Hello, Hello! Quick birthday shout out to all my boys at home!! ❤ Happy birthday Nathanael, Seth and Benjamin. I love you all and I hope your birthday is magical. (:
This was another good week come and gone. Honestly time goes by very differently as a missionary, days feel like months and weeks feel like minutes and transfers feel like a blink! Thankfully journaling helps you keep a record of your life and it is something I invite all y'all to be doing regularly you'll be grateful you did someday as will many of your descendants. Oh! and prophets have told us too, if that's any added motivation. ;)
We started our week off with another tradeoff with the Timuquana sisters. Sister Martin came to our area with me and Sister Fotheringham and Sister Nish were in their area. Our tradeoff went really well!! Sister Martin is such an awesome missionary! Our dinner appointment for Monday night had forgotten they had signed up (awkward...) so instead we turned it into a teaching moment and helped her to do missionary work over Facebook. It was something we learned and discussed at the MLC (missionary leadership council) and it was really awesome. Oh and fun fact, Facebook was invented the same year Preach My Gospel was published, 2004. (Coincidence? I think not!)
That evening we had a lesson with Dusty, not sure how much I've told y'all. But Dusty is our progressing investigator, he was found while Sister Fotheringham was on a trio the week before transfers. He had met missionaries quite a few times but was never interested in visiting with them, but we are persistent! And finally he listened to their message. However he bailed on his return appointment so Sister Fotheringham and I dropped by a few days later and really quickly spoke with him, set a return appointment and gave him a Book of Mormon. When they (I was on a tradeoff) went back and taught him he shared why he kept that appointment and why he was going to learn more. It was because of the Book of Mormon we gave him. We had prior given it to a sister in the ward, Sister Moore, she is a convert of about 10 years and the majority of that time she was inactive. But she's come home much like the prodigal son, and she had written her testimony in that Book of Mormon and when Dusty read it his heart was touched and he decided he wanted to learn more. MIRACLE! So as an invitation for y'all; talk with the missionaries and write your testimony in a copy of the Book of Mormon for them to hand out. Be bold and loving and I promise you your testimony will touch the life of someone and you may never know who but it'll happen. And for those who don't have a testimony of the Book of Mormon yet don't give up! Keep reading it and keep praying about it. Just like it teaches in Moroni 10:3-5 (pg 529) if you will read, ponder, and pray with faith, a sincere heart and real intent, I know the Lord will give you an answer!!
So anyways... our lesson with him went really well. We read 1st Nephi 1 and broke it down so it was clear and easy to understand. Dusty had a lot of good questions as we went along, (I love questions) and so we had a very good discussion. One of my favorite parts about the Book of Mormon is that it is written a certain way and in a certain order for a purpose. Seriously! Go read chapter 1 again and think about it from a missionary/investigator perspective. (I'll give you a second.......... seconds up!) Okay what did you notice?? Did you notice that Lehi has a powerful humbling experience and it prepares him to have the vision where he is confronted by a man and given a book and invited to read it? And then in verse 12 it says " And it came to pass that as he read, he was filled with the Spirit of the Lord." See any similarities to missionaries and investigators? We go and we offer them a book of scripture comparable to the bible, it's another testimony or witness of Jesus Christ and is evidence of God's love for us. We invite them to read and we promise them that as they do they will be filled with the spirit and will come to know that this is true.
The rest of the tradeoff was also good. We did service Tuesday morning and then visited a Recent Convert who was in the hospital. She was a little sad and lonely so it was good we went by. We also went out finding with a LA young woman we are working with named Ashleigh. She is so cute! And she had such a good time that she told everyone at YWs about it. (: yay!
And for the most exciting news!!! There was a worldwide conference this past week with many a changes. O.o so EXCITING! But prior to the conference we had a zone meeting and Sister Fotheringham and I had to give a training, it was in technology usage in missionary work. I was very nervous for our training and Sister Fotheringham was so patient and supportive, she had us say a prayer before we started and it helped me so much. I am very grateful she is my companion, I am learning so much from her! I felt like the most important part of our training was when we discussed iPad standards (Sister Fotheringham was more nervous about that part... so she had me do it!). We invited them to study from safe guards for using technology, which is a great resource and everyone should be using it. Afterwards everyone said our training was good and including the assistants to the President. I think the best part was that Sister Fotheringham had picked out our outfits and we matched (: hehe
Anyways for the really exciting news!! The church has changed the missionary daily schedule. We still wake up at 6:30 and are expected to exercise for a half an hour. But from 7-8:30 we have "free time" basically time to get ready, eat and do whatever else to prepare for the day. At 8:30 we do our daily planning (which used to be done 9pm at night) and then from 9-10 we have personal study and from 10 to 5 (or 6 depending on people's schedule) we work, do companionship study, lunch for 30min, etc. And then we are home by 9 (9:30 if in a lesson) and are able to go to bed anytime between 9:30-10:30 just so long as companions go to bed at the same time. And pdays have been "extended" and now start as early 8 or 8:30 because we aren't expected to exercise, and only have to do our planning and a half hour of personal study. It's a pretty big and exciting change! But our mission president announced it to us early, we have known since before January. Aka our President is the best❤. The other big change is no longer do we have a billion key indicators, they broke them down and now we have 4, baptized+confirmed, baptism dates, investigators at church and new investigators. It is really exciting! I can feel how it is changing the focus and concerns of the missionaries. Truly it is inspired!! It really allowed us to plan for people not shcedule events on our weekly planning.
My goodness this email has gotten long.. haha. Sorry! But I want y'all to know I love you very much. Xoxo
All my love, Sister Bryans
Also we took and edited a photo for our Skype account. Nice huh?
And this is how my companion deals with the Florida cold+sister training leader exhaustion.
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