Good Things

     So this week has been pretty good, we had some good things happen that we are excited about and things are going well. I hope everyone else had a good week and I love hearing about it.
     Monday we did our usual routine, we went shopping and then to the stake center to email and play some basketball. After ball we went to the Goodwill and did us some thrift shopping, only way to shop really as a missionary. After dinner we tried some potentials, we didn't find anyone we were looking for but we found this family and they said we could come back! So we are pretty excited about that. Then we went to the Bush's and that was good like usual. They are a pretty cool family plus Sister Bush always gives us little treats like ice cream or pie. Oh there was a tornado watch tonight! That was pretty crazy.

Exchange with Elder Sanders

     On Tuesday we did an exchange, Elder Palmer went to Elder Johnson (our district leader) in Fairfax and Elder Sanders came here with me. It was pretty sweet Elder Sanders and I came out together so we did some catching up and the even cooler part is he is from Idaho Falls, so just down the road back home. We had dinner at the Portillo's and it was really good. We had papusas, mmmm they are soo good! The family is awesome too, they are hilarious. Brother Portillo always joked about how disobedient he is but he isn't, he's in the high council so yeah. After dinner ALL of our appointments fell through so that kind of really sucked, but no worries we figured out things to do.
     Wednesday we had District Meeting so Elder Sanders and Elder Palmer switched back. Our District Meeting was pretty good, we talked about bettering ourselves and setting goals to push both ourselves and our companionships. We caught a squirrel, but when we got back for the evening he had chewed through the little pet carrier we put him in; he was loose in our apartment! We started our nerve-racking sweep of our apartment and eventually found him, that's when fun began! When we finally caught him we took him outside and he stuck his tail in the air and waved goodbye.
     Thursday was our Zone Conference and it was actually President Riggs last Zone Conference for our zone before he is done with his mission and goes home. We talked about a lot of things but something I really like is a quote President Riggs used. "We cannot help another become converted beyond our own conversion." We have to constantly be strengthening our testimony and growing ourselves so we can help those around us and those we care about. After dinner we had a lesson with a less-active family, the Ranisate's, we talked with them about hardships and trials and read out of the Doctrine and Covenants with them. After that we had a lesson with the Barton's and we put their 9 year old daughter, Eva, on date! Woot Woot! She is set to be baptized on May 23rd, so we are pretty excited for her. It was a pretty awesome lesson, we had Eva and her sister, Adriana who is 8, teach us the First Vision and it was so good. They are two amazing girls.

     Friday we caught another squirrel! We named him Butterscotch and we had him all day, but we pulled a prank on the AP's and put him in their apartment that night. It as hilarious! Anyway, we made a pretty sweet room in our apartment called the "I'm Ponderin'" room 

Our "I'm Ponderin" Room

during studies just to change things up. We also grabbed a really nice dresser that someone threw away and switched it with ours. Dumpster Diving! Then we did our weekly planning and then dinner with the Thomas' family. They are an older couple, but are way cool and the food was amazing. Then we had a lesson with Jesse and Christopher, Jesse is 9 and Christopher is 8. Their mom was less-active, but is starting to come back to church and really wants them baptized, so we tentatively put them on date for the last week of June!
     Saturday we saw Brother Honesty and read from the Book of Mormon with him, we read quite a few chapters and just had a good time. We talked about his mom a little because she is in the hospital but is doing a lot better now than she was. After that our day went down the drain. No one seemed to be home and we pretty much checked potentials all day but nothing worked out. Definitely a bummer of a day.
     Sunday there was a Regional Conference Broadcast instead of church. It was pretty good, a lot about missionary work and things pertaining to it. After the broadcast we had lunch at the Elijah Bush (he is President Bush's nephew) home and that family is pretty sweet. They have four young boys and they don't slow down. After lunch we tracted their whole street, it took us a solid two hours. Yeah Buddy! We got a couple return appointments and some service out of it though, so it turned out pretty good. After dinner we saw one of our investigators, Nate, and talked with him a bit trying to work out a schedule. The rest of the night we stopped by member families and talked with and shared a message with them. I hope everyone has a great week and thanks for all the support!
     ~ Elder Brady

Good Week

In DC at the Cherry Blossoms Festival

     Hey everybody hope y'all had a good week! If you haven't emailed me, I'd love to hear from ya! Well here's my week. Monday we went shopping and then emailed just a little bit, then it was off to the metro to go into DC! It was the Cherry Blossoms Festival so there was a lot of people there, a lot of people. Most of the missionaries in our mission went too so there was also a lot of missionaries, it was pretty crazy. It was pretty dang hot and sunny and Elder Palmer and I got a little sun but the blossoms were super cool and pretty so it was worth it, we were way tired afterwards though. We saw the Hoffman's and they are a cool part-member family with a daughter we are going to start teaching. Then we went to the Bush's and talked with them and it was awesome like always. Sister Bush and I talked about Kayla doing ballroom in England and she showed me pictures of when they went on vacation there, it was cool.

