Week Forty Three!

Hola!

Yep it's my birthday! So yeah I got that B-Day thing coming up on Sunday. Not a teenager. Finally the age of most people out here who are serving. Can't tell you how many times, pretty much everyone we end up teaching, says I look like 28. They ask if I have kids and a wife back home....no....I'm still a teenager....and then they laugh and freak out and go off about how young I am and then don't believe anything I say after that point since I'm too young to know anything!

This last week...nothing insane has happened...well kind of. We did another exchange with the Elders up in Lake Placid on Wednesday. Elder Joshua Walker came down here with me in Arcadia. He's a way cool Elder. He's been out like 14 months or something. We did lesson 1 with a brand new family that we met like the day before. We went to try to contact a potential guy and his wife answered the door and said he just moved out because they were having problems...AWKWARD....well anyways we're missionaries! And she said we could come back and we did and left the Savior's peace and blessing with them and come to find out she had learned from missionaries up in Maine like 10 years ago and attended church and everything and then she moved and lost contact and didn't know we had a church here. So that was nifty! She's about mid thirties and has a 14 year old daughter, 11 and 9 year old sons. So Elder Walker and I went back with Brother Summerall (branch mission leader) to teach them on Wednesday. It was AWESOME! The Spirit was way super duper strong and we flowed off of each other perfectly and focused on their needs and taught all the principles. We had left them a 3 Nephi 11 to read the day before and when we got to the BoM introduction she brought up that she read it (Joanne the mom) and it talked about being baptized and stuff. And she's like "I know it's important to be baptized, and other religions do it as a baby, but I think that it needs to be your decision and if you're going to devote yourself to Christ you should be aware of it.." We're like...."GREAT! So do we!" So they accepted to be baptized! Tonight we're going to set a date with them. We're hoping the 15 of December. And they even all came to church yesterday for all three hours! Exchange miracles!

The next transfer is in two weeks from tomorrow, so the calls are in two Saturdays, the 7th. We'll see what happens! We had interviews with President Cusick this past week which was awesome! Got some advice on how to be more awesome! AND I totally got approved to do online proselyting because we're obedient! So you guys should be getting some rules about that and we're getting some training coming up here soon. So within the next two weeks or so! And Ipads about the end of the year. But at the interviews, which were in Sarasota, I got to see Elder AP Casey! Got to talk to him a lot which was way way cool and fun. He's my papa out here! Love him like crazy. I was telling him about the lack of Spanish work here and he said that we probably don't need Spanish here then....so we'll see what comes of that?

Oh and yes we actually are allowed to run 5k's out here! There's actually a lot of missionaries that are doing that in the next couple weeks. We're just in the middle of nowhere so nothing really goes on here...Oh well!

Hope all is awesome and good this week! It's getting breezy here. Still about 80 ish to 90 degrees everyday. The nights it gets down to about 60's which is freezing cold here! So it's fun.

THANKS TO ALL WHO SENT ME BIRTHDAY WISHES!!! LOVE IS FELT!! ONE LOVE!!! 

And yes Michael did email me! So awesome to see that in my inbox. 

Live Hard,

Love Hard,

Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

Finally saw GATORS...and boar carcasses. And...swamplife in Florida!

 

Week Forty Two!

Hola!

Well this last week was fun! Went on an exchange with Elder Tueller, who I've already gone on an exchange with in my old area, ZL, taught some sweet lessons, got some sweet trainings on how to work with members better and help them desire to be involved and what not. Some good stuff! Only one Spanish lesson this week.....so who knows if they'll keep me here after this transfer! It's hard to focus on Spanish when there's so much going on with English and members and stuff.

