June 27, 2016 in Statesville, North Carolina

Well hello hello familia!

N. is doing great! She is living with the Bishop's family now and is looking forward to her baptism on the 9th. :)

Our bishop is really supportive of us missionaries and the ward missionary program is getting running too! Elders T. and H. got lots of referrals from the ward. I found out our ward mission leader (who is also the bishop's son-in-law and served in this mission about 7 years ago) started his mission in Catawba. So we had some fun conversation there :)

J. unfortunately dropped us this week after his Pastor threw down. :(

E., the person we work with at Rescue Ranch is possibly going to meet with us! She found out that some of their best friends they have over in Winston where they live are Mormons too! They are also going to come to a Luau thing that the family members of the Raleigh NC mission president are putting on in Greensboro and in Charlotte. It's going to be super neat, and D. plans on going with us too. He's doing great and gave away his first Book of Mormon this week! Aw yeah!! So yup, life is good here.

We may have a new friend to teach named B. this week, just pray that she will be interested.

Thanks, sure love ya!

Elder Branch

June 13, 2016 in Statesville, North Carolina

Hey there!

I'm 20! No longer a teen! You asked if I feel any different? Nah, not really.

Anyways, I realized this morning that I only have one month left. And honestly each day it gets closer I get less excited. Maybe that will switch during the last few weeks, but for now I guess I'm like "I can be normal for the rest of my life! I only have one month left to be a missionary! And that right there is a sad thought.

J. is doing great! He is still reading, and this week we were able to read some with him. That went really well! He had said that he was having some trouble understanding, but after reading first Nephi 16 with him all about Lehi's vision, he really enjoyed it! He said he understood it really well and it is interesting him a lot! On top of it, he actually asked his pastor about going to our church and the pastor said it was fine as long as we taught about Christ. So keep praying for him.

N. is also doing good, though she had a real hard week this week. She wasn't going to come to church, but the Bishop's wife texted her and encouraged her that hard weeks are when we need to come most. She agreed and came, though it was tough for her. She is moving in with 2 sisters in the ward, so we are going to be able to teach her a couple times, which is nice :)

D. took us to work out with him on my birthday. We got permission to go with him to the YMCA and we did a tabata class, which means that we bounce back and forth between circuit work-outs (which are tough but I like), and exercise bikes (which are absolutely awful, because the trainer is driving you hard). At the end of the workout I all of a sudden got light headed and almost fainted. I rested and drank gatorade and water, and ate a granola bar that the trainer lady
brought. I got feeling better, and later that day gave a baptismal interview. That was super fun! D. went out with us a couple times later on in the week and it went great! He's the best!

You asked about district activities. As far as the district goes, we are too spread out to do district activities every week, but we do at least 1 district activity and 1 zone activity a transfer. Today though, for p-day, we are at the church and playing games with D. :)

You asked about the new "My plan" online training. It's really interesting, essentially you take 1 class per week and it includes videos and quotes and places for you to answer questions. I actually really like it. This week I am suppose to be signing up for institute, and 3 of the teachers are Brother Crimin (10th and 11th grade seminary), Brother Hardy (9th grade seminary), and Brother Craven (President Craven's brother)! Wahoo! So btws, what does my school schedule look like again so I can register for institute? Thanks :)

Thanks again, sounds like a blast of a week! Sure love y'all! :) :)

Love,
Elder Branch

May 31, 2016 in Statesville, North Carolina

This week we had a super big blessing of referrals! I think all in all, we received 6 from church headquarters, and 3 have become new investigators! The one I feel the most confident with is a man named J. He lives out in the boonies and ordered a Bible but was also interested in the Book of Mormon. The man is pretty elect and prepared by God. He has quite smoking, drinking, and drugs. He absolutely loves going to church AND reading the actual word. :D What more could you ask for!? He committed to read the Book of Mormon and if he finds out it's true he said he would be baptized! Hooray! Pray that he will keep his commitments :)

We saw the M.'s on Monday night right before she had her eye surgery. Since then though we haven't seen them, so we will get back in contact. We gave her a blessing on Monday and that was good.

C. seems to be coming around to feeling the spirit, but their work is still keeping them from church.

Sister T. still hasn't been coming. She sleeps in or has a bad headache the morning of church but she'll get there.

