Final Email

Hey everyone, well this is it, my very last group email of my mission. Haha I’m not going to make it too long because there is a lot of craziness going on right now getting ready to come home. But I did want to tell everyone a few things.

First, I wanted you all to know how much my mission has meant to me. I literally cannot even imagine living without the experiences I have had on my mission. I can tell you when I look back to the person I was after graduating high school, compared to how I am now, I can tell how much change has happened within me because of the two years I have spent in the Lord’s army. I would not say that I am a completely different person, but I am a much better version of myself. I am so grateful for all my companions and all the people I have met on my mission, that have shaped me into who I am now. Thank you all for all the amazing experiences you have given me.

Second, I wanted to tell y’all that this gospel is true, I now can say that I know that fact with absolute certainty. I know that the church of Christ was restored in our day, and that it truly can bless us and change our lives. I have seen it, I have experienced it, and I love it so much. Having the chance to be here and teach, really has shown me how strong faith can really be. I have seen people that have overcome addictions, bad habits, they have changed from being sad and depressed into being the happiest people alive. I have seen people healed from their own spiritual sicknesses. as well as the physical, and I have seen family relationships saved. And all of this because 200 years ago a little boy had a question and decided to ask God. I know that Christ lives, I know that he loves us, and I know that as long as we have him with us we can do all things. I know Christ suffered and died for us so that we may live and make it back to live with him again. Without the healing power of the atonement, nothing I have experienced in the last two years would have been possible. 

The third thing I have for y’all is an invitation, this invitation is to try it; try this gospel if you have not already, pray and see if it is true. If you are a member of the church or of another faith, I ask you to test this gospel. Get on your knees and see if it is true, or reconfirm to yourself that it is. I can tell you that this will bless you even if you have been a member of the church for 80 years, it will bless you.

And lastly I wanted to let you all know that I am not going to stop serving my God just because I won’t be a missionary with a tag, I will continue to serve in whatever way I can, and I will continue to grow into the man that God wants me to be so he can use me to further his work. 

These last two years have been amazing, and I would not trade anything for the experiences I have had.

I love you all and I will see you soon!

You couldn't have waited 2 more weeks? -my mom

Hey yall how are you doing? Haha as you can probably tell from the title of the email (or if you have seen my mom’s facebook post) you can already tell that this was a pretty interesting week.

First things first, what the heck happened to my head......... well on Tuesday nights we have a sports night at the church where we invite our younger investigators, the youth of the ward, and less actives to come and meet with us and play some basketball, volleyball, or soccer. This week we decided to do basketball. We were playing for a little bit and having a grand old time, when my comp got the ball and I decided it would be a good idea to run and try to steal it from him. When I got to him, he darted away from me and our legs got tangled, and I fell headlong into the wall that had some wooden boards sticking out of it as some sort of permanent decoration I guess. Just my luck I hit right on the corner of it and split open my forehead. After gushing blood for a bit and putting pressure on it (head wounds bleed a ton y’all!) we finally got a towel on it and I was off to urgent care. I called the mission medical guy and President Varner to see what to do and they gave me permission to ask my mom about our insurance.  I called up my mom and had to have the awkward moment of being like, "hey mom...... this is Britton.......... do we have insurance for head injuries?" That is when she said the quote that is the title of the email. Ended up that I didn’t have a concussion or anything, but I had to get 5 stitches in my forehead, so im going to have a nice scar for my brother’s wedding (: (sorry Drew and Coral) 

Another fun story from this week was when Elder Hansen and I were doing weekly planning in the parking-lot of Walgreens this week. We looked up across the street just at the right moment to see a lady driving away from the pump with the nozzle still in the car, and she ended up ripping the tub off the pump with her car, then she stopped, pulled out the nozzle and put it back on the pump, stared at the pump for a minute, then jumped into her car and sped off. I think the best part is we went into the gas station to tell them what had happened, and they told us that happened like once a week!!! I was so surprised by that!! 

Ok on a more spiritual note we have been having some good success this week.  We were able to find 3 new investigators that were all pretty solid, all of them love God, and loved the message we shared with them. One of them, D,  was so excited to study about a modern day prophet that he had us pull up lds.org on his phone and try to download gospel library, so that he can study the words of President Nelson and also start reading the Book of Mormon. It was pretty cool.

Also an update on our investigator R, we had a bomb Book of Mormon lesson with him the other day and he said he loved how simple the purpose of the book really is. After everything was said and done, we asked him if he would be willing to set a baptismal date, he accepted and he is now on date to be baptized on the 15th of September. So the work here in the Westbank is going pretty well (:

I love you all, I can’t believe this is my last full week as a missionary! I’ll see y’all soon.

Day after incident wound

What it looks like now

Dinner with Trish

Last Zone Conference, 4th of July, and wouldn't you know ... more tracting

Hey y’all how is life?

Wow, I can’t believe that I’ve already gotten this far, I only have two more times to send an email to all of y’all. It is crazy!

This week I had my very last zone conference! It was so surreal to be sitting there for the last time with all the missionaries here in the NOLA zone. I have spent 19.5 months of my mission down here in this zone. In our mission we let the missionaries that are going home bear their testimony in front of the zone, we had around 16 or 17 different missionaries going home this transfer just from the NOLA/Slidel zones. It was weird to get up and bear my testimony to everyone in the chapel, because I can still remember my very first time hearing missionaries bear their testimonies in ZTM. I remember thinking how experienced they were, and how amazing it was that they had served the lord for two years; at that point I only had 2 weeks in the mission, so I never thought I would get to the point when it would be me up there saying goodbye. But just like everything else in life, it crept up on me and now I’m at 2 years instead of 2 weeks. It was pretty hard to say goodbye to everyone, but I know I will see most of them again and I can’t wait to hear the miracles that continue to happen in this mission. Haha I think I am getting ahead of myself, I still have two weeks but I’m talking like I’m going home tomorrow. 

 

But anyways, another thing that happened this week is that we got to celebrate the 4th of July with the branch president in the English ward. We were able to go over to his house for a good BBQ where we had the most American food you can make.... the good old combo of a hamburger and hot dog. Haha, the only struggle was that Elder Bautista (we were on exchanges) and I had gone out to an all you can eat Chinese restaurant with some members we did service for, just about an hour before the party. So needless to say, by the end of that and the party we were completely stuffed. Sadly, we didn’t get to see any fireworks, but maybe that is for the best, I think there is more than one fire pyro over here amongst the Westbank Elders.

This week we have had some really fun lessons with a few of our investigators, and we have been seeing some good progression. A few of them are reading the Book of Mormon and praying, so we hope for more news with them in the future. It was funny when we were teaching one of our investigators named D because she was freaked out a little bit about the stories we told her about the Book of Mormon answering our prayers, and how we knew they were answers from God. She thought it was super amazing that God spoke to us through people that lived thousands of years ago. But she committed to reading and finding it out for herself, so we are excited to follow up with her.

Haha and then, just like other weeks, we had a ton of tracting that we have been doing. Haha it is a good thing that I’m starting to actually enjoy tracting a little bit (I wish I had liked it this much  earlier in my mission, but what can you do) otherwise I would be 6 feet under just like that frog pic I sent.

Anyways I love you all and I hope you had an awesome 4th. Talk to y’all in a week!

Sister Busto

Sister Robinson

Elder Wilde

Elder Jones

Elder Davis

Elder Woody

Elder Flores

Elder Myers

We found the scene of a frog burial while tracting