Merry Christmas, Email From Jenny Mon, Dec 26

First off, being a missionary is the best. If anyone says otherwise, disregard anything they say! This past week was so wonderful! Some people from our ward wanted us to deliver some gifts to people in our ward that were struggling a bit this season, and what a blessing it was to us to reap the rewards of their diligence! We delivered a huge basket and Christmas tree and ornaments and a New Years basket and we had the opportunity to help them set it up too! The most special part was that this woman was close to tears the entire time we were over, and then when she expressed her appreciation she broke down bawling, being overfilled with the gratitude she felt. I then, being a sympathetic crier, started to cry too. It is so beautiful how such a simple act had changed this family's holiday. This is when I felt the true joy of Christmas. This is Christ-like love, and this is what Christmas is about. Such a beautiful moment that warmed my heart to the very core that I will never forget! We are Christ's hands here on earth!

We had a Christmas conference with all the missionaries too, and got to hear from President and Sister Carlson, which is always a privilege. Sister Carlson spoke about Charity and how it is so critical that we, as servants of the Lord, have this quality. We have to love our fellowman just as our Savoir does. Why would we think we would make it to Heaven if we don't love others? 

Christmas Day was wonderful too! It was so wonderful to hear from my beautiful family and to hear all the great things that are happening to them :) the family, whose home I was Facetiming at, thought it was super cute when all of you cheered when we connected :) I sure am blessed and I love you all so dearly!! Thank you for all your love and support!

Serving with a smile :)

Sister Bradley

​​I don't think I'll ever get enough of Indiana sunsets...this picture just doesn't give it justice!​

 

We accidentally twin on the daily :) #compunity​

​​​Our Bethlehem dinner Christmas Eve. We ate on the floor by candle light and ate things that Mary and Joseph might have eaten. Pretty special dinner.​

 

 

​​​​​Snowflakes made of our last names :)​

 ​​Nativity I was given by a member in Frankfort. It is hand cut by him in Aspen wood! 

A baby bunny I was able to hold!! The bunny was named Creme Puff by Kina, a member in the pic

 

Indianapolis Mission Christmas Conference Photo

 

*photo credit Indiana Indianapolis Mission Facebook page. 

Christmas Phone Call

Our family was more then excited to get to FaceTime Sister Bradley on Christmas Day.  We played a legitiment game of sardines on the family end, squeezing the whole family into the office.  We were more then happy with the tight quarters in order to be able to interact with our much missed sister/daughter/aunt of ours! 

  

 

 

Special thanks to Josh and Eric for handling all the technology and trouble shooting!

Sister Bradley's Christmas Card

 

Christmas wishes come true! Email from Jenny (Mon, Dec 19)

MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!! I hope you all have a wonderful week with your family :) sooo....some pertty exciting news, Zionsville Branch is now a WARD :) haha the people here have been waiting so long for this to happen! And the crazy part is that they took Sheridan out of our Area, and were still able to make it a ward!! I will miss the people there, but I know they will be taken care of :)

It has been super interesting working two areas! All of a sudden there are a lot more responsibilities! And we have to be very tactful with the way we plan our schedules :) for example, yesterday we went to 2 dinners haha this is great :) 

We went to a lesson with Brian where we talked more about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He is amazing because once he understands something he is golden, no further questions about it. Brian accepted to go on a Church tour this Thursday, so we are planning for that and I think it will be good for him to see the building and hopefully he will feel more comfortable to go to church! He told us that he has been praying more on his own accord. He has some crazy things happen at the ER he works at, so he prays before that happens, and we discussed with him how now he needs to start looking for God's hand in his life :) 

Sister Wilkenson has an investigator in Lebanon named Roger who has a baptismal date set and we got to have a lesson with him! He has all these questions about really absurd hypotheticals that would probably never happen, and wanted to know what would happen if those things were to happen. Sorry, that probably didn't make much sense... but it was really cool to see how the Spirit worked though all of us to be able to answer these questions, and thinking back on it, I know it definitely wasn't me that answered those questions :) but he finally came to church and had a really good experience, which is great progression toward his baptism :)

We met this lady named Mary that we tracted into and said we could come back :) When we went to her house, she had written down a list of questions that she wanted us to answer, and I felt that she was genuinely interested in our answers which was really cool. She said she was really excited for us to come back :)

We had a lesson in Relief Society on Christmas and how to make it more meaningful. The Sister said there are 3 levels of Christmas. The first being all the superficial stuff like Santa and presents and food, important yes, but not the main reason for the holiday. The second is focusing on Christ's birth and the miracle that was with the Shepherd and the wise men and everything that accompanies that. The Third level and the level to strive for to make Christmas the most meaningful, focuses on the birth, ministry and death of Christ and how all these things were needed for Him to be our Savior and that ALL these things were crucial for us to even be able to celebrate His birth in the first place. The Light the World initiative on Mormon.org is a great way to try and be like our Savior this season, so if you haven't been doing that, I invite you to check it out, what better gift is there to give to Christ than to follow in His footsteps this season? :)

I love you all and hope you have a wonderful Christmas!

