Week Twenty Three!

Hola!

So.......Elder Davies is definitely leaving from Bradenton!...............Probably next transfer because it's not this one! I'm staying! Weird right? And guess what else...Elder Evans is leaving! He was only here for 1 transfer! He's way bummed about that. He's going to be zone leader down in Ft. Meyers. I guess I just breed Zone Leaders. I'm staying another and I'm getting Elder James. He was Evans' companion before me! So Evans said he's way chill. So hopefully that all works out good with him! The switch is on Tuesday. Kinda a bummer for Evans to go because it's finally after a transfer that you actually start to build and strengthen the relationship with a companion and find common ground and get used to them. Now I have to do that all over again! Should be exciting. Back to making all the decisions for every little thing!

We met President Cusick on Friday! He had his wife and daughter with him. They're way cool. He'll be way good though once he gets more experience. Interviews and stuff with him will probably be this next transfer. He let us know a lot of the new stuff that's coming. Like IPADS!! That'll be awesome! And how we're going to be using Facebook in our areas and the building tours and such. There's gonna be a lot of changes coming up in the next few months. Change is good! OH! Did you guys know it's a new rule that missionaries are like absolutely not supposed to wear backpacks or even like have them or bring them on their mission??? They say it's because it makes us look unprofessional and people always wonder what we have in our hiking packs. So now it's the side book bag things that we're supposed to use. And we don't even have to carry around scriptures since we have ipads, but we'll probably still have to do it to prove to people that we have a bible and stuff. 

We had two more baptisms yesterday of Zamarit and JJ! I baptized JJ and Evans baptized Zamarit. There was SO many people there! Like 12 circle tables worth of people! There's usually like 3 tables worth. It's because their grandma is an awesome member whose daughter (jj and zamarit mom) is inactive but they've been associated with the church and this branch their whole lives so all of the adults in the branch knew who they were and the grandma made sure there was like ten thousand pounds of food made and it was insane! But it was so cool to see that many people at a baptism! Instant support right there. That's how EVERY one should be! They literally know they have the whole branch supporting them as new converts. It was way cool to be a part of. There'll be pics from that. 

4th of July! Yeah we didn't do anything.....except watch fireworks!! We watched them at the Riverwalk, since we live on it we just walked basically outside of the parking lot and were there. So they shot them from right behind the green bridge and we were on the Riverwalk watching them and they were all reflecting off the river and stuff! Got some sweet pics of that too. Oh man! But walking up and down that Riverwalk made me and Evans want to be in Utah! In Utah before fireworks there's people playing games, throwing a football, doing little fireworks, bbq'ing. Here....there's just a smoke cloud above everyone's heads the entire night because of all the smoking from...everyone.

And yeah. 6 months. WEIRD. Technically it's considered my "6 months" like...today because I've been out exactly 4 transfers including the MTC and each transfer is a month and a half...so I like the earlier one! So I'm at 6 months! Something weird is the transfer after this one is going to only be 4 weeks long. That'll be a short one for sure! But yeah 6 months on a mission! I met up with Elders Hall and Booth at the President meeting thing and we were talking about how insane that is. It seems like we were just barely in the MTC together, but then it seems like it's been a long time! Pretty weirdy.

Oh so this next transfer is going to be so much knocking doors. Unless we amazingly start getting referrals from people. Because as of right now, we have NOBODY that is progressing that isn't a recent convert. That's like all this transfer will be is recent convert stuff because there's like a billion. So that'll be exciting.

Alrighty well have fun with everything going on this week! Tell everyone I say hi!

Live Hard,
Love Hard,
Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies