Flat tires, food banks and future moves.

 What is up and greetings all you fine males and females! I hope this past weekend was awesome and I hope all is well, its been a great week  much has happened so let's get right into it-- If you want to see what transfer news is scroll down to the 26th 

March 22rd

P day was an awesome day- we helped out at the food bank again, we did a service project and many people where shocked to see us in regular clothes 😆  but it was awesome, lots of member bonding time and just fun fo work with everyone. after the services we went over to the church for a little and it was chill there, we called home and  I was on the computer writing a talk I was asked to give on Sunday.  

After that we headed to Oklahoma City and got to go to the okc  temple for the first time, it was so awesome and my heart was filled with the sprit! It was a 2 hour drive and makes me miss all the temples in Utah but that's ok it was worth the drive!  after the temple we got dinner at a place called Dave's chicken super yummy and then headed home. 

March 23th 

Sigma day today-  to start it all off there was some rebar on the side of the road that elder Siddoway  ran into accidentally and it completely blew the sidewall of our tire so we had a flat and had to change that thing on the side of the road but we got it done fast. we then drove to a tire shop and left the car there since we had service at the food bank again. it was a chill day stocking lots of shelves getting ready for the next day. after that we had just a day of walking and knocking on referrals  doors and checking in on members of the ward. over all, a good day 

March 24th 

Started the day off with District council and it was a good one and surprise!    AP Huffaker and AP Beuler  came to our district council and it was good to see them! they were doing an exchange with one of the other elders. after that we left and had a good lesson with our friend Kendra. She was super sigma and the lesson went well. Hopefully we will be able to extend a baptismal invite to her next time and then we did a lot of member work today and just walked around in the pouring rain which was fun. 

March 25th chill day 

We had a lady named Lori reach out to us and she had been taught by missionaries in the past but she was in a bad relationship with someone and just a was in a deep hole and could not mentally handle everything at that time.  she reached out and said she was ready to start taking lessons which was awesome! she is so chill. after that we taught a new friend named John who was super chill to talk to. He sadly was not at church this week but hopefully he comes next time but that's all for Saturday.

March 26 

Ok ok now the day we have all been waiting for- transfer news- but before that I’ve got to talk about the day. 

To start woke up and had church at Fort Sill Army post like always,  super awesome to talk to all the soldiers and get to know them!  then after interviewing a soldier for baptism we headed over to the AIT side and had our church service there.  turns out most soldiers in AIT served church missions which was super cool to learn and after that we went to our family church ward and there me and elder Siddoway both gave a talk and it was super good.  My hands where shaking 😆  but I made it through on my own hahah 12 talks later i'm still nervous to go speak to people. After church we went to the hospital again to give a blessing but turns out the person no longer is there anymore so we left.  We then did our weekly planning which is just where we plan out the week, how we want to teach and we talk about how our friends are progressing and any personal goals we want to work on. Then we visited an awesome house, the Rodriguezs they are so fun to talk to. They have a gigantic husky they named Cookie- he is so fluffy too haha after that we parked in a Braums parking lot for T-doc (transfer news)

Now the moment you all have been waiting for…..is Elder Saunders leaving Lawton 1 North area or is he staying…… 

I am leaving Lawton1 North area and am heading back over to the Tulsa side and going to an area called Skiatook which is super awesome! I will be with Elder Hunting  

I have loved Lawton so much but the Lord needs me to go somewhere else and I know there is work for me to do in Skiatook, Im so excited!!! 

Well that's all gents and ladies I hope you all have a sigma week! I will see you all again on a Wednesday in May!

Also to all the seniors graduating this year, when my new address comes send me your graduation cards. I want to see all yalls cards  

No shout outs this week's sadly 

But good bye till next time 

 

billboards, baptisms and birthdays

Good morning and what is up all you fine males and females! I hope everyone is doing good and has had an amazing week but let's get right into today's email

Hop on my Google photos if you want to see my the mission so far ⬇️⬇️⬇️⬇️

https://photos.app.goo.gl/42qxgw7eh8fMM1sZ8

I would love to see graduation announcements from y'all who are graduating this year!  But wait till next p day so I can tell you my address- it may change this week. We have transfers coming up…

Spiritual thought 

Today spiritual thought may be a repeat but its something I feel impressed to say to anyone who is thinking of serving a mission soon and while I can say I have enjoyed my mission and have loved every second of it, it's important that you find your drive to serve-your why. 

