Elder Brandon Harley Bryan

Re: We have travel plans!

2011-06-22T21:55:00.000-07:00

Wed, Jun 22, 2011

WOO! Flights and times! :D actually, I hadn't gotten a specific itinerary yet... I think that might be coming soon... I had just gotten an envelope that mentioned that you should be getting my info soon about that... but now that I think just a little bit, I have a small feeling that I might not be getting any info... but I don't know for sure. However, that's why I just texted you just now. So I can find out. :) buuuut, I was thinking that very same thing. Saturday is an excellent time to have everyone there. People will be off and so they'll have more time to spend with me! :D yay, and then I get to go swimming! :D with my awesome arm and face tan. Outrageously, fantastic. I'll totally blind everyone with my crazy white legs! Yeah! So, awesome.

And SPEAKING of Sister Stout, I ran into Elder Stout Yesterday at interviews/training! He’s great, and in my zone! It was great running into him. He’s pretty funny, and we got to talk a bit about Puyallup and all the changes that have been going on back there. But he's doing great, and it will be excellent to be able to get some comida criolla ** (See notes below as translation is "creole food") when I get back. That way you guys can get some authentic Puerto Rican food instead of my measly substitute. :)

So like I mentioned, yesterday we had interviews with president as well as a training meeting. we learned a bit about "our legacy" or in other words, if we were to be going home soon, what kind of missionary, companion... and a few other things... ah, member of the ward council... stuff like that. Anyways, how would we want to be remembered? What’s our legacy? And we had district meeting after that. Nothing too exciting, but we didn't get done until 6:30 because we had some stuff to talk about with president. So... we weren't able to get too much done yesterday, either. :-/

Ja, ja, ja, yeah, president giving me a ridiculous amount of area just to keep me occupied is something that he would do. But it's been kinda difficult... we had a slight incident last week. Elder De Leon had taken the area book that the fourteen had prepared of all their super good investigators with him to be able to find their investigators...aaaand... unfortunately, he accidentally left it on the train... and we haven't been able to find it... downer. So we've just been out relying on the things that we had already written down in our planner, when, all of a sudden, the bishop in Santurce calls us up. Guess what? He has a copy of the area book! :D OH YEAH! Awesome. A total miracle, the church is true. But, I haven't been given any special assignments. Just to work like normal (or xtra hard, now) with all of our ridiculous area to cover. :) But, lucky Elder Snow, he's gonna be chillin by himself with president on Dominica his last week here. No details yet except for that. But still. Cool beans.

Man, Cristina totally looks like Hannah! That’s so weird... but, it sounds like they are going to be an EXCELLENT match for each other. :)

Yay eagle project! :D it's gonna be great. I'm excited to build wolf houses. When’s he gonna start, the whole thing?

So, yeah. You never texted me, you bum! :P how am I supposed to know what my flights are so I can talk about it everyone else? :P

Gosh. But, I love you more than I love nice surprises about me coming home! And chocolate cake.

~Elder Bryan (Brandon)

* comida criolla = creole food,
* cocina criolla = creole cuisine

** The principal cooking style in Puerto Rican cuisine is called “cocina criolla”, which literally means Creole cooking. Creole cooking is generally associated with Louisiana’s Cajun cuisine, but that’s not what we have here. In the Spanish speaking islands, “criollo” refers to Spanish Americans of European descent. Hence, “cocina criolla” is the cuisine created by the European (mostly Spanish) colonists using their traditional recipes coalesced with native Caribbean foods and cooking styles.

The Oak Tree

2011-06-21T22:42:00.000-07:00

The Oak Tree
by Johnny Ray Ryder Jr

A mighty wind blew night and day
It stole the oak tree's leaves away
Then snapped its boughs and pulled its bark
Until the oak was tired and stark

But still the oak tree held its ground
While other trees fell all around
The weary wind gave up and spoke.
How can you still be standing Oak?

The oak tree said, I know that you
Can break each branch of mine in two
Carry every leaf away
Shake my limbs, and make me sway

But I have roots stretched in the earth
Growing stronger since my birth
You'll never touch them, for you see
They are the deepest part of me

Until today, I wasn't sure
Of just how much I could endure
But now I've found, with thanks to you
I'm stronger than I ever knew

FINAL - Travel Itinerary For BRYAN/BRANDON

2011-06-21T22:08:00.000-07:00

FINAL - Travel Itinerary For BRYAN/BRANDON

21Jul - Electronic ticket issued on Delta Airlines

This is a non-refundable ticket. Baggage fees may apply.

BRYAN/BRANDON

DATE 21JUNE11

MISSIONARY TRAVEL

A AB PUERTO RICO SAN JUAN MISSION

DELTA AIR LINES

DATE: 21JUL

FROM TO DEPART ARRIVE

SAN JUAN ATLANTA GA 720A 1102A

3:42 DURATION

AIRCRAFT: BOEING 757

FROM TO DEPART ARRIVE

ATLANTA GA SEATTLE WA 140P 355P

5:15 DURATION

AIRCRAFT: BOEING 757

Re: On to??????

2011-06-15T23:44:00.000-07:00

Wed, Jun 15, 2011

Woo hoo! Alright, so I think I'm gonna start with news about my project! :D

Alrighty! So, to start out: I'm in Caparra! Pretty much, it's just right next to the mission office. I still don't know the address, but I'm so close to the mission office that you might as well just send stuff to there, I suppose. BUT, we started the project on Monday. :) We are essentially taking over the big group’s area here in Hato Rey, Trujillo Alto, and Rio Piedras. And I guess president has decided to trust me the most or something, because he's given us four areas to work in, instead of two. Or maybe he just wanted to stress out my comp. xD but yes. So we are going to be covering most of Hato Rey for the next three weeks, and then when Elder Varner and Elder Barr come in, they will take their rightful places and take half our area away. :) but yes, we're getting the freaking sweet apartment that they had been staying in, with A/C, and 7 bunk beds, and two fridges, and WAY too much silverware. The down side is that threes STILL only one bathroom. :'( but at the very least threes only four of us, and not 14 like there HAD been in there. jeeze, I don't even want to imagine trying to run through all of them in an hour y pico. horrible. so for the last two days we've been running around like a head with its chicken cut off trying to get things organized. we have a baptism planned for this Friday night, and she hasn't received all of the commandments, but president wants the baptism for this Friday because it would be the perfect way to end for the group... but yesterday we had a ridiculous day trying to get Elder Ramirez's stuff here from Santurce. ha,, ha, ha... goodness. did you know that Obama came and gave a speech here yesterday? did you also know that it causes lots of traffic and if you try to go to where you need to go, all the police don't let you, and so you have to take a detour... and drive for forty five minutes trying to figure out where you are, and that when you finally call someone and get directions, the only way back is through bumper to bumper traffic without moving even a single inch for yet another forty-five minutes? yeah. don't go anywhere near an Obama speech if you have an appointment at noon. ha , ha, ha, lol. yeah, that was good stuff. we didn't get everything done till about 1:30. :) AH! And then, to make the day an even bigger adventure, we needed to get a bike pass to take out bikes on the train/subway, right? so after we get THAT figured out, we just left our bikes at the office, grabbed some 2x2 fotos, and take the subway with our shiny new 1 month unlimited pass over to the next stop to take out our bike pass. Well, turns out Elder Ramirez on accident left his ID at home... yup. And you NEED one to get a bike train pass. Oh-yes. :3 so he couldn't get one. But, we got to the mission office, and we're like... alright. I don't want to deal with this, we're late, and we need to go. So we snuck him on. Oh yes. Well, that went well. And then, it's time to go home. Let’s go back to the train! WEE! Let’s sneak Elder Ramirez back on the train! :D *record scratch* security? WHAT?! What do you mean he can't get on? Doh! Great. Now what? Well, we decided to just go to the next station. :3 guess what? The Lord blessed us with NO security guards at this one. Yup, that’s right. Not a single one at the counter. Woo! So we just busted a move right on up there and made it home RIGHT at nine thirty. Oh yeah. Freaking sweet day there for ya.

Woo! Long paragraph that one. :) But it sounds like the missionary work is going GREAT there! I bet the missionaries LOVE you guys. How goes that referral that you gave to the missionaries of the lady that was in the military? Anything back about that?

YAY! I’m so glad that my letters made it home safe. :3 I didn't know that it would be cheaper for a bigger box like that... I guess it would be a good idea then to just get all my things that I want to send home together now and just do it all in a bigger box? I'll look into that.

Also, what are Narnia holes?

I'm going to try and get some pictures of Elder de Leon... I can't send any pictures today, because the library where we're at has somehow disabled the use of USB, so I should be able to get that to you next week if I don't send them in a package. :) I'll try and get all that figured out soon so I can cut down on some of the stuff that I've got... I need some space! I've got so much study stuff... but at least I have less than SOME of the Elders that are going home... they had to super downsize. (Yes, Elder De Leon LOVES to eat. and my NEW comp is even bigger. ;) )

ah... but We're out of time for today... send me some pics of Christina! I wanna see who's going to be invading our house!

I love you more than I love sitting in traffic! :D

~Elder Brandon Bryan

Re: Woohoo, a package!

2011-06-08T23:22:00.000-07:00

Wed, Jun 08, 2011

Oh yeah. I told you I was gonna send it. :3 I just didn't want you to lose faith in me, either. But at least Donny and Hannah liked what they got. :3 Donny got his sticker, right? I was gonna stay with the sweet bracelets, but I guess president hadn’t been very happy with some other elders that had been using 'em, and he had instructed the assistants to start confiscating them if they saw them... so, I saved them by letting them know that I wasn't using them and that I was going to send them home. :) What? I like socks! "You can never have too many socks." ;) yeah, I stole those artifacts (the shells) from the Guancha. Those are for you guys. They’re still in there, right?

So, Elder de Leon has been out about a year and a half and he's still great. I just love his sense of humor. :) And he's been very valuable, especially recently with some uprisings in the district about the foundation *gulp* naw, it's not that bad. There were just some members in the district that don't understand about the doctrine behind the foundation... so after a talk with the zone leaders, threes gonna be a tradeoff so that they can minister unto them the doctrine. So we'll see how that goes... heh... yeah. Just some fun stuff about misunderstandings. That’s all. But he's also been helping me out teaching some of the new stuff that they are starting to implement in the MTC and in the missions. All the doctrine that we want to start implementing in our teaching to make us more powerful teach

And I'm trying to remember where president served his mission but neither I, nor elder De Leon can remember at the moment... darn it... :-/ but I know at the very least it was in the states. :)

So, changes and upcoming activities: I haven't heard anything NEW as of yet... but if I understand correctly; I should be busting a move out of Adjuntas next P-Day... AH! Ah, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, just kidding. I've been told by Elder Varner that the idea is that we are going... well, Elder Snow, Elder Hicken, Elder Shmutz and I will be going, to Trujillo Alto, to be working with four Dominicans up there. We’re going to be splitting up? I guess. And Elder Barr and Elder Varner will be staying as Zone Leader and Assistant, respectively, until the transfer ends and then the last two weeks they will be joining us... but I don't know what will be happening after they join us... I THINK there will be a change of plans, but I don't know what. Soooooo.... I'm not sure HOW certain the islands plan is at the moment... I guess it was a cool thought, but unless we get to bust a move out there the last two weeks, I think it might not happen. *sigh* oh wells... I guess I'll just have to hit them up when I come back to Puerto Rico. ;)

Aw man... Brother keys only works in employee safety? Aw man... dang it. Ha. Ha, well... he might know SOMETHING about it, right? At the very least, if he plugs something into the magic wall, it comes ALIVE? ;)

Ha, ha, ha, when I read about Donny’s deck I laughed. But, at least it's a board, right? speaking of skating... heh, heh, a few weeks ago, Elder Black and I had been at an investigators house and after passing by numerous times, we were finally able to make a connection with the kids. So, in order to let Elder Black practice some more Spanish, I decided to fellowship the kids a little bit. After talking for a few minutes, turns out, the two sons really, really like to skate. Well, he ran up and grabbed some boards and brought them back down. And then made me choose one. So, I've learned how to skate. Kind of. :D I actually like it quite a bit though. Really fun.

Kind of a downer that Ella's mom doesn't want her to come up this year... but at the very least she finally replied. :P goodness. You know what we should just do? Let’s just kidnap her. Let’s just go on a trip to Brazil, and oh so conveniently stop by her house when her mom isn't there and just take her. That should be fine, right? We just have to tell her to pack her bags for some mysterious reason beforehand ya! It’s so easy a caveman could do it.

So... a Costco cake for my return, eh? You know... I had been writing to Tahnee about that... and she had actually asked me if I had wanted her to make me a cake for my return as well... but I don't know if she had wanted to make a big one for my glorious return party, or if she was just going to make me a personal cake... I'll have to ask about that... especially because I haven't been able to write anybody letters for the last little while... :-/ however, you know I like chocolate cake. :3 and that with chocolate frosting. But that’s just me.

***

Hey, sorry I haven't been able to get this sent sooner... as I was typing the power went out... :-/ total downer. But, at the very least I had all of it saved, so I just had to finish a sentence when I got back. Bonus. :)

But yes... I guess I can just leave it at that... ironically I didn't even really need that much more to write... I just needed to SEND the darn thing... but whatever, I guess. I got to send it, and I got an email from Elder Patrick! (CCM comp) woot! So I got to reply to that just now too! :D

But, I love you more than Elder De Leon loves food. ;) (Don’t tell him I said that)
~Elder Bryan (Brandon)

ah, and included foto:

1) left to right: Me, Elder Jensen, and Elder Hargadon. Elder Black took the picture because he didn't have any skinny jeans to join us... :-/ first time I saw it it looked like an add for skinny jeans! :) oh yeah. so there it is.

Re: difficulties?

2011-06-01T23:51:00.000-07:00

Wed, Jun 01, 2011

Ok. so, to start with your questions. :)

Oh ha ha ha. no. :P it was just some settings that I had been playing around with so I had some difficulties finding my email and everything. nothing serious, but it's all solved now. I just finished working it all out.

However, NO, I didn't have any difficulties finding the post office. so your package should be there between two to three days. :) Oh yeah. That’s right. It’s done! :D

For puffy: no, not that I have noticed. I haven’t felt bloated or puffy at all... heh, in fact, I feel a little LESS than puffy, if that means anything. XD

So, info about Adjuntas. We're actually covering Adjuntas, Utuado, AND Jayuya. Adjuntas has a Branch of about 45 attendees on average, and Utuado is a much smaller Branch of only 26-30... and we only go to there every Saturday except for the second, when instead we go Sunday. Jayuya members USED to have a branch, but it got so small that everyone there was just moved to go to Adjuntas. However, there are quite a few Return missionaries here. As a matter of fact, I might have to say that it's the place with the MOST that I'VE been to at least. the Branch president and his wife are both RMs, the stake president who lives in this area is an RM, the ward mission leaders son (EQ Pres) is also one... and then I believe there is one other one... I can't remember at the moment... but yeah. I'll try to get that back. but there is a TON of willing members to help us, from what I've seen. When sister Commeletti left she told us that the Branch was pretty ready for Elders because of all the opportunities that it presents. Which is quite true. There’s many, many less active men here that we can now work with without a hindrance. Perfect, cause that’s what builds the church. Priesthood and families. :3

Oh yeah. Elder De Leon the guatemateco is GREAT! He’s quite the jovial fellow, I would say. for some reason he makes me think a little bit of dad. :) however... his English isn't the greatest... lol, but we read out of the white handbook morning in English, and just that is enough to help him... however, I want to start maybe getting a plan together to help him get started working on it more. (President Alvarado learned all of his English on his mission btw. :) )

So, quick intermission: I just emailed Cameron to let him know that he could borrow my small practice amp (the squire one), so if he stops by asking for it, you know why. :) However, the connections on the inside have to be rearranged. :) I modded it so that it would be a speaker cab instead of an amp, so I don't know if dad or somebody would be able to help with that? I dunno. Brother Keys probably knows too. After all, he DOES work with electricity. ;) so yeah. That’s that.

Ok, so back to your questions. I DO still continue as district leader, however, from the things that I've been told from Elder Varner and Elder Black, it's only going to be for these two more weeks... I'm not exactly sure why president told Elder Black and not me... disorganization maybe? However, I'm also secretly training Elder De Leon to be the next district leader as well, so I'm giving him fun assignments to do in district meeting. :3 in regards to the length of the special project... I have no idea... I DO want to give Elder Varner a call to get things a more definite response as to what’s going on, so I might get more information about that next week.

