Jan. 25, 2016 in Catawba, South Carolina

Hello all!

Wow, what a week. We really focused on getting out and talking to people this week, as well as inviting people to baptism, and we were able to teach more people as a result. We are still just working on finding people who are ready but it's been a struggle. Maybe we are finding those who are ready but we just aren't interacting with them in the right way. Anyways, we will keep working at it, and something is bound to happen. I think in our companionship, we need to focus on not just teaching lessons powerfully, but teaching people powerfully, and that if we can master that, we will help those we teach understand how important our message is, and they will act with more real intent than they have been recently.

So a couple stories about this week:

On Tuesday we had a worldwide Missionary devotional held by the missionary counsel of the Church, and that was pretty amazing! There were lots of good trainings on fundamentals, including following the spirit, teaching people not lessons, finding, and the Doctrine of Christ. I will send some of my notes home in a separate email. It was a great meeting, now we just have to apply the things we learned!

On Thursday, we got to go with the C.'s out to dinner, go bowling with them for FHE, and then join them for family scripture study. It was lots of fun, and also a very interesting learning experience. I think Mom will especially like this story. So before bowling we were all talking about who would win, and just kinda joking around, and I mostly just joked about how awful I was (Like if I get over 70, I did halfway decent). Anyways, we got to the bowling alley, and it was full of people, so we had to head over to another Bowling Alley, which is not the normal place the C.'s play. As we started bowling, Sister C. went second and both of her balls seemed on target until the last second where they curved hard and went in the gutter. She was disappointed, but as others got up to go, a couple of them also had really bad bowls until it got to me. I'm still not sure what happened, but I got up, and hit 8 with my first roll. On the second roll, I hit the remaining 2 perfectly and got a spare. Everyone was surprised (including myself), especially because I had joked about how bad I was. Brother C. finished out with a spare of his own, and the second frame came around. As Sister C. bowled, once again the balls curved and she ended up with another 0. By this point she was kind of mad and blamed it on coming to this place instead of the normal Bowling Alley. Then came J. and Elder P., and once again they both had pretty poor roles. When it was my turn, I got up and once again got a spare, only this time I got 9 pins on the first and the last one (one of the back side ones) on the second roll. Brother C. followed up this round with a pretty bad roll, and now the negativity from everyone's first two rounds started to turn on me.

Now at this point, I had 2 options. 1) Continue to dominate the entire game, possibly achieve my own personal best score ever? Option 2 came partially through my own thoughts, and partially by the spirit. It was 2) Hold back and begin to help teach and encourage Sister C. and the others who were struggling, so as not to hurt our relationship with them, and as a result, possibly hinder or lose their salvation. I decided to choose the second one, and began to simply hold back on some rolls as well as give others tips on what I was doing to bowl so well on this lane. I had to endure probably 3 more frames of what was practically verbal abuse. (Sister C. even blamed me as the reason for the bad luck they were having, and Elder P. wasn't much help.) It worked out though, and I just responded as nice and as helpfully as I could. Sure enough, their bowls did start to improve, and by the end we were back to a much better attitude, though they still had this personal vendetta against me that included Elder P. following me and trying to block the ball or distract me on my turns. It came down to the final frame, and on Sister C.'s last bowl she managed to get a good amount of pins, with a decent overall score. Meanwhile, Elder P., Brother C., and their daughter, had all got within 10 or so points of me. As Elder P. bowled his last frame, he actually managed a spare, that along with a strike he got in the 9th frame, put him 6 points in front of me right before my final bowl. Once again, Elder P. distracted me on the first roll and I got a gutter. The second roll I tried to turn and do quickly so he wouldn't have time to follow, but Sister C. kind of yelled as I released and I only hit one pin. I ended up at the end in like 3rd or 4th place, but I was worth saving that relationship. Brother C. even stood up for me to Elder P. and Sister C. at the end too, so it all turned out ok. So yeah, it was a pretty long story, and afterwards we went and had a good lesson, but I wanted to share just because it was a pretty interesting experience that fortunately worked out well.

Other than that, we had a couple other good lessons with some friends, and we had interviews with President. On the weekend all of Carolina had a storm and all the mission cars were parked, so we walked or got rides from members everywhere. The members here are so great!! :) One day we walked close to 7 miles bundled in snow clothes and boots. Another time while out with a member, we kept on sliding around the corners and we practically couldn't see out the windshield, but we survived to missionary another day. I'll send some pictures of our snow day.