Now that can come in many different ways. every missionary has a different drive as to why they chose to serve Whether 18 or 24 months, if you are struggling to decide if a mission is right for you my invitation is to read your Book of Mormon! read it diligently and pray to God out loud in a private room and ask Him if a mission is what you need to do. The answer may not happen the first try or the second but keep praying with that sincerity in your heart to find that truth.  

Moroni said in chapter 10 verses  4 and 5 

“And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.”

Those who pray with a sincere heart will find the answer to all there questions  and I can testify that a mission changes you for the better! Jeffrey R. Holland said that a mission is the greatest thing you can do in your life. It's a small portion of your time to give to your Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ.  

March 15th 

We had a good day We did our usual bowling games and that was fun. I am getting better at spinning the ball so we will see how that goes. After bowling we went shopping at Walmart for groceries and that was good to get all of what we needed. After that went over to the church and had Robert's baptism and he was so excited to get baptized, so happy for him! after his baptism, we had some refreshments and pizza and then we got roped into doing Bible bingo with the primary kids. I won 9 times, I was on fire! we decided to make it so you had to do an exercise if you got a bingo and I  ended up doing 30 push-ups in a row but its all good considering I work out 30 minutes each morning and do roughly 50 to 70 push-ups (not in a row tho im not that jacked come now 🤣) but my exercise contains push-ups sit-ups 1 minute planks 3 times and stretches but its been good already seeing results.  After all was said and done, we headed home and fell asleep like a little baby. 🐤  

March 16th 

Well today was a little slow but today is Elder Taylor's birthday 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊 🎂 🥳 🎉 🎈 🎁 🎊  he is officially 19 years old we celebrated at Panda Express and it was good! my go to is a bowl of house chicken and rice, it was good and all for 8 bucks.  Then we went to the food bank & worked there for awhile- it was good and then we walked around looking for others to serve and teach most of the day- not too much success but its ok not every day will be good, some days will be more difficult than others but it makes the good days even better and the more difficult days worth it but overall a good day. 

March 17th 

Not much happened just another usual day of working hard- had two lessons and they were good!

March 18th 

There was also not much to write about this day kind of a slow day walking, biking, knocking on doors and looking for people to teach and serve.

March 19th

Today was a good day. We taught at Fort Sill today.  Luckily the chapel was open this time! It was good, we started connecting with some of the soldiers and they all thought I was crazy when I said I like eating MREs ( meal ready to eat) and we also talked to this girl and she talked about how she had only recently turned 18 in March and had joined the military to go into the medical field No way could I do the Army right now, maybe down the road. its something I have definitely thought about, my grandpa is an Army veteran. Then we had our weekly planning and then we went to a church member's house to help him with yard work. it was fun to talk to him, he has unfortunately had some bad things happen to him in the army and he recently got kicked out for something he said he never did. He showed us an engine just sitting in a room in his house which was so cool! over all a sigma day 

March 20th 

Well I graduated missionary training  which was cool 😎  we went to Braums to celebrate which is the go to spot in Oklahoma- if you know you know but its was awesome! sadly today was a slow day so not much to write about other than that.  

March 21st

We had an exchange today. I went with Elder Gold for the day and he actually came out one transfer before me which is cool so we were left to fend for ourselves but we had an awesome day.  We got bashed which was interesting but the dude went from bashing to inviting us into his house and wanting to learn more so idk. He said some crazy things to us. After that we had a heart to heart moment with each other some tears where almost shed on both sides hahaha but it was good to talk with Elder Gold, a good day. 

