We went to the Temple!

Hey everyone!! Wow, it seems like an eternity since I have emailed. It´s always so weird to have P day on Tuesdays. Changes are tomorrow, but I am sooo so happy because my companion and I are both staying in Pan de Azucar for another change together! We´re pretty dang excited.

So this week was crazy filled with all kinds of stuff. This morning we just had a zone activity and hiked up to a big cross at the top of a ¨mountain¨and that was really fun. I felt at home hiking again.

We had the birthday of the relief society and had a giant celebration in the church with lots of food and a giant cake. That was super fun! We had lots of parties in the church this week I feel like... because Hermana Alvorado is going home so we had a big going away party for her too. It was also the birthday of our ward mission leader on Sunday so he invited us over to his house for lunch and we had a big asado party with LOTS of meat and other good food. That was really fun too! 

Then of course my two baptisms on Friday! Oh man, that was a really happy day for me. Miriam and Analia are both angels and it was an amazing experience. That made my Friday a lot better after one of our investigators named Juan came out of his house yelling at us and threw a pamphlet at us that we gave him saying that he didn´t want to know anything anymore. That was kind of sad because we literally have no idea what happened.... so different just over night! But it´s okay. It happens.

We ALSO had a Hermanas conference that was awesome. We talked all about the worth of our souls and everything and had different ¨classes¨too. I had to give an exercise class and be everyones personal trainer and do an exercise plan for 30 minutes. I´m pretty sure all of the hermanas hate me now haha they all died. I thoroughly enjoyed it though!

Then... the BEST part of the week was taht WE WENT TO THE TEMPLE!!! That was thee coolest experience to do literally all of the work for someone that is part of my family. Baptism, initiatories, endowments, all of it. And I noticed that it was her birthday that day too so that was kind of cool! I can honestly say that that was by far the best day of my mission so far. It was such a spiritual experience. wow. And we also got to have our interviews with the president which I LOVE. I love talking with him. He told me that he really wants to play tennis with me too so we´re gonna set up a time that we can go do that. I´m super excited! He´s awesome.

Wow I seriously have had such an amazing week. Full of both the hardest times so far in my mission as well as the best! I am so grateful for all of the blessings that the Lord has given me and for this short amount of time that I have to be in the mission serving him with all my heart. I am also so grateful for each and every one of you guys! I love and miss you so so much. Have an amazing week!

Besos,

Hermana Sanders

I'm an Aunt!!

Okay, I´m apologizing now for this week, but... I¨M AN AUNT!!! as of Wednesday:) Which means... I have a whole lot of pictures to download and print and emails to answer. So this is just a brief email to say that everything is still going GREAT! I get to go to the temple this week and have interviews with the president, and I also have two baptisms on friday! woohoo!! 

Time is flying by wayy too fast here. I can´t believe changes are already next week. Oh yeah, so remember that my P day will be on Tuesday next week instead of Monday. 

We had to go to Montevideo and do other things this week so we didn´t have much time to work in our area. So there isn´t that much to tell anyway. Next week will be full of stuff though so it´s all good!

I hope everyone has an awesome week. Love you guys:)

Hermana Sanders

Pics of the week

 My New Easter Dress

 Easter package!

Who needs a boyfriend?

The gift we made to help our investigator quit smoking.

Happy Birthday Daddy!

Hey everyone, it's Bob's birthday on the 12th! Just so ya know :)

So first off.... HAPPY BIRTHDAY DADDY!!!! Holy cow you´re an old man;) I´m so sorry I can´t be there for you´re birthday... Don´t worry I´ll still bake a cake or something that day in memory of you. and know that I love you!

Anyways, this week was good! Interesting... but good! I GOT MY EASTER PACKAGE ALREADY. That made my whole week. Mom you do wayy too much for me. The ¨who needs a boyfriend ¨shirt is the greatest hahaha I wear to bed every night now. 

This week we had thee biggest storm everrrr. So much rain and wind. Luckily when it started we were close to a members house so we went there and we ended up getting stuck inside for like 2 and a half hours... that sucked. Then we left and ran as fast as we could to a family night at our investigators house. That was an interesting, WET day. And awe my investigators are doing great. Ana Lia is getting married on the 19th and then baptized the 21st! I´m so excited for her. And Liliana is doing better and better with smoking. Still hasn´t stopped completely but she´s getting better. We made little paper ¨cigarrettes¨with little notes and scriptures on them and we took her mentos too to help her when she has the desire to smoke. And Miriam as well is amazing. She is so beyond prepared for her baptism! 

We had a zone conference this week and we found out about a lot of changes in the mission as far as our focus. Because before it was just baptize baptize baptize! and it´s ridiculous how many less active people are here in this country. People that got baptized and never came back again. So we are focusing a lot more on these people to get them back to church. Especially those with the priesthood. And now for investigators... they have to come to church three weeks for all three hours before they can be baptized. If they only come for two hours it doesn´t count. So the baptism number is gonna go down a lot and it´s gonna take a lot longer for them to get baptized but it´s a really good thing because we will have more ACTIVE converts in the church!