We went back with a member and talked with K. and J. We didn't get super far besides testifying of prayer and them saying that that was too "subjective." At the very end though I read them that assignment that I posted on the blog, and they were actually super interested in that and in other archaeological evidences of the Book of Mormon. So anyways, it was interesting but we probably won't go back.

A Branch in Israel - The Bible and the Book of Mormon Assignment

So yeah, that was our week! Hope it gets better ;) The bed bugs are still all dead as far as we can tell, hooray!

Happy P-daay!

Love, Elder Branch

Jan. 17, 2016 in Catawba, South Carolina

Howdy howdy howdy...

So first off, an update on the whole bed bugs deal. The exterminator sprayed and the total kill period is 15 days to make sure it got all the eggs too. So far we have seen 0 new bed bugs and we are up to day 10 or so, so we are still just hoping and praying that they are gone. It seems that so far we are good, I hope it did work!

I'll start off this week with an update on last week's p-day. We had a zone activity at the park and played Pioneer Paintball! Essentially we put flour and colored chalk in socks and threw them at each other all while playing capture the flag. There were no safe zones or anything, you just had to not get hit. Anyways, we did Senior Companions vs Junior Companions and it was a fun activity. Today we are having one final district activity with the district before transfers. We are doing bowling and possibly laser tag, so as always it will be a blast!

As far as transfers go, the only changes in our district are Elder H. and Sister D. who go home this transfer. (It's weird! My Sisters are going home! I'm old!) Sister K. will be getting a trainee, and Elder R. will be getting... Elder L.!!!! :D

Well, I can say one thing for this week, and that is that we did all we could. We were able to see some good blessings as a result, for example, we have quite a few investigators who are keeping their commitments to read the Book of Mormon currently, and now we are mostly working on inviting people to baptism and finding new progressing investigators and families. We have been struggling with finding recently, and as I was pondering on why, the Spirit whispered "Once you start inviting people to be baptized more, and show that you are focused on the Doctrine of Christ, then I will lead you to those who are truly ready to make those covenants now." It was a humbling thought, and we are definitely going to be better at inviting our investigators to be baptized!

We worked really hard to find people and once again only found like 2 people, and they are both super scary. (As in they know the Bible super well but seem to get caught up/lost in all the minor details.) For example, we were just beginning to teach them and talked about how understanding our message takes time and keeping invitations. They asked what invitations and we told them CPR (Church, Prayer, Reading). They asked why those three things and we were like "Cause that is how you can know of truth." They were all like "Show us where it says that in the Bible" so we shared James 1:5 and Matthew 7. Then the guy went off about how we were using those verses out of context, and how they were originally talking about other things, not about praying or learning truth. Then he showed us a verse where it talks about the people comparing Paul's teachings to the Bible, and how because they compared they came to know what he said was true. It was so frustrating because they couldn't even accept answers to prayer or the Holy Ghost as ways to know truth. The only scriptures I knew that would have taught ways to know truth are in the Book of Mormon, and I knew that if I used those they would be like "Well how do you know that is true?" and I would say "I prayed about it.." And they would not take that as legit. Anyways, got any suggestions? We are going back next Sunday, so we will see how it goes.

Later that day we met an interesting guy who believes the Book of Mormon, but doesn't believe Joseph Smith is a prophet. He said he could be an Apostle though.. He also believes abominable doctrines about the Fall, and he wants to read "The Gospel of Mary." Anyways, so the finding aspect of the work is kinda rough right now, but we're hoping it will improve.

Our investigators are all doing kinda ok-ish. The C.'s are good, and this next week we get to go bowling with them and then teach them.

B. has been reading the Book of Mormon, but had to move a couple appointments, so we are hoping to meet this Wednesday (pray for that!)

Pastor R.C. is hilarious as always, and seems to be enjoying the Book of Mormon. So yeah, it's not all bad here, we're getting along.

Well, thanks for the fun emails! I sure love y'all!
Happy P-daay!

