July 24, 2017 in Manchester, New Hampshire

Hello all!! :)
This week has been pretty swell! M. and J. came to church again with their little baby and it was awesome!! :) They are excited to come again next week! We were able to teach J. the Word of Wisdom this week which she readily accepted! Their hoping to be baptized on the 12th of August, which might be changing, but either way they are the coolest! 

M. couldn't come this week, but something cool with that is that she called us and let us know! She also called the lady who was going to give her a ride to apologize! M. is too awesome! :) She couldn't come because she had to work, but she told her boss that she can work all the other 6 days of the week if she can just have Sunday off! We got her some pamphlets this week that are in Arabic, because she reads that better than English. She also hopes to be baptized on the 12th, so keep her in your prayers!

One crazy thing that happened this week was at at the end of an exchange Wednesday night. We were all in Manchester and the other 2 sets of Manchester Elders and we were at a BBQ that a recent convert was having. As we were getting ready to all leave a guy walked up to us and said, "Hey Elders!" He shook all our hands and then started walking back down the street. The Elders picked back up their conversation when I had a feeling to ask who that guy was. I was assuming he was a member I hadn't met yet, or one of the other Elders investigators who I hadn't met since I'm still pretty new around here. I asked though and no one had a clue who he was!! I grabbed Elder P. who has just been out for three weeks and we ran down the street after this guy to see who he was! We caught him and it turned out his name is D. and he use to work with missionaries at a food pantry years ago! He has been having a rough time recently with work and family, and he would love to talk with us more! It was so crazy that there were 8 of us missionaries standing there and a guy literally came up off the street to say hi, and we almost missed the chance to help him! Thank goodness for the Holy Ghost and for good shoes!! ;)

I got to conduct my first Zone Conference this week. I've conducted things plenty of times before with church, Student Gov, and Boys State stuff, so I wasn't nervous, but apparently I don't do so well when running on 3.5 hours of sleep and then sleeping on the floor after 4 hours of driving! I might have accidentally said that I was presiding at the meeting, to which President might have made funny gestures that it was going to my head.  Haha, it was way funny, luckily I caught myself pretty quickly and hey, if nothing else, it was a pretty funny way to start off the meeting! ;)

Hope you all have a great week!!!!!!!
Love,
Elder Branch :)

July 17, 2017 in Manchester, New Hampshire

Hello hello!!!

This week has been so busy. I bet like 90% of my letters say that, but don't check! ;)

So, this week we got to go out and teach a little more which was nice! And last week I promised to talk about people more, so here we go!

We have been working with this really cool couple named M. and J. They are in their 20's and have a cute little girl named H. who is like 2 months old! J. is the daughter of someone else we are teaching, but since we have started teaching M. and J. they have just been flying with their progression! It is amazing, they keep all their commitments and are so fun and nice! I have never seen people on my mission who are better at doing what they say they will. We often have gotten to a lesson and they tell us all about what they read and how much they love it! We gave J. the Plan of Salvation pamphlet last week, and yesterday when we went to teach it, she basically just taught us instead!! Then she decided to give the opening and closing prayer without being asked! They have accepted a baptismal date of August 12th so pray for them!

Ok, real quick Newport Maine flashback! So we were teaching S. and D. who lived in our trailer park. I was so bummed to leave after seeing how well they were doing, but I found out this week that they are going to be getting married and then will get baptized later that week!!!!!!! Haha, I'm so happy!! 😊😊😊 Hopefully I can go up to see their baptism!

The last person I want to talk about is a lady named M. We met her last week in the craziest way!!! So if you remember the kids with the snakes pictures last week, that is where we are starting. We were walking down the street and saw those kids with massive snakes! We stared talking to them and suddenly a lady from a nearby apartment walked up. She asked if we were Mormons, to which we said yes! She said that was awesome because she was originally from South Sudan, but lived in Utah now and was a member of the church! She had joined with her husband 7 years prior, and she was actually looking for the missionaries because her mom who lives at the apartment she had come from wanted to join the church! They had been told there were no missionaries in Manchester, but I guess we proved them wrong!! ;) The daughter was actually only in town for 4 days, so it was crazy we got to meet her! Her mom is M. and she came to church this last week and loved it!! She is going to keep coming and wants to bring her grandson as well, who is actually the one holding the snake! :) Isn't missionary work awesome!?!?

It's been really cool to get to see so many missionaries and work with President Blair. Talk about being busy, you ought to see him!

Well I hope you all have a great week and stay happy!!

Love,
Elder Branch :)

(The first two pictures were texted to us 

from awesome people in New Hampshire!

Thanks Sister G. and ?)

These pictures were from the mission facebook page - thank you!

July 10, 2017 in Manchester, New Hampshire

Hey all!!!