Oh yeah and one of the recent converts here asked me my first name so I told her and she told me that she is going to name her daughter that. She wrote down how to spell it and everything. So yeah... there´s gonna be a little Uruguayo running around with my name. pretty cool! lol

I feel like I have so much random stuff to say this week. It was a random week! I was reading in the Liahona about President Benson´s Wife Flor and apparently she served a mission in Hawaii and after she left her mom decided to serve a mission and ended up getting called to Hawaii too and they were COMPANIONS! Crazy huh? So mom... get your butt out here;)

Oh yeah and the time changed here on sunday so I got to sleep an extra hour. That was great! But yeah, now we´re only three hours different. Oh man yesterday.... I had to give a talk in church AGAIN. I talked about Jesus Christ and it actually went really well. It´s amazing how it´s just as easy to write a talk in spanish now as it is in english. It´s mostly testimony anyway, but I loved doing it! The only problem was that I got sick AGAIN on Sunday so I threw up like twice before sacrament, then I went and gave me talk, then about five minutes after I had to leave and threw up again. I´m just happy I made it through my talk! I´m so mad though because I was finally gaining a little bit of weight and then I lost it again yesterday... there´s some weird sickness going around here. everyone is throwing up haha. The hermanas in our house have been at home for a week straight. But luckily I already feel a lot better! I just need to eat more today haha.

Okay and last random thing for you dad: Hermana Bertuoli (she lives with me) was looking at all of my pictures and she told me that you look like Bruce Willis. First of all I was shocked that she knew who that was, and then that she recognized it. Cause we ALWAYS say that. So yeah that ws pretty funny.

Anyways, sorry for the randomness of this email. Kind of a crazy week! I love you all. I´m excited for pictures of my new niece next week!!! Woo!

xoxoxoxxo

Hermana Sanders

Conference with Elder Vinas

I Love My Companion!

6 Month Muffin Cake & Pancake Surprise!

 FRENCH TOAST

MINT BROWNIES

Best Week Ever!

Hey hey everyone! How´s it goin? I feel like I say this a lot... but this has definitely been one of THEE best weeks of my life. Ahh so many great things happened! First of all, I FINALLY actually hit my six month mark and so we celebrated with lots of good treats:) And Elder Viñas from the 70 came for a conference with us on tuesday so we got to go to that all day. That was one of the most amazing, most spiritual conferences I´ve ever been to... that man is incredible. My testimony about the Atonement of Christ grew so much from that. Wow. No words to describe it. President Cook also spoke in the conference about the family and marriage and all that. I loved it! I always get so much out of the conferences. Ain´t nothin better.

Oh and funny story.... So this whole time I´ve been here, I´ve thought that plumber in spanish was ¨plumero.¨and people ask A LOT about family and what dad does and everything. So I always tell them that he´s a plumero. Well... come to find out plumber is actually ¨PLOMERO.¨Close, but definitely different enough. Because plumero means feather duster. So that´s fun. Just so ya know daddy, all of Uruguay thinks you are a feather duster hahaha. No wonder everyone laughs when I tell them that. But a member told me that plumbers here in Uruguay make BANK so maybe you should just move here for my last year in the mish;) jk.

But anyways... The BEST part of the week is my investigators. They are so amazing. I can´t even tell you how much I love each of them. We have a ton that we´re teaching, but we have four that are really strong that are getting baptized this month. And three of them came to church this Sunday! Which is literally a miracle. Especially for my companion. She was so happy she almost cried, because she hasn´t had an investigator come to church in months and months and so yesterday was a really happy day for the both of us! We would have had four, but one of them had to work last minute:( But she´s coming next week!

First of all, Miriam. She is so prepared. She´s already living like a member she just needs to get baptized! She´s the biggest sweetheart. We visit her like 3 to 4 times a week and literally every time she has some sort of food prepared for us. She doesn´t want to wait for her baptism haha if she could get baptized today she would!

Then there´s Liliana... She is a miracle. Her health is really bad because she has smoked SO MUCH. But guess what?? She´s down to one a day! She´s gonna quit completely this week:) She came to church yesterday and we get to go visit her today to see how she liked it. And She´s also an alcoholic like reeeally bad and she´s alredy quit drinking too. She´s adorable. She told us that when she is struggling, she reads in the Book of Mormon and her cravings go away. How powerful is that?!

And Valeria. Wow. We found her friend in the street one day and she didnt want anything to do with us. But she told us about Valeria and how her fiancee just died of cancer and she´s way sad. So we went to visit her a few times and her mom always said she wasn´t there. But she ended up calling us and asked us to come visit her! So we did, and taught about the plan of salvation and she cried and everything. And now... she´s reading in the BOM and praying everyday and she wants to get baptized this month! She couldnt come to church sunday but she will be there this sunday. And her birthday is on wednesday so we´re making her a treat and going to her house! She´s amazing. 

Lastly, we have Analía who is also AWESOME! Her ¨soon to be husband¨is a member. They´ve been living together for like four years and we´ve been teaching her recently and she wants to get baptized but can´t cause they´re not married. But guess what?? they finally got a date from the government to do it! March 19th, so she will be able to get baptized on the 21st! We´re gonna have a big party at the church and everything. Ahh then they can get sealed as a family in a year.

Seriously.... The miracles that I am able to see here in the mission are incredible. I am so grateful for this opportunity and I have fallen in love with the people here.It´s so cool how you can turn any ¨hard area¨into an easy one if you have faith and work with diligence.

I love you guys so much! I hope all is well at home and everyone is doing GREAT:)

Talk to ya soon!

xoxoxoxo

Hermana Sanders