Hello all! Welcome to the archives of Brayden's mission newsletters! He was called to serve in the Farmington, New Mexico mission. He reported to the Provo MTC on November 19th, 2014 and left to Farmington on December 1st.
Monday, October 5, 2015
Tuba City!
For those of you who have been recently added, this is the mass email of Elder Sandberg. Full of spiritual insights, experiences, and funny stories. If you like being on the list, please remain, otherwise, let me know! :D
Tuba City is a new experience. I can tell that the Lord is really trying to stretch me when I look at the events that have transpired-
First, the Lord put me on the reservation as my first area. I got used to the idea that I would be working among nothing but the Navajo people. Absolutely love the culture and the people.
Then the Lord decides to drop me in the white man land of "Monticello". The culture I was used to in the first area, was taken out from underneath me. Went through some trials with figuring out why I was back in the home state I was from. After much soul searching, I figured out exactly why I was there and fell in love with where I was at. A good chunk of my heart is made up right now of the people of Monticello..
Elder Sandberg is back on the rez! BAck with the amazing people of the Navajo tribe (and also Hopi), and I feel I have come back to the rez a completely different person. It's easy to see that the Lord has been refining me and taking me out of my comfort zone.
Despite all the changes that are going on, I am incredibly grateful. I'm grateful because this is exactly what I wished for with the mission. It has become my goal, with being a representative of Jesus Christ, to leave everything behind. With the life that I once lived, and with the Lord rescuing me from my pitiful existence, I owe a lot. My goal is not to just lose myself, my goal is to kill the person that I once knew. To completely become a new creature in Christ and become a disciple of Him. The past is what defines me, the present it what upholds me, and it is the future that inspires and motivates me to become who He would have me to be.
This experience has, and will be the single most defining event of my life. Everything I worked towards when I first knew the church was true, almost five years ago, in a grove of trees, was towards a mission. Through every obstacle I have had to overcome, and they have been many, it has been the mission that my eyes have been focused on. Right now, I don't fully realize the impact this experience is going to have on my future, but more and more each day I taste of what it will be like to reap the rewards of my efforts.
I love you all so much. Our lives are too often defined by the things of the world and the magnitude thereof. It has become my earnest witness and testimony that the true value of life, is found in that of our relationships. There are only two things in life, from what I understand, that we will take with us to the next life. It is going to be our knowledge we have gained, and the relationships we have defined and built.
Thank you all for making my life a success. Thank you for making it so easy to have such success. I am forever indebted to the life that I have been given with each of you in it.
Forever in the service of you and our Savior Jesus Christ,
Elder Brayden James Sandberg
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