Transfer #9

Happy 30th Anniversary Mom and Dad!

Hello Family! First off I would just like to say thank you so much for all the e-mails/thoughts and gifts! They are awesome! I have been sitting here for the past 45 minutes just straight up reading e-mails! It's so great! The downside is that we have to get going soon so I try to write as much as my fingers can type before then! 

NEWS UPDATE: Elder Otis and I are STAYING TOGETHER! We are so happy. Every other Zone Leader companionship had a change except for us! Amazing! We also figured out that Elder Otis is the oldest zone leader in the mission and I am the youngest! Quite the deadly duo! ha ha. So we are VERY happy about how things are going right now. Things are going to get crazy this transfer! President Hall comes at the end of this month and right when he enters and steps foot in the mission boundaries, he then has the mantle and President Martin is no longer our mission president :( Pretty crazy how that works. So we imagine we will probably be helping Pres. Hall out a lot when he gets here. And Elder Richards, the assistant to the president goes home, so we'll have a new AP as well! Lots of changes. We had our last Zone Leader Council with Pres. Martin... He just informed us how we'll be able to help with the mission president exchange. So we will see how that goes! We think a lot of things are going to change, which will probably be good. Give the mission life a little spice! 

Anyways, It sounds pretty eventful at home still! You’re going to Lake Powell? Lucky! I'm so jealous. 

Elder Otis, Elder Verive (one of our District leaders) and I have been doing Marshal Arts on P-days with some members! It's so intense! We are literally dying on the floor after our trainings! We are getting pretty good though! So watch out! I might be a black belt when I get home. :) Ha-ha nah, jk. 

Daphina update: So Daphina is doing extremely well with overcoming her addictions! We have still been meeting with them every single day since we met them. They love us so much and we all enjoy being together! She calls us her little angels... Last Monday, she was struggling really bad and freaking out when we got to her house. She demanded her cigarettes back that we destroyed and we told her we didn't have them... After being furious and needing one SUPER bad we finally got her settled down said a prayer and shared scriptures with her for about an hour. By the end of our visit, the spirit completely filled the room and she was totally calm and was stating her purpose with her head back on straight. Thank goodness... Then we helped her to recognize it was the spirit helping her right now and she didn't even notice at the moment! Then she broke down and said she had no desire to have a cigarette again! Absolutely amazing. The spirit TRANSFORMS us when we let Him into our lives. Then we agreed that this was a perfect example of why we need to visit her every single day and bring the spirit into her house until she is baptized and has the spirit with her! Daphina is doing amazing and her 15-year-old daughter (Tanisha) is super supportive and loves it all so much! Daphina is usually drunk for 14 hours of the day and smokes a whole pack of cigarettes a day. Since we first met her, she hasn't taken one single drink and she has only had 7 cigarettes in the past two weeks!!! We also had a little meeting at the Whitmore's house yesterday where we invited Daphina and her daughter Tanisha to come. The purpose of these meetings is just to get our investigators more comfortable and get to know the ward members so they can fellowship into the ward smoothly after baptism. Our meeting was on Satan’s influences and how to recognize them. Daphina started bawling because she is very sensitive to spirit and being in the awesome atmosphere of the Whitmore's home. Ladies that were there comforted her as she wipes away her tears and says," I KNOW THIS IS TRUE. I KNOW I NEED TO GET BAPTIZED. SATAN IS WORKING VERY HARD AGAINST ME. THANK YOU ALL FOR DOING ALL THIS FOR ME." It was so powerful! This has been an amazing experience and please keep praying for her!

Quick weekly thoughts: 

Trials are blessings. We must face them and overcome them. It is how we grow. It's the purpose of this life. Grow, gain experience, prepare to meet God again and have JOY in the process! God will never give us a command we cannot fulfill... (1 Ne. 3:7)

----LIVE FISH SWIM UPSTREAM----

"No Effort is ever wasted"  -Abinadi

Unfortunately, we had a very sad instance in our zone where a sister went home this week.    Nobody ever saw it coming. (Sister Welker, Layton, UT) There was nothing we could do... President Martin said she was struggling with personal stuff.  