D. is getting less stressed even though nothing has really changed. Thanks for praying for him and his family. We'll keep it up.

I am beginning the "My Plan" training courses this week, because I'm starting my final transfer. (What!!!??!?!?!?!?!) We had interviews this last week so that was awesome! That being said, lets get into some transfer business!!!!

So going into transfers on Tuesday, two of the four of us Elders in Statesville are staying and two are leaving - one has finished his mission and is headed home. The other, Elder P., is being transferred to Charlotte. My companion, Elder H. is taking their area with a brand new companion that he'll be training. He is super nervous, but excited. I'll have our area and will have a new companion, Elder B who's been out for 15 months. Exciting times! We all have some good people to start teaching and it sounds like we have a really good district this coming transfer.   :)

Thanks for all you do!

Love ya!
Elder Branch

The fattest tie there ever was!

May 23, 2016 in Statesville, North Carolina

Life is going good! We found some really good people this week through referrals and personal contacting. The M.'s are doing well, but they still haven't come to church. We are going to see them tonight in order to give P. a blessing before some eye surgery tomorrow. Brother L. was able to go and read the Book of Mormon with them which was also good. But they still need more! Please pray for them :)

Another family, the C.'s, haven't been coming to church since being baptized mostly because of their work schedule. Recently that changed though and they have been doing good at coming, and are even ready to work towards the temple! Unfortunately, Satan doesn't want that to happen, and everything crazy and bad that could happen has been. So please pray for them too, they could use the help!

D is doing okay though he hasn't been to church for 2 weeks. He hasn't lost his testimony, it's been some hard times though. He will be at church this week though, as it is Elder H.'s last week. Elder H. will be singing a solo, and during 3rd hour we will be teaching.

All in all, there are many miracles happening, and even more ready to come! Sister T. is still struggling to come to church :/ But lots of good is on the way!

Thanks for the fun emails :) I sure love ya!

Love,
Elder Branch

May 16, 2016 in Statesville, North Carolina

Hello Everyone!

This week was crazy busy but so fantastic in the end! C. got baptized! I think one of my favorite parts was when we saw C. hug her Mom while us Elders sang a special musical number. The confirmation went well the next day too.   :)

D. is struggling to understand the Godhead, and is pretty set on the Trinity, so her baptism is off for now. We had a really good lesson with the M.'s, then on Friday, they came to the church for a church tour, and we had a lesson in the chapel. That was a good lesson too, we were able to read Alma 32 and they are coming along. They couldn't come to church this week, but they said they could come next week!

Sister T. is doing good, and she also plans on coming to church next week! Hurray! I love it when great things happen with the people we teach!

Things are on the up and up here, and we are seeing great things from the members. They pray for missionary experiences often, and even pray for us by name. We love them!

All in all, life is great! Thanks for everything! LUVS!

Elder Branch

C.'s happy day!   :)

May 9, 2016 in Statesville, North Carolina

Hello everybody! 

Happy Mothers day to all, it was a blast to talk to you, family! What a fun fun time. I don't have much time today, and we talked yesterday, so I will keep it short.

Wow, what a week! I had so many tender mercy moments, from seeing Dw. be baptized to talking to our families, to having lots of friends come to church. Our area is definitely improving, and we are mostly aiming on finding more people to teach even though we have lots of other things going on. 

C. is doing well, both her and her mom came to church so she will be getting baptized this Saturday! That means we have 1 big huge awesome week ahead of us, trying to plan that and finish up the lessons, so please pray for that!!

D. is also doing well and hoping to be baptized on the 21st or 28th, but if it is later that will be ok. We cut down some trees for her this week and got poison Ivy, but we were able to shower right after and use soap and never got the rash. Hooray!!

Service has also been fun at Rescue Ranch and Yokefellows, we haven't been to 5th street in a while though.

Some of the biggest news took place Friday and Saturday. Dw., the other Elders investigator, got baptized!!!!! His family has struggled with it but he knew it was true and got baptized! Please pray for his family. At the baptism, while Elder H. and L. were doing a musical number, the piano player lost all of his sheet music in the middle of the song! Luckily I had stayed on the stand and was able to grab it. He did an amazing job keeping the song going even while I was grabbing the sheets, the Elders didn't even know he lost the music! 

