Elder & Sister Rothermel's Visit

     Had a pretty good week and I hope you all did as well. I love hearing about your guys' week! So here's how my week went. Monday we went to the mall as a district. We just 

Elder Schenk taking a nap

after playing some catch

walked around and looked at all the stuff we want but can't get because it costs wayyyy too much. Elder Robbins and I always went straight to the hats! It was fun though. Then we went shopping and then to the stake center to email and play basketball like usual. Elder Schenk, Elder Robbins and I tossed the baseball around too. We did our little double play drill and even got another missionary to be a runner so that was fun. We were supposed to have a dinner at a members' home but uhh they forgot and were in Richmond so yeah but it was ok because we did just go shopping. Then we went to see the Bush's but we could only talk with President Bush, Sister Bush was doing some important school work so we weren't able to talk with her.
     Tuesday night we had splits with Brother Monk, and it turned out pretty good. We were able to go see two less-actives, Brother Honesty and Sister Perea. With Brother Honesty we read a couple chapters of the Book of Mormon and talked about them, with Sister Perea we talked with her and her daughter (who is an active member) and just kind of got to know them because they were in the other elders' teaching pool, but now there is only us in the ward so we are still trying to catch up with all their people that they saw.

Eating at a BBQ Restaurant
"Red, Hot and Blue"

     On Thursday the Rothermel's (senior couple in my last area) came up and took Elder Schenk and I out to dinner. It was great and they are awesome! After dinner we went with Brother Ross to go see the Torrico family. This was a family that the other elders were teaching so this is only the second time we have seen them. It didn't work out though because they were all sick and not feeling so hot so we are going to have to wait until next week to see them. After that Elder Schenk and I went to see the Barton's. They are a less-active family that the other elders were seeing so we went to see how they were doing and get to know them better. They are a pretty awesome family and the parents actually just got a calling to be primary teachers so maybe that will get them coming out to church more.

Elder Brady with

Elder & Sister Rothermel

Elder Brady & Elder Schenk

                Friday, during dinner, we got a call from our Zone Leaders. Their car is in the shop and Elder Seely needs to go to the doctor so we went and picked them up and took them to the doctor. Elder Seely and Elder Robbins thought he just had a spider bite that wouldn't go away, but it turned out to be staff infection. Yuck! So after the doctor we went to Wal-Mart to get his prescription and by the time we got that it was time to go home.
     Saturday Morning I went with Elder Seely to Ft. Belvoir. A kid that we taught, his name is Junior, was getting baptized. When we showed up no one was there, we were like ok what's going on. We called Elder Oyler and asked what was up and he said that the night before they had changed the time because of building schedule problems. So instead of getting baptized at 10:00 in the morning like we thought he was getting baptized at 5:00 in the evening and it was even at a different building. So we weren't able to make that but we did go say hi and congratulations to Junior before we left. I was with Elder Seely until dinner doing service so it was just like old times when we were companions.
     At church on Sunday it was the fifth Sunday and we were asked to teach primary, both the junior and senior primary classes. So we taught them about prophets and General Conference and then showed them the church's new video that just came out. It's called "He Lives" and it is really good! I'd encourage everyone to go take a look at it, it's on mormon.org. Anyway, teaching went really well and it was pretty fun. Have a great week this week and a great General Conference! Oh and Happy Easter!!  

     ~ Elder Brady

Working Working

     Hope everyone had a great week this past week! Mine was pretty good and we had some funny stories, so here you go.
     On Monday we went shopping and then emailed. After that we went to a park with a turf field and we tried to play a little football but not as many people showed up as was thought to be coming, so we went to a different park to play some basketball. The hoops were a little shorter so some of us could dunk. There was some local kids there so we got to play against them a little too, it was nice playing someone else rather than other missionaries for a change.
     Tuesday we had district meetings and that was really good. We talked about how we can achieve out goals as a district and what our plans were as companionships. So all day 

We "cleared" the area. Rambo Style.

Elder Schenk, Elder Brady and Elder Grow

today Elder Schenk, Elder Grow, and I played like we were military guys when we came into our apartment. We would go through it and "clear" it, make sure no one was there. It was pretty fun and just changed things up a little.
     Wednesday we had a training meeting. It was about using the Book of Mormon more in our teaching. In Preach My Gospel it says " The Book of Mormon plus the Holy Ghost is our biggest and best conversion tool." So obviously it is pretty important. We also talked about using the pamphlets we have and using them more and, of coarse, iPad Safety. We are no longer in a trio. After the meeting Elder Grow went to a different area because there was a missionary there in a trio as well, so it is now just Elder Schenk and I in our ward.
     Thursday night we went on splits with Brother Mortensen and because he works for the FBI that's pretty much all we talked about. After we knocked on this one door we were sitting in his van just chatting and pulling up the address to our next person to try when we saw someone in the house we just knocked so we went back and knocked again. This time a woman answered the door and after we told her who we were, but before we could really say much she said that we had scared her and her friend. Her friend was walking down the street and was very upset with us. I guess seeing three guys in a dark van isn't the most comforting thing ever. Oops. They weren't the people we were trying to see anyway so....yeah oops.
     Friday, Elder Schenk had a leadership meeting so we were at the church for awhile. When that finished we got back to work. The whole rest of the day we tried doors no one answered. Not a single door. That was a bummer.
     Saturday was a "not much happened day" too. Nothing worked out for us and only a couple people answered their doors but we never got inside.
     Sunday we went to Ward Council in the morning and then after that we went to see a less-active/part-member family. The husband is the member. When we knocked the wife opened up and was all happy and nice and let us come right in. We talked with her for a bit until her husband came out. They are a really nice couple and both want to come back to church but they are going through some things now that make it difficult. They don't know how much church will help that. Anyways, they are really nice and said we are welcome back anytime. We talked with them until it was time for us to go to church. I decided to wear my glasses to church and I guess that threw some people off. I had at least four people come up and ask if I was a  new elder. It was pretty funny.
     Well love you guys!
     ~ Elder Brady

Wakefield District
Elders Brady, Chan, Barnes, Seely, Schenk, Grow, Robbins

Good Week

     Hellooooo everyone! Hope you all are doing good and have had a great week. Well here's my past week in a nutshell. Monday we had our Zone Activity. We all got some PVC 

Trio at Church with new haircuts

Elders Brady, Grow & Schenk

pipe and nerf darts and had like a nerf war! Well of was more of like a zombie apocalypse and if you got tagged you were a zombie but it was awesome. After that we had a district dodgeball tournament, so all the districts were their own team and it was a double elimination tournament. Finally we played a little basketball like always. We cut our hair tonight, Elder Schenk cut mine and I cut his and Elder Grow's hair now we are all look in' pretty fresh.
     Tuesday was Zone Training and it was a lot of stuff about faith. We were put into groups and given scriptures to read that told a story and all of them went back to faith. We need to have faith in the Lord but we also need to have faith in ourselves. We are capable of so much more than we think and when we can't do anymore the Lord is there to do what he can. He really will help us through our struggles and trials and he will help us to become more than we are now.
     On Wednesday we were helping out the other elders a lot by driving them to some of their appointments. I felt like a taxi except I didn't get any money out of the ordeal. I don't think I would like that job very much, I don't want to be a taxi driver. That's why you go to school!
     Thursday we got our very own iPads! We bought these ones and will take them home with us after the mission. We are also going to be receiving training to help us in using the iPads and our online proselyting efforts to become more efficient and effective so our mission will not be on Facebook for awhile. We don't know exactly when we will be back on Facebook but the target area is about a month or so of no Facebook. So until then if you want to contact me you can always email or write!
     On Friday we had lunch with our Zone Leaders, Elder Robbins and Elder Seely, at a park. We started throwing the baseball around a little too. Eventually that lead to rolling double plays and putting ourselves into scenarios. That then lead to us doing fly balls which took us to long bomb diving catches. We happened to be doing this on a turf field and we also happened to be in our shirts and ties... Yeah that happened. It was really fun though! Later that night Elder Schenk and I got a new investigator! Her name is Maggie and she was a referral from our Zone Leaders. She is from Ghana and has a 14 year old daughter we might be teaching as well so we are super excited for this next week to get to go see them.

     Saturday there was an ET. (Emergency Transfer) One of the other Elders in our ward, and quite a few other missionaries, got moved around. Now we are in a trio! It is still Elder Schenk and I and now we have Elder Grow. He is from Grantsville, Utah and actually came out with Elder Schenk. It is pretty interesting having three guys in our tiny apartment...we are pretty crammed but hey it's pretty fun so no complaining here.
     On Sunday we went to church and I was pretty tired. I almost fell asleep in sacrament meeting but I made it! Gospel Principles class was really good today though. We talked about the Creation. It was interesting to see how much eternal families are actually incorporated into the creation. It was just a really good class. I love how important families are in the gospel, I mean it is the most important unit here on earth. Families are Forever! Speaking of families, happy anniversary to my parents! You're the best! Well I hope everyone has a good week and thanks for all the support!
     ~ Elder Brady

Potentials Down

     Hey everyone! Going to jump straight into the email for you. Monday we did the usual shopping then emailing and ball at the stake
center. President Riggs came and played ball with us again so that was
fun. Later that night we tried some potentials and couldn't find any
of them, after that we went to the Bush's house. We were talking about
family search and we actually got onto it and did the "Famous
Relative" search. One person I found I'm related to that I remember is
Steve Young! So that was pretty cool and interesting everyone should
give it a shot and see what comes up.

     On Tuesday Elder Robbins came here on an exchange. We got to go out on
splits with Brother Jacobson. We saw a less-active and her son and
talked to them, she wanted us to give him a blessing but he didn't
want us to so we just talked with them and made sure they were doing
alright. After that we went and saw a lady that Brother Jacobson home
teaches, got to talk to her and she was a really funny lady. It was
pretty sweet.

     Wednesday we had six missionaries at our apartment while we skinnied
one of my ties, I guess it takes that many to get the job done! It was
good bonding time at least.

Elders Grow, Schenk & Brady Making Snow Fort S'mores

     It snowed a lot on Thursday. Dumped so much on us that we were "snowed
in." We couldn't really do anything but try and shovel some cars out
but it snowed all day. We started having some fun and I bellyflopped
then got buried! Have fun even in not so good conditions.

     Friday at lunch we made a little snow fort around a fire-pit area.
Then we started a fire and roasted some marshmallows at 1:00 in the afternoon! I'm pretty sure some people were kind of concerned as to
what was going on.... Spent most of the night trying to find some
potentials and we struck out again. We aren't doing so good in that
part of missionary work at the moment.

     Saturday Elder Schenk and I went with Elder Seely and Elder Robbins to
a different church meeting. The church was called "Christ Crossman
United Methodist Church." The meeting was about the disasters in
Madagascar and it was the Malagasy community so we were the only white
people there. It was....different. That night we had the ward chili
cook-off and we got to be the judges! That was a really fun night, got
to have a lot of chili and got to decide the "winner." It was a good
get- together and we had quite a few non-members come too so that was
good. Got to meet some of the people we didn't know and some friends
of the ward members who we actually might end up teaching! Invite,
always invite!

     Sunday we were at the church from 8:30 in the morning until 4:00 in
the afternoon. We had ward council meeting before church and then ward
correlation with the ward missionaries after. It was long but it was a
good day. By far the warmest and nicest day in a long time so we all
enjoyed that. Hopefully it keeps going like this, nicer weather makes
missionary work just a bit easier to say the least.

Well hope everyone has a great week! 

     ~ Elder Brady

Interviews

     Hey ever-body! Hope you had a great week and that everything is going
well. Things here are going pretty good, always doing work. Well
here's my past week, it is a little shortened, but this is what I got
for now.

So Monday we did the regular thing, we went shopping then went and
emailed and played ball.

     On Tuesday we were seeing potential investigators and we were getting
shut down right and left. A little bit after 8:00 p.m we finally found
one that seemed even a little interested. She listened to us teach a
little about the Restoration and she took a pamphlet, plus we got a
return appointment so that was a nice end to the day.

     Wednesday we had a big whole mission meeting about online proselyting.
They talked about how to stay safe and to better proselyte online. We
are getting new iPads and they have new systems so we were being told
about that too. After that we took an elder to the hospital that
needed to get an X-Ray for his wrist, it wasn't broken so that good,
but that took us about 4 hours so that was pretty much our day. We did
get to see one less-active though.

     Thursday we finally got in touch with a potential that we have been
trying to contact since I've been in the area, so we went and talked
to him and it was good. He's a big, bald guy with a beard and a lot of
tattoos...kind of intimidating but he's cool! His name is Dave Gamble. We talked about Joseph Smith and answered some questions he had and
some of them were pretty challenging but we must have done something
right because he invited us back. Later that night we had a lesson
with the Sanchez family about the Gospel of Jesus Christ pamphlet. It
was really good, the spirit was so strong. They are an awesome little
family and its a bummer that they are moving next week, they're really
fun to see.

     We had interviews with President Riggs on Friday. While Elder Schenk
was in with president I was with our Zone Leaders and they asked me
how I want to feel about my mission when I go home. What is a goal
that I have. My answer really got me thinking, not just about what I
want to happen during my mission but during life. I'm going to ask you
all the same question, "How do you want to feel about your life, what is a goal you have?"
Just think about that, and then evaluate what you're doing, and how you
are coming on accomplishing that.
Remember, turn to God in all things!

     ~ Elder Brady

6 Months!

     Hey everybody hope you all had a good week. Here's what happened in my past week, or most of what happened anyway. On Monday I was with Elder Robbins in the morning because Elder Schenk was getting his hair cut so Robbins and I went to the mall. We walked around and almost every store we went into we went straight to the hat racks. It's a miracle neither of us bought anything. Then we went and got Schenk and then emailed and to the stake center for basketball. We were going to be late for dinner so we went straight there after ball and we had to change in the car. Schenk's hair was a mess so he tried to use snow to get it wet and actually made it look a little better. It was pretty funny and we were laughing and finishing getting ready walking up to the doorstep.
     Tuesday we were driving to dinner and got lost, well we went to the wrong restaurant. The place we were supposed to go was the opposite direction and we were running on a pretty much empty gas tank. Got the car gassed up and made it to dinner even if we were a little late.
     Wednesday morning we went to the other Elders' apartment so Elder Robbins could cut Elder Belliston's hair. For dinner we went to the Ellsworth's and afterwards Brother Ellsworth asked if we could help him make these peanut butter/cornflake cookie things so we did. It was funny to see three of us missionaries making cookies, they probably shouldn't have turned out very good, but they did! On our way home we were at a stoplight when two fire trucks, sirens blaring, came up behind us. We were turning left, but the light was still red. Schenk made the decision that didn't matter so we starting turning, almost hit a car, almost went down the wrong side of the road, but got back on the right side and everything worked out great! We were laughing all the way home that big.

     Transfers were on Thursday. Elder Robbins got a new companion, it's Elder Seely! (my trainer) He is now the other Zone Leader here. It's crazy they got put together again because earlier they had been companions for two transfers already, but that's cool. Elder Schenk and I are still companions so that's a good thing.

Burning a tie on my 6 month mark,

20 February 2015.

     Friday morning we were at the church for a little meeting for Zone leadership and all of a sudden the alarm started going off. There was this loud noise in the chapel. It was water pouring down on the stand! A pipe broke or something and the whole chapel ended up being flooded, the fire department came and everything. It was a good thing we were there or who knows what would have happened. It was also my six months today so i burned a tie! We just went out on our back patio and had us a little pyro fun.

Elder Brady, Elder Oyler, Elder Peterson, 
Brother Noonan, Nathaniel, Jason Doyle, Natalie, 
Elder Johnson, Elder Seely, and Elder Robbins

                Saturday we traveled to Ft. Belvoir! It 
was Jason Doyle's baptism!!! It was awesome and he had so many people show up, a good part was all the missionaries that have taught him. He has gone through a lot of us, but he finally got baptized! It was so great and I got to say the opening prayer. It was so cool to see him get baptized and to see how excited he was. He had so much support from the people of the ward too, it was amazing. On our way back it snowed really good so by the time we got back we weren't supposed to drive. So Schenk and I walked around and pushed cars up hills when they got stuck. Then we shoveled and scraped the snow off of all the cars in our parking lot.
     Sunday was really nice, it was sunny and like 40-some degrees. We went to church and 

More Snow!

then had correlation afterwards. We talked about the ward mission plan and how we can get the ward in on the plan. Our ward mission leader is super excited for the plan and can't wait to get everyone on board for it, it should be good. I love all you guys! Remember everyone can use some help here and there. 
     ~ Elder Brady

Snowwwww!

     It's been a good week this week. We've got multiple days of snow which I am stoked about, the only thing is Elder Schenk is the designated driver and being from California he has never driven in snow, but we haven't crashed yet, he's doing good!
     So Monday was the regular Monday, we went shopping then emailed and then played some basketball. We stayed at the Zone Leaders' place again because our floor is still messed up. It was pretty sweet though we got to party ha, not really, but it's just different so it was nice.
     Tuesday we almost died. We were crossing a street and this car didn't see us I guess and so it started going and almost rocked us! It was crazy! Being us though, we just took off running and laughing, arguing who would have died first. We couldn't make up our mind on that though.
     Wednesday night we were staying at the Zone Leaders' place again. Elder Robbins left the back door unlocked so we snuck in and decided we were going to scare Elder Walters. We went through the kitchen, around to his desk and ran up behind him yelling! Made him jump so we did what we wanted to do!!
     Skipping to Saturday. In the morning we played some football with some of the youth and that was fun, nice to throw the ball around some. After that we helped a member move in, and they actually moved into our apartment complex so we didn't have to go to far. Had Stake Conference tonight too and it was really good. Talked about families and family councils and how they resemble/parallel heaven, it was really, really good!
     Sunday we had some more Stake Conference and it was about the Atonement a lot, which is always good. We had dinner at the Stephenson's and I was told I had a Boston accent. That's the second time on my mission someone has told me that, haha I think it's pretty funny. Anyway that's about all I got for this week.
     Hope everyone has a great week!
     ~ Elder Brady