Trust in Him and you will find success - Nov 4

So something amazing happened yesterday. We had a lot (as in I can't even count how many) of less actives come to church yesterday. One of them we had met briefly the day before. She said that when she moved here she didn't look up where the church was but felt that she needed to come back and bring her son with her, she asked us were the church was and we gave her simple directions on how to get there. We were surprised when she showed up, and then the others start coming in. The elders even had one of their less actives  (well one that we know about) come and I think that he stayed for all three hours of church. Seeing that many less actives being were they needed to be just put a smile on my face. With less actives in mind it was the first week that I have ever had were we have had more less active visits then member visits.
 

Oh it gets better. Every week we pass around the missionary meal calendar so that members can sign up to feed us. Well this week was a good week and all three companionships had pretty full calendars which hasn't happened all the time that I have been here. People signed up that either haven't signed up since I first got here or have never signed up before. It just made that smile that I had earlier grow even bigger.

It goes to show that what Elder Ballard said in conference is true. " It is impossible to fail when you do your best when you are on the Lord's errand."  This is why I am out here. I needed to be the one to help some of those people who were at church yesterday to come back and to be were they know the should be to draw closer to Christ. There is no where else that can happen but in a place that is dedicated unto the Lord through the Restored Priesthood authority of Christ. Where we talk of Christ, we rejoice in Christ, and we learn of Christ in all three of our meetings.

 

Love y'all and I hope you have an awesome week!

Sister Brady

I'm Still Here - Oct 29

Well y'all another transfer has gone by and I found out last night that I will be staying...oh the dreaded phone call. Only one elder in my district is getting transferred out,and oddly and rarely none of the sisters in my zone are getting transferred. I love the sisters in my zone. When we all see each other it is a giant hug fest. Plus we only get to see them twice, maybe even three times a transfer which for those of us who don't have sisters around it is a big deal seeing each other.

Anyways the work has been picking up and we have been able to visit more people. We are getting people to sign up to feed us that I never thought would have. It is hard though because we are still having the same families sign up to feed us that always feed us. Not that I am complaining, I just think that more of the ward needs to get to know us and know what tools we have to help them. It's funny though, a lot of the people that always feed us are either converts who love missionaries or are the key people in who we report to quite a bit, aka the ward mission leader and the relief society president.

Well I hope that y'all are doing well and have an awesome week.

Love

Sister Brady

And the end of transfers is coming up - Oct 21

Well y'all it is almost that time again. We find out Monday if we are staying or going. These last six weeks have gone by really fast. I feel like a lot of it for me is because I have been the one leading the area. It is hard to lead an area after only being there for six weeks, but luckily I was trained as if I was going to lead the area.

 

This last week I have felt like the Lord has been helping us quite a bit. I felt down last week because we were able to teach five lessons and most of them were members. I knew that I needed to turn to the Lord and ask for his help. I can definitely say that he was able to help us out. This week we taught 14 lessons, most of them were members but we had more other teaching appointments and lessons taught then I can remember. We also were able to meet more members and find out if any of them are willing to help us by coming out with us or want to have the missionaries over for dinner (which is always nice and something that I know the elders would like more of). We also decided that we should also put in calendars for next month into our Feeding the Missionary Calendar binder, we had it passed around Primary (both Sr and Jr) and Relief Society, and well we were able to get more dinner appointments, and we even got a dinner appointment for Thanksgiving. I really have seen the Lord working with us more this week because we are trying harder to get the work going. I see it like we are trying to push this load up hill and we occasionally will get help but it doesn't last long so we start moving backwards a little so we try harder and start getting the momentum to get going back up the hill. It is hard but I know the Lord is providing angels to help us push and pull the load up the hill.

 

This week is going to be interesting though. We will be on exchanges so Sister Schmutz will be down here with Sister Tiller (yes my previous companion Sister Tiller) and I will be up in Amite ( a town that is pretty small, I think of it like Blanding) with Sister Tiller's new companion Sister Maxfield. Oddly enough last time I was on exchanges I went up to Amite but was with Sister Maxfields previous companion Sister Haskell (who is yet another one of Aunt Jenn's students that I have met since high school).

 

Well let me know how things are going for all y'all and any changes in things.

 

Love y'all

Sister Brady

When things go wrong all you can do is look up - Oct 14

Well this last week everything seemed to go crazy, especially Thursday. We had Zone Conference and we thought it was at the building were we normally have all of our meetings at but no it was in Denham Springs. Thus we were late for it. Also earlier last week we were told that a member that Sis Schmutz worked with was going through the temple and wanted her there. I knew that would would have permission if we found a ride but no one could take us. So Thursday we work it out with President that we will stay the night in Baton Rouge and help the North elders see people in the area, and then stay Friday night and come back to Covington Saturday morning. Well how that was crazy is we came up with that at Zone Conference so we weren't prepared with anything. Luckily the LSU sisters were kind enough to let us stay the night and borrow some of their clothes. Spending a day not in our area was weird and hard because all those that we saw that day wouldn't count in our numbers for the week, but it was good because we were able to tell the elders who they need to see ASAP and teach the district leader that you need to follow up with missionaries that you assign families to. Oh and all the libraries in our parish (known  everywhere else in the US as county) were closed for training. Hope all is going well and that y'all are doing well.

 

Love y'all and I hope that you have an awesome week. Sister Brady
P.S. the picture attached is one that I took on our way to Zone Conference, yes it is fog and that is a small airport that you can't really see. Also for Ash's pleasure here are some pictures of squirrels that I have taken.