Dec. 5, 2016 in Exeter, New Hampshire A new companion...

Hi guys!!!

It's been an exciting week! J. is pretty great! The stake preformed The Messiah this week and J. and The General came to it! :) It was so fun!! She was sick for church but she is doing really well! :)

E. is a sad case, we were worried about what would happen with him because he doesn't have really any support at home, he has a hard family situation. We talked with President Blair about him in interviews too and President had the same concern. E. also has a really hard time reading, and the children's copy of the Book of Mormon we ordered for him a month and a half ago never came in, so he hasn't made any progress reading. This week when we stopped by, his grandma who seemed kinda out of it.. answered and said she didn't think E. was interested anymore. :( So whether that is the deal, or whether he has no support in the Gospel at home, we had to stop teaching him. Missionaries will have to go by in a few years and hopefully then E. can have a fair chance to find out the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

We are visiting The General about once a week, and other than that we have a bunch of people we don't get to see that much. The people here are very blunt and not overly friendly as a whole, so it can be pretty hard to get in with people, but we will keep trying. We want to do more finding again because there aren't a lot of solid people we are teaching right now.

I am doing pretty well, it is fun to be serving a mission! I bought a bunch of winter gear this week, so hopefully I'll be fine in the cold! It was 24 last night as we were walking around! :)

So I just finished training today, and so we have transfers now! We're sad, but Elder B. will be leaving Exeter and going to Oxford, Maine. It has been really cool and touching to visit people and see what a difference Elder B. has made in the area, since he will be leaving tomorrow morning. Elder B. said he didn't really get to know the members until I came cause then everything was just fun and we could be ourselves, so I'm glad I got to come here and serve with him! :) Exeter still needs a lot of work, but he has laid a great foundation to rebuild the area! :)

I was called as the District Leader right out of 12 week training - pretty crazy! My new companion will be Elder C. who came out with Elder B., so he has been out for a year and three months.

I sure love you all and hope everything is going well! One cool thing from this week is that S. (who got baptized a little while ago) was asked by his 9 year-old daughter to baptism her this week! :) It was so cool! He is going to have her take the lessons first and he's going to talk to her mom, but it is cool to see her desire already as she has seen the change in her dad! :)

Love you all again!
Elder Branch :)

The I.'s are the real deals, we really have awesome people in this ward! :)

They had a farewell dinner for Elder B. because he was being transferred.

 Transfer meeting 

(pictures from the mission facebook group)

  

Our Christmas Tree

My new companion, Elder C., taken during an video by Sister Blair about #lighttheworld

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.