Well folks that's all for today. This Sunday we have transfers so my p day will be on Monday and I will get to tell you all if I stay in Lawton or go somewhere else which is crazy to think about. This transfer has gone by fast. The work has been awesome 

Shout outs this week: my friend Lexie sent me one of her graduation cards so thats pretty cool 😎Congrats 

Also my mom has been going to the doctor for an abnormal cyst on her pancreas but she has been doing good with no negative results so far. They’re going to watch it for a year and re-check, so that's good. Her ear is healing from her surgery two months ago and she still can’t hear but is hoping that will change soon. 

My nephew had surgery to fix his two hernias last week and he’s crawling all around with his twin and doing good. 

Well, talk to you all on Monday transfer p day!!

Elder Saunders 

The gift of Time

 Greetings, what is up all you fine males and females? Hope you are all doing fabulous. I know that I have been having a great week!  So with that let's get right into this week's letter…

Spiritual thought 

Something that has come up to me is two verses I was reading in 2 Nephi  10:23-24 

And the say. ( 23- therefore cheer up your hearts and remember that ye are free to act for yourselves to choose the way of everlasting death or the way of eternal life”

24- wherefore my beloved brethren reconcile yourselves to the will of god and not to the will of the devil and the flesh; remember after ye are reconciled unto god that it is only in and through the grace of god that ye are saved) i love these two verses! it's important we understand our purpose here on earth. Our time here is only temporary and one day we will go back to live with our Father in Heaven and we have to make an effort here to get back to Him. No one is making us follow Him or have Him in our life but I can promise you both in my own life and seeing in others lives, you CAN NOT AND WILL NOT MAKE IT in this life without Him at the center. He will always stretch out His hand to you to help you!  

Jesus Christ has done so much for us and suffered so much for us and I feel that sometimes we ask for more from Him and expect Him to immediately make us better when we haven’t put forth our own effort to prove we are serious-such as attending church, partaking of the sacrament, reading and praying, keeping the Sabbath day holy and i myself was not the best at all of these things but I have seen how much more joy I feel when he is the center of everything I do.  I lay my head down at each night knowing I made time for Him and I was walking in His path trying to be more like Him. 

My invitation to all of you is 1) to see how much time you give to your Father in Heaven and Jesus Christ and 2) make more time even if that's one more minute of time praying or If there are 2 more verses in your scriptures. Take that time in your morning or at night to draw yourself closer to your Savior!  take time out of your day to make Him part of it. I can promise all of you that as you consistently do so, you will see the joy and see that days become more fulfilling. I have come to see that while on my mission.

Make Time for the Lord talk by President Russell M Nelson~October 2021

April 8th 

P-day!! Super sigma day, we woke up and just chilled around for a little.  Elder Siddoway went back to sleep, he was tired. I was doing my laundry and cleaning our kitchen 😆  later we went bowling again at Thunderbird bowling alley and had a lot of fun. our zone leader Elder Domen bowled a 245!-that's a lot of strikes you need in order to get that score. I did okay, I'm no pro but I'm learning. After bowling we went to some thrift shops and I got a tie and a new shirt and then we went to Atwood's which is basically Oklahoma's version of IFA or cal ranch whatever you want to call it and it was fun to walk around and try out some ropes. I wanted one but too much money but that's OK I got three at home waiting. Also I still have yet to find a site that sells the lamb feed I would give to my lambs during the fair.  all that is sold here is sunglow  show feed, not a bad feed by any means but i prefer the showrite newco  grower feed myself and no one sells it here sadly  but thats OK. 

After all that, I went to the church and chilled out, called my family and hung out with the other elders. 

Over all a good day 

April 9th 

What a day- we had an amazing lesson with our friend Kendra and she is so awesome, she wants to get baptized into our church. She felt like when she was 3 weeks old her baptism never meant anything since she had no say in it and she fully believes in our teachings and wants her 11 year old son to attend church with her and he wants to come! We felt so blessed to talk with her. After that we went and worked at the food bank just cleaning most of the time. other than that just a chill day. 

