hey mom and family! everything is going awesome! i love it here! love the members, nonmembers ha, missionaries. and no i wasn't trying to teach you a lesson by not writing you. i can't remember what happened last week. i think we had to fill out a survey that took up a lot of emailing time. sorry about that...
and yes conference was awesome!!!! yes i did have a greater appreciation for everything. I didn't miss a second of conference, and loved every second of it too. it's incredible the difference of being a missionary. conference is sooo different. and no skittles conference bingo... i tried to convince my zone leaders but... no i'm just kidding. no i wasn't able to listen to Aunt Linda's talk! I'm sure it was awesome. My ward mission leader's wife said it was really good though. favorite talks? of course elder ballard's on missionary work. Elder Holland's was really sincere and touching but didn't have much doctrine in it... but way good anyway.Elder Bednar's was good! but i loved Elder Ballard's. he mentioned that sometimes we are scared as members to even pray for missionary opportunities for fear of actually receiving them. I related to that. i remember being so lame back home. of course it's different now! All we do is pray for missionary work! ha. I loved President Monson's on his wife. and President Uchtdorf's on "join us." It showed that the Gospel is for everyone! sometimes members of the church judge others. it's easy to fall into such a mindset, but what if we could look at everyone as children of God? isn't that what they are? that works with missionary work too. Sometimes people look at others that are awesome people and think, "man they would make great mormons! because they basically are already." when really we should be looking at the person struggling and thinking, "wow, the atonement can really bless that person's life." the ones that are struggling are the ones that are going to be receptive to The Lord's Gospel! so get rid of labels on who YOU think would make a good Mormon. And think about who The Lord thinks would make a good Mormon.
anyway... i loved all of the conference addresses. They were incredible.
Good to hear the cruise went so well! that sounds like a ton of fun! but no i don't know a Bishop Welch. He's in the tempe mission? yeah i wouldn't every meet him. but that's cool! i don't know about that but going on a mission certainly hasn't rid me of my personality. I'm still pretty upbeat and social so no worries... and yeah it helps a lot with missionary work.
Kellie gets her wisdom teeth out? oh gosh. worst experience of my life. i would cut off a finger before going through that again. ugh. that was horrible.
investigators? awesome. Frank, someone we've been teaching since the beginning of last month finally accepted the invitation to be baptized! We are super excited. He said that he prayed and asked our Father in heaven if he should, and he really felt like it was the right path. he passed his interview last week too! He's an awesome guy. he's 32. He'll make an awesome member of the church. But we are also teaching Ashley, tristan, and tobin. They are the kids of a less active lady we started teaching. They just this last week accepted the invitation to be baptized as well! We still have a lot of things to teach, but the spirit was so strong when we invited them. It was so awesome. We were told not to invite them too haha, but the spirit told us to so we did! It was awesome. we invited tristan to be baptized first, and she looked at us with wide eyes and replied, "YES!", and then looked over at her mom like... "wait, can i?" it was pretty funny. But then tobin and Ashley accepted as well.
Well I'm glad you are praying for me. Frank is actually getting baptized this weekend. I forgot to mention it the last couple weeks, but we commited him to pray about baptism, and he came back and said he did, and that he felt like this was the path that he needed to go. It was actually kinda funny because Elder Neu had already left to Brazil, and Elder Abramson hadn't come in yet. So it was just me on splits with my wml brother garcia. But we put him on date for oct 19. He passed his interview last week so things are lookin up. Elder Neu and I taught this less active lady once also, who has 3 kids that are not baptized. And then Elder Abramson and I taught them once and put them on date. It was kinda funny too because the fellowship told me not to invite them to be baptized because the less active mom was not ready for it at this point. But we taught an inspired lesson about trials and the Holy Ghost that we had been planning for a couple days, and were prompted to invite them! so we did. We put them on date for the 26th, but we have some other things to go over so we may have to move it to november 2nd. But we are so excited for Frank. He is a stud. convert for life. He's going to do so much good in people's lives as a member of the church. We're pumped.
Oh! Elder Neu left it was sad. he's in Brazil now. So it looks like i'm going to have posterity in Brazil. But I'm training again! i love training. Elder Abramson is my new companion. He's from york, pennsylvania. he's a little quiet, but he's awesome. We work really well together. He's a stud. I sent a picture to courtney of us too. I held off on sending all the pictures i took of him falling asleep in studies, and in the morning. pretty funny.
the only way you can EVER convince someone that this gospel is true, is through the spirit. if ye receive not the spirit, ye shall not teach. so if someone starts fighting with you, do exactly what you did. bear your testimony and leave. Tell them what YOU know to be true. and invite them to know for themselves. So you did the right thing! keep up the good work!
Anyway... i hope i answered all of your questions. i sent a ton of pictures to courtney.
love you all!
Love, Elder Bronson
Oh! Elder Neu left it was sad. he's in Brazil now. So it looks like i'm going to have posterity in Brazil. But I'm training again! i love training. Elder Abramson is my new companion. He's from york, pennsylvania. he's a little quiet, but he's awesome. We work really well together. He's a stud. I sent a picture to courtney of us too. I held off on sending all the pictures i took of him falling asleep in studies, and in the morning. pretty funny.
the only way you can EVER convince someone that this gospel is true, is through the spirit. if ye receive not the spirit, ye shall not teach. so if someone starts fighting with you, do exactly what you did. bear your testimony and leave. Tell them what YOU know to be true. and invite them to know for themselves. So you did the right thing! keep up the good work!
Anyway... i hope i answered all of your questions. i sent a ton of pictures to courtney.
love you all!
Love, Elder Bronson
