February 5, 2018

HEY!

Here's me and elder Dewitt, he's from Gilbert

MOMMA!!!

This past week was very busy for us because we had zone conference and what not but it wasn't that good of a week in terms of finding and teaching people. A lot of appointments canceled on us which was sad and we just had very little communication with the people we are most excited about. We saw some of them late in the week and yesterday and set some better expectations for our visits which was good. One of the families we had just started teaching is going through a separation which is really sad and is why we didn't have much communication with them but ya. 

That's cool to hear about the compound though!! How much land is it that you'll be buying? Haha ya dad deserves a big garage! I hope everything goes well there, that would be super cool, where is this land at that you are trying to purchase? Remind me what HOA is, im not educated on house purchasing things. I'm jealous of your SD trips!! I miss the beach and that place so much! 

I didn't even know the super bowl was going on until a member of the high council was driving us around and mentioned the big game, we found out later he meant the super bowl and we were like what the heck! So thats neat. Thanks for sending the pics! I did pretty bad with pics this week but I'll see if I have any, I should be back on the computer in a few hours or something like that.  Love you so much! Crazy how time keeps flying!

        (I told him to start smiling in his selfies! 😂)

just took a sweet selfie because did bad on pics

Hey, more selfies!!

It's just me and my comp here which is unusual but cool

January 29, 2018

Good Week

Selfies dont get old, kind of

MOMMA!!!

I'm doing well, yes we are getting phones in like the next month which is pretty cool! I'm super excited to not have to use a map any more haha, and have our planners on our phones and be able to pull up mormon messages and its just going to be some much better! 

Sounds like the condo is going to be out of commission for a good amount of time, I would be down to go to SD before school, get my tan on haha I'm so white. Are we still planning on visiting my mission right after? Oh I'm all on board with Mason coming out with me, I miss that kid so much, we are going to have a ton of fun up there!! Ya I think Labor Day weekend would be a good amount of time to wait before going back to visit my mish. Oh don't worry about me out here! We are way to busy here in Oakland for me to be trunky, we are seeing a lot more success now too which is super cool! We found 8 investigators this past week and all have a ton of potential so we are excited to be working with them in the near future, we don't have anyone who is progressing quite yet though but we will soon! Ya i'm so happy for Dev! I cant wait to see where that kid is going! I hope he gets to go to Guatemala still! 

I've been reading in the BoM, almost at the end in English, I'm in Alma in Spanish and 1 Nephi 20 in portuguese haha! I also hit up Preach my Gospel every day, that stuff is just full of stuff a missionary needs! Being a missionary is so exciting!! I still get all giddy when we are teaching people because I think in my head, what the heck I'm speaking Spanish and idk it's super crazy! And everything just makes sense I'm just doing my best to explain why it makes sense to our investigators haha. 

Miss you Love you!! I'll send pics in a bit!

My rad shades and me

And my comp, we at the mission home

That mission home view tho

January 22, 2018

What's Up!

 here is the spanish squad, of elders in the Oakland spanish ward

MOMMA!!! 

I'm doing super well! This week has been kind of slow for us but still pretty fun, we keep super busy up here which is good, we were able to find 2 new investigators which is alright for us, they were pretty good lessons though. Ya we have some extra meetings every now and then but I haven't had those ones yet haha so ya still waiting on that. As for who we are teaching, I feel like there is only about one person that's pretty solid that we are working with right now, it's one of the two news, as for the others it's been kind of hard to get back in contact with them. Ya we've been playing a good amount of sports which is awesome, we run a 5k every friday, we played basketball for a while today which was super fun, oh and I bought myself some new shoes today, my other ones are really starting to fall apart, they are indoor soccer shoes so i'm excited about that. And me and my comp have played lacrosse once for some exercise which was fun. Everything else is good here, please just make sure I don't run out of money haha, not too much just, my comp and I are pretty empty on our mission funds, but we will probably be good for this next week. Anywho, I'll totally send some pics in a sec! I think i took some this past week. LOVE YOU!!!

And here is Elder Mortenson

Here is a pic of me and Elder Mendez, just finishing exchanges

January 15, 2018

Oakland!

 here is me and my comp. We do our emailing in the fam history center here below the visitors center

I don't know why he doesn't smile in selfies 😆

MOMMA!!!

