Week Forty Eight!

Hola!

So yeah! Christmas and stuff! Fun talkin with y'all...even though it wasn't Skype. Psh.
 
THANKS AGAIN FOR ALL THE PRESENTS!!! It was cool to be able to still open presents and stuff. Made it seem more like a normal Christmas. And the Christmas decorations too. Because it's hot here. Actually today it's raining so that's nice! Me gusta.

Christmas night we went to an investigator's house. He's a 17 year old who is going to get baptized in like two weeks! His parents aren't members, but they're way supportive of his decision and they're encouraging everything! The parents are Dominican, but the dad was raised in NY so he has a NY accent and everything. And the last time we went over we were eating and he was telling us about all these nice restaurants in NY and pastrami sandwiches.
 
No plans for New Years here. Just the same! Teaching the gospel! It's fun stuff. We'll see if we can get a dinner somewhere.

WELL...that's about all I got! Until next week I guess!

P.S. I hear BYU got destroyed in their bowl game? Bummer.

Live Hard,
Love Hard,
Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

Week Forty Seven!

Hola!

This will probably be a short one! Why.....oh because it's Christmas in two days!! Yeah...It's still like 90 degrees here...NICE. But a ton of people still decorate their houses with lights and all the blow up things and what nots. So it feels like Christmas...kind of....Close enough!

Today is our Mission Christmas Party! Except only the north part of the mission. They did two different parties, one for north and one for south. South had theirs last Friday. Ours is on P-day...but hey it's on the beach! Everyone I know was at the south so we'll see who I know up here in the north! It'll be the Tampa, Lakeland and St. Pete Stakes/zones. Should be pretty fun!

Nate sent me a pic of him in Germany in coat and hat and snow and ice for days...

Another friend said it's -35 degrees in Russia...

WELL WE'LL TALK ON WEDNESDAY!!! MERRY CHRISTMAS!! FELIZ NAVIDAD!!!

Live Hard,
Love Hard,
Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

P.S.! Thanks for the presents!! Can't wait to open them Wed. Morning!!

Week Forty Six!

Hola!

FROM TAMPA! So far I love it here! I love the city! So many people and so many houses and neighborhoods and streets and buildings! I'm in the Tampa 5th ward of the Tampa Stake. It's a Spanish Ward! Big and awesome and faithful members that love us! That's a nice thing to have. 

So yeah Tampa. Pretty cool. We go to church at the church building I went to on my first day in Florida! Can't remember what street it's on...But it's big and nice. The Carrollwood English Ward meets there as well. OH I'm in a trio! I'm with Elder Rodriguez and Elder Fitzner. They're way cool guys. Rod's only got two transfers left and Fitz has like 8 months so we all know Spanish well and we know how to do missionary work. So Fitz has only been here a transfer and me and Rod are new so we basically all don't know anything about this area. We just switched area boundaries with the Sisters in our Ward so we cover a big area. Again...no idea what the streets are. There's so many here! It'll take a while to get to know it. I'm just happy to be in the city!!

Oh yeah and I'm on Facebook now! It's weird. But way cool.

Hope all is well this week for y'all!

Live Hard,

Love Hard,

Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

Me feeding a sheep at the Night in Bethlehem. (get it? "feed my sheep...") And me eating like a six layer pb and nutella sandwich.

Week Forty Five!

Hola!

WELL I'm dippin from Arcadia! Yep that's for real this time. Got the call Saturday. They did a giant conference call with all the Elders in the mission and the AP's just went through every companionship and said if they're staying or going. And I'm on the list of leaving! Maybe I'll go somewhere where I'll speak Spanish! I've come to enjoy this place. It's a nice little town with really amazing and faithful members.

Did I ever tell you that Arcadia is part of the infamous Bible Belt? Yep. It curves down into Florida, but it only goes through the middle of the state. Guess where Arcadia is? OH! Right in the middle of the state! Bible bashing for days here. Fun experiences.

So yeah I'll be going up to Tampa on Tuesday. I don't know where I'm going until Tuesday!

We had to drop the date for Joann and her kids.They didn't come to church and when we went to check up on them after, we talked with just the kids, they had bottles of sweet tea on their table.... something's not clicking and something's not right there. So the Elders here will continue trying to get them to keep commitments and follow the commandments better. Kind of really disappointing. 

Should be on Facebook this week! Moving to a new area and new companion!

Thanks for everything and all your prayers!

Live Hard,

Love Hard,

Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

P.S. It's 90 degrees and sunny today....

P.P.S.

Cool sunset on an exchange up in Lake Placid. OH and we were in the Christmas parade here! Literally thousands of people...the whole town was there. We rode around on our bikes while some members passed out cards and held and banner and had a lit up truck with kids in it. We got bike bells too and I wrapped my bike with tinsel stuff. So sweet! 

Week Forty Four!

Hola!

Yep. This is 20 year old Elder Davies reporting here in Arcadia.

Yeah! Birthday yesterday! It was super fun! Got the packages earlier in the week and had to make myself wait until yesterday to open them!!! Woke up and got ready and such. Then opened presents before our meetings! THANKS SO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING!!! The Miracle Notebook from Brandon and Brooke is exactly what Pres. Cusick wants us doing! So that was perfect! And the BYU cards are great, and we used all the party stuff and hung it up! We hung up some Christmas stuff. The cupcakes....were still at least good enough to stick candles in! and have it sing to me! And the workout book!! Nice! We used it this morning and destroyed ourselves. It was awesome. That books got some nifty ideas and stuff in it how to work out crazy hard, but using the stuff you have around you or your own body! THANKS SO MUCH FOR EVERYTHING!!

So that was a fun birthday for sure. Even in church (only in Arcadia) they announced that it was my birthday over the pulpit at the beginning of Sac. Meeting! Even the family that's progressing scarily fast and amazingly towards baptism gave me a card! It was way cool. I got a lot of Happy Birthday's yesterday from all the members. And then I made myself a cake after church! So super good. It's called the "Casey Cake" because E. Casey showed it to me. You bake cookie brownies, layer of sweetened condensed milk, layer of ice cream, layer of whipped cream, sprinkle on crushed up candy bar. SO GOOD. SO UNHEALTHY. 

For Thanksgiving we went to a lunch appointment and ate a TON and then went home and did weekly planning and then went to a dinner appointment with some less actives and ate BEYOND A TON, and then we had to drive to Lake Placid and back and that was our whole day....not the most productive day ever....eh.

Right now it is in the 60's which is actually pretty darn cold! And it's been pretty cloudy here the last couple days. No huge storms or anything though. 

So Joann and her 3 kids are progressing and taking everything incredibly easily and fast! If I get transferred....I won't be here for their baptisms.. .But that doesn't matter! What matters is they're getting baptized! And coming closer to Christ! Finally found out the purpose of coming to Arcadia in the last two weeks of being here? But yeah that's awesome.

Hope y'all have an awesome week! Transfer calls on Saturday!

Live Hard,

Love Hard,

Laugh Hard,

Elder Bryson Davies

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!