Braden's update for December 2nd, 2013

So I am going to start emailing a little differently, I keep running out of time to email everyone, so what I am going to do is send a mass email like this one to everyone that emails me and then I will send shorter emails to everyone answering specific answers to questions and such. So let me know  if you don't like that, most likely I will just do this for know on.

So this past week has been awesome, I have been super busy with tons of different things. So on Monday we had a couple of lessons and Elder Irwin had to get all packed up and get things ready to go home, so we did that. Then on Tuesday was transfer day. So I actually got 2 new companions Elder Barnett is my Junior Zone leader who has been out almost 11 months, and then I got another normal junior Companion Elder Thompson who has been out just over 1 year. The reason for the extra companion is President Porter is worried because most of the zone leaders go home in the next 2 transfers. So they are giving us young zone leaders and young missionaries to go with us because they are convinced we can teach them something. It was pretty funny we had a meeting after transfers with President Porter and he told all of the junior companions to pretty much just do what ever the Senior Zone Leader tells you to do. So that was pretty funny, now I have these two just following me around for the next few months. It has been fun. They are both from northern Utah. So that is pretty funny.

Wednesday was a good day it was busy with bunch of different things going on. The week pretty much was a giant blur and we were able to get a lot of work done and be able to see the Lords Work progress. I always loving seeing everything work out, are zone has been struggling with getting people to church and so that has been a focus of ours. This next week we are going to be on exchanges a ton. Pretty much every day this next week we are on exchanges and so we have to make every second count. It is the mission goal to baptize some one in every area. So we have to get on top of are zone to get things moving in the right direction. So we will have to see how things go.

One thing that I have realized the past little bit of my mission is I am just starting to not really give a crap and just say stuff. I called a missionary out over the phone on zone conference call for making excuses, of why he didn't have some one at church. So that has been kind of fun.

Saturday we had a really good day I was on exchanges with the Assistants and they pretty much just gave me a ton of training that I need to take to the rest of the zone to be able to get them to do things the right way. We have a super young mission and we have to give them a ton of training to get them in the right direction.

So a cool story on Thanksgiving we had an investigator invite us over for dinner and that was a lot of fun. It was good to get to be there and in there house just to celebrate the season. So that was really fun. The cool thing happened later when we were teaching Donald the investigator a lesson and his wife Candice called on the phone that his son Dakota was having to get admitted into the hospital because he wasn't breathing very well. So he asked us to come with him and we went and talked with them a little bit and I was able to give his son a blessing. It was a really short and quick blessing because we had nurses and doctors coming in and out, but I gave a short blessing and then we had to leave to get home in time. So we got going and we got a call from Donald after we were about 5 minutes away and he said as soon as we left and after the blessing, his breathing immediately improved and he was running around and smiling again. So it was an amazing testimony builder to me that the Priesthood is real and is wonderful. So that was amazing to get to have happen.

Well that is pretty much how my week went, a little scatter brained and all over the place, but yeah. Well I hop all is well with all of you and you are enjoying the Christmas season, I know I am. Merry Christmas and everybody should listen to Christmas Music.

Love

Elder Elquist