Edwardsville

Well hello,

This week has honestly lasted, probably about 16541 weeks. It has gone on forever, I swear. BUT it has been the funnest week of my mission so far. Lets begin at the start.

On Tuesday i get transferred. I say my goodbyes and get in the car with this kid thats like 20ish named Brandon. (Turns out he is one of the coolest kids ever.) We drive until i start noticing all the dead corn all around me. So much dead Corn.

Edwardsville, is a small town in Illinois that is pretty much the opposite of my first area. I like to refer to it as simply "the best mission place on the entire world." 

We finally made it to the apartment and i meet my companion. Elder Serage. Turns out he is the coolest companion anyone could ever ask for. I'm semi sure that we already have a better relationship then peanut butter has with chocolate - and thats sayin' something. He is a huge nerd but he is also ripped because he loves basketball and working out.. haha I'd say he is a mixture of two of my best friends Stax and Hunter. haha 

i guess you could say we are getting a long quite nicely.

I'm here now, just having the time of my life. We are doing so well together and having a blast in the service of God. A few days ago we set 2 dates for people to be baptized and it was amazing. The members here are the coolest people ever, and right now people are literally contacting us because they want to learn more about the church. It is the best place ever.  I also got to meet this guy named Ron who is crazy. Honestly he is probably the craziest person i have ever met. Ron must like the taste of soap or something because he cusses like a sailor. He is so funny though, and has a genuine concern for the missionaries and he told us he would try coming to church again, but the last time he did that his car wouldn't start when he tried to leave (early) and so he doesn't want that to happen again. hahahaha One crazy guy. 

So i attached these two videos so you can see what i mean when i say that elder Serage and i are pretty good homies. We had a little bit of freeze rain and once we were able to get home, (almost dying like 3 times) we made the best out of the situation, by sliding our way into town and getting some pizza.(don't worry this was all on foot)  I fell really hard 2 times but elder Serage destroyed himself and it was the funniest thing i had ever seen. i wish i had a video of it, but i don't so everyone can just take my word for it. hahaha When our tummies were full we slid home and what happened? These videos happened.  hahaha Well, i thought i should throw in something that has been on my mind recently. 

Everyone listen to these words:

It's as simple as this. The Book of Mormon has the answers. If there is any question that is on your mind or if things are hard and you need direction, the Book of Mormon has the answers. God is a loving God and he will never ever leave us with no hope. We are children of God. We ARE Gods children. This simple fact is what is changing all the people i talk to. 

This Christmas season, i just want to encourage everyone to remember Christ. Jesus Christ. The King of Kings and the Lord of Lords. That wonderful man who suffered the sins of the world. Every individual, one by one, he suffered. For me alone he bled. I know that he is my Redeemer and  i will do everything i can to follow in his footsteps.

 In life's worst storms, with the strongest winds. I know of one thing that we can hold on to and remain grounded and safe. That is the Book of Mormon and its teachings. That is my testimony. This is real.

Well, I love you all so much. Hope everyone's having a wonderful Christmas season. I wish you a merry Christmas, I wish you a merry Christmas I wish you a Merry Christmas and a happy new year.  

Note to Mom:  MOM!  I love my new area with all my heart. I refer to it as the Celestial kingdom. AND my new companion, totally would have been in la fam if he had been by us. He is the coolest kid ever. He is a mix between Jaxon and Hunter. hahahaha

Getting Transferred!

Well that's all for me in Frontenac, I'm getting transferred. I'm going to this place in Illinois called Edwardsville. My new companions name is Elder Serage or something like that. I hope he is cool... I don't know right now if that is a good thing or a bad thing to be moving to Edwardsville because I honestly don't know anything about it besides it is kinda the opposite from Frontenac. I’m hoping that means more investigators! 

This past week has been a good one. My first birthday in the mission field was a lot different than what I thought it was going to be. I have to say a big THANK YOU to everyone that was sending your love to me on the 10th. In the mission when your birthday rolls around its like you wake up in the morning and go..."woah its my birthday." and then you forget about it until someone says, "hey, happy birthday" and then you realize it's still your birthday. hahaha I had a ton of fun though, and I got to play some birthday sting pong with the 5 other elders in my apartment complex. I got Mom’s package and the Ugly Christmas sweater was a hit. I wore it to play basketball in the morning with the AP's and everyone laughed super hard. I also loved the “positive affirmation button” that says, “you’re awesome” when you push it! Oh, and we got a car again so that was a wonderful birthday present!

