March 30- HAPPY 21 BIRTHDAY! - Gilbert

it seems that these emails are getting more and more personal! haha so when i get them personal, i send them personal. so mother... this probably isn't for the crowds. thank you for everything you do for me! you truly make it easy to honor the family! because the family is so awesome! i truly have been blessed with an incredible family. perfect parents. and siblings all sealed in the temple. ya done good, mom. 

anyway.. yes i'm feeling old! even though i still look like a little boy. what have i planned for today? well we're going to play some ball. and i'm probably going to go get some free meals from some local places that give free meals on birthdays! woot woot! 

well about 30 minutes ago... i got a knock at the door. sister richards was adamant that we email here today because she needed us to be home to receive her package. well it wasn't HER package, was it mom? haha thank you so much for the cake! haven't had any yet.. but i'm sure it is great. thank you. 

good to hear hawaii was good. haha you made me laugh when you said taking care of a trek family. haha oh trek... 

that's funny that you've never seen those heirlooms before. 

yes it is crazy that april is almost here. it's getting warm over here. 98 the other day. but i'm getting transferred. forgot to tell you that. just got the call last night. i knew it was coming though. but i played innocent. president told me a couple days back. so i'll let you know next week how the new area is! 

oh so sorry for forgetting kristen's birthday! so sad. ugh i'm horrible. it's not that i picked one over the other! and it's not like i remember everyone's and forgot hers! the selfish story went more like this, "oh it's almost my birthday. whoa 3 more days? oh it's march 27. march 27! shoot that's courtney's birthday! quick sister richards! send her a note!" haha so it was purely by coincidence that she got wished a happy birthday and kristen did not.  but yes she is looking pretty big! can't believe there was  a little bit of a scare the other day.

anyway... love you much!  

elder bronson

March 23 - Gilbert

hello mother! wow such a short email! they say that your emails get shorter the longer you are out. guess the rumor's true! nah i'm just kidding! but yeah this last one was pretty short. thank you for the quick note. loved all the pictures you sent. looks like you're having a ton of fun! 

savanna got baptized on saturday. got to confirm her short notice on sunday. in short, it was a great baptism. it was in the new singles ward building. so we assumed the faucet would run just as fast as all the other stake center we've been in. we were wrong. so we had to fill up giant pots of water from the bathroom sinks to add to the water. all ended up going well from everyone else's perspective. but from behind the scenes, it was a little stressful... ya know... filling up a baptismal font with pots. but she is doing well! and we are meeting with her best friend tonight. hope all goes well in hawaii! you send a short note, you get a short note. no just kidding.. i'll keep going.

We had mini missionaries again this week. Brother blanchard (from my old ward in higley stake) and brother willis (also from higley stake). they were stellar missionaries. Brother blanchard and I were praying for a miracle and wondering what to do at8:00 in the evening. so we got out of the car and started streeet contacting. no one was there but we went to an open garage where we met mike and ty. two high school kids. mike was sarcastic and uninterested. ty was sincere but also seemed uninterested. we began to teach about the doctrine of repentance and forgiveness through the Savior. long story short, we asked ty what he thought, and he began talking about the mormons at school and began to cry. we identified the spirit and he came to church the next day. and accepted the invitation to be baptized. cool miracle. i'm sure i could've given more detail. but that's all i got! we'll let you know how everything goes this week!

elder bronson

March 16

hello mother!

sorry i have to be short today... just about to head out for a pday activity. that is so cool that you're going to hawaii. elder tahuri thinks it's weird that that is the vacation spot for a lot of americans. yes dad told me all about his blood clots.... after the fact. nobody tells me anything! haha 

yes vanessa got baptized last week. she is doing great...  she was baptized into the family ward though. but savanna, who is getting baptized this weekend will be in singles ward. she is awesome. i think i already told you in past emails about her though.

haha injustice?? that's what i thought when i first got my mission call. well not initially. but after it set in i was like, "man..? arizona? of all places?"  but trust me. you figure out pretty quick how much better it is to go stateside. learning a new language is pretty cool. but that's about it. don't tell calvin. no i'm just kidding there is no reason to be partial in any way. there is truly no reason except that of God's decision. and the sooner you realize that, the better! I love Arizona! 

unusual on pdays? nope just basketball or soccer or baseball. wish i could play tennis. an elder in my zone found a racquetball racket and gave it to me as a gift. he's from albania. and i don't know if people in albania know the difference between a tennis racket a racquetball racket but he doesn't. haha

anyway gotta be short today. i hope that doesn't mean you'll be short with me nexgt week! haha

love, Elder Bronson

March 9 - Gilbert

hello mother!