After Dw.'s baptism, we were having a luncheon and a random guy was walking past the church and said he felt lead to it by the spirit! Turns out he has been less active for years, but all of his family are not members. As a result, the other Elders now have 3 new investigators! How about that!

On Sunday Dw. was able to be confirmed and receive the Holy Ghost, and should get the Priesthood this Wednesday. The Alexanders (mission president and wife) came to see that happen at Sacrament, and as a result they also saw my Mothers Day talk. That in and of itself was miraculous, considering I didn't finish writing it until Sunday morning, and our church was at 9:00am. I had literally only read through it once, and I ended up praying my way through. I prayed probably 60 times that morning that it would be personal and spiritual, and Heavenly Father did not disappoint! I cried a couple times through the talk, especially when talking about the Savior, and mom. It turned out great I was just grateful that Heavenly Father helped so much! He's great!

Anyways, that is about it for the week, but it sure was good! I love ya!

Elder Branch

May 2, 2016 in Statesville, North Carolina

Hello! It's a great day, cause I hear from you guys! :)

(Shorter letter this week because he wrote lots to Hunter about preparing for his mission.)

Elder H. (not the Elder H. my companion) got sick for like 3 days so we did some splits with Elder P. so that he could still get out and see their investigators. All in all, our main people we are working with are still solid and on date, and the other people are not. Only interesting new development is that D. called us crying today saying that she has been wanting the gift of the Holy Ghost super badly, and wants her baptism to come even sooner than the 28th! We are seeing her tonight, so pray that she will be able to keep all her commitments without any hiccups! Thanks again for your prayers, we sure appreciate it.

Our other friends are doing well too, a few are hoping to come back to church this coming week. We got to go see some of them this week with Brother M. He is a Pit Man for Nascar!  It was pretty fun.

Thanks again for the email! 

Love ya!
Elder Branch :)

This was at rescue ranch. 

I don't know why my face looks concerned, 

cause I actually love snakes, but oh well!

April 24, 2016 in Statesville, North Carolina with a new companion

Hello All!

Wow, what a transfer friendly week this has been! It's been lots of fun! This week's adventures start with my new companion, Elder H.!  I really appreciate his drive and skills. He is a great missionary. He has been out almost 1 year, and was trained by Elder S., who came out with me from the MTC. He is from Kaysville, and his cousins are actually the W.'s (Like E. and L. from NDPA/NUAMES). He did robotics throughout high school and is planning on doing that for his living. We are getting lots of things done, and I have lots of faith for this area. 

So on to the area, the B.'s are planning for C. to be baptized on the 14th, and they came to church again! Keep praying for them, please.

We got to teach the M.'s twice, and the husband was there for both. They both started off telling us about some theory from revelations and science that this planet called Wormwood is going to crash and kill the earth. We were able to turn things back around into important doctrines, and actually had a super good lesson! C. is super interested now, and really wants to to find out if it is true. It was great! Please pray for them.

We gave sister T. a blessing this week and she liked that. She also started listening to conference, and was planning on coming to church but got a major headache at 4 in the morning on Sunday. So pray that her headaches will go away!! 

Finally, the day after Elder E. got transferred, we went to Rescue Ranch and the only thing they could find for us to do was to take the two tortoises outside and watch them while they explored and ate grass. EJ, the lady that runs it, felt super bad that Elder E. missed it by one day! Poor fella. It was super fun though, wild tortoises are much more entertaining than captive ones. Apple, the
small one, kept eating rocks. We weren't sure if that was good, so we would move him to the middle of a big patch of grass. Tiny, the huge one, just got angry at life and hissed at us when we tried to keep him from getting hit by cars. (Well, either that, or him trying to cause a wreck to kill people, which was actually probably his main goal. He was rescued because he was killing other tortoises. He's a crazy guy!)

Well, that's about it here! Thanks for the fun email!! I sure love y'all, thanks again! :D

Elder Branch

Saying goodbye to Elder E.

Video of helping Tiny the 150lb. tortoise

My new companion, Elder H.  =D

April 18, 2016 in Statesville, NC

Hello All,

This week we had a mission tour with Elder Zwick. He and his wife are super super amazing speakers!!!! They had some wild crazy stories from the missions they have been on. There was lots of good council too.

A.'s baptism went really well! His family is having very hard times right now though so please pray for them heavily!

We took Elder E. to East Coast Wings for his birthday (which is delicious!) We got transfer calls and Elder E. will be going up to Burlington. I will be staying here with an Elder H.

We had some good teaching appointments this week too. We didn't get to see the P.'s, but we did see the other D. who has been attending church, and she came to stake conference this week! Also, the B.'s came!!!! :D We spent 2 days there this week helping clean her house because the government was threatening to take C. away if it wasn't cleaned. We found tons of mold in the fridge, which explained why they were sick all the time. But since it is clean, everything is good and they were able to come. We are always working on finding more people here, and we expect some mighty miracles this coming week!

Other fun parts of the week included going to a Rescue Ranch volunteer appreciation dinner. Rescue Ranch is the place we volunteer that has tons of 'exotic' animals they take care of (tortoises, lizards, snakes, etc.) The had a dinner this week and we got to go. At it they were doing a casino based thing, but instead of real money we played for tickets to put into a raffle. Elder E. and I had no clue what we were doing, and the other Elders (who knew how to play) hadn't showed up yet, but the lady that runs the place showed us some of how to play roulette, so we did that for a little bit. It was fun, but probably the weirdest dinner for missionaries ever... haha.

Probably the funnest random thing we did this last week was on Saturday, we got invited to go with D. to a city celebration for Arbor day. We went on a 2 mile run, and then we got the chance to play bubble soccer for a couple minutes! It was pretty great! Ill send you some videos.

Well, that about covers it for this week. Thanks for the fun emails! Thanks so much for all your help! You're great! I love you :)

Elder Branch

ps...Hunter!! You got your mission call!!! Wow, I was so excited! Actually, Elder E. had just barely added mom and dad on facebook when you opened your call and they made the post about it, so I saw it and was freaking out for like an hour and a half. Haha, I am super excited for you, you will love it. It's fun that we are both on the east coast, too bad you're a durn Yankee ;P Haha, congrats Brother. Hey, when you have questions about what to buy, keep me involved, I have 60 bazillion pointers or things I learned since serving that I think will help when shopping and preparing and stuff. I'm glad we have a month and a half, we can do a mini 12 week program, except in 6 if you want :) Congrats again, I sure love ya!

A.'s baptism day!

Bubble Soccer Video

Elder E. 

 This gentleman goes home this transfer! I'll miss him

EJ runs the Rescue Ranch 

April 11, 2016 in Statesville, NC

Howdy!!Our area is going well but we figured out our apartment had mold. 

Adding to the apartment horror stories that are the last 6 months of my mission, on Tuesday, Elder H. and I were on exchange. As we were going to bed (Aka: talking for like 3 hours, and then sleeping), Elder H. asked what was up with our windows. Previous missionaries had put up these foam boards with tarps covering them to cover the windows so that no light came in.

Anyways, he took a look behind the tarps, and lo and behold, black mold everywhere. The worst window was the one that is right next to my head when I was sleeping, which was a big cause of allergies and sickness that has plagued us this whole transfer. So that being said, we actually felt pretty accomplished that we were able to still teach quite a few people while also cleansing our apartment. Hooray! Miracles!

This area has so much potential, I can feel it. We had a great lesson with a new couple this last week named the P.'s and it was a good faith builder. Their first names are D. and D. We had received a Book of Mormon referral for her back at the beginning of this transfer (over a month ago), and had tried calling the phone number a couple times and never got in touch. We had their street they lived on, but not the actual address. One day we went to the street, prayed that we could find them, and then went out to knock. We didn't have very long, but we were given a huge tender mercy, because the very first door we knocked on, he opened. We talked a bit, and he took our number so he could add it to his phone contacts, and then informed us that her nephew in Mooresville was a recent convert. The next week, we got in contact with him, and had been trying to discuss when/how we could see them, as we still hadn't had an answer from the phone. Yesterday we went by and knocked on the door. They were both home this time, and they invited us in! We got along with them super well, and had a great Restoration lesson. At the end, we were able to invite them to be baptized and they accepted once they come to know it is true :) So we are going back this Wednesday, and are pretty excited. Please focus prayers on them! They are miracles for this area.

Every appointment we had with D. and J. fell through this week, so we will be meeting with them next week. She still wants to get baptized, so we will work on it. They are pretty hilarious and nicknamed Elder H. "grinny" this week, because I was already nicknamed "smiley". Elder E. is named "Poindexter," and D. doesn't recognize who we are if we go by any other name... It's interesting but fun.

