Dear Family,
I am now down in Van Buren I love it here. Arkansas is a fantastic place.
This is a weird area, because there are 6 missionaries for 1 ward. We cover a portion of the Ward, the Zone Leaders cover the rest, and there are some Spanish Elders that work all over. So it's pretty different.
My companion is Elder Matthew Fox from Chalis, Idaho. He is awesome. He's been out almost a year. Very talented missionary. He could easily be my Senior Companion.
We live in a house. A very nice one. We have a car full-time(hallelujah!). A Toyota Corolla.
We have quite a few investigators. The area is doing well. By the time I'm done here, this will be one of the best areas in the mission. ;)
I am out of time. I will do better next week. See, we email our Mission President now, so that cuts into our time, and I had a lot to talk with him about this week, what with transfers and all. So, I've got to get going.
Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Bracken
Monday, August 30, 2010
Monday, August 23, 2010
Dear Family,
I am indeed be transferred. I am headed down to Van Buren Arkansas. Supposedly, it's the place where Parley P. Pratt was murdered. Here's my new address:
815 N. 7th Street
Van Buren, AR 72956
I can honestly say that this is the first time I was sad to get transferred. I love this area. Awesome people. Awesome ward. Awesome Investigators. It's just an awesome place all around. I got really attached here. I suppose it's a good thing I got sent away now. If I'd have had more time to get attached I probably wouldn't have been able to handle it. I had a hard time as it is. But, I know that I'm going where the Lord wants me to go. I also know that Elder Mortensen and my replacement will do just fine.
I am nervous, but very excited. I heard that I will be sharing an apartment with the Zone Leaders down there in Ft. Smith. I LOVE sharing an apartment! It's unbelievably fun! I am very excited about that. I also heard that it's a car share, so I'll be spending half of the time on a bike. So maybe I'll get in slightly better shape. That's always a good thing. I also love Arkansas. It's a fantastic place. I'm excited.
I will be sending a package home this week, to save room in my luggage. I will also throw a picture CD in there, even though I don't have very many pictures since last time. I'll be getting a few more this week, saying goodbye to people.
I don't really know what to say. You need to ask me more questions, haha. I never know what to write anymore. Things are going great. They're going as they should be. Nothing too out of the ordinary to report. Besides that we're actually having success. I guess that's out of the ordinary kind of haha.
I loved the package you sent me. :) Especially the pictures. :) It looks like you all had a blast! I hope that you don't decide you don't like fun anymore when I get home. I want to have fun too. And I'm very proud of you for going hiking! It looked fun.You need to do that more often! And you need to go walking around the neighborhood in the Evenings like you used to. (I'm one to tell you to exercise, my exercise consists of laying on the floor for 30 minutes, haha). BTW, I have tried both Hershey's Bliss and Dove Chocolates now, and the verdict wasn't surprising. Dove is superior. I really like the Bliss, but Dove still beats it. Plus, the Bliss doesn't have the cheesy messages inside. :)
Well, I hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Bracken
I am indeed be transferred. I am headed down to Van Buren Arkansas. Supposedly, it's the place where Parley P. Pratt was murdered. Here's my new address:
815 N. 7th Street
Van Buren, AR 72956
I can honestly say that this is the first time I was sad to get transferred. I love this area. Awesome people. Awesome ward. Awesome Investigators. It's just an awesome place all around. I got really attached here. I suppose it's a good thing I got sent away now. If I'd have had more time to get attached I probably wouldn't have been able to handle it. I had a hard time as it is. But, I know that I'm going where the Lord wants me to go. I also know that Elder Mortensen and my replacement will do just fine.
I am nervous, but very excited. I heard that I will be sharing an apartment with the Zone Leaders down there in Ft. Smith. I LOVE sharing an apartment! It's unbelievably fun! I am very excited about that. I also heard that it's a car share, so I'll be spending half of the time on a bike. So maybe I'll get in slightly better shape. That's always a good thing. I also love Arkansas. It's a fantastic place. I'm excited.
I will be sending a package home this week, to save room in my luggage. I will also throw a picture CD in there, even though I don't have very many pictures since last time. I'll be getting a few more this week, saying goodbye to people.
I don't really know what to say. You need to ask me more questions, haha. I never know what to write anymore. Things are going great. They're going as they should be. Nothing too out of the ordinary to report. Besides that we're actually having success. I guess that's out of the ordinary kind of haha.
I loved the package you sent me. :) Especially the pictures. :) It looks like you all had a blast! I hope that you don't decide you don't like fun anymore when I get home. I want to have fun too. And I'm very proud of you for going hiking! It looked fun.You need to do that more often! And you need to go walking around the neighborhood in the Evenings like you used to. (I'm one to tell you to exercise, my exercise consists of laying on the floor for 30 minutes, haha). BTW, I have tried both Hershey's Bliss and Dove Chocolates now, and the verdict wasn't surprising. Dove is superior. I really like the Bliss, but Dove still beats it. Plus, the Bliss doesn't have the cheesy messages inside. :)
Well, I hope you have a great week!
Love,
Elder Bracken
Monday, August 16, 2010
Dear Family,
It's been an AMAZING week. :)
We now have 4 investigators with Baptismal Dates. Soon to be 5. It's awesome to see people whom the Lord has prepared for the Gospel. People who are ready and waiting to be converted.
One of the people we are teaching is Grace. She has been looking for a church lately. She needed God in her life. We happened to be visiting with her aunt(a less-active member of the Church). She listened in, Elder Mortensen gave her a Book of Mormon, and the rest is history. She will be baptized on the 11th of September. :) Needless to say, we are excited.
Zone Conference was awesome. We all got new cell phones. :) The church has a set of DVD's for teaching missionaries how to be Preach My Gospel Missionaries. They've been around for several years. They're nice. The Church has just released the sequel. The new one. It's fantastic. We watched a 40 minute segment from it at Zone Conference. It was amazing. I hope to shmooze my way into getting a personal copy of it sometime soon. I have a copy of the old one that I will probably send home sometime, because I don't really need it. Only Missions can get these DVD's, so this the only chance of my life I'll have to get a copy.
As far as the package goes, I would mostly like pictures. And maybe M&Ms. And a couple cans of tuna. Keep in mind, I could be transferred on the 26th. We find out Saturday night what will happen for transfers. One of us will definitely be leaving. I'm really not sure who. You can still send me the package, but I might have to pick up and leave soon.
Life is going really well. I don't really know what else to say. I am very happy. I love what I am doing. I still have a lot of time left, and I am going to accomplish a lot. :)
Love,
Elder Jordan John Bracken
It's been an AMAZING week. :)
We now have 4 investigators with Baptismal Dates. Soon to be 5. It's awesome to see people whom the Lord has prepared for the Gospel. People who are ready and waiting to be converted.
One of the people we are teaching is Grace. She has been looking for a church lately. She needed God in her life. We happened to be visiting with her aunt(a less-active member of the Church). She listened in, Elder Mortensen gave her a Book of Mormon, and the rest is history. She will be baptized on the 11th of September. :) Needless to say, we are excited.
Zone Conference was awesome. We all got new cell phones. :) The church has a set of DVD's for teaching missionaries how to be Preach My Gospel Missionaries. They've been around for several years. They're nice. The Church has just released the sequel. The new one. It's fantastic. We watched a 40 minute segment from it at Zone Conference. It was amazing. I hope to shmooze my way into getting a personal copy of it sometime soon. I have a copy of the old one that I will probably send home sometime, because I don't really need it. Only Missions can get these DVD's, so this the only chance of my life I'll have to get a copy.
As far as the package goes, I would mostly like pictures. And maybe M&Ms. And a couple cans of tuna. Keep in mind, I could be transferred on the 26th. We find out Saturday night what will happen for transfers. One of us will definitely be leaving. I'm really not sure who. You can still send me the package, but I might have to pick up and leave soon.
Life is going really well. I don't really know what else to say. I am very happy. I love what I am doing. I still have a lot of time left, and I am going to accomplish a lot. :)
Love,
Elder Jordan John Bracken
Monday, August 9, 2010
Dear Family,
It has been a really awesome week. :)
There is a less-active lady in the ward who hasn't been to church in many, many years. Her husband passed away a few months ago. It has been really hard for her. So we stop by and visit with her on occasion. Mostly just because she's lonely and needs a friend to talk to. Her 17 year old niece lives with her. Her name is Grace. Saturday, she sat in on the chatting. Elder Mortensen was bound and determined to give her a Book of Mormon. He did so, and she gladly accepted. She also set an appointment for us to come teach her next week. And she agreed to come to church. Miraculously, she showed up at the church, all by herself, and stayed for all three hours. It was really cool. :)
Sister Weathers, the less-active lady we've been working with who bore her testimony last week, did not make it to church yesterday. But she called us yesterday evening. She told us she was out of town on vacation. She's been reading the scriptures morning and evening and she wants us to come and teach her the Stop-Smoking Workshop that we teach people. So she's doing very very well.
We also have Zone Conference tomorrow. It should be a lot of fun. I enjoy Zone Conference. We're all getting new cell phones tomorrow, apparently. That should be cool. I'm not sure why they're doing it. Maybe we're switching carriers? We currently use Sprint.
I had Wall-eye for the first time this week. It was really good.(or did that happen last week? I can't remember).
Not much else has happened(sorry, life's just very normal at the moment).
Things are going good. I'm happy. I'm excited to be here in Neosho. I love it. Transfers aren't until the end of August, but I expect to be here at least one more transfer after this.
