July 11, 2016 Last transfer...last email home from North Carolina Charlotte Mission

Hey family! 

Thanks for the great email!

N.'s baptism was so good! I gave the talk on baptism, and for the Holy Ghost, they got a video from the first missionary who taught her in Japan. That was super super great, and she was crying a lot. There was a great spirit :)

On two different nights, we went to a luau based around missionary work. It was put on by family members of the Raleigh Mission President. I will send some videos, it was super amazing! I got to see lots of missionaries and members from past areas too, what fun! All in all, it was the craziest but best last week ever!

So it has come to the end...transfers have come. Biggest shocker I guess is that I'll be going home. That was a surprise! ;) haha, jk. Anyways, besides me, Elder H. also got transferred and he is going to Danville, Virginia! Elder B. is getting Elder R., and Elder T. is getting Elder N. They will be good :)

Thanks again for the emails, and I'm super excited to see y'all! Sorry if this email is short, but we were hanging out with D. and Ej. from rescue ranch, so it was kind of rushed, but if you have any questions, I'll tell you in person :) 

Sure love ya!
Elder Branch :)

This couple have hearts of gold and are so good to the missionaries. 

We love them!!
(Thanks for the pictures, Lisa)

Three of the Elders going home this week. 

They were all serving in the same zone. 

Farewell to the Rescue Ranch  <3

June 20, 2016 in Statesville, North Carolina

Hey buddies!

So we are doing great! N. accepted a baptismal date of the 9th of July!!! We got to teach her 3 times this week, all with members, and she has been reading the Book of Mormon. She had started kind of slow, so we read a chapter with her and we told her how she could insert her name into verses where it used someone else's name, and yesterday she told us she has been doing that and really really liking it! Hooray!! Please pray that things will continue to work for her, as she is still in a very tough situation. She is having to live with some members for a while, and moving back and forth, so just pray.

J. is also good, and plans on coming to church with us this week! He likes the Book of Mormon, but doesn't seem to understand that it is scripture just like the Bible. He keeps praying and asking God if it will be ok for him to read more of the Book of Mormon, thereby taking away time from the Bible. I love how much the south loves the Bible though, it has given me new respect for it since serving.

Happy Father's Day! It was fun here, we got to go eat with the P.'s, some of my favorite members, and the awesome B.'s are having us over later this week. We took Father's Day pictures with D. and Bro. B. :)

Thanks again for the fun fun stories! I love hearing from you :D

Elder Branch :)

June 6, 2016 in Statesville, North Carolina

Hey there everyone,

Wow, what a week! Transfers were Tuesday and my new companion is Elder B. He's a great missionary and a good teacher. We're getting along great. Elder H.'s new companion is Elder T. and he is from Idaho Falls. In the rest of the district, we got an Elder J., and Sister L. They are both great, and our district in general is really good. We have 3 or 4 people wanting to be baptized this month! One of them is going to be this Saturday, and on Wednesday I get to give him a baptismal interview! I couldn't ask for a better birthday present!

Speaking of which, let's move on to our own area! So we got to teach the M.'s again, but unfortunately they just seem to be too wrapped up in the end of the world. (Literally). We encouraged that as much as being prepared physically is good (they loved the 1 year food storage), the most important thing is to be prepared spiritually. We're sure trying and praying for them to understand.
D. came with us for that lesson and he is so great! We didn't get to see J. as his brother overdosed this last week.   :(
We have a new friend we're teaching named N. She is from Japan and was friends with a Sister missionary there. She moved out here, but stuff went down and now she is really struggling. Her friend called our bishop and asked him to contact her. He was able to do so, and she was able to come to church. We have taught her twice now and she is super. We got 4 referrals at the very end of this week that we're excited to contact too! The B's got the Book of Mormon Reader and are enjoying it, thanks! Thanks for all the super fun stories!!!! 

Love ya,

Elder Branch

Elder B. 

Birthday!

May 31, 2016 in Statesville, North Carolina

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Thanks for all you do!

Love ya!
Elder Branch

The fattest tie there ever was!

May 9, 2016 in Statesville, North Carolina

Hello everybody! 

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elder Branch

April 18, 2016 in Statesville, NC

Hello All,

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elder Branch

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

A.'s baptism day!

Bubble Soccer Video

Elder E. 

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

EJ runs the Rescue Ranch 

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

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!

Sept. 28, 2015 in Greensboro, NC

Hello all!

This week was only just the very best! Ok, probably not best ever but it was a lot better than the past couple :) We got to go on like 3 days of exchanges practically with the Zone Leaders, and that was a party because the Zone Leaders and us are homies. While on exchange on Wednesday, we were able to see B___ briefly and we should have an appointment with her tonight. She is just the best!

