They Were Able to Feel the Spirit and That is What Touched Them

Hello everyone!

I am doing very well. The other night we ate at the Watt's who are are young couple in the ward with one little girl named Lucy (I think) who is like 9 months old. Brother Watts went on a mission to Indiana and Sister Watts is from Draper Utah. They are very nice. It seems like a lot of the families we eat dinner at are either young and have no kids or are old and have no kids at home. We have had some with members who have a few kids. We have been with different members homes since I have been here. After dinner we always share a message with them. The other night at the Watts was a very good experience. We were sharing a message about the Book of Mormon and the importance that it is to us. During the lesson Sister Watts expressed great thanks for our message and got a little emotional. They have had a busy summer trying to handle all of the stresses of work, school and raising a child. She said it wasen't very often she got to relax and feel of the spirit. It was a good reminder to me that us as missionaries do little of the teaching. We hadn't shared anything profound or new to them, but they were able to feel the spirit and that is what touched them. We were also able to get some good advice from brother Watts. He is a very smart man and had some good insights. A scripture he shared that I liked was Ether 3:5. It talks about how God does mighty works, but often times they look small unto the understanding of man. It goes along with another scripture in Alma 37:6 talking about how by small and simple means are great things come to pass. As far as the food I have had here I love all of it! I havent had to turn anything down yet so hopefully it stays like that!

At this time I can't really think of anything that I really need, I still have letter writing materials and am well set on that. Currently I still have a lot of cash left and I dont really spend money all that often. For the gift cards, Jimmy Johns might be a good idea. We dont really eat out a lot but if you send cards I deffenatley will use them. I am also considering getting a GPS here shortly. I have been on exchange with some elders who had one and it is really convinent. The ones they had were just normal ones like we had in our car at home. I was wondering what your ideas about that were? Maybe if you have time you could look at the GPS's they have at Walmart, that would be great!

It sounds like the last week has been fun between Josh at EFY and the Rodeo and the camping trip. I really do miss doing fun activities like that sometimes. It sounds like the weather up there is hot too, it has gone down to the 90's here but has been really humid lately. We also had some rainstorms that I will send you a picutre of the results of that.

It is interesting that you mentioned brother Adam's talk. In Gospel principles, Elder Peck and I gave a lesson on Sabbath day observance. A good question to ask ourselves is "How sacred can we make it"? Not "What is the minnimum ammount of things I have to do on sunday to keep it holy." It is something we all are working on, and it is amazing how my perspective of the Sabbath day has changed since I have been out here. I think that question can be applied to everything we do in life, how sacred can we make scripture study? How sacred can we make fasting? There are all kinds of ways to apply it in our life and the more we do, the more God will bless us.

This last week has been pretty good. We are teaching a 17 year old kid named Gordon, who is the grandson of a member of the ward. He has a lot of potential and wants to be baptized. Hopefully in the next few weeks we will be able to have him ready for baptisim. Brother Champion (The one who was baptized on the 3rd) is going to be getting the Aaronic priesthood on sunday!! It is really exciting to see him progress in the gospel. Brother Kinder who I have told you about before continues to progress toward becoming an Elder, he still texts us every time he reads and he is excited to continue to grow in the Gospel. We also had an interesting experience last Monday. We were walking over to Walmart and started teaching a homeless man named Frank who was on the median thing in the middle of the street. We have taught him one lesson and talked to him another time. Unfortunatley because of his situation, he is hard to track down, but it will be interesting to see how everything works out.

Well I need to get going, but I really love you all and I look forward to hearing more about your week next week.

Stay awesome!

Love Elder Brayden Mortensen

Pictures from the Storm