Our new address is a actually a post office box... probably to cut out mail problems... it's
P.O. box 33
Adjuntas, PR 00_ _ _ algo...
I can't really remember the postal code... eh... poop. Nope, it's not coming. (We know what it is: 00601) Buuuut, I think it' might just be better to wait on that, seeing as I'm going to be moving in two weeks again anyways... so really, things could just get sent to the mission office for now, until I get the more permanent address alla en Bayamon where we’re going to be doing the project (but I talked with Elder Varner the first time, and there have been some Elders from the big group that have gone out to the islands for proselytizing... heh, so I might get to go out there! :D FREAKin' sweet. but we're staying in the bottom floor of a members house. we have a room, a study room, a storage room, a living room, a kitchen AND TWO BATHROOMS! Woo! It’s really is quite a nice place. Partly, because there used to be sisters here, and the other part because it's a members house instead of an apartment. :)

One more intermission: just got an email back from Cameron. Turns out he already knew about the prob and just went to buy one on eBay to make it easier. ;) All done.

YAY, Robin’s new kitty is so cute! :3

Other than that, no word on my travel plans... I'm gonna have to ask Elder Varner about that too... *on list*

But yes, I'm gonna have to bust a move so that I can finally write president. :)

I love you more than I love those absolutely wonderful coquís outside of our house. and that EVH surf board. (awesome!)

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

(A coqui is a tiny tree frog that lives only in Puerto Rico & EVH = Eddie Van Halen)

Re: Hmmmm, mail box is still empty

2011-05-25T17:47:00.000-07:00

Wed, May 25, 2011

Hey oh! So... I'm sorry I'm getting email out so late today... transfers are RIDICULOUS NOW! Gosh! Now that I'm district leader I can see firsthand how really little people know in the line of communication. Goodness me. I receive a phone call on Monday night saying "alright. You, Elder De Leon and Elder Moody all are going to pack your bags." wait... that’s it? "Yup. That’s all we can tell you." wait... do you KNOW where I'm going? "... no." so I didn't find out until this MORNING what the dealio was with everything, and even then I was stuck at the chapel waiting for things to get worked out... and I got there at nine thirty. >:( lame-o!

So, for things. I am no longer in Ponce 2A! :'( Sad day. I've been moved! And I'm going to be white washing again! :-O goodness. I'm going to Adjuntas, where the weather is always rainy, and the temperature doesn’t get much hotter than 65 degrees. Bonus! But a downer, too... my TANS gonna go away! :'( But we'll see. I think I overheard something from Elder Black... from some secret call from President, that I'm gonna be leaving three weeks into the transfer because of my special project with my group... but we'll have to see. Things always change anyways. :-/ but Yes. Elder DE LEON is my comp. that’s right, the gordito Guatemalan. Sweet. It’s gonna be nice to just get to speak Spanish all the time. Cool beans. :3

sorry I don't think I'm going to be able to get too much written this week, I was having difficulties with my email, and I think I 'm going to have to change a few things. Just me being stupid with the settings and all. Not too much to worry about... however, that also means that I've really killed my time. Especially with us not having very much in the first place, darn it. But that’s ok. I'm a genius. That’s all.

So, the psychologist. Ha, ha, ha, very funny. I'm not crazy. :P no, no, he was just calling me to give me some sleep therapy to see if that would help. Well, it definitely helped me sleep more relaxed... but it hasn't taken the pain away. What do you mean by "have I felt puffy?" like in the kidney or the back? In that sense I don't THINK I have, but then again, I haven't REALLY checked.

So I've been told that Elder Stout has arrived! if I'm correct, I've heard that he's with Elder Vicil, maybe over in Cabo Rojo... but I don't know for certain, so don't quote me on that.

I have the box all packed up and in the car, but because of this fun little excursion with transfers I don't think I'm going to be able to send it TODAY, but maybe tomorrow. Adjuntas is pretty small, so I might be able to squeeze over to the post office while we're out contacting.
Dang it.... I'm sorry this wasn't very long.

However, I love you more than things are disorganized around here. :)

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Re: any more news?????

2011-05-18T17:39:00.000-07:00

Wed, May 18, 2011

Alright... so, first things first. I just got done with an email to d-man. AH! No, no, no... bigger things first, first, first. Alrighty. I've got my package all ready. I haven't been able to get those stickers yet, but I think I might be able to get it before the end of the day. I have to go clean up some more on the Yauco apartment today... so we're going on a trip. I'm gonna just be sending it off from Yauco so I don't have to deal with grumpy postal workers in Ponce :) you know what I mean. but, I've got some presents for Hannah and Donny that I've owed them since their birthday... and I'm gonna slide the card in the children’s hymns CD case. Protection and space saver. :)

After talking with the doctors there last week... Elder Mcdermid, the Caribbean area psychologist, and Elder Kilgore, the area caribe doctor, both of them are still stumped... but they are going to council together to figure out what’s gonna be goin down. I've been getting some phone calls/phone counsels from Elder Mcdermid to at the very least help me with some sleep exercises that might help me sleep better, but that’s not till Friday, so we'll see. However, I've also pulled or strained a muscle or SOMETHING in my back doing some exercise... *sigh* so now all that tension is back in my shoulders and neck. I talked to Elder Kilgore about that and he said just with some Ibuprofen and cold that should go away soon... but it hasn't yet... so I'm gonna have to call him again to figure out what to do. Blarg! I've got cancer all over now!

YES! That’s good news. Bryan hadn't told me ANYTHING about Pax when he emailed me back, lol, that bum. So. PAX! OH YEAH!

Well... I do have to say that I've gotten more comfortable in this last little while with being a district leader. So far so good: with the minions. They follow my every command. *evil smile* unLIMITED POWA! *Emperor Palpetine* no, but really. It is a bit harder when all the attention is on you and you're the one running things by yourself... but... I guess that’s something that I need to learn how to do... woot.

So yeah... things are getting tight again. Most of the investigators that we've had this last little while have dropped off the radar. We had received a referral from a member that lives right in front of the chapel, and we've been sharing with her these past few weeks. we found out that she had been reading the book of Mormon for a while and had given three copies to her family members (!) but, after teaching her the first three lessons... she hasn't been able to do any more lessons after that... and that was LAST week... we've been really trying to get her to pray about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon, but she just hasn't done it... she thinks and FEELS that’s it's true, but no one can know of spiritual truths without prayer. So unless she prays, she CAN'T receive a testimony... so I think that’s might be why she's been kind of distant... we've extended the baptismal invitation, but since then that’s when it got rocky. :-/ so yeah. difícil. So yeah.... that’s essentially the extent of our investigators right now, but I've been really trying to keep my eye out for other missionary experiences other than just teaching investigators you know? I wanna round out what I find. Nice people, miracles, cool stuffs... you know. If, that makes sense?

So, question for my account: is there always a fee for normal people? Was I just getting a free account because I was younger than 21? And after 24 is there a way to keep that free account?

Have you heard anything new from Ella about her coming up?

Well, have to bust a move... going to clean the Yauco apartment!

I love you!

Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Why I won't be seeing the Book of Mormon musical

2011-05-14T15:50:00.000-07:00

Michael Otterson

Head of Public Affairs,
The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints
5/14/11

Reviews of "The Book of Mormon" musical have been all over the entertainment media in the past few weeks. According to the reviews, the play sketches the journey of two Mormon missionaries from their sheltered life in Salt Lake City to Uganda, where their training and life experience proves wholly inadequate to the realities of a continent plagued by poverty, AIDS, genital mutilation and other horrors. While extolling the musical for its originality, most reviewers also make reference to the play's over-the-top blasphemous and offensive language.

Dealing with parody and satire is always a tricky thing for churches. We can easily appear thin-skinned or defensive, and churches sometimes are. A few members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints who have seen this musical and blogged about it seem to have gone out of their way to show how they can take it. That's their choice. There's always room for different perspectives, and we can all decide what to do with our free time.

But I'm not buying what I'm reading in the reviews. Specifically, I'm not willing to spend $200 for a ticket to be sold the idea that religion moves along oblivious to real-world problems in a kind of blissful naivete.

Somewhere I read that the show's creators spent seven years writing and producing "The Book of Mormon" musical. As I reflected on all that time spent parodying this particular target, I also wondered what was really going on with Mormons in Africa during those same seven years. So I checked.

•The World Health Organization estimates that 884 million people worldwide don’t have access to clean water. This is a huge problem in Africa, not only because of water-borne diseases but because kids who spend hours each day walking to and from the nearest well to fill old gasoline cans with water cannot attend school. According to church records, in the past seven years, more than four million Africans in 17 countries have gained access to clean drinking water through Mormon humanitarian efforts to sink or rehabilitate boreholes.

•More than 34,000 physically handicapped African kids now have wheelchairs through the same Mormon-sponsored humanitarian program. To see a legless child whose knuckles have become calloused through walking on his hands lifted into a wheelchair may be the best way to fully understand the liberation this brings.

•Millions of children, meanwhile, have now been vaccinated against killer diseases like measles as the church has sponsored or assisted with projects in 22 African countries.

•More than 126,000 Africans have had their sight restored or improved through Mormon partnership with African eye care professionals in providing training, equipment and supplies.

•Another 52,000 Africans have been trained to help newborns who otherwise would never take a first breath. Training in neonatal resuscitation has also been a big project for Mormons in Africa.

•Then, of course, there is the tragedy of AIDS. A couple of weeks ago I attended a dinner where the Utah AIDS Foundation honored James O. Mason, former United States Assistant Secretary of Health. When he was working for the Center for Disease Control in 1984, a project to research the epidemiology and treatment of AIDS was established at the Hospital Mama Yempo in Kinshasha, Zaire. After visiting the hospital and examining the children and adults with AIDS, Mason described the death rate and the associated infections from AIDS as "horrific." Mason, a Mormon, knows quite a bit about AIDS and a great deal about Africa.

•None of this includes responses to multiple disasters, like the flooding in Niger, where the Church provided clothing, quits and hygiene items to 20,000 people in six inundated regions of the country.

Of course, parody isn’t reality, and it's the very distortion that makes it appealing and often funny. The danger is not when people laugh but when they take it seriously – if they leave a theater believing that Mormons really do live in some kind of a surreal world of self-deception and illusion.

A couple of weeks ago a review about the musical appeared at the New York Times from a Jewish writer who simply listed himself as Levi. "As someone of Jewish faith," he began, “I take personal offense at this show….I cannot believe that New York, MY New York, where I was born and raised, would ever do such a thing. Shame on you, New York Times, shame on Broadway, and shame on all of us who stand idly by and do nothing while the faith of others is mocked. Religious and cultural Jews need not support such bigotry."

Levi's point was echoed by some reviewers, but by surprisingly few. So why hasn't there been a huge outcry from Mormons?

In my opinion, three reasons. The first is that in the great scheme of things, what Broadway does with "The Book of Mormon" musical is irrelevant to most of us. In the great sweep of history, parodies and TV dramas are blips on the radar screen that come and go. Popular culture will be whatever it will be.

The second reason is related. Jesus's apostle Paul put it rather well when he said that Christians seek out the positive and virtuous things in life. His New Testament phraseology was adapted in the early years of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in this formal Article of Faith:

'We believe in being honest, true, chaste, benevolent, virtuous, and in doing good to all men…If there is anything virtuous, lovely, or of good report or praiseworthy, we seek after these things."

Finally, if we Mormons really do follow Jesus Christ in our lives and look to him as an example, then it’s hard for us to ignore the injunction to turn the other cheek. There were times, to be sure, when Jesus roundly criticized others, but it was almost always for hardened hypocrisy. He dismissed the criticism he received personally and told his followers: "Do good to them who despitefully use you and persecute you."

It takes strength of character to do this, but it's the Christian mandate. Sure, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints pushes back when the record needs correcting or when legal rights need defending, but the world of popular entertainment is more likely to be met with a collective shrug than by placard-waving Mormon protesters.

Meanwhile, what of those thousands of remarkable and selfless Mormon missionaries who opted to pay their own expenses during the past seven years to serve in Africa while their peers were focused on careers or getting on with life? They have returned home, bringing with them a connection with the African people that will last a lifetime. Many will keep up their Swahili language or their Igbo dialect. They will keep in their bedrooms the flags of the nations where they served. They will look up every time they hear Africa mentioned on the evening news. Their associations with the people whose lives they touched will become lifetime friendships. And in a hundred ways they will become unofficial ambassadors for the nations they served.

Otterson, Michael. "Why I Won’t Be Seeing the Book of Mormon Musical - On Faith - The Washington Post." The Washington Post: National, World; D.C. Area News and Headlines - The Washington Post. The Washington Post Company, 14 May 2011. Web. 30 May 2011.

(Go to Web for Article)

New Puerto Rico Family History Center Opens

2011-05-13T19:39:00.000-07:00

Salt Lake City | 2011-05-13 |

The newest family history center has opened in Puerto Rico, and local television station WAPA-TV provided viewers with a tour of the new facility in a recent news story. The center is located in the law school of the Interamericana University and opens to the public on Saturday, 14 May. Click here for more ...

Re: :-)

2011-05-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

Wed, May 11, 2011

Well, check this out. I was called Monday night by Elder Putnam, now my zone leader :), and he told me that the mission doctors would be here in the area today. Well, I'm in the mission office now, and after waiting from 8 till now, I can finally REALLY start my P-day. Not that I can really do anything cause I'm stuck in the office until I finish and then I have to travel all the way back... :-/ *sigh* yeah. It’s great. I hope I get to do laundry today. That would be wonderful. However, after talking to Elder Kilgore about my kidney... nothin. he's doesn't have a single Idea about why my kidney could be bothering me still... so he's gonna have a meeting at the end of the day where he's going to present all the info about all the missionaries and He'll talk with Sister Alvarado and some of the other Doctors to see what’s going on... whoot. I'm o excited. Maybe it's a mental thing. I dunno. you know what? it's probably cancer.

But YES! It was GREAT to get to talk to you guys on Sunday. I always feel more energized. :)

So... I'm not sure if I'm going to be able to get my package sent out today... I have it all just about packed up... but I don't know if I'm gonna make it back to Ponce in time before the post office closes. I'm going to rush it. There’s a chance that they WON'T close early today (because they're LAZY >:( ) but We'll see. I'm sorry...

So, for transfers here, rapidity since I don't have very much time, transfers aren't the most exciting... :-/ only the people getting transferred go, and all we really do is meet up with our new comp, and if we're lucky the zone leaders with have a quick plan presentation on things that are going on in the zone. That’s pretty much it. :-/

Yeah, finding out why they've been charging my account for a monthly service account would be nice. :P that way they can stop stealing all of my shinies!

Hey, I FINALLY got an email back from Bryan, but he didn't tell me if he bought me my PAX tix! >:( grr, angry. Did you ask him when he came over?

Hey, get this. I just heard from a sister that the writers of South Park made a Broadway show about the Book of Mormon. Excellent. *sarcasm*. .. Her mom told her that it was Raunchy and horrible and even worse, it’s been nominated for Tony awards.

Poop. Ok, I'm gonna have to cut this short cause we don't have very much time... but, I’ll write more next week? :)

I love you more than I love not knowing what’s going on with my kidney. :)

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Decision 2011

2011-05-10T23:48:00.000-07:00

Mother's day phone call was an exciting time as we spoke and joked with Elder Bryan. He sounds good and we all enjoyed hearing how the work is going and what his decision was and what it was all about. In a nut shell he will stay a few extra weeks to do a special project with some of the others who will also be staying and coming home on July 22nd, 2011

Re: Oh my my!

2011-05-04T09:50:00.000-07:00

Wed, May 04, 2011

Yes, yes. what a week indeed. because now, even worse, today is the day that I have to decide if I extend or not... gah! this has been one of the more grueling weeks that I've had, quite honestly. not only have I had to think about whether or not I wanted to extend, but all of our investigators are dropping off the map! :'( EVERY ONES disappearing! :'(

Thoughts about extending:

Well. lets see. I don't really lose anything by staying... except that Steven and Josh will beat me up... and maybe Robin might disown me (but I'm pretty sure that she could just call up the airport, since it's so far in advance and just move the date...) and maybe just some extra time to hang out with the exchange students a bit longer.

Donny would go to Camp Helaman, and he and Cameron AND Jesse would be there for my homecoming... both Bryan and Tawny say that I should go with what I feel is right (not that I know which one IS right)...

