Goes down in history.

This week was a week that I will never ever forget.
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> 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.
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> 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
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> 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.

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> 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
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> 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

Paint Louis

Hey team,

Happy Halloween to everyone that is cool enough to actually read any of this. hahaha holidays are different here and I was devastated when I learned I couldn't go trick or treating. It's whatevs though. hahaha

This past week has been wild. We get asked by a less active and a recent convert to come over all the time and help them with things and this past week we sorta went the extra mile. I am getting pretty good at home repairs. i have now taken carpet out along with stairs and a dishwasher. Re-layed a floor in a home. Stripped paint off of walls and door frames, and sanded and primed. I'm sure that I'm gonna be able to get a job at Home Depot now.

Other then being a work crew, haha, the mission effort has been going wonderful. Its odd how much more confident I am with talking with people now. My companion is just about to leave me so we are trying to see all the people he wants to see before we go. We had the chance to talk to some members, the Nings, who are like Japanese/Chinese/Korean and now they are living here and learning English. It was an emotional lesson for my companion but I had the chance to bear a very simplified version of my testimony of prayer. It was amazing to watch the spirit flood the room and bear witness of truth to even those who may not understand my words. 

I got to go to Paint Louis and it was sweet. It is huge wall that is covered in graffiti and they have competitions each year to see who is the best.  Here are some pics. Pretty much WAY cool. hahaha 

Keep on keepin' on,

Love, Elder Brian

My parents stood on my doorstep

Momma! Send me that picture right this minute hahahahahahah you guys! haha

My parents were on a trip in the midwest and spent their last night in St. Louis. They dropped off a package for me while I was at church. Sneaky sneaky.

Hey, everyone... its been awhile. hahaha

These past two weeks have been a bit of a roller coaster. Don't worry, I wont make this a whole novel, but there have been so many things going on I probably could. I'll just paraphrase.

Starting last last Monday, Holy cow it was a rough week. At times I sorta felt likeI  was just being pounded. hahaha There was a solid three days where every single door we knocked on, resulted in someone yelling at us or a dog trying to eat us or something else crazy. It was insane to say the least. After a good whooping from some guy with a lazy eye that told us to get off his property and never come back we walked about half way down the block and i started laughing super hard. My companion was a little bit shaken because the man was mostly mad at him for ringing the door bell, but when i started laughing my companion was like what the heck man we just got cussed out and you are laughing? I told him that i was laughing because i felt so blessed to be able to feel a little tiny piece of how the sons of Mosiah felt, or how Alma the younger felt, and it was awesome. The rest of the day we walked around getting yelled at and told to leave town and all sorts of fun stuff. haha and I always smiled as we walked away. 

Luckily, the Lord tells us that blessings come after the trail of our faith. This past week on Monday, I got to go on an exchange with another missionary that came out in the same group as me, Elder Havili. We relied on the Lord for so much because that's all we knew how to do. It paid off. In one day we picked up more investigators and taught more lessons than i had in the past 2 weeks combined.

About an hour before we were going to have dinner, we had just not quite reached the goal we wanted. We had already had a successful day but both of us felt like there was something more we needed to do. We pulled into this neighborhood and the first door we knocked on let us in. We talked to this lady and her husband about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. They followed the lesson perfectly and asked wonderful questions, but at the end when we invited them to take a copy of the Book of Mormon, they refused and told us that they had both studied religion in college and felt like there was nothing more out there for them. Elder Havili and i both knew that these were the people that the Lord wanted us to see and to teach, and we were pretty determined to pick them up as investigators. Something happened and i was speaking without knowing really what i was saying, and i told her that if she read one page and prayed about it that the Holy Ghost will testify of its truthfulness to her and her husband. It went quiet and she said, "One page?"  As the words came out i couldn't believe what i was saying but I just said, "One page." We have an appointment with her later this week to see if she actually did it but the spirit was so strong and it was an amazing experience. I know that they will feel of the spirit if they read and pray, and now I'm just hoping they are willing to act on that feeling.

On a secular note, I get wrecked at ping pong//sting pong, and I now have welts all over me. hahaha I am loving the cooler weather and the fact that I am not sweating to death all the time now. 

Things are good here. no complaints. hahaha 

Love, elder Brian

The One In White...

So for this weeks email, because its only been a few days because my mission president is changing everything that we are used to, I'm just gonna make it short and tell a good ole funny story.

On Tuesday of this week we decided that we would have all the missionary's in our District (the little group thingy of missionaries that live close to us) come and 'Blitz' our area. This just means we have 5 sets of missionaries in our area at one time. I was put with one of the Zone leaders who is in our area named Elder Ward. He is a super stud, from Idaho. He and I quoted Brian Reagan the whole day and had a blast working together. 

This Elder knew what he was doing. There wasn't a person we saw that we weren't talking to. It was so cool to see him interact with all the people. 

Anyway, we had just picked up a few people to go see in the coming week and we were on our way to see if we could talk to some people that had let missionaries in before. As we are pulling out onto the main road, we saw the most beautiful thing ever. I couldn't tell for sure, but it was like Gandalf the White had gotten lost and was on the streets of St. Louis. I almost peeled out, and drove straight to the nearest parking lot and jumped out of the car. Ward was right on my tail and we ran a good block to catch this mystical man. 

Well, we are behind him - and all the cars are honking and he is giving everyone the peace sign and I was almost in tears. We said "HEY Sir" and this old man turned around and gave us the biggest grin. (at this point in time I was praying he'd say something like, "YOU SHALL NOT PASS!" but it didn't happen...)

Let me describe him before I attach the picture at the bottom. An older man dressed to the best. Wearing a white hat, white gloves, white robe, white shirt, white pants, white socks, and white shoes. He welded a staff of the finest wood. And in his eyes was a little bit of crazy.

We talked to him and he gave us some very important news. He said that all the Mormons in the whole world need to move to Missouri and take over the state, and kick out any non believers in Jesus. Then God will rule here and there will be one good place on the earth. He said that he had been preaching the good word for (buckle up this is gonna knock your socks off) 28 YEARS. He didn't proclaim himself to be Jesus, or God, or Moses, but he said if he dressed the part maybe he could become like them. 

He was amazing. That is commitment. He said he's only got beaten up once and that was this year... but then he said that he forgave them and it was all a misunderstanding. hahaha 

So things are still going great. We got a few new investigators this week due to the Blitz so we are keeping busy. I love the Lord and his work. 

Love, Elder Brian