yes they are going by very quickly.  that's awesome that you're going to hawaii though! not too much has changed from last week! well actually Vanessa got baptized! i can forward a picture. actually i forgot my camera so it'll have to wait until next week. but it was a great service. yes we are having quite a bit of success, here in good ole gilbert. i love gilbert. i'm going to move here. haha maybe. ummm savanna is getting baptized on march 21 which will be great! she is so stellar. she announced again on sunday in gospel principles that she was getting baptized. it's awesome when an investigator does that. very humbling. 

andie and quinn are looking awesome. so sad that they are growing up so fast! guess courtney will have to have another one that looks exactly the same so i can see the progression in her growth in real time! yes Jeff seems like an awesome dad. maggie is getting old? pretty sad. the richards (people we live with) have a cocker spaniel. but she's a lot more skiddish than maggie. 

missionary work is going great! The Lord always blesses me with awesome areas and awesome investigators. i usually do hardly anything and boom. investigator falls out of the sky and wants to get baptized. it truly is the Lord's work. he says in 2 nephi 29 it hink... twice, "i am able to do mine own work." and he means it! he just allows us to be in the process to help US grow. but in reality he can do it himself. and he does! we don't do any of the conversion. he does it through the power of the holy ghost. and thank goodness he does! because it would be really hard to sell a religion where you have to give up all that you have just to join and stay worthy. haha 

yes i'm still enjoying my companion he's awesome. we bought some more tim tams today. he introduced me to them. they are an australian cookie that you slurp up hot chocolate through and then throw into your mouith. it's called a tim tam slam. it's awesome. no not first time in the states. no he didn't go to school before. his father is a convert. 

okay yeah i will probably go down to provo or at least utah during the summer to find a job. that would be very nice. do you want to find a job for me?? haha muah! thank you mother!

yes i am happy and healthy thank you! love and miss you!

talk to you next week!

elder bronson

March 3

From one happy family to another! Thank you!

Mecham Family

March 3 - Gilbert

Hello mother! good to hear from you every week! ya know... one of my last companions had a hard time... his parents never wrote him! or rarely. so he would always have to remind them every week. so thank you for writing me every week! i am extremely lucky. well blessed. haha this guy we were teaching yesterday. his name is joe mar. he is from the Philippines. he is awesome. he says that his friends always tell him how lucky he is, and he corrects them and says, "no i'm not lucky. i'm blessed." so i'm blessed! not lucky. That is so awesome that kellie got into BYU! man we're going to party it up! oh wait... excuse me... we will have an enjoyable time studying. haha no but that is awesome to hear! she worked so hard. i remember thinking to myself, after i got into BYU, "ummm... now what." for so long you were trying to get good grades in middle school, so that you could get into good classes in high school. and get good grades in high school so that you could go to BYU. and now you're in... haha i remember feeling like, "what's next?" thankfully it all kinda worked itself out. 

Investigators are doing great! vanessa is getting baptized this weekend.  She expressed to us yesterday how happy she was to be able to turn her life around. "The Lord works from the inside out. ... Christ takes the slums out of people, and then they take themselves out of the slums." President Benson. Vanessa is proof of that! We picked up a few more investigators this week. One is Savanna. We received a referral for her so we contacted her and told her that we would have a lesson with her before this mission choir concert thing (that i don't participate in because i'm not a singer). So we taught her 30 minutes before. The fellowship that was with her recognized someone else that was hanging around the church building waiting for the choir concert to begin (some other missionaries brought him but he was just coming to come. not interested at all). so the fellowship dragged him into the lesson. He announced at the beginning of the lesson that he was agnostic and that he just wanted to be a bystander in the lesson. initially Savanna said she just wanted to learn about different churches, but we taught about the role of the holy ghost in conversion. and about faith in Christ and repentance. we invited her to be baptized (elder tahuri was practicing for the choir concert, so it was just me and a guy from the ward teaching), and she said something like, "i'm not ready for that. i want to learn about the church." So we kept teaching her. and we asked this fellowship to talk about his conversion. he joined the church like 5 years ago. he did so. the spirit was super strong. so we invited her again and she accepted. mar 21. it was a great lesson. but the best part is that the "agnostic" attended the choir concert, and walked up to elder tahuri and said, "I felt something." and then decided to come to church. so we had savanna and collin (agnostic) and a guy named darshan, who is another investigator nto even part of this story, in singles ward yesterday. kinda a long update for investigators. i could've just said, "all is well" but i know you don't like it when i just say that! i'm getting better! 

nothing in particular for my birthday! i'll think about it this week i guess. because i know you don't like to hear that!

love you much!

elder bronson

February 23 - Gilbert

Mom said that it's exactly 4 months left and he said....