But if I DO go home... What if I could have found someone that would have received the restored gospel.... what about the example that I could set for those I know? Such as: wow, that might be really important, he decided to stay. (not that I've really even been able to explain clear enough what I'm doing to those that ask...) what if this decision causes others to think about what I've been doing and it opens their hearts to the gospel?

OK. good. I'm glad I got the correct email for Cody. I had really meant to ask if the one I had was the right one... I was just tired enough last week that I really didn't think about it... :)

Sorry I didn't really write much this week... heh, I had just been talking to you so much already. ^^ naw, but at least we got to discuss a little bit about me extending.

I love you more than I'm torn about this decision! :D

¿ßrªndºn? (Elder Bryan)

Partial "Thoughts" email to Elder Bryan

2011-05-03T08:31:00.000-07:00

Wed, May 03, 2011
Well, what a week. First you copy and paste the info request that the miss office wanted, your official letter came in the mail about you being a district leader and now we get an email (only sent to dad's email by the way!) saying you are considering extending till the 22nd. WOW!! I made 2 phone calls- to Bryan and Robin and posted on facebook. Do you want to know what some of the comments were? Maybe not.

First I will say that we support you whatever your final decision is and know you must feel that this is the right thing to do. There must be someone that needs you to be there for a little longer! you only get one mission! When do you have to give them your final decision? Tell me what your thoughts are.

Bryan was more positive than I expected. He said he supports you whatever you decide. I told him to email you.

Jesse Moore is excited cuz she would be here for your homecoming

Marissa Neumann-King said she wished that she could have (stayed longer)

I won't tell you what Josh and Steven said lol

Jamie Keys was excited cuz she would be back from her sisters and Cameron would be done with Camp Helaman

Tawny says you should do what you feel is right

OK, here is what Steven said- tell him I will woop his behind if he does! and he was promised just 2 years.

Josh-(Darth Vader after he finds out he choked Padme to death.) NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO and That's a long time in dog days. and
If this means Ehren comes later, then that's a double no.

Mckay was excited because that would possibly mean Donny would go to camp Helaman.

Even your booger (Shadow) is willing to wait but that it will cost you some cat nip!

Well the hardest is Robin- she is not happy cuz they have their tickets for the 14th-20th! I will calm her down and figure something out. They can change them but tickets are more now. I will let you know....

Interesting - Somethin' to think about

2011-05-03T08:14:00.000-07:00

Tuesday, May 3, 2011
Dear Brother and Sister Bryan,

Elder Bryan would like to extend his mission a few weeks and come home July 22nd. He would like your input before committing to this change of assignment. Please communicate your feelings regarding this in your email to him tomorrow.

Thank you,

Sister Button

Secretary, Puerto Rico San Juan Mission

Re: Bueno, Bueno, Bueno!

2011-04-27T22:05:00.000-07:00

Wed, Apr 27, 2011

AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHH! RIDICULOUS! I opened up my email today, right? And look at the first thing that’s in my inbox!:

"Elder Brandon Harley Bryan Release date: 07 Jul 2011

To make the arrangements for your return flight home at the end of your mission CALL SISTER BUTTON TODAY AT THE MISSION OFFICE 787-786-2224 WITH THE FOLLOWING INFORMATION:

Nearest Airport to Home _________________________

Parents email:__________________________________

Name of Parents ________________________________

Address ______________________________________

City___________ State ____________ Zip___________

Home Phone number( )_____ Cell Phone ( )______

Stake_________________________________________

Name of Stake President_________________________

Please circle if your parents are considering coming to pick you up in Puerto Rico. Yes No
If yes, President Alvarado has requested that your parents call him directly."

Freaking ridiculous, man. Ridiculous. Heh, heh. Yeah, so much for being able to keep focused. :-/ but I HAVE noticed that being somewhat occupied with planning district meetings and making evening phone calls DOES suck up all the free time that I used to have thinking about stuff. Wonderful. Now I have even LESS time to think about writing in my journal and intending to catch up on letters. Naw, but really... that last district meeting was pretty horrible... I wasn't very organized, and I was SUPER tired, so nothing really came to my mind... bleh. We spent a lot of time in uncomfortable silence. :) But this week’s was MUCH better. :D since our entire district all in Ponce 2 ward, we can discuss more deeply about how we can apply specifically to Obispo Feito and the members that we work with every week. In fact, I had Elder Black share a little bit about the importance of the members (from Chapter 9 in preach my gospel) and some of the things that we've been discussing in companionship study. :) it helped us think a little bit about some of the things that we could start sharing with the members, including teaching them the restoration (basic. you know. everyone does that. :D ) as well as teaching them about the doctrine of Christ. which is actually one of the things that we have been learning about, that’s included in the list of things that I had been wanting you guys to study... so you know how Nephi talks about the Gospel of Jesus Christ in 2 Nephi 31(click to read)? There’s even something deeper than those five principles in the Gospel. As a matter of fact in a way, 2 Nephi 2 goes along with it. Elder Bednar had been sharing with us how we need to teach in a way that allows our investigators to be AGENTS, not OBJECTS. As Lehi explained in verse 14, God created all things, things to Act, and things to be Acted Upon. Well, we as children of our heavenly Father, have been given the gift of Agency from the beginning, which all of us used to follow Jesus Christ and come here to the earth. Verse 27: "wherefore, men are free according to the flesh... and they are free to choose liberty and eternal life... or to choose captivity and death." so we're free to choose. It was a gift verse 16: "wherefore, the Lord God gave unto man that he should act for himself. Wherefore, man could not act for himself save it should be that he was enticed by the one or the other." in order for us to be able to choose, we HAVE to be tempted. It’s necessary for us to be able to choose. If we don't have a choice between good and evil, there’s no choice. So there’s a little bit about Agency and being an Agent. :) Now, in 2 Nephi 31, Nephi explains a little bit about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and WHY he, even though he was perfect, was baptized. So, now that you've been studying the crap out of 2 Nephi 2 (click to read) I suppose that you can move on to 2 Nephi 31. So, while you're studying that... I would invite you to think about WHY the savior was baptized. Why, of all people, did HE have to get baptized? Baptism is for the remission of sins (Acts 2:38), but Jesus was perfect; he didn't need that... he was showing us something. I would invite you to study and think about that. :)

So yeah... now that I've rambled on for the past twenty minutes about agency and stuff, let’s talk about the EASTER CONFERENCE! :D woo! so on Friday we got there and we practiced the whole day (3-7+ dinner) to sing, and then in the evening we had a fireside about Christ's sacrifice and resurrection with investigators from all over the island which we sang at. Then the next day, we did a cleaning service project at the stadium right next to Plaza Las Americas, and then we went inside to go eat. And sing. :3 it was so cool! :D the entire floor got super quiet when we started and everyone clapped and had a good time and came up to say how good we sang and everything. Cool. :D coincidentally, the BYU soccer team was there. :D after that we went to the Trujillo Alto stake center to do some workshops and some sports, and then ended the night with a Luau! :D WOO! The Luau is about the family, and so we had a Hawaiian evening complete with full pig, with hula dancers and the Polynesian elders... and some others... heh, and president, doing the Hakka. :D after that we had a testimony meeting, and then in the End, Elder Nauahi did some fire dancing! :D (He did it professionally before the mission) I'm gonna steal the vid from Elder Hargadon. It was super awesome. I'll get some pictures sent out soon.

AH! I had actually meant to say "AYAH, Jackie!" maybe that will help. If not, try to read it with an Old Chinese man voice. :) or "one more thing!"

WOW! That story about the girl in the National Guard is so COOL! Things are gonna work out. That’s TOTALLY sounds like a classic story you would find in the Ensign. :D

Aw! We were riding around last night, and there’s this one spot in a neighborhood that these three dogs ALWAYS bark really loud and chase after us. They don't do anything, but they always chase us and Elder Black HATES it. XD and this time, he was riding crazy fast to get away from them, and when he got to the corner to turn, he totally biffed it hard core. Ripped out one of his knees and tore up his arm a little bit, and today he's super sore all over, but other than that, he's doing good. :3

Poopers... I'm gonna have to bust a move now... BUT. I tried to get a hold of Cody, and I'm not sure what I did wrong with his email, so would you happen to have his email somewhere?

I love you more than Elder Black Loves those dogs. :3

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Re: YET another week with an empty mail box

2011-04-20T23:42:00.000-07:00

Wed, Apr 20, 2011

Well... that is surely an old picture. However, I can't tell who that weirdo is. You know that second one from the left? Crazy kid. Where the hecksters did you find that picture?

DAH! I'm sorry I haven't sent the pictures yet!!! KNO EESTA BHUNNEE!? :'( I'm such a failure! ...and then this week is gonna be even more difficult, cause we have the Easter conference this weekend, and because of that president has cut our P-Day short... we only have until TWO today to get stuff taken care of... but it's ok. we got up early to start our day earlier. :3 so yes. news. that puts us at... this Friday and Saturday. :D hers the email that I received from President about the conference:

"Queridos misioneros:

La Misión va a celebrar la Pascua este año con una Conferencia de la Misión viernes el 22 y sábado el 23. Todos los misioneros necesitan llegar a la oficina de la misión a las 3:00 pm viernes el 22 vestidos en sus trajes. Necesitan saber y traer lo siguente:

1) Los Líderes de Zona necesitan asegurar que los misioneros vienen en forma de "car pool" o sea juntos para no gastar más gasolina que sean necesaria.2) Si tienen sus pasaportes o visas o I-94, hay que traerlos consigo y entregarlos a la Hermana Button. Ella va a guardarlos.3) Todos los misioneros de las Zonas de Ponce y Mayagüez van a quedar la noche de viernes en el area metropolitana y por eso necesitan traer consigo sus propias almohadas y sábanas y toallas.4) El sábado vamos a hacer un proyecto de servicio y por eso deben traer ropa para trabajar que puede ensuciarse.5) El sábado también deben traer ropa misional para otras actividades después del servicio.6) El sábado deben desayunar antes de venir a las actividades y deben traer $10 para comprar su almuerzo.7) Van a regresar a sus propios apartamentos el sábado por la noche para poder estar en sus propias áreas el domingo.

Si todos venimos con un espíritu de amor y reverencia y lo mantenemos durante la Conferencia de Pascua, va a ser una de las experiencias mejores de toda nuestra misión.

Presidente y Hermana Alvarado"

Unfortunately it's in Spanish... so you can't really understand it... heh. And then, to make matters worse, Google translate sucks. Oh well. basically all that it really says is that we're going to have a service project on Saturday that we need to bring clothes for... um... come in our suits... bring our passports if we didn't leave them in the office already... heh, heh... oops. Yeah, I gotta do that. Have ten dollars for lunch on Saturday, and eat breakfast before coming out to the service... stuff like that. but we ARE going to be doing a special singing montage that wasn't mentioned there where we are going to be singing a verse each of how great thou art, I believe in Christ, He is risen, and then that other Easter song that I can't remember the name to in English... poop. Oh well. That other Easter hymn. You know the one. :)

Other news: President Alvarado came and stopped by each of the bishops in the Ponce stake center (Ponce cuatro y Ponce dos) and had a little talk with them about Jacob 5:48... (I think...) basically, that is the reason that we are doing the centers of strength and all this crazy stuff with tons of missionaries in one place. The roots do not have enough strength to hold the branches. (speaking of which, the other two new Elders are in a different apartment, thank goodness) so now with us having three companionships in one ward, and Elder Radmall leaving to do his special project, there was a vacancy left for district leader. After church, President and Elder Button, the secretary for President, came to give us some specific instruction on how to work more effectively with Obispo Feito... and something else happened. Something ridiculous. I'm now the district leader! :-O It's ridiculous! I just gave my first district meeting yesterday... gah, I was so tired too, and because we have them at 7 in the morning in the chapel... it was horrible! I never realized how HARD it is to be an effective district leader. Well... I guess that’s what I get for asking the Lord to help me build my faith. I have a lot of stuff to work on... but. At the very least, I'm very grateful for this opportunity that I have received from my heavenly father to serve others. Apparently there’s something that I know that I can teach to other missionaries. Apparently. I dunno, we'll see. This last Monday and Tuesday, we also had the excellent opportunity to get to work with two Elder's from the special project: Elder Zenger, ex assistant, and Elder Crawley. Elder Zenger came with Elder Black and I, and Elder Crawley went with Elder Hargadon and Elder Jensen. I learned a mountain of things... wow. How grateful I am for the chance that I had to be able to work with someone who knows how to be a good missionary. I'm even more grateful that Elder Black had the chance to see an excellent missionary’s example to help him grow. It was crazy.

So yes... that’s the crazy news for this week... quite crazy.

For Donny: tell him heck YES I want to have lunch with Mr. Bain when I get back! That would be so awesome! I had actually been thinking about asking him if I could do trumpet lessons again... but this time actually practicing and everything. You know. So that I can REALLY learn how to play... that would be fantasmilastical. :)

Maybe Ella was tellin everyone else that she wasn't gonna come back up so that she can just spend some private time with us? :3 you think so? I dunno. I definitely think it would be worth finding out though. Would you happen to have her email?

Well, at this point, it almost sounds like Pierce has more points in it. Especially from adding yours into it. eh heh heh heh. So it sounds like Hannah might be going to school with me! :-O cause, I mean... WARMOTH?! That’s almost a complete Trump card there, man. Getting to work at Warmoth... oo, it makes me feel all warm inside and want to giggle. Guitars, guitars, guitars... mmmm, custom guitars. ooohooo hooo.

Poop... no I have yet to complete a letter to send out to Miss Stephanie... I know that I need to get something out to her quick... I've been getting the prompting that I NEED to... but I every time that I sit down to write, I just can't get my thoughts organized enough to get things moving from my mind onto the paper! Gah... I should be able to soon... hopefully...

BUT, you need to send me some pictures of those crazy pancakes! :D and to answer your question about french toast, actually... I did make french toast about a week ago. :3

Well, it appears that everyone’s all finished; I suppose I have to go.

I love you more than I love giving wonderful district meetings.

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

New Assignment

2011-04-19T00:44:00.000-07:00

District Leader

Re: another week with an empty mail box :'(

2011-04-13T17:00:00.000-07:00

Wed, Apr 13, 2011

WOOO! I FINALLY get to do email! :D after a ridiculous amount of time spent trying to get things figured out for transfers, things are finally figured out. So, before I continue, CHANGES!

*announcer voice* in this corner we have Elder Black and Elder Bryan, to continue as an excellent tag team. Now unfortunately, there’s been a few changes on the Ponce 2B side of things. As we all know, Elder Radmall has been getting pretty old up in hizzle, so it's about his time to retire, but not completely. His manager, Prez Alvarado, has been pullin a few strings, and after a few changes, he's gonna be touring around quite a bit. he and the fourteen others that have been in the same round as him since day one are gonna be touring the areas for the next little while. Now, even more cool, they're gonna be going to the islands for a time as well. His old partner, Elder Hargadon has taken the reins in Ponce 2B, and they’ve brought in... Wait a second... is that... a second transfer NEWBIE?! no! YES! It is! It appears that part of the changes that president has been making includes a 12 week training program to get greenies ready to train after two transfers! WHOA! Pullin stuff out o' nowhere! Seems like he's been working on some of his technique. After some boundary changes in the areas of Ponce, it seems that the manager has been looking for an extra boost to build up some more strength. And so in the third corner, He's cut out Coto Laurel from Ponce 2A and added another pair of missionaries! That’s right! THREE pairs of missionaries in Ponce 2 ward! Is he crazy!? That’s unheard of! *ding! Bell rings* in other news, all of the people that Elder Black and Elder Bryan had been working with, were ALL IN COTO! So they, once again, shall be starting from scratch trying to find people. Well, here we are folks, at the beginning of another round. We'll see how it goes. Be right back after these messages.

Oh my goodness. That pick punch is AMAZING! Look at that! Picks out of ANYTHING you could possibly imagine! Planner covers, old gift cards, homework, bills, binders, your neighbor’s cat, plastic food, and more! The possibilities are ENDLESS!

As for the blocks, I HAVE used them, actually. Very handy. I left some with Elder Harvey and Elder dye a while back because when they saw them they wanted them. :) I unfortunately have yet to ask HERE, but I shall. :) However... guitar shop tour! WOO! :D

Oh man... I completely forgot about the Baltimore part! It’s just been so long! But at least you got to watch the vid. :3 you know... it kinda seems like a socially acceptable way to just throw used food at someone. ;) Bryan's my friend. :)

Oh man... I think you just gained us some points ... with Bryan... that was freakin SWEET! High five! *high five* oh yes... I'm very excited now. But what does Bryan have in his plans? What has he been concocting?