Serving with a Smile,

Sister Bradley

-The Trio- (me, Wilkenson, Harris)

 

Winter Is Officially Here: Email FromJenny, Monday

Hello everyone! Once again, the week flew by! Some good things are happening here in Zionsville though :) oh, and some crazy news! These next three weeks, we are going to be in a trio with Sister Wilkenson and are going to be covering two areas! Her companion is going home early for school, so we get to be her companions :) It is going to be crazy and probably hectic at times, but it's going to be a blast :)

We had dinner with Brian's family and they are such genuinely good people! They were super curious about us and what we do as missionaries and they were super impressed at all the things we do at such a young age. It was wonderful to see how supportive Brian's wife was of him and how grateful she was to us for teaching him :) and yes, this is super random, but I feel the need to tell you that Brian went Bear hunting and shot a black bear with his friend Tony. It is now mounted on the wall, and then Brian showed us the skull of the bear! Here's your fun fact of the day: to clean the bear's skull, they stick it in a box of beetles and they do all the detail cleaning! Super disgusting but really fascinating all at the same time! Anyway, his wife made us a little Christmas gift and gave it to us to show her appreciation which was darling of her! They are just such a wonderful family :)

We had a super cool experience this week with a lady named Nannette Zawadski. We got her information from sisters in Carmel, IN and we have been trying to get a hold of her for weeks! She finally responded to us and said we could come to her house! She was excommunicated  19 years ago and wants to take the steps to be baptized again. I was a bit apprehensive before meeting her because I didn't know what to expect, but as we talked to her and got to know her I was able to feel the Spirit testify to me of the love that God had for her, and I knew then that she needed to know it too. I testified to her that Heavenly Father loved her and was so incredibly happy about the decisions she was making to improve her life. What is even more amazing to me is that I really didn't say anything profound, but because the Spirit was there, she was able to feel and know that the words I was speaking were true, and her heart was able to be touched and she was able to feel that Spirit once more, something she may not have felt for a long time. 

We also have a new investigator!!! We met her tracting and she told us she would let us in, but her child was sleeping, so she said to come back another day after 4pm. We came back the next week after 4pm and she was about to leave her house so we set up an appointment with her on Tuesday at 4:30 :) please pray for Mary!

It has been wonderful to be a missionary at Christmas time because our primary focus is to invite souls to Christ, and what better way to celebrate Christmas than to be a disciple of Him who is the only reason we have this beautiful season. Keep the real spirit of Christmas with you this season, and I promise it will be the best Christmas you will ever have :)

Stay warm! (We got our first snow this week! It was magical.)

Serving with a Smile,

Sister Bradley

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The famous Hoosier Goose. People dress them up at holidays! Why? No clue.​

 

​​​Sister Dyches and I after a training by her and her husband. Elder Dyches is the General Authority that visited our mission this transfer :)​

 

First Snow!!!​

 

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The little gift Brian's family gave us :)​

 

It's Beginning to Look a Lot Like Christmas: Email From Jenny

Sent: Monday Dec, 5 9:09am

I can't believe it is December! Hopefully all of you are staying warm in this crazy cold weather :) I am trying...I still have all my fingers and toes haha anyway, this week I wanted to tell you all about our investigator, the one and only, Brian Sloan.

Brian is amazing! He is such a giving, loving person! He is always trying to learn something new too! For example, he is trying to patent a medical instrument to make a specific procedure cheaper and more affordable for people (he works in downtown Indianapolis where there are more lower class people). Anyway, this makes trying to have a lessons with him kind of difficult sometimes because he is so busy! We had to move a meeting for him this week and it was totally worth it!!! Preparing for this lesson, we really wanted to meet his needs specifically and we really wanted him to feel the Spirit this lesson. That morning we studied super hard and just focused on Brian. I felt prompted to read all the accounts of the Atonement and select ones to help him truly understand what Christ did for him individually and how because He did this we can be forgiven of our sins. Brian knew of Jesus Christ, but didn't fully understand the need for Him as his Savior and Redeemer. Sister Harris and I brought our studies together and prayed that this lesson would help him understand his need for Jesus Christ in his life.

At the lesson, we caught up with Brian and reviewed the reading we gave him which was Genesis 2 and 3 and 2 Nephi 2. I know, quite a bit of reading, but he really has a desire to understand. We also invited him to pray before he read this and....He totally understood the Fall of Adam and Eve after this! You literally would have thought Brian was a member already because of the way he explained it! He didn't have any questions and he was ready to learn more :) okay, by this point I was so happy, but wait it gets better. After this, I told him that we were going to read about Christ's Atonement. We had explained it, but Brian didn't understand the gravity of this event because he didn't completely understand it. We read the accounts in Luke 22 and Mark 14 with him and were able to pause and give background and explain things to him that he found confusing. Brian was in awe of all this! He couldn't believe that someone would go through all those things so that he could be forgiven of his sins. We then talked about prayer with him and come to find out, Brian didn't really know how to pray. We explain it it him and showed him how and talked about how we are communicating with our Father in Heaven and building a relationship with Him. He said he would practice and that he would PRAY NEXT TIME and that he would pray to know if these things are true!! This is huge for him!!! Everything is starting to connect and is making sense for him and it is amazing to see first hand how this is happening.

This made it even better. Tony his friend in Utah called us and told us he had just talked to Brian and that he said he is really enjoying his time with us and that he really wants us to have dinner with his family!! Actually, Brian just barely texted us and asked us if we could come to dinner with his family :) 

Brothers and Sisters, I don't think I have ever felt this much joy in my life. The change that is taking place in this man as he realizes that he is a son of God and that God has a plan for him is amazing and this joy has carried into everything else I have done as a missionary. Share the Gospel, you won't regret it.

Serving with a Smile :)

Sister Bradley

​​So...a member of our Branch bought us a REAL Christmas Tree!!!! :D​

Before...

After :)​

 Taa-Daaah (lol is that how you spell that?)

  Singing carols by the tree​

 Pretty much the best day ever!​

P.S. did you know you have to water real Christmas Trees? haha I didn't...

It's Being To Look