Life is good here in the literal hood! My companion is Elder B. from Canada! He is a really fun guy and is way funny! He's been on his mission for around 18 months now. :) He has been really great at helping me learn what to do!

Our apartment is pretty crazy. It's like living in a big hotel! There is a exercise room in the apartment building which is awesome! I ran a 6:30 mile on the treadmill and want to work on getting under 6 min. :)

It has definitely been crazy busy! I never knew just how much Assistants did until I became one! This week has been abnormally busy and we have been working long hours at the church every night. It has been pretty insane, with helping out departing missionaries, having new missionaries come in, a Fourth of July parade, making travel plans for the whole mission for our meeting with all the Zone Leaders, Sister Training Leaders, and District Leaders, preparing for the meeting, having other meetings with office staff and Mission Presidency, as well as still teaching people and helping them come to church!! Wow, it is insane, but I'm glad to get to help! :)

So I'm super sorry to cut this short but I'm out of time. I'm doing well and life is awesome!! We had some crazy cool experiences that I'll have to write about next week. Even though I was bummed to miss out on all the awesome people getting to be baptized in Newport, we found some crazy cool people here this week and I'm pumped! Pray for M., J., D., and M.! :)

I just wanted to also say sorry to all the people I haven't gotten to write back who have written the past few weeks! Life is so busy but I just want you to know I read what you write and I'm grateful for all you amazing people in my life. :) <3

Love and have a good week!
Elder Hunter Branch :)

Saying bye to Elder C.

Kids with snakes

4th of July Parade

Meetings and pals

A frog that was in a parking lot

Apartment building courtyard

July 1, 2017 Transferred to Manchester New Hampshire Mission Office - will miss so many awesome people in Newport Maine

Hey everyone!

Wow, this has been a CRAZYYYY week! So much has happened and I can't fit it into words, but I'll try my best. There have been so many thoughts, ideas, and feelings, and it is wild to think how many people can relate, but also how no one has really had the same experience. Except of course Jesus who really knows what we are going through. :)

So, we started off the week with a Zone P-day of mini golf and Elder C. was the winner! That night we had a Zone Blitz in Waterville. We had the Waterville Sisters and Elders direct us to some of the people who they knew. Then we all went out to meet people! We had an appointment to have a "Family Night" back in Newport that night with a member family and our awesome S. and D., so Elder C. and Elder L. went back to Newport and I did the blitz with the Waterville Elders! As we were driving to go talk with our people, I saw a man out on his porch smoking and drinking a Dr. Pepper. I had a feeling that we should go talk to him so I asked the Elders if they had seen him. We ended up going back and along the way got to talk with several people who the Elders set appointments with and we got to talk to the man on his porch and testify and teach of truths like that our families can be together forever! The Elders will be seeing him again next week. The next day we had a big combined district meeting that was a really great experience.

So basically this week was a blur! We had exchanges with Rockland, had two friends set baptismal dates, taught a bunch, and had a blast! We taught the Word of Wisdom to S. and D. and they understood it really well! The next time we were at their house their coffee machine brews were all replaced with hot chocolate!! :)

Transfers are this week and we were expecting that the three of us would stay together, since Elder C. and Elder L. only have one transfer left. Our p-day was switched to Saturday and we got to go to Fort Knox with our awesome Branch Mission Leader and his wife, the M's. There is a really cool bridge observatory and when we were a couple hundred feet up at the top our transfer call came! It was pretty epic to be a few hundred feet up looking across the river and getting a transfer call. It turns out the Bangor stake, which was two zones, will be combining into one massive, 14 sets of missionaries, Zone! Elder C. will be staying and will lead that crazy change with one of the Zone Leaders, Elder P., from the other Bangor Zone. They will be staying in Newport which will be sweet! Their Zone, from Farmington to Machias will be roughly 4.5 hours across!! So, that will be super cool! Elder L. will be in another Zone Leader trio in Winthrop with my MTC companion, Elder P.! I will be heading down to Manchester to serve as an Assistant to the President, which is really exciting and crazy and scary! I think anxious would describe it well. Really excited and nervous. :)

S. came to church today for her 5th time, but it was her first time staying all three hours! She had a great time, and later we got to have a barbecue with a few families from the Branch and S. and D., and it was so fun! We taught them about temples after and it was such a great last lesson! I'll be so sad to leave Newport and miss all the awesome things coming up, but I know that the Lord needs me somewhere else. There are currently eight people here who are excited to be baptized, so I'll be excited to see pictures of them all!! :)

Thanks everyone for all you do and the prayers you offer for the missionaries. I sure love you all and hope you have a great 4th!!
Love,
Elder Branch 🎏

(Thank you Brother and Sister M. for the fun pictures 

and your great kindness to the missionaries.)