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

Hello All!

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

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

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

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

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

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

Elder Branch

Saying goodbye to Elder E.

Video of helping Tiny the 150lb. tortoise

My new companion, Elder H.  =D

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. 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. 2, 2015 in Catawba, South Carolina

Hello :)

So this week was absolutely killer crazy fantastic wild! We were super busy almost all the time (except for Tuesday), and we saw lots of good stuff. For the most part, this week was super rainy due to the other hurricane that apparently came close to land, so we bundled up and went a-walking. 

Monday: Had p-day and went to that citizens building we sent pictures of last week. We also stopped by a little farmers-markety kinda store except it was in downtown and bought delicious chocolate covered pretzels and chocolate covered toffee. Then on the way out I was stopped in my tracks by a glass bottle cheerwine soft drink that screamed in my face "buy me!" It was so annoying that I decided to appease him and bought him. Then just to show him who was boss, I drank him. He was delicious.

After p-day, we went and taught some investigators named A___ and A___. It went well except A___ is being kinda stubborn. He says he wants to know the church is true because it would be fantastic if was, but he won't do anything! He openly admits that it is cause he is lazy and church is boring, and it is driving us nuts. We are just trying to help him understand that if he wants to know, he has to do it.

Tuesday: As mentioned above, we didn't have much going on Tuesday. So we went out and tried to contact lots of potential investigators. We saw like 1 person briefly, but at least we tried. It was super wet and kinda cold, and as we were standing on the side of the street, a truck hit a huge puddle and splashed us. But it was funny for the most part, and we laughed about it.

Our dinner was good though, the family (who actually live in a different ward but are assigned to help out in Catawba) took us to a local deli style restaurant and it was delicious. The man's mother came as well, and she is Pentecostal, and we had a fun little discussion about Christ washing the Apostle's feet, the 3 kingdoms, and corrupt preachers. That night, we went out with our Bishop and visited the A___ family and had a super good visit with them! We are going to start giving them the missionary lessons.

Wednesday: We had district meeting, and then taught a couple people with members. We taught M___ and reviewed the baptismal interview questions with her. She is coming along, but there are still some things she isn't sure about. Unfortunately, she is having some health issues, so we can't see her again until Wednesday. It was a good day in all, and I got to go out with a fun member at night on some visits and he told me all about Stalin (the Russian general guy).

Thursday: Absolutely rushed crazy day! We had 3 member present lessons, 1 recent convert lesson, 1-2 other lessons, and no time left for weekly planning. One of the other lessons was with a lady we met out in Van Wyck, and as we were teaching, her 2 teenage daughters showed up with their friend and we talked with all of them. We are going back by in a week and a half. That night, we had a lesson with a woman named R___ who actually lives just down the hall from us in our apartment building. She loves to go on vacations, so we talked lots about the west. She is the most solid person ever though! We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ, and she loved it. She has been reading the Book of Mormon, and in the closing prayer said she is excited to be baptized! The only hold up is that she works on Sundays, but she is talking to her boss this week about coming in for the night shift so that she can attend church. She's the best! Please pray that it will work out and she is able to come to church :)

Friday: We weekly planned, and at night we got to go to the ward Halloween party/chili cook off. They asked us to be the judges, so this is the 2nd official chili cook off I have judged this year. The Catawba's know how to cook, and I liked this one a lot! Judging was hard, but the one chili that won had super delicious smoked pork in with the beans and everything. Turns out the member had stayed up until 2:30 the night before smoking it, so we were glad we had chosen him ;) Then all the kids went around the church building and trick or treated, and Elder B___ and I got to hand out candy at our door. I kept asking the kids to do a trick instead of a treat, but none of them would, so I took it upon myself to do the tricking for them by juggling the candy and then tossing it into the kids buckets. "Consider yourself tricked, kids!" It was a good time.

Saturday: Halloween! Wasn't much different from any other day, except that we had to go in at 6:00 so that we didn't get mugged or framed for any Halloween mischievousness. We got to borrow some board games from some members though, so it was fun.

Before our curfew though, we were able to teach like 4 people, including a members friend who lives down in Lexington, SC. He had already been taught before, knows the church is true, and has even stopped smoking, so he will get to be baptized soon we assume. He was great! We also got to see some other friends. One of the people we ran into I had actually met before over in Rock Hill! So there is a member family in Rock Hill named the Y___'s who have a daughter who lives in Catawba with her husband. When I was in Rock Hill we got to help the Y___'s move their mother in law/grandma into the Y___'s house, and this family was there too. Anyways, I realized just a couple minutes into talking with this man, that he had been there and that we moved a 500 pound gun safe together. This obviously made us homies so he said we could text them and come by sometime. It was funny.

