Elder Brayden Mortensen: They Have All Been Prepared By The Lord

Dear Family and Friends,

This was a great week. Thank you for all of the birthday wishes and cards! I really do appreciate all of the love and support I feel coming from home. Thursday was great! In the morning we did our weekly planning as usual. After that we went and taught a few lessons and then went to dinner with one of Brother Warren's non member friends Trish. She made us a gumbo soup and it was really really good! It is probably my favorite soup now. After that we ate the cake Brother Warren got for us, they were amazing cakes! Ill make sure to send you a picture of them. After that, I did get to play the guitar for a while. It was really good to share the music with others. Surprisingly, I could remember how to play quite a few songs and it didn't take me too long to get into the hang of playing the guitar again. After that we shared a lesson with her and went off to teach some more people. It was a wonderful birthday and will be a very memorable day. I just cant believe that I am now 20 years old.

Brother Warren is very excited to go to Utah. I really hope y'all get a chance to meet up with him because he is the nicest man you will ever meet. He does so much for us and is the best member missionary that I know.

The work is going really well. Trish is going to be baptized this Saturday finally!! Everything is pretty much planned for the big day. We are so excited to be part of this really unique and special baptism. I will defiantly be sending you some pictures of that next week. Jeff her husband is now reading the Book of Mormon! We did get a chance to teach him. He is fully supportive of his wife as well which is awesome. Many people are planning to be at the baptism!

We also found 3 new investigators this week! They have all been prepared by the Lord and are now ready to receive the restored gospel. Niki is one of them. She has come to church the last 3 weeks, but we recently started teaching her. At first she was just staying for Sacrament meeting. This last Sunday we invited her to stay all three hours, she was a little hesitant at first, but stayed anyways. At the end of the third hour, she was thanking us for making her stay for the whole service. She really enjoyed the Relief Society and has really happy and smiling afterwards. She accepted the invitation to be baptized on the 23! She is really ready and willing but the only problem is making sure we can teach her everything before then!

We have not seen Collins, or the S___'s this week. We may not be teaching them for much longer if we cant get in contact with them, but hopefully we will see them this week.

The mission is just going incredibly well right now. Ive never seen our ward so excited to do missionary work. It is the same way for all of the district. Last week we had 2 baptism's, and this week we will be having 3 baptisms. Oftentimes the whole zone goes a month and gets about the same amount, so it is great to see that we are really being rewarded for our labors. It truly is the best experience working with so many dedicated missionaries and seeing so much success.

Congrats Josh, on making the soccer team! Will you be a senior when I come home? I hope I get to see you play again. Jaxsen, I remember going to the Utah Symphony, what a neat building isn't it? Is Ali still playing soccer? I'm sure her cakes are all amazing. Bri, I am excited to hear where you are going to college. You will do great anywhere you go.

Thanks again for writing. I really am grateful for all you and Dad do for me.

Love Elder Mortensen

Brayden's Birthday Cake from Brother Warren