Love, Elder Branch

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

Jan. 4, 2016 Happy New Years from Catawba, South Carolina

This last week we sure worked hard! It was a week of many meetings. The meetings were very inspiring, and I am so excited for where the mission is heading. There were like 2 training meetings, and when you add weekly planning and 12 week training for Elder P___ on top of that you end up with plenty of stuff to do and not much time to do it! It was a better week than the past few though, we weren't as "bugged" by the bed bugs, they have seemed to stay in our room and ever since we killed 14 in one day, the numbers of them have seemed to go down. We have only killed like 5 or 6 since. I keep telling Elder P___ that its really just survival of the fittest, and that we are only killing the dumb, slow bed bugs while all of the fast, smart, vicious ones are hiding as they combine their efforts to breed a massive bed bug army that will completely overwhelm and surprise us in our sleep, sucking us dry and leaving nothing but a fragile empty husk of us left. It's not a very pleasant image.. I hope the exterminators come soon...

So anyways, R___ is doing well. We are doing family history tonight with her, which is super exciting!

We had lots of other appointments set up for this week, but after loads of cancellations we spent most of our time finding. We were rewarded for our diligent efforts with 0 new investigators and the knowledge that we have loads more patience than we thought we did! We did meet one kinda eccentric guy named M___ M___ who told us he was looking for a church! We also had a lesson with our favorite Pastor R___ C___, and it was one of the most intense Restoration lessons ever!! We are like in the middle of the first principle, God is Our Loving Heavenly Father, and I mentioned we are his spirit children. Next thing you know, we are being asked what our thoughts are on the triumvecta (probably not spelled right), and why we believe God has a body. We were able to kinda answer (kinda), but told him we didn't really know and that we would study on it. 5 days of studying later and I still don't really know what the triumvecta even is (or why it is important) and the best I can come up with for God having a body is if Joseph Smith is a prophet, then we have to trust him and the translations/revelations he received (in other words, pray about it). So yeah, the rest of the lesson was pretty good, and more deep and funny and interactive and random and yet still powerful than any I have ever had. Elder P___ did a great job answering lots of the questions, and in the end Pastor C said he would read and pray about the Book of Mormon! That night a member showed us a neat video of a Baptist Preacher being interviewed about the Book of Mormon, and how he actually really likes it, and so we sent that to R___ and asked about how his church went. He said "Hey Elder, Church was awesome on SUNDAY. We had a great time! Thanks so much for asking. Looking forward to getting into my Nephi this week!!!" So yeah, he is lots of fun :)

For this next week, my ponderize scripture is Doctrine and Covenants 33:9-11 to help raise my faith that there are more people ready here to hear God's message, despite the tough weeks we have been having. I believe there are, and we are just doing our best to find where they are at.

I sure love all of you! Fight the fight, keep the faith! God IS your LOVING Heavenly Father!!! :)

Happy P-daay! 

Love, 

Elder Branch

So this was funny. We tried knocking on a trailer over behind this house, and no one answered. We thought we had seen someone inside but it was pretty quiet. We went over and took some pictures next to the house, and all of a sudden a man came out of the trailer. I guess he was freaked out that we were taking pictures of the place, but he turned out to be very nice. We shared the Restoration and he wasn't interested, but we were laughing afterwards that we had found the secret way to get to talk to people. If they don't answer, just start taking pictures and they will come! Haha, anyways, hope you have a great week!

Dec. 28, 2015 Merry Christmas from Catawba, South Carolina

Hello friends!

Well we just got done with an intense round of laser tag for our p-day activity. Thank you Rachelle and Debbie Pearson for the great Christmas gift! ;) We figured we would take the Christmas break opportunity when there would be tons of families and teens out and go and play. Unfortunately the kids we played were only like 8-11, but it was still fun 6 v 6. But yeah, so I am writing this in the arcade waiting for maybe one more game. Haha, I'm glad you enjoyed the package!

So my main update is about trying to get missionary work done despite having our apartment infested by bed bugs! We had a rougher week due to a bed bug infestation, (but we were able to have some good days towards the end, and next week will be good). The pest place is on vacation until January and we have been trying to keep it under control with some help from a senior missionary couple. We weren't sleeping in our room for a couple nights, but they came and got us bed sheets that are bed bug proof. We sprayed and vacuumed the beds, and then put those over top and it seems to have helped. We are doing our studies and such on the back porch where the bed bugs can't get us, and we are able to sleep on the beds again in our room, as long as we spray the ceiling so that they don't climb up and skydive onto us at night.

Anyways, that slowed us down a bit but we still are seeing some good. We got in contact with B___. We also set up an appointment with S___ and he told us his fiance would be there too, and we could teach her! :D We are teaching R___ the new member lessons and hope her husband will join us! :) We are still trying to find more people to teach, but we are excited. We got back in contact with Pastor C___ too, which was a blast, he is hilarious!

So the members were great for christmas! They gave us tons of presents (mostly canned goods and Walmart gift cards, the best missionary presents!) "Santa" (aka the C___ family) left us some marshmallow guns and a bag of mini marshmallows on our doorstep, so we were able to have a pretty intense war after we skyped home. We also had a bunch of fake snowballs (thanks mom and Sister T___), so we made those worth 3 points each, where as marshmallows were 1 point each. Elder P___ beat me (again) 24-23, but it was fun. I'm so grateful for the amazing people here in Carolina! They are so great to us :)

Our mission Christmas party was blast! Every missionary got to bear a 60 second testimony, which was powerful. Then the senior couples all came and did a Nativity scene which was pretty funny. At lunch, Santa Allen Alexander came and gave all the Elders hugs and the Sisters handshakes. The best though was the enormous kiss he planted on Sister Alexander, sweeping her down into a dip like a princess. Then we played an intense game verses all the different zones, and our zone took second. For the game, they would ask questions like "Who has a band-aid on them? Who knows the scout oath? Who wrecked their car this week?" and everyone who had done that or knew that had to run into the middle to the assistants (who were fearing for their lives by the end.) Anyways, one was "who was in a bike wreck this week?" and Elder P___ and I ran up along with a couple other companionship's. I told them that it was Elder P___'s first p-day and that he got hit by a car, and they gave us double points. So we did our "handshake" and everyone laughed. I also won the scout law, and reciting Doctrine and Covenants 4. After lunch we had a couple closing testimonies from the Alexanders. It was lots of fun :)

I'm glad y'all had a Merry Christmas! Thanks for the prayers, I sure love ya!

Happy P-daay! From 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___

Dec. 7, 2015 in Catawba, South Carolina, Elder B___'s last week in Catawba

Hey family!

This week was pretty grand, and really really ridiculously busy (again)! We taught quite a few people, not quite as many as we had hoped, but it was still good. I don't have long to write today, because unfortunately Elder B___ is being transferred. :( Tis sad.

I also found out that I will be training this transfer!! I'm super excited and super humbled/nervous I guess. Anyways so we will be super busy today but I do want to tell a couple quick stories.

R___ is great, she is sad Elder B___ is being transferred but she is super excited for baptism. She is having her interview this coming Friday :) We are going to try to get permission for Elder B___ to come back from wherever he is transferred for the baptism. She loved the Christmas devotional last night. :)

We had a zone meeting this Friday and I sang a solo while Elder B___ played the piano. While on the topic of music, we were also putting together a bunch of hymns for the missionaries to sing at an upcoming Nativity Festival deal. But we are going to need to find a new piano player. Hopefully my new comp is musical! We are also singing in the ward choir, and Elder B___ was an awesome base, so he will be missed. The songs we are doing are way fun! I love music :)

My third story combines the music theme and the baptism theme. On Saturday night, the Charlotte South and Gastonia stakes had a combined presentation of Handel's Messiah, and we found out super last minute that we could go. We showed up and turns out some friends from our ward invited us to sit with them, so that was perfect. It was also fun, because the C___'s were there, as well as the Dad's friend from Lifetime, Brother B___, and a couple other members from past areas. A sister from Huntersville was the first string violinist for the whole thing, and I saw her husband there too. Well, about half way though, Elder B___ had to use a restroom. As we were walking out to the doors, I saw a man kind of turnaround in his seat and when he saw me, he waved. Turns out it was Johnny!!! :D (for those of you who don't know, Elder S___and I got to teach and baptize him in Huntersville, and I haven't seen him in a year) I immediately ditched Elder B___ and went and sat and talked with him for a while. We hooked up again with the Huntersville members and him (they had given him a ride) at the end and got to talk a bunch. It was too fun! As we were riding home, I remember thinking "that is what missions are about." :)

We had a couple other good things happen this week. Brother S___ didn't come to church but he will be there next week. Also Sister H___ told us that her son really liked Elder B___ and I when he had met us. She said that he said "I like those 2, they aren't pushy. I think I will talk to them about taking the lessons again." So that was super good news! We hope it goes well with him, we are supposed to see them Wednesday or Thursday. :)

I have loved getting to show A Savior is Born to everyone this last week, it is such a great video. I love the Christmas season, and the gift of Jesus Christ. What an exciting and special time to be a missionary!

So anyways, that was my week. We did have a district activity today that was fun :) We made a Christmas village thingy of sorts, had a pie eating contest, and did a gift exchange. I got bath salts and a Christmas rubber ducky! Twas the best gift I believe.

I will keep praying for y"all! Thanks for the prayers for all of us! I hope you all see lots of miracles and blessings!

Love,
Elder Branch

Elder B___ saying some goodbye's to awesome people in Catawba.

Elder R___ and I petting a dog on exchanges. 

I buy dog treats and give them to dogs we meet on the Reservation. 

I don't know what happened to our grill...

Our District Christmas party

Our Zone 

The largest cross I've ever seen

Nov. 30, 2015 in Catawba, South Carolina

Hello everyone. Happy Thanksgiving!!! :D

So this week was pretty great. Lots of people were willing to talk to us (hooray!) and we had delicious food. I think that any time we get to go around talking about what we are thankful for it's a good week, and luckily that can be every week if we are in the right frame of mind! One of my favorite scriptures I read this week was Doctrine and Covenants 59: 7-8. It says "Thou shalt thank the Lord thy God in all things. Thou shalt offer a sacrifice unto the Lord thy God in righteousness, even that of a broken heart and a contrite spirit." I love it because of how it teaches us a way we can give our thanks to God by offering our broken hearts and contrite spirits to him. Sister Alexander is super big on studying scriptures about hearts, and it has been eye opening to me to read about all the different types of hearts. Hard hearts, soft hearts, open hearts, etc. It sufficeth me to say that Thanksgiving was great, and now we get to look forward to CHRISTmas. Oh boy!

So as far as specifics about this week, R___ is doing super great! We watched the Restoration movie, and she really liked that. We got to teach her twice this week, and the second visit we wrote out a baptismal calendar with her of everything we need to do before the 19th! How exciting! :D We are seeing her twice this week, and she is coming to the Christmas devotional on Sunday night. So keep praying for her!!

We totally found a dude who was writing a "hip hop" bible this week! "Now let me tell you some words o' wuzzum bout my main-man Solomon..." It was pretty legit! I'd read it. Haha, just thought you would think that was funny.

Not much of an update on the C___'s or anyone else, so I think I will take the time to tell you about our preachers here in Catawba. First off, M___. He is an 80ish year-old man. He used to be a Non-Denominational Preacher for quite a while. The reason he was Non-Denominational was because he never agreed with one religions view of the Bible, he felt that all of them pick and chose their favorite parts. So he just decided to read and teach all of it, especially the part in Ephesians where it talks about "winds of doctrine." So anyways, we have been teaching him for a while and he likes the visits. He is a little confused on some of the stuff we teach (he thinks there are lots of prophets still around, and that anything can be the word of God as long as it backs up the Bible) but he wants to read the Book of Mormon, and said if he finds out God is leading him this way, he will follow. So that is a plus.

The other preacher is actually a pretty great story! So on Saturday this week, Elder B___ and I were super pumped to go out and just find like 60 billion people to teach. Unfortunately fate had other things in store, and we just had loads and loads of 'faith testers' (like doors slammers, drunk people kicking cars, and the Clemson-Gamecock college football game). At about 5:00 with our faith a little worn out, our daylight fading (yes, at 5:00! Crazy, right! Who wants to tract in the dark!?), and our tummy's rumbling, we decided to give one more try. We had met this man in a pretty nice neighborhood. He had been pulling out in his car, and as we were riding our bikes by we waved and he stopped and asked us if we were handing out pamphlets. We had given one to him, and then he drove away, so we just named him "Pamphlet Lover" in our notes/areabook. So anyways, we stopped by his house and knocked on the door. He opened it up and invited us right inside to a little office in his front room. I saw a book about the Bible on the ground, but didn't think too much of it. Anyways, he was quite a young man, and very animated and happy. He told us his name was R___ C___. He started asking us about our missions, how long we do it, and what we do afterwards. Then he asked what we talk to people about and we were able to start teaching him a bit. He asked what the main difference was between Mormons and Christians, and we told him that we do believe in Christ and the Bible, but we have more knowledge about them because of a living prophet and priesthood authority. We then explained the Book of Mormon, and as we told him about that he stopped us and said "So I have been a little depressed lately. I am 29 and want to get married, but just haven't found someone yet. Is there anything that could help me with that in the Book of Mormon? Elder B___ shared Ether 12:27,(" And if men come unto me I will show unto them their weakness. I give unto men weakness that they may be humble; and my grace is sufficient for all men that humble themselves before me; for if they humble themselves before me, and have faith in me, then will I make weak things become strong unto them.") and we discussed that for a bit. Then I brought up a 2009 CES devotional by President Uchtdorf I absolutely love where he talks about the ugly duckling and how his true potential is much more than he believes. R___ pulled it up on lds.org and started listening to the middle section. Essentially President Uchtdorf is addressing major questions young adults ask, and the second question he addresses is "I am so lonely. Will I ever find my soul mate?" It is a super good part of the talk, one I will definitely be studying closely after the mission! ;) So anyways, we listened to a good 10 minutes of that with him, and he totally loved it! He tagged it, and wanted to look up more General Conference and CES Devotionals.