Well I hope you all have a wonderful week and that you go to the temple if you can.
Love,
Elder Jordan John Bracken
It has been a really awesome week. :)
There is a less-active lady in the ward who hasn't been to church in many, many years. Her husband passed away a few months ago. It has been really hard for her. So we stop by and visit with her on occasion. Mostly just because she's lonely and needs a friend to talk to. Her 17 year old niece lives with her. Her name is Grace. Saturday, she sat in on the chatting. Elder Mortensen was bound and determined to give her a Book of Mormon. He did so, and she gladly accepted. She also set an appointment for us to come teach her next week. And she agreed to come to church. Miraculously, she showed up at the church, all by herself, and stayed for all three hours. It was really cool. :)
Sister Weathers, the less-active lady we've been working with who bore her testimony last week, did not make it to church yesterday. But she called us yesterday evening. She told us she was out of town on vacation. She's been reading the scriptures morning and evening and she wants us to come and teach her the Stop-Smoking Workshop that we teach people. So she's doing very very well.
We also have Zone Conference tomorrow. It should be a lot of fun. I enjoy Zone Conference. We're all getting new cell phones tomorrow, apparently. That should be cool. I'm not sure why they're doing it. Maybe we're switching carriers? We currently use Sprint.
I had Wall-eye for the first time this week. It was really good.(or did that happen last week? I can't remember).
Not much else has happened(sorry, life's just very normal at the moment).
Things are going good. I'm happy. I'm excited to be here in Neosho. I love it. Transfers aren't until the end of August, but I expect to be here at least one more transfer after this.
Well I hope you all have a wonderful week and that you go to the temple if you can.
Love,
Elder Jordan John Bracken
Monday, August 2, 2010
Dear Family,
Well Mom, in order to fix the length of my letters, I need things to actually happen to me! :P
It's been a good week here in Neosho. The most exciting thing was Sister Weathers. She's a Less-Active Lady we started working with her very shortly after I got here. I am quite possibly the only missionary in the world that would have been prompted to go see her(not being prideful, it's just the way it was, long story). I didn't really think she was going to go anywhere, I admit. God knew better than me, though. A couple weeks ago she finally came to church for the first time in a long time. She just felt really strongly that she needed to go, so she packed her 2 little kids in the truck and took off. She enjoyed it. She missed last Sunday, but she wasn't happy about that. Yesterday she came to church again and got up and bore a brief, powerful, sweet testimony. It was a very difficult thing for her to do. She gets anxious around other people. Let alone getting up ans speaking to 150 people you don't know. And she did it. She did a very good job, actually. I was impressed. It was one of the best moments of my mission. :)
We set a Baptismal Date with our "Eternigator" Ralph. It's not till October, but he'll be ready by then I'm sure. :) We're pretty excited about that.
I don't know what else to talk about, really. Life is just regular old missionary life. Nothing terribly out of the ordinary to report. (sorry Mom)
Send Grammy my condolences for her cat.
Um. I'm kind of upset right now. You never even told me Amanda was working. Last I heard, like 6 months ago, she was leaving Verizon. Not a word till now. :(
I hope you all take the opportunity to go to the Temple soon. Jason wrote me and told me about how awesome it was go for the first time. He loved it. You should go too. :)
Love,
Elder Bracken
Well Mom, in order to fix the length of my letters, I need things to actually happen to me! :P
It's been a good week here in Neosho. The most exciting thing was Sister Weathers. She's a Less-Active Lady we started working with her very shortly after I got here. I am quite possibly the only missionary in the world that would have been prompted to go see her(not being prideful, it's just the way it was, long story). I didn't really think she was going to go anywhere, I admit. God knew better than me, though. A couple weeks ago she finally came to church for the first time in a long time. She just felt really strongly that she needed to go, so she packed her 2 little kids in the truck and took off. She enjoyed it. She missed last Sunday, but she wasn't happy about that. Yesterday she came to church again and got up and bore a brief, powerful, sweet testimony. It was a very difficult thing for her to do. She gets anxious around other people. Let alone getting up ans speaking to 150 people you don't know. And she did it. She did a very good job, actually. I was impressed. It was one of the best moments of my mission. :)
We set a Baptismal Date with our "Eternigator" Ralph. It's not till October, but he'll be ready by then I'm sure. :) We're pretty excited about that.
I don't know what else to talk about, really. Life is just regular old missionary life. Nothing terribly out of the ordinary to report. (sorry Mom)
Send Grammy my condolences for her cat.
Um. I'm kind of upset right now. You never even told me Amanda was working. Last I heard, like 6 months ago, she was leaving Verizon. Not a word till now. :(
I hope you all take the opportunity to go to the Temple soon. Jason wrote me and told me about how awesome it was go for the first time. He loved it. You should go too. :)
Love,
Elder Bracken
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