So, I'm gonna include a picture of the pros and cons thing for school that I kinda drew up with some free time... I just realized that if I DID stay in Washington, Ken Warmoth would possibly consider hiring me. I mean, he did tell me that if I was going to do secondary schooling and stay in the area for an extended amount of time then I could reapply and he would highly consider me... oh man. That would be so sweet. But not everything is on the sheet, yet. Just the basics for now... but yes. I think I have most of the pros and cons on there, but feel free to add or subtract. Honestly though, don’t worry about it being on my mind. I find I’ve been getting help keeping that out of my mind until I really do have free time to think, o say, after planning at night. That’s it. ;)

Picture two, me as an Amish missionary, courteously of Elder Gordon. XD what started out as a missionary drawing exploded into something unexpected!

Picture three... me and Elder Gordon at conference! Wait... is that... Elder Bailey?!

Man, Ehren really only has ONE week left!? Oh jeeze... crap... that’s gonna be ME in eleven WEEKS! DAH! RIDICULOUS!

So where is Hannah doing running start at? O sea, where will she be taking her courses... I think that might be a better way to say it and ask it. :)

Do you happen to have any updates about what is going on with Ella and when she's planning to come up to finally visit us?

I like how most of sister Duda's books are about Breakfast foods. That’s funny.

But anyway, I have to say, I love you more that president loves being ridiculously RANDOM! Gah. :D

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Re: picies, my pickies, oh where r my pickies? :-(

2011-04-06T16:14:00.000-07:00

Wed, Apr 06, 2011

Wow my goodness. Conference this year was amazing, sir! :) it's just really seems like every year they get better and better, sir. I'm not sure if Dad was able to mention anything to you about the priesthood session... but... heh. I thought it was funny. There were at least TWO talks about the necessity of marriage. One from Richard G. Scott and the other from President Thomas S Monson himself... and then for some reason I could a sworn there was another one, but I'm not sure. But yeah, I loved Elder Bednar's talk too! mmm mmm. Good old revelation through the Holy Ghost. That’s good stuff, that is. Ah man! Just reading the word.. wordS "meat bread" brings the taste to my mouth... ooo, so tasty. And cinnamon rolls... *sigh* soon, my friend. Soon you shall be able to taste the wonder of moms cooking... *ahem* anyways. Sorry about that. Um, where was I? Ah yes. Lemon crack bread. This sounds amazing. I must taste of its goodness!

Speaking of conference... you remember how I was telling you about how we needed to get family foundation to go to the Saturday sessions of conference and everything like that? Heh. Well, turns out, we only needed to get NORMAL foundation for that. Elder Radmall was just bein a funny guy. Pretty funny he is. Pretty funny.

Question: applecore, who’s your friend?

So, I just got done writing an email to Cody.... I've been meaning for a VERY long time to be able to get an email out to him... but I re-received his email from Grandma, so made sure to set some time apart before anything to be able to get it sent out to 'im.

OF COURSE I remembered Stephanie's birthday! What am I, some kinda heathen? Goodness me.

So, last week you mentioned how Brother Marjerison was working with USA guitars to make his nephew a guitar and everything, yeah? Well, I don't know how, but replying to that completely slipped my mind! OF COURSE I would want to go on a tour when I get back! That would be so awesome! :D you tell him yes.

Hey... I remember that you told me that Ella was waiting for me to get back before she came to visit. Have you heard anything more about that? When’s she supposed to come up? She better be coming up soon after I get back, that bum. She still hasn't even emailed me ONCE since I came out. Or even before that... but that’s not important. She needs to come up when I get back. Have you talked to her recently?

So, about the disk: check this out. Everything goes good, until it makes it to the "process your order" section. So I'm sittin there, waitin for like ten minutes while the computer is running through the ridiculous amounts of pictures that I've just loaded up, and it makes it to halfway. And then it just STOPS! :'( it says that it can't process it! NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! WHY?! Soooo... no DVD with pictures on it. I'm not sure if I should try it again or not... because I still need to hang on to my pictures... but I want to send them home... *sigh* I'll try again today.

Wait... you said that Hannah thought it would be cool to go to school with me... is she doing running start or something? Hmmm...but it sounds like I'm going to have to think a little bit about school... and pray. But it kinda sounds like waiting till winter quarter would be more feasible and plausible... I can work, save up some cash... and it sounds like it would be good to wait for BOTh of the options, so I can do that... more thinking.

Poop... I'm gonna have to bust a move... I took too long. Again. I'm sorry... I'm so lame!

I love you more than I love not sending the pictures...? :3

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Re: jinxed myself!

2011-03-30T05:57:00.000-07:00

Wed, Mar 30, 2011

Ha, ha, ha, that’s a good one!. :) {Howdy doody? oops that is #2 so how are things in the #1 department? Drinking lots and lots and lots? and lots? KEEP drinking! Is it helping?} But yes... I have been drinking lots of water, and it seems to be helping so far. But we'll see. I AM dying after all.

Man, this week was just loaded with stuffs for yous guys!

First off, I finally got a standalone email back from Bryan, and some of it involves plans that he wants to do. First question that he had: about PAX prime, a gamer convention August 26th, 27th and 28th. I want to go. :3 but I don't know if that would interfere with schooling or anything... also... I have no idea about that. 'cause enrollment all done already, right? Or was it that LDS BC accepts all the time? I can't remember. I dunno. My minds really unorganized right at the moment...

So... yes. I haven't been able to reply to Annie... that’s my fault. I'm a FAILURE! :-( I SWEAR that I haven't forgotten about her. It’s just as you said. I've just been really busy... it's even been really hard to get replies to letters that I got a few months ago... dah! Including Miss Andrea AND Miss Stephanie... however, I DID get the wedding invitation from Elder Harvey. And Yes. He is married. That bum. He totally was telling me that he was gonna wait till I got back. Poopy.

Well, at least Robin and Chase will get there relatively soon after my arrival. That’s better than them not showing up at all. :P ;)

REALLY? The students are getting there LATE? So does that interfere with their allotted time to stay? Or do they still have to bust a move at the same time as the years before? But that’s cool that we're gonna have a girl for Hannah this year. :)

WOW! Alan is going into the NAVY?! You were right. lol, I DIDN'T guess! That kinda comes as a surprise to me.

WOO! Full FAFSA! Sweet! I feel so privileged now. :3 is it possible for you guys to check up on the Pell grant or any other scholarships that I might be able to pick up? 'cause that would be wonderful... I'm definitely going to need the most money that I can possibly get so I don't die... :-/

So, if I remember right... Hannah is aiming for an Ivy League school, right? Man... I can't remember anything... pooper scoopers.

DAH! Joes CD came out LAST YEAR?! What?! Well, that just means that there’s another one coming soon. :3 and the FOOT! WOO! Another album! Oh si. That means their next tour will be like next year or something... interesting.

WOO! Mothers day phone call! Only thirty nine days left! :D

For the traveling ministers: well, what they do is, they go about the zone doing tradeoffs back to back. So essentially, they live with eh missionaries that they are doing the trade-off with, but they also have another companionship that is like their "home companionship" in the sense that if they weren't traveling ministers, they would be in a trio with them. Does that make sense? So, depending on their personal preference, they could just skip out on being with their home companionship all the time, or be there for P-day to recharge and one other day along with that.

ok, so for happenings this week. Along with the institution of the family foundation, comes the requirement to get it to be able to go to the Saturday sessions of conference (not including priesthood)! Woo! Good thing Elder Black is a hard worker and helping me out to get it. He’s a monster, man. It’s so hard though. :D I'm super excited, because it's like a mega challenge to get it, and now that we have presidents interviews on Thursday (which almost always take all day), we have to buckle down and try super duper huny dunky big mac super size really, really, really hard :). I'm excited. :D we've been having some amazing experiences since Monday with seeing the lords hand guiding us. :3 we had been needing another family lesson before we went to go share with the relief society president and her husband, and we were thinking, oh no... If we don’t' get this, we aren’t going to get our goal for the day! And then, as we rounded the corner on our bikes, *ding* family. Grandfather and grandchildren. :) He invited us in right away, and was super agreeable. He read the Book of Mormon before, and has it up in his attic. Told us he was gonna go read it and that we could return on Monday to share more. SWEET!

Well... I think you might have to excuse me... I've been a bum and I've tried to keep my mind focused on one thing at a time, but I've just been bouncing around the whole time... however, I had been thinking about the picture situation, right? And I was thinking of just going to Walgreens and making a DVD copy of all my pics so that I can send it home like that, so I can get everything to you... as well as keeping up with something special that I've been working on for Elder Black. :) so I'm going to just stop by there today. We have lots of time, since I'm somewhat set on shopping this week, and emails just about over. So... you should be expecting that... within a week? :3

I love you very much. Much more than I am dying!!!111oneoneone11!!

~Elder Bryan (Brandon)

Wed, Mar 23, 2011

2011-03-23T22:33:00.000-07:00

... you were asking about transfer information for Robin (and I suppose for you too, right? that might be important... ha. ok, well I was just asking Elder Varner and he was saying that he's pretty sure we head out on a Thursday... but I coulda sworn that I headed out Wednesday. but I think that’s something that they will let me know about while they are fixing up flights and things... I think next transfer is when they'll call me about my death papers... *sigh* el tiempo viene ya pronto.

WOW, the exchange students are getting here a whole week before July, pretty much. Wow. Are they still planning on leaving at the same time, or are they moving the go home date sooner because they're coming sooner? And... I'm not sure if you've already told me this or not, but do you already know who you're going to get as a student? Boy or girl?

Ah! I also wanted to ask you about your study of 2 Nephi 2. Did you find anything spiffy or receive any new revelation about it?

So, missionary work news!
Elder Black and I actually had the wonderful opportunity to get to work with Elder Varner (he was an Elder that came out in my group who was my zone leader for a few transfers and now he's what they call a "traveling minister". he goes around with all the companionships in the zone and does two day trade-offs with them. It's something new that president has instituted, and every zone has one now) last Saturday and Sunday. He’s such a gospel knowledge master. It was great to finally get the chance to work with him. He’s so great.

On Tuesday... wait. YESTERDAY, we had a special combined magical district boot camp thingie of training and fun instead of regular old boring district meeting. The zone leaders were there and some other "traveling ministers" from Mayaguez. We talked about the doctrine of Christ, how to better begin teaching and how to better place commitments. After we finished with all of that and more (practices) we went out to go eat and get to work. Every companionship received a special little booster. A zone leader or traveling minister came out with them to help the companionships to better apply the preach my gospel points that we learned in the morning. First off, guess what? There was something I" forgot to tell you about from transfers. Elder Putnam was made ZONE LEADER! :-O he was the one that replaced Elder Varner on his way out. So we had the pleasure of getting to work with Elder Putnam yesterday after our special combined magical district boot camp thingie of training and fun. :D it was pretty sweet. But of course, even though we set up appointments with the people that we were going to teach yesterday just the DAY BEFORE, because we were doing a spiffy training thingie, almost everything fell through. LAME! I don't know why, but that ALWAYS happens! It’s ridiculous. >:( blarg! But yes. It was still GREAT! :D

So recently we've been more on bike because president has downed the amount of miles that we get (again) from 900 to 800, so now that I still am going to Yauco every Friday (75 miles round trip plus traveling In Yauco) we've got to make some sacrifices to make this work. So, we’ve been doing some biking. Which is nice, cause you know how much I love to bike. No joke! I really do! But anyways, I've also been doing some pretty heavy working out every morning and every night before I go to bed. I picked up a jump rope from the store and I do that right before I start to work out so that I can get that blood pumping! And as a matter o fact, I borrowed Elder Gordons book of tai chi exercises, so me and Elder Black are going to add that into our mornings as well. XD

YES! a new album from Neil Zaza! and a new one from Joe coming in October... and then a NEW ALBUM with the new Dragonforce comes out in SEPTEMBER!? Oh my goodness, such amazingness all around! This deserves a bouncingly very happy face!: plus something new HAS to be coming out from Machinae supremacy soon. It’s bound to be! Oh si. Joe {Satriani} has cool merchandise and you didn't even tell me what?! :'( Also: I had NO idea that he had an interactive chat! even MORE amazing. :D

YES! no talk in stake conference. BONUS! :D {... the Stout kid i was telling you about last week well he didn't go to the MTC till this week so that means that he will get there exactly one transfer before you go home. It would be really cool if you got to be his first trainer! The stake had it's general priesthood meeting last Sunday night and they asked him to speak and bare his testimony. You will get off pretty lucky, there is no big meeting within months of you coming home plus the stake conference in the fall will be one of the broadcasts from salt lake, oh but there is the evening adult session! i guess you aren't totally off the hook after all!}

But yes. I'm afraid I’m going to have to bust a move now, but I love you more than I love finding more and more things to have to think about involving my time when I get back and my future! :-O but really though. There are just so many things that keep coming up! Our road trip, school, the Invader Zim marathon that I'm gonna have with Steph (lol), jobs?, serving the orphans in South America. So many things!

"one MORE thing!" ... "ayah, Jackie!" {ya, we didn't get either}

~Elder Bryan (Brandon)

PS: Steph informs me that you haven't updated the blog since DECEMBER?! :-O WHHHAAAAAAAAT!? that’s like, over nine thousand! (Minutes)

Re: 3.14-PI.E day yay!

2011-03-16T23:36:00.000-07:00

Wed, Mar 16, 2011

Oo, chocolate pie... *drools a little* that sounds so tasty right now... (And pie for breakfast?! goodness, you just went all out, didn't ya?)

Oh my goodness, Hannah’s starting drivers ED?! NOOO! Everyone get inside! Hide your little children! Put the food away! :-O hmm, having a driver’s ED in school sounds kinda dangerous. Sweet.

You know, I've actually been really trying to start peeing golden Rocks, but it hasn't been working... I think I need to eat more potatoes or something. You know... those Yukon Gold ones. But I dunno. I have just mentioned it to president a few times and every time I do I think that he thinks I'm just complaining, or somethin, 'cause he doesn't seem to take it very seriously. *sigh* and the last time I mentioned it to him, he just told me to stop worrying about it because it was never going to go away. I dunno. It might be just because he gets fed up with hearing about all kinds of crap from the missionaries so he just gives the generic "forget yourself and get to work" answer instead of asking about it. Or maybe that’s just me murmuring.

And speaking of murmuring. I'm sorry about last week. I think I just woke up in a bad mood and then sleeping bad just made it worse. My bad.

But No! I ran up to the stuntman because he needs the restored gospel. The sweet motorcycle was just a bonus. :P

Ha, ha, ha, no, no. when I talk about the “flooding of Ponce" I mean this plan that president has made where all the surrounding areas of Ponce, like Adjuntas, Santa Isabel etc... come in REALLY, really early to start working at six thirty until nine in the morning to start finding families. Basically the idea is to strengthen areas of strength, o sea, the cities where there's lots of people. So we divide up our companionships with the people that come in, and then we go out to go contact families. Especially now that president has bumped up the bar. Now instead of having to get the "normal foundation” it’s become the "family foundation". Or in other words, 140 contacts to families, and 20 lessons to families. Crazy, man. Crazy. It’s not impossible, just very, very difficult to get if you're not used to it. So, we just have to move things up to another notch is all.

Ah, testigos. Those fun people that believe that Jehovah is God. You know. JW's. The witnesses. The non believers. :)

Ha, runnin the missionaries hard, huh? That new guy sounded a little grumpy. xD

Hey! You haven't updated my blog!? :P what happened? :'( I thought we were friends? and speaking of friends, I just got an email out to Steven... that’s my bad I hadn't gotten back to him yet, but I made sure to set some time apart to get to him today. :)

Ah! So guess what? Two Saturdays ago we went to Yauco, right? Turns out, it was the coffee festival (Yauco is the pueblo de cafe). So we went to go does some contacts. While we were out, we were walking down the street that lead up to the festival itself and guess who we run into? The MAYOR! :-O oh si, we contacted the mayor. He wasn't interested... but at least he gave us a welcome to Yauco and asked us where we were from. Maybe the camera guy got our picture. That would be spiffy. So yeah. And then after that, we went to go buy some chicken skewers (or "Pinchos" as they're called). As we were walking back to the car, I had to adjust the Book of Mormon that I had under my arm and the pincho in my other arm, and as I did so, we were stepping off the curb onto the street. Well, just my luck too, because I bumped my name tag off my shirt. All I could do was stare at it as it fell to the ground, hit my shoe and stopped right next to the sewer grate. Whew, that was close. And then it bounced INSIDE the sewer grate! :-O NOOOO! So I'm just standing there on the side of the road, feeling utterly naked without my name tag on, and my mouth hanging wide open. I looked down inside and just see my name winking up at me, almost mockingly. After thinking about what to do, we look over to the other side of the street. A farm shop! PERFECT! They HAVE to have something to be able to get this out! After fiddling around with different ideas, we settle on a broom stick with some tape on the end. Huzzah! The name tag of Elder Bryan has been saved. This will be the last time he'll ever escape. unfortunately I didn't get a picture of the helpful NPC, but he knew that I had a quest that I needed to have fulfilled, and he had the perfect item for the job. :3

So yeah... that’s about it for the week.

