Week Sixty-Three!

      Somebody had a bomb week! Cruising all over the place! I've cruising a lot...on my Chevrolegs. We be doing a lot of walkin for all day here. Talk to a few people that are out, give out a lot of cards. We got our first somewhat sketchy return appointment for tonight. We thought about it and me and elder James haven't taught a single lesson in like three weeks, and a real solid lesson for over six....rough stuff out here in Tampa and Naples.

      So we got the call and we're staying here in Naples for another six weeks in our box. The three sq mile box. Yaaaaaaayyyy. Hopefully things pick up soon or we're gonna straight go crazy! We're in the furthest south and smallest area! Ha ha we have a lot of adventures everyday. There are some crazy people here. And it's such a small area we keep seeing the same people over and over! Pretty funny. At least people are getting to know the Mormon boys!

      There's five companionships that cover the box so we're always running into other missionaries. Pretty funny stuff when that happens. So yeah that's all that I've been up to. I'm way burnt slash tan all the time now. There's quite a few Spanish areas getting white washed this transfer. Pretty interesting. This area is alright. Tiny. Not really big city. Most white people call it the ghetto. Not too bad, definitely worse out there.

      The other day James went and played with and taught some kids on some basketball courts and I talked to people just sitting around the park. I talked with Brother Frank for like an hour and a half. His whole mouth was gold and his skin black from tattoos even though he was still black....right. He goes to the revelations of Jesus Christ church. Used to be a drug dealer but then he got grand kids and went to jail too much so he found Jesus! Way cool guy. He was like 50 and just chillin in shorts and a tank top acting like he's 25. Funny guy. That's one of the bazillion people I've talked to in the last week. Hope all stays well!

Address:

2701 Tropicana Blvd. #3

Naples, FL 34116

Live Hard,

Love Hard,

Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

Week Sixty-two!

Hola!

So......you're like on a cruise right now.....LUCKY!!! This'll probs be a short one, but hey  it's been a crazy week! First off GenCon was fetching awesome! Bomb as always. Lots of crazy stuff went down during that one, aka the end of the world is really soon. Lots of talking about standing up for your beliefs and being exactly obedient in life. One thing that somebody said was 'why are we disobedient? What makes us return to sin and make the same mistakes? It's because we love Satan more than God.'.....Holy smokes! Alright there you go!  So.....do better! Elder Ballard's talk Sunday morning can really help you guys out I think. But be sure to watch and pay attention to ALL of them! Throw down about Sabbath Day too. Whoo! Lots of straight voices of warning! Best be getting ready to actually stand alone for what we know to be true and pick a side. 'Even if EVERYONE is doing it, that does not make it right.' Lots of crazy things. Be sure to read them and rewatch them when you can in the Ensign or on your phones and online! 

So I'm in Naples! Holy cow I'm so south! About the furthest south you can get without being in the Everglades almost. It's hot and humid like crazy here. We took the Spanish sisters apartment, it's pretty nice. All we do is walk around and try to find people to teach that will listen to us! So we hand out a lot of cards all day walking the streets. We've met with a few members from the Bahia Spanish Ward here. They're way way nice so far, and we just drop by and they welcome us in. We did that in between sessions yesterday and they welcomed us in, fed us and invited us to watch conference with them! So we totes did and it was awesome. Watched the second session in Spanish. I'm basically fluent. But yeah we have NO idea if we're going to be here longer than this week. This Saturday is transfer calls so we'll find out then. So we're going to be living off of Little Caesars and canned food ha ha because we don't know if we'll just be moving in a week so we aren't gonna waste money on groceries we won't eat!

 It's a weird situation. They just wanted to get us out of Tampa as fast as they could because we were kind of just wasting time walking around up there, and that's all we did. No lessons and no help from members. The missionaries part of Hastening the Work is already happening, an insane increase in missionaries. Now it's time for the members to do their part of the Hastening. The missionaries are there, there are PLENTY to go around. This is the prophesied HASTENING! aka things are changing, things are picking up and getting faster, if we don't keep up with it and change ourselves.....where will we be found when Christ comes? Being proactive or complacent? Helpful or hindering? Christlike or contentious?