that is the WORST start to an email i have ever seen! haha it's okay it is not a pride thing. i've had to take a step back and see if it is just pride that is making me want to go home in June vs May. some missionaries (probably out of pride) extend their mission to exactly two years just so they can say they served 2 years. which is kinda dumb. so thank you mother for helping me consider both sides. holy cow i cannot believe 4 out of 5 days were cancelled! that is pretty awesome. i'm sure they did a whole lot of nothing... haha

the week was good! domenic got baptized! and his mother, vanessa will be getting baptized in 2 weeks. she came to the baptism of course and was so excited for her baptism/confirmation. she is making so many changes.  you have a lot of different opportunities to teach different types of people on your mission. that have had a lot of different experiences. a lot of different weaknesses. each investigator or convert struggles with different things, but no matter what... the Gospel helps them. vanessa, whenever we would teach her, she would accept all of our commitments. in like 3 weeks, after complying to Father's commandments , her heart is in it. and her actions are evidence to that. but she is awesome. the Savior heals all wounds (3 nephi 9), strengthens all weaknesses (ether 12), truly changes our desires (mosiah 5:3ish). Truly when we are wrought about by the power of the Holy Ghost, we feel a desire to do good continually. to do no evil. This power of the Holy Ghost invites us to make covenants with Father (mosiah 5:5ish). It is the doctrine of Christ. 

anyway... we look like twins? haha are you sure? yes he is from new zealand. gisborne. yes he has an accent. it's hilarious though... every time he says he's from new zealand, every person we talk to finds it necessary to let him know that they have a sister's daughter's friend's mom that has been there once. or something like that. it's almost a game to see what percent of members will say soemthing like that. so funny. that's crazy that i am related to matthew cowley. i've never even heard of the guy until i got elder tahuri as a companion. now i hear about him from everyone. sounds awesome. 

Elder tahuri is awesome though. so funny. way hard worker. he's an incredible missionary. i've learned a ton from him already!  anyway... i hope this email is sufficiently long... it's definitely longer than yours! sorry about not sending pictures. my camera battery died like 6 weeks ago and i keep forgetting to charge it. i'm really bad at taking pictures.

love, elder bronson

February 10 and 16, 2015 Gilbert

February 10

hello mother!

once again, had an awesome week. only because elder allison is such a good missionary. oh yes i get to go back to higley for a baptism on valentine's day. his name is e-man. he's awesome. i think i may have told you about him in past emails. yes jordan grigg came home this week. so crazy. i remember when he left! ugh time goes by too quick. he already emailed me and told me he'd rather be on his mission. haha i think that happens to every RM though. well they are on date for feb 21. so not for a couple more weeks. 

i heard that elder holland spoke and that it was incredible. love that man. ya know a year back he was supposed to come to our missions. but he cancelled on us last minute. elder wright of the seventy came instead. he said... "well i know you were expecting elder holland. and i'm sorry you have to deal with me instead. i can only imagine that it feels kinda like getting tickets to the beatles concert and instead getting the dixie chicks. it was hilarious. really lightened the moods of the disappointed missionaries. 

anyway... crazy that ryan gets married on friday. wish him luck! i gotta be short today... going to play some baseball. love you much!

elder bronson

hello mother!

gonna be short because we'rea bout to go play some baseball. sorry about the typo about fifteen words back. too lazy to go back and put a space. good to hear you went to ryan's wedding! haha you told that to ryan?? that's pretty good actually. think he will follow through?? haha yes i got all the letters/package on time thank you so much! good to know when a girl doesn't love you, that your family does! haha 

everyone is doing well. e-man got baptized last saturday. someone from  my old area. i remember telling you about him. zoe is doing well. saw her at eman's baptism. she is still doing great.

sorry i have to be short. in a hurry. i promise only this email will be short! 

love, elder bronson

this is e-man. he's awesome. it's actually emanuel. i was teaching him before i left my last area. and he just got baptized last week. 

Hi Sister Bronson,

Elder Tahuri (from New Zealand) is your son’s new companion!  He seems like a really nice young man!  

Happy Thursday!

Carole

 Sent from Marilyn Fish

February 3 - Gilbert

mother! 

the week was good! church yesterday was good. except in a couple weeks our singles ward is going to move to 11:00. and that kinda conflicts with the other two wards. really bad. so we'll have to figure that out. but we'll cross that bridge when we come to it. yes vanessa and domenic are planning on being baptized on Feb 21. is it warming up in Gilbert? no it's pretty much the same. around 70s all the time. maybe high 60s. i don't know just a guess. our phone obviously doesn't do that kind of stuff haha.

