Letter #72

Oh the joys of being a missionary.. especially during the holidays!!

Thanksgiving was awesome! We went and stopped by a lot of members and it was awesome! Just for fun, Elder Davis and I did weigh in before the day started and after the day was over. It was pretty ridiculous how much food we ate. Elder Davis gained a total of 11 lbs by the end of the day and I gained 7 hahaha! Oh how much I love the holidays. I'm really thankful for a fast metabolism :)

Friday night I got a call from President and I am now going to be a district leader! I'm pretty excited! So I don't know where I'm getting transferred just yet, we should find out later today but I'm definitely going to miss Laredo a lot. I love this place. The members here are so willing to help and ready to do missionary work and there are so many prepared people but I know that God calls us where we need to be and Elder Davis is going to do really well in  Del Mar. 

Love you guys! 

Have a killer week!

Elder Brian

Letter #70

What's up guys!

This week was great! The only bummer is that Kurt didn't show up on Sunday for the confirmation so we will have to figure out what happened and get him back on board. But other than that it was great!

This week I've been studying really hard a lot of chapters that Presidente Maluenda gave me in my last interview. I've read a lot about fasting and I set some good plans to improve my fasting skills. Were you guys able to read about the article that the church put out about Joseph Smith? I haven't yet but I will this week. Its been kind of a struggle, especially for a lot of the recent converts seeing the article, but I know it was put out for a reason and Im thankful for the strong testimony that I have of Joseph Smith and God's church here on the earth today.

Sorry I have like no time. But I love you guys!

Elder Brian

Letter #69

This week was awesome!

 

It was a bit unexpected but still a huge miracle, Kurt got baptized! He was progressing really well, so we had a lesson with him, told him, why procrastinate the day of your baptism? Then committed him to be baptized a week early and it went great! He's loving the church and his wife was able to come too. She's doing really well and is looking to be baptized at the end of this month. I love being able to meet with them, they are such a great family and I love seeing them grow in this gospel. On my mission I've definitely been able to see why the family is so central to God's plan here on earth.

 

This week we also were able to have interviews with President Maluenda. I know I might say this every time I talk about him but words cannot express how spiritually in tune that man is. Every time we are able to receive training from him I know and can feel that he is a true representative of Jesus Christ and this is His work. I know that the leaders of this church are called of God and that if we follow our leaders we will be blessed. Having President Maluenda as my mission president has been a major blessing in my life.

 

So we were leaving Kurt's house one night around 8:30 and we get in the car and as we are driving away all of a sudden the sky lights up and the biggest shooting star/asteroid comes falling down and streams across the sky for like 2 seconds and it disappears. No joke, I thought the world was ending for a second that's how cool it was. And the cool thing was it wasn't just me, some other Elders across town saw it too!

 

Here's some pics from Downtown Laredo!

 

I love the mission and you guys!

 

Elder Brian

Letter #67

What a week! The weather has been really nice down here lately, its actually starting to feel a bit like Fall. That is, its dropped down to the 80's, I don't know if you guys back home would call that Fall weather, but I do here in Laredo.

We had a really good experience last night with one of our investigators, his name is Kurt. He came to church just yesterday and loved it. It was cool cause he just kept saying "I keep getting this warm, peaceful feeling." I love how the spirit works and through those feelings we can come to know if what we are doing is right. Later that night, we stopped by his house and had a really powerful lesson with his whole family. His wife, 16 year old son and 9 year old daughter. We taught about the atonement and what it is that Jesus Christ did for each and every one of us and what we can do to be able to show to Him that we accept that and applied it to baptism and committed them as a family to be baptized on the 16th of November and they accepted! Throughout my whole mission, its been hard to work with a whole, complete family all together. A lot of times we teach broken families, single parents, young kids and I love it, but I'm really excited to be able to work with Kurt and his complete family and watch them progress as a family and support each other through that process.

I don't know if any of you guys have heard about this, but I want you guys to go onto Youtube or online somewhere and look up "Missionary Work and The Atonement" its bits and pieces of talks by Elder Eyring and Elder Holland put together focusing on missionary work and the atonement and the importance of them both. Every time I listen to it it just makes me want to do better! So I invite you all to listen to that this week! 

Life's good! Keep on keeping on!

Love

Elder Brian

Letter #49

Talk about a gnarly week! I'm not gonna lie, Dad, I'm still kinda shaking from that visit from you. Total blindside. So here's my side of the story:

So we get this random call and its a hispanic guy saying he is a long lost member that used to live here in Laredo and loved the missionaries and he had a friend that he would love for us to meet and he said he would like to bring us some food. So my comp gets off the phone, tells me the good news and we were stoked. I asked him like who it was, what his name was and all the deets and turns out my comp never even got his name haha but he said he sounded like a really smart hispanic dude with the way that he talked. So at first, I was like alright awesome. We have some good potential to get a solid new investigator with a solid member to help. So later on, we get a text and it said "Elders how many live in your apartment".... but it was in english. So me and my companion were like, hmmmm. Who is this guy? But we told him and we just went with it. So we get to the apartment and we are waiting and a car pulls up and a guy gets out and he's wearing a Vivint shirt. So i thought it might've been one of the guys that have been working down here. And he says "Elders! I have 2 things for you. Lots of food and....... I want you to meet someone. And right then Dad comes around the corner!! My stomach dropped pretty dang hard. I didnt even know what to think! Haha. It was awesome! I cant believe its been almost a year since i've seen you last. Lets just say, i had a pretty solid journal entry that night and not so good of a nightly planning. haha.

So that was the big crazy news of the week! We are working with a couple investigators, they arent too solid right now, but we'll have to see what happens with them this week. 

Love you guys!!

Elder Brian