong relationship with one of there real kids, i cant tell you his name i dont think so well call him Brent, Brent has already been baptised but fell away because of hard times and bad situations we had a very powerful talk with him where he was crying and the spirit was so strong, we met him friday, and i couldnt get him out of my head i just knew i had to go talk with him, so i told elder smith saturday, we ran out of other appointments and i was like we should go see Brent, he was like ya, so we did, turns out he needed us, he really wants to serve a mission, and the spirit kept filling our mouths, he is on the right path again and we see him a good bit.
by the way the name of the family is Chattfields, and the mothers name is sonya....i told her she should say hi to you on facebook. on sunday there was litterally 20 people there and they are one of the strongest, they are awesome almost everytime we go there they try to feed us. there is another family here that we have a strong relation with they are the Wunderlicks sis. wunderlick gave us groceries ( its something i guess they do a bit) and a Good bit of meat their grandparents buy a whole cow every year and get it cut up, so they get half and they dont like meat to much, we had a steak last night ( i cooked) the quality of the meat was AMAZING honestly ive never had that good of quality without spending like $20 and it was a big steak, my cooking is just top knotch :D
i miss everyone but am losing myself in the work......by the way we had a huge snow storm him friday, so my second day.....i ended up buying some boots, and we woke up to 5 1/2 inches of snow cars got grounded so half of saturday was filled with shoveling peoples driveways, i really enjoyed it, the spirit of service is unexplainable, our apartment is ok we just rearranged it yesterday because of SUPERBOWL we couldnt get anyone so we prayed and felt like we should go clean out the area book, well we found two old ones and found over 30 potential investigators so it was awesome, we rearranged and cleaned the apartment after that we have to keep blankets up to keep the center room where are beds are warm, no insulation, the kitchen stays warm when we cook so when we eat its pretty warm and im warm at night that blankets amazing, the wierdest thing is that it used to be a taxidermists place so there are deer heads on the walls a bear rug on the wall and a REAL deer head IN THE FREEZER its SO COOL,
i feel my love for the people here growing everyday, and i am going to keep in touch with the chattfields and Brent after my mission there amazing, oh the wunderlicks have a son named matthew and he comes out with us all the time he is reallly cool as well...
anyway I am doing very well, i miss all of you, and just so you know i havent gotten a letter from anyone for....i dont know a week....did you forget about me?? thanks for the package i got it, the shirts a life saver, and ..........please let dad know........THEY HAVE POPEYES CHICKEN AND IM GOING TO RECORD MYSELF EATING IT ONE OF THESE TIMES MUAHAHAHAHA......anyway i love and miss you guys, i feel your prays, and i pray for you, and if this letter isnt long enough, pray harder and send more treats. :D
Love, Elder Braidon Sanders