Oh wait! One more thing. Elder Gordon, one of the Elders in the zone, had one of his family members send him Jackie Chan's address, right? Jackie Chan is like his hero. :) and so he wrote Jackie Chan a letter about how much he's his hero and how he's on a mission for the church and everything, and Jackie Chan sends him a picture that he SIGNED! It was so awesome! And so I have been thinking and I came up with this question: do you think you could send me the address of Neil Zaza or Joe Satriani? :3 if you do I'll be your best friend. :)

I love you so much. More than Elder Gordon loves doing Yoga on our roof. :D

~Brandon (Elder Bryan

Re: home again, home again

2011-03-09T22:57:00.000-08:00

Wed, Mar 09, 2011

Chacho! You loaded me this week! Man... sounds like you had all kinds of fun with those airplanes! Gosh. But yes, I'm gonna try and get a letter out to grandma soon, because it really has been a while... speaking of which, has Robin been able to stop by and visit Grandma since she's been down there by herself? I mean, I ask because she lives in the same state and stuff. Obviously you told me she visits with you and stuff, but I was just wondering...

I dunno though, I'm just really tired, so I might just be asking redundant questions. :)

Ha, ha, oh man... that’s so crazy about Bryan's car though... stolen and then chased... and then destroyed. Total bummer. Ha, but at the very least he'll be able to parts out his car. But sweet! CAR CHASE! :D

Ahh. Naw, I wasn't saying that their beliefs were inferior or anything... just that I thought it was interesting how they expressed their belief in regards to a more firm testimony... dah, I dunno. I'm too tired to be able to explain it... :-/

But today... wOoOoOo! We got to go get Elder Blacks license today! :D YAY! so after two days of Ponce flooding and getting up at five thirty, I got to get up just as early on P-Day so we could go to the license place before the rest of the world got there. But, so much for that, because we had to wait for some papers to go through... and then we had to wait in line... and then... heh, Elder Black failed the test two times, ha! That was great. He comes out and he's like... "Um... I didn't pass." and then after paying another ten dollars, he comes back and sez "eh... I didn't pass again" Lolz, that was funny. So, after all that, and getting there at around seven in the morning, we left at eleven. *sigh* way too long. And to top it off, I didn't sleep very well last night, and I'm getting intermittent pain in my kidney throughout the day again. Wonderful. In fact, it hurts right now a little bit. Goodness, do I love feeling great. Plus, I've been walking around without my name tag and my planner all day because I was so tired this morning and we're 45 minutes away from the apartment.

I'm sorry; this is kind of a negative now... how lame. That’s my fault. I'm going to try to just toss that up in the air and start something better, cause nobody likes a grumpy Gus. Or a negative Nancy. My bad.

Woo! Much better.

So YES! I think Cameron might like this part! :D we were out in Coto Laurel, part of our area, the other day, and Elder Black had to go to the bathroom. Yup. That’s it. Lol, naw. Ok, so we went to Walgreens so he could use the bathroom, right? Well, walking up to the door to go in, I see this guy on a bright yellow crotch rocket getting ready to head out. I run up to him and start to contact him. Cool, he's talked with missionaries before, and they've stopped by once or twice, cool. Also cool, he's heard a bit about the church. Super cool: he's a stunt man. For Burn Notice. And for a bunch of other movies. As well as for the up and coming Die Hard 6, which they are going to be filming right here in Ponce. Oh yes. We contacted the stunt man for Burn Notice. WOO! And even better, we stopped by him yesterday and taught him... he is VERY interested in the Book of Mormon and promised us that he would read it. :3 oh man, how cool would THAT be, eh?! Get to baptize the stunt man for Burn Notice? Freakin sweet!

We also went and taught a new family last night that I contacted two days ago. While we had been contacting in the Elementary school, right before we were about to leave, a lady comes up to me and said " 'scuse me, I have a doubt" wait. You have a doubt? Sweet! And she then asked us what God's name was. Turns out the testigo's have been visiting. (grrr *shakes fist*) we proceeded to explain to her about that and gave her a restoration tract and set up an appointment for last night. When we show up, she was really excited that we were there and had tons of questions. She read the whole pamphlet and was super excited to get a hold of the Book of Mormon and really wanted to read it. We also made it a point to talk to her about the fact that the only way to know about the truth of ANYTHING was through prayer, and she told us that she was going to pray and ask God before we came by El Jueves... ehh... Thursday.

So yes. That’s just two happenings for the past few days...

Yeah. Do you realize that I now only have three and a half months? It’s ridiculous how fast time has gone!

Eh... and due to this morning’s events, as well as our normal Library being closed, I don't have any pictures to send through email... because I'm sending my memory card today! :-O *gasp* that’s right, folks! Elder Bryan now has a box and everything, and he's planning on stopping by the Post Office right after whopping... what? why did I type that? *ahem* SHOPPING! WOOO! *crowd cheers* YAY!

So yes... I’m' sorry today's email kinda sucked... it's not the most content heavy, nor is it the best emotionally. I'm just so excited, you know? :D oh yes.

But I DO want to say that I love each and every one of you dearly. Mom, Dad, Donny, Hannah, Robin, and everyone else that reads my emails. But not the people that don't read them. They don't deserve my love. :P

So yes. I think I may have just released the secret to my love. Read my emails. Yes. Or even send me letters! Because I really REALLY love letters. Especially the ones from Bryan. You know the ones that he would write. By hand. Just throwing that out there.

However, I love you mom. More than I love the person that's going to buy my kidney. :)

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Re: off i go...

2011-03-02T16:00:00.000-08:00

Wed, Mar 02, 2011

Wow, you're right; it really was a shorty this week. *sigh* well, I guess I'll have to make do with what I've got.

But, at least you get to get up ridiculously early! :D I can just imagine your sunshiny face. Just think about it... you get to go to Cali! :D yay! Even if it IS going to rain!

So, we had transfers this week. aaaaaaaaand, drum roll please, *drum roll* sooooooooo... no changes. :D Elder Hargadon and Elder Radmall are staying together, and so are WE! yay! I still can't believe that it's already been one transfer since he's come in, though! That’s just crazy! And now... holy crap... I only have three transfers left. Holy crap... that’s really soon. :-O wow. That’s pretty crazy, huh?

so... and an update on la familia Ruiz-Rivera... we had a cita with Nestor, el padre... it didn't go very well... we talked a lot about how he knows that the catholic church isn't true, but how he feels amazing going to church there. *sigh* he kept telling us that he feels the same way that we do about "our church" and that he would invite us to his church if he could, so we could see how it has changed him for the better... *sigh* I dunno... but I'm not sure when the next time that we stop by will be...

So, I've been thinking about testimonies recently. That experience with Nestor and a few other people we've been teaching has caused me to think a bit about the things that other people say. I've noticed that others, in other churches, are only able to say certain things. they can say "I believe..." if they are going to talk about their church or about their understanding of the scriptures... but they NEVER say, "I know" I don't think I have met a single person that has said to me that they KNOW their church to be true so far. They ALWAYS say, I believe. However, if someone were to talk about Jesus Christ, in example they say "I know that Jesus Christ is my savior" or, "I know that the Bible is the Word of God" but that is the extent of their ability. I've felt that it adds an extra value to my testimony because I know that I have received it from the Holy ghost directly from God, and I can say with a certainty and conviction that I know this, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day saints, is the only true church on the earth today, the only church with the fullness of the Gospel. And I know that Jesus Christ, my Lord, My God and My best friend, guides this church by speaking directly to a living prophet. I know that this living prophet is Thomas S Monson, and that he has received his authority directly from Jesus Christ. I am so grateful that God Loves us so much that he speaks to us today, and that he worries about each one of us individually as his children.

So yes. I emailed my crazy friends, and now I'm out of time! :-O but I think this still might have been a good email, even if it WAS short. :3

I love you more than Plastic food! :D

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

okay. enough of this nonsense.

2011-02-23T23:35:00.000-08:00

Wed, Feb 23, 2011

this is getting serious now. xD

same descriptions/order of last week
1) Elder Black and I our second day together! :D
2)my name in the sand at La Guancha, Ponce

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Brandon Bryan
Date: Wed, Feb 16, 2011 at 10:53 AM
Subject: Fwd: What's the dealio?

Re: Snow is falling all around...

2011-02-23T15:17:00.000-08:00

Wed, Feb 23, 2011

Man! Are you serious?! You guys got more snow?! That’s so crazy! Í keep hearing that it's been really cold all over the world this past year... gosh, and it's already into the end of February and we're still getting snow. Goodness. Well, I hope you're enjoying it. Here I am, stuck in this horrible hot 90 degree weather. :-(

Ok. I'm sending those fotos. This time it better work, or I'm gonna be GRR! ANGRY!

Darn... no more large transporting large amounts of people to random places... *sigh* well, maybe I can just load them up in to the back of the truck, eh? :3 but hopefully the part will get here for the trailblazer on Thursday. That would be a nice bonus not having to drive dad all the way to the train everyday at o dark thirty... that sounds kinda early.

So, at least you're happy about who was picked to be the leader and Leo's pretty excited about me coming back! :D I can't wait to get back and show off my Spanish. :3

So, update on la familia Ruiz-Rivera. We weren't able to have an appointment with them last week... which was my fault... I didn't call to verify, but it turns out that our new ward mission leader actually works with him! :D they both are in the postal industry, and Nestor Ruiz has a private mail contracting business thingy thing, which is pretty cool. He’s pretty self sufficient, I would say, cause he also has a Fotografy company on the side that he does part time. Quite spiffy. But we have an appointment with them this coming Friday, so hopefully we'll get some good news. I'm really, really hoping... really bad. The blitz idea is pretty good, except for the whole getting up at five thing...:-/ but, I guess that’s a sacrifice that we have to make to get things going here. We've been able to find lots of full families recently, so we're goon see how those go in the next week. :)

Yeah, when Elder Hargadon first told me about, I thought it was amazing. I believe he's from north Cali though... and I dunno, so far everyone that I've met from Cali on the mission is pretty well off. ;) Ha, ha, ha, but really. and of COURSE I'm going to keep my mind focused on the task at hand, I'm just trying to be prepared and ready with a plan, cause "it's the end, my only friend, the end" (who’s that by? :D ) and so I've just gotta get things in order or at least have a skeleton in my mind. Some structure, you know? Or even a foundation, if you will. And everyone knows that you need to build a foundation before you can build anything else. I just wanna build my foundation or have the plans for it. That’s all.

Ok! Donny has been emailed! *DING* so I'm afraid, my email, due to his, is going to be kinda short this week. :-/

So Ehren was a trainer? And he had a bummer experience then? That’s kind of a downer... I suppose I got really lucky with Elder Black, then... but what do you mean that it doesn't really surprise you that Ehren didn't really like being a trainer? And unfortunately, I'm sad to say it, but I do believe that I might have suffered from a little bit of greenie-prideitis... but not as bad as some others have had it, which at the very least I can be grateful for.

Wow, so Grandma and Grandpa are putting in a LOT of wood floors then! All the way to the wood stove... what color wood are they going with? And what type? Is it real, or the laminate stuff? Also... which dining area? The place that we always eat at? AH! And are they going to keep the pool table?! They aren't getting rid of that are they?! :-O

Ha, ha, ha! I love those tic tacs!!! :D those things are amazing! Did someone print those on there, or did they paint them?

Oh poop... ok, it's not time to go! :-/

But, I love you more than I love salt and Vinegar chips! (I just got a package from Grandma... :3 )

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

what IS the dealio here?

2011-02-23T13:42:00.000-08:00

Wed, Feb 23, 2011

same descriptions/order of last week
3 )overlooking La Guancha from this super cool tower thingie
4) sunset over La Guancha
5) alternate sunset foto

Re: What's the dealio

2011-02-23T09:11:00.000-08:00

Wed, Feb 16, 2011

just in case. :P

---------- Forwarded message ----------

*ahem* ... erm... anyways... eh... moving on? (1 Nephi 16:2)

Anyways, that’s really weird that my pictures didn't send... I'm gonna try and get that all fixed up first before I continue typing so that I can get those off. :)

So. Same descriptions/order of last week
1) Elder Black and I our second day together! :D
2) my name in the sand at La Guancha, Ponce
3) overlooking La Guancha from this super cool tower thingie
4) sunset over La Guancha
5) alternate sunset foto

so anyways... some cool thingies for this week.

this morning I had been talking with Elder Hargadon (Elder Radmalls companion/one of the four Elders in our apartment) about some of the places that he's been to (he's been all OVER EVERYWHERE. he's a very lucky man. most all the countries in Europe... Brazil, Ecuador, Mexico, Canada... and more. Lucky, lucky, man.) and when he brought up Ecuador, he mentioned that after he had graduated from High School he had been talking with a friend, and she had mentioned this program that you can sign up for and volunteer at an orphanage. in Ecuador. and since he hadn't been doing anything after he graduated he went. Here’s the linkie-link: http://www.orphanagesupport.org/ he went and did it for four months after he graduated. he was telling me about his experience with the program (and in his free time there) and said that it was absolutely amazing. Quite honestly, it was kinda inspiring. He also mentioned that there was a pretty big need for volunteers as there weren't many people applying. but I had been thinking... I mean, that would be a fantastic way to keep up my Spanish. You know? plus, it's helping others. Can’t lose with that. Elder Hargadon said after explaining it to some of the people in his ward they donated money (now... he DID live in California... and he DID know lots of Rich people... but still.) he ended up not having to pay anything. but how amazing would that be?! :D I think it would be the coolest thing eva! and I can imagine I could get some kinda of college credit for doing it as well... so... yeah. it would be amazing. What do you think?

and in other news... WE FOUND A FAMILY!!!! :D and they are totally the coolest family ever! :D let me start from the beginning. So, was had a trade off with Elder Oviatt (our great zone leader guy person) back on the 25th and he contacted a grandma and her three grand kids. we got the info from him and since then we have been trying to contact the family, but every time that we stopped by the house, they weren't there! They just were not there. Granted, the grandma was taking care of the kids until 5 and then the parents would get home from work around 5 to 6... but after stopping by at least 3 times a week trying to contact anyone for two weeks, we finally got a hold of them last Thursday. And then had an AMAZING appointment with them on Friday. :D wow. First off. Nestor, the father, plays the guitar. *ding* His favorite band? Van Halen. *ding* his favorite guitarist? Eddie Van Halen *ding* the oldest son, also named Nestor (14) plays the guitar *ding* the next oldest, Gabriel (12) has the favorite colors of black red and white. *ding* and the youngest son, Ian (10) plays the trumpet. *ding* is there a more perfect family?! I think not. ;) we started the restoration lesson by referring to the family: a proclamation to the world pamphlet and Eternal families. Then throughout the entire lesson we connected all the points to Eternal families as well. :) The only reason we couldn't share anything with them the Thursday that we talked to them is because they were working on homework as a family. :-O otherwise they would have let us in. the mother, Marlin, was a little bit apprehensive about the whole thing (both she and Nestor studied in a catholic university right here in Ponce) so we'll have to see how everything plays out. (I'm pretty sure it's going to play out for the better though. :) ) But at the end of the lesson, Nestor was willing to kneel down and pray to find out if Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. And he committed to read the Book of Mormon, and said that he was going to finish it within two weeks. Wow. He is amazing. :D but look at that. a whole family, and they are almost ALL priesthood holders. We have been blessed. Very much so. So if you could be so kind so as to include La Familia Ruiz-Rivera in your prayers that would be absolutely fantastic.

