More Inspiration to Come :) Email From Jenny, Jan 30

Hello Family and Friends!

This week we had the opportunity to listen to a Worldwide Missionary Broadcast where we received instruction from the men and woman at the head of the missionary department. SUPER AMAZING! They were able to provide much needed inspiration and refocused our missionary efforts. They said the main thing we need to do as missionaries is to preach repentance, and baptize converts. Everything we do should lead to those things :) they also made changes to the missionary schedule which means now I can go to bed an hour early according to the schedule :) #blessed

We pretty much had a meeting every day this week which made devoting time to find people a little more difficult. However, we were able to get in contact with some people that have been MIA for a while. The first was Josh whom we met at the beginning of this month. We have been trying to contact him for weeks and he finally answered the door! He was suuuuuper awkward when he told us the Mormon religion wasn't for him but still wanted us to stop by and see how he was doing. I still think Josh shows a lot of potential though (considering after talking to his mom and having her tell us he wasn't interested...) so someday down the road, Josh will want to learn more :)

The second was Jane. I met her with Sister Harris my first week in the field (yep it's been about 4 months) and we FINALLY caught her at a good time! She told us we could bring her a Book of Mormon and she gladly took it yesterday and said we could come back to talk with her about it :)

We are continuing to teach Brian and Soy. We started reviewing the Plan of Salvation with Brian again, and after talking about where we came from, Brain remarked, "wow. It makes sense." :) that's because you've heard it before :) haha and when invited to church Brain said "someday" which I know all of you will think I'm crazy for making a huge deal out of, but every time before this that we've asked him, he has brushed it off and sidestepped it. However, he is now thinking about it :) Soy is remembering things super well now! He is saying his own prayers and has cut down to one cup of coffee a day!!! He just needs to completely quit before his baptism in 2 weeks, prayers are greatly appreciated!!

This week, I have tried to put more effort into pondering during my studies so that I have the opportunity to receive revelation, and wow. What a difference it has made! There have been quite a few questions I have had, and answers have started to come as I put effort into studying them out :) the scriptures are true when they say "ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you." I challenge each of you to start studying out the questions you have and I promise you will effort on your part, they will be answered! I love you all!!! Have a marvelous week!!!

Serving with a smile :)

-Sister Bradley

Not sure if I sent this one already or not, but some members are super sweet to us and buy us bottled water :)

Selfie at the Temple :)

"I love to see the Temple!" 

Leadership training (of Facebook Post From Mission President)

 

Today, January 26, 2017 we had some specialized training for the five terrific missionaries that arrived early in January and their trainers.  They learned about adjusting to missionary life, how to be powerful teachers and how to bridge conversations to gospel topics.  They did a lot of practicing and are doing well!

 

 

Alive and Well, Email From Jenny Jan. 23

Well, I am not sure who was praying for me to stay warm....but it worked!!! :) keep it up!!! This weekend it was soooo warm!! 65 degrees!! Absolutely beautiful outside!!! So thank you for that :)

This week has been insane!! To start off, Soy came to church yesterday!!! :) We were elated!! The members were so kind to him and I really think he felt the Spirit there. We are continuing to teach him, and he is starting to remember the terminology! He also committed to stop smoking and drinking coffee. Soy told us some things he had done in the past and how ashamed of them he was, and it made me infinitely more grateful for the Savior's Atonement. For Soy to know that he can be completely forgiven of all the bad things he has done is such an incredible blessing and strengthens my testimony of the Atonement even more.

We taught Brian a lesson this morning and what a great experience it was. We have a goal for Brian to come to church because we believe this is where his next steps of progression will come from. All we did is review the scripture reading we gave him, and it turned into a wonderful discussion. We talked about how learning the things of God is a slow, gradual process, that happens over time. We had him watch the Patterns of Light videos by Elder Bednar, and I feel that enhanced his understanding of this journey he is on. We were able to bear testimony of the knowledge we gain from church and how it is at church that we learn even more because we have the opportunity to learn from our brothers and sisters. I believe his heart is opening to the idea, and that his is over-ridding the negative experiences he has had in the past with the experiences we share with him of what church could be for him. Please pray for him!

We had the exciting (and slightly terrifying) opportunity to teach a Minister of a non-denominational church and the Pastor of a Presbyterian church who had a Master's degree in Divinity...whoah. The Minister is trying to understand all this deep doctrine about God and is, in a sense, demanding the answers to things we honestly do not know. I honestly feel like I am walking on egg shells the entire time we teach him. The Pastor had beliefs that were surprisingly similar to our own. She said she believed in the trinity...but the way she described it totally made it sound like the Godhead. haha the day we taught the pastor was the day EVERY SINGLE APPOINTMENT WE HAD FELL THROUGH. Which as you can tell was slightly frustrating :) but obviously, that was the day we needed to talk to her :)

God knows best.

We also had a fun experience (I guess you could call it that) where a less-active told us the Lord had given her a revelation that he daughter was going to be taken from the earth, and not only her, but us.....uh....what? We assured her everything would be okay. We were supposedly supposed to die on Thursday, and we told her we would come and see her Friday to help her through the hard time (that is, if we were not dead) haha well Friday came and no one died and when we visited her we talked about fear and how it is not from God. Jesus himself said, "Be not afraid, only believe." (Mark 5) God doesn't want us to live our lives in fear, all we need to do is trust him. (I know...easier said than done) :)

Last but not least, last night we were in the computer lab to do 12 weeks (the study program for new missionaries) and instead we were able to talk with a man named Brad who is a Messianic Jew (a Jew who believes Christ has come, but still practices the Jewish customs and things like the law of Moses) and were able to talk with him for an hour about the beliefs we have! This was also the last lesson we needed to reach our goal of the week!

We also had what I will call a "soul-stretching experience" yesterday. It was probably the most emotionally taxing day of my life honestly, and I won't go into too much detail, but I will say that every single trial or hardship we go through is for our benefit. I may have learned more yesterday than I learned my entire mission as I completely had to rely on my Savior to give me the strength I did not have at the moment. I caught a glimpse of what Christ went through when he suffered for us, and there are really just no words to describe all the things it taught me. Sorry that was super vague, but I know that whatever trials or hardships you go through will increase the depth of your character and let you grow in ways you could have never done before, if you let them.

I love you all!

Serving with a smile,

Sister Bradley

Milkman Saved the Day, Email From Jenny Jan. 17

Explanation for emailing Tuesday: President wanted us to proselyte on MLK day, so he moved emailing to today :) 

In comparison with last week, this week has calmed down a ton! We are borrowing the Elders that are serving in Fishers car, so we have not been without wheels, and wow, I am 10 times more grateful for having a car now :) 

We have been teaching Soy still, and he has such a sincere desire to learn :) the vocabulary is difficult for him, so we use a LOT of visuals, and use very simple language :) I think it has helped my teaching a lot because I know right away if Soy is confused, and then I can clarify and simplify even more :) it is easier said than done, that is for sure!

We taught Brian this week about the Holy Ghost this week and had Brother David Thompson (fun fact: Brother Thompson is one of the original members of vocal point, and the first member to quit haha) at our lesson. I know the Spirit was definitely there as we bore our testimonies about the special roles of the Holy Ghost and how we have each individually been influenced throughout our lives. We invited Brian to be baptized and Brian did not feel that he was able to answer because he feels that he still has so much more to know. We talked about his progression and how far he has come in this 3 month period and I expressed my love for him as his fellow sister in Christ. The Christ-like love you can have for someone is so real and genuine. I started tearing up and Brian's lip started quivering. We are helping Brian understand his role as a son of God, a man with infinite worth to Him and who knows Him individually. God will let Brian know when the time is right and it is our job now to have faith in His divine timing :) please pray for him to recognize the Spirit as he continues to learn!

Cool miracle this week: We were tracting and saw this man with his kids walking the dog. We went up to him and talked to him and he said we could come back and meet with him the next day! We were stoked because no one really wanted to talk to us that day. Anyway, fast forward, we knock on his door the next day, and obviously his pregnant wife did not want to answer the door to 2 strange girls haha so after standing there for a couple minutes we started walking back to the car and the milk man pulled up (random right? or divine maybe?) and he rang the doorbell on the garage. Matt (the guy we met yesterday) opened his garage to get the milk!!! We were in our car by this time, but we waved to him, got out of our car and we were able to talk with him for 45 mins! God definitely provides a way for us if we have the faith :) 

Thought of the week: God does not take our trials from us, He takes us through them. Just like Daniel in the lion's den, God will not remove us from the "lion's den" so to speak, but he will shut the lion's mouths for us if we have faith in Him and trust that He knows best for us. I love you all dearly! Remember Who you are and What you stand for! And just think of the growth that will come from the trials you go through. :)

Serving with a Smile :)

-Sister Bradley

The Ward Missionaries (the grandparents of our ward) found out how much we dislike the water here, and they have been bringing us bottled water!!! #blessed We thanked Brother Scott this morning for the water when we saw him at the Bishop's Storehouse and when we got home 2 more cases were on our doorstep!! So grateful for them!

