Week Five!

Ok, first, travel plans. there's like 30 people traveling with us so the payphone situation might be sketchy? Not sure if it'll be long or short or what! But we'll see and it will happen! So hopefully around 6 ish - 7? I'll call dad's phone for sure.

Tampa in 5 days. no big. actually big big. I've been seeing a ton of people come and go in here that i know, hermana bolton, kelsey, a girl i worked with, lots of people! it's way cool to see. oh and my shift key is stuck a lot so no caps much in this email. lots of spanish is coming along good! I got a letter from my mission pres and assistants to the pres this week! an email as well! So they're looking forward to us coming. They'll be waiting at the airport for us and we're going to the mission home and having dinner and orientation that first day. Second day we go to conference and get our trainers for the first 12 weeks!! That's a long time to be with a trainer, but i know why i'm here and nothing can make me forget that purpose. Sorry it's short! Maybe i'll have time later today before or after the temple to email again! hopefully. off to get a haircut! oh and good job and sweet pics from ragnar!!! i run here and think of those fun times!

Got more time! We just got back from the last temple sesh for two years! It was a way good one. We really felt the peace in the temple. Oh! So last night at the second to last devotional, the last one where a person other than a CCM would speak, Elder M. Russell Ballard spoke! It was so amazing, and we were like on the tenth row. We figured it was someone important because they didn't have it announced on the screen and when we went to the bathroom we kinda got asked to hurry by security guards, so figured it was someone pretty high up! It was so amazing. He talked about how we've been blessed with learning this gospel for our entire lives and then we come here and we feel we need to relearn everything from the beginning. But it's important to know that we need to use the knowledge we've been taught for 19 years and put it to use. The only thing we need to do is use PME to know the way how to perfectly condense and simplify the doctrine we already know, and then we just need to bear testimony and teach people what we have known our whole lives. It was way cool to hear that because it does feel like we're having to learn everything over, probs cause we're learning it all in another language, but we need to realize that we have enough knowledge already to answer almost any question that's asked to us, we just need to remember what we've been taught in our youth. And it was way cool, I felt, because near the end he called us his "fellow missionaries". Whoa. We have the same exact job now of those righteous men we've been looking up to for our entire lives. What a lot of pressure and responsibility, but also what an amazing opportunity! He also said see every day as not just "another day", but wake up and see it as "another day to represent and serve Christ". That will definitely help with my attitude a lot I think if I keep that in mind. Words from an apostle are the words from God, and we now have the opportunity to carry those words to God's children, our "fellow" brothers and sisters. GOOD STUFF.

We had a devotional a couple times ago (they're on sunday and tuesday) about how mission calls are truly PURE revelation and COMPLETELY 100% perfect for you in every way. You are meant to go there, whether a mission pres. or a comp. or any person will have a profound effect on you, or you are supposed to have one on any one of them, but we are called for a reason! It's the same with any calling in the church! It is for a purpose that you might never even find out why, but God knows and we need to trust and have faith in Him.

MISSIONS ROCK!!!

I'm probably just really pumped because I get to go to Florida and the field in 5 days......Yeah that's why. Tomorrow we have In-Field Orientation all day. No idea what it is! Probs just go through more situations and role plays of what will happen when we get there, or something like that. But hey no class until night time! So that's fun! Something that's changing actually is teaching our "investigators", the same ones that we've had the whole time, is starting to actually be fun! We're learning how to be ourselves and make things enjoyable in the lesson! That's something I need to work on is keep being myself! I can't lose my messed up personality!

Anyways that's a longer one cause I felt bad for sending a short one all the time! TALK TO YOU ON MONDAY BETWEEN 6 ISH - 7 ISH!!!!!!!!!!

Live Hard,

Love Hard,

Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

Week Four!

Hola!