Plus, president has given us a new schedule for working. :) I think I might have already mentioned it... but we weren't able to implement until this last Monday due to schedule conflicts. And wow. We were highly blessed. We were able to find a WHOLE lot more people to talk to that early in the morning. There is a whole lot more families out that early, taking kids to school and the like. And now we have some appointments with more families coming up! :D I'll report on how those go next week. :D

To give a small report on Reynaldo... well... things didn't go as well as they could have. He has quite a few doubts... and he hasn't exactly been reading because he doesn't like the style that the Book of Mormon is written in (in columns like the bible...) and he believes that Jesus Christ is an alien... so we're working on that. But other than that, he's great! :D

I still have yet to get my package from the office. I'm not really sure what’s going on there. >:(

so, I should be getting my memory card sent out TODAY, :) we have to stop by the post office so I'm going to pick up a small flat rate box to send some stuff home that I've been meaning to send. INCLUDING THE MEMORY CARD, which will be sent off in the box that I will be getting today I will send home the memory card. There. Nice and redundant for all of us to be redundant. And stuff. so Yea. I'll get the memory card sent off. ;)

but yes... I suppose because I've put a bit more substance into this email I've run out of time... so I'm going to have to bust a move. buuut, at least I have some pictures right? That’s what counts. :)

so yes.

I love you more than I love almost sending the memory card. ;) :P Naw, I love you more than I love biking around on a broken pedal. :3

~Elder Bryan (Brandon)

wait... what?

2011-02-16T21:58:00.000-08:00

Wed, Feb 16, 2011

What do you mean I didn't send you my email? :P I sent you TWO last week! :P the first one was a reply to your email, and then the second one was a completely independent email. So I dunno know what you be talkin' bout, yo, but I guess I'll just toss last weeks into this one as a forward. geeze. :P

So yes, singles awareness day was fairly uneventful :-/ no mail. Just a ridiculously, early get up time. Blah! Even more tired! But, more recently I've been sleeping better. theres one interesting thing that I've noticed so far. In all of my experiments to figure out what’s going on and how I can make my kidney complain less, there’s something that I noticed WILL work: if I work out a lot right before I go to bed, it doesn't hurt in the night. And maybe even for the next couple days. quite thought provoking, eh? I'm not sure why, but it works. And it has to be right before I go to sleep. It can't be like during the day or in the morning or anything, cause I've been riding my bike a very large amount during the day and that doesn't make any difference. it must be right at the end of the day. :-/ so... I dunno. But I’m glad that I was able to inspire the Laurels to realize the truth about this day. Everyone just knows who's single on that day. :( *sigh* oh wells I suppose.

So, for Ecuador. Ha, ha, ha, you're funny. :P NO, I didn't want to go there just because Stephanie would be around there. Gosh. I just wanted to do it cause it would be fun and I mean, what a great thing it would be to just be able to go and help those little orphan children. :3 did you see them? They’re so cute! Plus, South America! :D and cool Amazon trip! and cheap shopping ;) ha, ha, ha, but really. I've always kinda wanted to just do some service like that. I dunno, I've just felt this draw forever to like, go volunteer at Pioneer Valley, or at Clair Bridge or something. But I never really got the chance. so now that I'm slightly less mentally tired than I was before the mission, and dying just a little bit less, I wanna be able to go and do something. It was weird though. When Elder Hargadon was telling me about it I just felt this draw, like I was being sucked in to it. But alas, you are right... I have WAY too many decisions that I have to make when I get home. BLAH! no more easy life. do you think that you would be able to figure out if Pierce credits are transferable to LDSBC? Also, if I were to stay, where do you think I would be able to get a job at? Any of the places that I suggested, or someplace new? :-/ I DO know that I'll be able to know what to do and stuff, but I wanna know what YOU think. or I could just go to Roberto-Venn? ;) Or Summit school in Canada, eh?

So, training! :D woo! I'm gonna have to say, I'm pretty lucky with my son. I got off easy, I think. He’s pretty good at understanding and speaking Spanish already (both his parents served Spanish speaking missions) and he's not suffering from greenie-pride-itus. He knows the doctrine pretty well. So basically it's just the whole being a greenie and not knowing what to do thing that he's working on. Fortunately he catches on quick. Alrighty. So, we HAVE divided up the area actually. We now have Alta Visat, Villa Flores and that area all the way to Coto Laurel, which is basically its own little pueblito. :) So, this last week, now that we've been talking with the bishop to get the goal of 125 people in church, things are going up! :D we went from 63 two weeks ago, to 73 this last week! WOO! Obispo Feito is a beast. He’s super willing to work with the missionaries and get things working. Plus we have some amazing members here that all want to make things go. We actually just got a new ward mission leader this last week. His name is Raphael Rivera. He is very up and at 'em. :D he's an Ex-Marine, so he's very thorough and systematic. Perfect. But I've got some high hopes. Super good. Yes.

anyways. IVE GOT GOOD NEWS!!!!!! :D so we went back to Yauco this last Saturday, right? And we get inside the apartment. lo and behold, there’s a package sitting on the floor right next to the window. (Our neighbor squeezes things through our little open window next to the door.) It’s from the Dorado family! :D it is now safely in my possession. Turns out they had a family emergency and had to stay over on the east coast till like two weeks ago or so. So, that's what happened there. but everything’s good now, it sounds like. Especially now that I have a FREAKIN SWEET ORNAMENT! Oh man, that thing is awesome! :D I love it. :3

Aw, no more suburban... now how are we supposed to take ridiculous amounts of people places? or home from mutual? Do we have to walk to church now? ...*sigh* now everythings gonna fall apart! we don't even have the Trailblazer either! AH! the end of the world is coming! AH! 2012! AH!

OH! update on la familia Ruiz-Rivera. so, we stopped by for our appointment on Friday, right? this time, they didn't have the entire family gathered together... :-/ after a little bit of talking, it seems like Nestor's wife maybe talked to him, cause his attitude seemed a bit different this time. but, we talked about the importance of knowing if this was the only true church or not, and how if our message is true, then it's the only way to "be saved". (Sorry, we ran into some Pentecostals yesterday. I just wanted to use that phrase) so we left them with the challenge to read and pray more firmly to find out if this message is true. We’re going to bring Raph with us to the next appointment on Friday so I'll give an update on that.

*old chinese man* one MORE thing, so that ridiculously early schedule? well, it's preparation for the "flooding of Ponce" where everyone outside of the city (Juana Diaz, Guayanilla, etc...) comes in to work in our areas. I worked with Elder Pezo from Peru yesterday (He's Elder Crawleys companion normally. from Juana Diaz) and so everyone comes in the night before, gets ready to get up super early, and then we all attack Ponce for a day. But it's sounding like things are gonna happen two days a week and yesterday was just a pilot day.

well... I guess I took a bit too long messing with Elder Radmall's picture... so I think I might have to send that to you, just so you can see what I was doing... it's kinda small though.

but, I love you more than I love trying to figure out my kidney mystery.

~Elder Bryan (Brandon)

FOTOS!

1) oh sí. (chevere means cool in puerto Rico) found that when we got lost looking for a referral the other day. it was in an old folks home parking lot. Those old people really know how to party! :D

2) Elduh Radmawl

aw poo, I forgot!

2011-02-09T20:39:00.000-08:00

Wed, Feb 09, 2011

I wanted to think about the job/school situation too...

now...

possible jobs for when I get back, right?

~Exchange student program
       -July-

~Moochies
       -the fair in September-
       -anytime-

~Macy's
      - would they re hire me? would I want to work there again?
      -and if so, for how long?

and whatever else is available... like, if I decide to just work on credits in Washington, I imagine that I would be able to work at Warmoth.. if I stayed there for a while.

but I'm still not sure if I want to start school September or winter quarter... If I start later I can work longer... or go to Ecuador. :3 but if I start sooner, that's just a little bit sooner that I can switch over to BYU...

what are your thoughts on it?

I love you!!!! :D

~Brandon

Re: sun, glorious sun

2011-02-02T20:19:00.000-08:00

Wed, Feb 02, 2011
by the way: HAPPY BIRTHDAY! (old lady :P)

woo hoo! so yes, last week’s email, just to clear up confusions was in reference to what is now currently THREE weeks ago, which would otherwise be known as two weeks... wait... is that two weeks from today? ...mm... I'm not really sure about that... eeehh... well, I think that it's two weeks back now. Yes. Because I missed two weeks ago... and then I was writing about it last week... so that should be two weeks. yes. I go with that.

whoakay. so yes. STUPHS 4 DIS WEEKSIE! :3

So, now that we are sharing our area with another companionship, we've been trying to figure out how to work the area. And seeing that President didn't really give us any instruction, we just kinda started off from scratch. So, we've been doing tuuoooghns of walking/biking and only a little teenie bit of driving around to get ourselves acquainted with the area and to make ourselves our teaching pool. Which we unfortunately have, as of yet, to get the chance to chlorinate, so we've had to drain the water a few times. Just a few but, we've gotten some pretty clean water in there recently. :) We just found a gentleman by the name of Reynaldo Velez. We had been riding around in this area called La Rambla looking for a less active, and for some reason, even though we had found the street that this particular person lived on, I felt very drawn to just keep going down the street. We continued along for a few streets until we encountered a gentleman talking outside of a house on the corner to an older lady and her daughter. We ride up and start to contact him. We started out by asking if we could share a card with him (the temple card with the questions on the back like what is the purpose to life?) and we asked him if he's ever thought about these questions before. He started to talk about how every religion has their own answers to these questions and went off on another subject for a while, but we got him back on track by asking him if he's ever wondered which answer is the RIGHT answer. God most certainly must have his own answer, right? So we got him talking about that. After a little while the conversation kept drifting off to a point where it seemed as if he wasn't the most open person. He didn't believe in religion, WE create Satan by our own thoughts, and a few other things, but I still really felt the spirit the entire time that we had been talking to him, and from what I could feel at that moment, he was an open mind and a willing spirit. Right then I toned down the conversation a little bit, and took the opportunity to bear my testimony to him that we were true messengers of Jesus Christ and that we had been called as his representatives to bring this message to the world: that the FULLNESS of the Gospel had been restored by God Through a living Prophet. That ALL of the truth could be found in one place and that caught his attention. We both bore testimony that our message was true. After a thoughtful pause he looked at me and said "who is this prophet today?" I told him that it was Thomas S. Monson. I took the chance to tell him about Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon being convincing Evidence that he was called as a prophet. He thought a little bit more and I asked him if we could read some of the introduction with him. He carefully took the Book of Mormon that I had in my hands and read silently for a few minutes. "I never knew this." He said. "I've never heard about this" I smiled "that is why we are here." I testified once more that this was true. He told us that he wanted to read this book and we explained a little bit more about how he could know that this message was true through prayer. And now we have a return appointment this Thursday. at six o clock. SWEET! :D

so yeah. And then we also had president show up to district meeting yesterday morning. Just as high on the spirit as usual. :D but now we have some further direction as to our area! WOOT! According to what he said, we're going to be splitting up our area now. Ponce 2A and us, Ponce 2B. But if we need to, we can work together, which is what me and Elder Radmall did just Yesterday. We hitched a ride up to Coto Laurel, so he could show me around this new area and explain to me the situation of some of the members and Less Actives.

So, Elder Blacks a pretty sweet guy a little awkward socially, but that’s ok. ;) Everybody is now and then, right? But he's great. I love him to death and believe you me, we've been getting so much done this past little while that we almost got two foundations last week. :D Blacks a monster! His testimony and Greenie fire is an amazing booster. That just makes it all the more fun to go out and work. :)

So I got our address for the apartment. turns out that we don't have our OWN mailbox, sino, the Dueño told us that we could send stuff to the office downstairs (it's an accounting business) and they would hang on to it for us till we ask for it. so, it's sounding like it should be good to get letters and packages. :) And they are there every day except Sunday till about six. SWEET! So here we go. Are you ready? I've got my address right here! Are you listening? Ok.

Elder Brandon Bryan

Urb. Jardines Fagot

Calle 3 C-21

Ponce, PR 00716

(HA! fagot gardens.)

Anyways, I'm liking this apartment. It’s pretty cool to have two other missionaries in the apartment. Helps out with the monotony and you get to relax a bit more at the end of the day. Plus, I've got myself a pretty nice mattress here: a SERTA! :D woo! Quite nice, not that it makes my back feel any better in fact, it's still being retarded. But it seems like it comes in cycles. Sometimes it'll feel alright, and other times it hurts really bad... so I don't know what to do about it... but yes.

Sooo, I do have to say: waking up and it being sixty-nine degrees outside is RIDICULOUS! It’s so cold. :'( I get out of bed and wish I had a sweatshirt or something. horrible.

I really do think that the mission office ate my package, but now that I have the name, I'm going to send it directly to president. >:( just dropa few names and things happen. :)

ah! I haven't gotten to make the shirt that me and Elder Lehr designed yet... :-/ but it was based on a few machinae supremacy things :3

I did get to read the email from Austin. gah, that guy's so lucky! I wanna go to Scotland...

and Bryans story is ridiculous. I can't believe somebody would actually do that! LOL, oh my goodness. I had to share that with Elder Radmall (he's sitting right across from me).

but, it's looking like I might have to bust a move... however, I love you much. Quite much. It’s more better than how much Elder Zepeda (Elder Putnam's greenie) loves me. :) That’s quite a bit, just so you know.

~Elder Bryan (Brandon)

fotos:

1) Elder Black and I our second day together! :D

2) my name in the sand at the Guancha, Ponce

3) overlooking the Guancha from this super cool tower thingie

4) sunset over the Guancha

5) alternate sunset foto

I LOVE YOU! :D

AHHHH!!!!!

2011-01-26T22:30:00.000-08:00

Wed, Jan 26, 2011

I forgot me fotos! arrrr!

blarg, well, apparently this computer likes to mess with my memory card... I can't get some sent out today... I'm sorry...

~Elder Bryan

Re: Please do not forsake me another week.....

2011-01-26T21:12:00.000-08:00

Wed, Jan 26, 2010

WOOOOO! oh my goodness. this week has been sufficiently ridiculous to beat out anything thus far that’s happened. Well... maybe. I still think Steve takes the cake, but we'll see. my gosh. so lemme start with last week, because I didn't really get to email. Obviously :) alright. so you know what happened.? here we are, Elder Putnam and I, passing through the two weeks that we had together of that transfer, happily working quite hard, I must say, and we go to bed last Wednesday night completely expecting to be working together still until the end of the next transfer. so we say our prayers and finish the end of the night quite nice and chill. And I go to sleep. Then all of a sudden, I wake up to the phone ringing at 11:45 AT NIGHT nonetheless, and I wake up all groggy "what the heck? Who’s calling us so ridiculously late!" gah! So I get up and grab the phone. Lo and behold, it's the assistants. Talk about coming like a thief in the night! ;) Well, I answer it, and it's Elder Knudsen (kuh-noot-son) (yeah, I know. weird way to pronounce that, right?) I answer the best that I can: "he... hello?" Knudsen: "good evening Elder Bryan! You awake?!" (I could just hear his big smile on as he said that) Me: "well... yeah, I guess." Knudsen:"PERFECT! :D cause I had some news for you!" that was when I woke up. They never say that unless it's something big. I don't remember what Elder Knudsen had started to say at that point, but I DO remember that president just reached over and grabbed the phone out of his hands and goes "GOOD MORNING ELDER BRYAN!" (I swear, he has to have some sort of secret IV hooked up to him somewhere that’s just loaded with sugar, cause he is hyper. always. no matter WHAT time it is.) "How’s it goin?!" he continued. "well, I... I'm fine I guess. A little tired though" I replied. President: "GOOD! At least you're awake! :D" (I swear, his smile was bigger than Elder Knudsen's was.) "cause I have a special assignment for you." then he ran through some interview questions, just to make sure, and then told me: "you and Elder Putnam are going to be at the office tomorrow morning at seven o clock sharp. Ok? Cause guess what?! You both are going to be TRAINING! WOO!" I don't think it really hit me what was actually happening, but I said "WOO!" anyways. He then proceeded to give us some instructions about housing and location, but yet had he to tell us who we were to train. In fact, he NEVER told us who and so, I go back to sleep. Cause I'm tired, you know? And by the time the conversation-ism was all taken care of, it was 12:30. Late and I sleep bad enough as it is! Especially since we had a two hour drive ahead of us and we needed to get up at 5 to get there on time. Wonderful. Five o clock rolls around and I wake up, and Elder Putnam tells me that he barely slept last night. HA, I bet. If I had been training at 7 months I'd be freaking' too. (I'd probably have to call beacon.) So it was a good thing I was the one driving. After about an hour of waiting, POR FIN I get to meet my new companion. So who is it? Who IS this mystery man that is my new companion? The man that I have been with for a week already? is there enough tension built up yet? "why is his head so big? wai-i-i is his head so big?" (obscure cartoon reference. please ignore.) its ELDER... *gasp* oh noes! sudden memory lapse! loozinguh brane powr... mynd shuphting dowen... *kneou kneou kneou*

*beep*

AH! whoa! what a weird dream! man, that was... that was crazy! I almost though I was training for a second! WHew! that would have been ridiculous. *looks up from computer screen* DAH! it's all real! NOOOO! THIS ISN'T possible! losing vision... *faints*

*beep*

*wakes up* AH! whoa! what a weird dream! man, that was... that was crazy! I almost though I was training for a second! WHew! that would have been ridiculous. *looks up from computer srceen* DAH! it's all real! NOOOO! THIS ISN'T possible! losing vision... *faints*

*beep*

*bee... Ok. well that's enough of that I suppose. I guess I should just break the news then. I'm training! :D his name is Elder Black! :D and he's from New York. But not from the city. he's an upstate guy. :) a little teeny tiny place called Hannible. but he says he's from Fulton, right near Syracruse. but that's because Hannible has only about 800 people in it. ;) TAY-Y-Y-NY! I'll toss some pictures that we've gotten this past little week... well... that would only be two, but still. it's better than nothing, right? :) Elder Putnam is training Elder Zepeda, from Honduras. (I think president might have done that to help out Elder Putnam with his Spanish. xD )

so yes. this week has definitely been crazy. It’s now going' back to the basics. Review everything from the beginning. But I tell ya, it's definitely interesting being on the other side of the training. I can definitely see how much my Spanish has improved now. heh, and my comprehension as well. But, instead of working in Ponce 4 with Elder Putnam, I am now sharing an area with Elders Radmall and Hargadon, with one more transfer than me and only 7 weeks respectively. We are also sharing apartments with them as well. I kicked Elder Putnam and Elder Zepeda out and we got to stay. :3 Soooo, since we are sharing the area, we were thinking of just starting from scratch... since it's going to be kind of difficult to get up to date on all their investigators, wo we've been doing lots of finding this past week and it's paying off, too. We’ve found four new families that we're going to be teaching in the next couple of days! WOO! I think it's a perfect way to help Elder Black get used to the whole, working hard to find people to teach. Nothing comes for free. Plus, you have to build a strong foundation on the basics before you start to build your fancy house. :)

So there we are! We’re building up our very own teaching pool from scratch.

