UP and DOWN the Spiritual Journey of a Missionary

Hello to all of my Favorite People in the World!

Sometimes in life, we are faced with UP days. Sometimes in life, we are faced with DOWN days. Sometimes in life, we are faced with UP weeks. Sometimes in life, we are faced with DOWN weeks.

So, let me tell you about this week:

Monday was awesome. It was St. Patrick's day. It was also Granny's birthday. HAPPY BIRTHDAY GRANNY  (sorry I'm a little late.) I finally participated in sports this week. For the first time ever. I played wall ball. That was fun! We also wrote in journals and took pictures. I brought my gnome which has been named. And many pictures were taken with him. His name is Ned. He was named by Elder Day. Elder Day was also the one who took the most pictures of/with the gnome. He was very excited to meet my gnome. I just laughed.  

(Sister Bryans just got overly distracted by the emoticons that can be added to this email. Huzzah! I am very disappointed with the lack of gnomes I could share. ) Anyways, so pictures. They will be coming eventually.

Tuesday was hard. I didn't sleep well that night. I was up at 11:45p Monday and didn't fall back asleep until 1:45a Tuesday. So for 2 hours I studied the scriptures and tried to help my brain focus on good uplifting things rather than on how little sleep I was getting. So that started my hard day. We got to help Sister Webb move around some furniture in her new house which was fun. She just moved from the Sunrise ward. I really like her. She shared with us her gordita dolls. They are sooooo cute!

We had an interesting lesson with Debbie too. It is so hard to teach her sometimes because she get frustrated easily. She just doesn't understand what we are teaching which is a lot of our fault We go into to much depth with her because she asks questions and desires answers. This week we are going to Keep it Simple and really bring the Spirit. Without him in our lessons, she will never progress.

Wednesday was also hard and long. (Sister Zvirzdin and I have been really struggling this past week.) But it was good. We did some service at the VA hospital. We also met the new Elders at district meeting. (District Meeting has been moved from Thursday mornings to Wednesday afternoons.) They should be good I hope. I don't know. Elder Stone is 18 and has been out for 6 months. Elder Broderick is 20 and has been out for 18 months. I'm excited to see what kind of work they will do.

We also had dinner with Sister Reynders. That was awesome! She is our less active miracle that we have been working with. She is doing awesome. I love her. And for mutual, we had a surprise baby shower for Sister Tinsley with the young women. I got fat, fat, fat with the pie - and it wasn't even good pie.

Thursday, was also a long hard day. We had lunch with a less active sister - Sister Hoburg. She is the best. We made calzones with her. It was awesome! And they tasted soooooooo yummy!  We also went tracting after lunch which was fun. We met a lady named Georgie. She was so sweet. She's in her 80's and invited us in to talk. She gave us water and we talked for an hour about everything. She is Luthern and super cute. She's amazing! I definitely know that, at the end of the world, those who are saved will not just be Latter Day Saints. There are too many good people in this world who are trying to live like the Savior. It's awesome!

Friday was okay. We had our planning session in the morning which was great. We have decided to really push the General Women's Conference and also General Conference to have as many non-members present as possible. We figure we can combine it with a church tour and Q&A session. We're pumped!! We also have decided to do a Living Easter Message. We are going to have families invite their friends to let us share with them either: Finding Faith in Christ or the Lamb of God. Then we will leave a copy of the video for them. It is going to be the best experience ever! I'm super pumped!!!

We also had a lesson with Sister Cox's sister Sunshine. She is awesome! She is an Atheist with a sliver of hope that their is a God. She has tons of questions and we had two really goo lessons with her this week. We talked about the Plan of Salvation and also answered some of her questions. A lot of them have to do with homosexuality and the churches stance on it. That makes life hard, but we told her to read up on what the prophets have said about it and also to pray. Hopefully, she will. I have great hopes for her!

Saturday was the worst day ever! Here is exactly what I wrote in my journal, "Today was horrible & now I am getting fat on lemon flavored girl scout cookies. The End." It was really bad! Contention mixed with Depression mixed with Tears mixed with Stress mixed with all that is terrible in the world - that was our day. But we pushed through and all is well.

Sunday, I had the privilege of being the youth speaker in Sacrament Meeting. I talked about Mosiah 3:19. We need to put off the Natural man and become as little Children. To become as little children, we must be Obedient, have Faith, be Loving, have the Spirit and remember the Savior. Somehow with all of my planning, I was able to tie in the Priesthood too it as well, but don't ask me how I did. I can't remember. The Spirit puts words into the mouths and hearts of those who are prepared. It was really good though. I learned a lot and I hope others did too.

We also had really good lessons yesterday after church which was really great! We met with a newly wed couple - the Smiths. They are fun, kinda quiet and desire missionary opportunities. We also saw Jiselle which was great. I miss that lady. She has been really struggling with her new job, getting sick all the time and an ex-beau. We are hopefully going to help her find the peace and happiness that comes from the gospel. And we also had a delicious meal with Sister Parsons. I love her too!  She made us a tasty salad.

Anyways, the work moves on & life is really good.  For, the sun is shining, the tank is clean. ..................the tank is clean?! THE TANK IS CLEAN!!!??? (For those who are unfamiliar this is a quote from Finding Nemo)

I love you all and I hope you are having great missionary opportunities yourselves. Do what is right and hold to the rod.

Love,

Sister Bryans