Sunday: Went as follows: Church (my favorite thing!), choir practice (my favorite thing!), walking to an investigators house in the rain (my favorite thing!), eating dinner (my favorite thing!), and then taking R___ to a fireside in Charlotte done by President Alexander (my favorite thing!). It was a super good fireside too, and helped R___ lots.

This was my favorite part - President Alexander gave us an assignment.

He asked us to write a book about ancient Tibet, we can't be older than 23, and can only have taken 3 years of formal schooling. We aren't allowed extra research. It must be 3,000+ words and we can only use 1 unpaid scribe to write it all. We must describe 2 main groups of people, and cover their religion, their politics, their geography, their economy, their monetary system, and everything else about their society. It must include 50 war chapters, 20 historical, 70 doctrinal, 50 with visions, and 20 chapters about Jesus Christ and his personal ministry among the people. We have to make up 280 completely new names. It should include allegories, parables, poetry, and it has to sound like it has been translated from another language. We have to use about 24 different writing styles spread logically throughout the book, as if multiple people wrote it. Archaeology research for the next 180 years must support this book. We have to have 3 witnesses who are respectable people in the community claim that they saw an angel with the book, and they can never deny that which they said. It must include a promise that if anyone reads it and asks God in faith, they will receive a witness that it is true, and it will change their lives for the better. Millions have to try this promise and receive an answer. We have to watch our followers be persecuted and killed. We will be persecuted (just like Jesus), and at age 38 must willingly give our own life to protect our testimonies and this book. You have 65 days to write, good luck..

Yup, pretty obvious that it is true. And the best part is that I have felt that spirit too, and know it is true. 

One other thing happened on Sunday. One of the members of the Church was the chief of the Catawban Tribe for 30 years. He gave me an official Catawban Indian name this week, it's "red woodpecker." Pretty cool to get an Indian name!

Anyways, so that was the week for the most part, honestly it may have been the busiest week on my mission, or at least close to it. I am excited for whatever comes this next week! 

This week I have decided to ponderize Shiblon, in Alma 38:2-3. And now, my son, I trust that I shall have great joy in you, because of your steadiness and your faithfulness unto God; for as you have commenced in your youth to look to the Lord your God, even so I hope that you will continue in keeping his commandments; for blessed is he that endureth to the end. I say unto you, my son, that I have had great joy in thee already, because of thy faithfulness and thy diligence, and thy patience and thy long-suffering among the people of the Zoramites.

I love this chapter, and am super excited to ponderize it! Anyways, thanks for all the stories! I sure love you, y'all are the best!

Love,

Elder Red Woodpecker Branch

There is a cemetery behind the church building.

Halloween at the C___'s home.

Oct. 26, 2015 Transferred to Catawba, South Carolina with Elder B___

Hello all!

So transfers have come and I am back down to South Carolina! And for the first time ever I have a companion who has been out less time than I have. That doesn't discredit him, he is a superb missionary! His name is Elder B___, he is from Arizona, and he has been out 3 transfers. This is still his first area and I am only his second companion, so I am 'greenie breaking' him I guess. He is lots of fun, and is a super good teacher. He also plays the piano way better than me, so this District Meeting was the first time I didn't play the piano. We were comparing piano songs and he plays more classical/intense music than me, and I play more pop than him. We are having lots of fun, and it's pretty great. We get a car 2 out of 3 weeks.

So as far as the area, I am in Catawba, which includes the Catawba Indian Reservation, and it is pretty interesting. It is my most "country" area so far, which is fun! We cover 3-4 small towns, including the east side of Rock Hill, Catawba, Van Wyck, and everything in between. Our teaching pool is actually fairly large right now, which is probably the first time that has happened on my mission! (Hooray!) We are actually right next to the Rock Hill Ward where I served for 3 months, but in a different stake. It's funny though because there are tons of members who are related to members in Rock Hill, so it's like I know everyone's family already. The ward is super interesting, pretty much 90% of the people on the actual reservation are members. We have about 80-100 attending church, and there are 400+ members. It sounds like most of them are less active because they have been offended/hurt over different family issues, and this last week in Sacrament Meeting, the Bishop gave a talk on being humble, kind, and not getting offended. He likened it to the rameumptom. It was pretty intense.