So the exchange was fun! We were going to an appointment and drove past a road that our Branch mission leader took us down the night before and showed us sweet animal carcasses and the road is all sand so it was like offroading. He said that'd be so sweet to check out. I thought...hmmm that's probs not the best idea with this tiny little car...oh well! So we went down it and saw the carcasses, got some sweet pics, and continued the off roading...until we got stuck in like a foot of sand....Well 45 minutes later with the help of some random hippy kids we got the car out! We were out in it by ourselves for like half an hour with bare feet and pants rolled up sweating like crazy. It was awesome! And then we went to a part member family's house for dinner and had some amazing lemon peppered steak with baked potatoes. SO GOOD. So that was fun.

Besides that we didn't do much this week. We're really focusing on what's called To The Rescue which is a program to clean up the rosters of the units and make a huge effort to reactivate or even at least contact all inactives and less actives on there and either reactivate them, forward their membership if they moved, or remove their name if requested. We don't like doing that one. Erasing a baptism? Not the first priority. But that's a huge thing our mission has been doing and we are continuing to work hard on. 

Well I'm outta time and can't think of much more! Thanks so much for all you do for me! I really appreciate it. Love you all!

Live Hard,

Love Hard,

Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

Oh check out thebookofmormon.org!

Week Forty One!

Hola!

Yeah we like barely heard about the storm in the Philippines! That's crazy, but we didn't hear like any specifics or anything. I know a girl there on her mission! Are they still there or did they have to evacuate? 

So with all this change and stuff it's fun! I'm teaching a lot in English and less and less in Spanish....so we'll see how my Spanish goes. But we do still teach Spanish a couple times a week, we just don't have much time for Spanish finding and stuff. And it's a solid rule that we cannot knock doors for tracting purposes, only street contacting and other things we think of doing! REFERRALS! 

So our area.....our zone is all of the Bradenton Stake which is huge, but my personal area is Desoto and Hardee Counties. Desoto is both English and Spanish, Hardee County is only English because there's Spanish sisters up there. We're still on full car, we're using the one the english elders used when there was four of us here. Every Wednesday we go up to Sebring for District Meeting. Once a month we go to Sarasota for Zone Meeting where the Zone Leaders train us on stuff. We went there last week and guess what they said! FACEBOOK AND IPADS ARE COMING!!!!! Ah yeeyah! Facebook's already being used by the leadership (ap's, zl's) and their going to test out the ipads in the next couple of weeks and then after that we get ours! And the way they're doing it is each missionary would get their own personal ipad mini and take it with them no matter where they go so it's THEIRS and then at the end of the mission we can pay a certain amount and KEEP them!!! Ah snap! So we're not on Facebook or anything yet, but it's coming in the next month or two. 

I'm definitely teaching a lot more! Just in English though...ha ha but hey it's teaching and testifying! Pretty cool and fun stuff. A lot more of  a variety of people in the english world and different things I'm totally not used to, like people hating us and bashing. Woohoo! Not fun. Every Sunday we're picking out certain members (like 7-8 per week) to set up appointments with them to teach them how simple missionary work is, how they need to only invite, how they can, and then ask for referrals like crazy. It's been working so far! And it helps the members know us and trust that we're doing our purpose and working hard and understand what we do as they do it themselves. We have to be pretty straight up and bold with them a lot of the time when they are aprehensive and "too shy" or "don't know anybody". The Spirit is a great guide!

We do service like twice a week, one with a member who's building a corral for his cows, and one for Habitat for Humanity with houses and building stuff. I'm learning building and construction skills and painting skills. Lots of skills! So that's new and fun. So the member who we help with the corral, Bro. Moe, we stopped by his house to talk with him outside while he was working on it and then he got a call that said there was a dead cow in his field! So we totally drove out with him and sure enough, there was a giant dead cow with its legs straight out and stomach was hugely inflated so it ate something bad. So what does B. Moe do? Oh he gets a big rope, ties it around the cows neck and drags if off in to the woods.....one of the most disturbing things I've seen in my life! The other cows weren't happy. They were hollering and yelling and stampeding. Scary cows.

So yeah some fun stuff right there. Too bad I couldn't get a picture of any of it. 

