Transfers

     Hey everyone I hope ya'll are doing great! I had a pretty good week this past week. On Monday we went shopping and than emailed for a little bit, and then we headed off to a park that was right next to a lake. We fished some but we didn't catch anything, we did get a couple of bites though and could see some fish....they were just playing with us. Oh well, it was still pretty fun and when the rest of the elders showed up we played some basketball on a court right by the lake. After that we were all pretty much dying so we had about 20 missionaries just sitting/laying in the shade. It was a pretty fun day. 

Elder Palmer, Elder Huang, Elder Chan & Elder Brady
I have no clue what we are doing...

      Tuesday we had to run to the Mission Office and while we were there we printed off a picture of one of the Assistants, actually a couple, and put them in random places so he could find them when he came in today. In the evening we had splits with President Bush and on our way to an appointment we ran into this guy having trouble with his bags, so we helped him and started talking with him, and boy could he talk! He probably talked for a good 30 minutes without us saying a whole sentence, it was pretty intense. We finally got to our appointment and read some chapters of the Book of Mormon with Eric Honesty. On our way back to the car we talked to a guy from Iraq who had a crazy story, the Taliban blew up his house! His story was pretty dang scary and crazy and awesome. I said goodbye to President and Sister Bush tonight because I knew I was going to be transferred, they are so cool. 

Elder Brady, Sister Gray (Cole Hansen's cousin),
and Elder Blanchard

     Wednesday we had Zone Training and that was good. After lunch I packed a little and then we did some service for Shanda Robertson, we mowed her lawn. After dinner we had splits with Bro. Stranger and we went to the Centreville stake center to do some more indexing with Bro. Kepple, it was way fun. When we got back I packed some more, gotta love packing.

     Thursday was transfers and to start it off our car wouldn't start, the battery was dead. We finally found someone with jumper cables (it's amazing how many people don't have them here!) and got the car going and all loaded up. We were just in time too, Elder Palmer had a trainer's meeting so we had to be at the Centreville Stake Center at 8:30....transfers didn't start until 1:00.....so I got to just chill, all by my lonesome till transfers, it was kind of weird. Anyway, I got transferred to the Goose Creek Area in Leesburg and my new companion is Elder Scott Merrill from Salt Lake City, Utah. 

     Friday morning I finished unpacking after we got back from the gym. This gym is by far the nicest one I've been to on my mission, it's pretty sweet so I'm stoked about that. The Zone Leaders came and switched cars with us and then we did some weekly planning. After dinner we stopped by the Smith's (all four of us elders) and they ended up feeding us because they hadn't eaten yet, thank goodness! I was starving because there is like no food in this apartment and it was just awesome. Worked out perfectly.

     Saturday we went to lunch with the other elders because we all don't really have any food so yeah. Then Elder Merrill and I tried some less-actives and got some return appointments set up. We then went to the leasing office to sync the area book and call some potentials to see when we could meet with them. Before dinner we tracted some and saw the Canigiani family, Bro. Canigiani is a recent convert, but the rest of his family are all Catholics. After dinner we saw this guy shooting hoops so we shot around with him and talked some, it was pretty cool. Then we went to see the Todd's and they are sweet! They have six kids, two girls and four boys, one boy is on a mission so they are pretty awesome to the missionaries. 

Practice teaching in primary

     On Sunday we had Ward Council in the morning and then we came back to our apartment for lunch. Church starts at 1:00 and at 12:00 we got a text asking if we could teach a primary class......sure. We taught the 8 & 9 year olds, and it was sweet! We actually had them do a practice teach, so we had one be the investigator and two were missionaries and they loved it. They are way too smart for how old they are. After Church we had dinner with the Larsen's and then we went to meet a less-active family, the Deutschmann's. To end the night we went to the Scott's because Brandon Scott was opening his mission call, he is going to the Spain, Madrid Mission. It was way cool because he had a lot of non-member friends there. That was my week, I hope you all had a great week as well! My new address is:

          Elder Zac Brady

          43850 Heatherstone Terrace
          Unit #210
          Lansdowne VA, 20176

     Have an awesome week and I hope to hear from you!

     ~Elder Brady

Annandale Zone! 

Skype Home!

     This week was pretty good and I got to Skype home so it made it that much better! Monday started off freaking awesome! At the gym Elder Chan was running on the treadmill and I guess the workout he picked put the incline all the way up, so it started going up and I heard him say " woooowwww!" When I asked him what he was doing he said, "I'm going to the moon!" I died laughing! Anyway we then went shopping and did some emailing and then headed to the park for our Zone Activity. We had a BBQ and played some ultimate frisbee, football, catch with a baseball and lacrosse, it was a pretty fun day. I even got quite a bit of sun, getting that farmer's tan. We had dinner at the Guzman's house and they are pretty cool, we had some more BBQ stuff so we got our fill of that but it was a good day.
     Tuesday we had a half-mission conference and it was really good. It was a lot of talk about being bold, being bold with everything. Bold with the scriptures, bold with prayer, pretty much be bold with and about everything. The conference took all afternoon so when we got back it was dinner time, after dinner we had splits with Bro. Jacob Johnson which went well. We went to see Eric Honesty and read out of the Book of Mormon with him and then talked about his mom who is in rehab. Then we went to the Kepple's and talked with them, it was Bro. Johnson's first time meeting them so that was good.

Sitting on the front porch, waiting for dinner.

     On Wednesday we had a good district meeting which was all about the Book of Mormon. I even got to teach a part of it, I taught on "The Book of Mormon Testifies of Christ" from Preach My Gospel, I think I even did a good job haha. During the afternoon we did some tracting but nothing really solid came of it. We went to a member's home for dinner but they were late so we sat on their porch as it started to rain and tried to quote movies, I don't know how well we actually did though. After dinner we got to do some indexing with Bro. Kepple (The less-active guy we see) and that was awesome. He does family history every Wednesday night but hasn't come to church in years, kind of weird.
     Thursday something happened and we just weren't feeling so good. We finally decided to go to the library and then we went to the Leasing Office and had a lesson with a new investigator named Belinda, who we just met the other day. The lesson was kind of all over the place, partly because we weren't feeling so hot and partly because she had lots of questions on different things, it was a pretty good lesson though. In the evening we went on splits with Bro. Cabatingan (our Ward Mission Leader) and we first taught the Torrico family, who committed to read the Book of Mormon and come to church next week, and then we stopped by to see John Teagon we just just helped move into the ward last week.
     On Friday we had Weekly Planning so that took up all the afternoon. We had dinner at the Cabatingan's home and the kids were kind of wild today, it was super funny. After dinner we taught the two young Sampson boys, Jesse (9) and Christopher (8), but before the lesson we shot some hoops with them and they seemed to really like that. After that we had a lesson with the Barton's and that was awesome, they are just a great young family. The two girls we are teaching, Eva (9) and Adriana (7) always have great questions that you wouldn't expect from someone that young and the youngest girl, Siena (4) is just hilarious!
     On Saturday we taught Belinda again but this time we taught her in a member's home, the Hyde's. They are a young couple and the lesson seemed to go pretty good, Sis. Hyde was great with Belinda and seemed to connect well so it was good. After the lesson we had Sis. Cliff cut our hair and it looks a lot better than when we do it ourselves! After dinner we met this guy named Mr. Z. He is really weird.... The whole time we were there he was telling us how bad everything was and complaining about his landlord, we were just sitting there thing we can't really help with that. It was pretty interesting.
     Sunday was Mother's Dayy!!! Happy Mother's Day! We went to church and it was good, of course it was all about mothers but that's how it's supposed to be. After church Elder Palmer skyped his family so I tried to keep myself entertained, good thing I found a toy plane in the nursery! Score! We then went the Mortensen's for dinner and it was another BBQ! The weather is definitely starting to get people excited, but it was good because there was multiple families there and it was just a good time. After dinner I got to skype home, yeah buddy! That was super awesome and fun! I loved it! That was my week in a nutshell and it was pretty good, I hope everyone is doing well and Happy Mother's Day! (Yesterday) Love ya'll.
     ~ Elder Brady

Annandale Zone

Palmer's Allergies

     Well to start off the week, Monday we forgot our keys in our apartment and were locked out. What a start. So we went to the leasing office and got a spare set of keys to get into our apartment, the. We took the spare set back and went shopping. After shopping we went to the stake center to email and play basketball. After ball we took the Chinese Elders, Elder Huang and Elder Chan, to the shop to get their car. Then it was dinner time. After dinner Elder Palmer wasn't feeling too hot so we had to stay in the rest of the night.

Elder Palmer & Elder Brady spreading
mulch for Marty, a nonmember friend.

     On Tuesday we took our car to get a Safety and Emissions Test so it would actually be legal for us to drive....Then we did some service for a non-member named Marty. We spread mulch all over her front yard, the beginning of our mulch spreading business. After dinner we had splits, but they actually turned into real splits. We had two lessons at the same time so I went with Bro. Carlile to one and Elder Palmer went with Bro. Bush to one. Wednesday we had District Meeting and it was good, like always, then we went back to do service for Marty and finish up her yard. Spreading the mulch took all afternoon but it was nice to get some work in. After dinner we dropped by people's homes to set up times for us to come back because no one is answering our calls, we got a couple return appointments so hopefully they all work out.

     Thursday Palmer's allergies attacked him. He was not feeling good at all so the morning and afternoon we were inside, we had an exchange with Bro. Jung though so he dragged himself out of bed for that. We got to see some people so it was worth it. I also got to give a blessing to a less-active guy that's having a hard time with mobility in his leg so that was pretty cool.
     On Friday Palmer was pretty sick still so we were back to staying in our apartment. The Zone Leaders showed up to see how he was doing because he was supposed to go to the temple with Elder Robbins later. He pulled himself out of bed and we grabbed some dinner then He and Elder Robbins left for the temple and I was with Elder Seely. It was awesome to serve with my first companion again! We taught a lesson to Jesse Sampson and that went really well but everything else for the night fell through. No biggie though, we talked about when we were back in Ft. Belvoir together and we were laughing a lot! It was great.

     On Saturday we helped a part-member couple move in and the truck was the biggest moving truck I've ever seen, and it was packed to the rafters. We opened the door and it 

Elder Seely & Elder Brady on splits

was a solid wall of stuff, floor to ceiling, all the way from one end of the truck to the other. Whoever packed that truck was a master Tetris player. After the move we went to get some meds for Elder Palmer because he is still getting crushed by his allergies, then we went to the ward dinner, auction and talent show. It was a fundraiser for the youth activities this summer so all the young men were dressed up and in bow ties serving dinner and all the young women were doing talents. There wasn't as many young men that did talents, I guess that sounds about right though. It was pretty fun though.
     Sunday was fast and testimony meeting and it was really good. After church we had dinner with the Lamb's and then we watched a little bit of "Spoken Word" with them so that was pretty neat. After that we had a mini-exchange just for the night, Elder Palmer went with Elder Johnson and I was with Elder Sanders again! We taught the Barton's the Plan of Salvation and it went really well, their little girls are way smart. Eva is super excited to be baptized and it's cool to see the family get involved. Then we went to see the Wongshaiboon family because Elder Sanders had a meeting set up with them and that went pretty good, we got some Thai food so yeah it was good. After that we switched back to our own companions and that was the night. Have a great week!
      ~ Elder Brady

Elder Brady relaxing for a moment.