Gayle and Ben's Baptism

Hello Family!
I really have very little time today... So I'll see what i can do in ten minutes.  Thank you so much for everything you guys send to me. I love reading your letters! To answer a couple of questions:
The weather is beautiful. Probably around 70 and then gets cold at nights but it definitely does not feel like winter yet... they say it's around the corner but we'll see! We get money at the begging of each month (only 2 more days) and it's like 140$. Transfers calls are this Saturday. This transfer went by super fast! I feel like a lot of things will change this time... and yes i will bring my bike with me wherever i go because it is that cool. It will be hard to leave if that is what Heavenly Father finally decides? This place feels like home to me and the people in this area are like family. I love it! Sister Brown leaves in a week and she will go back to North Carolina. I haven't heard much from Elder Norton but i have his e-mail. He has had like 5 companions and is on his 3rd area right now. He is actually a District leader down in the valley! Way cool. I hear good things about the valley and have been there only a couple times very briefly. 


We went down with the Castillo's and hiked at a place called Placerita Canyon? It was amazing! we took some awesome pictures! It felt very tropical, very sunny, and there was a very mild rain at the moment which made like a mist in the air. Rainbow's were forming around us as we were hiking up mountains and through forests! Very memorable. Bro Castillo is such a cool guy and we had some great talks on the top of the mountain overlooking the whole Santa Clarita Valley! Amazing. Reminded me of the hikes we went on dad, conquering Lone Peak/ (and that other place was that we went with Brent and Daniel) Teetons? Timpanogas? Wherever it was, it was amazing! Well anyways, many cool miracle's happened this week! 


We had interviews with President which is always an awesome experience. President made a bet with me that he would give me 20$ out of his wallet if i made a three point shot because i was on fire and draining them! Then of course right after i said that, Miss. He said that his whole time serving as President, no basketball player has ever won his bet. I was so mad! haha. Then at church yesterday, i felt such a strong spirit and it was one of those days where i felt so insanely blessed! I felt so much love just looking around at the congregation. These are truly awesome people. I am so glad i have had the opportunities that i have had. Heavenly Father is spoiling me in this area. Then, BIG NEWS! Gayle Prove, a really sweet lady that is going to get baptized this Saturday came up to me and asked me if i would baptize her! It was such a shock but she said i couldn't think of anyone better to do it. I almost cried... She is such an awesome lady. So i will be baptizing Gayle @ 1:30 this Saturday. Then Ben Castillo's baptism is Sunday @ 5:30! Lot's of Miracles are happening in El Dorado Ward.


P.S. I don't know if i told you about Brother Goodwin yet, but he has been attending church with him all member family for over a year and everyone thinks he is a member. He just doesn't want to get baptized. But a couple week ago he was asked again to pray about it and he got an answer and said YES! So he got baptized last Saturday! Woot! Woot! Missionary work is so awesome! I love it! Helping others come unto Christ is the best feeling and most important thing you can accomplish in this life. The Spirit is amazing and works wonders. I feel so privileged to be guided by it in very thing we do as missionaries. The Holy Ghost just leads us to miracles. I love you guys so much, you are the best family EVER! I feel so lucky to have a family like you guys and appreciate it more and more everyday being out here in Lancaster and witnessing heartaches everyday. Keep being strong, you guys are my
Heroes.
 
Love, Elder Brady
---No Regrets---

Weekly email

Hello Family! Thank you for all your love! Those updates were awesome! Abby's first time skiing! Those pictures were amazing! Nice work Abs. Ha well to answer some questions, you're right mom, my card is broke already ha-ha... but don't send me anything. I already have that money you sent, I WILL learn how to budget eventually. Thank you. And transfers are on the 5th. I have no idea what to expect... I would assume stay? Because that is the only news I have heard so it's becoming routine. :) President told us that he doesn't need both sets/5 missionaries in this area so possibly one of us is going to leave. We'll see. Sister Brown ("my mother") is finishing her last transfer and goes home in 2 weeks. Very sad. She asked me if I would give her a blessing because she is getting very nervous and sad about going home and needs some strength because she knows going home is a good thing and she should be happy! So we went over there last night and gave her a blessing. Exercising the Priesthood is the most amazing feeling in the world. The powers of the Priesthood TRULY ARE inseparably connected with the powers of Heaven. Every time, without fail I know that it is all Heavenly Father giving these people blessings, and I am just an instrument in His hands for him to speak through. (I feel like I should share the details of how I feel when I participate in a blessing.) Right when the blessing begins, the room always goes silent. Such a still silence to the point where you can hear the silence... ;) Then, as I start thinking of things to say, I feel like I am floating and the sensation that I am going to black out comes over me because the Spirit is so strongly present. But then, at the same time my mouth keeps going on and on. I always try to remember what I am saying to figure out if it even makes any sense, but I never can. Then after the blessing, sister Brown says thank you so much that is exactly what I needed. Then runs off to write it all in her journal before she forgets. We all sat there with each other in awe over how amazing the Priesthood power is. Then sister Brown looks over at me (as she is writing in her journal) and says I almost got it all, I just need to remember one of the first things you said... I just looked back at her and said, Sorry, couldn't tell you...

