Letter #26 - I hope She Comes Back.

Happy July 31 Everyone!

It is crazy to me that July is over. Where did it go??? This transfer has been flying by. The members here are incredible. The work here is moving. I am in kind of a richer area, so sometimes the work is pretty slow, but we have got some good things going!

Here is my week:

Monday - For Preparation day, our zone met up and played some different games. My favorite was Ultimate Frisbee ;) haha. I have gotten pretty good at volleyball on my mission as well. Monday night we had scheduled an appointment with a
former investigator named Lucina Caballero. We went by and had a REALLY good lesson with her. She has a couple of concerns about some of the doctrine revolving around eternity, but she has sincere desires to find the truth so she will find it. She is a single mother of 3. She is really sweet.

Tuesday - Elder Huggins was sick last week and must have given it to me because all I did Tuesday was sleep and try not to puke. It was so much fun... NOT.

Wednesday - We went by that lady named Brenda again to help paint her trailer (who knew how long it would take 3 sets of missionaries to paint a single trailer??). This time, the sisters were on exchanges with sister training leaders, and so we actually had 8 missionaries there helping to paint. One of which is Hermana Gomez! She is from Guatemala! We still didn't finish the trailer so we will be going back hopefully one more time next week. Wednesday night we had a lesson with a man named Jose de Leon. He has been taking missionary discussions for a year on and off. We had a REALLY good lesson with him as well. We asked him what he has liked from what the missionaries have taught him and he said, "I love the Book of Mormon! It is the purest book on Earth!" It was incredible! He already has a deep testimony of the Book of Mormon. So we asked him that if he knew the Book was true and he liked everything the missionaries taught, would he be baptized? His response was, "Oh Absolutely! Why wouldn't I?" It was awesome. He then talked about how his wife is out of town in Mexico and that he is waiting for her to get back so they can be baptized together! He kept saying, "I hope she comes back!" It was hilarious. He was joking around with the thought that she was ditching him and was going to stay in Mexico haha. She gets back in town Tuesday and we have a lesson on Wednesday so I will have more info on him next week!

Thursday - President Dalton requested that all District Leaders go to the monthly MLC this week, so I was on Exchanges while Elder Huggins, Elder Soto and the zone Leaders went to MLC. So I was with Elder Baquedano! He is from Honduras! He is an awesome guy. He doesn't speak English. We had a good day.

Friday - We had interviews with President Dalton! They went well! You can definitely tell that he is new. He was very robotic in the interview. He is a great guy. I also sang in District meeting. I sang My Soul Hungered. I sang that song at my farewell. Sister Hendricks played the piano for me. We will be performing it at zone conference in a couple of weeks.

Saturday - One of the sets of sisters in our district had a baptism! So we invited Jose de Leon to come! He came and felt the spirit there. He doesn't speak a whole lot of English, but he told us he could feel the spirit. Afterward, a member came up to him and started talking to him a little bit in English and Jose said that "someday he would be in there" referring to the font! So cool to see his desire to be baptized!

Sunday -  I am still not used to the whole 6 hours of church thing. That many meetings just wears me out. They were good meetings though. Jose de Leon even came to the Spanish branch for all 3 hours! After all of the meetings and after dinner, we had another lesson with Lucina Caballero. It went well! We talked about the Book of Mormon and learned that she has read some anti about him in the past. So we will be watching Joseph Smith the Prophet of the Restoration with her and a member family hopefully this week.

Spiritual Thought!
This is when Nephi is commanded to build a boat. He starts building, and his brothers start mocking him! They tell him that he is foolish and that he could never build a ship and make it across the ocean. Then they start complaining about how their father led them away from Jerusalem. They complained about how Jerusalem was a great city and could never be destroyed. This is the end of what they say to him. It is in 1 Nephi 17 : 21 "Behold, these many years we have suffered in the wilderness, which time we might have enjoyed our possessions and the land of our inheritance; yea, and we might have been happy."

Laman and Lemuel never caught the vision that Lehi had for his family or the vision that God had for them. Laman and Lemuel were too distracted and caught up on worldly desires and pleasures. They never caught the vision of eternal happiness.

Sometimes in life, it is easy to get distracted by worldly possessions or activities. I will be the first to tell you that these distractions are tools of Satan. The last thing Satan wants is for us to have a firm purpose to obtain eternal happiness. He wants us to be miserable. He wants to blind our minds from the vision that God has for us. I know that is true. I promise that as we focus on cutting the distractions from our lives, God will pour out the blessing of happiness upon us. We will more powerfully feel His love and we will more clearly see the vision he has for us.

I love you all so much! I hope you have a great week! Sorry for the long letter...

Love,
Brandon

I am so sorry for the lack of pictures... so here is one of Elder Hansen and I. He is awesome.