So the new transfer is pretty good so far, just a little stressful, so I am a zone leader now which is neat but also more work haha. We had to give a meeting for the zone and President was there this past week and it was so stressful because there isn't like any set way to do it, they were just like, ok ZL's, lets have a zone meeting in a couple weeks, so I come in and that happened ha, but the area isn't so bad(dangerous), it's deffinitely not as bad as Richmond haha. I'm doing pretty well though, we live less than 10 min from the Temple and I think it closes on the 17 of Feb. The closest temple is Sacramento and the mission office will be the same, it's across the street from the temple, and I assume the visitors center will stay open as well, other wise a bunch of sisters are going home haha. So if any and all mail can go to the mission home/office that would be great. Wow thats so cool that Bro McBride is bishop! Yes please apply there (UVU) for me when you can and let me know what I need to do to help, can you apply for scholorships too? I don't know what I qualify for as a white American person though haha. Oh! Something else kind of cool is I may be learning a 3rd language here pretty soon finally, the only problem is its one of the handful of Mayan dialects found in Guatemala and it is super hard to learn! So we'll see if anything sticks, I may need to aquire a dictionary if they have any, the language is different all over the place, nobody really reads it, they just speak it. Well I've only got a couple of photos this week but I'll send them soon. Love you!!!

So these other elders are in our district, the one on the left (elder Mendez) is from Costa Rica and got here last week, the one on the right (elder Mortenson) is from Las Vegas

And now you will see a couple of selfies we took rn with me my comp and the other elders in our district

Here is the SF zone eating at olive garden, i already miss Elder Olone!

Here's a pic with Kona before I left,
 crazy to think it's only been a week!

Here are a couple low quality photos, but photos of the little kids from San Fran that loved Brig and he loved them!

Here is Milillano! a little kid betty takes care of

January 8, 2018

It's a New Year!

Here is Alex, his family are recent converts, but they are kind of less active and he texted Juan that morning and got picked up to come to church, He's a baller!

MOMMA!!!

So this year has been pretty good so far haha. Yes we had to go over to Betty's last night to say good bye! Always sad with them, she and Kona cried again!! haha. Not me though, I know we will come back to see them, such a great family, keep them in your prayers becasue she is going through some tough times with her sister and nephew and daughters. I'm super happy I was sent back to San Francisco even if t was for just a short 3 months. So I am going to Oakland, and I will be a zone leader with Elder Jensen, and we will also be in a trio with Elder Harrison, he isn't a ZL though, he's just in a trio with us haha, but he's a cool guy, and came in the mission last year when I was here! So it should be awesome! Oh and Elder Jensen played lacrosse and he has like 5 lacrosse sticks so im super pumped to get passing again with him! Oh and we will be leaving tomorrow on Tuesday. It's gonna be more responsability but it should be a good time, and I'll get to meet way more missionarys being on that side of the bay so that will be fun too! They play hecka sports over there and go running and all that, so I will hopefully be getting back into shape and keeping up with that New Years resolution haha. I've been staying pretty healthy though, havent been sick at all except that one time I threw up in the morning a coulple months back so I'm feeling pretty good! Thats good about the condo though!! Super excited to go back there some day, what are we going to do with the small amount of time I'll have back home before I go to school?? Too many things I want to do haha! So when we go to San Diego now, the Eatons will have there own place somewhere else? Dibs on downstairs! 

The news of President Monson was sad and happy at the same time for many of us I'm sure, I was definitely more happy than sad though, he was probably in pain emotionally and physically all the time, and now he is in Paradise so I am super happy for him, nearly his whole life was dedicated to the service of the Lord and other people and now he gets to rest. I appreciate his work and the work of all the Prophets who are taking on the immense responsibility of leading the church. Haven't heard anything about watching the funeral though so I'm not sure.  Well I'll send pics in a second, I took a lot this week because I'm leaving the ward haha. Love you!!!

some awesome Hermanas in our ward,
they feed us often and both have missionaries
 in the field rn. Hna Melara left. Hna Palacios Right

here is Edwardo

Orlando & me, just got some pictures
with a bunch of people as church was endin

And here are a couple pictures with Juan Cahuas,
good guy, took us to MacDonalds this morning haha

great picture, I ripped my jeans haha, I did a toe touch while we were at service and my pants made a really loud noise hahaha, so yea...

January 1, 2018

Happy New Year!

So we were at some sisters apartment for the district party last night and we changed out of our pross clothes in their room so we decided to take a picture while we were there haha, and here is the district.

MOMMA!!!

Christmas was super awesome!! So we actually had it wrong and I guess the pozole was the day before so we totally missed it haha but thats ok, the rest of the week has been kind of crazy, the companion of someone in our district went home so now we are in a trio with Elder Corrigan who is a super cool guy from Conecticut, he plays baseball and went to BYU for a year before coming out. We have been busy with moving him and his stuff around, figuring out a good way to teach with 3 people becasue it's kind of weird, and better ways to get ready in the morning because now we have 3 people trying to use 1 shower so getting ready in the morning takes a little bit longer now. I read Dad's story about the dunes trip, SO CRAZY!!! Glad no one got hurt! Sorry New Years Eve wasn't that exciting for you, we went over to some other missionaries apartment after dinner and hung and with our whole district swaping stories and playing mafia and what not which was super fun, then we had a sleep over with our dist leader and played games up until midnight which was pretty fun, I assume there were a ton of fire works, and we could here people doing there own little one's, but we weren't really in a place that a lot would be launched off. 