Zone Leader advice. "No matter how many sheep you find... DON'T lose any of the Shepherds" -Brother Rich

Love Elder Brady

---No Regrets---

Newhall 2nd miracles/feelings

Holy Cow! It sounds like this week was spiritually insane for the both of us!

Congratulations Abby! It sounds like your baptism was an amazing day that you'll never forget! I love you so much and I am so happy for you! You look so big in your pictures!

Thank you all for all the amazing letters this week and the birthday wishes! And yes Grandma and Grandpa, I got your letter! Thank you Thank you! Love you "bushels and Pecks!"

I am glad you guys got our video that we finally got thrown together! I'm not going to lie; Heavenly Father definitely helped us out with that. We recorded that I think on Wednesday and we had one free hour that day... So we quickly asked the Sarmiento family (Awesome family!) if we could use their house to record. Then on our way to their home we figured out what we would do for a lesson and we thought of that "egg" lesson but we have yet to teach it together or anything... So once we got there we were going to run over it once together before filming but it was already 4:30 and we had an appointment every hour of the night starting at 5:00!!! So long story short, we were hilariously stressing out about it and just sat everyone down in their house and starting filming right when we got there. The boys on the couch didn't even know what was going on until we told them after! Don't tell anyone but that lesson was us totally winging it... ha ha and then we hurried off to our appointment so we didn't even get to watch it and see if it was good or not? I have finally seen it and we were pretty disappointed with the volume. Sorry about that, we should have done a lot better.  

Anyways! Besides this, we had an amazing week! We have been teaching 20+ lessons every single week so far! In the past 2 weeks we have found 10 new investigators! And this week we set 3 more baptismal dates! We are making this Newhall 2nd ward explode! The members love us so much and we have amazing trust with them. They have struggled with missionaries in the past because they didn't do anything, but they have come to find out that we are not all talk and see us working super hard and we now have them all on our side with helping the work progress! It is so great! That is usually the hardest part, but we think it's safe to say that we finally have the members trust back now. We just started a 40-day fast with the ward and it is going super well! We brought 4 investigators to church yesterday and right away got up and bore our testimonies first, and again dropped a spiritual bomb up in there! ha ha. It's so amazing to me, with this calling that we have, that it seems like every time we have an opportunity to speak the spirit pushes us up there and that Heavenly Father literally speaks right through us! Everyone always thanks us after for what we said because it was exactly what they needed to hear. Interesting how that works... every time. 

I'll tell you guys a story really quick, one of our investigators Daphina and her daughter Tanisha, came to church yesterday. We have been meeting with them every day this past week. Daphina has been a hardcore smoker for her whole life and she is so ready to quit and she is completely trying to change her life as we teach her all the missionary lessons. The gospel is literally transforming her and turning her life completely around. She is overwhelmed but the spirit is always there and comforts her and us reassuring all of us it is completely possible. They are like sponges right now and loved church! She was so happy after the 3 hours of church and we got outside she said," Yes! I haven't smoked for 3 whole hours and I don't even want to!" We then told her that the spirit can change and transform us and it will change her habits, as long as she keeps the commitments we give her, her addiction will be gone! It has been super powerful teaching her. Yesterday after church she wanted to destroy them and she ripped a cigarette up to "destroy her addiction."  Then Elder Otis and I wrote all over her other packs of cigarettes fun and inspirational sayings like "Don't do it! It's a Trap! These will kill you! (Drew some skulls and cross bones) and wrote if you continue smoking you will look like this ---> (pointing at the picture of the Camel.)" ha ha. So pray for her, she is trying really hard. She actually told us to take her unopened packs so we destroyed those for her. 

Miracles are happening right now in our area! We are working super hard and I know I have said this before but I feel like I am the most tired I have ever been my entire mission! Again! For example, we got home last night around 9:30 and had to make our weekly calls to the missionaries in our zone and collect numbers for President Martin. Right after we finished, I laid down on my bed for a sec before getting ready for bed... and then I accidentally fell asleep and the next thing I knew, it was morning and the alarm was going off! Time is going by way too fast right now... Elder Otis and I are hoping so badly we stay together for another transfer this week. We are having too much fun together, we feel the spirit so strongly, we're super tired all the time with everything we are doing, but the spirit always gives us strength! We pretty sure we wouldn't be able to accomplish all that are without this missionary calling. This is so rewarding. Best thing I have ever done in my life. I am so glad I still have a whole year to apply what I have learned. 

