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 :)

Oct. 17, 2016 in Exeter New Hampshire

Hey Pals,

The little portable speaker you sent is sooooooooo great, thanks so much!!! :) 

You'd asked about the mission music rules. 

Our music policy had been  that we could only listen to LDS artists, but now we can listen to anyone who has good, uplifting music that brings the spirit! :) Can you guys (my family, but anyone else who wants to totally can too) send me a list of good songs like we had on our Spotify and Pandora!? :). Also can you send me a list of our Christmas playlist?? :) Thanks!

How are the people doing that you're teaching and serving?

Ok, so we had to drop our investigator named P. who we've been seeing a lot. He is a really nice guy, but he doesn't keep commitments  and he will not come to church, so that was too bad. 

We also have a 14 year-old named E. who is interested, we set a baptismal date with him this week! :)  He has to do a lot more learning and feeling the spirit to know that it is true  so he can be totally converted, but he is a really good kid!  

We also have his grandma who I haven't gotten to have a lesson with yet.  We aren't sure if she is super interested, but apparently she is nice.

There is D. who is around 30, he has traveled around a lot and loves God  a ton. He isn't sure about the Book of Mormon but he has started reading it. 

Then we have a bunch of others, actually most of the main people I haven't gotten to mention, but this week was hard for lots of them. Like really hard. I'll talk more about them in the future but for now I will leave them out because the trials they are facing are just heartbreaking. We are trying to do everything we can to help them, but there is only so much we can do.  

It is a blessing that we have the Gospel!!!  I hope we can help these people and get them the Gospel  stronger in their lives because it would bless them so much. 

You got to meet Brother M. - he sent us a picture! How did that happen?

We just had Stake Conference and he came up to me and said he was friends with you on Facebook!! :) We talked for a while and then he asked if we could get a picture to send to you guys! :) He is a way nice guy! ;)

So this week was super fun!! :) We went camping and went to the ocean! haha

We had new trainers meeting this week on Tuesday and Wednesday,  so we went to the Joseph Smith's birthplace in Vermont  and did service, putting up lights, raking leaves, painting cabins, and lots more! We also got to go on a hike and have a fireside... Like literally! :) 

We got all 50-60 of us around a big fire and had a great meeting,  then had marshmallows and hot chocolate! :) 

That night the Elders stayed in freezing cabins that had 2 bunk beds each and were open at the corners with nets to keep bugs out, and the sisters went to apartments, but it was fun!  

The next day we had more training and it was great!  Then we had district meeting the next day, then weekly planning the next day, so we didn't get to teach as much as we'd have liked,  but we still got to teach 8 lessons so not bad.  We would have been able to teach more but because of those investigators challenges we weren't able to. 

So this morning for P-day we went to a lighthouse in our zone, in Maine, and studied out there! It was so pretty, I loved it!  Then we hung out as a zone at the Zone Leader's chapel in Portsmouth, 

it's been a party!! :) 

I hope you all had a great week and I love you all a ton!!!!!! :) 

Please send recipes if you can! 

Love,

Elder Branch :)

Pictures from the new trainer's meeting and service project in Vermont 

at the Joseph Smith Birthplace Memorial - mostly taken by the super great senior missionaries.

P-day pictures at the Nubble Lighthouse in Maine.