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
Monday, February 15, 2010
Monday, February 8, 2010
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
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
Monday, February 1, 2010
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
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
Monday, January 25, 2010
Wow. It worries a missionary when he sees "Lots of News" as the subject for his parents email. I was gonna be so mad if you told me you were moving. haha.
Crazy times in Webb City. Russell's Baptism is delayed until Feb. 20th(at least). Pres. Merkley wants him to go to church consistently and to get his daughter involved in Primary.
I learned something new this week that I desire to share with all of you, that you may learn and share it with others. APPARENTLY, if you open a can of food and eat only half of it, you aren't supposed to store the leftovers in the can itself. You're supposed to put it in a different container. Otherwise, you can get really sick if you don't. You could even throw-up all over your dinner appointment's bathroom.....
I feel fine now. FYI.
None of us are getting transferred. My assumption is this: I will be with Elder Sherrick for one more transfer. He will then be sent elsewhere. I will receive a new Junior Companion for one more transfer after that. Then I will be sent elsewhere. So I expect to be here another 3 months. So I'm half-way done, eh? When I leave I will be half-way through my mission. Tomorrow is my 9 month mark. Crazy!
In March our mission will reach its peak capacity of 196 missionaries. That's pretty exciting. We have a very, very young mission right now. And I think it's a good thing. Out with the old, in with the new. Ring Out, Wild Bells, and let him die. Or something like that.
Congratulations to Kenny! Good luck with everything, cuz!
Well, I think that's everything on my end. I will talk to you next week! :)
Love,
Elder Bracken
Crazy times in Webb City. Russell's Baptism is delayed until Feb. 20th(at least). Pres. Merkley wants him to go to church consistently and to get his daughter involved in Primary.
I learned something new this week that I desire to share with all of you, that you may learn and share it with others. APPARENTLY, if you open a can of food and eat only half of it, you aren't supposed to store the leftovers in the can itself. You're supposed to put it in a different container. Otherwise, you can get really sick if you don't. You could even throw-up all over your dinner appointment's bathroom.....
I feel fine now. FYI.
None of us are getting transferred. My assumption is this: I will be with Elder Sherrick for one more transfer. He will then be sent elsewhere. I will receive a new Junior Companion for one more transfer after that. Then I will be sent elsewhere. So I expect to be here another 3 months. So I'm half-way done, eh? When I leave I will be half-way through my mission. Tomorrow is my 9 month mark. Crazy!
In March our mission will reach its peak capacity of 196 missionaries. That's pretty exciting. We have a very, very young mission right now. And I think it's a good thing. Out with the old, in with the new. Ring Out, Wild Bells, and let him die. Or something like that.
Congratulations to Kenny! Good luck with everything, cuz!
Well, I think that's everything on my end. I will talk to you next week! :)
Love,
Elder Bracken
Monday, January 18, 2010
So, I learned 3 things on friday:
1- If I can avoid it, I will never have a suspended ceiling
2- If I can avoid it, I will never have blown in insulation
3- How to hang a suspended ceiling
So, we woke up Friday morning and turned on the lights, and the suspended ceiling in our study room had collapsed overnight. HUUUUUUGE mess. Insulation and dust everywhere. So, we called our landlord over(who is a member of the ward) and we proceeded to fix it. We cleaned up the bulk of the insulation and took everything out of the room. Then we spend the better part of the day replacing/repairing the ceiling. So we got that done. We spent the better part of Saturday cleaning up the mess. SOOOOO much dust! We'd vacuum thoroughly, and half an hour later the dust would settle again and we'd have to vacuum again. We vacuumed that room probably at least 20 times on Saturday. Not to mention cleaning the other rooms that dust inevitably floated into and cleaning the dust off all of our junk. So, that was my weekend. I enjoyed it, actually. Just messy. I'm just glad that we weren't in the room when it collapsed.
So that's the biggest news. Also, we will not be having any baptisms this month. We have 2 slated for February. Russell O'Neill and Patti Stuckey. So we'll see how that goes. We desperately need to find new investigators. And it's not for lack of trying either. We have been trying. But nobody wants to investigate, darnit. People have been dropping us left and right. It's been pretty crazy actually, how many people have dropped us.
We had a great lesson with the Petersons, the RLDS family we are teaching. We took over Bro Lambeth(not planned, it just worked out that way) who was raised RLDS then converted. He bore a way powerful testimony about it. So it was good I think.
