Overwhelming Spirit

So some big updates for this week! Ari is getting baptized this Saturday at 5:00! We've been waiting a long time for this! She is so excited! Then we set 2 more baptismal dates with two other girls, Kelly and Tiffany for June 16th! My last Sunday! At the beginning of the transfer we set a goal to get 3 baptisms before i return home and it's looking good so far! :) The spirit has been so incredibly strong this past week it's insane. We have felt that we are 100% instruments in God's hands numerous times! Just to share how well things are going right now i will share with you our numbers from this past week. 

Goals: 3 baptismal dates; 4 at church; 8 member present lessons;4 new investigators 

Actuals:3 baptismal dates; 7! at church; 9! member present lessons;4! NI's!!!

That is just for our area :)

Then for the zone-

Goals:   7 BD's; 10 @ Church; 21 MP's; 10 NI's

Actuals: 7 BD's; 14 @ Church; 24 MP's; 17 NI's!!!!

These Goals at the beginning of the month were making us stretch and now all the missionaries, in this zone, faith has increased significantly! It's so awesome to see! I feel so much joy for each of these missionaries and being involved with each of their successes! (Alma 29:14-17) Is one of my favorite Zone Leader scriptures... :)

Anyways though, big news! A new missionary got advanced early through the MTC, Elder Pisa from Samoa and came to our mission this last week! They needed a place to put him and saw that we had plenty of room for him here in Saugus. So Elder Ballard is Training him in Saugus 3rd and we are helping him since Elder Ballard is being trained himself haha. It's so much fun. Kind of a language barrier but he has a heart of Gold! We have been wearing the lava lavas(Hawaiian formal dress things) around the house! It's awesome! So right when we got settled down, making both of our plans mesh together, and got both wards under control, they mix things up again! Always keeping us on our toes! "The Gospel is meant to comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable!" Haha so true! Happy Always, Content Never!!!

P.s. i got the package this week thank you! And Kena called me this week worried that i wouldn't be able to make it back for the performance of her baptism... I told her "i promise we'll be there",... so we have to be there! July 7th @ 5:00 White Oak Stake Center in Granada Hills,CA! Thank you! As for anything else i am up for whatever we do/ wherever we stay.

Heavenly Father has definitely been blessing us big time! He's spoiling us.

Once you look around you, and take the time to notice his blessings, he blesses you with more. Also if you record them, you'll receive more :) Blessings of having a journal.

"Count your blessings, name them one by one, count your blessings, see what God hath done!"

Love, Elder Brady

---NO REGRETS---

Cali Life in Saugus Wards

Sup Fam! This Past week has gone by way too fast. I am with the 2 most incredible Elders in the mission. We are having such a blast! I am becoming a big fan of Trio companionships! There's NEVER a dull moment! Lately i have been in denial... I don't feel like i am ever going home haha. Like they say, time flies when you're having fun! So, i told Elder Ballard and Wright, guys we need to stop having so much fun... lol. This last transfer is going to go by way too fast! :( 

Sorry for not e-mailing last Monday, but it was awesome talking to you guys last Sunday! It was more of a reality check that slapped me in the face... hearing about all of those updates and knowing that all of my friends are, Married!!! I still can't comprehend it. 

You are on your way to Hawaii!?! Since when? Ha that's awesome. I'm jealous, have fun! I'm glad you liked that picture of the Adams family's tropical backyard. p.s. Is that duac medicine on the way? 

So as far as our investigators that we have, with both wards combined, we have a teaching pool of about 20 investigators! So we are constantly booked bouncing around between areas. We are seeing miracles left and right as we are constantly on the run. We don't know how we are doing it right now, we are just TRUSTING (alma 36:3) in the Lord and it all works out every time! :) This is probably one of the most intense transfers i've had with our very inspired/unexpected Trio we have going on here. It's pretty cool to be back in Saugus 3rd as well, and on Sundays it's pretty awesome to know all the members walking through the building no matter what ward their in. 

I'll quickly share a Miracle of the week. We were able to host 2 companionship exchanges back to back this week. One with the assistants and one with a new missionary! Pretty cool experience to do one right after the other. With the new missionary we had a really cool experience. I went to his area in Canyon Country on bike! It was fun to be back on bike again for a day. Right when the we started the day we set some goals and they were currently struggling to find new investigators. So i asked him if he had the faith that he would find a new investigator that day. He thought about it for a while then said yes i do! So i told him, Great, then we will find one! Right when we went out the door, 10 minutes later we found ourselves at a corner of a stoplight. A guy passed us and we started talking with him. Come to find out, he already had a book of Mormon in his house and has been reading it. He said he decided to convert to Mormon last year and considers himself a mormon but doesn't attend any churches. So we talked to him about it and he is going to start coming to church and we told him about baptism and he hasn't been baptized yet either! He said it's something he definitely wants to do! Miracle! So they are going to start teaching him! Super prepared guy was placed right in our path by the Lord because of our faith! Come to find out, this new missionary was wondering why he was on a mission and thinking about going home. He told me that night, after we had an incredible day talking to everyone we came in contact with, witnessing miracle after miracle, that that experience was a confirmation to his prayers why he is on a mission. Now their companionship has been on fire this past week and got 6 new investigators! Super cool experience!  