But, I've been taking too long! I need to make things more streamlined! On to your stuffs!

I still have yet to get my special delivery... hmmm... interesting and no one seems to be saying anything about it, either. I think president might have just shook it around a little bit then decided to take it, because he hasn't said anything to me either. *narrows eyes* hmmm.

So for my health, I'm feeling a bit better.... I can eat more, plus the fact that we're on bicycle makes me a lot more hungry. Bonus, and I'm sleeping a bit better, if that wasn't eminent by my ridiculous introduction. :) still not amazing, but much better nonetheless. And that's what counts, right? I just hope that it'll continue...

oh my gosh. is Elder Harvey sending me a wedding invitation?! ARE YOU SERIOUS!?!?!? ALREADY!? jeeze. but, I take it you were able to find my password for facebook then? That’s good, cause I'm not really sure what it is anymore... :-/ eh heh heh... :)

Goodness... I'm gonna have to bust a move. I've taken a long time doing email today. hopefully things will be a bit more settled next week. they were a bit hectic before, but Elders Radmall and Hargadon are pretty chill and clean, so that will help a bit. :)

AH! and address! since we will only be going to Yauco once a week if we really REALLY need to, and this apartment doesn't really have a mailbox, you're probably going to have to put my address as the mission office for now. Just to be sure, because I don't really know what it is for now. I’ll ask today and get back to you on that.

I love you more than president loves doing crazy things!! (Like calling at ridiculous hours and asking me to train!!!!!!!!)

Where's Waldo?

2011-01-12T22:12:00.000-08:00

Re: How are the changes?

2011-01-12T20:44:00.000-08:00

Wed, Jan 12, 2011

Hola hola hola! so for the changes that have happened this past little while:

NEW COMPANION! and I mean new. He’s only got seven months in the mission. :-O but lemme tell you: he is a HARD worker, especially since he's been getting two foundations for the past four transfers. Straight. Elder Putnam is his name, and Washington state is his game. :D he's from Spokane, just in case I didn't specify antes, and he's a pretty sweet dude. Things with the foundation are... well, they're pretty difficult. :-/ there’s always just one more wrench that gets thrown in to make things just not go as smoothly as you would like them to go. and it's especially difficult because we only really have three days to work in either area, not including P-day... which really has become our makeup day if we don't do well enough in one area or the other... but, at the very least, I know that this won’t last any longer than March, cause President told Elder Putnam that he's gonna be training one of the 16 new missionaries that are coming in. :3 ha, so if I can just hang in till then... ;) buuuut, it's a pretty good challenge doin’ all this definitely making me move up into doing literally EVERYTHING I can to make sure that I talk with everyone and teach as I find. :)

As for Elder Lehr, meh. ;) naw, I do miss him, but he had to go. It was his time, so I can't really complain. But the best part about it is that he's not lost forever, just till the beginning of July. :) But yes, his parents did come by on Thursday. :D we got to eat at a little place in the plaza called El Paladar, so we could eat some real "comida criolla" and then we parted ways after some good conversation. But THEN, we had a dinner appointment with a less active on Friday that invited us both, so I had to take the opportunity. :3 I couldn't just leave it hanging like that! and THEN Elder Lehr and his family let me know that he had talked with Marcia and Francisco and that they wanted us to come to dinner right after that! WHAT a surprise that was. Super cool! :)

AH! that’s so cool that President sent out the Christmas party foto! I had no idea he was gonna do that.

Well, the T-shirt place that we were gonna use to make our shirts was CLOSED BECAUSE OF THE RIDICULOUS AMOUNT OF HOLIDAYS THEY HAVE HERE! GAH! So we didn't get to see our hopes realized. However, we still have our plans for them, so we'll see what happens.

ah yeah! Donny was telling me about his spiffy soldering skills now! :D he said that he learned it all from watching me. Aw. :3 but yeah! you gotta see if you can get a picture of it for me, I wanna see what it looks like.

Wow, robin might be getting a job in a really nice hotel? So she has her interview tomorrow... what would she be doing then if she gets the job?

Ok, so on to your questions so I can answer those:

Copy of the video: I'm not too sure... they never really mentioned anything about it after watching it, so we'll have to see. I might even ask president about it in my email to him.

leftovers for Christmas: well... we didn't get too much... not as much as Thanksgiving... but that’s because we had two more houses that we went to for thanksgiving and we were so stuffed from it that people told us to just go and grab a bunch to take with us if we weren't going to be able to eat. And then they still gave us like two more plates after that... ridiculous. So, not anywhere near as many leftovers as Thanksgiving.

Hard time about the phone call: naw, it wasn't really a hard time, it was just some teasing, like "gosh Elder Bryan, Elder Lehr got off like an hour ago! :P" and stuff like that. ;)

Still no hand delivered present! >:( blarg! but I'm gonna keep asking about it until something happens. that’s the secret. :D

ha! I'm only like halfway through all that candy I got! I’m trying to budget it, cause I don’t' wanna overload myself on it. It’s been a long time since I've had so much. :3

for Stephs package: she actually came home one day to find it sitting innocently on her doorstep as if it had been there the whole time, with no note to explain why it would have run away from the mail man. so she said that she tried to send it again, but to no avail, as the envelope once again ran away from the mail man. Apparently he's pretty home sick. so she's thinking that she's just gonna stuff inside my Valentine’s day, excuse me, singles-awareness day package so he can't sneak away again.

The second package from you: why yes I did! :D thank you so much, that was a total and complete surprise! :D nothing can beat crazy colored marshmallow guns!!!!!! :D

as for marshmallows: well... I'm not too sure... it doesn't seem that I WOULD have a problem, but then again, I've never really had the need to search them out. But I think they would be here.

and paying back Elder Lehr: well, I never paid him back, per se... whoa, whoa, whoa, hey now, don't jump to conclusions here! he spent all the money that he got for his last week in the first two days, so I had to cover him for all kinds of stuff, so technicolory he owes ME. :P

eh... no. I have not sent my memory card home... eh... I think I might have to do that soon. Just in case. You know. Yeah...

erm, ok. so now I have a question for you! Have you been able to work with my guitar at all since I've brought that up? :P cause I don't want anything to happen to the neck, you know! That guitar is my lucky, lucky glow in the dark one of a kind autographed guitar! It’s been just like a guitar to me! Plus, if it gets messed up, that means I'm gonna have to buy a new one! Cause I can't live without a guitar! that’s blasphemy! ...wait. if my guitar breaks... that means that I would have to buy a new one... ...*processing* *PROCESSING* *PROCESSING!* on second thought, that’s perfectly fine. Don’t worry about my guitar. I don't mind if it breaks or anything. I'll understand.

so yeah, that's the main news of things that are going on. I was feeling a bit better before, but today and yesterday I'm just deSTROYED and crazy tired. I can't even talk straight in ENGLISH today, let alone Spanish... *sigh*

WHY!!!!!!??!??!??!?!!??!??!!!!1111oneoneone11!! Do you think the black market people would do a good job on taking out my kidney? I think so. I mean, they probably washed off their scalpel and stuff in the sink, so I should be good, right? yeah. I'm gonna talk to them today. See what they can do. After all, it IS P-Day.
however, I'm gonna have to bust a move now, I've taken a while writing this, once again... so yeah.

I love you more than the black market people love illegally obtained organs!

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Re: start explaning!

2011-01-05T14:59:00.000-08:00

Wed, Jan 05, 2011

…. but for what I said about things going on last week... no, it's nothing bad. It's just that I had to go to Ponce because the university was closed in Yauco, and I had been trying to find some pictures for a shirt that me and Elder Lehr had been wanting to make... but the shirt place was closed because of three kings day, DARN IT! blagh! EVERYthings closed because of that. Which absolutely killed us last week, we were lucky to get the foundation last week. But we pulled through just in time.

ok, so I think this week might be a little short in my email, because I'm in Ponce again. :) and the university is closed, but this time it's the one in Ponce that’s closed. We I'm hanging out in the accounting office that’s underneath my NEW APARTMENT! :D with Elder Putnam. he's only got seven months in the mission, and he's from WASHINGTON TOO! :D from Spokane to be exact. :3 and he's sweet. First generation convert, too with an AMAZING testimony. So what the plan is, we're going to be working in both Yauco AND Ponce. And we have to get the foundation in BOTH of the areas. Oh my goodness, I haven't even mentioned what the foundation is... I just realized that. Well, we have a thingie called the foundation, right? To make it simple, it's 20 lessons a week, and 140 contacts. And that is the base, or the FOUNDATION of success. So yeah, we have to get two of those. One in Yauco and one in Ponce and we still have to watch our miles in the car. :-/ crazy. :-O but it's a pretty sweet special assignment, I guess. I'm excited. So we're splitting the week in half, and this weekend I'm gonna be in Ponce, and then next weekend, we're gonna be in Yauco.

buuuuut, seeing as we're having to share a computer and it's taken us forEVER to find a place that would let us email, I might have to go rapidito...

so, geetar... took a little while to get used to playing again... not to mention the strings were pretty stiff on that one, so I had to do LOTS of working with the strength of my fingers to get them back up... but the good news is it only took about a week and a half to get everything sorted out, I don't think it will take too long to get everything back in order when I get back. :)

so, I'm sleeping better, but still not fantastic. I'm only waking up once or twice now, and my kidney doesn't hurt anywhere NEAR as bad as it did at night... I didn't get to try anything new except the ibuprofen, which helped a little bit, but not very much... I dunno. but at the very least, it's not hurting as bad. And that makes me happier, and a bit more rested. I still do wake up tired, but not as stuporly bad as before. :)

I haven’t sent the memory card yet... it's coming. I promise. :]

OK., but I'm gonna have to bust a move and get my email out to president so Elder Putnam can get his email out and we can still shop.

I love you so much mom. I really do. And I'm so glad that we have to opportunity that we have to be an eternal family. so very thankful.

~Elder Bryan (brandon)

(Regarding FaceBook's new look)

AH@! and I swear that I haven't been on facebook. I swear. so I don't know whats going on there. maybe they hooked me up with it because I took a ridiculously long time to do it? I dunno. but just in case, I think you might want to change the password temporarily. at least till I get back. that is, if you can. I don't know if you'll be able to, but take a look and see. :]

Re: Happy New Year!

2010-12-29T14:11:00.000-08:00

Wed, Dec 29, 2010

Hola a Tí, mi ma'í!

Como te vas? :D how was thine Christmas time? with some good presents? :3

Mine wasn't so bad after we got off the phone... I think that after we got off the phone it was like.... what... 8:30 our time? I can't really remember... you know, the whole sleep deprivation thing kinda kills your remembery... but if I remember right, we went back to the apartment because if we didn't have anything to do, president wanted us back in the apartment after six due to all the parties and thingy things that go on. in fact, it's the same for new years eve. just make sure either we're teaching a family or in the apartment after six. but nah, nobody worried about our call taking so long. But they did give me a hard time about it. ;)

Wow... Robin was in the ER for throwing up a ton? wait... that means she was throwing up for four days! holy cow, that doesn't sound very good... :-/ was that ALL stuff from her cough then? What the hecksters did she have that made her feel so horrible?

In response to your stuff about the kidney pain... Well... it feels like it did before back when I had Steve... the pain still feels to be almost in the same exact area... as well as the fact that it feels pretty tender to the touch... but I generally do go poo right in the morning no problem. really the only difference that I can think of between that one week and now is that it was, como... three days after I started taking the melatonin, so I think it just might have been that... but I don't know. and I think they MIGHT have given me some antibiotics... I don't really remember much back then... but I believe that they did.

I have NOT gotten my special hand delivery yet, as a matter of fact. I most definitely WILL add that to my president’s email for sure. I WANT that! >:-(

OH MY GOSH!!!! are you serious?!!???! there is really Eddie Van Halen CHUCKS??!?!?!?!!!! ho man, I've got to get me some o' dose! :-O that is AMAZING!!!! and they have some more DVD's and everything? Wow. Things are looking pretty nice now. :D Ha ha ha, EVH flip flops? and that is a sweet shirt.

wow, Reuben looks so chill with his long hair!!! I totally like it way better than his blond hair...:-/ I'm not a fan either...:-/ it looks way too blond. Honestly, I like the way his hair was back before he cut it. And his tight goatee. Wow, Jeff has some hair again. and then Stephen and Austin look the same. Not that it's a bad thing or anything. But they do. :)

OK, so for the Christmas conference, since I didn't even really get the chance to tell anyone about that on the phone cause I was so tired, but here we go. So we went to the mission office early, well... actually it wasn't early... it was late. Technically, but that just makes it more difficult. So I'm gonna say it was early. so we went early to the mission office, due to our LOOOOONG drive. :) We left Monday night and then we stayed the night in the mission office (on some pretty comfy bunk beds. :) ) and then we got up early and went to the Yunque for a really cool hike to all the places to see in it. El baño grande, the cascade, and the tower, the (almost) highest point in all of Puerto Rico. we were inside the clouds:3 and then we headed back and did a flash mob singing carol in the outlet mall near there, then headed back to the mission office, where I emailed you and then we had the talent show me and Elder Lehr sang what child is this and oh holy night in Spanish (with me playing the guitar), and then Elder Ortiz son of the branch president sang El Villancico Yaucono with Elder Lehr (with me playing the guitar). After that, it was bed time. :) and THEN, on Wednesday, we went to the mission home and did a white elephant gift exchange and then after that went to the museum of art in Santurce to sing some carols (Elder Lehr and I didn't get to play because we were short on time) and then we went back to the Santurce chapel for a testimony meeting/ video showing of the video that some Elder's had been taking the entire trip. :) Good stuff all around.

And then last night we got to go to President Alvarado's PARENTS house for a dinner (because we are the Ponce zone. you know. Ponce es Ponce, y los demas es parking) so only the Ponce zone got to go :3 and then after dinner we went and caroled to some of the neighbors. :) That was good fun.

So yeah. I think I'm gonna try and check for Steph's package in the post office. that is a good idea... but I DID get her Christmas package, along with Hanee's and the Keys family and Sister Gates, and Grandma Jans. :) YAY Christmas! :D I would send some more pictures, especially for Christmas and the conference, but I think I might have run out of space with my PICTURES OF THE BAPTISM!!! OH YEAH! :D so, for those:

Woot. (Just in case, that’s a reference to my amazing shirt) so let’s see....