Wow can you believe I was here for the entire year of 2017, that just blows my mind! So many things have happened, and so much has been learned it's hard to think of just a few things, first thing that comes to mind is how this whole past year, for every transfer we tried focusing on a Christlike attribute, the ones you'll find in preach my gospel, and it helped me to realize how hard it is or would be trying to become perfect immediately, but over the course of this year working on one thing at a time just makes it all seem more achievable, and what a great example we all have to follow, our Savior Jesus Christ, who is perfect. Estoy bien feliz por tener este evangelio en mi vida, y que yo puedo mejorar de mis faltas por medio de mi salvador, yo se que esta es la iglesia verdadera y yo he visto las vidas de muchas personas cambiar al aceptar y vivir el evangelio. Gracias por dar me esta oportunidad de estar aqui y servir una mision, estoy agradecido que estoy en los estados unidos, y en la mision de Oakland/San Francisco. Les mandare fontos pronto! Les amo!

that super black guy there in the pic is Elder Olone and he is such a good friend, he goes home in 9 days and I'm going to be so sad to see him go, love that guy!

Here are my dos companions

here is a selfie with orlando, this guy is always tickling me when we take pictures or when he hugs me haha 

December 26, 2017

Brig's Pics of Christmas in SF!

here is our beautiful Christmas tree

And here is the famous Juan Cahua taking us to Denny's Christmas Morning, what a baller!

My homie Elder Olone, so sad, he is going home at the end of this transfer and I'm gonna miss him a ton! He was there from the very beginning and I'm there to see him leave );

this is elder Jaco! we went to Pier 39

all the casual selfies

December 18, 2017

One Week 'till FaceTime!

(Christmas!)

MOMMA!!!

I'm doing really well, it's crazy how quickly this month is going!! 11 for Skyping sounds good to me, and elder Call too! Christmas Eve I don't know where I will be yet, but I think we will be singing to some old people in our ward and then just hanging out with other missionaries. Christmas day is a full P Day so we will be hanging out and walking around the city probably, we will Face time at 11 in the Family history center, and we will go to Betty's for dinner for some Pozole, which is Mexican soup. My package came and I took some pictures but right now we are at the mall emailing so I'm not going to hook up my camara in case there is a virus or something like that so I'll have to send it later. I haven't opened it either haha. We made a make-shift tree thing which you'll see in the pictures we took haha. Yes you did send Betty a card, she showed it to me and everything haha. I think the gift card would be a super good gift! Oh and we did hang up the Chrismas garland thing it's over our desks haha. 

So we had an alright week, we tried to go by Carlos' house but he wasn't there which was pretty sad, we plan on going by some less actives houses this week which will be good and tonight we are going by our recent convert's place to teach a follow up lesson which will be good because we haven't met with her in a little while. Haven't been to the temple in a little while, but we will be going on Wednesday for Zone conference and the Christmas program which will be super fun and I'll make sure to get tons of pictures! Transfers are January 7 or somewhere around there, the Temple closes February 14 maybe? Ya the Oakland Temple puts up Christmas lights but it's nothing like the Mesa Temple! 

Ya it is crazy how little time there is left!! Ya I would be super down to go on a Cancun trip next Christmas haha that would be amazing!! and I cannot believe it's been 10 years since we went last, that is insane!! Well I love you so much Mom!! If I get the chance today I'll send those pictures today!

No pictures this week... but he made up for it after we FaceTimed for Christmas!

December 11, 2017

15 Days!! 'till Christmas

Sorry about the lame pics!

MOMMA!! 

So this past week was better than the others, we were finally able to get a new investigator, Carlos! He's a referral from the Samoan sisters in the area and we contacted him just this last night and when we got there he was open to having us come in and talk with him and his daughter so it was a good change from cancelled appointments to strangers letting us inside! We have an appointment set up for this Thursday with him, the only problem is he clearly prefers English over Spanish, so eventually this new investigator will go over to someone else, but it really doesn't matter who is teaching him or to which language he goes to, as long as he accepts the restored gospel I'll be satisfied! That was my favorite experience this week. 

Haha yes I got the cookies and they weren't too bad! Thanks for sending the language learning stuff i'm so excited to get working on that! Alright I'll hold off on the presents then, I'm not sure what Betty would want haha, she still has those aprons you sent her so that's pretty cool! I'm sure she would appreciate a card, haha I'm really not good at thinking of gifts am I. Elder Call says whatever haha then he said smaller than an elephant and bigger than a key, I think whatever toy you got for us will be just fine. I'm going to need to buy some new socks pretty soon here, most of my ctr ones are getting holes in them. Well I love you Mom!! Tell Dad and the boys I say hi and I love them too!!