Also, a randomly cool side note, i was talking to Kirby Heyborne this past week (main actor from "the best 2 years" movie) and he told me he graduated from Alta! Small world. He is such a funny guy in person too!  

Life is so good right now. Us three are best friends, with a house in California to ourself, two cars, two wards, while being instruments in God's hands everyday all day to change peoples lives for the better! Missions are incredible. Wouldn't give up these experiences for anything! I now know without a doubt that God lives. The Book of Mormon is True. The Gospel of Jesus Christ truly does transform lives, as it has done with mine. Because of my mission, i am now a fully-converted disciple of Christ. Nothing will be able to bring me down as long as i am continually building up my foundation upon Jesus Christ. This Church is soooo True! 

I love you all!

Love, Elder Brady

no regrets.

Your Elders

We're feeding your boys tonight. They all send their love from sunny California!
Have a beautiful day, The Adams Family 

Pictures

Bryant's Baptism

Sup Fam.  

This past week was so awesome! We baptized Bryant yesterday! It happened last night in a members heated/lit up pool surrounded by tiki torches! We started off with a potluck dinner with the ward then did the baptism. It turned out so AMAZING! I wish i could describe how cool it was... Definitely a baptism i will never forget. Everyone in the ward was so excited for Bryant! We even skyped in some missionaries who used to serve here so they could see Bryant dressed up in white standing in a pool surrounded by the entire ward! Very emotional day yesterday. Elder Bates definitely got to go out with a bang and got to do the honors of performing the baptism. He goes home this Wednesday and I will get my next/last companion tomorrow morning... So many mixed emotions right now. Elder Bates has become one of my very close mission brothers just like every other companion i have had! It is just a bummer we only got to be together for one transfer... I guess on the bright side i will be able to have one more mission brother! I will let you know the details next week.  

A couple weeks ago President Hall made an announcement that there are no more 8-5 Zone Leader Council meetings. And the missions are starting a new culture where sister missionaries are now getting leadership positions. So i was able to attend the last ZLC ever as well as attend the first "Mission Leadership Council." It was actually really cool. President would just bring up topics of discussion and we would all throw in our input of how we can improve our mission. Then proceeding that, on Friday we took what we learned and trained our zones. I love how the church operates and how organized everything is, it's so true, and constantly improving.  

Tonight we are also helping out the new missionaries that are coming in. They are going to stay at our house tonight and then we'll give them a training then take them to their new companions tomorrow. I love welcoming the new missionaries and helping them chill out because they always come in so stressed!  

Oh, last Saturday was Elder Bates' birthday, and just like my companions in the past, i planned a couple surprise parties for him all throughout the day with the help of the missionaries in our zone :) It was such a great day, but i think both of us are not going to eat cake again for a while... haha

Besides all of this i guess all of the other updates for this week was that we helped a new young couple that moved into the ward paint their house. As we got to know them, i found out that he graduated Alta High School around the same time as Kristin? He said her name sounds super familiar but couldn't find his year book. His name is Zach Collins if that rings any bells for you Kris... Also we had dinner with the Cook family this week and come to find out sister Cook is Marianne Haslem's sister! Super small Mormon world that's for sure... they said they have even gotten some vegetables from grandma Erickson's garden and know what house i live in! haha super crazy.  

Lastly mom, i would love it if i could get some appointments scheduled at the dentist and such. I haven't had one for 2 years! Thank you! Also i am out of duac if i could please get some more of that. 

I love you all!

Love, Elder Brady

NO REGRETS

Baptisms

Sup Fam! 

Thank you for all the letters this week! Thank you Grandma and Grandpa for your inspiring words! I will definitely pay more attention to the sacrament prayers and reading those scriptures!

Also Congratulations Braden! I told the other missionaries that are here e-mailing with us and they thought it was the coolest thing as well! High fives and celebrations all around! Also, not to be selfish or anything, but i am super happy that you guys are staying close! California is definitely a hot spot and there is a lot of missionary work to be done here! So it sounds like Heavenly Father is sending in his secret weapons here to Cali to progress his work (Braden and Lyndsey!)! No better place than that of the center of the Oakland Raiders ;) 

These weeks just keep going by faster and faster! Elder Bates and I are shocked at how we only have one more week together! Our time together went by way too fast! Last Saturday we participated in the annual Mormon Helping hands service project of painting fences at Canyon Country Park! It was pretty hilarious when they were giving the entire community directions on how to stay organized and productive and they asked, "By raise of hands, who participated in last years service project?" Then out of all the missionaries my hand slowly raised up. So Elder Bates and I were supervisors to make sure everything goes good and people have enough paint and such. It's moments like these make me realize how long i really have been here in California! Feeling like a major veteran now... haha  

Also, Kenna, a girl from Northridge that we started teaching, surprised me at sacrament meeting yesterday! She came up to Santa Clarita to tell me that she is getting baptized and wanted to wait until i finished my mission so i could be there. She said her date is July 7th, and she asked me if that works and i said probably?... so i have no idea really what the schedule will look like when i get back, but do you think that will work?  

