Turkey Dayyy!!!

     Hey everyone I hope you had a good week and a great thanksgiving! It was a good one out here for me anyway.

     On Monday for P-Day we had our zone activity and we had a thanksgiving lunch that we all made food for. Elder Kerr and I made rolls won the zone leaders and we made a ton! It took us way too long but they turned out good and everyone liked them so it was ok. After the lunch
we played some volleyball and that was pretty fun because we had the whole zone playing on two different courts so it wasn't just a couple of us playing.

     Tuesday and Wednesday we were doing service for Brian Doran, he got three more deer so we fleshed another hide on Tuesday and then set it out for the night. The next day we went back and salted that hide and then we started building a tepee to smoke the hide we've been working on for a while now. First we built a tepee and then we hoisted the whole thing up onto a couple of ladders to get it up around the smoke stack of his smoker. It was uhh....pretty redneck. We decided it wouldn't work too well so we took the tepee down and just put it over a little fire pit he had and started smoking the hide. We being guys though we don't know what low heat is....we charred the hide and melted the poles it was hanging on so they were bending in half. It didn't workout the way we wanted it to, but we are figuring things out.

     Thanksgiving Day!! Turkey day was awesome! We went to the turkey bowl in the morning and there was a lot of people there, I was surprised by how many showed up. After that we went down to Elder Kerr's last area and helped a lady with some service and had a big lunch with a bunch
of other missionaries and some non members at their house so that was cool. Got back to our area and Brian picked us up to go have dinner at their place but first we went to Wal-Mart, it was crazy. There was 3 cop cars there and the front was barricaded down into a little alleyway like thing by some metal barriers...good ole Wal-Mart, preparing for the apocalypse. Brian was getting some stuff they needed and he bought Elder Kerr and I a shirt and a sweatshirt each, it was pretty sweet.

     Saturday was a great day! We got to go back to Elder Kerr's last area and see two people he taught get baptized! It was awesome and then when we got back to our area our zone was in the middle of a Finding Fest so we spent the rest of the day finding. It all worked out though because we found a family to teach! They are from Mongolia and are an awesome family, the mom is super nice and the oldest boy is 17, next is a 9 year old girl and a 6 year old boy. So now we have a family of three to teach and we are going back on Wednesday to start. It's going to be awesome.

     Sunday was also a really good day, we went back to Elder Kerr's last area and he got to confirm one of the people that got baptized a member of the church. It was super cool and there was soo many people there to support both who got baptized. I don't think I've seen that many people in the chapel in a long time, it was awesome!

     So this week was really good and I have so much to be thankful for. I hope everyone sees the little things in their lives and is thankful for them all. It's the little things in life and the people in your life that matter most. At least that's what I think. Well I hope y'all have a great week.

     ~ Elder Brady

P.S. Sorry for no pictures, I don't think I even took any...too busy with everything. I'll get some for next week though.

Service!

NRA Museum

     Hey everyone I hope your week was pretty good! This week was good for us and we got to do quite a bit of service, so it was sweet! Last Monday, for P-Day, we went to the NRA (National Rifle Association) museum and that was awesome! There was soooo many guns there it was great! We had to hustle through it, but Elder Kerr and I could have spent hours in there.
     Throughout the week we had some service opportunities and this week was one of my favorites of my mission. We got to help Brian Doran (a nonmember) tan a deer hide!! We scraped all the extra meat and fat from the hide and then stretched it out. It took sooo long, but it was fun. After we stretched it out we made a concoction of eggs, mayo, and vegetable oil and rubbed it on the hide. It wasn't the best smelling thing, but hey it was still fun.

Tanning the deer hide

     Another service we did was for a member who is selling their house and moving. We went and raked the leaves for her so she could do an open house this weekend. Elder Kerr was using a blower and a chipmunk ran in front of him, he looked at me and I looked at him and it clicked, we dropped everything and started trying to catch the dang thing! We weren't quite fast enough though and it got away. It started sprinkling rain so we had to hurry and finish before the storm hit, so we were working hard.
     Later in the week we went back to Brian's and worked on the hide again, this time we had to soften it up so we rubbed it back and forth on a tree. After that we stretched it again and then rubbed it with the oil. We then helped him put all the screens back in his windows and took care of a neighbor's lawn who is in Vegas for the winter.
     We had a couple lessons this week but nothing spectacular. We did have an investigator come to church for the first time in a longgggg time, so that was good! All together it was a good week and a fun week. I hope y'all have a great week and a great Thanksgiving!