Sister B. came to church Sunday but her daughter didn't. Bishop has good feelings that they will eventually come around. Please pray for them too. Thanks

Oh, One other fun story. On Saturday, our entire Zone got together to help with a Just Serve project in Morganton. It was actually a project sponsored by a group called KaBoom, and they go around and make playgrounds for kids. They use a hashtag, #playmatters. Anyways, 300 people put together an entire playground in 1 day! Starting at the dirt, and building the park, wood chipping it, and doing other projects like a stage with benches and an outdoor exercise cement pad thingy. It was intense, and lots of fun :D I will send some pictures of that too.

Love you all,
Elder Branch

At the beginning they had us all dance to warm up. 

I'm just left of the man in red pants. 

There were 4-6 inches of wood chips covering the whole ground. 

This is nearing completion. 

Elder G. is smack in the center 

with his back turned, right by the cement wheelbarrow. 

There are 8-10 missionaries in this picture.

The total project was 5.5 hours long. It was great! :D

Mar. 28, 2016 in Statesville, NC

Hey there and Happy Day-After-Easter!

Life was pretty grand this week in Statesville. We didn't have tons of total lessons, but what we did have was new investigators! It's so crazy, how you feel like you are trying hard for so long and see nothing, and then all of a sudden, without even changing much that you are doing, you are lead to those people who are ready for you.

So anyways, we had 5 new investigators, and at least 2 seem like they could be solid. Their names are T. and J. We had received T. as a Bible referral from church headquarters, and Elder E. had met J. once before while trying to find T. to give her the Bible. He ended up giving it to J. instead. Well, we decided to drive out there and follow up , and they were pretty funny. J. came out first and was all like "Yeah, I remember you!" We talked for a while and then asked if we could show them Follow Him, the Easter video. He said yeah and invited T. out too. She was pretty quiet, at least until J. had to run in to quiet some young grandkids. Then she just told us she needed a vacation from all the craziness. We showed the video once he came back out, and after he just started talking about how much he likes it and likes Jesus and appreciated us coming out to spread the word. We were able to share a brief Restoration, and afterwards asked if we could explain the Book of Mormon briefly. He said yeah, but had to run back in to quiet kids. T. said she really needed a vacation again. Then he came back out and we started using the pictures in the front of the book to explain it, and when we showed the picture of Jesus he started asking us about if we thought Jesus was white or black. We were like "Well, first it doesn't matter, and second Joseph Smith said he was white. J. was all like "But the bible says hair like wool!! After we emphasized the whole "does it matter" part, he calmed down and eventually he just decided that Jesus must have not had a face or something, or at least not a nationality (again, does it matter?) It worked out though cause I said "either way we are brothers in Christ" and Jared really liked that. He was like "That's what I mean man! Brothers in Christ!" Then I stuck out my hand for a fist bump and he liked that a lot too. So we finished explaining the Book of Mormon and he decided to invite us over for dinner next Saturday and then we could talk more. So yeah, he's a homie. and T. still needs a vacation. :)

Follow Him (Easter video)

So we had some great lessons with the B.'s this week, and even set a date for C. to be baptized! Unfortunately, they didn't make it to church which was sad because we had a great testimony meeting and there was a pretty powerful spirit. I also got asked to prepare a talk for Mothers day in a month and a half, so that will be fun :)

Yesterday after church we got invited to a huge family Easter party after church. Apparently out here, Easter is a huge, Thanksgiving style holiday, and this family had sooo much food! It was all so delicious though! I literally don't think I have ever been more full, or hurt more in my stomach after a dinner in my entire life. It knocked all of us Elders out, and we had to take an extra hour long break/nap to give it time to digest. 

Final update, and the reason this email is rushed, is that we got a new car for the area today! What this meant is that we had to drive to Charlotte today while the other Elders went golfing :(
Plus side is that on our way back up, we took the time to go and see J. as we drove back through Huntersville!! It was a total party, he was so surprised!! :D Haha, it was almost like I never left, and it was so good to visit with him :) We are both excited for the visit in July with y'all. So yeah, all in all it was a great week and our area is on the up and up. Thanks for all you do for me and thanks for the fun stories!

