GROUP EMAIL 7/23/2018

Hey everyone! How are you all doing! So I don't think I have said this but for each email I send home I am going to try and say a cool/funny experience, a spiritual thought, and a scripture. Don't worry, these will stay pretty short and if they get too long feel free to send me an email and let me know ;) If you do have any more questions though about my week, you can also send me an email, I just feel that the majority of you don't care to hear about every little thing that happened this week and I don't feel like writing every little thing that happened haha. 

So the really cool experience that happened this week is my companion. His name is Elder Harmon and he is from American Fork. He went to the Air Force Academy for a year and ran track there and was actually the number one freshman for a while. He is a super awesome dude and is super motivated. I am super happy to be his companion. I don't know if my mom has any pictures of me with him (I kind of suck at taking pictures), but if she does she will put them in the email. My district had ten people in it but then one elder went home for reasons we don't know know. There is Elder Wintch from utah, Elder Miller from Idaho, Sister Player from california, Sister Coombs who lived in China for years so she is basically fluent, Elder Bird who also is basically fluent, Elder Evans from Arizona, Elder Tan from singapore (basically fluent), and Elder Harmon. Our district is awesome and I love everyone in it. We are all trying to learn chinese and it has been difficult but all of us can pray and bear our testimony in chinese and we have taught a couple lessons to an "investigator" in chinese. Fun fact, we aren't supposed to call them investigators anymore, they are now, people we teach.

The spiritual thought this week is that everyone needs to sing in church. It does not matter how bad you are at singing. Singing brings the spirit like nothing else in this world and is so awesome. My first day in the MTC we had an orientation with all of the new elders and sisters and had a couple of hymns and everyone sang and I was blown away. It is so amazing to hear and to experience. So everyone sing whenever you can! Also, choir is not meant for those who can sing either. Choir is the same way but I understand if you don't want to sing in choir (; The MTC has been awesome though and singing is sort of underrated and can bring the spirit so much, so if you don't sing, try to next time. If you do sing, try to pay attention to the words a little bit more, singing truly is a form of prayer and brings the spirit.

My scripture for the week is 3 Nephi 11:11. This scripture talks about Christ's atonement and how He suffered the sins for all of us. I like how it says that He is the "light and the life of the world" because without Him, there is no way that we could return back to Heavenly Father with our families. The gospel is true everyone and Jesus Christ truly did suffer for us so that we could have eternal life.

Love you all! 

Elder Vander Linden

PS: I can read emails throughout the week but I can only respond on P days, so if you want to email me, you don't have to wait until Monday's, in fact, it may be easier if you emailed me earlier so that I am not super overwhelmed on Mondays. But do whatever (; Love you guys!