I have been saying my goodbyes to all the people that I've become close to here, but I am not sad because its not like i'm dying. I can come see them sometime in the future. 

I had a grand time on exchanges this past week. We, at the time, didnt have a car and so it was a biking day. I got a different bike because the old one only had one pedel and that made it kinda difficult... so this new bike looked awesome. We started biking and when we came to the first intersection I realized why this bike was free to me... #nobreaks so i just rolled on through the intersection kinda like the grandma on the Mulan movie. hahaha To make the day even better, it was around 20 degrees outside. My companion during this exchange was an office elder that hadn't been doing stuff like this for the last 3 months and he was dying. That made it WAY more funnyr. He kept saying, "I cannot feel my hands or my face." We went and visited a few people, stopped by this old folks home because it was the day on the light the world thingy to do that, and then biked all the way across town to visit a few other people. It was s'cold. hahaha

Finally the time came for a dinner of a lifetime. The only problem was, that the dinner was approximately 15 minutes away by car and we only had bikes. I thought, "no problem” because I had already called this priest age kid to give us a ride. Just as I was telling this to my companion, Elder Timmereck , we got a call and the kid was actually going on a date soo… hahaha I started calling a ton of people. We finally found someone that was willing to give us a lift and made it to this wonderfully fantastic dinner. After which we waited outside in the 15ish degree weather for our ride. Elder Timmereck was so funny 'cuz we were both freezing. hahaha

Well fam. The truth is that no matter where you go, no matter how hot or cold, the church is true and everyone needs to be told. ( i just made that up and it came out sounding a lot cooler then i thought it would) I have grown immensely here and Im excited for the fun coming my way in Illinois. hahaha

 Love you all,

Elder Brian

Time is flying

Well hello everyone. I cannot believe that it is December. Time is totally flying.

First and foremost, HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD! you da man. 

Now onto the content of this letter. 

Whelp, just to update anyone that is interested. We are pretty much still meeting with and talking to the same people i talked about before. hahaha its just kinda harder to get to their houses now. 

Let me tell you, we are getting dang creative out here in the Frontenac area. We have been relying on the members of the ward for rides places and then also bumming rides form the other elders that live in the same apartment complex as us. It has been wild. But there are always good things to come of hard things and I truly believe that through and through. And here is the evidence that that last statement is correct: 

The other night we went to a members home for dinner. We got there a little late because we had to wait for a member to take us there because its pretty far away and it was dark out. We ate dinner and what do you know, they turn out to be probably one of the most missionary-minded families on the planet. I mean they have a daughter in 2nd grade that brings a Preach my Gospel to school and keeps track of all the commitments she makes to her fellow school mates. (blew my mind.) So we talk about how their kids are probably better missionaries than I am and how they are constantly inviting people and looking for opportunities to serve and they told us they had been praying to be able to give someone a ride to church. They asked and we told them we would let them know if one of our investigators needed a ride. Soooo, we leave their house and they just think we have a car so they say bye and close the door and we just started walking... in the dark... it took about ten steps before I pulled out the phone and started to call all the other missionaries that lived in our apartment complex to come and get us. hahaha They decided that they wouldn't make us sleep in the streets and they told us to just get to the main road where they could see us and pick us up. So we wandered around until we got to the main road and just sat by this gas station. (This is where it gets cool)

As we are sitting there I hear this terrible scraping sound from down the road. I walked out and there was this car coming that had sparks flying out of the back of it as it drove! It pulls into the gas station and I get a good look at the two rims that he was driving on. hahaha- totally destroyed. I walked over as this man gets out of the car and I almost started laughing. This little ole Chinese man gets out and says, “I think I hit something." hahahaha He had hit a curb going pretty fast and blew up both his tires on the passenger side of his car, and then drove a good 4 or 5 miles (destroying the chance that that car will ever be able to drive again) before he decided to pull into this gas station right where we were standing. 

As we were standing there I realized that the Lord just given us this man to teach and he cant even get away because he was just as stranded as we were! hahaha We talked for a moment and he was actually on his way home from his bible study class. He realized that we were trustable and so he asked us if we could give him a ride home. We cant do that as missionaries, but I knew of someone who had been praying for an opportunity to give someone a ride... We called up the member we had just had dinner with and he came by and ended up giving this man a ride to his home with us in the back seat teaching the whole way. He lives out of our area but he is definitely gonna get a few missionaries knocking at his door this week. it was awesome.