Love ya :)

Elder Branch

Elder E. and a tree of life

This was at a lesson on exchange with Elder P. 

A member was bearing their testimony to the investigator, 

so I was doing my very best to quiet the kids as the spirit was pouring in. 

That means selfies and drawing pictures on the iPad notes.

Mar. 21, 2016 in Statesville, NC

Hello again!

Wow, so this last week has literally been like the longest week ever. It seems like 2 months since last week! So along with that, we actually had a pretty rough week. We joked all week between the companionships that it was the worst week ever, which it wasn't, but lots of annoying things happened. All of our set appointments cancelled, we spent all our money, we ran out of miles, we locked ourselves out of the house, and we had some wild food. I will expand on a couple of these stories, and then I will tell some actual good ones.

The other elders have a mom and daughter who are getting ready for baptism, and they couldn't find anyone available to come to the lessons. Since we had no lessons, they recruited us to join and my role was to play baby sitter to 2 of the younger kids, a girl and a boy. It was wild, but their lesson went pretty well and I got made hero status in the kids eyes, so all was good.

We also taught a less active man-woman who is Trans right now. He had his name changed last week. It was very very interesting, and honestly really sad. His wife was there too and we brought a member who used to be his scout master. We shared the Hallelujah video, but in all I just felt empathy for him. There are lots of youth and even adults here who are struggling with LGBTQ temptations right now, and I feel for them. That would be so ridiculously tough.

Anyways, off of those subjects, and on to the miracles!! That whole thing about sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven is totally true! At church we had 2 friends who have been attending for a while, named D. and J., ask us to come visit and possibly review the discussions!  Also, we have these members named the B.'s, and they have been trying to adopt an 8 almost 9 year old named A. for a while now, and this last week they got it finalized! :D They are one of the homie families in the area, and we were pretty excited for them. Our main goals are to find a new family this week! One that will actually let us show the Hallelujah video, and then teach them the gospel! :) So yup, good things are a comin.

Thanks for all the fun stories. 

I sure love ya!

Elder Branch

Forsythia!

So in Carolina, there are all these fantastic trees 

that turn super white 

in the spring! 

They create the impression that there are 

70 billion tree's of life in every direction. 

This is Elder H.'s and my friend. 

She doesn't like Elder P. and Elder E. never tries to touch her

 because he is too busy playing with a tortoise. 

This is at the Rescue Ranch, 

a place we like to volunteer. 

The people are super nice there, and the animals are super neat! 

Jan. 11, 2016 in Catawba, South Carolina Come what may and love it - Wirthlin

Hey family!

Sorry for the super short email today, we had a Zone Activity and then Elder P___ went on exchange with Elder H___ in Monroe, and I am in Catawba with Elder R___. So anyways, life is good, we had a pretty okish week. We are seeing some good things, and we are mostly trying to help those we are teaching progress. A small and simple thing we are working on this week is inviting people to be baptized. I have been studying the principles in Preach my Gospel and as I was studying today, I came up with this acronym:
     Chapter 3 is EPIC!
     Every
     Principle
     Is
     Crucial
I am seeing the power that is coming as we work on being better teachers of every principle, it is something I definitely want to get better at. 

Here are a couple highlights.
C___'s: We finally got to see them again! What is even better is that we invited them to come to a baptism that the Lancaster Sisters had in our building, and Brother C___ had to work but the others came!!! :D So it was good progress with them, keep praying for them!!!!
Pastor C___: Didn't get to see this last week, but we are seeing him tonight over Skype!
B___: Saw him again, and had a super good lesson about the Book of Mormon.
R___ is doing super good! She is super excited about family history now too :) 

We saw a couple other people too, but those are the main updates. We are starting to work with the C___'s again which we are excited about.

Other than that, we're mostly just working on finding more solid people.

The bed bugs are finally dead!!! Hurrah! We are excited for this so that we can put all of our focus and energy into our purpose again. Actually, I should say we're pretty sure they're dead. So what had happened was the exterminator scheduled a treatment on Thursday to come and heat the entire apartment up super hot and kill them all. As a result we had to empty out everything that could melt onto the back patio area. They came and heated it up, but when we got home that night, not only did we find our couch upside down, but our beds were standing up leaning against each other. As we started to put them back together, lo and behold, a live bed bug was walking around on Elder Petersons mattress. So we both got super super mad and depressed and had to stay up until 12:00am washing all our sheets. They rescheduled to come and do a chemical treatment when they found out it hadn't worked, but since then we haven't seen any more bugs, so we should be good (finally). 