The other highlight was a girl named E___. She is a friend of S­­­___ who has come to seminary 3 times in the last 2 weeks. We met her on Tuesday, and this week we have been making plans to teach her with S___ and Sister S___. We are going to have a skype lesson this Tuesday, so please pray that E___ will be open and want to learn more.

So on Thursday, we went with the Zone leaders to help a family move clear across the Zone because they moved away from our area. It was pretty much all day, and it was lots of fun. The best part was when we were moving them in to the new house, 2 of the bedrooms are upstairs with super narrow, curvy hallways. The last thing we moved was a giant heavy 3 person couch, and it was impossible to fit it upstairs to where we needed it. So we loaded it on a pickup and drove it to the back of the house where there was a second story deck. Then 5 guys picked it up long ways and lifted it up to 4 of us on the deck, where we had to rotate it and bring it through the sliding glass door. Fortunately, it fit (barely), so it worked out.

One spiritual though. Lots of times as I study, I have these impressions that come, but I just kind of write them down without trying them out. This week I was praying for some ideas, and the though popped in my head "Elder Branch, I give you thoughts all the time. Why don't you try them out and see which ones work?" (Read this in President Uchdorfs voice, not cause that's what it sounded like, it just seems like something he would say). It was a good reminder though to trust personal revelation, no matter what it is.

We didn't get to watch the women's session yet, but I am excited to catch it later on, it sounds amazing! Thanks for the quote!

So today we took a ramble out yonder to Burlington, Elder J___'s old area! It's a fun place, I want to serve here! We are bowling and visiting members today, it's been fun. Oh, and K___ said she saw y'all at a concert the other night, that sounds fun! She told me how she is engaged now, wildcard! (Not). Haha, but it's all good.  I'm happy for her. So yeah, thanks for the stories! Y'all are the best! Love you!!

Elder Branch

Aug. 24, 2015 in Greensboro, NC

Well hey there!

The ladies we're teaching are great, Elder G. taught them while on exchange with Elder C. and Elder K., one of the new assistants. Neither came to church, but they both are reading the Book of Mormon, so that's a plus!!

On Friday we had Zone Conference with the A's and they did amazing! It was super fun, and lots of good revelation was received. Sister A. gave a training all about the hymns that was super good. President A. gave a training on the importance of the Bible and the Book of Mormon together, and revelation was hard core received. There were some other good ones too.  

On Sunday we went visiting a member and his wife.  I was carrying my Bible outside of my bag. The wife answered and told us her husband was unable to come to the door, and that she was Methodist. She then saw my Bible, and had to kind of look again. In the end, she explained that he was sick and asked us for prayers in his behalf. It was neat to see a heart opened just a bit more, and a stereotype broken just a little.

Elder H. and I went on exchange. We taught a guy named M. who was super legit. We also went that night and helped a member finish roofing a house, and it was pretty neat! We put up lots of shingles, but as a result my tennis shoes (which were already holding on by a thread) are totally dead. They still work for service, but I had to buy a new pair for athletics.

Y'all are great! Thanks so much for all you do! Love ya :)

Elder TooBlessedToBeStressed Branch

June 1, 2015 in Greensboro, NC

Hello Family!!

J. was in the hospital this week, so Elder G. and Elder P. visited him on exchange and gave him a blessing. He is getting better and we have a lesson with him tonight with some friends.

I was on 2 days of exchanges with Elder L. and then Elder R., and I just love all the missionaries in this mission! Elder P. left me a great note for when I got home.

I definitely agree with dad where he said some of the most fun parts in church service are getting to be with your friends and brothers/sisters. 

So we had a Zone Conference this week, and it was the Craven's last real training with us. It was super good, and super tender. They pretty much touched every part of Preach My Gospel missionary work and tied it all in to our future even after our missions. Then President gave a great training about doctrine (the what), principles (why), and application (how). He talked about how doctrines and principles in the church never change, but applications may. He then tied it in to how the second the Alexanders arrive, they preside, and how even though things will change here, it will be for good, and it will be alright. He committed us to keep moving forward.

It made me think of how sometimes a great young women's leader or a scoutmaster will be changed and how you may hear people cry or reminisce on how great they were. But sometimes we forget that the people who are called were called by revelation, and they will do a wonderful job too, if we give them that chance. It will be sad to lose the Cravens, but I am looking forward to the Alexanders too.

Thanks for the emails and fun stories, I sure love ya! God is good!

Elder Branch :)

Life has been grand here, we just got done playing soccer in the gym for p-day (normal soccer, not chair soccer), and it was a party!