That's a good story. hahaha Well things are good here and i'm not dead and I am doing what I've dreamed about doing my whole life. Everyone do the light the world thingy  (#lighttheworld) because its gonna bless your lives! hahaha, just a little plug right there. I love you all and hope that this Christmas season is just absolutely amazing.  

Keep on keepin on

Elder Brian

Goes down in history.

This week was a week that I will never ever forget.
>
> First off, it wasThanksgiving and that was absolutely wonderful. We got to eat at this members home who is amazing. We got there and i guess i wasn't really expecting it but there were about 14 people there and 5 of them were not members of this family. hahaha We had a TON of food to eat. My companion and i made one pie each to take over and when we got there we found out that there were already 5 pies so we had 7 pies and we almost finished all of them.
>
> We tried to meet back up with the little guy i talked about last week, but his family wants us to move at a very crazy sad slow pace with him so we have appointments set up with him for every two weeks. Its painstakingly slow but it gives me time to set up lessons using some video game analogies that will help him understand better. hahah
>
> So the reason for the whole "goes down in history" title of this email is because I am now going to go down in the history of this mission - and not in a good way. I will be talked about 10 years from now as the infamous Elder Brian. I am pretty sure I have the fastest time in the mission for crashing a car… yep - I”m not proud of that!  It was a bad one too. It was the rain and the bald tires that caused us to crash but I was behind the wheel so I’m at fault and I get pounded for it. We were making a left hand turn at an intersection and when I pushed the accelerator, the car didn’t move - the tires just spun and an oncoming car hit us going about 40mph. I dont know a lot about whats going on at the office because everyone is being nice to me because it was “traumatic.”  And I don't know for sure, but I think the car may be totaled - it was definitely not drivable. Procedure is I shouldnt be allowed to drive after this, but its up to the mission president and the office sisters tell me he really is hoping my tires were bald so he can call it a car malfunction and let me keep driving. sooo... and the tires were bald - I have been trying for weeks to get the vehicle coordinator to approve new tires but had not received permission. SILVER LINING: I know that the Lord was watching over me and my companion. If our car would have skidded a little more, the passenger side would have been t-boned and destroyed and I don't know how my companion, Elder Richins would have ended up. It was such a blessing that no one got hurt.

>
> Pretty much the rest of the week was hard cuz, we had no car, and we had to walk places.  Eventually my District leader gave us some bikes - I got his and he is probably 5'6 so I look like I am riding around on a 12 year olds bike right now and its awesome. hahahaha
>
> I will say it was an eventful week - but I”m grateful.

            >Love,  Elder Brian
My pie:

 Car crash:

 Being fed by Sister Gore and Sister Kroupa - they take good care of us!

Happy Thanksgiving

What up,

Let me tell you, I am getting fat. I swear I exercise every morning and even buy salad at the store but I am always getting fatter no matter what. So that is great news.

This past week was actually absolutely amazing. My new companion and myself have just decided to 'faith it up' out here. It's been kinda hard to “find,” and knocking doors for hours isn't very fun or effective, but we finally were able to have a meeting with the bishop that saved our keesters. hahaha Our bishop told us that he doesn't want us tracting as much (still do a little, to show the Lord you are willing to do the hard stuff...) because he said that in the area we are in -the mansions- the people don't really want to listen. So we've been going hard visiting all the members we can and having the faith that we will be able to find someone to teach. The weirdest thing happens when you apply faith... it works.

Last night, we were asked (by a member... oh yeah) to come with him to a part member family's home for a home teaching visit. We showed up and walked in and there was a young boy - about 10 years old. His father is a member and he wanted us to answer his sons questions. He came and sat down and we decided to teach the first discussion. As we are going  along, the little 10 year old keeps asking questions and just couldnt understand a lot of what Elder Richins was saying because they were kinda big words... Then the boys father looked at us and said, "see if you can relate something to him... like video games or something." So i started teaching the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to him in the terms of Minecraft. (mom, i cannot believe that the time i spent on that stupid game paid off) By the end of the lesson he had a pretty basic understanding of how Jesus gave Joseph Smith direction to Restore all the “blocks" of the church back on top of each other and make it perfect again. Just like how Jesus had originally made it. Then the little boy said, "so i wanna be dipped in water so i can be a member of the church. Can we do that?"   My mind took a second to switch from minecraft to baptism... but once i realized what he said i almost started laughing out loud. His home teacher was shocked. hahah we are planning on meeting with him a lot more frequently now.