     ~ Elder Brady

Good Weather

     Hey hey, how's everybody? How are things going? Things out here are going pretty good and the weather is in the 50s so it's not bad yet, well my companion sometimes says different. It's ok though he's from Mew Mexico and says he's cold blooded, he's just not used to cold yet. Well unfortunately not much in the way of missionary work happened this week, we did get a couple lessons (three to be exact) and saw two potentials but other than that it's been tough. People are either gone or won't return our calls or just don't want us to come and see them anymore, it makes me sad that people don't want something that will change their lives for the better but we can't force them. Sometimes I wish we could haha. We also had Zone Conference and Zone Training which they were good but they were pretty long. I enjoyed them though, they are always good and you can learn a lot from them.

Elder Kerr and Elder Brady at the Marrriott Ranch
a couple weeks ago.

     Our phone broke during the week so we had to go to the office and get a new one and while we were there we asked President Huntsman if we could borrow the roping dummy that is at the Mission Home and he let us so we went and got that, it's pretty sweet. That's what we do before bed, we sit and rope the thing.
     Well hopefully yall had a more eventful week then we did. I hear there's some snow back home, I'm really missing that stuff. We will see how soon it snows here but so far it's not looking like it'll be anytime soon. Well let me know how you guys are doing and what's going on in your lives. Have a good week!
     ~ Elder Brady 

Short Week

     Hey everybody hope y'all are doing good! I'm doing pretty good and things are going pretty good so it's pretty good! Well this is going to be another short email because it's only been four days since I last emailed so yeah, short week.
     So we had our last Preparation day on Thursday because of the half mission conference on Monday. Anyway on Thursday we did our shopping and emailing and then went to the church and played some volleyball, which got pretty intense. Before volleyball Elder Kerr and I found some wheelchairs and played a little wheel chair basketball, it was really fun and it was a workout, got the shoulders burning. Met with an Egyptian family that is investigating the church, hopefully they will be coming to church this week!
     On Friday we had leadership meeting in the morning. Leadership meeting is where the District Leaders in the zone and the Sister Training Leaders all meet together with the Zone Leaders and talk about things we can do to help the missionaries in our districts. After the meeting we went with the Zone Leaders to the house of an investigator of the sisters and dedicated the house and gave the woman's little boy a blessing. He was moving around and squirming in the beginning, but towards the end he relaxed and didn't move around so much, it was awesome.
     Saturday we spent most of the day trying to figure out ways to get some of our investigators to church. It's really difficult when people don't have cars, I'll tell you what. It was a rough day.
     Sunday was good except none of our investigators made it to church, that was a bummer, but sometimes things happen. Church was pretty good and we had a sweet dinner with a cool young family, the Thomas's, so it wasn't a bad day at all.
     I think that's going to be it for this week, I miss y'all and hope everything is going well for ya. I love hearing from everyone too, it's the best! Stay Happy and Stay Strong! Love the Gospel.     ~ Elder Brady

Transfers/Halloween!

Shower in the $8 million home.

     Hey hey everyone hope y'all are doing good! This past week and a half has been pretty good. There was quite a few things that happened so I'll just touch base on some of them. It will be a shorter email though, sorry!
     Last week we found out I was getting transferred which was kind of a bummer because I was only in my last area for one transfer (six weeks) and transfers were the 29th, right before Halloween. It was okay though because I was pretty excited for who my next companion was going to be, Elder Kerr! If you remember a couple weeks ago Elder Kerr and I got to go on an exchange for a "special assignment," we got to go to the Marriott Ranch and teach people how to rope. So getting called to be companions with him was kind of awesome, members and other missionaries call us the two cowboys haha it's pretty sweet! I also got called to be District Leader which is kind of cool as well.

Culverts under the highway,

yes there is water in them.
     Anyway transfers happened and then it was basically Halloween, for Halloween our whole zone got together at a member's home in our Zone Leader's Ward and ate dinner, played games, and watched a movie. We watched the movie called Cokeville, which is pretty good. It's about a true story of what they call the Miracle at Cokeville, it was like a hostage situation, it's really good and it would be a good movie to watch, just saying. Also before dinner we walked around in a house that is being built, it's taken four years (it isn't finished yet) and it costs $8 million! It was a huge, beautiful house.

     Well the rest I could write about would just be random stuff like we wanted to find a shorter walk back to our apartment from an appointment so we walked through some culverts under a major highway and that kind of thing. It's just been a pretty good week and I hope everyone else is having a good week as well.

     ~ Elder Brady

Oh my new address is: 3212 Arrowhead Circle, Apt. C, Fairfax, VA 22030

Elder Oyler and I

Played football on the mall in DC