April 10th 

We went over to our friend Lavonne and helped her clean her house and get it ready for a yard sale and then we went to our friend Robert and taught him about temples. It was so fun to teach him and we are so excited for his baptism coming up. Other than that, a chill day 

April 11th 

Today was a sigma day. We first went to visit our friend Kendra again and taught the gospel of Jesus Christ and she loved it and is willing to do anything to be baptized. God truly has put her in our path at this time! She is ready to make the commitments to God and we are so excited to help her.  Then we went to a super cool German restaurant for lunch that a friend named Craig  took us to and it was such good food but the dessert was soo good! I had German cheesecake so good 10/10 🙌🏼

After that we talked with another friend named Kay Kay and she is bringing her 3 grandchildren to church so that's awesome! After that we went and had dinner with a family member and it was good! It was their version of Chipotle. What a good day, God has truly blessed Lawton. Tomorrow is another exciting day at Fort Sill post and our home ward church. 

April 12th 

3 months down!!!!  21 more months left- light work ladies and gentlemen  but today had its ups and downs. to start off the day we went to the post chapel  was locked so we could not bless and administer the Lords sacrament to the soldiers sadly so we went back to our apartment to do a personal study and it was goods  I finished Nephi 9 after a month since I had been reading slow and understanding the chapter better but now I can start chapter 10 finally.  Then we went to our home ward church for a fast and testimony meeting and we had one friend show up.  Her name is Elizabeth and she loved it so we were super excited about that! After church we had our weekly planning.

March 13th

 It was a chill day. We had our last lesson with Robert before he had his baptism interview and he did really good!  after teaching Robert we visited and walked around all day and had a lesson with our friend Misty and her little granddaughter came running out and give a big hug she was so cute how do you say no to a 3 year old running up to and hugging you, she did it 3 more times that day lol and her grandson jayshawn  wants to be like us when he grows up, he wants to spread the good word to everyone which was so cool and she is also wanting to learn more about the Book of Mormon. Overall, a chill day. 

March 14th 

Today we had an exchange with the Zone leaders. I was with elder Doeman and elder Gold and it was a fun day. We had an amazing comp study at McDonald's and then biked in the rain all day and it was so fun! I love biking in the rain! We ran into some puddles and had so much fun even being soaking wet I was having a blast and it was awesome to learn more about elder doemen and elder gold and then we had Volleyball and it was sigma time overall a good day. oh also got bashed at McDs which was funny but it's okay

 

Well that's all for today folks, keep crushing life ya'll. Jesus loves you! Till next week

Elder Saunders

.

Growth comes unexpectedly

​Greetings, what is up all you fine males and females! I hope all is well and late  Happy Easter!!! Hope everyone had a good time and for those who watched  General Conference I hope all of you got something from it,  I know I did! but let's get right into this week's email 

Spiritual thought: His timing 

This week was different, one thing i have been studying a lot this week was the word hesed ( he-sed) in Hebrew- it translates to covenantal love which is another topic in itself. I will explain in another email another day down the road, I’m still learning.  But this was a word or meaning I was counseled by my Stake president, my brother and my dad to study and to focus on the meaning of this word.  As I have, it was like a light bulb switched on. 

One small struggle I have had has been street contacting. I just say two words and lock up and don't say anything else but since studying this word and its meaning everything is starting to click.  it's so amazing at the timing of when it happened.  Sometimes we have struggles and often ask God or wonder why all these bad things are happening to us but it's important to understand everything happens for a reason- both the good and the bad. All of it was meant for a specific time in our life when we needed it and as we see that picture God is telling us or trying to teach us we soon see all those struggles and trials were for a reason and happened when they needed to happen.  

My invitation is for all those who are going through hard struggles, trials or addictions or any sort of pain and affliction to look at it in the eternal perspective and think this is happening for a reason and I need to understand why and learn from it.  As you realize that your struggles are there for growth everything becomes easier and things don't seem as bad as they look and you find out what you need to learn.

April 1

 p-day! Was a good day! We started off the day just chilling in the apartment & then shopping.  we went to boot barn to get a new belt and then to Walmart and  got some electrolyte flavors for water since it's getting super hot here. Also we got on tornado watch all day so fun fun. Then we went bowling and one elder scored 225, crazy! After bowling we just came back to our apartment and chilled until we had a lesson with our friend Ann.   oh ya also we watched someone blow a barn on fire and she ran but got caught by the cops. Unfortunately the fire got some of the house so super crazy that we got caught in the middle of all of it and watched the firefighters go put out the fire so fun p day. 

March 2 

Super chill day doing service, We helped a sister from church clean her house a little and then afterwards we did service at the food bank!  so that was fun, over all a good day. 

March 3 

Friday was a chill day with a change. Something that happened to me was switched on like a light bulb.  I just started being more bold when talking to people about what I believe and have been saying some bold statements during street contacting.  I feel more myself knowing I can do it with confidence and I owe it all to my Heavenly Father who has blessed me with the ability to talk to everyone and to be bold about what I teach. During lessons with friends I am talking more. All of it feels so amazing! 

We also made a new friend and she is so awesome! Her sister saw us drive by and said, Watch, those missionaries are going to come to us and we need to listen to what they have to say. So we talked to them and she was so excited when we gave her a Book of Mormon to read. Her name is Misty she is super sigma 

March 4th 

Man what an amazing General Conference!  I learned and gained so much from the speakers.  One thing that stuck out to me was to hear all the speakers talk about how its important to minister to everyone, including our families we are assigned to and to magnify our callings.  When we are giving, and this is something my parents  have always expressed to me is whenever you do something you do it all the way- not a half job.  Do as much as you can to your ability even if it's something you don’t fully like, you should still do the best you can. When we are doing our best in our callings it opens the gate to let the Holy Ghost work with us.  After, we went and had dinner with our friend Chuck and invited him to watch General conference and he said he would so that's good. I really liked the talk on ministering from Sister Kristen Yee. She said “If you want to feel grounded, gain a sense of divine belonging and make a real difference in the world, I invite you to follow the Savior and minister in His name.” And Elder Patrick Kearon, “Serving in callings is a choice and an offering to God, helping us grow and join the Savior in his work.”

March 5th 

Sunday started off good, we woke up and headed to Fort Sill Army post. We did a baptism interview for someone who is getting baptized on the bct side.  The other elders in Lawton are baptizing him, it was cool to have a small part in it. We had our service for the ACT side then headed to the church to watch General Conference.  It was another good session! After  conference, we had dinner with some members elder Siddoway knew from a year ago when he was in training. He has served in Lawton before.  After that we just chilled and did our weekly planning.  

March 6th 

Pretty sigma day. We made a friend,  she is a chiller and used to be taught by missionaries but got a new phone so lost contact with the missionaries and we decided to go knock on her door. She actually pulled in the driveway as we knocked and she is willing to learn more. We had another lesson with Robert who showed us his two ferrets he and his grandma have.  They are apparently really good at stealing anything and everything lol after that we just did lots of knocking and walking around but over all a chill day!

March 7th we went on exchanges with the Zone leaders and i was with elder Taylor and elder Gold elder Siddoway went with elder Doeman. we had an amazing day,  taught a lesson and made 4 new friends and they are all chillers and its been good out here in Oklahoma!  We are currently in tornado season so we will see if we see any— low-key, I want to see a tornado.  Unfortunately my mom doesn't want that to happen lol but its ok. over all a good day- loved working with elder Taylor and elder Gold. They are such (Chad's) if you know you know. 

Over all a sigma day 

Well that's all for today folks keep crushing life, no shout outs this week sadly but thats ok one day someone will get one idk when tho but feel free to email me or if you want to send me a letter reach out to me and I will send you my address ps if you send a letter don't write in cursive I can't read cursive. But I love to hear from everyone. 

Ministering—“That Ye Love One Another; as I Have Loved You” | Kristin M. Yee | April 2026