Week Twenty!

Hola!

This past week has been pretty good. Hot but it's been car week so not bad at all! This week however....gonna be hard on bikes. But hey I'll lose the five pounds I gained last week. And more! We reset a baptism date for those girls we call The Crew! There's only three of them now that are actually progressing, Liz, Aide (who we call Bring-Bring), and Janet (who we call Sasha). 14, 17, 13. They are awesome! They've been coming to church and we've been reviewing the lessons with them so they actually understand everything. Their date is the 30 of June! And it's gonna happen for sure this time! We also found another group of three women/girls. It was a referral from a member, her daughter and two granddaughters. The daughter, or mom, has taken the discussions and everything a long time ago and thinks she knows everything we're going to tell her. And she says that we're closing our doors to people so they can't get to God by not allowing everyone to go into the Temple. One of her daughters, or granddaughters of the member, is 21 I think and the father of her baby just got killed, we think shot?, like three weeks ago and that's why she moved back here to her mom and little sister. So right now she's just mad at God and blames him for everything and doesn't get why bad things happen to good people like her and she says God has never given her a break in her entire life. Yeah....but the other sister, 16, is pretty solid and wants to learn more and will probably get baptized really easily! 

So this next Sunday is a broadcast of a meeting from the First Presidency! They're saying it'll be the most monumental impact or meeting or whatever on missionary work in the history of the church!!!! So all missionaries are required to go along with mission leaders, and members are invited as well. The meeting is titled "The Work of Salvation".

So last Monday we were eating at a members house and we were teaching them a short lesson afterwards. The wife is pregnant and she's due this week. So we finish the lesson and we get up after and tell them to call us to update us on their baby and when it comes. And then she tells us it might be coming tonight because she's been having contractions since we came over!! Me and Evans started freaking out! (horrible future husbands) But she told us she was fine because she had been, and I quote, "swallowing the contractions"...............what in the heck does SWALLOWING a baby contraction mean??? 

So yeah nothing else really going on differently here. We totally ate at Little Ceasars twice this last week so that was a wonderful Utah pasttime. We've been making Nitta Bar's for days. Elder Nitta invented them. Best thing of my life. Normal american tortilla. Peanut Butter on the tortilla. Blueberries everywhere, cut up strawberries everywhere, oatmeal or granola everywhere, (able to add nutella or banana if desired), roll up like a tight burrito. Eat. LOVE LIFE. It's pretty amazing and wonderful. Make it. Love it. 
Nitta Bar. 

Live Hard,
Love Hard,
Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

Week Nineteen!

Hola!

What the flippin Taiwan?!? That's basically like the coolest thing ever in the world. Basically. Hey I had tripe last week too! It was pig stomach though. Nasty texture like chewing on rubber! Cool fun stuff. We eat a lot of weird things here too and it's the same thing where we just have to eat everything! Can't say no to anything and have to eat ten and a half plates of it. Or we just go to Hungry Howie's (pizza buffet place, the place everybody goes to) and we just eat pizza for days and get fat on purpose.

Welcome to the life of not understanding everything and being a total minority! Fun right? It's a humbler that's for sure. Except you guys don't have to be expected to speak the language! Lucky ducks.

Tropical storm for days down here in the boonies! Nice. Did you know they can't have basements where I'm at because like 12 feet underground is water?? Fun fact. But yeah it rained for days here. Thursday we couldn't leave our apartment....ALL DAY LONG. We had to stay in and do NOTHING because of the tornado warnings and flooding warnings and severe thunderstorm warnings that were happening all day. There was a couple tornadoes that touched down but like an hour away from us was the closest one. Our whole mission was on lockdown in our apartments. We were so bored! The weather radio we have would go off like a siren every like half an hour when another update came in on the tornadoes. But here in Bradenton it just rained and poured all day. We've been caught in like a five minute storm every now and then on our bikes, which means we got completely soaked and then the sun came out and we just sat in our wetness for the rest of the day. FLORIDA! And you guys get to experience the weather aspect too over yonder in Taiwan!

That's way sweet you guys get to talk to the missionaries yonder. They probably love you guys! It's always a relief to talk to somebody that's just solid in the church and has no problems with it....I have yet to experience that, but I'd imagine it'd be pretty cool!

The work is slowing down...a lot. We had to drop three baptisms that were this Saturday because they didn't come to church. We're really just trying to make progress with the people we have and our recent converts so they stay active and finding new people. Every week we have about 95% or whatever attendance of recent converts which is good! Me and Evans are getting along way good! No problems so far and he's chill enough to not ever have a problem with anything.

Oh I saw Casey last week! He came to pick up his bike and drop off Evans'. Talked for a little bit. He's up yonder in Tampa doing that ZL thingy. He says it's good, not as awesome as this area!

So....don't really know what else to talk about...life's just the same! Getting hotter and wetter! SWEET BEANS!

Live Hard,
Love Hard,
Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

Week Eighteen!