Well nothin really happenin in el CCM this last week! Really though it was like....nothing. I'm getting a lot better at spanish though! I can still understand most everything, I think spanish a ton after I say something in english, and I'm comfortable getting a lesson across. Now it's mostly just vocabulary and correct conjugations. Rough stuff to think of that stuff as fast as you speak it. So yeah this probably won't be a huge one. Might try to send pics. You need a card reader out here to send pics and I have to borrow other peoples'. So yeah it's hard, I'm trying to buy one off an elder right now actually.

Anyways I'm getting pretty huge in muscularness. I run everyday during PE about 3-4 miles and end up doing about 100-150 push ups. Pretty great. Gotta burn off all the food I eat during the meals! A week and a half left!

Oh an Hermana in my district says her family is friends with the incoming mission presidents for our mission and she says they're way legit and so fun, so maybe pick me up?? Ha that's a ways away. Yeah. But things are good. Today we get to go to BYU because my comp needs to get his pants hemmed or taken in or something and we have to go there! OUTSIDE WORLD! We went to the byu medical center last week for my comp again and that was weird. Everyone was staring at us while we walked down the street and everyone said hello and we were like, what's wrong with us and why is everyone looking at us?? And then we remembered......WE'RE MISSIONARIES. Yeah it was funny.

Well sorry this is so short but nothing really happened that was crazy! I'll try to send pics now, but no promises. Hopefully you got the ones last week? Good luck on Ragnar!!!!!!!!!!

Live Hard,
Love Hard,
Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

Week Three!

Howdy!

First of all, before I forget....HAPPY 60TH ANNIVERSARY TO GG!!!!!! DANG LOOOONG TIME TO BE TOGETHER WITH ONE PERSON! I'm having a hard time doing it for three weeks! People like that are what help me keep going and know that we can work out any problems we might have with our "companions" and grow from the experience. Congrats to them! They only have 40 more years to go!

Anyways let's see...not much is different here. They're adding ton of beds to residences for all the new missionaries. Soooooooo many here. It's fun to see everyone I know here! I've talked with everyone I could possibly know which is way cool. Sean's only in here for like 13 days! He lives in the same building as me so I just visit him at night sometimes before sleep. I'm starting to learn much more complex Spanish now. All the subjunctive, preterit (past), imperfect, gerund, past participle. Lots of very hard stuff, but it is all the most important stuff to even be able to say a normal sounding sentence. 

All of the devotionals that we've had have been on the same basic topics, which is pretty crazy because they haven't even meant them to be. But the giant messages are "GIVE OF YOURSELF BY FORGETTING YOURSELF" "BE A RIGHTEOUS EXAMPLE TO ALL" "HAVE PATIENCE", but yeah those are all so important right now. With like everything. I guess a ton of people are thinking more of themselves than who they're representing. We watched a talk by Bednar he gave here Christmas Day and it was like a Holland style talk...on steroids. "Character of Christ" was what it was about. He basically told everyone to completely turn outward and never turn inward because only the natural man turns inward and he is an enemy to God. It was a turning point for our whole district. We talked about it after and we're definitely a lot less complainy and a lot more willing to do the work we were called and set apart to do. 

Oh…I've been running every day so I'm starting to lose all the weight I gained ha ha so that's nice. Already lost 5 pounds last week so not too bad. Thanks for the package! I actually haven't been able to get it because of the devotional last night. We have to get there over an hour early to even get a decent seat. But I'm sure I'll love the package, since I don't have anyone else that loves me...ha ha joking! Oh and I should get my travel plans next Thursday. Two and a half weeks left! And I still can't speak spanish! And that'd be sweet if Michael was there too! What are his plans? So I'll let you know all the info in like two weeks for the airport and such.

Well good luck with the Ragnar! That's disgusting but hey somebody's got to do it right?...NO. But that's really cool you guys stick to it. Good luck again! Have fun! Don't die! Can't wait to get out of this cold.

Live Hard,
Love Hard,
Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

Week Two!

Dang this place is crazy! Emotional rollercoaster that's for sure! I'm just always so tired, and if we don't teach a lesson for a long time I get on a spiritual low, but then we either teach a lesson and my soul gets a jumpstart from the Spirit, or there's a devotional from a general authority and those are always perfect and great. I take a ton of notes during those. There's so many missionaries here! Actually not really today because like 700 just left in the last two days, but in the next three hours 800 are supposed to be coming in! AAAAA!!!!!!!! Pretty awesome though. Building quite the army in here. Time goes by very slow it seems during the day, but looking back it seems like it hasn't been two weeks already! Less than four weeks and I'll be on the plane to Florida! Pretty exciting. Oh yeah a bar of soap would be nice in a container or something so I can store it and transport it and such in the shower ha ha. My brain is using about 99% of its capacity right now learning Spanish. It's a crazy hard language, but it's the easiest one here...weird how that works out. Oh and sorry no pics again today I don't have my camera and it's in a place where I'd have to dress up to go into. It's p-day. I'm lazy. Ha ha yeah....but Spanish is good. In my companionship with Elder Booth and Elder Hall I know the most so I have to always be paying attention to what the investigators are saying and I give most of the answers! The sentences are constructed completely wrong, but I know all the words and just put them together. With Salvador we had a whole lesson planned and then he wouldn't let us in so we had to give a twenty minute lesson in five minutes on his doorstep. That was pretty rough and unexpected! Lots and lots of awkward moments here ha ha. But you just have to get used to them and not let them bother you at all or you will not survive in here at all. It's very very humbling and we have to see those times as a learning experience and an opportunity to do better. That's what Elder Clayton of the 70's wife said last week, see mountains and hills (trials) as an opportunity of learning and growth physically and spiritually and mentally. That's a really important concept in here and I'm sure out in el campo. I needed something else here too.....but I forgot....hopefully I remember before I finish. I eat a lot and I've gained weight ha ha about 8 pounds! I'm starting to run everyday though so I even out. Might start eating healthy so I can lose some of it......but probs not. Still under 200! But there's just so much FOOD! Last week I ate the fish, forgot that's the one thing to stay away from, yeah bad night with the tummy. Try teaching a lesson with your stomach making louder noises than the people talking. Got a haircut today. Probs get one right before I leave too. It just grows super super fast and then I look strange having longish hair with everyone else buzzed. So I just got like a half inch off so not too short now. Sleeping definitely is not long enough! I thought eight hours every night would be too much...NOPE. WAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYY shorter when you just pass out every night. Mentally and physically and emotionally drained, but it's for good reason! Anyways not really sure what else to say....oh I might send home a poem that my old zone leader gave to me. It's super dang good. Can't remember the title though. I'm gonna try to give it to all my close friends when they come in here because it's a real humbling and touching poem. I'm starting to learn more how to better teach by the Spirit and not just the lesson. A huge thing they emphasize in here is "Teach the person, not the lesson" which is hard but well worth it. You should still teach a lesson, but it most likely won't even be what you prepared. You find out info about the person their teaching and what their needs and expectations are and then you apply what you feel needs to be taught to them specifically so it means more to them. It's also so so important for us to learn and know perfectly the Doctrine of Christ, which is basically Our Purpose, and the doctrine of the normal lessons so you know the stories and principles, but you'll be able to apply them to random people you meet in specific ways as guided by the Spirit. HUUUUUUUUUUUUGGGGGGEEEEEEE deal out here and we cannot be missionaries without being worthy and able to do that. Lots of pressure and sometimes we mess up...bad...but it's why we're here in the CCM, to practice and learn. Well my comps are ready to go and I'm probs gonna email Craig....what? against the rules...? Nah.....

Live Hard,
Love Hard,
Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

Oh and TRC is insane! Real people from the outside world come in and we have to teach them a lesson on the spot. INTENSITY ON STEROIDS. Anyways that's all I wanted to add. That's every week when we do that. Going to the temple now! Haven't been in a long time!!

"Book of Bryson" Chapter 2 2013 A.D.

Como esta Elder Cook?