Chat!! what is up all you fine males and females? I hope all is going well. I hope life is good and the sun is shining! much has happened here is Oklahoma so let's get into it
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Spiritual thought
Much has happened since my mission began 4.5 months ago and my spiritual thought today is more parts of my testimony. As I have grown and learned more I have seen how important it is to have a strong relationship with God and Jesus Christ. We can use prayers and reading from the Book of Mormon and Holy Bible side by side but attending church is a powerful way to strengthen our relationships with Them, to put Them first. We have 6 days in a whole week to work and do whatever we want, go fishing, swimming, go out with friends, go to partys and God only asks you to take 1 day to put all that on a pause and sacrifice 2 small hours to go to church and to remember what He has done for you and yet we find that so hard to put forth 2 hours a week. And while at church to put forth our best focus. My eyes have been opened and I realize how much I took it for granted in my youth but now I have the time to represent Him every day and to share his love and my love to everyone.
To me its honestly so interesting how people make it sound like its so hard to go to church and they can't possibly fit 2 hours in a week to go to church when I have seen family of 8 with young kids make the time to attend church as well, I have seen single parents who work almost every day make time to attend church
My invite to everyone is to make this following Sunday more sacred. Remember what your Heavenly Father has done for you, remember the sacrifice Jesus Christ made for you and if you have not gone in a long time I invite you to go to church! Make that time- make the time to go to church for 2 small hours of your day and I can testify the love, peace and comfort of the Savior will be with you. Your week will go by better and you will have a break from your crazy life. You will get rest. You will be able to feel the Holy Ghost more to help you discern between true or false things in this world. I say this in the name of Jesus Christ amen.
May 20th
Had a fun prep day-played monopoly like always and then had a cookout with other missionaries in my District– the Claremore elders/ Lake Valley elders/ Ranch Creek sisters and Elm Creek sisters and it was a good time! We had hotdogs and burgers and played some random card game. I have no idea what it was called but it was pretty fun. After that me and Elder Hunting came back to our apartment, cleaned our kitchen and called our familys. Mine was good, I had fun talking to my family but then had to go back to the real world and try figure out some tax things and I did not like it since I really don't care for it right now because I’d rather focus on my mission than tax forms but in other news it was good to talk to my family with the little time I had.
May 21st
Had an awesome lesson with Abigail again and talked over the 10 commandments and 2 great commandments and she loved it. We also answered some questions her mom had since she is a recently activated member, again both are super awesome.
Also I was on exchanges and I was with Elder Ricks, super nice guy fun to talk to- over all a good day.
May 22nd
Not a whole lot to talk about from today, lots of walking and street contacting people. We had a small lesson with our friend tonda but outside of all of that, it was a good day
May 23rd
Same old same old walking and talking with lots of people but it was a fun day. We had dinner with some members of our ward and they are the Buchanans and a super nice family. They have a daughter in the Kenawick Washington mission so I asked if their daughter knew Sister Atkinson (who is an awesome friend I grew up with and also was in my home church ward) they said they would ask her on her prep-day when they get to call. So super cool but overall a good day.
May 24th
Sunday, golden day! Our ward had an awesome sacrament meeting and also Abigail asked Elder Hunting to baptize her and asked if both of us would be in the Priesthood circle to confirm her a member of Christ's church and bestow her with the gift of the Holy Ghost. So super, super fun times ahead. After church we had a ward potluck, we had lots of food and got to talk to all the members so that was super awesome. After that we did our weekly planning and ya not too much to talk about after that, but a good day .
To learn more about the Holy Ghost, click here
May 25th
Man oh man, special day today! First off we had a lesson with Abigail and it was super awesome. We showed her the baptismal font and where she will go on the day of her baptism and went over the Word of Wisdom and the Law of Chastity. Turns out that she loves sweet tea. It was a little hard for her to think about giving it up at the beginning of the lesson but at the end she was on board not to drink it at all. So it’s all good and then we asked her mom, Rachel, how she was doing on my covenant path and she said it was going good. She has been reading a lot, so awesome. We also made a new friend named Johnny and he is a super awesome guy and we are teaching him on Thursday. After that we headed to dinner at a home of some of the members of our church. It was an awesome dinner with the Thaka's, they are awesome people and after that we went to Claremore to start another exchange with our Zone leaders. But remember how I said my friend Sister Atkinson was in Kennewick Washington Mission? well Sister Buchanan messaged us and said if its the same sister Atkinson I was talking about, her daughter is training her on the mission which was so cool to hear, small world 🌎
May 26th
Chat we had a zone exchange and me and Elders Hunting, Byum and MacIntyre all cooked up 😎 i was in Skiatook with Elder MacIntyre and we cooked up big time and made a possible new friend. Her name is Chloe. she was in a rush when we talked to her but asked if she would be interested in learning more of the BOM and she said yes and her and her husband have talked to both of us in the past so hopefully we can talk to her more. we had a lesson with devin and went over all 15 steps of the stop smoking workshop and he was committed to do it. pls keep him in your prayers to help him with this next week. We had a meal with the Bair family from church and they are all awesome. they have 4 kids who are all goofy but so awesome and then we drove to Owasso to end our exchange and then drove back and I clocked out at 10:12 which is crazy idk how I was going to bed at 11:55 before my mission but such a fun week!
Alright yall that's all I got for today and for anyone who did not get on my Google Photos last week to see I got a second mission call to continue my mission in the new Oklahoma Tulsa Mission! It's going to be awsome😎😎😎💰💰💰 but have a fabulous week and hope you all are safe in life bye bye for now
Elder Saunders
The Need for a Church | Dallin H. Oaks | October 2021 General Conference