Well, thats about all I have to report this week. Transfer Awareness Night(as my trainer called it) is on Saturday. So next week I'll write you and let you know if I'm getting a new companion. I don't think either of us are getting transferred just yet though. :)
Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Bracken
1- If I can avoid it, I will never have a suspended ceiling
2- If I can avoid it, I will never have blown in insulation
3- How to hang a suspended ceiling
So, we woke up Friday morning and turned on the lights, and the suspended ceiling in our study room had collapsed overnight. HUUUUUUGE mess. Insulation and dust everywhere. So, we called our landlord over(who is a member of the ward) and we proceeded to fix it. We cleaned up the bulk of the insulation and took everything out of the room. Then we spend the better part of the day replacing/repairing the ceiling. So we got that done. We spent the better part of Saturday cleaning up the mess. SOOOOO much dust! We'd vacuum thoroughly, and half an hour later the dust would settle again and we'd have to vacuum again. We vacuumed that room probably at least 20 times on Saturday. Not to mention cleaning the other rooms that dust inevitably floated into and cleaning the dust off all of our junk. So, that was my weekend. I enjoyed it, actually. Just messy. I'm just glad that we weren't in the room when it collapsed.
So that's the biggest news. Also, we will not be having any baptisms this month. We have 2 slated for February. Russell O'Neill and Patti Stuckey. So we'll see how that goes. We desperately need to find new investigators. And it's not for lack of trying either. We have been trying. But nobody wants to investigate, darnit. People have been dropping us left and right. It's been pretty crazy actually, how many people have dropped us.
We had a great lesson with the Petersons, the RLDS family we are teaching. We took over Bro Lambeth(not planned, it just worked out that way) who was raised RLDS then converted. He bore a way powerful testimony about it. So it was good I think.
Well, thats about all I have to report this week. Transfer Awareness Night(as my trainer called it) is on Saturday. So next week I'll write you and let you know if I'm getting a new companion. I don't think either of us are getting transferred just yet though. :)
Have a great week!
Love,
Elder Bracken
Saturday, January 16, 2010
It has been a ridiculously cold week! Luckily we had the car! We had to give it to the Carthage Elders yesterday, but guess what! It's warmer! We might be above freezing right now! I'm not sure. But it's considerably warmer now.
The Library is FINALLY back open! I'm so glad! I was getting way sick of invading our member's homes to email. The school's have been closed all week,pretty much. Which is ridiculous. They say it's closed because of "dangerous temperatures." Whatever! Have gym and recess inside! This isn't that complex. These darn Mid-Westerners are a bunch of wimps. haha
So, no one came to church yesterday. That was way lame. We haven't found a new investigator in 2 weeks. That is very upsetting. We're expected to get a new investigator every day. 7 a week. And we've had two weeks without a new one. And not for lack of trying either.
A couple weeks ago we did a cookie-run. We baked some cookies and took them around to some people. Some investigators, somc less-actives, and I think 1 active family. Sis. Lewis, one of the less-actives we gave the cookies to, told us last night about her thoughts on the cookies. She thought we had greased the pan with bacon grease! She said they smelled and tasted like bacon grease! I don't know what happened! We did not use bacon grease! Now she's telling everyone in the ward that we made her bacon cookies! lame!
I don't recall if I told you about how we had lunch with her on Christmas Eve. We went over to her house and watched An Unlikely Mormon. It's a DVD of Glenn Beck telling his conversion story. It was good. I really enjoyed it.I highly recommend it.
I'm glad that the Shipley's are enjoying the dog. How is Grammy's cat doing?
We have a mouse in our house, we discovered this week. We named him Hamlet because he is going to die. Stupid Hamlet.
Do you have any suggestions for cheap Crock-Pot recipes a missionary could make? We recently acquired a crock-pot(just like the old blue one I grew up with!) and I would love some ideas on how to best utilize it. We cooked a nice pork roast in it all day, then shredded it and made pulled pork sandwiches. That was awesome. We also cooked steaks in it. I remember you tellin me Dad, about the Scouts cooking steaks in a Dutch oven with Vegetable Oil. We tried that with some super cheap steaks we found at Wal-Mart. It wasn't bad. Kind of a unique flavor.
I have improved much in my cooking ability. I like to cook a lot. I make some amazing tacos and quesadillas, I tell you what. :) The secret is the stuff called El Pato. It's this little can of Mexican tomato sauce kind of stuff that you buy at Wal-Mart for 62 cents in the Mexican Aisle. It makes for an amazing sauce for taco meat or to cook a chicken breast in for Quesadillas. Of course I add other spices as well, but that's the main ingredient. I'm going to make some Manwich Sloppy Joes today. I've never done that, but it sounds so simple.
Not much else is going on to report of at this time. Hopefully things will start picking up. :)
Have a great week! Enjoy your vacation!
Love,
Elder Bracken
The Library is FINALLY back open! I'm so glad! I was getting way sick of invading our member's homes to email. The school's have been closed all week,pretty much. Which is ridiculous. They say it's closed because of "dangerous temperatures." Whatever! Have gym and recess inside! This isn't that complex. These darn Mid-Westerners are a bunch of wimps. haha
So, no one came to church yesterday. That was way lame. We haven't found a new investigator in 2 weeks. That is very upsetting. We're expected to get a new investigator every day. 7 a week. And we've had two weeks without a new one. And not for lack of trying either.
A couple weeks ago we did a cookie-run. We baked some cookies and took them around to some people. Some investigators, somc less-actives, and I think 1 active family. Sis. Lewis, one of the less-actives we gave the cookies to, told us last night about her thoughts on the cookies. She thought we had greased the pan with bacon grease! She said they smelled and tasted like bacon grease! I don't know what happened! We did not use bacon grease! Now she's telling everyone in the ward that we made her bacon cookies! lame!
I don't recall if I told you about how we had lunch with her on Christmas Eve. We went over to her house and watched An Unlikely Mormon. It's a DVD of Glenn Beck telling his conversion story. It was good. I really enjoyed it.I highly recommend it.
I'm glad that the Shipley's are enjoying the dog. How is Grammy's cat doing?
We have a mouse in our house, we discovered this week. We named him Hamlet because he is going to die. Stupid Hamlet.
Do you have any suggestions for cheap Crock-Pot recipes a missionary could make? We recently acquired a crock-pot(just like the old blue one I grew up with!) and I would love some ideas on how to best utilize it. We cooked a nice pork roast in it all day, then shredded it and made pulled pork sandwiches. That was awesome. We also cooked steaks in it. I remember you tellin me Dad, about the Scouts cooking steaks in a Dutch oven with Vegetable Oil. We tried that with some super cheap steaks we found at Wal-Mart. It wasn't bad. Kind of a unique flavor.
I have improved much in my cooking ability. I like to cook a lot. I make some amazing tacos and quesadillas, I tell you what. :) The secret is the stuff called El Pato. It's this little can of Mexican tomato sauce kind of stuff that you buy at Wal-Mart for 62 cents in the Mexican Aisle. It makes for an amazing sauce for taco meat or to cook a chicken breast in for Quesadillas. Of course I add other spices as well, but that's the main ingredient. I'm going to make some Manwich Sloppy Joes today. I've never done that, but it sounds so simple.
Not much else is going on to report of at this time. Hopefully things will start picking up. :)
Have a great week! Enjoy your vacation!
Love,
Elder Bracken
Monday, January 4, 2010
2010! Only 2 years til the end of the world! ;)
So, twice today I have had to wite-out the year on some forms I filled out. I hate switching years. It takes so long to get in the habit of writing the correct one! Oh well, I will learn!
We did absolutely nothing unusual, different, remarkable, or noteworthy for New Years. They were just normal days for us. Didn't stay up til midnight or anything. I DID, however, have pizza on New Year's Eve at a member's house. So that was nice.
Yet again, I find myself writing an email at a member's house. The library is closed still. Apparently, the have no heat. Sissies.
Seriously. 3 inches of snow and everyone out hear loses their minds! That fell Saturday night, so church was cancelled. That was so disappointing. We were set to have the whole Stuckey family there! And school was called off today as well. I don't know how these mid-westerner's survive!
It has been very cold here. It's about 13 degrees right now. Wind chill makes it about 5. But the real problem is the humidity. It's about 65%. It's a whole different kind of cold here than in Utah. Cuts right to the bone. I love my scarf and sweaters. :)
Also, I DID get Aunt Vicky's package! Thank you! :) It's awesome. :)
Not much else to report this week. I better get going. I don't want to be on their computer too long. :)
Love,
Elder Bracken
We did absolutely nothing unusual, different, remarkable, or noteworthy for New Years. They were just normal days for us. Didn't stay up til midnight or anything. I DID, however, have pizza on New Year's Eve at a member's house. So that was nice.
Yet again, I find myself writing an email at a member's house. The library is closed still. Apparently, the have no heat. Sissies.
Seriously. 3 inches of snow and everyone out hear loses their minds! That fell Saturday night, so church was cancelled. That was so disappointing. We were set to have the whole Stuckey family there! And school was called off today as well. I don't know how these mid-westerner's survive!
It has been very cold here. It's about 13 degrees right now. Wind chill makes it about 5. But the real problem is the humidity. It's about 65%. It's a whole different kind of cold here than in Utah. Cuts right to the bone. I love my scarf and sweaters. :)
Also, I DID get Aunt Vicky's package! Thank you! :) It's awesome. :)
Not much else to report this week. I better get going. I don't want to be on their computer too long. :)
Love,
Elder Bracken
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