Meetings/Responsibilities

Hakuna Matata! (It means no worries)

Hey family! Thanks for those awesome e-mails and all the details! It is awesome to have somewhat of an idea what is going on at home and what some of my friends are up to!

Well this week was super duper busy! On Tuesday we had Zone Leader council (ZLC) with President Hall that lasted from 9-4! Holy shmoley! Very long... Then on Wednesday we have Zone Development Meeting (ZDM) with our District Leaders to help them to inspire their individual districts and such. On Thursday we did a service project with half of our zone in Castaic, it always turns into a party when we all get together even though we are working super hard and braking down buildings and stacking/moving supplies from one side of the mountain in his backyard to the other side. If you have a good attitude and are with the right people, it doesn't matter what you do, it will be awesome. ;)

Then President Hall has started a new program with a meeting called Zone Training Meeting (ZTM) where the zone leaders train the missionaries in their zone for 2-3 hours! That is as long as church! But it's all-good, we gave that training last Friday and with our awesome zone, it went by very fast!  Then lastly, but definitely not least, we had another meeting with the Valencia stake presidency and President Hall Sunday morning @ 7 AM where they just ask us questions about how the missionary work/etc. is going in the stake. At least that meeting is only an hour long ;) My perspective is changing and I a grateful when they are only an hour long... haha.

Besides all of this our 4 investigators with baptismal dates should all be baptized within a month from now. We pray. But then we just picked up another investigator last week that also came to church last Sunday! His name is Frank and he is a military guy that is divorced with a couple kids. He is pretty entertaining to be around. When we first met him and went into his house he was wearing camo gear and has a 50 Cal Sniper that he was assembling on his kitchen table... WOW! So we actually picked him up for church and he really enjoyed church and wants to come again! He is very spiritually sensitive and has been to a lot of churches. He told us there is something different about us and he said the reason he let us in was because he saw a light about us. He keeps telling us (as he looks over our heads) that he sees a light around us and he knows we are truly God's servants. So awesome. Only one hard thing is that he rolls up tobacco and smokes it all the time. We even had to wait for him a couple times because he had to step out of church in between meetings to smoke...

Well I have to get going now because we are almost done with the shirts we are making for the missionaries in our zone!

I love you all!

Love, Elder Brady

---No REGRETS---

Awesome Valencia Zone

Hello Family!

Thank you for those e-mails! And yes mom i did get both of your letters! Those pictures of the twins were unreal! It's probably going to take me a while to get used to that. Also those pictures at the zoo looked super fun! Thank you for all the pictures!

So this week has been awesome and super fun! Elder Kunz is so awesome! Easily one of my best friends out here! We are thinking that this upcoming transfer will probably be the prime time of our missions! Our zone is amazing! Yes, Elder Kunz and I are the zone leaders in the Valencia Zone. This is Elder Kunz's first time as ZL and so we are both trying to figure out how to manage everything and it's a blast! We are making a goal to unify our zone together and so we are going to make customized T-Shirts for everyone! Everyone has been loving it. We also just played volleyball this morning with our whole zone and we are planning on doing that every Monday! Super Fun! Elder Kunz is from Nampa, Idaho and only has like 4 months left.

We have 21 missionaries that we are over in our zone and there are only 2 sisters. But everyone is super unified so it's a blast! The zone leader responsibilities are becoming second nature and i kind of like it... So it will probably feel like something is missing when i am released from this calling. It's a lot of fun to be so involved with everything that is going on all the time.

Then as for the bike situation, i'll probably just need to get one when i go back to a bike area... so i'll worry about that when the time comes.

Daphina and Tanisha are still working on getting baptized and it is now scheduled for August 11, so we'll see if they happen then. Then we also have 2 others that are coming up in August as well! One is a ten year old boy named Brian, and the other is the father of a part member family named Octavio! They are super awesome and should be happening. Octavio Sirias's family that i called home from on Mothers day remember? So they are an awesome family.

Well i've got to go now but i love you all! keep up the great work over there!

Love you!

Love, Elder Brady

-No Regrets-

Transfer 10

Hey mom! I just wanted to let you know that everything is awesome!

I got a new companion and Elder Otis went to Canyon Country (so not too far, still in the same valley, my last zone...) but he is training a brand new missionary.

Sorry I didn't get to e-mail yesterday, it was crazy! There were a lot of transfers going on and almost every companionship in our zone changed! It is so awesome though! We have a ton of awesome missionaries in our zone now! Just when we didn't think it would get any better, it does! Impossible! Ha-ha

Elder Ludlow came to our zone as well! It's a party here and we are all working super hard!

My new companion is Elder Kunz and he is soooo awesome! He has like 3 transfers left before he goes home. I am very excited to work with him. I only heard good things about him and spent our first day together yesterday and clicked right off the bat. We helped\ welcomed the new missionaries in our zone and they were all pumped to be here and we have told them, welcome to the best zone in the world! Because it is! So things are going really well. Elder Kunz and I are super surprised that we haven't met yet... we've just heard about each other. President Hall was excited saying that he put the two most requested missionaries together for a deadly duo!

I have been so blessed with the companions I have had and I am excited to get going with elder Kunz!

I have to go but just wanted to let you know I didn't forget to e-mail we were just super busy! I love you guys!

Love, Elder Brady

No Regrets

Uncle of four beautiful nieces

HOLA FaMiLY! 

Congratulations Kristin and Jason! I am so happy for you guys! That is so exciting! Thank you for all the details! I will definitely keep them in my prayers. I can't believe everything that is happening at home! It's going to be so different already and I still have a year! Crazy...

Anyways though, crazy stuff is happening everywhere! This week was insane for us. We planned out the baptismal service for Daphina and Tanisha this Saturday @ 3, but we will see if that actually happens. President Hall is coming out with us on Thursday and we'll take him over there so he can interview them and see if they are good to go. So keep them in your prayers this week! It's a big week for them! Daphina asked me to baptize her and Tanisha asked Elder Otis to baptize her, so we will both be involved! Then vice versa for the confirmations at church and I will confirm Tanisha and Elder Otis will confirm Daphina. So we are excited to see them progress and take this leap of faith!

This could possibly be our last week together... transfer calls are this Saturday. Otis and I have agreed that these past 2 transfers together have been the fastest transfers of our entire missions! He only has 2 left. We're hoping I will "kill him"... aka be his companion when he goes home. So next Monday we will know for sure. I have come to find out the hard way that calls are very inspired and whatever happens, always remind me that it is going to be perfect. It always has been and will. When I became zone leader I kind of forgot about that and had a bad attitude when I found out... 

We had interviews this week and we were with President Hall from 10am -7pm on Friday at the church. That pretty much shot our day in the foot... but it was a very good day. We also got to sit down with each missionary in our zone individually and interview them for a while. I love interviews; it builds such a strong relationship even when you didn't think it could get any stronger! 

Yesterday, after church, we hosted a "Newhall 2nd Member MTC" class where Elder Otis and I trained the members on how they can overcome their fears of sharing the gospel with their friends. Fear is the opposite of Faith. Perfect love casteth out all fears.

False Evidence Appearing Real ! It was actually pretty fun! We had a great turnout and it was a total success! So we will probably be doing something similar again in the near future again. Our ward just ended the 40-day ward fast and there are several members who have now caught the missionary spirit! 

So I usually don't write home about the bad news, but... this is pretty significant. --->

We came home the other night after being out working all day and we noticed something different about our apartment. Our bikes were gone! Someone managed to come to the back of our apartment and cut our bike locks off and now they are gone... $400 gone. So we are just glad that we are not in a bike area right now or else we would definitely be struggling. It made us very sad, all that work I put into it. Someone’s going to be looking good out there on the street. We'll I guess they must have needed it pretty bad to do that so good luck to them. Forgiven; because they know not what they do. 

So, crazy week for sure. I'm looking forward to see what the future brings! Love you all! Have a great week! Congrats again Kris and Jas!

Love, Elder Brady

===NO REGRETS===

President Hall's First Week

Thank you for those pictures and letters family! 

First off, I’d just like to say, President Hall is awesome! He is so young! He has such great energy and enthusiasm about the work and he's all fired up right now! I have to admit, his flame is contagious right now and Elder Otis and I have caught part of his flame and we are very excited to work with him. He also has an awesome sense of humor, which makes it a lot of fun! We got to spend a lot of time with him this week and he is doing his best to get to know all the missionaries in the mission. We got to spend some awesome time with him this week and had ZLC with him and he also hosted a Zone Conference! I already feel like we have created a special bond with him. He does have the "new missionary" fire right now and wants to get out and work with us! So he is going to spend a full day (6:30am-10: 30pm) with the each of the zone leaders and get out here on the "front lines" of battle! Ha ha. So he will be coming out with us probably within the next two weeks! Such a dedicated man! It's definitely going to be a day to remember having president exercise with us in the morning, lesson planning, teaching, tracting, and contacting with us. I'll definitely let you know how that goes! Exciting! 

Daphina and Tanisha have been progressing tremendously! They are becoming spiritual giants and are starting to even help others in their complex now! Amazing! The only set back is that she still has an occasional cigarette now and then. We are trying to help her with that and we are now attending the AA meetings with her through the church. We also hooked her up with a LDS sponsor lady that can be there for her and help her to stop smoking. We have become very close with them and maybe too attached, so we are trying to separate ourselves a little bit so they can stand on their own two feet with confidence! So their baptismal date is set for the 21st and we'll continue to see how that goes... They have been to church 5 times now and love it! 

Besides all of this, I just want to say that as of now, the missionaries in our zone are doing awesome like always. We just had one instance where a companionship wasn't getting along very well this week and they pretty much blew up on each other. So we went over and sat them down, talked to them individually, and then sat down with both of them and talked it out and resolved what was going on and placed perspective in their lives again and now they are best friends again! So we hosted a companionship inventory this week :) It's funny, because once you put your name tag on, people think that you are now a Marriage counselor, family therapist, and even a person to confess all their sins to! Being a missionary is a pretty crazy experience. Definitely some good experience if you're wanting to be a therapist that's for sure. 

Anyways, my last thought, is that I love to give people baptismal interviews. We got to do a couple this week and will be able to do some more this week! That's a good sign because our zone is baptizing! Baptismal interviews are an amazing experience and it's like you get to be apart of someone’s whole conversion process in like 15 minutes! After, you have such a strong bond with that person and they want you to attend their baptism so badly and you felt like you have known them your whole life! But you just met them 15 minutes ago! Crazy, Surreal experience.

This week we will be ending the "Newhall 2nd- 40 day Ward Fast" and we have seen some awesome success from doing that and had 7 investigators at church again! WOW! We are planning a "Newhall 2nd- Member-MTC" workshop next Sunday after church where Elder Otis and I are going to give a training/ train the members in our ward how to overcome their fears of doing missionary work to capitalize on this 40 day fast! We already have a very busy week planned, and on top of that we have interviews with President Hall on Friday and the members of our zone. 

Well I got to go! Love you all!

Love, Elder Brady

===NO REGRETS===

President Hall's 1st Week - Alex Boye

Wud up family! 

This week was interesting... We were working at the mission office when President Martin said his final goodbyes to everyone in there and then he put on a pair of Aviator sunglasses with the BIGGEST SMILE on his face and hugged us then just simply took off with all their luggage! He acted like he was going on a vacation or something! How rude! 

Anyways though, we have not met/seen Pres. Hall yet, but he got here yesterday and he's definitely the hot topic around here and is probably getting swarmed by people as we speak! We get to see him tomorrow for sure though because he planned a Zone Leader Council, so we're super excited about that!

Today we planned a Zone activity for our missionaries and it was a total success! We played flag football, basketball, etc at a park and BBQ'd! Our zone is so awesome. Pretty much the best zone ever and each of them are my best friends! It's amazing, and we are so blessed and humbled to be the ones to represent this awesome zone at Mission meetings. We don't deserve all these compliments. I'll just give you a sneak peek at what we are dealing with right now...

 For our zone goals for the month of June, we set the goals a little higher than usual because all our missionaries are starting to push it! So for instance, we set the goal for investigators with a baptismal date at 15, and we ended with 16! CHECK! Then, we challenged them to teach an average of 42 lessons with a member present at the lessons, and we ended with 44! CHECH! Then for the average of investigators attending church we raised it up to 18, (which was a stretch for this zone), and we ended with 24!! CHHECKK!! Then lastly, we raised another goal, to get out there and find an average of 12 new investigators a week... and we ended the month with 21! YES, TWENTY-ONE! Crazy! 

Definitely, CHHHHEECKK! Ha-ha this zone is exploding right now and everyone is going to die when we report this tomorrow how the Valencia zone did for the month of June! We know it's not all about the numbers. but our philosophy is that there is always a person behind each number so we're stoked! 

So, that is just A HINT of the joy and satisfaction you receive with being a zone leader. Yeah, you are responsible for the mistakes. but you also get to celebrate with each of the missionaries and their individual successes, which is very rewarding!

Now for the highlight of the week! Right after our District meeting on Friday, our whole zone got together and we had a surprise! Alex Boye' and Marvin Perkins came and taught us and sang for us for about 2 hours! It was amazing! They are best friends and Marvin Perkins lives in our zone and wanted to talk to all the missionaries in our zone. They are spiritual giants! Then they had to hurry and leave because Alex Boye' was singing at "Mormon Dodger Night" where Pres. Uchtdorf threw the first pitch! We felt so special that they took that time out of their busy lives to come the church to help inspire us missionaries. 

Well this is roughly some of the major points that happened this week... I've got to get going now, that Zone activity destroyed all our P-day time today! 

PEACE OUT! 

Love, Elder Brady

~~~NO REGRETS~~~

President Martin's Last Week

Hey Hey Family!

First off, I just have to say, that I just had an adrenaline rush looking at those pictures you sent me from the Lake Powell trip! Holy cow I miss that place so much Ha Ha. It sounds like Jason pranked you guys pretty well! "June Fools!" Ha ha, that is so funny. Well yeah, Pres. Martin leaves at the end of this week and they are going to give us one last departing training on Tuesday. Pres. Hall will arrive this Friday. Right when President Hall arrives and steps foot in the mission, he then has the Mission President Mantle and Pres. Martin has to take off his badge... so sad! It's sad to think we'll have to take off our badges someday as well... 

But on a happier note, we spent some really great time with him this week. I even had the opportunity to talk with him for like a half hour in the celestial room! That was a cool experience. We even spent some time at the mission home yesterday and he signed my guitar and wrote a big message on there along with all the other signatures I have acquired. That guitar is becoming very sentimental to me and I wouldn't sell it for the world. This week has been really good for Elder Otis and I. We had 6 investigators show up at church yesterday and we even got invited to attend a Baptist church as long as they came to our church. So long story short, we went to the Placerita Canyon Baptist church and they introduced us to everyone and it seemed like they were all putting on "happy faces" for us. But deep down they despise us... Anyways though, they have an awesome band and I felt like I was at a concert! Ha Ha. It's definitely a cool place to be entertained and party, but not a very good place to go to receive truth... They started bashing us after and we just left as politely as we could. It felt like we Daniel in the Lion's Den! Crazy! Come to find out, they attend the "Masters College" which is not a very good place to become educated. They take classes there that are for the total purpose of "How to Prove Mormon Missionaries wrong..." So they all have crazy ideas about us and whip out papers with questions to ask, then report them back to their classes/professors how we respond... Ha-ha so pathetic. As you can tell I wasn't a big fan of how they treated us, but the spirit helped us out a ton. The scripture just kept coming to mind that "contention is of the devil" and it wasn't worth it to talk with someone with that mindset. But we kept our cool and stayed nice so hopefully we left a good impression on them. Anyways, enough about Baptist...

Our investigators, who are actually investigating the truth, are doing really good! :) Daphina, and her daughter Tanisha are planned to get baptized July 7th. They came to church again and love everything about it and are already converted! We are just waiting for her to prove to us she is conquering her addictions. She struggled last week, but spiritually, she I growing stronger everyday!  We are stoked for them to get baptized. She is already doing missionary work as well. Last week we taught two new kids because Daphina has been inviting her neighbors over to sit in on our discussions when we go over and telling them how much it is changing her life for the better! So we are now trying to get to all their friends in their circle of influence within their apartment complex.

To answer some questions really quick, President Carlson is a different stake president. He is over the Valencia stake. President Lindberg is over the Santa Clarita stake, which I used to be in. These are the only two stakes in Santa Clarita Valley. 

Elder Norton got another companion! I'm still the only one that he has been with for more than one transfer. He is very lucky though, he got moved up to Bishop/Mammoth area! So he sounds like he is doing really good up there from his phone calls. 

And yes you're right, In n' outs are everywhere and it's probably my favorite fast food place by far, besides Training table, but that's not an option right now... Ha. 

Now my last thought before I get going has to do with what we trained our zone on this week... It's interesting to see how the most powerful thing to bear testimony of it what you are currently going through. So this week for me was Prayer. Doing our best to make our prayers very meaningful. Matt. 6:6-8...We should not use vain repetitions or phrases that don't have meaning to us. He doesn't want to hear that. I could go on forever and ever about prayer... How Enos "wrestled" night and day... the Definition of Prayer in the Bible Dictionary... (He has blessing prepared for us and they are given to us upon our asking for them) D&C 101:7-8... My motto for this week.--- "WHAT YOU PUT INTO YOUR PRAYERS IS WHAT YOU'LL GET OUT OF THEM."---- Alma 34:27-28... then with what you pray for, don't be a hypocrite and just say it, DO IT! 

This is my thought for this week and what I'm working on :) Prayer takes a lifetime to master. We just need to continually work on it. 

Love you all! Have a great week! 

Love, Elder Brady

//// NO REGRETS ////