He thanked us a whole bunch, and got all excited about keeping in contact. We told him we had facebook, and as he was logging on he said "So I have something to tell you, I am actually a pastor." (Wildcard!! Suddenly I understood why he had those books about the Bible). He pulled up our facebooks and added us, and when he added me he commented how beautiful my cover photo was. The picture was of Lehi's dream, so I asked "Do you want to know where to read about it?" He got super excited (he does that a lot), and we showed him 1 Nephi 8. He started reading, and then paused and was like "Wow, these words are beautiful! Listen to this.." and then started reading us parts of the chapter he liked. So yeah, after that we shared Moroni 10: 3-5 " (Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts. And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost. And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things.") and he was super pumped to read and keep in contact. We messaged him the new "A Savior is Born" video yesterday, and this was the response he sent back to me:

A Savior is Born

Pastor C___ PC: Elder Branch thank you so much so much so much for stopping by on the other day! You don't know how much your visit has impacted my life. You are such a blessing I felt such an instant connection with you the minute you begin to speak about the Mormon message. What a powerful powerful book my brother. I cannot wait to see what lies beyond. I pray that the lord continues to use you and continues to put light on the path that he has for me. And I thank you so much for sharing your video and also for him bringing you into my life. I just feel like we're going to be lifelong friends in Jesus Christ. Thank you so much for sharing your video and I will be in touch with you soon. Let's certainly make the best of the remaining months that you have on your mission!!!! #cantwait

Haha, so yeah, that was our super great talk-with-everyone-miracle-moment-Saturday! We haven't set up a solid return appointment yet, but it was a great experience, and a huge tender mercy :)

So one other story. Elder B___ typed this one out already, so I will send you that account. So our area is cut in half by a river, and the bridge is at the bottom so it takes a ridiculous amount of miles to get to the other side of our area, so we only go over there when we're driving through for like a meeting, or we get to the end of the month and somehow have excess miles. Well on the other side of our area is a little town call Van Wyck (Pronounced Wike like a bike). It's comprised of a gun shop, a post office and about 3 different churches from the early 1900s. Well we decided it would be a lovely place to tract, and we met a lady named C___and we ended up talking to her for close to 3 hours.

A couple of weeks later we were back in the area and thought "hey... That one lady was super nice and liked talking to us, maybe we could talk to her about religion?" So we went back, talked to her for a couple hours again, and happened to still be talking to her when her daughters got home from school. They invited us over for Thanksgiving dinner. We didn't know how serious they were about it, we showed them a quick Mormon message and left.

For our Thanksgiving dinner we were eating with one of 3 families who live on the other side of the river, so we were out there again. We decided that after dinner we would drop off a thanksgiving card for them and go home and hand out a bunch more thanksgiving cards. Well, lucky us, right as we were pulling into their driveway, C___ was walking out the door. She was super excited to see us and invited us in to have pie with them. We shared a thanksgiving Mormon Message, and we were getting ready to go, when we mentioned that transfers were the next week. One of the daughters was super sad and told us to hang on real quick and she ran into another room. She came back with two pieces of pottery she'd made in art class and told us she wanted us to have them in case she'd never see us again. The nicest people.

Other plus sides: 4 friends came to church, we taught 18 people (on a holiday week too! Yay!) We had like 5 new investigators, and we have 2 new people to teach with who are already in the process of coming back to church :) So yeah, life is grand and God is Good! (Now we just pray really hard that He will keep helping us, cause we are gonna need it!)

So anyways, I will probably wrap up this epistle of a letter to y'all now, but once again thanks for the stories! I love hearing about everything! Sure love ya!

Happy P-daay! From Elder Branch

PS: Cook Out makes pumpkin pie milkshakes with real chunks of pie in them and they are to die for! Random, but I had one today and thought you should know. :)

I Love the Book of Mormon!

Nov. 23, 2015 in Catawba, South Carolina

Hello!

Things in Catawba are just peachy. Peachy as in R___ accepted a baptismal date for the 19th of December! Woohoo! And she came to church again this last Sunday and loved it. We had a lesson Wednesday with Brother B___ (Ward Mission Leader) about the word of wisdom and it was super good! So yeah, R___ is pretty much the best. At the end of that lesson, Brother B___ told her the story of the Catawba Tribe (he is an Indian, though kinda distantly) and she was super amazed. She really likes Native Americans. Keep praying for her! Thanks for all the prayers already! 

Church on Sunday was wild, cause we had something going on all the time, plus ward council, plus choir at the end. We got to share a training in ward council on Vision, Goals, Plans, and Accountability. It was pretty fun. Then in church we helped pass the sacrament, as well as give the opening and closing prayers. Elder B___ taught the Gospel Principles class the second hour, and the 3rd hour we stayed for part of Relief Society so that Elder B___ could play the piano to accompany Sister R___ while she sang a song. It was good!  After church we went to choir. The Sister who conducts is super nice, and makes good apple crisp.  ;)  The piano player is the actual choir director, but he is usually playing the piano. Elder B___ helped people get some things worked out  and it all turned out good.  That was our crazy Sunday to cap a crazy week. But that is how I like it!

On exchanges this week I went to Monroe where we were feeding the homeless. Some other highlights this week include seeing the C___'s.  During our lesson with them this week we were teaching their 10 year old son and 8 year old daughter, and the son totally wants to get baptized soon and at the end of the lesson the son volunteered to pray and prayed that he could be baptized! So please pray for them too.

We saw Brother S___who we are going to start teaching. We also saw Brother P___  and the C___ Family. Brother C___ makes Catawban pottery, and he had some sweet pieces he showed us! We had a good lesson with them, gave them blessings, and at the end they invited us back when we didn't have a dinner sometime, so nice of them.   :)

On Saturday we went to Sister C___'s (yes, they are related somehow) and raked her leaves from her huge backyard into one gigantic pile. Here in the fall, everyone out in the country rakes their leaves into piles, lights them on fire, and let them smolder for the next 3 days. We made a huge pile and then jumped into it. It was a blast! (Elder B___ had only jumped in leaves a couple times before, so he really enjoyed it). Afterwards she fed us homemade soup and banana pudding! (Banana pudding is my favorite! :D) It was well worth it. I'll include some pictures.  :)

We are always praying and fasting to find more friends to teach. We found a couple good leads this week, so we are looking forward to this next week, especially with it being Thanksgiving. I've realized even more than before how thankful I am for my mission, and the longer I am out the more I feel this sense of urgency and excitement for the work.

I am ponderizing 2 Nephi 2: 25-28 this week.

Adam fell that men might be; and men are, that they might have joy. And the Messiah cometh in the fulness of time, that he may redeem the children of men from the fall. And because that they are redeemed from the fall they have become free forever, knowing good from evil; to act for themselves and not to be acted upon, save it be by the punishment of the law at the great and last day, according to the commandments which God hath given. Wherefore, men are free according to the flesh; and all things are given them which are expedient unto man. And they are free to choose liberty and eternal life, through the great Mediator of all men, or to choose captivity and death, according to the captivity and power of the devil; for he seeketh that all men might be miserable like unto himself. And now, my sons, I would that ye should look to the great Mediator, and hearken unto his great commandments; and be faithful unto his words, and choose eternal life, according to the will of his Holy Spirit;

Thanks for the emails and fun stories! I sure love ya!

Happy P-day! 

From Elder Branch

So I have always heard about the infamous doughnut hamburger, two Krispie Creme doughnuts for the bun, burger in the middle. This week, thanks to the anonymous kind gift of a whole box of doughnuts and buying hamburger meat, I decided to give it a whirl. It honestly tastes a whole lot better than it sounds, but it is definitely the messiest and probably highest calorie hamburger I've ever had.