Dead Battery and Yes, I am crying

Hi Everybody,

This week has been another great week out in the mission. We had a baptism this past Friday. It was one of the most beautiful baptisms I have ever seen in my life. It was amazing. I could feel his mom there and so could he. We felt her helping us from the other side as we were teaching him. He was crying because he could feel the spirit so strongly. We all felt so happy.

This week was transfers and Hermana Jahnel and I are STAYING TOGETHER IN CORTEZ! I am happy about that!

Our car stopped working last night.  We had our zone leaders come help us get it started. It was the battery. This morning it wouldn’t start.  Thank goodness for our bikes.

Have you been following Hurricane Erika? We heard there might be something coming but the weather is just fine. Everybody was scared, but I don’t think it will affect us. We were a little disappointed. We were looking forward to a good story to tell. Haha

Today is the 5^th P-day this month. We will get more money in our accounts tomorrow. We will be keeping it very simple this week. Feeling grateful for Top Ramen!

We were teaching a lesson this week and we had a member there with us that was sharing a neat experience which invited the spirit. It was so strong in the room. Then the little girl we were teaching (who is 10) leaned over and asked, ARE YOU CRYING? It took all I had not to die laughing. Little reminders of home.

I spoke in church last Sunday about Charity and Missionary Work. I gave the talk in Spanish. I felt good about it. We have had a lot of referrals but they have been English speaking. Everyone is so busy with school that is had been difficult get in to teach them more than the first lesson. We keep praying hard for an opportunity. I love the people here in Florida!

I enjoy getting letters from those that write! I love you and appreciate your support!

Love,

Hermana Bryan

Zone Conference

Hola,

I have to talk in church next Sunday. And sing. And teach. I am so nervous!! Fifth Sunday's are about missionary work. The branch thinks the best way to do that is have the missionaries do EVERYTHING. I will let you know how it goes.. haha! I am nervous, but I have said my testimony many times in Spanish, so it won't be too hard.

This past week we had zone conference. It was SO GOOD. It was fun to see a lot of the other missionaries. It was nice to see and hear from President Cusick. I love him, he is so great to all of his missionaries. We talked about how this mission is preparing us for the rest of our lives and how if we work hard here we will develop all the tools necessary for handling hard situations for the rest of forever. It was good. We talked about many different topics, the personal revelation that we received from them, and related each one of them to 1 Nephi (the first book in the Book of Mormon- a great starting place. I recommend it). It was really cool.

We received many referrals from Church Headquarters this week. We get them sometimes, but usually people are creeped out that we have their information. This week I called a man and asked him if he would be interested in learning more about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. Usually people say no and hang up, so when he replied, "definitely" I was caught off guard. I said, "What? Really?" which was not the best thing I could have said, but it was my reaction before I could comprehend what was happening. We have an appointment this week with him. Hermana Jahnel and I laughed for a while.

Miracle this week:

Always follow the spirit. Even the smallest promptings can have great impacts. We went to a house this week. We didn't know who lived there or what we were really doing there, but we went. We talked to a woman outside, who told us to wait as she went to get her mom. When her mom came outside she was in tears. She is having a very difficult time in her life and was praying for guidance. She moved to Utah for a few years awhile back and was introduced to the church and was baptized. She moved back to Florida and hadn't been back to church. When we showed up she knew it was a sign from God. She came to church this week and felt the spirit so strongly. We are going to teach her children and baptize them. It was really a cool experience.

Les quiero,
Hermana Bryan

Teaching with Sprite

Hello everybody,

This week has been great!  We have a baptism scheduled for next week. He has been fun to work with because he is so awesome. He reminds me of Grandpa Wehrli, only a Spanish version. hahaha

The Hermanas living with us moved out, it’s really quiet in our apartment now. Have I mentioned how wonderful my companion is? I love her!

Hermana Jahnel is excited to try Thai food and is grateful for you and the recipes you send. She says, “Thank you.”

I wore my skirt on Sunday and got so many compliments. It was nice because it is longer and it is always freezing in the chapel.

We had zone day last Monday. It was really fun. We were in charge of bringing guacamole, but had no time to make it before we went. Luckily we had an hour drive to get there. We made it in the car on the way there and it was actually pretty tasty haha!

We have zone conference this week. We don't know what it will be, but I am super excited.

The new sprite cans are pretty sweet- words of wisdom (: haha

I love you all so much. Thank you for all your support!

Love,

Hermana Bryan

Finding Families and Avoiding Kisses

Hello everyone! 

This week has been so slow compared to the last couple of weeks because so many of our investigators are baptized now and we can only teach them one time a week. We spent a lot of time tracting and finding. So far we haven't had much luck, but we are still trying our hardest. I know that God is preparing a family for us. I just need to find them. 