Hola!

Well Casey's gone and Evan's is in! And I'm in charge of my area!!! Stressful. But it's chill. E. Evans is a boss. He's just my comp now, not trainer or anything. I don't even know if they do senior and jr comps out here? He's been out for little over a year. His spanish is pretty good. We're actually almost on the same level as talking, but the difference is he can understand absolutely everything anyone says. yeah I still can't but whatevs. We drove up to Tampa on Tuesday to make the trade with Casey and Evans. Wasn't too hard because I'll see Casey quite a few more times at conferences and such especially since the new Mission Pres. is coming in in like a month. That'll be pretty crazy. We have 7 missionaries just in our tiny little branch. That's a lot! But at least they took Sarasota so we don't have to travel all the way down there, since we only did it like once a week anyways. But yeah Evans is cool. He's crazy insane in a good way. Loves sports and superheroes. And eating. He lives in Riverton and he's 21 right now. He's a hard worker which is nice, I just have to make sure I stay a hard worker since I'm basically in charge of every single decision of the day for these first few weeks!

But this past week has been good. We have some potentials for baptism for next Saturday (15th) from those girls we call "The Crew". So we'll see how that goes!

That's crazy about Cameron getting baptized. I didn't know he was that old! Yeah I've seen a couple kids get baptized, but it seems more normal for me out here right now to see an older person get baptized, I forget sometimes that 8 year olds can get baptized too! Ha...weird. Pretty nifty how the whole family could be there too. Sweet stuff the gospel does with families yeah??

That is crazy about Brother Peterson??? I totally learned from him like every week. We just got a referral for a non member who's a daughter of a member and her husband just passed away like 2 weeks ago and she's young and has a couple of kids. So here we come to help! It's at those times when people especially need the gospel in their lives! Because how depressing would it be to only think that they're just gone? Bye bye. That's it. Solid black for eternity. THAT WOULD NOT BE COOL. So we spread that to everybody here that there IS a life after this one! Obviously! It's way comforting.

TAIWAN!! That's so cool! Dang lucky you guys are! That'll be sweet to get pics and stuff from you guys! Good luck with that! I am definitely gonna send off those prayers and whatnot for ya'll. It'll be good!

Well not too much happened this past week besides making the switch and showing Evans around and teaching lessons and graduations.

Live Hard,
Love Hard,
Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

Week Seventeen!

Hola!

So....yeah I'm still in Bradenton. Figured that was gonna happen. BUT Elder Casey is leaving me! My papa got transferred to Tampa! He's going there to be a zone leader, which is incredibly weird because he's so young, still under a year old. We found that out on Saturday and then, yesterday and today are basically just saying goodbye to everyone in this area because he's been here for 6 months, long time. It's been pretty rough for him to have to say goodbye to everyone, and it's hard for all of the recent converts to say bye to their missionary and the guy who basically baptized all of them! And guess how much pressure that puts on me with the recent converts to keep them all coming and stuff!? Uhh...a lot! I'm taking over my area tomorrow. INTENSE. It's pretty crazy stuff. I'm getting.....Elder Evans! No idea who he is. He's from Utah around Salt Lake Valley area. He's been out for about 14 ish months, so his Spanish is probably way good....WHEW! Don't have to worry about that one! Ya know Elder Hall? MTC comp? He's totally training where he is right now. Pretty crazy. I'm glad that didn't happen to me! Taking over and area and training! No thanks. But yeah it stinks that Casey's leaving....Tomorrow morning it'll go down. 

But some good news! Baptism of Angie Sorto yesterday! (Abi's little sister) I baptized her! And it was flawless! First perfect one!...................Except for the fact that the font was draining while we were waiting and so when we got in it was half full and so she had to get on her knees when I did it to make sure she went all the way under......but it was flawless! Pretty great. And Jr. Santos got confirmed! And he's solid.

Everyone's here at the church for one last hurrah. Like all the missionaries and all the youth and some leaders. We be playing trash ball and dodgeball and such. Pretty fun! Our zone is getting completely changed! New zone leader, basically everyone's companionship got switched up besides Nitta and Buck the English guys we hang out with, and we're getting two new english and two new spanish sisters. My branch is gonna have seven missionaries in it! That's crazy for a ward let alone a tiny branch! It'll be pretty crazy. 

But yeah anyways that's been the happenings here. Tomorrow I get a new comp and then the fun begins! WHOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! 

Live Hard,
Love Hard,
Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

Week Sixteen!

Hola!

We had two more baptisms over the weekend! One was Maria Teresa, we found, taught and baptized her within like two and a half weeks! That was awesome! And she was staying at a member's house and the members are solid so that helped A TON. We're really starting to see the incredible importance of using the members in the Lord's work. They need to step in and do their part! The other baptism was Jr. Santos! Of the Santos clan! Older bro of Alex and Neftaly! A month ago he didn't believe in God, now he's more excited and into it than ever! Alex baptized him and he'll be confirmed by one of us next Sunday. Dang some awesome stuff with the changes the gospel brings! And it was amazing too because we were at the Santos house a couple days ago (as always, we literally go there like almost everyday because they help us with the lessons) and we read the BoM with them and were going to leave with a kneeling prayer. Their little brothers were in there so we made them sit with us and Jesus (he's 8) just started praying! We just went with it! And right when he started their mom walked in and saw us all circled and kneeling and her 8 year old son praying, and it was a perfect prayer! Perfect structure and he thanked Heavenly Father for letting his older brother get "baptismed". The mom started crying and ran in and told the dad. And we're also starting to try to teach Jr's girlfriend, and like 10 other referrals we received last week. Got some good potentials! And of course...they're all young! It's with the chosen generation of young kids that are the ones who are prepared to make the change and come unto Christ!

Fun stuff. 

Oh Michael emailed me! So that was cool. Hopefully he keeps that up it's cool to hear from him given I haven't even seen him in like 87 years. 

Transfer calls are this Saturday and there are a TON of changes that're gonna happen in our zone this week just with missionaries that are finished and going home or have been here for too long and we think are leaving. Sister Summerhays specifically said, "Oh we can't split Elder Casey and Davies up, they're having way too much success." SO we're hoping that means he's staying. Because we have the potential to have more converts this next transfer too. But we'll find that out on Saturday! Besides all that the work is just the same. Day to day stuff. THis week is bike week. It's about 100 degrees here. Nice. FUN. But yeah.

Well that's all I can think of at this moment which probably means I'll think of about twenty more things when I log off. So yeah good luck with everything in the fam! Learn to divide your time wisely and focus on family time, gospel time, and fun time! 

Live Hard,
Love Hard,

Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

Week Fifteen!

Hola!

Pretty dang awesome to see you guys yesterday! Fun stuff! Weird because it seemed like it hasn't even been that long since I've seen all ya'll. Weird stuff this time thing out here. And the next time we talk I'll be about halfway done! What?? That'll be weird because it'll come way fast!

I emailed Ben! He's in the city that borders the northernmost part of my mission. He said he freaked out when he saw Florida, just the wrong mission in Florida! Oh well. We will be able to reminisce together about Florida and the heat and the overpopulation of lovebugs. Know what lovebugs are? They are everywhere here when it's hot. They're man made bugs. Scientists tried to make something to eat the mosquitos but then messed up and made these bugs that are always stuck to each other in twos. They don't bite, they're just annoying. And their blood is acidic so if it gets mashed on the car it peels the paint off! Weird. Don't smash them on your arm!

Uhh.....yep.......two baptisms this week so that's way awesome! I'm almost getting to the point where I can read straight from the Spanish Book of Mormon and PME without having to look at the English one, so reading and understanding Spanish are getting way better. Who needs speaking anyways.....

Probably will have some sweet pics next week of b-tisms! It was awesome to talk to all ya'll! Good luck with end of school and all jobs and such!

Live Hard,
Love Hard,
Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

P.S. Here's a sacrificial burning of a cockroach. It happens on the daily.

Week Fourteen!

Hola!

So this will probably be a pretty short one, given we're gonna just talk face to face (kind of) in a week!!

Pretty crazy how I can read your message (in Spanish) every week at the end of your emails and understand it right? FREAKY. I'm to the point where I can't remember when Spanish stuff I hear didn't have meaning! Like going on exchanges with english guys, which I did again, and having a conversation in Spanish or going off on a gospel topic with someone in Spanish, and then the english guy is like okay what are you guys saying?? Weird. Gift of tongues right?

So this last week was a TON better. Me and Casey are way cool now...most of the time. We're tight though. I'm his son, he's my father, it's one of those relationships ya know? It's good. It actually stinks to think that next transfer he might not be here! We're hoping he stays or we get a new guy to double train since we're having so much success in this area in this time. We've got Jr. Santos' baptism coming up, had to move it to the 19th because of work. And we have another date set with a girl, Marilu Chapa, who we met the first week I was here, and then she disappeared and never texted us back, and now she's back, she's best friends with a member, and she's solid and ready to be baptized on the 26th! Pretty cool how there's a plan for everyone right? Always.

On the 19th is Stake Conference and two general authorities are coming to preside! Elder Cardon, who's come here before for the missionaries, and...another guy I don't know the name of. Pretty cool stuff. And right now Elder Anderson is up in Tampa going around with missionaries filming segments with recent converts and such for some video their making for the church! Our zone leaders got chosen to help him out so they've just been driving around with Elder Anderson for a week! I guess it's because that area's been having a ton of success lately.....and we think it's because that's his wife's home ward.

So that's pretty much it I suppose. Voy a llamarles este proximo Domingo como a las 5 o 6 en la tarde, segun las horas de Florida entonces. Hagan las preparaciones necesarias! Nos vemos el Domingo!

Live Hard,

Love Hard,
Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies