Dear Everyone Who Reads My Letter,

I've been getting sick the last few days(shh! don't tell the librarian or they'll kick me out!). I imagine it's a sinus infection, like usual. It's been getting steadily worse. I cough up a lot of interesting stuff though. :) haha! If it gets much worse I'll go to the doctor. Hopefully my body will just decide to get better.

We have interviews with our Mission President tomorrow. That should be good. I always enjoy that. It's hard having a big district like we do though, because he has to rush through all his interviews.

So you've noticed, Mom, that I keep dodging your question. That's funny. :)

I'm glad to hear that the Granny's cat loves her now. :)

I've decided that when I get home I'm gonna get in to smoking. Not cigarettes, but meat. Nobody does it out west. But it's soooooo gooood. Smoked Brisket is divine. I'll have to invest in a high quality smoker. The Bishop here has an electric smoker that allows him to smoke cheese. He says it's amazing(yet he doesn't make any for us). I would love to learn how to do it. We could have smoked brisket for our 4th of July BBQ's. I had no idea what I was missing out on out in Utah. Apparently, what we call Babecuing is actually just Grilling. Real Barbecuing is like smoking and stuff. Anyways. If I learn nothing else on my mission, I want to learn how to smoke. :) haha. That makes me sound like the worst missionary ever, doesn't it?

We are going to start teaching a couple member referrals in the next week or so. That'll be very good. It's funny. It's like we spend all this time tracting and junk and we don't go anywhere. It's like we're spinning our tires. But 2 people happen to have the right connections with members of the church and soon they hear and accept the Gospel. And they're much better converted, more faithful members than almost anyone found through tracting.

So what are you doing to share the Gospel?

I better get going now. have a great week!

Love,
Elder Bracken

Dear Family,

I must confess, it was probably the worst birthday of my life. Granted, that's because I've always been spoiled before and had ridiculously awesome birthdays. But still. :P

I can't believe that I am two decades old. That is just ridiculous. I'm in my twenties! Holy carp time flies.

I did get both of my packages and they were wonderful. :) The cake REALLY surprised me! I didn't think that place would still be in business with the economy. I'm glad it was though. BTW, Caitlin would be ridiculously jealous of the tube of frosting they sent me! Soooooo good!

I absolutely love the Calendar. That is, by far, the best part of the packages. It's so great. :)

We had Zone Conference this last week. It was a really good one. It was all about the importance of baptism. It's pretty important, by the way. :) They're also changing some things about how we're recording and tracking our Key Indicators. It was interesting. It contributed to my indicators looking really, REALLY bad this last week. :P oh well I guess.

I don't really know what else to say. Uneventful week. Nothing terribly exciting happened.

Oh, apparently our Stake Conference here will have a General Authority in Attendance. One of the Presiding Bishopric. That should be cool.

Ya know, I've been very impressed lately with the Ward Council here. We have been very heavily involved in Ward Council and PEC meetings here in this ward. I'm amazed at how much thought and care goes in to running a ward. Especially with the Youth. The leader's care so much about them. It really makes me appreciate my Youth. I can only assume that they work just as hard and are just as concerned in our Ward back home. I never really understood or appreciated that. It's just struck me as really cool.

BTW, for Aunt Vicky. The name of the book that I got the Sacrament thing out of was this old manual: "Temple Preparation Seminar Discussions"
Anyways, I'll get going now. I'll talk to you next week! Have a good one!

Love,
Elder Bracken

So. The Saints defeating the Colts was pretty cool. I enjoyed that a lot. We didn't watch the Super Bowl. But I bet it was a good game. I know the Colts were winning at first. I also know that The Who played at half-time! So lame! The first year I can't watch is the first year they have someone good perform! haha.

Russell has totally fallen off the horse. He was planning on going to a different church yesterday. We haven't talked to him to know if he went or what he thought. I find it strange that he could never find time to go to our church, but he certainly found time to go to theirs. I also find it odd with some investigators how, their friends never invite them to church until they hear that they're investigating the Mormon Church. Then suddenly they're all about inviting them to church.

Yesterday we taught the lesson in Elders Quorum. We read and discussed sections of a talk entitled "The Power of Preach My Gospel" by Richard G. Scott. It went very well. One of the brethren, who was here just visiting family this weekend, had an awesome story. He was using Preach My Gospel for his Family Home Evenings to teach his children. It has gone very well. His oldest child is 3 years old, by the way. They are teaching him the commandments found in Lesson 4 in Chapter 3 of Preach My Gospel. They are showing to their son how God gives us commandments to make us happy, and parents do the same thing. Parents give their children rules and tell them to do things so that they'll be happy and safe. Anyways, he tells the story much better than I can, but he had a great experience.

I'm excited for my Birthday. We are having dinner at the Bishop's house(which is usually kind of lame in this ward). But I am going to make myself a delicious cake and eat almost all of it by myself. :) I'll give Elder Sherrick 1 or 2 slices. :)

Also, I'm very glad that you're reading the Book of Mormon. How important do you feel the Book of Mormon is to our Heavenly Father? In Doctrine and Covenants Section 84:54-58, we discover the answer to this question. Or a piece of it at least:

"And your minds in times past have been darkened because of unbelief, and because you have treated lightly the things you have received--
Which vanity and unbelief have brought the whole church under condemnation.
And this condemnation resteth upon the children of Zion, even all.
And they shall remain under this condemnation until they repent and remember the new covenant, even the Book of Mormon and the former commandments which I have given them, not only to say, but to do according to that which I have written--
That they may bring forth fruit meet for the Father's kingdom; otherwise there remaineth a scourge and a judgement to be poured out upon the children of Zion."

Now, in the Doctrine and Covenants the Lord refers to the church as "my church." And here He places it under condemnation. The church doesn't take the Book of Mormon seriously enough, and it upsets our Heavenly Father so much that he condemns his own church! Obviously, it must be pretty important. Now, why would it be so important? I think there are a lot of reasons. But I think we find one of the biggest reasons within the book's own pages. In Mormon Chapter 8, Moroni is writing. He and his father are putting the finishing touches on the Book of Mormon, and he has a this marvelous vision where he sees our day. in verse 35 we read:

"Behold, I speak unto you as if ye were present, and yet ye are not. But behold, Jesus Christ hath shown you unto me, and I know your doing."

Moroni is literally speaking to each of us. He saw us. Every one of us. He knew exactly who would be reading this book. And more importantly, he knew exactly what we are up against. He saw us, but he also saw what we would be facing. He saw the challenges and the trials and the calamities of our lives. So he wrote the Book of Mormon to address those things. He saw the problems we would face, then he went back and searched the history of his civilization for times when they faced the same problems. It is the only book of scripture written directly to us. The new testament was written to very specific people. Philemon, Titus, the Hebrews, etc. It contains valuable truths for us to learn and apply. But it was not written for us, unlike the Book of Mormon.

Sometimes when we are experiencing a trial and we can turn to the Book of Mormon and it will literally contain the answer, right within it's pages. It is a mind-blowing, heart-warming, faith-building experience when that happens. I have seen it happen. I know that it can.

But sometimes, the Book of Mormon may not literally contain the answer. It doesn't directly address all of our problems. It doesn't talk about the internet, or pornography, or gambling, or a host of other problems. But when we read it and strive to apply it's teachings, it will increase our faith and spiritual power. It will make us aware of our shortcomings. It will teach us how to repent and come unto Christ. And by doing all of this, it gives us the strength to overcome any problem we currently face. I promise you this. I have seen it. It works.

I challenge all of you to rise to a new sense of commitment. To set a goal to study the Book of Mormon every day. I know that you will be immensely blessed as you do so. You and your families will be able to overcome all of the problems that you face. I know that.

May our Heavenly Father bless you in this and all your endeavors, is my humble prayer, in the name of Jesus Christ, Amen.

I hope that you all have a wonderful week!

Love,
Elder Bracken

As I search the Holy Scriptures

So, nothing too exciting has been happening here lately. There was some snow. 6 inches maybe. No big deal. No ice storm, disappointingly enough. It was a very underwhelming storm.

Nobody came to church yesterday. Except this time I wasn't surprised, so it wasn't nearly so disappointing. Still struggling to find new people to teach, unfortunately. The Bible belt is hard, I tell you what.

My birthday is almost here. I am excited about that. We have dinner with the Bishop that night though, and I never like their food haha. I'm going to bake myself a cake and gorge myself. :)

I'm not sure what we're going to do on the Superbowl. I'm pretty sure we aren't allowed to watch it. And I sure as heck am not tracting while the game is on. That would not go over very well. So we'll see. It will likely be a very boring superbowl for me. But that's okay. :)

Yesterday we had dinner at the Johnson's home. It was pretty good. It was this stuff called Chicken Alabam. It's from the Lion House cookbook, apparently. So you might try looking in ours to see if we have it. I know they have multiple cookbook's though, so who knows? Anyways, you should try it. It was good.

So, I learned something cool in my personal study the other day from an old book I got for free from the church library. The part I was reading was talking about the Sacrament. I'd invite you to go look in Moroni 4 and 5 at the two prayers. The book pointed out something I've never noticed before. The prayer over the bread talks about us being "willing" to take upon us the name of Christ and always remember Him and keep His commandments. Now, when we take the Sacrament, we should do a self-examination, spiritually, about how we've performed the past week. It is an opportunity to repent and covenant with God to do and be better. Then, the prayer is said to bless the water. It says that when we partake of it we witness to God that we "do" always remember Christ. So, from the moment on, the moment we partake of the water, we are supposed to DO those things we have been thinking about. We must immediately change and become better the minute we take the sacrament. I thought a lot about this and applied it yesterday as I was partaking of the sacrament yesterday. It was a very spiritual experience for me. I'd urge all of you to think about that this week and try to apply that the next time you partake of the Sacrament.

Also, when are you going to go to the temple in February?

I don't know what else to talk about this week honestly. Nothing eventful has happened. Sadly. So, I'm going to get going now. Have a wonderful week!

Love,
Elder Bracken