Anyways, we have finally made some progress here in Saugus 2nd with one of my favorite investigators, Bryant. He is a black guy that is one of our best friends and we have been spending a lot of time with him lately. He has been taught by missionaries for the past 3 years and i remember when i taught him a year ago when i was on exchanges with Elder Emery! So finally we worked through some road blocks and he has stopped smoking for the past 2 weeks now and we are planning on baptizing him this Sunday! He is a character and has been wanting to get baptized in a waterfall for the longest time, but we couldn't get that to work. Then he wanted to do it in Castaic Lake, but that got complicated as well... Since he doesn't want to do it at the church, we all came to common ground and decided to do it in a members legit swimming pool/hot tub with lights and tiki torches! So this Sunday, the whole ward is getting super pumped and Bryant is really excited for this to finally happen! Everyone in the ward is really good friends with Bryant because he has been coming for a long time now and he is definitely one of the funniest guys i have met on my mission. You never know what your going to get when you go and visit Bryant. Elder Bates will probably baptize him since he has been here longer but we will see. Bryant has his baptismal interview tomorrow so wish us luck! This will also be the first baptism this ward has had since the beginning of last year! Well we got to go, we planned a zone activity of making zone shirts again! Time to get loopy off of spray paint for the next couple hours... 

Love you all! 

Congrats Kristin and Jason on May 1st! :)

Love, Elder Brady

NO REGRETS

Full Throttle Mode

Sup Fam!

These weeks just keep going by faster and faster. It's scary really! Elder Bates and I are having such a great time and we are pushing it as hard as we can right now! Things are going really well and i feel like i am literally living the dream right now in this house with 3 other amazing missionaries! When i say that Elder Bates and I are working super hard, i mean we have spent straight up around 30 hours this week spiritual tracting! Praying, then being led to new areas and talking to everyone we can and knocking on doors that we feel prompted to. It's always a hilarious time going around talking with everyone you can. You come home at night with some great stories that's for sure! You never know what lies behind those random doors we knock on, it's always a surprise!  We have found a lot of new investigators this past month since we have been together, now we are just working on solidifying them. One of the strategies we have been using lately is giving out as many Book of Mormons that we can! We gave out 15 last week to only those who committed to read and pray about it! Then as we follow up with those people we can then see who is actually going to progress by keeping that commitment! One lady was having a really rough day and we left one with her and when we followed up with her she said it changed her day completely! Miracles! She was going to bring her family out to church with us yesterday but her little boy tripped and split his lip open right before church and they had to go to the hospital so they couldn't make it... pretty good excuse i guess... We'll let it slide this time:) Jk hopefully their family will make it out next week! Then there are other contacts we have that are not too solid... One lady said she would love to hear our message when her husband gets home, so we were all excited and went back that night! They invite us in, picture perfect family, perfect dog, perfect house, super smiley, fed us cookies, made juice for us, then took the their kids to the back room and put on a movie so they could listen to our message without any distractions! Holy shmoley! I felt like i was in the Truman Show and they were just acting it was so perfect with their smiles and such! Then they sit us down on the sofa and pull up two chair and sit right in front of us... Okay, too good to be true, it started freaking us out. Just then, once we started our message they pulled out their insanely marked scriptures and anti-Mormon literature to bash us and tell us how we are brainwashed and wrong for the next hour. It was definitely a chore to get out of there but eventually we made it out alive! Total set up! 

Anyways, like i said, you never know what experiences you'll obtain when knocking on random doors... but the Lord's work must progress and we will continue knocking! 

 This past week we have also been doing a lot of service. We helped a non-member build a fence in his backyard and we also helped another non-member paint a giant playhouse he just built for his kids in his backyard! Then yesterday we were asked by a new couple that just moved into the ward if we could help them paint their house this week! Professional Painters now? I think so! 

Thanks for helping me with that wallet situation haha. They should be mailing it to me this week. Just hold on to that other card until i get home. I should be fine until then. 

President Killpack!?! That's awesome! I'm super excited for that and that feels very good to me!

Also! I am so excited for Braden and Lynds! This week is super exciting for them! I wish i could stay in tune! Let me know for sure next week when he gets drafted to the Denver Broncos :) ROAD TRIP!

I love you all!

Talk to you again next week!

Love, Elder Brady

NO REGRETS