Too Good to be True

Me and Hermana Orantes

Well Familia y Friends,

I'm writing this email from my new area, Guayacanes with my new comp, Hermana Orantes.  She is from Houston, Texas.  Her mom is Mexican and her dad is from El Salvador.  I guess Pres really likes putting me with the gringas haha.  

I've had a really really hard time with this transfer seeing as last night past bedtime the assistants called us and we were up all night packing and got no sleep because we were worried and it was just beyond hard saying goodbye to Hna Jo.  We really were like the perfect duo and nothing will compare which is hard to get used to again.  I really am grateful, however, that the Lord answered my prayers in putting me with someone who seems obedient and hard working and loving.  So that's good.  Also supposedly this area is very awesome and fruitful and the members are amazingly supportive so that will be an amazing thing too.  We will see!  Man I hate transfers sometimes! It feels like having my farewell over and over again leaving best friends and family.  Pero ya pues.  We knew it was too good to be true to last this long.  It lasted 10 wonderful weeks and really was our season of joy.

I will tell you all about my last week with my amazing comp in our incredible area!! How I miss it all.

Tuesday we had a Zone Meeting and it was pretty good.  It's been awesome to have Elder Van Wagoner as a ZL again and I will miss him!  Also there is an amazing elder in that zone from Brazil and every time we had a meeting or conference, he was just so sharp and chill at the same time and he just gets it. So Tuesday we were stopped, to buy a snack and this guy comes up to us and calls us Hermanitas and shows us these bookmark paintings he does that are incredible and he wanted to give us one.  It was a little tender mercy from the Lord and turns out he is an old investigator so the hermanas are going to visit him.  It was so wonderful because on Tuesday literally everyone (members and investigators alike) were asking and commenting on HOW glad they were we didn't have changes and how worried they were about it.  It was just so neat to see how much we all have grown and love each other and how they have appreciated me and Hna Jo.  

We got home on Tues night only to find the 2 new hermanas in our house! Stupid Elder Sampson (the new secretary) who forgot to tell us haha.  So we housed Hna Welch and Hna Bu for the night!  One from Vegas and the other from Honduras.  Hna Welch seemed pretty overwhelmed and worried about different things but I tried my best to talk to her and relate to her and share how I felt too and how amazing it gets, etc.  I am so glad I am past that initial point! (though right now I feel pretty similar haha).

Wednesday we were teaching a lesson and the lady went into the kitchen to get something for us and I was sitting back down and Hermana Johansen sneakily had put her arm in a spot to have it perfectly around my shoulder.  And when I sat down into her arm she started busting up as did I and said, ¨Smooth Criminal.¨ hahahaha I miss her SOOOOOO much!!!!

Also during personal study I was reading Alma 5 and I LOVE Alma and his example on how to bear pure testimony.  Pure testimony is bearing testimony in such a way that there is no mistake in their hearts what they have to do.  And that's exactly how it is!  There is no grey area!  It's black or white, good or bad in the things with God and living the Gospel.

Thursday we had a Zone Conference and it was so amazing because Elder Bushnell was there (he is the ZL for another zone now) and he said hi to us and shook our hands and before going away said, ¨Hey! Congratulations on your 3 baptisms!  I saw and noticed that in the Zone leader meeting with the President and wanted to congratulate you guys!¨ Wow it was so amazing--he is not even our leader anymore but that's who he is!  He really cares and watches out for the one and for people.  He took the time to notice and then to tell us about it.

Also during the conference, Elder McGinn one of the assistants now working in Tarqui, told me Eliana got baptized!  She got baptized and now the whole family is listening!  Wow!!!  So great.  The conference was pretty good.  I will explain one day when we are home sitting down--the good and bad things about this mission and conferences and President.  It's different than any US mission.  Anyway, I really liked Hna Amaya's part.  She started off with a question: ¨Do you ever wonder who you are?¨and I immediately looked at Hna Jo and she looked at me and I started crying.  We had both been singing the song ¨Child of Light¨ lately and that song is amazing and has special meaning for me and our fam anyway. But for Hna Amaya to start out with that was a tender mercy from the Lord.

Friday (9 month anniversary!) we had honestly the most amazing lesson experience I have EVER had on the mission.  I can't believe I haven't talked more about Paul--he is so awesome and we always felt so great when we taught him and felt the Spirit so strongly!  Since the beginning, I felt super strongly that the way for him to obtain a testimony would be through the Book of Mormon, and then the Plan of Salvation, and then the Restoration.
Completely backwards.  But I really felt like that.  From the beginning, he accepted the BOM as good and truth because he believed Christ came to the Americas, and had done research about that and also because he felt the scriptures were good.  He then understood the Plan of Salvation and said he wanted to do the right thing and know what the right was, and we shared with him the 5 steps of Christ's Doctrine and Gospel.  It was all just great and he always shared his thoughts and feelings and was always very humble and followed through with commitments.

But Friday surpassed it all!!!  We got there and he told us he had read from the beginning of the BOM to 1 Nephi 8 and he remembered and learned from and applied literally EVERYTHING!  His favorite part was Nephi´s constant strength and determination and unwavering faithfulness.  He said he knew the BOM was true.  We then went explaining in more depth, Christ's Doctrine, and when we got to baptism we talked about the authority and the importance of it and started in on explaining the Restoration.  We explained basically all
 the points according to his needs and it was amazing because he totally had seen the pattern of apostasy or dispensations, and God always calling prophets.  He loved how the Great Apostasy explained the confusion and why there are so many churches each with different, yet similar doctrine.  He then told us that's why the whole time he just believed in God and doing the right thing and that before he met us, he didn't think a religion existed that could fill him spiritually all the way.  He listened to everyone but never felt anything.  He 
said he loves how we talk about everything and how he does feel with us so much peace and calm when he reads and talks.  It was wonderful!

We then went into the Restoration.  We helped him see a need for the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ and the authority.  We then related Paul's personal experience to that of Joseph Smith.  Then we told the First Vision and when Hna Jo was reciting it, he began to 
smile and couldn't help himself.  He was smiling, wide eyed, and was filled with tears at the end.  I asked him how he felt, and he couldn't even express himself, but said it was something incredible that filled his whole body and soul, he got chills, he was SO happy and felt so 
much love and felt like it was an out of body experience.  He then just bore testimony to us that he believed it and felt it, and then said, ¨I KNOW it's true.¨ He said he knew, just like us, because it's something you feel so strongly you just know.  I was bursting smiling and grinning and teary the whole time and wanted to burst out laughing with joy and amazement and jump for joy.  It was incredible, and something I know can't be described.  As a 
missionary you feel so much joy sharing the Gospel and seeing the fruits of people´s conversion, but you usually don't experience their conversion with them, as that is personal!  You don't usually get to see the conversion take place right in front of our eyes and have them share it all with us.  It was something I will NEVER forget and will treasure forever.  For hours we were just beaming, happy, joyous, literally just swallowed up in the joy of Christ.  I can't even describe it adequately.  He said he absolutely would prepare to be baptized and we testified this was what will fill him, that it's true, that we can feel it and we know it, and that feeling can become a permanent part of his life.  It honestly was the perfect lesson experience and I am SO grateful to the Lord for it.

Hna Jo and I just kept hugging each other or high-fiving while walking to our next lesson--we were flying haha.  The elect are HERE!!!  And so prepared, and waiting and looking.  It reminded me of what Elder Holland said to missionaries, ¨Sometimes tears will be shed.  Always great love will be felt.  This is when the 
veil is thin.  Point out the Spirit present and invite them to be baptized, making this experience a permanent part of their lives...welcome to the work of angels.¨ That's what happened and oh what joy!

Saturday we had a stake restoration activity that Rosalia came to and that was awesome--Karen Cruz was in charge, so of course it was awesome!!  :)  On the way home though, I felt really weird and sad and trunky and I know why now! Transfers. 

Anyway, Saturday was the hottest day of my life.  But it’s awesome how the Lord provides.  We got to meet this family from the US and a young kid who was on army leave who looks like Usher and talks like a black kid but is Latin and is stationed in Frankfurt, Germany!  Random, huh?

Sunday was an awesome day at church and I just love the members of Francisco de Orellana!  Man I miss them.  The class was awesome about work and our attitudes.  It was awesome, and she said we need to know and recognize how important and precious our work is--how much it means.  We also should remember the reasons we do our work.  I thought that applied to the mish as well.  Good quote also I found, Ün gran indicador de nuestra conversion personal es el deseo que tengamos de compartir el Evangelio con los demas.¨ Howard W. Hunter.  So true!

Also, I haven’t mentioned Miguel because he’s been back, and waiting and just awesome as usual!  He has a testimony and is converted and sharing the Gospel with everyone he works with.  Wow.  He actually left this morning to return to Colombia.  He had planned this and is going to (from a recommendation from our bishop) be able to just go straight to the President in Colombia without passing through the elders.  His family is excited to be able to assist in his baptism. He was so sad to say goodbye to us and was crying but I know we will see

him again and what an amazing experience being with him has been.  Interesting how the very day he left, I have transfers, right? :) hmmm.  I know I was supposed to meet him and help him through, and vice versa.

Sunday night was a downer as I already mentioned but as I called some people to say goodbye, it was so touching to hear Christian, Josue, Fabian, Alejandra and Camila, and Julio express their feelings, and love, and cry, etc.  Wow how blessed I have been.  The bonds you create in the mission are so strong and I’m so excited to continue these friendships and see these people, or family, mejor dicho, again.

I’m pretty tired and needing some extra prayers and loving but I have full faith and confidence in the Lord.  I know I need to grow more, obviously, and learn and help others.  There is a time and place for everything and the Lord makes it so our lives pan out exactly as He would have them.  I’m working on being happy, having faith, trust, and fulfilling the Bryan fam motto here in a new area.  I love this Gospel and I LOVE all of you and miss you so much.

LOVE YOU!!

Hermana Bryan