That's a lot of what I got out of conference! I have to change a lot of what I do and the way I think. I feel like I'm behind in a lot of aspects, and I've been holding myself back because I fear change and sometimes I even fear being obedient and successful. I think that's a major thing Satan puts into us is fear. Fear of change, of success beyond measure, of being obedient. Maybe sometimes we might think 'will it even be worth it? I've done it before and there was no immediate blessings. If I invite or talk to this person, I'm afraid they'll actually say yes.  Those are weird things that I totally notice happen to us as missionaries and I'm sure in normal life too! Pretty interesting things to think about. Just random thoughts! GO CONFERENCE! MAKES YOU THINK ABOUT EVERYTHING IN YOUR LIFE!

Hope all is well and the boat doesn't crash!....yep! Send me sweet pics!

Live Hard,
Love Hard,
Laugh Hard,
Elder Bryson Davies

 

 

 

Week Sixty-One!

Hola! 

 

Yep yep yep DOING WORK HERE IN TAMPA!!! This week has been CRAZY! We've taught 22 lessons! Holy smokes! The craziest crap went down. I'm getting moved out of Tampa! What the heck is going on?? It's called an emergency transfer....I have to go fill the place of some other elder in a yep...zebra companionship...right after the best week ever?! I guess I was just supposed to do that little bit here. All of our lessons were with people on the street. It was awesome! But the area I'm going to is having crazy good success so...hopefully it keeps up? I'll be going there in the next couple days. Flipping crazy everyday here. Never a dull moment!

 

Elder Tanner who I'm living with, Elder Stanger's comp, just got his visa and now he can go to Africa! His call is to Zimbabwe! He'll finish out the transfer and then fly out with a couple other visa waiters in our mission. He's been here for 6 months so he's so pumped to go to Africa! And Elder Stanger goes home this transfer too! Two way good friends peacing out. I might send some stuff home with Stanger to give to y'all since he lives right next to canyon view jr high in Orem! 

 

But yeah things have just been crazy! THATS SO SICK BROOKE GOT THAT JOB!!! CONGRATS TO HER!!! Sounds like everyone's experiencing a lot of success in the family! And y'all be hittin up that cruise! Smooth sailing indeed! Just don't watch Lost or Titanic....

 

But...nothing else happened ha ha. We play ball a lot! For finding we go over to 22nd street  and ball up a bunch of straight thugs. Like think of hard core thugs like in movies...yep. That's who we hang out with! It's way fun and they're pretty nice people In a weird sort of round about way. Woohoo! 

 

Well smooth sailing and make sure to listen to the words of living prophets this weekend! Have a question(s) in mind and pray and ponder and be willing to ACT on the answer. Maybe your question can be...how do I invite my neighbor over for dinner with the missionaries? Just as an example ;) 

 

Have fun! I'll let you know what happens to me!

Live Hard,

Love Hard,

Laugh Hard,

 

Elder Bryson Davies

 

Oh so by the way........the entire first paragraph of my email was a lie!! APRIL FOOLS!!!! WOOHOO! We actually didn't teach a single lesson last week and I'm still in Tampa :)

Week Sixty!!

 

 

 

 

Hola!
This week was pretty good! We increased our lessons by 400%! We went from 1 to 4 lessons ha ha! Not bad...we're expected to have 20 lessons. We're getting there little by little! Yesterday we had a stake ward council training at 6:30 in the morning in Odessa at the stake center. All ward council members went and Pres Cusick talked. He showed how many member referrals have come in from each individual ward up on a slide show. The average number this year for each ward was like 5 so he challenged the members to give us more referrals.

We taught a new investigator in the downtown Tampa library! It was like a "pass off" lesson with two metro sisters from down there. That was a cool lesson! We drove up to Wesley chapel to teach another new investigator named Nayelis. She came from Cuba like two months ago and is the step daughter of a member. Pretty cool lessons.

But yeah besides all that jazz life goes on here in the FTM. Keep up the prayin! Stay away from Satan!

Live Hard,
Love Hard,
Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

 

 

 

 

Week Fifty-Nine!