I love you all and hope you all have an amazing week!

Happy Birthday Jason!

Love, Elder Brady

<<<NO REGRETS>>>

Memorial Day

Wud up Fam!

Hey so Happy Memorial Day! This week has been very successful for Elder Otis and I! We didn't have too many Zone Leaders responsibilities to fulfill this week, which was a blessing because we taught 28 lessons this week!!! And picked up 7!!! New Investigators in our area! We definitely tore it up this week and have been working super hard to progress our area. I have bad news though, I have not recorded the video for Abby's baptism yet but I am determined to do it before tomorrow is over! We've been talking to the Sarmiento family and they said they could even send it to you online so you can just pull it up instantly? I don't know, you'll get it though. To be totally honest, I don't even know how I am going to do it, I want to make the video somewhat fun so I've been thinking outside the box... We'll see what I come up with... hopefully she'll like it. 

Anyways, this week we also had Dinner with President and sister Martin! It's actually really nice to be so close to them all the time and spend more time with them. It's going to be sad to see them leave next month.   This week we also helped some missionaries clean their apartment. It was terrible! Mom, you know it's bad when even I think it's bad... ha ha. But we bought some cleaning supplies and stuff and we spent a couple hours deep cleaning their apartment as a district. It was actually a really fun bonding experience. We have Korean elders in our Zone and we have been spending a lot of time with them lately. It's actually their apartment that was the disaster! Korean culture :( ... ha ha. But it was good President encouraged us to do so and he said he'll pay us back. Which he has forgotten to do, therefore I am broke again :( it's almost a new month so not for long! May went by way too fast... transfer calls are already coming in 2 weeks.

We have been having some awesome spiritual experiences this past week. We made a new dinner thought that we share with the families that feed us and 75% of the time everyone cries! It's really powerful and we get their trust with that and then we lead it into finding people that God has prepared to receive the gospel. And we have gotten a ton of referrals this week from this message and have been talking to a lot of new people! It's so great! Hence, our 7 new investigators this week! 3 of them even showed up at church, which was very exciting! Hopefully we can keep this up and we are going to do everything in our power to help them keep progressing!

Crazy news: I got in contact with former Elder Bennett this week! He told me he's getting married to one of the girls (Amber Ostler) that we taught back up in Lancaster! Crazy!   

Dad! We went on a hike last Monday up Towsley Canyon and made the mistake of not taking water... talk about some serious cottonmouth! I was just laughing to myself about that hike me and you went on... I don't think anyone else will realize how funny that really was. "You just had to be there" ha ha. 

Well, thanks for everything you do, you amazing family of mine! I couldn't of asked for a better one. Keep being you!

Good luck at your baptism my favorite little sister in the whole wide world! You're so awesome! 

I Love you all,

Love Elder Brady

---No Regrets---

Stephen Winkler's baptism!

Hey Fam! 

So, where to start... Stephen's Baptism! Steve got baptized last Sunday and it was an awesome baptism like always! We were scared no one was going to show up, but it was announced at church and a lot of members got in their cars right after church and went straight to the stake center to witness his baptism! Bless their hearts. Stephen's brother even showed up! None of his family is really supporting him with this decision, but it was an awesome reunion when his brother showed up! So it was a great turnout, and Steven bore an amazing testimony to everyone there after his baptism. I got the opportunity to perform the baptism! He is such a great guy. Super smart, amazing testimony, but just a little socially awkward... It's actually hilarious to me thought and makes me laugh all the time. We get along pretty well. 

I got to see Mother Helaman and Pops yesterday at the baptism too! When she saw me there, I went to give her a hand shake (ha ha) and she said, "get that out of here!" and gave me a hug and a kiss on the cheek! Ha ha their awesome just not the most ideal thing to do in public... Anyways, their house is pretty much sold now so they will be living somewhere else in October. Then in June, when she retires, moving to Utah! It was so good to see them all again! 

I've been hearing through the grape vine and from Elder Norton and Elder Chunn themselves that they aren't doing too well together. I guess their chemistry isn't mixing too well right now... It's very sad to hear news like that. It's so rough to be stuck with a companion that you don't like. I am so grateful that all my Companions are like my best friends! I've been super lucky with the companions that I have had for the first year of my mission! I hope my luck continues! 

Well, we have to get going, but my last thoughts would be that, yes, I will send a video your way of my testimony/baptismal thoughts for Abby's baptism. I have a card I haven't put anything on yet so I can just use that one. Hopefully it will be good, I have no idea what I am going to do, but if it sucks, just don't use it I guess... ha ha.  I am so excited to hear about Abby's baptismal preparations! That is my life 24/7! So news like that is dynamite! Especially when it's your little sister! I love you Abby!!!

Well, everything is going really well! We just gave another Training to our zone about finding new investigators on Thursday and it was a lot of fun but we are very grateful right now that we don't have to give one this week... thank goodness. Last Thursday was Zone Conference and Valencia (our zone) and Santa Clarita Zone (my last zone) did it combined! It was so much fun to see all of them again as they say," Elder Brady, come back to us!" ha ha it's amazing, the relationships you establish on a mission is such short amount of time! I love it! I love it! I love it! 

Love, Elder Brady

---No Regrets---

Phone call leftovers

Hello Family! Long time no talk! :)

Yesterday was amazing! It was so good to hear your voices! It's nice to actually hear you guys and know you're still alive and I'm not just randomly e-mailing! Ha-ha I LOVE PHONE CALLS!

So I don't know what else I could possibly share right now... Well actually today, for P-day, Otis and I planned a zone activity for our zone and we went to the park and played volleyball/ultimate Frisbee/basketball act. And spent $40 on pizzas/watermelon/drinks for them! We are trying to be the best zone leaders they've ever had... ha-ha. Nah JK. But it was awesome today to get our zone together again and bond with them and have some fun! We are very lucky to be apart of such an amazing zone!

I love you guys and thank you for the amazing conversations yesterday! I have the best family in the world and thanks for the sweet advice! Etc.! It definitely pumped up my spirit as always! Whoraw!

Love you all! Have a great week!

Love Elder Brady

First week in Newhall

Sup Family! Hey! :)

Thank you all for the words of advice and pictures! They definitely lifted my spirit and made me laugh.

Well, I honestly don't even know where to start for this weeks e-mail... I feel like I have experienced a month worth of stuff in this past week. Going from the most comfortable/ laid back "chill" lifestyle, all the way up to Zone Leader is definitely a slap in the face... I didn't even have the opportunity to be a District Leader...? Anyways though, I have never been so tired my whole mission. We are over 23 missionaries all in the Santa Clarita Valley. 3 separate Districts. This would be super overwhelming if my companion wasn't so freaking awesome! We didn't know each other before we became comps and now just after a week we feel like we have known each other our whole lives! One of those feelings where you guys just click right off the bat and work together very well. We feel like we were best friends in the pre-earth life or something! Ha-ha

It's all really good though, I just hate Drama. And missionaries are full of drama and we are in tune with what every companionship is going through (and talk to President Martin like every other day which is really cool!). It definitely is a handful. I feel like I just got my feet wet this week. I got thrown into the ocean and it seems like everyone is watching to see if I sink or swim... so far I am proud to say I am still afloat :) We have Zone Leader Council (ZLC) tomorrow where president instructs all the ZL's. Then we are attending Leadership Training on Thursday where all ZL's and DL's meet together and we will be providing a training for that. Then we have Combined District meeting on Friday where Elder Otis and I will be giving another training to our whole zone! Goodie!!! Definitely not excited for this week either... Trainings/Meetings/working with missionaries in our zone, fill a lot of our time, but Elder Otis and I are dedicated and extremely motivated to set a good example and progress our own area at the same time! 

I have never had a companion like Elder Otis before, no offense to my other comps, but he is super awesome! He is 21, from Buffalo, Minnesota and only has 5 months left before he goes home. We have been 100% obedient this past week and have really hit it hard so far! We are exhausted 24/7 but it is well worth it. I have also never felt the spirit this strong my entire mission! We just love it! We feel like amazing things are about to happen so we just keep doing our best. We have set some awesome goals to keep us going everyday and tools to keep our Zone focused. Heavenly Father is definitely blessing us and helping us by giving us strength to obey Him. He will never give us a commandment we cannot fulfill (1 Nephi 3:7). Anyways I could seriously type all day from all the things that we have learned just this past week. But I can fill you in on more next Sunday with our Phone call!!!!! Yay!

I'll most likely call you around 1:30ish here, which will be 2:30ish there? Correct? It will just be after you guys get home from church. Our church is from 9-12. This past Sunday at 7:00AM we had a meeting with President Martin and the Stake Presidency about how the missionary work is progressing. Definitely some inspired leaders! That was a very uplifting meeting with them. Then at church it was fast Sunday and we were the first ones to bear our testimonies, and together we dropped a spiritual bomb in there! It was amazing and I think I know the entire ward already and they are super cool and friendly. I already love this ward :) like all of them came up to us and thanked us for our testimonies! I love missionary work! Not so much of this Zone Leader crap but hopefully it continue to get better and more comfortable. Well this is all for now, love you all! Have a great week and looking forward to Sunday!

Happy 8th Birthday this week Abs! Abby you are getting so big! When I saw that picture of you by the water I thought it was Lyndsey or Kristin! Ha-ha

Happy Late anniversary Kris and Jas!

Love Elder Brady

===NO REGRETS===

What the transfer??

Crazy stuff... So transfers slapped us in the face this time. So all along we were thinking that Norton and I would stay together since we were doing so well and we were in the middle of being apart of miracles! But Norton has been here for almost six months now so we were thinking it could be time for him to leave. So transfer calls usually come on Saturday morning... so we were a little shocked to see him calling us Friday morning... Elder Norton said, "It's for you." So I got the phone and talked to Pres for a while and basically the punch line is that he has a "special assignment" for me and said I am going to be a zone leader with Elder Otis covering the Valencia Zone. What the heck! It doesn't make any sense at all but I guess duty calls... So I am leaving in 2 hours to my new apartment and I am already packed and ready to go. Serious bummer. I felt like I just got my feet wet here and finally started to have a lot of strong relationships with people in this area. It feels like I'm leaving home AGAIN and AGAIN...

Good news though, Stephen has moved his baptismal date to May 20th and he asked me if I would baptize him! I felt very honored and it lifted my spirits to hear that. Well I don't have too much else to say right now besides Donna's baptism went perfectly! And with her coming to church for the past 7 years, she has A LOT of friends in the ward and it was seriously like sacrament meeting attendance for her baptism! It was amazing.

Actually another thing that happened this week was Mormon Helping Hands. We all went up to the aquatic center and painted 2,000 ft. of fence! There was a big turnout so it only took like 3 hours. Ha-ha

So another good thing is that the Valencia Zone is right next to the Santa Clarita Zone (and both in Santa Clarita Valley) so I'm just moving a couple miles away... The only problem is that I am going from a "suite mansion house" (best place to stay in the mission) to the one of the "worst apartments in the mission." So it will be good to bring me back to reality ha-ha. I'm really going to miss Brother and Sister Maxson though, we've become pretty attached to them and I wasn't expecting it, but they were actually Very emotional about the news. They shared some very heartfelt things with us and wish that we were their sons. Elder Norton's new companion coming in is Elder Chhun. He's from Cambodia and speaks little English. So things will definitely be much different next transfer. We are both pretty sad though at the unexpected change...

It will be good though :) I don't know when we will call on mothers day yet, I don't even know when my new ward starts... so hopefully I will have more information next week?

Love you all! Thanks for the support!

Love Elder Brady

*NO REGRETS*