So as far as bright spots for the week go, we were able to teach a lady named M___. She is super solid, and wants to be baptized eventually. On Saturday we had a powerful Gospel of Jesus Christ lesson and she committed to come to church. Then on Sunday she called and cancelled :( Apparently she had laid out all her clothes and everything the night before, but when she woke up on Sunday she couldn't get out of bed because of pain. She told us that later, when she was feeling some better, she got up and read the Book of Mormon for a couple hours and it gave her peace. So we are hoping to have her come to the church during the week for a church tour to help her get accustomed.  :D

We taught a man named M___ on Wednesday. He was a pastor for a non denominational church back in the day, and he has been pretty curious to learn about our beliefs, even though he is apparently pretty sure that everything is a "wind of doctrine". We shared the second half of the Plan of Salvation where we teach about the spirit world and the multiple kingdoms, and then they either flip out and drop us or get baptized. Well we told him about it, and to our surprise he actually liked it and said he agreed! Wildcard!! So we are going to get him a large print Book of Mormon, and pray that he reads it, becomes converted, and gets baptized. (Please pray for him.) :)

Anyways, that was our week pretty much. Well, that and having district meeting down in Lancaster. Lancaster is a branch, so their building actually used to be a Chinese restaurant that they converted into a church by putting a steeple on the top. It's pretty interesting. Their mini piano is cute looking.

This last week I was able to ponderize Mosiah 2:41 (And moreover, I would desire that ye should consider on the blessed and happy state of those that keep the commandments of God. For behold, they are blessed in all things, both temporal and spiritual; and if they hold out faithful to the end they are received into heaven, that thereby they may dwell, with God in a state of never ending happiness. O remember, remember that these things are true.) 

I think my favorite part is just how true it seems to be. We taught a guy named B___ last night and shared this verse with him. He talked about how he agrees, and that every time he is with us he gets a "buzz" from the spirit. A common farewell here is "be blessed", or "have a blessed day", and it reminds me of this scripture. When we say "be blessed," what we are really saying is "remember who you are! Be good!" I think for this next week I am going to ponderize your one mom, Psalms 119: 165 and 167 (Great peace have they which love thy law: and nothing shall offend them. My soul hath kept thy testimonies; and I love them exceedingly.) It could definitely help out!

Congrats for Joe!! That is so fun for them. Haha, met in the outdoor equipment area, that is perfect!!

Thanks for all you do! You guys are the greatest! I love you!

Have a blessed week!
Elder Branch

Eldertooblessedtobestressed

 

Sept. 21, 2015 in Greensboro, NC A new companion in Greensboro

Hello!! I'm glad y'all got the pictures and everything, we made sure to get a picture of our new companionship this week.

So my companion is Elder J___ . He is from South Salt Lake City, in fact he is pretty close to your work, mom. He is 23, and he has only 3 months left on his mission! He is super not trunky though and we are ready to work hard!! Back home he was sponsored in Skateboarding and Snowboarding, and he has a skateboard with him. This makes my second companion who is a sponsored skater, I'm going to be a good sports videographer by the end of my mission. We are getting along super well.

So this last week we made a plan for moving forward with the work here. We talked about it with President A___ separately in our interviews (which were also this week), and he just encouraged us to figure out how to find friends to teach. To help us, we went on google maps and made a whole bunch of pins on all the people we'd taught, so that when we are in an area, we can pull that up and see exactly who is around us. It also helps us tell which areas are never visited. We were also able to have some good visits with some members, and came up with a bunch of people they want to help introduce to the gospel, so we are making plans there to follow up with them.

We weren't able to contact B___ this week, but we are going to give her a couple more try's. We also couldn't see G___ and S___. We did get to talk to a maintenance man for our apartment a little though when he came to fix our sink. It was super funny, he told us he probably believed 90% of what we did, and told us he was Jehovah's Witness. Then he asked if we believe in the Trinity (they do not), and when we said "no" he was super surprised! (In my head, I was like "95%"). So that was a pretty fun seed we got to plant :)

Wow, I sure loved the email updates this week! It was one of my favorites! Glad to hear all is going well, I sure love you guys! Thanks for everything :)

Elder TooBlessedToBeStressed Branch