Well have fun with early Thanksgiving! Tell everyone I say "Hola and Howdy!" Not really any specific messages to pass along...."DO MISSIONARY WORK! INVITE EVERYONE YOU KNOW!" That's basically it.

Well hope all will go well this week! Enjoy the seconds!

Live Hard,

Love Hard,

Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

Veteran's Day Pics!

Week Forty!

Hola!

Well dang diggy dang dang! Arcadia! Party! Halloween!

So this week was cray cray. Went to Tampa on Tuesday and went to the Transfer Meeting. That meeting was like one of the craziest dang meetings ever! There was like at least 3/4 of the mission there being transferred or training. We filled an entire chapel completely full! It took like an hour and a half to assign everybody. But during the whole thing there was like whooping and cheering and clapping and laughing like crazy as people were assigned. Probably the most insane and fun meetings ever. And most of it was because of Pres. Cusick! That guy is freaking awesome and a boss. Soooo fun that meeting. So obvi I'm with E. Kenyon here in zebra. And zebras are now all over the mission...even with the AP's! Oh guess who is now the newest AP....MY PAPA ELDER CASEY! Everybody flipped out when they announced that one, and so did he! Nobody ever even thought spanish going ap was possible! Well the norm is now tossed out the window here! There is nothing that's like "what usually happens" or "normal" here. Pres. Cusick basically dropped a bomb on the whole mission. In a good way! Just everything's completely different, but it all just makes sense and it's perfect. E. Lids is now in Apollo Beach with an elder just as old as him (mission-wise). No idea where that is! We're not zone leaders here anymore. Our ZL's are in Sarasota, so zone meeting is totally in Sarasota this week. Yay! Road trip! We're part of the norther district now though and E. Kenyon is the DL. We're with people from Seabring and Lake Placid and Peace River. So we'll be going up to Seabring for District Meeting each week.

CRAY CRAY!!! Fun and good though. Change is awesome. If change didn't happen...I'd defs not enjoy this nearly as much. like at all. ha ha

Halloween we worked normally throughout the day and then went to a trunk-or-treat thingy that night at the church. We got SO MUCH DANG CANDY! Like a bazillion pieces and bags and then 3 pizzas and 4 liters of soda and an apple pie and we got a giant chocolate cake yesterday with a whole pot of chili....i'm gonna die this transfer! This branch does really good with feeding us and they get us groceries and stuff every week. But there's only two of us and we can't eat it all! We like literally don't have time to eat it all. We have to have like 3 meals per meal. (isn't it funny i'm complaining that we have TOO MUCH food when there's missionaries that are like starving? FML! (Florida Mission Life))

Yeah hopefully Michael emails me or something....i don't have his address anymore....so can't write him. We'll see how that goes with him!

RAGNAR!! And Donny and Marie! Lucky. Go run your hearts out! Not literally though...that'd be bad...and gross...and a mess. 

Me and E. Ken are getting along really well (as usual). He's from Washington state and he's been out about 18 months almost. I've been living with him for like 3 months already so we're basically not changing much with that. It's now just a lot emptier house since there's only two of us. We stacked the extra beds on top of each other so now my bed is four mattresses high. Woohoo!

We bus contacted here a couple days ago! Got on a bus (that's the size of like a big van, arcadian bus, seats like 12) but talked to everyone that got on and invited them all! Our branch mission leader drives it so we just stayed on it the whole route talking to everyone that came on. Probs something we're gonna do again! 

We also had a "week of the family" activity thingy for the community where a ton of different people put up booths for a few hours saturday morning and there was entertainers and stuff. So we put up a table and handed out a ton of family proclamations and pass along cards! It was way fun to just talk with bunch of people. Oh and by the way i'm teaching in English now....it rocks. And I'm totally not used to it. At first it just felt like i was on an exchange. NOpe! It's legit! I'm a zebra! 

Well gotta go! Hope all is fun and safe with Ragnar and the other boss stuff y'alls gots this week! Have fun!

Live Hard,

Love Hard,

Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies