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! 

Mar. 14, 2016 in Statesville, NC

Howdy y'all!!

So life is good, the sickness is gone, and this week was full of crazy ups and downs. For the first couple days this week it was mostly down, because I was just frustrated with how the missionary work is going. Elder E. is great though. He is the nicest person ever and means good, and I learned more how to recognize that this week.

Our area is doing well, and I feel like we are on the verge of some really good things here! We have some new potential investigators that seem pretty solid, and our Bishop has been stellar at helping us with other families we can visit. I really like the new Easter video too, we will show that to everyone! 

#Hallelujah

On Friday we had a zone meeting and it was exactly what I needed to hear. Every training seemed like it was prepared just for me! It helped answer lots of questions I had, and gave us some good insights on what we can improve. I was also able to make some good friends with some of the zone members. 

So the week was rocky at the start, but we are doing good now! One update on someone we are teaching: We were able to see C. this week. She is 9 years-old and interested in being baptized. Her mom has attended church with her more in the past 3 months than she has in like 6 years, and we had a pretty effective lesson with her. 

Thanks for all you do!
Sure love ya!
Elder Branch

This is a common brand of t-shirt in the South. 

O.W., a priest from Catawba, bought this one for me.  :)

Mar. 7, 2016 in Statesville, NC Transferred from Catawba

Hey Everyone!

So I am now in Statesville, NC. My first week was pretty good, except that on Monday night I got sick and stayed sick until around Friday morning. So our week was kinda dead as far as proselyting due to that, but we were able to get out the last 3 days and make some visits. From what my companion has been telling me, the work in our companionship has been really slow recently, especially compared to the other companionship in our ward. Our main goal/vision as a result is to fix that.

We put forth some good efforts this week, and may have a couple promising people. The best part though was that after a long hard day, we came home and found that we had received a referral for a family who apparently have been talking to their nephew, who is a recent convert, about the church. It just showed me again that sometimes success doesn't come from what we do, but that when we put forth effort success will come in some other way.

As far as our companionship, Elder E. is super funny and is excited about the work. He has been out for 6-7 months because he served in the Boise, Idaho mission before coming to ours. He is from Pocatello, and his family has 11 kids (or step kids and half kids). He trained tortoises back home, and he is really really really good at puns. (For instance, he nicknamed our companionship "the Termites" because we are Eaton Branch).

The other Elders are Elder P. (blonde) who is the District leader and hits his hump day this week, and Elder H. who came out the transfer before me, and is real funny. Sister B. fed us twice this week and sent the picture of the four of us. 

We got to do lots of service this week, and it sounds like it is pretty regular, so that will be fun.

Love,
Elder Branch

Feb. 29, 2016 Last week in Catawba, South Carolina with Elder P.

Hello!

We had a great last week, with some good finding. That was really our focus as we didn't want to leave the area with transfers with few investigators. We were lead by the spirit for sure, and found some prepared people. I feel really good about my time in this area, it has been a great learning experience.

We found a couple new solid people this week that we are excited for!! We also got a referral from a member in Waxhaw. He is a pilot and knew these members back in Oregon before they came here as well. He has a copy of the Book of Mormon already and has been reading it pretty consistently apparently. 

Along with our finding success, I wanted to share how we found a couple people. We went to a street that we had wanted to try for a while, and the first 2 people we talked to totally accepted us back! One of them was friends with members for years and years, and when we talked to her she said she already had a Book of Mormon. She said we could come back this weekend too. The very next house we went to, we shared the Restoration with the lady who answered and she was also super interested, especially how the Restoration described why there are so many denominations. It was great fun :)

So as far as transfers, I am getting transferred. Elder Oaks cancelled transfer meetings worldwide, and as a result we get our transfer information earlier. That means I already know that I will be going to Statesville, NC in the Hickory Zone! Even better is that Elder L. got transferred to Hickory as a zone leader!! So we will be partying on. My companion will be Elder E., he came out with Elder P. and sounds pretty funny. Elder P. will be getting Elder N., who came out with me! It will be super fun.

That is about all I have time for, its been crazy trying to say bye to everyone so we are heading out.

Thanks for all you do!
Love you!
Elder Branch

Elder H., one of my favorite Elders who goes home this transfer. 

Zone Conference

Feb. 22, 2016 in Catawba by way of Fort Mill, South Carolina

Hello All!!

So we just had (once again) one of the best p-days ever!!! We had a zone activity that probs surpassed all others. We went to a place called Sky High in Pineville. It's a trampoline park with all the things a trampoline park should have. It also had a room that had a bunch of lasers all over, and you had to avoid them and get to the other side of the room to click a button. Then you have to make it back to the front and click the other buttons to stop the timer. It was pretty sweet, and we set a record on a tag team round. The best part though was laser tag, it was a party!

Anyways, so now to people's salvation! Our week worked out pretty well. We had some good lessons and even though we only had like 10 lessons, we were able to invite 2 different people to baptism! One of them is a lady named G. and she accepted once she knows it is true! The other is a lady was S. and we are excited for her. We hope to have G. at church next week. I love the spirit that comes as people accept a baptism invite, it is the most electrifying feeling! :)

The C.'s are still good, but we weren't able to see them last week. We also weren't able to see Brother S. or like any of the other people we are trying to teach consistently.

R. is doing great! She is a blast :) Tomorrow night we will be going out with 2 priests in our ward to some appointments, as well as just tracting. It will be fun!

We move back to our apartment probably tomorrow. We got our new beds, and Orkin did an inspection and said we are clean. Hooray! Lets hope it's for keeps!

We are down to the final week of the transfer, and of Elder P.'s training. It has been a very fun, humbling, and special experience to have been able to train him. We are excited for the future of the area!

So other than that, there aren't too many updates for this last week. Life is good!

Sure love all of you!
Elder Branch

Thanks Sister L. for this happy picture of the Zone Activity!   :)

Feb. 16, 2016 in Catawba by way of Fort Mill, South Carolina

Howdy all!

Darn Bed Bugs! At least we are safe here in Fort Mill. The adventures have continued to pile up, some good and some bad. But first, an update with our investigators:

B. has kind of dropped us, he still has committed to read and pray but it is less and less likely it seems that he will come to church :( We are just praying that he will have some new spark of interest or insight.

The C.'s are doing great though! We went back and had a Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson on Wednesday with Brother R. and it was super solid! We reviewed the whole gospel using verses from 2 Nephi 31 and at the end invited her to baptism again. She still wouldn't accept a date, and said it will still take lots more thinking and praying, but at least she is moving on the right track, and she likes everything she is learning. She is reading the Book of Mormon and really enjoying it a lot!

Pastor C. is hopefully going to be able to meet this next week. We are super excited for that!

We also have a new man named R. that we will be hopefully teaching at the church this coming week (we think), and he may have some real potential if he doesn't end up moving!

So our main miracle this week was our finding! We were so blessed this week to find a whole 5 new people! A bunch of them were all on Friday. We went out to this one street that we have had planned for a while, and literally 3 of the first 5 people we talked to accepted return appointments. On one of the doors, we noticed as we were walking up that they had a no trespassing sign. We trespassed anyways, and as we got to the door, we noticed that the house had like 3 big padlocks and a couple of chains on the other side so it couldn't get kicked in or anything. We knocked and heard some footsteps. I honestly thought we might get someone answering with a gun, but it was actually a 50 year-old woman who introduced herself as T. We started talking with her and she was way open!! Elder P. shared a fantastic brief Restoration message, and she started asking questions about the Prophet. She told us that she has had a rough life and that she had a testimony of God but doesn't understand why there are so many churches. The best part of the whole thing was she started committing herself to do everything! She was like "So if you could schedule me for 45 minutes next Friday, I would love to read this pamphlet and we could discuss it. I'll read this and write down my questions on a piece of paper.." It was amazing! I am super excited for her, she is so great :)

R. is doing swell, she had her temple recommend interview for baptisms this last Sunday! She is also a Bronco's fan, so we were happy about the super bowl. We are seeing her tonight.

Anyways, that's about it for the week. Life is good here. My foot is feeling better. Living with Elder W. and S. is pretty fun. Living with 4 Elders is always a wild experience, but we are getting along and working hard. We got the pizza from Sister P. and it was delicious! Thanks lots Sister P.! I also got the package and it was super fun!

I sure love y'all!
Elder Branch

Feb. 8, 2016 In Catawba by way of Fort Mill, South Carolina

Return of the Sith (AKA: Bed Bugs)

Hi family. So I figure that after that title, you probably want to know what I'm talking about. But you will have to wait as I lay out the many adventures that befell us this past week.

It all began one bright and sunny post p-day Monday night. We were able to go to the Bishop's home and have a family home evening with him, his wife, and Sister B. who is returning to activity. The lesson mainly focused on how to raise kids and help them be independent in a very firm, but still loving way. In other words, Elder Peterson and I just sat there and nodded our heads as they talked, and we occasionally offered quotes about the subject from different General Authorities. Then on Tuesday things continued to be great as we taught different lessons and found a couple people.