We have been working with the --------- family this week (the one we found last week). We taught them the plan of salvation and it was crazy. They asked a lot of questions about the spirit world. I can't give a lot of details, but the veil is thin with that family. Also, they came to church and attended a baptism! (: They are so great!! They have already seen the blessings of the gospel in their family. I am loving the front-row seat I have to their progression and the atonement in their lives. It's the greatest thing about being a missionary.

We met a man this week while walking along the boardwalk (so beautiful). We were going to walk to talk to someone else, but I just knew I needed to talk to him, so we did. He went home that night and thought a lot about what we said to him. We called him back a few days later and he is super interested. He said he has seen a lot of anti-mormon movies and literature and whatnot, but he wants to see for himself. He is so nice.

This week I have realized how close and personal all the Hispanics are. Everyone just loves to kiss everyone else. It is so hard when people are just kissing you like it’s a normal thing and you are trying to follow missionary standards. So far backing away awkwardly has worked for me. My companion has an awkward scream she does. It makes me laugh every time.

Lots of drama with the branch missionaries, but I won't go into that. We are getting new ones. We are trying our best to work with the youth. Any ideas for getting people motivated?

This week we were in a meeting and the leaders in the branch kept on saying how we need to get all the Hispanics to come because this branch is for Hispanics and we don't need white people - I sat there feeling very uncomfortable. I wanted to laugh so bad.

Here are some pictures of our baptisms. 

Hope you are all having a great week. Thanks for all of your support!

I love you all!

Hermana Bryan

It's Raining...Blessings

They weather has been so crazy here. It rains every day and it makes it so hard to be productive. Thank goodness we have a million appointments and we don't have to find very much! Below is a picture of Hermana Jahnel and me when we got caught in the rain.

This week we had another baptism!! It was so beautiful. ---------- was confirmed on Sunday and he is so great. He is going to help this branch so much. His testimony is stronger than almost any member we have. He is a future stake president or something. Super solid guy

This Sunday we had 11 nonmembers at church (and some of our investigators weren’t even there! Also, that is not including all of our recent converts, which is well over 10 people). It was so chaotic. Also we had a visit from President Wilson in the mission presidency. I had to translate for him and his wife for some of the day. It was the craziest day ever. Today we received a call and we are probably going to get another companionship in the Cortez branch. I am happy about that.

We found a family this week and they have baptismal dates!! Woohoo I am so happy. Exact obedience really does bring blessings. 

I love you all! Thank you for your support!

Love, 

Sister Jessica Bryan

Baptisms and Humility

I hear nothing but rave reviews of how you are doing.  Thank you for coming.

……………………………………….

MARK CUSICK

This is the email I received from my mission President today!

Here I am again, emailing and forgetting everything I want to say. I really need to start a list. Oh well, here are a few highlights!

Transfers this week. We now have 4 missionaries in our house. It is just Hermana Jahnel and me in our companionship. I love her and she is really helping me with my Spanish- how lucky am I! I have the only native companion!(:

Lesson in humility…

I got pulled over this week :/

I ran a red light- so dumb, but it was actually okay. It was a green for cars going straight on a one-way street (the street I was on) but I was turning left. There was a car that turned the wrong way on my street and almost hit me. So I went with the other cars to get out of there. Then the flashing lights came. Stomach drops and I’m feeling awful. I was so scared, but the cop was nice and just wanted to make sure I was okay. He didn't write me a ticket or anything. It was crazy. I hate driving in Florida. I no longer feel I am a better driver than Hermana Gibson ):

3 BAPTISMS! German, Ana, and Estevan were all baptized. It was great- we sang and had some ward members give talks. I felt a little bad that it was all in Spanish and Estevan had no clue what was going on, but I know he felt the spirit. German was late to his own baptism because of a crazy work schedule, but it was okay.

Estevan wore new church clothes for the first time this Sunday to get confirmed. It was adorable- so handsome. He’s the 8 year old.

It has been raining all week. Hard to be productive.

We had so many miracles this week, it is hard to choose just one. I will share our experience on Thursday. We were low (and when I say low, I mean VERY low) on miles, and could not fall behind schedule. We planned to drive to church with our bikes and go from there. We loaded our bikes on the car and left. When we got to the church, we could not get Hermana Jahnel’s bike off of the car. It was stuck and would not move. It was as if her bike shrunk while on the bike rack. We were using all of our strength and could still not get it off. After 15 minutes of struggling, we finally managed to get it off. We were behind schedule. Both feeling stressed and overwhelmed with the day, we decided to pray. We planned and had done all we could up to this point. It was time to turn our day over to the Lord. We both felt prompted to just take the car, so we did. Just down the street there was a pretty bad fresh accident. We were glad we missed that Not 2 minutes after passing the accident came the rain. It his like a wall and was letting up. I think it might have been raining from the ground up. We were glad we were in the car; otherwise we would have missed our appointment. We made it to all the appointments safely that day and ended the day with a beautiful baptismal service.

Love you all-

Hermana Bryan

PS. Happy Birthday Dad!

Happy Baptism Day!

Good bye Hermana Gibson