Attachments area

Indiana mission Facebook Post

 

{caption read} Wednesday (January 11) interviews in the Indy north zone.  

Miracles Never Cease, Email From Jenny Jan. 9

I have never been more tired or more fulfilled in my entire life. This week have quite possibly been the most crazy week of my entire life as well. But, first things first...my trainee is Sister Bitter! She is from Logan, Utah and is fantastic!!! She is very knowledgeable (which you need for this area) and is super excited to work and be obedient! She is definitely one of my graces this week, and I know we will do great things here in Zionsville!

It is so cool to start seeing some of the fruits of the labors of Sister Harris and I. This week because of the work we put in the past 2 transfers, we received 3 NEW INVESTIGATORS!!!!! AND we found 1 on our own accord, with an outstanding total of 4 New Investigators!!! There name's are Soy (Asian man from rest home) Julie (Roman Catholic) Jeff (had friends in High School who were members) and Josh (we found him tracting this week, and he actually put in sprinkler system for the Indiana Temple!). Definitely a new record for Zionsville as far as I know.

On top of all of this, we've had crazy car issues. It started Friday when our car told us we had a low battery, so we called the Elder over the cars, Elder Summers, and he told us to set up an appointment with Firestone at 8am the next day. We went through the day with minimal problems until...we were in a residential area and because it has been freezing (like 0 degrees) we took a U-turn, but because of all the snow, we couldn't see a cement block that was probably 5 inches higher than a curb. Then not only did we hit that, but we got stuck....Sister Bitter tried pushing us out, but wasn't strong enough, so we went to the closest house, with the lights on and knocked on the door to get help, and the man was already putting on his jacket to help us get unstuck. While he was pushing our car out, another young man stopped and asked if we needed help! God loves us. We had ample help to get unstuck, and were so incredibly grateful for that! (Not to mention it was dinner time so we were super hungry.) We made it home, had dinner, but after that, when we got in the car the lights were flickering and the car would die when it was idle...oh no...so we cancelled our nightly appointments because we felt way unsafe driving this car. We called our District leader and he gave us some pointers, and definitely helped me feel peace through all this craziness.

Next morning, we prayed so hard and with so much faith, we could make it to Firestone (just across this super busy street named Michigan Rd) and there was a ton of frost on our car, but to conserve the battery we didn't want to turn on the defroster...so we drove with the windows down so I could stick my head out the window and see where we were going....yep, definitely praying when this happened too. When we go to Michigan Rd there were no cars on it. I have never seen that before! I thanked Heavenly Father and we crossed the road. We made it to Firestone in one piece without our car dying! After 2 hours of waiting there (and trying to study) they sent us down Michigan Rd to the Ed Martin dealership because they said they could fix the battery cable for free. We prayed again and drove to Ed Martin and made it. We explained to them the situation and then started waiting again. We visited a less active by a shuttle they provided and then got lunch and went back to Ed Martin hoping our car was fixed. They told us they needed to show us the car....uh oh. So apparently hitting the cement block did more damage than we thought. We had hit the Achilles heel of the car. Apparently that had shifted back a lot of the car parts and they needed to be replaced, costing a total of $3,000 worth of damage. They found out what happened to the car by shear "luck" they said, hah we know who was guiding them though (once again, thank you Heavenly Father), and they said the car was undrivable. They were amazed we were able to drive the car to Firestone and the Dealership with minimal problems. Woah. God was definitely watching our for us. Anyway, we were driven home by the shuttle and informed our car had to stay there. We called Elder Summers and he said we wouldn't have a car until Monday.

So....this made our life a lot more complicated. We ended up walking in the subzero temperatures to the rest home for Bingo, and for our lesson with Soy. We completely missed bingo because it took an 1 1/2 to walk there but we had our lesson. The Spirit guided the lesson and it went from a lesson about the Book of Mormon, to a Restoration lesson, to teaching Soy about baptism and inviting him to be baptized. He said YES!!!!!!!!! We set his date for February 11th :) We were elated!!!! It was totally worth walking through the bitter cold and snow to have that lesson!! 