One funny part, the day after the treatment, we were going to make lunch and so we turned on the oven to cook some crescent rolls. Well lo and behold, the exterminator had put our fire alarms and light switch covers in the oven, so next thing you know we have smoke coming out of the oven all over and the fire alarms going off inside. We opened all the windows and in the end we got it smelling better and the mission office paid for a lunch, which was nice of them. So yeah, that is our week. Hope y'alls goes great! Thanks for the fun stories!

Come what may and love it, bed bugs, melted outlet covers and all...

Happy P-daay!
Thanks for all you do! Love ya!

Elder Branch

Dec. 21, 2015 R___'s Baptism :)

Hey there and Merry Christmas!

Wow, what a wonderful wonderful weekend!  R___ was baptized! It was the best and there's no feeling as fun as the spirit!

R___'s husband G___ was able to come. He was really nice and everyone was happy to get to meet him. R___ was telling him all about the church building and the members. I think he really enjoyed it.

After the interview last weekend, we spent most of our time putting together programs, asking people to help with the different parts of the program, printing programs, getting R___ her baptismal clothing, and stuff like that. Between that, the meetings we had, and life in general, we only ended up with like 6 other lessons. Not that we didn't try to teach others, we were just so busy that we didn't get lots of time and no one was home during the times we were able to go out. But R___ was able to get baptized and confirmed so it worked out well :)

The actual baptism was at 4 on Sunday and lasted about 45 minutes. We had a talk on Baptism by Chief G___ B___, who was chief for like 34 years, and a talk on the Holy Ghost by Brother C___. The baptism happened in between the 2 talks. Elder P___ got to be a witness.  

Wow! What an amazing feeling, being able to baptize someone!! Definitely one of the happiest and most spiritual moments on my mission, right along with J___'s baptism day and seeing P___ come back to church. So yeah, for the baptism R___ wanted to sing Christmas songs, and it was just a party :)

On Sunday, Brother C___ confirmed R___, and we were in the circle. The blessing was powerful, and once again as we took our hands off her head, she smiled and it was that happy feeling all over again. Man the spirit is fun to feel! :) 

After that, we had the sacrament, which is just the best! Following the sacrament, we had the ward Christmas program and Elder P___ and I were in the choir. We have practiced lots of fun songs in the choir, and I sure liked how it sounded. I was also part of a double quartet that sang a super neat version of "With Wondering Awe." The version almost sounds like a Gregorian chant, and it's done completely acapella. The last song the choir sang was a version of "For Unto Us a Child Is Born", based off of the Messiah piece but with a totally different arrangement. It is tons of fun to sing too, and to cap off the whole program we had a choir and congregation version of "Oh Come All Ye Faithful", with a sweet organ and piano fanfare accompaniment. R___ said the whole thing was "Awesome!!" So yeah, it was pretty much the best weekend of my mission, followed by what I hope will be the best week yet!

Thanks for all you do. Love you!
Happy P-daay! From Elder Branch

R___'s baptism day!  

Caroling with the district was a blast@ We caroled to a whole bunch of

places, and people actually liked us! :) This was at the Stake

President's house, and it was lots of fun :)

This is R___'s dog Hoss (like in Bonanza). He was legit sitting like a

human on this footrest. He seems to be a similar breed to Rascal. :)

I was eating a brownie, and this crumb that was left on the plate

looked so much like a llama that I had to take a picture!

Elder P___'s burrito  :)

Dec. 14, 2015 in Catawba, South Carolina with a new companion, Elder P___

Hello!