I know that the Lords hand is in every aspect of my life out here. The church is true, the book is blue, and the gospel will go to all.

Love you all tons!

Elder Brian

New companion - Co-Seniors

Well hello there. Let me tell you a few things about this week. hahaha

Well, i got a new companion. His name is Elder Richins. He is from idaho, and he is a crazy optimist! (i cant tell yet if that is good or bad) haha Elder Richins has been out for one transfer longer then me and we are going to kill it here in the richest part of the mish. He is one smart cookie. He is going to be a joy to be around. My only complaint is he listens to talks and things alllll the time. It's awesome - I’ll learn a lot. hahaha  He came from a poorish area of the mission so its been kinda a shock for him.

This week was a whole lot of fun. At transfers i got to see Elder Humpherys, and Elder Marlor and it made me soooo happy. I will send the pic. hahaha I met my new comp and we went to an appointment that fell through. (i hate that) haha but then we went and unpacked and i got to know him a little. 

To be honest we dont really have too many investigators but we did get to go to another hospital.  A man named Scott was in the hospital for who knows what, but we stopped by because some sisters from a different area told us about him. When we talked for a little it was clear he was looking for some sort of relief from the pains of the world. We gave him a Book of Mormon and let him know that he was a son of God and that he is loved and being watched over. He looked at us like we were crazy, but something weird has happened to me where i just disregard the look of 'what the freak' and i just continue to explain and try to help people understand. I asked him if we could say a prayer with him because he was going in for surgery the next day and he said yes that would be wonderful. I said a very simple prayer and left the room letting him know that he could call us any time. The lesson i took from that is how simple the gospel can be, and how the spirit can simply testify of the truth in peoples hearts. 

It got cold and i think i might be getting sick because i dont have my mom to tell me to wear a jacket. hahaha but thats okay because i bought those vitamins that taste like fruit snacks. I figure that should combat the illness. 

I love life. I should write more details, but its weird because when i start my emails, it takes everything in me to keep writing stuff. Sorry. hahaha 

Shout out to Collin and Ben, Happy birthday bros!

Disclamer to my family, I AM BEING SAFE DONT WORRY! hahaha I am in the safest place i could possibly be right now. 

Love you all 

Elder Brian

 I got to see Elder Humpherys!

My new companion, Elder Richins 

Not the "baby" anymore!

Well this is gonna be short and sweet... hope that's okay...

This past week has been a odd one. Elder Thomson and i spent a lot of time visiting people that he had taught or that he had come to know really well with his six months here in Frontenac. We had the opportunity to share spiritual thoughts with a lot of people.

I also had the chance to go the the scary part of town on exchanges, and of course it never fails to be awesome. We had to bus and we talked with some people but then i kinda gave up because i couldn't understand what they were saying. hahaha We made it to this appointment but then no one answered the door and it smelled like drugs so we decided to go knock on all the scary doors and see if anyone wanted to learn about Jesus. (Genius right?) As we are walking I see this lady across the street staring at us and then started cussing us out but then told us to come over to her... (sending very mixed signals...) We went over and met her crew which consisted of the Drug dealer sitting on the steps with a huge bag of drugs he was putting into smaller drug bags, two girls smoking some sort of substance together (romantic) and a dude that was looking around all funny and talking on the phone. When we walked up, the guy on the phone looked like he was gonna punch the elder I was with but he was just said in not so nice words, "who are you?"  We told him who we were and what we were doing and the lady about flipped. She was out of her mind. She told us that we were in the wrong place but that it was the place we needed to be because we are surrounded by sinners.... (I almost laughed) Then she put down the drugs that were in her hands and asked us to pray for her. Then she grabbed my hand and my companions and we had a little prayer circle and my companion offered a prayer for her. The drug dealer guy said some of the most terrible things i have ever heard, but I think it was just how he talked and he was trying to tell us good job. 

I love my mission. I am learning a lot. I am definitely one to say that God sees our potential, even those people have that amazing potential to become something great. 

I love y'all and i will talk to you later!

PS. I'm getting a new companion, hence the name of the email, and we are both new. He is one transfer older than me and we are co-senior here in the rich, bible-bashin-fun town of Frontenac. Here we go...

Love, elder Brian