     After studies on Tuesday we went to the church and helped the Bush's set up to feed our zone, which they do every transfer. It is to say "thank you" to the missionaries but it's always super good so I think they get more thanks. We had splits with 

Elder Brady enjoying
Bro. Eley's train collection

Brother Williams tonight and we saw the Eley's and the Auguste's. Brother Eley is a big train collector and he has two rooms full of trains and then he likes motorcycles, he has six nice motorcycles, it was pretty sweet!
     Wednesday we had District Meeting, it was the first 
one of the new transfer so we set goals for the transfer and talked about how we were going to accomplish them. After District Meeting Elder Palmer and I helped the Office Elders clear out the other Wakefield apartment because they shut that area down. After dinner we had splits with Brother Deskins and it was pretty sweet. All our appointments cancelled earlier in the day so we just saw the people he home teaches and it was really good. Pretty much the whole night we talked about the zombie apocalypse and what our plan for that should be, it was hilarious! He's a cool guy.

Elder Brady and his new companion,
Elder Palmer

     Thursday was a great day! We went tracting and as soon as we got out of the car we saw three people walking so we went and started talking to them. Elder Palmer asked what they thought the purpose of life was and they started freaking out, once they calmed down we figured out that they had just been talking about that! So we taught them rig out of the Book of Mormon what the purpose of life is (Alma 34:32). After we finished they started telling us all the things that had got them there at that spot at that exact time. It was amazing to see that God had guided them and us to be there at that exact moment to talk. We are now teaching two of them. Later that night we also had a pass-off lesson with the AP's and we are now teaching Nathaniel, he is on-date to be baptized on May 27 so we are super excited for him.
     On Friday we went to an investigator's house and it was soooo dirty! It was nastayyy! There was so much stuff everywhere and so much dirt on all the stuff, it was so bad. I felt embarrassed for the guy. After that we had a lesson with two of the three people we met yesterday, Shahin (he is from Turkey and is Muslim) and Kira (She is from Vietnam and doesn't have a religion) it seemed to go pretty well so whoop whoop! After that we went to the church to help set up for the Swap Meet, the Swap Meet is where everyone can bring something they don't need or don't want anymore and people can take whatever they want for free.

Stellar poster we made

     Saturday was the Swap Meet all morning. We had made a little display board, which was freakin' stellar! So we put that up and then we just talked with people and we actually got some cool stuff for ourselves. When the Swap Meet was over we helped load all the stuff that was still there into a truck to be taken to Goodwill. After that we did some weekly planning.

     On Sunday we had Ward Council in the morning and then we came back to the apartment and finished weekly planning. Our investigator, Nathaniel, came to church and seemed to hit it off really well with the young men so that was good. After church we came back to the apartment and finished our studies and then had a drop-off dinner. After dinner we tried to see some potential investigators and some less-actives and set up appointments with them.

     ~ Elder Brady

Enjoying the Cherry Blossoms

Transfers

     This past week was pretty good and I hope everyone else has had a great week! Something really quick before I get going about my week. Lately we have been showing a lot of members, and even non-members, the video "He Lives." This video is amazing and I love it! If you haven't seen it I strongly encourage you to see it. It is on Mormon.org so everyone go take a look! Alrighty now here was my week.
     Monday we went shopping and then it was to the stake center to email and play some basketball. Always a good time. Bishop McConkie took us out to dinner so while we ate we got to talk with him about the ward and the work within the ward. We talked with him about our investigators and then he asked us to see some people in the ward that he felt we should see, so that was really cool. Then we went to the Bush's and talked with them about conference and their own missionary work. They are awesome.
     Tuesday we had Zone Training. I think my favorite part was when Elder Jones and Elder Blanchard (who is from Rexburg as well and we know each other, halla!) talked about the power and authority of our callings as missionaries. They did great and it was cool to see the actual depth that it pertains to be a missionary and a disciple of Jesus Christ. After that we walked to our dinner at the Youngblood's home. We got there a little early and Brother Youngblood wasn't there so we had to stay outside. Sister Youngblood told us we could sit on the back porch so we went around back and we saw a trampoline! So we jumped on it. The jumping turned to us just sitting and talking on it, but it was fun. After dinner Brother Dan Johnson picked us up from the Youngblood's for our exchange.