oh yes i remember taking that picture at the breakfast dinner! i love breakfast for dinner. who were my favorite seminary teachers and why? hmmm... that's a tough question. i don't remember how involved i was in seminary. of course everyone looks back and wishes they were more involved. it was always good when seminary teachers made it interactive. there are lots of ways to do that... what has been the most difficult part of my mission? hmmm.. that's a toughy too. no it wasn't the beginning. i loved the beginning. i loved just getting out and working. and seeing miracles. i don't know if i could pin point one thing. i think that it changes every day with the daily trials. it's hard to see people you know were part of a miracle use their agency the wrong way. when you know they know enough to choose correctly but choose not to. for instance... elder allison and i street contacted this older couple. taught them on the street for a while and they said we could come back. we taught them again and invited them to read a few things specific. and pray and such. well they loved it. they texted us throughout the day talking about how they were up into the night learning and studying... and coming closer to God. and how thankful they were that we helped to reignite their walk with God. so that was a miracle. however, they texted us the next day and said that they will continue to use the materials we gave them but don't want us to continue teaching them. so kinda sad. but that's probably the toughest. helping people feel, and recognize the Spirit and their faith grow. but still choose not to accept. but The Lord is able to do his own work. and hopefully it will work out to their benefit in the future. such an incredible couple though. so kind. 

overcome or mastered something? hmmm... well i've definitely learned to be a little more patient with other missionaries. and how to be diligent. i have too much to learn though. 

yes i have a car right now. but we still bike and walk a lot. no we do not trade with other missionaries. we always have one. the singles ward that i serve in is great. i sure loved the other one too though. there are probably 8-9 singles wards in the gilbert ysa stake. so yes there are a lot of singles. 

anyway... sorry i was so short but i hope i answered the majority of your questions. gotta get goin!

elder bronson

January 26 - Gilbert

mother and family!

it is going very well. haha yes i will be coming home in june. i was considering the persuasive advice that you lent to me... but i think i though out loud with president nattress next to me... hahaha so june 23rd it is! 

church was great again. yes bishop is awesome. well all 3 of them. we cover 2 family wards and a singles ward. so we definitely are kept busy. there are lots of small and big christian churches around here. but they do help us have a lot of success too! help people gain that background on Christ. but stay positive, mother! involve the Lord in His work. He will lead you to those that are prepared. but you must be prayerful. he told the apostles, after ordaining them to the ministry (i can't quote verbatim because i do not have my scriptures with me), "you have not chosen me, but i have chosen you, and ordained you, that ye should go and bring forth fruit, that your fruit should remain (retain). and whatsoever ye shall ask the father in my name, he will give it you." as part of the charge to do missionary work, he gave the apostles, the missionaries, and all those who have a desire to serve god ('therefore, if ye have desires to serve God, ye are CALLED to the work), a blessing... a promise. we each have a promise that through prayer we will obtain. it's all part of the calling! so be prayerful. stay postiive. optimism brings hope. and hope, faith. and faith, action, and action, success. 

thank you for that story of the high councilman in the stake that joined the church. it is truly by the power of the spirit that conversion occurs. and by nothing else. why daddle around with information when you can fill them with the spirit! do so by your testimony. the Lord reminds us in 2 nephi, "i am able to do mine own work." why can't we get it through our heads? he prepares. we invite. we find the prepared, we don't prepare the found. He thankfully, has invited us to help him out. but in reality... he is able to do his own work. anyway... 

 that is awesome that you have been using tennis to share the gospel. 

anyway... don't have much time left. gotta get going.. but thank you for the email! keep writing! haha

love you!

elder bronson

January 19 - Gilbert

good morning mother and family! all is well thank you for asking. it is awesome living with the richards! we have temperpedic mattresses! i don't know how i scored that.. pretty pumped though. i don't think i've woken up in the middle of the night yet! and it's been a week and a half in my new area! no we see them whenever we're home. we just have a separate room upstairs. yes it is so cool to hear that quinn was born healthy. she looks like both of them? i can't even tell. she looks a little asian though! yeah church was great yesterday! we did have a lot at sacrament this week. pretty pumped. we had an all around incredible week. it feels so good to be able to work nonstop! elder allison is such a hard worker. i feel super humbled to be able to have him as a companion. he is just an incredible missionary. just a stud! we do great work together. and are looking forward to what the Lord has in store. dad always emails me and encourages me... telling me that it's my last 6 months, and i gotta push harder than i ever have. and don't worry. i am! not that i wasn't working hard before! but i feel like we both have the same desires to work hard and see success. i don't have to help him. because he's a better missionary than i am! anyway... i hope that all make sense. 

how does the area compare? well i have one extra ward. the wards are the same time. the dynamic is pretty much the same. bishops and wmls are awesome. anyway yeah i definitely have a lot to respond to and not a ton of time. but all went very well this week and will go great this week too!

thank you and love you!

elder bronson