Color Run!

Hola!

So this week, once again not a lot happened! Ha! Lots of walking. Oh quick question why is the flag at half mast? We don't know much out here about the world. We had interviews on Thursday with President Cusick. Me and him talked A LOT about exact obedience and how it's the
only way to success and spiritual enlightenment and guidance. I really took a look at what I've been doing the last little while and realized that I defs wasn't being exactly obedient and therefore I was frustrated and not having any motivation. That was a rough realization. But on Sunday when I took the sacrament I felt a forgiving Spirit in me and a remotivation plant itself inside me. So I kinda started back at square one yesterday! Me and elder James both want to be more obedient because we know we're just gonna be running in circles if we don't and we're going to be taken out of this area if we don't get things started here.

So we went Sunday night and tried to see a ton of members in our new Temple Terrace area that were all on the same few roads and found a ton of Hispanics there! The members weren't living in most of the houses, but we still invited and left a prayer (new name for peace and blessing) with all of them. It was an awesome successful night! And it was so much easier to talk to straight random people, black, Hispanic, or white, along the way because we were filled with the Spirit! 

President Cusick called us and we talked about our area and he said he's really pleased with our work and efforts to recommit ourselves to be obedient. He gave us some
new ideas to find and improve and it was awesome! I'm seeing him trying to change and that makes me want to change too! The Atonement is for everyone!

Besides that nothing much else happened! Hope you like all the pics!
Have a safe week!

Live Hard,
Love Hard,
Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

 
 
 
 

Week Fifty Eight!

Hola!



So...this is a tad late...because we haven't had wifi all day! Because
we went to the YANKEES GAME!! Straight up got pics of Jeter at bat and on short stop! And Bryce Harper, plays for the Nationals, also Mormon, didn't show. Sad day. But turns out one of the pitchers for the Yankees is Mormon and is in a ward in south Tampa and we talked with him! Elder Langi served in his ward so they're tight. I couldn't get his autograph though! Oh well. Memory is the next best thing right? But yeah I got pics of that AND the 5k, but on my camera!That old thing. So next time I email on a computer I'll shoot ya those. 




The race was so fun! Seemed way short, probably cause we got blasted with powder every quarter mile! We had to wear our white

shirts, tie and tag in it, which rocked because we stood out among the 8000 people that were there! So many people! And a few were Mormon we found out when they called us out and stuff. We even got a shout out from the head announcer on the starting line because we were going crazy and everyone looked at us and noticed how fun, normal, and cool Mormon missionaries are! We talked to a few people after and gave out cards, but it was mostly just to get our image out there and that we do normal cool things! Even the members we saw were like you guys can do this? Yes! Invite us to more stuff like this! So that was way way fun. I just threw away that shirt and tie I wore, they were crappy and ripped anyways. Pics will come! Meanwhile enjoy the one on 
fb.



So Rod "dies" tomorrow! Goes home on Wed! I told him to fb you guys to invite y'all to his homecoming. He's way excited. I'm way excited for him vicariously! So I get a new comp tomorrow. Each companionship in our district is getting a new comp! Elders Langi and Stanger are staying here with me, but we all get new comps tomorrow. And we're also moving tomorrow night! To the Grand Oasis apartments. It's a way nice one. Address coming next week. We're gonna live with Stanger and his comp.



Besides that stuff not much else going on....Juan is still progressing
well, coming to church and everything.



Well continue in the faith! Thanks for your prayers and such!



Live Hard,


Love Hard,


Laugh Hard,



Elder Bryson Davies

Week Fifty Six!

Hola!

This Sunday was an awesome Sunday! Able to feel the Spirit and do some good old fashioned missionary work in the ward. I felt a lot of love from members and miracles with Juan the investigator. He prayed and wants to get baptized on April 6, his birthday. So that's pretty cool! This Sat. is transfer calls and next Tuesday is transfers so I'll be getting a new comp! Pretty crazy! Rod and Schenk are going home to Utah!

Anyways not much else happened this week. This is incredibly short, but hey things are going good!

Live Hard,

Love Hard,
Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies