So I don't have tons of time to write today, but I just want to let everyone know that they need to be thankful for the things they have and not what they don't have. I love this time of the year, it is a time where we get to be thankful for things and focus on the Savior. The beauty of the Christmas season, I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving and are thankful for what you have.

Love

Elder Elquist

I hope you all are doing wonderful this lovely November morning. I can hardly tell you what all has happened in the past week, because it feels like just yesterday I was emailing you and telling you about my last week. Pretty insane, it has caused me to think a lot about this. The thing that has come to my mind on why this is. I think it is are perspective. In reality I understand I have 3 months left of the 24. I have already come 21 months. So it seems super short if you look at what you have done. This has caused me to think a lot on things.

I imagine when we move on to the next life and we will look back on what we did while we were on earth only to see it was such a short period of time in eternity. Most of us will only live until we are 90 or so. So 90 years in eternity, we have no idea how long we were with God before we came her but we know it was a while. He got to know each and everyone of us individually and if you think about that, there are currently 6.5 billion people on the earth and you think of all the people that have ever lived and it is insane. But God knows each and everyone of us personally and he knows how to communicate best, with each and everyone of us. Often times we lose perspective on who he is to us and what  he is going to do for us. Often times we have to count are blessings instead of are trials. We have to understand God has given us commandments to free us not bind us. Satan Binds he doesn't Free, but he wants you to see it as if he frees and God binds. Not the case though.

So after that rambling the thing I have come to realize is we have to count are blessings and change are perspective on things. So do it. Be thankful and look at the positive side of things. Love you all and hope all is well with you.

Love

Elder Elquist

Braden's Update for November 11th, 2013

Wow this past week has gone by super quick, I am starting to just forget to think of something to write about, I hope you all are having a great November day, I can't believe how much has happened over the last week but at the same time I don't know what to talk about.

So the thing I decided to talk about today is sacrifice. This word has different meaning for each and everyone of us, but my own personal feelings have really changed towards this over the last little bit. I have realized that all that we are required to do is Have a willing Heart and a Willing mind. I think the key word in this is Willing. We need to be willing to give up everything, but the Lord is going to take everything from us, he requires a little here and there, but then repays in abundance. We also have to realize how much we have. We are a blessed people and we need to be willing to sacrifice in order to recieve blessings, the Lord will tell us what he needs and if we give, we are blessed in abundance.

Just a thought for the week, another thing I have been thinking a lot about is just the amazing power of the Atonement and what all it does for us, I can't imagine what things would be like if it hadn't been for the sacrifice the Savior did for us, I can only imagine what things he went through in Gethsemane. But I am truly grateful for it, it can carry us all, I have seen the amazing power of the Atonement and what it can do for others. So have Faith and Trust in Christ. Love you all.

Love
Elder Elquist

Selected excerpts from other emails:

"New things in the Dayton Area, the weather has decided to get cold here, I am hoping it will warm up, the forecast says a high of 35 tomorrow. Scary. But oh well. We picked up a Former investigator this past week, so we will see how he progress's, his name is Money or D'Arius. He is pretty cool, he was taught by the last set of missionaries and he is doing well, he is just really flaky sometimes, which makes it a pain to meet with him. The Package arrived safely, so thank you for all that was in it. I always like getting new garments, they smell awesome. There is just something about the smell of new garments that just hits the spot.  Weird I know. Oh also if you find some of my old clothes in any of those places, I would keep them if at all possible. I am pretty sure I will fit in them when I get home.

So this past week for us, was slow but at the same time it felt like we had a billions of things to do, so that is always fun and makes life interesting for us.
Monday we met with Lamar and he is doing really well, he is progressing really well and is starting to gain a testimony on his own. Then we had to organize rides for a Leadership council on Wednesday, I will talk about that more on Wednesday. Also on Monday we had a less active come play Basketball with us and we had a good time with that.
Tuesday we had a slower day, we had to prepare a lot of reports and stuff for Stake Coordination on Sunday. Then we got to see Lamar and it went well, we are focusing with him on understanding the need for baptism by the correct authority. 

Wednesday we had an awesome Leadership council, we had 2 people from the missionary department in Salt Lake come in and trained us and it was awesome, we learned so many things, I had the opportunity to be paired up for role plays with a young missionary, and they are on fire, let me just tell you. The mission is in good hands. It is truly amazing to see all that has happened in preparation for this big boom of missionary work, so it is pretty insane to think about the miracles that have happened to make having this many missionaries possible.

Thursday we had a pretty good day, we planned out zone meeting, only to find out later that day, that the mission decided to move it to Saturday, so they could get us more information, then it got moved on Friday to Tuesday. So tons of fun with that. Then Friday, we tons of service, we are helping to dig a trench to get this spanish Family power. So that has been fun to do. I am learning Spanish while doing it, I am pretty sure this family loves me, they love me coming over and trying to speak spanish. I am going to be fluent when I get home.

Saturday was a slow day, we had a couple of lessons go through with some other investigators, for some reason we were not able to meet with hardly anyone this past week, so we will have to see how it goes over the next week.

Sunday we had a really good Stake Coordination meeting and got a lot of assignments from it, so it should be a good month this next month. 

That was my last week, hopefully it all goes well with you. Hopefully you guys don't have any more cool medical stuff that happens over the next few months. I get to miss all of the really cool stuff. That sucks by the way. Everyone decides to have all these cool things happen while I am gone, Jason breaks a leg and needs surgery and then Kaylee getting her knee fixed, what a bummer missing all of those, I also missed Jason and Alyssa having braces, so there goes my plan to tease them like they did to me. You guys should hold of on anything else exciting like that."

So how is everyone doing this lovely November morning, that is pretty weird it feels like it was just Christmas and everything yesterday. So that is pretty interesting to see how quick it has gone.

One thing I have been pondering as of late has been just the amazing things we have been blessed with. It is amazing to think about how much each and everyone of us are blessed and we get to see the Lords hand in are everyday life. So my quick spiritual thought today is just to count your many blessings instead of looking at what you don't have.

Love
Elder Elquist