God blesses those that are diligent and work hard. I am so grateful for the increased faith I have seen as I have trained this week. I have grown in confidence in more ways than I imagined possible. God definitely knows what I need and what I can handle. This is only a small portion of the miracles we saw this week too! "The church is true, the book is blue!" as Sister Bitter would say. I am so grateful for a Heavenly Father who is mindful of us and loves us more than we can comprehend. Look for miracles in your lives. I promise they are there!

Serving with a Smile,

Sister Bradley

A book exchange we found! Guess what book we put inside?? :)

In our Eskimo clothing and ready for the walk to the rest home :)

 

 

Happy New Year, Email From Jenny Mon Jan 2

Happy New  Year!!! Woah, 2016 is already over! It amazes me that the year went by so fast, yet so much has happened!

This has been a crazy week! We went to Sheridan for a last time and said goodbye to Sisters Blue and Trent. Sister Trent took us to dinner and fed us her top secret home-made fudge :) we definitely have been treated well this holiday considering we have a whole counter designated to treats people have given us for the holidays :) I guess they thought we needed some extra insulation haha

Saturday was a really exciting day for us. It started out with a Transfer call from President Carlson. He told Sister Harris she was going home, and asked me if I was up for a challenge. Of course I reply "yes" and he tells me that I will have the opportunity to train a new missionary. Needless to say, I am excited and a bit anxious to find out who I will be training, but I know God has His hand in the work, so by trusting Him, I feel a lot more calm. :) And I keep telling myself, "God doesn't call the qualified, He qualifies the called." He also told Sister Wilkenson she will be leaving Lebanon and going to Bloomington.

After that, we were able to teach a lesson to Eric Bruin. Flashback: A couple weeks ago, we were sitting in the car and I had the distinct prompting to call Eric Bruin. Missionaries had been encouraging us to contact him, but we didn't have any records on him, so we were having difficulty doing so. We found his number in our phone, and tried contacting him for a couple weeks. But, in that moment, I picked up the phone and called him, expecting to not receive an answer, but guess what...he answered!!! He told us school was crazy because he was taking 18 credit hours...yikes. We told him we would contact him after Christmas when things calmed down, and that brings us to the lesson. We find out he is a business major, and graduating soon. He met missionaries at the college campus and is appalled by the anti-religion culture he found at Indiana University. That is why he talked to the missionaries. He met with them a couple times, but lost contact for a period of time until we contacted him. HE IS GOLDEN. He has a Catholic background, but is very intuitive and had a lot of questions that his faith was just not answering. When he met with the missionaries, those questions started to be answered without him even vocalizing them. He said he needed a refresher since it has been a while, so we taught him the first lesson. It was so wonderful seeing the connections he was making and to be able to answer the questions that he had! He agreed with everything we taught, and was amazed that we don't have a paid ministry and so we invited him to be baptized and he said yes!!! I was fighting so so hard to contain the joy I felt while we were teaching him!!! Brothers and Sisters, this church is true. If we open our hearts and embrace it with our whole souls it will fill us with peace and joy found no where else. I literally was giddy and smiled for hours after this! I had even forgotten I was hungry because we hadn't had lunch and it was 3:30! 

The Gospel is real. I invite you at the start of this New Year to make goals to deepen your Faith in the Savior and to become more like Him, because I know it is this very thing that will bring you the most happiness. I love you all!

Serving with a Smile,

Sister Bradley

This is Donna, one of the cutest old ladies I have ever met! She helps with Bingo at the rest home.​

 

This is the famous Carla Pollard.

 

This is Sister Blue.  She is super in touch with mother nature and knows a ton about the earth!

 

This is Sister Trent.  She fed us delicious Mexican food with Christmas money she received!  What a sweetheart!

 

-The Carmel District- (left to right -->Johnstone, Huntington, Harris, Wilkenson, Me, Burton, Hunter)

 

(left to right -->Harris, Wilkenson, Roger, Me, Baby, DeAmber)  Roger is the man in Lebabon we have been teaching, he is 6'7" and yes, everyone tells him he reminds them of Santa haha DeAmber is Sis.Wilkenson's recent convert, she is great!

 

This is Soy, an funny Asian man from Lous.  He speaks 5 different languages and used to be Buddist.  He accepted to come to church and to read the Book of Mormon!  (We have to get him a big print copy though so he can read it haha)