It really is so awesome to be able to be so fortunate in this world, where 80 billionish people have lived, and be in the sliver of time (past two hundred years, out of however old the earth is...40+ billion years old?) where we have access to the FULLNESS OF THE GOSPEL. Not even just access, but also to be so fortunate to have it be in the SMALLER fraction of people that actually have it apart of their everyday lives. - We must share this with everyone possible. - 

Overall, this week was considered "slow" number wise. Ludlow and I got a stomach flu/fever thing this week from something a kind soul in our ward insisted on feeding us... and we were K.O.ed for 2 days. But besides this, it was a very good week!

Well I have to go now, sorry if I forgot anything. We have amazing plans for today! We got permission from President Martin to go with the Castillo's who invited us to go hiking with them down in Santa Clarita! We are stoked. I love them so much and it will be awesome to spend today with them and do something rather than sitting up here at the church all day. Love you all

Love, Elder Brady

---No Regrets---

Bring Souls unto Christ

Hello Family! I'm glad you got the pictures okay! I have already taken some more cool ones that I can't wait to show you. Thank you for the packages as well! Looking forward to receiving them this week! That picture of Dad with Logan and Elle was priceless. Very cute! Sorry that you are feeling so sick Kristin, but it will be WELL worth it :) Mom, I am so glad you met Grandma Kabel! She is so awesome! I love her. Ha-ha I heard that she was having some trouble getting in contact with you and was trying to call me but we were in the middle of a teaching appointment and couldn't answer but I'm glad it all worked out!

Let's see what else is new this week? We found another sweet investigator this week that really solid. His name is Tavares Andrews. Black dude with crazy dread locks and way cool. We gave him a book of Mormon last Tuesday and came back and visited him on Thursday and he was already on the book of Enos! Holy Cow! Nobody does that out here... He's awesome. He told us to come back next week and he should have the book finished by then and then we can really start talking and teaching the discussions. We're pretty excited about that. Most of our investigators are not keeping their commitments that we give them; therefore, they are not progressing very well. We have had about 7 baptismal dates but we are trying a new strategy now. So we dropped all of the dates and are now telling our investigators that if they want to progress towards baptism then they need to come to church first, and then we'll start talking. We don't know what else to do so we are trying this strategy? We'll see if it helps!

The Susan dilemma is getting better... We have not had much contact with her, but she knows that we are here for her if she needs it. We cannot be her savior but we can bring her unto Him. That is our job, to teach them the way. (Whether they are willing to accept the message or not is up to them.) This is when the thought hit me, Christ brings souls unto the Father, and we bring souls unto Christ.

We have had a lot of success this week and things are looking more up than they were last week. Thank you for tender mercies from the Lord. We had a lot of great lessons where afterwards, we KNEW that it was the spirit telling us what to say because they were amazing. We just need to listen to the spirit and we will be guided to those people in need and directed what to say to them. This is the Lord's work and are only the instruments in his hands. So we need to try our best to stay in tune with the spirit so we can accomplish his work.

Well we arranged some of the ward members from El Dorado to come play basketball up here at the church and they all now just arriving. So I'm going to go school some guys and show them what's up. Love you all and I am glad to hear everything is going so well at home. Until next week

Love, Elder Brady

---No Regrets---

Life is Precious

Thank you for all the updates! I love them!

Now my turn to update you guys.

This week for me was very hard... It felt like a movie.

First we went to Miracle's and told her we couldn't visit with her anymore and of course she cried. We couldn't really tell her why, so we are all pretty confused but this is what our church leaders want so it must be for the best. Even if our leaders in the church are wrong, they're still right, and as long as we obey our leaders we will be blessed either way. Obedience brings forth the blessings of heaven. So that is our update about Miracle and she still calls us to see how "her boys" are doing but we are going to try not to go over to her house anymore.

Then we had a missionary meeting earlier this week with the ward council and they asked us what they could do better and all of the sudden the Spirit popped the idea of the 21-day promise into my head and I talked with them about it. I know very little about it or where to find it, but they want to get started with the program right away and were very excited. So if you would please, send me the info about that either from what you guys know or from the missionaries so I can share it with this ward.

Lastly, I will share another experience I had this week that brought me so much closer to my Heavenly Father. I got a call from one of our investigators named Susan. She is such a sweet lady and very strong with the circumstances she is in, and we visited her with back when Elder Kennard was with me and she has been going through a tough time and hasn't had time to visit ever since. So we have been getting calls from her sporadically about things she needs help with and as everyone knows, we can only help spiritually and are in no condition to help otherwise with the nothingness we have but word of God. She is having a hard time trying to pay her bills and asked for help moving. We said of course and to just give us a call when she needed our help. Then, this week she calls me and was very depressed, I asked her how everything was going and she said not good at all. She couldn't get moved out because she had nowhere else to go or a place to store her stuff... So they just took everything she owned and even her car. She told me she is homeless and doesn't want to live on this earth anymore and just called to pretty much say goodbye. I told her how important she was and she wouldn't listen and said she was going to commit suicide. I had no idea what else to tell her and I sense the seriousness in her voice that she was not kidding, as she was very emotional. I started shaking and asked her where she was at and she wouldn't tell me. I asked her to promise me that she wouldn't do anything until we visited with her because we have a lot of things that her Father in Heaven would tell her through us. She told us it wouldn't help and can't promise me that. I then asked her why she even bothered to call us if she wouldn't let us help? Then she said because I knew that you would listen and be the only one in this cruel world that wouldn't judge me, it seems that your the only one in this world that cares... then I had no idea what else to say at that moment and when I finally did, she didn't answer for like 5 minutes... I hung up called again, tried again and again. Then started getting super frustrated at our apartment and the other missionaries noticed and tried to calm me down as I threw the phone against the brick wall. I told them one of my investigators might of just committed suicide. They started freaking out we didn't know what to do... After sitting in the apartment not knowing what to do, we all decided to take the rest of the night off and do something to take our minds off the situation because there was nothing we could do and just sitting here would not be good. We all knelt down in our room and Elder Jackson offered a prayer to comfort me and give me strength. Just then as we were all kneeling I felt Heavenly Fathers arm around me and I started bawling and couldn't believe this was happening. I cried the entire prayer, Jackson kept praying and Ludlow and Salsberry just put there arms around me and I felt so much love and at that moment we felt the spirit so strong and it filled the room intensely. I will never forget that moment for the rest of my life when Heavenly Father hugged me along with his servants/these other missionaries/my best friends. It was as if Heavenly Father was proud of our efforts and us and we did the best we could with Susan.

To make a long story short, because I have to go (the rest of our district just showed up)

We decided to go to Chili's that I/the Brady family paid for. Thank you so much for that. :) It was a good time. But then later, I got a response back from Susan FINALLY! She text me and said "I promise I would not do anything and I don't break promises to good people..." And that made us SOOOO happy! Such a relief. That is all I have gotten from her but we are going to make an awesome lesson for her and looking forward to our visit with her. 

I just want you all to know how precious life is and the great opportunity that we have to live here on earth. I love life so much it is so great. The blue sky, trees, EVERYTHING! This experience made me realize this and to not take anything for granted. We are so blessed and don't realize it with all the great things we have and the experiences we get to learn. Let's look at the good in life instead of focusing on the bad. The glass is half full, not half empty. We have a lot to be thankful for.

I love you guys so much and hope everything is going well. Looking forward to hearing from you next week.

Love, Elder Brady

---NO REGRETS---

Happy New Year 2012

Hello Family! Happy New Year!! YAY! WHoohoo! kaBLAST! screech! (Streamers everywhere) honk honk, beeb beeb, gunshot, gunshot, girl screaming... Hurry lock the door guys. ---Yeah this was our new year. Ha-ha very sketchy out here in Lancaster. But it was fun, we are all safe now! But anyways, your New Year celebrations sounds like fun! Abby bowling for an hour and a half! Super cool. That was a blast last year. Oh and Abby I was with the Castillos this past week and Sarah got your letter and loved it! I taught her our handshake that you talked about so we do it now. She was working on her letter to send to you if you haven't gotten it yet. Then it's coming! 

It's bad news to hear about these friends of mine that are having hard times on their missions/coming home. Just to let you guys know, our phone call only boosted my spirit and made everything better. Ludlow and I taught 17 lessons this past week and reached all our weekly goals. Thank you for the encouragement. Going home hasn't even crossed my mind at all in these first six months and I’m planning on keeping that way.

I don't have a lot of time today but I'll try to throw out a couple quick thoughts.

We went over and taught Miracle again and the spirit was so strong this time. After all the kids got settled down and occupied, we began to teach her. We felt that we should teach her 3 Nephi 13 (seeking the kingdom of Heaven and all else shall be added unto you) and she started crying because she just read Mathew 6 in the bible which basically says the same thing. And at the moment she had a confirmation that the Book of Mormon was true and then she closed our little study session with an awesome prayer thanking Heavenly Father for answering her prayer and sending us her way. We then reassured her that it was the Holy Ghost that is doing all this work from our Father in Heaven, not us. And any time you read that Book of Mormon you can receive that same witness, without us there. She was amazed and so excited. --We are still working on getting her a ride to church because she wants to come really bad... we now have obtained 3 car seats at our apartment and just need a ride to pick her and her family up next week. Then, yesterday at church we were talking with bishop White and Bro Manriquez and we prayed about her and they both feel like we should stop teaching her. ? We were so confused about why they want us to end it with her and they told us that it seems like she is taking advantage of us with calling us all the time/ always asking for things/ help. So we are confused right now and don't know what to do. It seemed to be going very well until they told us this news and they both feel the same way.

Besides this, our investigators are same old same old. Want to get baptized but don't come to church. We have been knocking a lot lately and have found a lot of potential investigators. I have been trying to push Ludlow this past week because we can do better than we did last transfer. So far, this first week of the transfer was very successful. Ludlow has been trying to be lazy again, but with this spiritual high that I am on, I'm sick of this crap and not allowing it anymore. Hopefully this attitude remains because it truly makes the mission a lot more productive and better when we focus on the work and people.

Thank you for everything you guys are doing/have done for me. Love you all!

Love, Elder Brady

---NO REGRETS---

Christmas Week

Hey Family!

I get to call you guys in one week!!! (It will probably be around noon!) I can't believe Christmas is already almost here! Time is going by so fast! Thank you for all the thoughtful letters! Baby Elle looks so great! Seriously a little Angel! I am excited to celebrate my first Christmas on the Mission!

Our Temple trip to L.A. was amazing! We had an entire session with like 70 missionaries and our mission president. The Celestial room experience was truly something I will never forget with all of my fellow missionary friends. All of us, a bunch of 20 year olds, conversing one with another, far away from our families, preaching what we know to be true, in the closes place to heaven, in EXACTLY the best place we could be in this EXACT time in our lives. We were all emotional as the spirit bore witness this to all of us together with our mission president.

We also all gathered together for a Zone Conference again back on Tuesday. It was an awesome meeting, the trainings that President Martin gives are always super powerful. I figured out many things that I could be doing better. The little things are what make the difference. By small and Simple means are GREAT things are brought to pass! (Alma 37:6 I believe?) Then at the end of the meeting, President wanted to end with a testimony meeting and selected 3 missionaries to say a few words... We'd now like to hear from Elder so and so, Sister so and so, and we will finish up by hearing from (I bet you can guess...) Elder Brady. Yeah. Every time without fail... Ludlow turned and looked at me and said that's you! I just looked at him and said, I knew it. He said, they told you before hand? And I said, no, I just knew somehow... ha-ha. So I just got up there again and blabbed for 5 minutes, cried, and told them what I have been thinking about lately and what has helped, (the usual) and hopefully it helped someone out there? I'm not sure if it did, but Heavenly Father wanted me to speak for some reason, I just know that we should never turn down opportunities like these to bear testimony, be his hands and serve.

Speaking of Service, This last week, we have grown very close to Miracle during this Christmas season and I ended up giving them the Christmas tree you guys sent me because they don't have one... Very humbling experience but it reminds us of the TRUE MEANING OF CHRISTMAS once again. And brings us eternal JOY.

We should be having a baptism this Sunday, Christmas day! Jade Mundy wants to get baptized then and we just have to teach her a couple little other things then see if she is ready and passes the Baptismal Interview questions. We found her like 2 months ago and she has come a long way so hopefully it happens! Cross your fingers and that's where we need the prayers this week! I don't think there would be a better way to celebrate Jesus Christ's Birth by bringing a soul unto Him through the waters of baptism! That's as good as it gets!

I love you guys so much and I don't know what else to share but I know there is a lot of crazy stuff happening. Think of some good questions for our phone call because I feel like I have already shared everything that is worth sharing? Ha-ha

Talk to you guys on CHRISTMAS! Until then, have a good one!

Love, Elder Brady

---NO REGRETS---         

Castillo Family -Miracle-

Hello Family!

Thank you for all the letters and Christmas love! Our (Stripling Warriors Hideout) apartment now has a pretty good Christmas feel to it with all the lights lining the walls and 3 of us received little trees so we have placed them all in our living room! Way sweet! Something weird about California is that they don't have any overhead lights... we just have to use lamps but now we replaced them with all our Christmas lights and trees so when we walk in and flip the switch our apartment lights up with Christmas spirit! Thank you for everything you guys are doing and for your thoughts! They give me a HUGE boost every Monday! Thank you.

So Yesterday was Erin Castillo's baptism! We were stressing about it all week because we are in charge of making sure everything is taken care of and runs smoothly, we felt a lot of pressure, but as always it turned out perfect and was exactly amazing. The Castillo family is by far one of my favorite families out here! They even had their family fly in for the baptism! We had a huge turn out from all their family and the ward attending. They are all super strong and spiritually awesome. We made sure each one of the Castillo's was involved in the baptism. Brother Manriquez, our ward mission leader, (The MOST AWESOME MISSION LEADER EVER!) conducted and set the atmosphere extremely well (He got baptized a year ago and is "so legit" ha-ha, probably barely 30 yrs old). Then, Ben (10yr old) started out with the talk on baptism and delivered such a great message. Then Erin and I proceeded to do the baptism and it worked perfectly. Then while we were changing, Jeremy Castillo said a few words and we came back into the room to find everyone filled with tears and Jeremy upfront crying. The Spirit was so strong! Then to top it all off, little Sarah said the closing prayer and got up there and said "Dear Heavenly Father thank you for Erin to be baptized... (Then started bawling and you couldn't even hear what her little voice was trying to say for like 2 minutes... then she just said in the name of Jesus Christ amen." SO CUTE! No better way to finish off a great baptism day.

Oh and Abby, P.S. she told me, "Elder Brady, I'm sorry I haven't written your sister yet..."ha-ha so, Sarah should be sending a letter to you soon Abby!

So that's pretty much all the big new for this week except we found another awesome lady whose name is Miracle and she is a single mother with like 5 kids! She calls us all the time and feels like we are the only ones that she has to listen to her, so we just go over and she just lets everything out and we try our best to help her. Yesterday we were over at Miracle's and she was reaching across the table to hold our hands and told us that you guys don't know how much I need you right now and we all just started crying. I see such a bright future for Miracle and her family and they want to be baptized as well! But we are going to take things slow with her cause she is struggling right now.  When we leave we kneel down and all the kids run up to us and give us big hugs and say "BYE DA MISSHHONARDIES!" This is what a mission is all about :) Just melts our heart every time. We are probably going to go over and help her clean her house today.

This week: We are having Zone Conference this tomorrow and we all get to go to the Los Angeles Temple on Thursday! SOO EXCITED! Sister Kabel is going to give Sister Brown, Sister Mix, Elder Ludlow and I a ride up there! I love Sister Kabel. We call her Grandma Kabel and she takes such good care of us. Easily one of my favorite ladies in the ward. Grandma Kabel took us to the chiropractor and spent a day with her last week because something was wrong with Ludlow's sinuses and he is very stuffed up for like the past ...7 YEARS of his life... so yeah. Ha-ha Grandma Kabel is trying to fix him. We love her so much.  I have become very attached to the people out here in Lancaster. Maybe since I’ve been here for 1/2 a year and it's exactly where Heavenly Father wants me and I feel like I was destined to know these people. The Right thing, Right Place, Right time for sure.

Well I have to get going but I believe we can call you for free from a member’s house or cell phone on Christmas day. We still don't know what time but don't worry, we'll surprise you! :D

Until next time, I love you guys and hope you all have a great week!

Love, Elder Brady

---NO REGRETS---