R___'s baptismal interview was perfect! She is getting super excited, she told us more about an experience she had where she was driving to work and thinking about the church and the Christmas devotional and how much she likes how it all runs. She said the thought just came in her mind: "It's because it's true." She got the warm feelings of the spirit, and realized what happened. She said she spent the rest of the day thinking about it. We went by last night and set up all the arrangements for the baptism. She asked me to baptize her, and lots of other members to do the other parts. It is so exciting! :D Just pray that she will be protected through this last week and then into her new convert stage! :)

To answer your questions about Christmas, we get the packages on the 22nd at a Mission Christmas party thing they are doing. I am in charge of putting together a musical number for our zone for the party too, so that will be fun. There is a specific version of the song "I heard the Bells" that our ward choir has done a couple times that I'm thinking we will try. If you could maybe find a copy of that online or something, and email it to me, that would be amazing! Thanks. Speaking of Musical numbers, this week we had our stake nativity festival and all the missionaries in the zone sang on the closing night. Lo and behold, I got made the conductor, and fortunately I was inspired I guess to make some copies of the music. It worked out, otherwise I would have nothing to go off of! As it turned out, my inspiration wasn't all the way perfect, as I only brought 2 out of the 4 songs, so I ended up conducting 2 of the songs with no music! It was very very intense, but once again the
spirit had helped by having Elder B___ and I practice the songs on the piano with me singing while he was still here, because we had thought that he was going to be the pianist. Once he got transferred, a member in one of the wards took over the piano, but the practices we had done stayed in my head well enough for me to conduct the whole thing, including the breaks in the music, the timing, and everything. Twas super exciting! We are sure there were angels singing with us missionaries, cause it sounded way too good for it to have just been us. ("us" meaning 20 or so missionaries with very little musical practice and only 20 minutes of total practice before.)

So besides the musical number and R___ being fantastic, our week also consisted of District meeting, interviews with President Alexander, transfers, 17 lessons, me trying to figure out how to train someone, the ward Christmas party and miracles! I will expound on a couple of these.

District Meeting:
I gave a training on helping investigators make and keep commitments. My favorite part was a story I heard from Elder B___. At the end of my training I brought out a little bucket of rocks I had picked up and cleaned, and handed it around, letting everyone pick one. I then told a story about how when Elder B___ was in the MTC, they were in a class and their teacher told them about how we invite people to be baptized at the first lesson. All the missionaries were like "That's too soon!" "That would scare them!" etc. etc. The teacher looked at them, and then said "Elders and Sisters, follow me." She took them outside and told them to find a rock. They all found rocks and brought them back. Then their teacher said "Elder and Sisters, look at these rocks you found. I invite you to be a "little boulder"! ("little bolder"). Haha, so I shared that story and they all laughed. So yeah, district meeting was fun. I love the district we have right now, it is such a fun group!

Transfers:
Elder P___ is from Twin Falls, Idaho, but has also lived in Utah, Colorado, and Wisconsin. He likes all the trees out here lots :) He liked to wrestle back home, as well as mountain bike, camp, and fish. He has 6 siblings, including an older brother who is almost done with his mission, and a twin who is putting in his papers soon. He has a great attitude towards the work, and is always excited to go out and work. Bad news though - he got hit on his bike on our way to go play laser tag. Fortunately they just hit the bike and not enough to damage it. He didn't even fall off (There's where the mountain bike skills come in). But he is okay, and we still had a super fun and intense laser tag battle) ((Elder P___ beat me, but it was close!)) but yeah, what a good first p-day for Elder P___!

Interviews:
Probably one of the best interviews I've had! It was like 2 days after transfers, and I was kinda feeling overwhelmed with how I am apparently supposed to be perfect so I don't mess up my trainees mission and life. President was super positive and encouraging, and it was super good to know that he trusts me. Like I told him, it hasn't been me, the Lord has just been blessing us with so much good stuff right now! He added, "Keep remembering that, but also remember that you are placing yourself in positions to receive his help. Keep doing that, and you are going to be one of the Elders to help lift our mission." So yeah, hooray for good interviews! :)

Miracles!
The C___'s are asking questions and looking for more answers again! So pray for her to feel confidence and to find answers to her questions. Other miracle, we met a man named B___ this last week who has an incredible story! I won't go into too many details, he has told us pretty wild stuff, but essentially about 8 months ago he was in prison. He read the bible, changed his ways, and has been a youth minister for the last few months. He was just switching churches when we met him, and showed him A Savior is Born. We got to go back a couple days later, teach the Restoration, answer some questions, and we are going back by to read the beginning of the Book of Mormon with him today.

So that about sums up my week. Once again, crazy, but super good. Thank heavens for that! I am sorry that y'all are so busy and trials, it's almost like my blessings have stole yours, but I pray things will work out for all y'alls good too!

Happy P-daay! From Elder Branch

Handshake video with Elder P___