Wednesday reared his ugly head and everything came crashing to a screeching halt. In our efforts to exercise, we had gone on a 2 mile run and along the way my left leg was really really hurting. My right felt fine, and eventually the left leg got feeling better, but at about 3 that day, while we were out tracting, my foot started hurting super bad and it was to the point where I was having to limp everywhere and couldn't continue tracting. The foot continued to hurt pretty bad for a couple days, but we called the mission nurse and she gave me some treatments that have helped a lot and it is almost better.

Then comes Thursday night. We had an exchange planned with Elders L. and R. after a meeting on Friday, and as we planned for it over the phone we mentioned that we had had bed bugs. Elder L. freaked out (poor fella already went through fleas with me) and really didn't want bed bugs. On Friday Elder P. got up and looked at his arm, where new bumps had appeared! We decided to look at the bottom of his bed and sure enough, there were like 40 bazillion huge massive red bugs. (More like 12) We cussed a lot and then I looked at the bottom of mine, where there were a couple more. We cussed some more and then called the office peoples. They told us that they would get Orkin back to exterminate once again. We realized that the reason they survived is because we had these special bed bug proof covers on the beds, but when we set them on the bed frames it ripped holes in the covers so the bed bugs were able to escape.

We ended up throwing away our beds, our couches, our chairs, and went and cleaned all our clothes in a laundromat until like 10:20 at night. Then we moved in with the Fort Mill Elders, Elder S. and Elder W. We are staying here for the next 2 weeks while Orkin does chemicals and then checks to make sure they are dead (15 days later) before we go back in. So with this whole update we ended up having very little time to proselyte the rest of the week, but we fit in what we could. We are definitely determined. Recently we have been praying lots more as companions, and our area is on its way back up. I have such a testimony of having the spirit with us as we work, it is just not possible without the spirit.

R. is doing great and life is good other than bed bugs. Thanks for the prayers!

Elder Branch

Sister C. is letting us teach her. :) These were at her house. They are soo neat!

Feb. 1, 2016 in Catawba, South Carolina A week of many funerals.

Hello!

So this was a very interesting week. We were able to see some good blessings this week and found a couple people who seem pretty interested! We decided to go and tract a couple streets that I hadn't been on before and on one of them we had like 0 success, besides a conversation with a elderly fella who talked about how birds are racist because they segregate between the different species. 

Then as we were walking along a big main road knocking a couple doors along there. We knocked on this one house and right after knocking we looked up and there was this wild looking devil head above the door with 666 on its forehead. We looked around the yard and there were a bunch of other demon-angel things, and the house was all black and stuff. It was super creepy! Fortunately no one opened the door.

The very next house was a family who had tons of scriptures and things all over their porch and the father came out of the house, told us his whole experience of being saved, and then tried to save us, despite our assurances that we had already accepted Jesus as our personal lord and savior. So he talked with us for about 20 minutes and then we were late to dinner.

The next day though, just one road down from all those interesting experiences, we found like the best road. Everyone was just homies with us, and 2 different families said we could come back this next week! Even the people who weren't interested were super chill, and would offer us water or refer us to everyone else on the street. So that was a plus.

I guess the other main focus of the week was funerals. The members say that in this area, people always pass away in waves. Well, the next wave just happened, and we have had 3 funerals in the past 4 days (and possibly 2 more coming up).

The first was for the Assistant Chief in the Catawba Tribe, and while he wasn't a member, they did the funeral at the church because he was buried in the graveyard behind it. The current chief offered the prayer and in the prayer he said something like "We come before thee with much sorrow and rejoicing, which we know is a contradiction, but it is because of the sorrow of loosing W. and the rejoicing that we were able to know him." After he spoke, they played a Blake Shelton song called God Gave Me You over a CD player. Then a member in the Rock Hill Ward talked about Jesus and the Plan of Salvation which brought the spirit. A lady sang Amazing Grace for the closing song then everyone headed outside and they had some Indian drumming as well as a 21 gun salute for him.

The second funeral came the next day and was much more spiritual. I think they had her cremated because there was no burial. Brother B. sang Amazing Grace at this one and it was nice.

The third was today, and it was for Brother B. He was the only one of the 3 that I knew, he had been super healthy just a month ago and gave us tons of rides to Charlotte and all over. His service was probably my favorite. There were lots of good stories shared, as well as strong testimonies born of the Plan of Salvation. Once again, a lady sang Amazing Grace. 

At the funerals, we had several people come up and tell us to come by, and lots of other people were in the church feeling the spirit, so we are hopeful some good will come.

We are seeing blessings as we continue to work forward through trials.

Thanks for your prayers, love y'all!

Love, Elder Branch

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  :)