General Conference

Hey Fam!

What an awesome General Conference weekend eh!?! We got to watch the Saturday sessions at the Sirias's home, and then went to Priesthood at the stake center with the Whitmore/Dunn family! All the missionaries in our zone were there, of course, but it just made me realize how much different these Priesthood sessions are here then they were at home. I don't even remember ever seeing missionaries more than 3 times in my LIFE! So it was just different to see 22 missionaries they’re having a good time together... This is something that I have definitely grown attached to, having missionaries everywhere! Anyways, we then watched the Sunday sessions at the Ramirez's home! This ward is so awesome, we had multiple families invite us over to watch it with them, but like I said before, we can only be so many places at once! So we just ended up hanging out with the Ramirez family. I have been thinking that each General Conference has been getting better and better! This one seemed to talk A LOT about missionary work. It's also interesting to see (depending on what stage of life you're in) what message the spirit brings to you, and what overall theme sticks out to you personally from listening to the same talks as everyone else! The theme that stuck out to me this time was: becoming a more FULLY CONVERTED disciple of Jesus Christ, and once you are, to strengthen those around you.

My mission has definitely converted me. I have come to find out that I was kind of wishy washy before the mission... I would follow Jesus Christ because I was supposed to... Now I follow Jesus Christ because I WANT to! Just doing "missionary things" can get you only so far... Like President Uchtdorf has said," The what informs while the WHY transforms." That has been my focus lately. Not just doing missionary things, but also actually BEING a missionary. Not just knowing what to do, but WHY you're doing it in your heart. Overall thesis: BECAUSE WE LOVE HIM! Not because we "have to" or are obligated to. Because WE LOVE HIM! Taking his words to heart, not just memorizing/reciting them all day long, but taking them to heart. We can talk about things until we are blue in the face but that still won't get us anywhere. We need to understand them and apply them with REAL INTENT or it profiteth us nothing! (Moroni 7)

Sorry, I just realized that I am sounding kind of preachy... this mission stuff is really getting to me :)

So a couple of updates before I run out of time. First off, it's kind of hard to write about our investigators right now because they are taking us on one heck of a roller coaster!  We have approximately 5 investigators who are progressing towards baptism right now so the work in our area is still doing really good! All of which we have found by knocking on doors/contacting on the street. And all of which have a problem with the word of wisdom commandment and have the desire to get baptized but can't because of these addictions that Satan has them bound with. It truly is the most frustrating thing to witness, and I bet, Super annoying to actually deal with! So we have been exercising some faith that some miracles will happen with these people as they take action and attend addiction recovery classes through the church. Because of my mission, I now fully know why they say, "Say No to drugs"! Because seeing that once they start, their life goes basically goes straight down the drain with limited/no happiness along the way.

Oh before I forget! Last Tuesday when we had one of the missionary department visitors from Salt Lake come out with us for the day, we got the coolest evaluator you could ask for! And we basically knew each other from the pre-existence (aka. before the mission)! He knows Braden Hansen and come to find out he was his young men's leader or something! His name is Mark Pendleton and he was the stake president that named the Hidden Valley Stake in Draper! And raised his family there! So we had a great time with him and clicked right off the bat so it was actually an enjoyable day instead of stressful! We were just ourselves and had a really good time with him. Then last Thursday we had Leadership Training where like half the mission attended and he trained us all by the mistakes that he noticed while being out with us ha-ha. He said, "none of it was our fault, it's just how our mission's culture is". The AP's got a real stickler evaluator that tore them up, they said it was a rough day... and come to find out the other ZL's with the evaluator had "a huge learning experience as well" ;) ha-ha I guess all the missionaries here are just training each other wrong! Nah jk. There were only a couple things that needed to be fixed such as how our mission sets goals and plans for the day. So that was an awesome learning experience! He did tell us how enjoyable we were to be out with and that we were definitely not "Robot missionaries" (which is always good to hear ha-ha). He also told us that he can tell that we are honest, truly love the people that we work with, have great relationships with the missionaries in our zone, and are doing really well to help meet each of their needs.

Well this e-mail is really long! We didn't have time to e-mail yesterday (as you probably know) because we had too many activities! Basketball, volleyball, then even football this time too! We're crazy!

Well love you all!

Love, Elder Brady