Saying Goodbye to Elder Schenk

    Wednesday, Elder Schenk was packing for most of the day today, he is getting transferred. It's a bummer, but it's part of the mission. I'm going to miss that kid. Elder Schenk went to Annandale on an exchange and Elder Barnes came here. We went on splits with Brother Altmiller and just had a tough time of it. No one was opening their door.
     Transfer Thursday. We went to the Centreville stake center for transfer meeting and I am staying in Wakefield. My new companion's name is Elder Palmer and he is from Gilbert, Arizona. Well we came back to our area just in time for dinner, which we had at the Staton's home. After dinner we tried a couple of potential investigators, but nobody was home or they just weren't opening their door, anyway, no dice.
     On Friday we did some service first off. We cleaned out this older gentleman's attic and there was some crazy-old stuff up there. Most of the boxes and

 

Goodbye for now to Sister & Elder Rothermel

Elder Palmer & Elder Brady

bags were so old that when we would grab them they would just fall apart, practically disintegrate in our hands. It was pretty nuts. Another crazy thing we found out was that the guy's mother had hid money in some of the boxes and bags and things up there, $48,000 to be exact. After we had lunch we did some weekly planning that took till dinner. After dinner we saw the Jacob Johnson family to introduce Elder Palmer and after that we did some good ole' tracting and finding. We have one promising contact so we will see what happens.
     Saturday we did some more service, we got to finish raking Sister Robertson's leaves. After we had finished we saw that there was a little park behind her house, and well we couldn't resist. After that we had dinner at the Dan Johnson home. The weather was nice so we got some grilled hot dogs, yeah buddy! After dinner we tried some more finding, but we didn't have any luck.
     Sunday morning we had ward council, afterwards we went back to our apartment and decided to take a little nap. I couldn't really fall asleep so I did a little study time. Church was really good, it was the Easter Program so there was a lot of singing but it was great. During the third hour we taught the Priest's Quorum a section from Preach My Gospel and that went really well and was pretty fun. After church we had missionary correlation and then dinner. After dinner we saw some more member families to introduce Elder Palmer and leave a short message with them. It was great to feel the spirit that they have in their homes. Well that was my week, I hope everyone has a good week and I love hearing from you guys!
     ~ Elder Brady

Happy Easter!

     Happy Easter! Hope everyone had a good one and hope it was a good conference for you as well. It was great, I loved conference, I learned a lot. Well here was my last week. So

Elder Brady at the Washington Memorial

on Monday we emailed and then went shopping. After shopping we drove to the metro and took the metro into DC. In DC we walked around and threw the baseball around on The Mall, we were waiting for our time slot to go to the Holocaust Museum. Anyway we played some catch with the baseball and got some cool pictures in front of the Washington Memorial and then we went to the Holocaust Museum. It was really sad. It is pretty crazy some of the videos they have and you just could feel a cloud of sadness once you got into the building but it was really good. They have a lot of information and it makes you think, makes you think a lot. I couldn't help but think how someone could do something like these people did to other human beings. I mean I've learned about the Holocaust in school, but not in that light. It was still good though, we had a good, fun day in DC and we learned a lot.

Elder Brady doing a backflip!

     On our way to district meeting Tuesday, our Zone Leaders called us and told us that there was an escaped, armed convict running around. We saw 4 helicopters and a lot of police cars on our way to the stake center. It was pretty crazy and President Riggs even told us not to do any tracting for the day. Fortunately the guy was caught later that night, but it was still pretty crazy. We went to Eric Honesty's place and read some chapters of the Book of Mormon with him. He really seems to enjoy that so we are going to keep doing that with him.
     Wednesday morning we went with the Zone Leaders to get their car and take it to get fixed so that took up most of our morning. Later that day we had splits with Brother Williams and we got to see about 5 people so that was really good! We even gave a blessing to one of the ladies we stopped by and then when we were getting dropped off, Brother Williams asked if we could give him a blessing so we did. It was awesome!
     Thursday we did some service, we raked leaves for Sister Robertson. Sister Robertson lives alone and is working and going back to school so we decided to help her out. It was a gorgeous day so it was pretty nice to do service, raking leaves and breaking down boxes to recycle. She had a lot of boxes.
     Friday we did some more service, we went with Brother McDonald to rake Sister Rosentrauch's yard. It was rainy and really, really humid and muddy so it wasn't as good as the day before but oh well we still enjoyed doing the service. After that we went to the baptism of one of the little girls in our ward, Sophie Lamb, who just turned 8 and was baptized and confirmed so that was really good! Her siblings, all of them younger, did a musical number and it was so funny and cute. They each had parts of the song to sing and when one sang a part that wasn't theirs the one who's part it was got mad at them. They were pretty funny.
     Saturday was conference! It was so good and so was the Priesthood Session. I don't even know what to say, it was just really good.
     Sunday was conference as well! It was really, really good also. Today we watched it at the Bush's home. We were there for both sessions and then they fed us dinner afterwards, so we spent a lot of time at their house. Some of their family was there and between sessions we helped hide some eggs and the younger kids had an Easter egg hunt. They had a blast and Sister Bush even gave me her nice camera and let me take some pictures! It was pretty awesome!
     ~ Elder Brady

Ball on the Mall

Elders Seely, Robbins, Schenk and Brady