God is good - Email From Jenny, Monday April 24

Another week has flown by!!

We taught Doug again this week and I just want to express to you how great Doug is. Not only does he read the pamphlets we give him, but he re-reads them and uses the glossary and then apologizes for not answering the questions in the back. We gave him the Book of Mormon and went through the introduction and the first 12 verses with him and he was super excited to read it and said it was "really cool". When we came back, Doug said he hadn't gotten very far, but that he had read to 1 Nephi 5! He was relating it to things in his life already too which is kinda the whole point of reading the Book of Mormon! He also told us that he would come to Stake conference, and we were a bit worried because he was 15 minutes late and we couldn't really see out of the doors to watch for him to come, but I looked at exactly the right second, saw him and was able to run after him so he didn't get lost and would have someone to sit with since it was his first time there! Please keep praying for him to receive answers to his prayers!!

Peggy went into the hospital on Tuesday, but we didn't know that until we called the hospital and asked. She was so grateful to see us :) we were able to teach her in the hospital and uplift her spiritually there. Our messages have to be pretty short, simply, yet powerful because of how weak she is and so we are really learning how to let the Spirit guide us in what we say so that Peggy gets exactly what she needs :) She came out of the hospital on Friday and Kelly, a less-active member, brought her home and got her some food. Fellowship with our brothers and sisters is so important. We are placed in specific places to help God's other children. He doesn't expect us to help everyone, but He expects us to help who we can :) (Mosiah 2:17)

We were able to attend the youth fireside with Elder Michael Dudley of the Area Seventies with our investigator Reahlyn (14). We talked with her earlier that day and she expressed a lot of concerns to us about things she is going through and concerns about her testimony and  Elder Dudley literally addressed every single on of her concerns!! He talked a lot about faith and how fear and doubt doesn't come from God, but from the adversary. Please pray for her to receive answers to her prayers! 

We are working with Patrick who is married to a re-activated member and he is all good to be baptized, except that he has to quit smoking. His baptisimal date is on May 12 (his birthday) so he has about a week to completely quit smoking. He is super positive about it and really has the desire to quit. He has been smoking since he was 13 and he is 42 so this is a big step for him. All prayers are appreciated for him!!

We also taught Jeff who we met on Easter Sunday. He is super open and super prepared! His mom just passed away about 2 months ago and his father has already passed away too. He accepted the things that we taught and said that he would be baptized!

My testimony of God hastening His work has been strengthened so much this past transfer. If we are diligent and sincere, doing all that we absolutely can, God will bless us for our efforts. Yesterday, we had about a half an hour before we had to be in and we are running really low on miles but we decided to still go and try to find people and we got a new investigator!!! I sincerely believe this applies to members as well! Share your testimony with your friends and family God's "marvolous work" is going forth!! We are fulfilling prophecy!

Update on Zionsville: SOY IS GETTING BAPTIZED on May 6th! And Stan and Bret (the father and son Sister Bitter and I found a couple weeks before I left) came to church yesterday and loved every second of it!!!

Serving with a Smile,

Sister Bradley

Sorry, we didn't take any pictures this week...so enjoy this one of us emailing at the Family History center! :)

Indiana Mission Facebook Post - Stake Conference

South Bend Stake Conference, Sunday April 23, 2017. We love these missionaries.

Hide and Seek - Email From Jenny Apr 17

This week was a whilwind!! I went on my first exchange this week in Elkhart with 

Sister Summerhays. It was super interesting to be able to see the different dynamics of the different areas. Elkhart has a lot of work to be done! I was praying and praying to know how to best help the sisters and I felt inspired to talk about Christlike attributes. After talking to Sister Murray after the exchange was over, that is exactly what the sister needed! God answers prayers! And sometimes, we don't even realize that we are receiving direction and inspiration.

So...we thought we lost Peggy last Monday...not as in she didn't want to meet with us, but that we literally could not find her! We were praying and praying, and were super worried, she wasn't home and wouldn't answer the phone and her car was gone for a period of time. We ended up receiving a call from her on Tuesday because we left a note asking her to call us!!! Thank goodness everything is okay! She wasn't able to make it to church yesterday because she ended up calling an ambulance, so please pray for her health!!!

We got a new investigator last Saturday named Paul and we set an appointment with him on Tuesday. We called him on Tuesday to confirm the appointment and he told us that his son got in a crazy accident and is going to be paralyzed from the neck down. I think the saddest part is that his son is only 18. So pray for Leondre!

We have been working with a  less active named Kelly and we met with her the Saturday before Easter. The only time she came to church within the last 10 years is when her daughter got confirmed in church. I felt like I should invite her before we left her house, and then thought "what? why would she come?...well it is Easter tomorrow, so maybe..." I ended up saying "Hey we'd love to see you at church tomorrow!" to which she didn't respond...awkward. But guess who came to church the next day?!?! KELLY!!! We were stoked!!! There is power in inviting people!!!

Serving with a Smile :)

Sister Bradley

The Scotts (from Zionsville) were able to come down and take me to lunch and to a Museum in South Bend!​

 ​Museum Selfie​

Exchanges! Left to right: me, Murray, Williams, Summerhays​

​Road trippin' for 3 hours down to the mission home for a Mission Leadership Conference (MLC)​

 ​The trees are purple here...and gorgeous!!!​

​HAPPY EASTER!!!!​

Indiana Mission Facebook Post - MLC

Spring is here in Indiana! We were able to take a photo of MLC at the usual spot again yesterday (April 14, 2017) - you can see the leaves are starting to come back and we will soon have green everywhere. Happy Easter to all!

Fun Surprises Delivered by Phone

The following is input from Jenny's sister Sarah:

I'm convinced Hoosiers (because there is no such thing as Indianan's) have the biggest hearts!  Every once in a while my mom receives a text messages such as the following from unrecognizable phone number.  Not only do these members love her, but will send her family a little piece of her to enjoy. It warms my heart every time we get such treasures and confirms the size of the hearts that Sister Bradley is among! We love you Indiana!! 

It's never too late!! - Email From Jenny Monday April 10

Hello Everyone!!! We've had a stellar week!!!

Thursday we were going though our Area Book and found some old teaching records from 2012, before throwing them away, we decided to call them just to be sure we didn't lose any opportunities. The first one we called was a lady named Peggy. Peggy answered the phone and when we asked if she would like to meet with us she said "yes, of course" with the tone of duh, why would I not want to meet with you!!! We were stoked!!!! (If you can't tell by how excited I am, this doesn't happen crazy often.) We set up a meeting with her the next day! We went to her home the next day and got to know her a little bit. She is 68 and has a lot of health issues, part of them from smoking since she was a little girl. Her children all live far away and she is pretty much alone all the time. We taught her about the Restoration of the Gospel and the Priesthood authority back to the Earth and Peggy wanted to be baptized!!!!! She was in tears practically the whole time!! She told us that we were an answer to her prayers and recognized us as servants of the Lord. She was so incredibly grateful for us and the Spirit we brought into her home :)

BUT WAIT, it gets better. We figured we better teach her that we believe God the Father and God the Son are two separate beings because we were pretty sure she believed in the trinity. (Side note: so I still get kinda nervous telling people that the things they have believed their whole life are not really how it is and Peggy is wonderful and so yep, those worries are always at the back of our mind) anyway, we told her the next day at the beginning of the lesson that God and Jesus Christ are two separate beings, and were prepared to back ourselves up, and she blew us away with her response! She said, "You know, I have always believed that they are two separate people, the trinity just doesn't make sense.." and continued on in telling us why she believes that!!!!! Yes!!!!! I love this lady so much! She received a priesthood blessing on Sunday and felt calm and at peace after it. I love the Gospel!

We went finding after Church yesterday, before dinner (it's always a little rough on Fast Sunday) and this old man with a big bushy beard and long hair was trying to set up his grill outside. We saw this as the perfect opportunity to talk to him considering he is stuck there setting up his grill. He told us up front that his mom, dad and 2 children had died and that he had also died twice and was revived. He told us the experience he had after he died and it completely matched up with what the plan of Salvation teaches! We showed him the pamphlet and briefly taught him the plan of Salvation and he was completley encaptured by it! He even asked for the pamphlet before we offered it (which never happens)!! He was excited to hear more about what we had to share and set up an appointment to meet with us.

Brothers and Sisters, God is so real. His love is so real. He wants to bless us and for us to find happiness here in this life. He wants us to have peace, and because of that He has sent us a Savior to make that peace a reality in our lives. I invite you all to watch the new Easter video #PrinceofPeace on mormon.org I have seen it several times, and everytime I feel the Spirit testify to me that what it is saying is true. There are also 8 Priciples of Peace (one for everyday leading up to Easter this week) and I invite you to watch those too!! I hope you all have a wonderful Easter!!! Remember Jesus!

Serving with a Smile :)

Sister Bradley

1. Hey Look!!! It's Michigan!!

2. Sister Murray and I cheesin' it up :)

3. The Misawaka Missionaries: Elder Jensen, Elder McLeod, me and Sister Murray (left to right)

Indiana Mission Facebook Post - Vehicle Safety Video

Yesterday and today (April 3 and 4, 2017) we had interviews with the South Bend and Elkhart zones. The interview waiters viewed an entertaining vehicle safety video......

Hello Mishawaka! - Email from Jenny April 3

Hello everyone!!

I am LOVING it in Mishawaka so far!!! :D there is a lot of good things going on with the work here! Here's a quick summary of our investigators:

• Patrick- He is married to a returning less-active and is on date to be baptized the 22 of April
• Reahlyn- She is 14 years old and the daughter of an excommunicated member who has been bringing his family to church. She is going to be baptized soon, her date is still being picked!
• Ethan- He is Reahlyn's little brother and wants to be baptized as well, he is 10 years old and is such a good kid!
• Lisa- She is the daughter of an older less active, and wants to be baptized but is having a hard time quitting smoking. She says she has the desire to do things but is struggling to commit to do them. Please pray for her!!!

So Mishawaka is 3 hours North of where I was previously serving (it borders Michigan)! There is a a lot broader distribution of wealth, which is always good for missionary work, and the people here have all been super nice so far! :) The members treat us so well here and are willing to do anything for us! My companion is Sister Murray and she is wonderful!!! She is super diligent and is a super good teacher. She has been on her mission for a year now, and has been in Mishawaka for 4 1/2 months so she knows the area really well.

I also went through the tramatic experience of having an 8 year old girl who was recently baptized (her mom is less-active) not like me because I replaced Sister Santiago who she LOVED so dearly. She wouldn't talk to me the first time I came over, and the second time she didn't want to talk to me or have anything to do with me initially but she warmed up to me by the end :)

I hope you all enjoyed General Conference as much as I did!! It is so refreshing to hear the words of God's chosen mouthpieces here on earth. I think one of my favorite talks was by M. Russell Ballard about goals and having a vision. He said something along the lines of "Happiness is knowing which goals are noteworthy." Are our goals aligning with our ultimate goal of returning to live with God? Do our plans, or the things we do, match up with that goal to make it a reality? Make good choices my friends :)

Funny Story: I was driving and exiting a highway and on the off ramp there was a white goose standing in the middle of the road. I couldn't swerve around it and I didn't want to hit it, so I ended up just stopping, expecting it to move. It looked at us and just stood there, so I started honking at and it still didn't want to budge. I started creeping forward and then the goose decided it would nonchalantly walk to the side of the road...only in Indiana :) haha

Serving with a Smile,

Sister Bradley

This is Sister Bitter's new companion! Fresh out of the MTC!! Welcome Sister Arlint!​

 ​Sister Santiago is going home back to Puerto Rico :(​

 ​Sister Gregerson is leaving to! She will be missed!!​

More Pictures :) - Email from Jenny April 3

1. Ending the transfer with too many french fries...

2. Simon and Nicholas, Nicole's adorable twin boys :)

3. Nicole and her family :) left to right: Sabrina, Simon, me, Nicole, Nicolas, Sister Bitter

4. Brian and I at an early morning breakfast transfer day :)