Aug. 13, 2018 in Ellsworth, Maine

Hello all!

This week has been great! Lots of driving, as is standard in upper Maine. We had our friend C. accept a baptismal date!! :) He and CJ both came to church again which was great! One of the members did a great job befriending C.! He got his number and asked C. if he could come help work on his boat, then he’d take him out for lunch. They did that and it was SOOOO awesome! :) I love members.  :)

We have been starting an effort to see and help more members do missionary work. This week we got a call from the Elders Quorum President (one of the men’s leaders in the church) and he said that he and his counselors are going to start setting one night aside a week to go contact people who haven’t been to church recently and let them know we love, care, and miss them! They would love it if we’d come with them! That will be so awesome for this ward!!

Our young couple, J and M are so close, they just missed church this last week. I hope we can give them a baptismal date this week. They are a family that will be so blessed by the gospel! We had a few really great lessons this last week which we could feel the spirit so powerfully during! :)

Well, I LOVE being a missionary. 😆 I can’t believe it’s been two years. I am so amazed by all I’ve learned and become. I’ll just close by saying I know God makes true on his promises. Don’t be afraid to go search for truth! God has given us a divine process to find out. I know Heavenly Father loves us and that He sent His Son to suffer for us and atone for sins. He LOVES us all so much and wants us to love, grow, and learn! :)

Love,
Elder Branch

Apr. 24, 2018 in Ellsworth, Maine - Transfers...

Aloha!

So, transfers have come again but I get to stay here in Ellsworth! Elder Powell will be heading over to Lamoille Vermont and I will be receiving a new companion, Elder Dayley! It’s always sad to have a companion leave, I’ll miss Elder Powell for sure! Elder Dayley is from Idaho and I know him a little, so I’m excited to get to know him better!

We had a great week again. :) Some good exchanges (one in Machias [near the most Eastern part of the continental United States] and they had really good Mexican food! There are some workers who come up to pick blueberries and they opened a little take out place!)

K. came to church and we accidentally scared her this week by sending her a spiritual video that had a snake in it, and unbeknownst to us, she HATES snakes!  It’s ok, she survived though.

A lady who hasn’t come to church in a long time who we’ve been visiting came to church! Her daughter who’s in her 20’s who isn’t a member came as well! It was great to have them there for the first time in years, and they loved being back! :) She Plans to come again next week.

J. is good! He usually has lots of questions when we go to meet, but this time he just said, “Tell me more about your church!” He loved church last week, plans to come check it out more, and his big thing is he wants a family centered church. Well, welcome to the right place! ;)

N. had to watch kids this Sunday, but he’s also doing super well! He said he can’t be at church every Sunday right now, but definitely every other! We had a great lesson together too. Back when we had our first visit, he said he just wanted to check out the church for support and wasn’t going to convert, now he’s reading and praying about the Book of Mormon to see if this really is Christ church on the earth again.

P. was out of town (which we didn’t know) so we were afraid we were losing him. He sent us a really nice text though and is still going strong.

We met the coolest young married couple the other day! We usually find several new people to visit each week, some who start to go places, and others who we struggle to see again, but of all we found last week, these two definitely got me the most excited! Hopefully we’ll be seeing them again tomorrow!

There are tons of Jamaicans moving into Bar Harbor to work for the summer. Last week we went to an appointment with a cool young guy but he couldn’t meet then, but as we walked down the street there was an apartment that just had the screen door closed and were blasting some hip-hop. Elder Powell and I went right over and crashed the party! We talked to a lady who is working here, but who’s family is back in Jamaica, and she turned the music right off. We had a great time getting to know her and as we taught she was so excited to learn more about Jesus Christ’s ministry in America as well! At the end we all knelt to pray and she called over to one of her roommates who was on the phone, telling her to hang up and come join in prayer! We should all have that attitude in inviting others to the Lord! :)

Today for a final Pday with Elder Powell we got permission to get up early so we could catch the sunrise in Acadia! It was awesome! We hiked all morning and went a little over 10 miles! 

Hope you all have a great week,
Love, Elder Branch

July 31, 2017 in Manchester, New Hampshire

Hello hello!!
This has been another great week! It feels like the most relaxed one I've had this transfer, which is funny because we still had a Zone Conference in Vermont,

New Missionary and Trainers Meeting also in Vermont, and 2 exchanges! 

I got to go to Lowell on one of them which was wild!! Lowell just got added to our mission a couple months ago, and it is bigger than Manchester! I was there with a missionary who has only been out for 3 weeks and that was really cool to be with someone so new and excited and nervous! :) That was me almost a year ago! I have been refreshing on Spanish a bit for kicks! Yesterday I actually got the opportunity to invite someone to learn and got their information in Spanish to refer to the Spanish elders here in Manchester! That was pretty neat! :) 

The other exchange was with Elder B., my trainer!! He is a Zone Leader in Vermont now and only has 8 weeks left on his mission! That was pretty wild and fun to be with him for the day. :)

This week M. accepted a baptismal date for September 2nd! It was so cool, M. is the best! M. was playing in a soccer game this week so we went to support him and get to meet people. It was fun to be around a soccer field and feel the energy of a game, I wanted to get out there and play too! :) The game ended up not being the best place to get to talk to people because they were too into the game. We did get to talk to M. for a while though so it was good. We had to leave pretty quickly because we had another lesson, but it turned out M.'s team won! The family all went out and celebrated after and apparently they were out till 3 in the morning! They were all supposed to come to church, but it started and no one was there! We were way bummed because we thought we would have around 7 people there with M.'s family and M. and E., but they all had stuff come up. But like five minutes into the meeting M. walked in! He said he just had to come to church! :)  He loved church again and everyone is getting to know him and wants to come help with his lessons! :) 

We met this awesome guy named L. this week because we were walking down his hall and heard him playing Sonic the Hedgehog loud enough we could hear it from the hall. At first he only seemed like he was indifferent whether we came back or not, but when we came back for our return appointment he was awesome! We explained how after Jesus left and the apostles were killed off that the church was lost and those truths slowly got broken down, so the world went into apostasy. L. was like, "Ya I see that today. After Jesus left it was like one of those chain letters getting retyped a few times and it kinda lost its original meaning without the prophets." We were so blown away that he was able to understand that and explain it so well back to us, what a guy! :) He understands the importance of acting on what we teach because he wants to see if Gods promise is true, that if you seek and ask, having faith and repenting, then God will answer your prayers and let you know!

This week will be our most calm of any weeks so far so I'm looking forward to it! There really is something so cool about being able to work all day to help people learn of their Savior!

Today is also Zone Pday which is always a blast!

Sure love you all, have a super week!!
Love,
Elder Branch :)

Check out this video from our training about how to be brave and open our mouths and share...

Bravery in opening your mouth video - click here...

Mar. 6, 2017 A horrid week of sickness

Hey family!

I am better! It was horrid, we went out and worked everyday though, I think I only rested for an extra 2 hours on the second day. It probably wasn't a very good idea for that whole getting better thing we're supposed to do, but if you rest cause you're sick as a missionary you basically feel disobedient and lazy and like you just need more faith, so I didn't rest. Haha ;) But on day five of eating very little and being sick I called the mission nurse and she told me some specific meds to get and foods (hence the charge on my home card) and I got better the next day. :) Thanks for all you guys do, I sure love ya all! :)

I love what you did with my... Z.'s room!! :) It looks so cool! :) I'm thinking if I get a pillow like Z.'s mission pillow all it will say is EXETER and NEW HAMPSHIRE! ;) 

The ward is joking about how they paid the President off to keep me here my whole mission, and how they are going to change my call to the "Exeter New Hampshire Mission". ;) It is crazy how much I have grown to love the ward, and how much they love us! :) It is wonderful, it makes me start to cry to think about leaving here! :)

Well, I hope you all know I love you SOOOOOOO much, and that I miss you a TONNNNNNN! I am so terrified to think my mission is already 1/4th the way over and that I'll have to go back home someday, but also so excited for that time when I'll get to see you all and all my other friends again! I have already learned so much and am so excited to keep learning! Thanks Dad for your cool insights!! I love hearing about what you are learning, and thank you so much Mom for keeping me up to date on what is going on with the family and others! :) Thanks also for sending me pictures, I look forward to those each week! :) Know that you are doing so much and helping so many people. Like I had said before, I think in a letter to E., I sure love you mom and dad and thanks for all you do and did to help us kids. As I've seen so many different families and talked with companions, us kids were SOOOOO blessed to have to as parents, and I hope I can be even half as great as you guys are!  <3

Sure love you too Z. and E.!!! I'm glad you're doing well with school E.! I still think back a bunch to all the fun things we did and how close we got, especially that last year! :) I miss going to Taco Time to go get food with you, those were some of my favorite memories! :) Also when we got banned from going to Walmart by mom and dad cause we almost knocked over the bagels when I was pushing you on the cart (which was still a bad idea and we shouldn't have done it)... it was still pretty dang funny!!!   :)

And Z., I hope you know I sure love ya and I think about what it must have been like for you on your mission all the time! There is so much that happens that I learn and experience and I hardly get to tell you all about any of it, and I'm stoked for when I get home and can learn more about your mission. I sure respect the heck out of ya for serving and I have always been grateful for your example. :)

Sure love you all SOOOO much!

Elder Hunter Branch :)

Nov. 28, 2016 in Exeter, New Hampshire

Hey there!

I'm so sorry, we had a crazy P-day so we had to split up e-mail time. We had our studies and did laundry, then took our car to Portsmouth to get an oil change and tires rotated this morning, then had zone interviews at the Portsmouth chapel, and then had to leave to help rake leaves for a family, then had Taco Bell with the I.'s, then we got hair cuts!

So this week J. is doing well, she got really sick which was sad but she is coming along. The stake is putting on Handel's Messiah this week so we are hoping to have her and a bunch of others there!

We are teaching a boy in Seabrook who is way cool! His name is E. and he is 14. I don't remember if I had told you about him. He is really nice and we hope he'll be able to come to church soon!

Thanksgiving was so fun with the C.'s!! Their whole family was there and it was great!! :)

I got to meet D.'s friend, the General, this week and he was awesome!! He has lots of cool memorabilia and we got to have a great talk about family! :)

I'm sorry it was such a crazy P-day, next week should be better! We have transfers next week and from the way it is sounding from interviews today Elder B. is leaving and I'll be taking over the area, so we are excited about the future but bummed because we have a good time together!

Love you all so much!!
Elder Branch :)