... well, Elder Lehrs time is coming quickly, quickly, quickly... :-/ he's actually going in ten days now. :( but the good news is that he and his family are taking me out to dinner before they leave! :D WOO! and I'm going to be getting my new companion... I think next Wednesday. We’ll see. I didn't get much info about it, it's all just stuff that Elder Lehr has been told from president.

But I think I might be needing to go...:-/ I have to still write president and I've been taking a while to write this... but for good reason. That I can explain next week. You’ll see.

So yes, I LOVE YOU more than I love that EVH tie. And that's a lot. You better feel honored. :P

~Elder Bryan (Brandon)

1,2,3, and 4 all consist of a combination of me, Elder Lehr, Marcia, Francisco, Justin, Frances and Hermano Perez, the wonderful first councilor of the Branch and 5) Sparkling Cider and cheese. The sophisticated man's way to eat Christmas Breakfast. ;)

SUPRISE! :D

2010-12-21T14:04:00.000-08:00

Tue, Dec 21, 2010

We got to do a quickie email this week! woo! OK, so first thingies first, since I don't have too much time. we need o coordinate how we're going to do calls! woot. so. president talked with us and told us that we can even do SKYPE! :-O crazy. we can do skype, you can call OUR phone :-O OOOR, we can call you from a member's house. :3 bt Elder Lehr had been thinking that we call at around six o clockers our time... so like one o clock for yous guys? now, if you WANT you can just give us a little quickie call christmas afternoon... or AT noon your time. either way, our number is (787)-553-XXXX. there it is. our number. :3 now, I don't wanna take TOO much time, seeing as we're going to be talking on Saturday, but it sufficeth me to say that MARCIA AND FRANCISCO AND JUSTIN GOT BAPTIZED!!!!!! :D WOOO!!!!! oh yeah! so awesome. I'd send you some pictures... but I don't have my memory card thingie... :-/ soooo, I think I'll be getting that out to you next week, instead of this week.

sooo, we've been out running out in the YUNQUE ALL DAY! I got pictures of that. and we also did flash mob caroling in the outlet mall! it was sooooo cool! ok... there's others that are waiting, but if you want to set up a skype account... I'm not stopping you. :3 however, you have my phone number, and if you call me up christmas day just to let me know... well, I can't stop you. but we had been thinking about going to a members house and calling from there, and recieving a call at six our time. that is our plan. we hope. but yes. people waiting. surprize email. good. all done.

I love you!!!!!! SO MUCH!!!!!

~Brandon

Re: The weather outside is frightful!

2010-12-15T23:07:00.000-08:00

Wed, Dec 15, 2010

Hola! ok, entonces, the su is used for the usted form. mas formal. generally you would use that for more... well, whenever you would address someone respectfully. but the Tu form is more for people that you are close with. good friends, family, stuff like that. so YOU would want to say Tu madre. :) but yeah... mi is still my. :)

woo! another week in Yauco. :) things are goin pretty good. in fact, I've good some good news and some bad news... OK. bad news first. Marcia and Francisco had a baptismal date... but it dropped. it had been for this coming Saturday... but it just couldn't happen... yeah. downer... but the GOOD news is, it was only moved because Francisco had work and Marcia had a test in school. so we reset it for this FRIDAY!!!! :D ALRIGHT! YEAH! WOOHOO! Francisco, Marcia and their son Justin are all going to be baptized this FRIDAY!!!!!! :D FREAKIN SWEET! we set the date for this Friday with them on Saturday night. and they are so totally ready. and I'm so totally excited. and this is so totally awesome! a WHOLE FAMILY!!!! :D
as for Damarys, she's pretty much just completely dropped off the face of the planet since her mom has had to go to the hospital... and I'm kinda afraid that the answer about the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon she received has faded because she doesn't have the same fire anymore....darn, things that always come up! but we've been trying and trying to get a hold of her... we're going to keep trying.

other important news: you called it right. we're not going to be having P-Day next week because of Christmas and phone calls. plus the Christmas party, which spans TWO DAYS is going to be on Tuesday and Wednesday. but news about phone calls is that we're going to be making them in members houses... so now we just have to find a member that will let us use their phones... we can't go to the branch presidents 'cause they have a missionary out... so we're gonna do some searching... :-/ however... a good time to cal is the question. especially since I'm not going to be getting email from you next week (as far as I know)... :)

AH! and cool news for the Christmas party! :D President asked me and Elder Lehr to sing the Villancico Yaucano and a few other Christmas songs for the talent show. and the really cool part IS: I GET TO USE A GUITAR!!!! :DDDDDDDD WOOT! so I have one borrowed from the Branch president, and as well.... we might be singing it not only for the talent show, but for a special presentation that president alvarado is trying to get set up in the Pearl theater in ponce. in front of a TON of people!!!!! FREAKIN SWEET!!!! :D but thats not set in stone yet. but I have a feeling that is why the Christmas party spans two days. :3

as for my kidney... nope. still hurts... and the down side is, when I stayed the night at the zone leaders apartment last week while I was up in ponce, Elder Oviatt let me use his VERY nice mattress ( A Seely) and I still woke up from kidney pain, so it's not the mattress that I'm sleeping on. it really IS just pain in my kidney. my thoughts echo your own in that really it does just seem like it's me kidney (arrrr!) that be hurtin me and keeping me awake... I'll try some more lemon juice and stuff. I got the melatonin and that at the very least is helping me a little bit with the sleep that I DO get, but I still can't sleep a complete night through. however, you're right. this pain is going on WAY too long after my stone for it to be normal. so I think I might talk with Sister Alvarado to see what I can do. if there's anything that she knows about or stuff... AH! we also have a mission nurse now, so I think she might refer me to her... Sister Icely is her name. she was a nurse before, so she knows some stuff. maybe that will help. :)

heh heh heh... well... we actually only spent two hours in Marshall's, and then a half an hour in the skate/surf shop right next door. :3

what the hecksters is a pineapple express?! :-O I've never heard of that before... well, except for the movie, I guess. but from what I gather, I have a feeling it involves rain. lots of it. and wind. lots of it. but other than that... that all I've got.

hmmm.... maybe I just read things wrong or did some bad math. probably some bad math. oh wells. ice cream is good. money is nice. cheese. muffins. plastic food. yum.

anyways. the letter from Elder Lehr's mom: talked a little bit about how much of a good friend I've been to Elder Lehr and that she wanted to thank me for it. About the tie (protection instructions from Elder Lehr and his want to take his dads ties) and a bit about how she would always would scare him at home and how I scare him here ( I guess he shared that with her. either that or she has some amazing telepathic abilities) and a few other things that I can't remember because of sleep deprivation. but it was a very nice letter. very very nice.

I'm going to try and get my package out today as well... if not the week after. I've got to get you my picatures! and I need to send my birthday cards out to everyone, because they are horribly late and I'm a failure! >:( gosh darn it. :( however, my present from tawny hasn't arrived as of yet... is it possible that she might have sent it to the mission office? I'm just hoping that something bad hasn't happened to it, because Stephy sent me out a b-day present four weeks ago and it still has yet to get here... which is weird because everything else seems to be getting here... I dunno. I hope that at the very least was just a one time fluke. I don't need more mail disappearing. :-/

whoa cool! Lego Creationary sounds AWESOME!!!! :D that would be so cool! sounds like something I'm gonna have to pick up when I get back. :3

well, Robins been pretty nice so far I think... I'm just kinda losing out because I haven't emailed her back yet... :-/ but I actually got back to Donny last week... and yeah.

YAY Theresa went to the Christmas party! :D Donny actually told me that She had been talking with him about receiving the missionaries after she moves out. sounds like she wants to learn about the church. and now that I have Bryan coming with me to school it's just a matter of time before I suck him in too! *evil laugh* AH HA HA HA! the power is mine to control!!!!! *crazy face*

Picatures:

1) me on the tower

2) Alberto

3) Elder Lehr and Alberto

4) tasty sunset! :D

time to bust a move!!!!

I love you more than a wookie loves cookies! :D

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Back and Forth

2010-12-08T22:11:00.000-08:00

Wed, Dec 08, 2010

HELLO hello hello jello fellow pillow willow gigalo... wait... take that one out. pout, tout, rout, grout, snout. that's all I got.

anyways, hows it going!?

I'm still not sure what the plan is with Elder Lehr and his going home ... :-/ I'm actually up in ponce starting last night and until the end of today's P-Day because Elder Lehr is up in Bayamon spending some time with his going home group, but because He's not going home until four weeks later, he's coming back. so all day today he's gonna be up in El Morro chillin and stuff, and I'm gonna be spending time with the zone leaders all day. WOOT! ponce. fun stuffs. but last weeks P-Day was pretty eventful! we got to FINALLY go on our hike with Alberto! the only problem is that I left my memory card reader back in Yauco because it was a last minute thing they pulled together to get Elder Lehr up to Bayamon. but we got to check out the Marshalls too, he he he. Elder Lehr got a pretty sweet hat that I would be able to send a picture of if I had my memory card reader. but we hung out there for like... two and a half hours before busting a move up to Guanica. :3 but hopefully we'll be hearing about what the plan is for when he leaves. Maybe a treeoh until he goes, or a surprise buddy coming in after or something... I dunno.

he he he, we tossed the leftovers before they got too bad... we ate most o them, but some of them we just couldn't get to, so we just got rid of them to keep them from killing us. but Christmas is coming, so I'm getting ready to fill up the fridge again. :)

oh yes, I shall keep Bryan's birthday presents forEVER. let me tell you, this was a big step here. not only did he actually SEND something, but he also sent it ON TIME. amazing. other presents include two birthday cards from grandma Nita, and a box o goodies from Grandma Jan (including one of the best foods on the planet, Crumpets. :3 ) however, interestingly enough, I also noticed $3.98 missing from my home account. *leers* hmmm. strange.

quick item of business: I should have asked you to do this sooner, but I kept forgetting... it's about time somebody took a look at things with my geetar. I wasn't thinking and I loosened the strings a bit too much with those cards under the bridge, so I'm kinda worried about the truss rod and the neck straightness... so if you could possibly be so kinda so as to pull marra out of her case and take a look at her, that would be fantastic. :) when you take the cards out from under the bridge, be sure to stick the whammy bar in the bridge to lift it up enough to get the cards out then to let the bridge down slowly. too much shock on the bridge could be a problem... :-/ could you do that? :) thank you so much, you're amazing!

so this last weekend, Yauco had an artisan festival! :D live music, arts and crafts representing yauco and a ton of other Latin countries, and TONS of families to talk to! :D unfortunately, I didn't take too many pictures... but the good news is, Elder Lehr's family sent me a birthday present! :D we just got the package yesterday! I got a sweet tie, a letter from Elder Lehr's mom, a card from the family, and some SOX! :D OH YEAH! can't even have too many socks. ;)

I just realized... I only have five more transfers left. :-O that's ridiculous.
also, president wants me to sing el Villancico Yaucono for the Christmas party! it's the Yauco theme/hymn/song thingie for the city thingie. Yauco is actually the city of coffee, El Pueblo de cafe. just so you know. so I'm gonna play the guitar and sing and Elder Lehr will accompany me. :)

a Christmas tie connection with Donny would be pretty awesome... I think I actually might have to go with that. :)

ah! you guys are on the decorating committee!? when did that happen? is is just for the dance itself, or are you guys on the committee in general?

jlbryanx2@juno.com wrote:

Dude, it just cut off!!!!! tear and another tear!!!!!! waaaaaa didn't even say goodbye ;'{ what happened?????/

Re: where is the rest??????

I KNOW! :'( I finishing it up right now. there's all kinda of random buttons, and I'm just so tired I can't really focus, so I keep pushing random things... :-/

jlbryanx2@juno.com wrote:

by the way, the tie has a push button that plays a Christmas song! sweet,cant remember what though!!!! and don't tell Lehr but Freddy's got Yoshi's back in so i got him one!!!!!! woo hoo! now where is the rest of my emaillllllll!!!!!!!!!

Re: ps

are you serious? it plays a christmas song?!!?!?!? AWEOSME!!!! that'll go with my tie that grandma got me last year :3 it's perfect. :D YES! YOSHIS!!!!!!! I'm so excited now. plus I'm trying to finish up the other part of the email... patience! :P

Subject: NOOOOOO!

that wasn't supposed to get sent off yet! ridiculous random buttons on keyboard. gosh.

so ANYWAYS,

I'M SORRY I HAVEN'T SENT OFF MY MEMORY CARD YET!!!! :'( I've been meaning to but I haven't yet... and today was going to be the day, but then all of a sudden I'm here in ponce, still crazy tired because I'm still not sleeping well. which unfortunately happens because for some reason my kidney hurts every night while I'm sleeping so it wakes me up. and the fifteen year old missionary mattresses don't help either. not one bit. especially when there's a permanent rut in the mattress from past users. >:( I've tried some sleeping/advil pills a few times... but I don't want to use them, because for some reason they just make me irritable and angry. it's just so weird, like things that would EVER make me annoyed or angry and just amplified to the EXTREME whenever I take them... so I figure for my sanity, I don't need that. not that my sanity is really intact right now anyways. I can say that I find that I'm forgetting large amounts of information... most of the time, I don't ever remember any of my studies... my teaching is increasingly faltering, it's very hard for me to be awake enough to feel the spirit and I just want to sleep! that's all I want. I just can't even really focus anymore, I'm always zoning out and things that people tell me just goes one ear and out the other, even when I'm focusing all my energy on what they are saying! DAH! so annoying. so I'm not really sure what to do about that. it's a catch 22. I can take sleeping pills and sleep almost all the night and then be really angry at everything all day (and it takes a few days to fade away), or I can not be angry and just zone out all day... do you have any suggestions?

but, since you're wanting the other half to the email, I figure I should send this off then. :P

yeah! You gots ta send me that picture of the cats under the Christmas tree :3 that sounds so cute!

AH! so, Damarys hasn't been able to come to church still, this last Sunday something happened with her mom, so she had to go be with her.... and tonight we have another appointment with Marcia and Francisco, so hopefully we'll be able to get a baptismal date with them, finally! :D I hope so. 'cause they need to get baptized before Elder Lehr goes home.

so, I love you more than I love surprise changes to my P-Day and not being able to send off my memory card or get a haircut! :D

~Brandon (Elder Bryan) tu hijo. <--- I realized a while ago that you had it right. it really was tu. but I thought it was su because as missionaries we have to use the usted form more than the tu form... sorry bout that... you were right! I just kept forgetting to send it to you.

also, check this out. I didn't read it, but I just found it really quick. Am I going to die?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation

jlbryanx2@juno.com wrote: I have not read it yet but you are not gonna die!!!! Look for some melatonin today and i will send some in your package too. it is a natural sleep hormone and i am hopin' it will help! it helped dad a lot when he worked grave yard get better sleep. it doesn't make you feel drugged but it could take a few days to feel like it is working. it is just the natural stuff your body releases to put you to sleep. they should have it at a Walgreens or drug store, Google translator said it is melatonina in spanish- check it out shouldn't be too expensive and I will check on the money from your account plus i need to transfer- 25 from Vivien and 40 from Gma Jan to your acct plus ice cream money ;)

Subject: Re: NOOOOOO!

aw, vivien gave me some money for my birthday?! she's so amazing.

aw, times up. I love you!

Re: the big thaw

2010-12-01T22:00:00.000-08:00

Wed, Dec 01, 2010

oh my goodness. turkey day was ridiculous. we had three people invite us over to eat, plus President Ortiz and his wife invited us over to pick up some food from them... we STILL have food in the fridge. our next door neighbor as well invited us over to her families house to eat, so we went there, to a less active family's house, and the relief society president's house. we all were both absolutely stuffed! Elder Lehr had to bring home some food, and ALL the people we visited gave us extras. it was a ridiculous day. aaaaand... I have a feeling Christmas is going to be worse... heh heh heh... we've ALREADY been invited to three other peoples houses. and speaking of which... do you realize that we'll be talking on the phone in only three weeks? :-O when should I call? who should I call? where shall I call? what should I call with? what color will it be? how big? is it a cell phone, or a home phone? did I steal it? from who? where were they when I did it? did I just call from our cell phone and just make all that other stuff up? am I really Elder Bryan? if not, what did I do with him and how did I steal his identity?

however, if I were to guess, last time I saw the REAL Elder Bryan, he didn't look like he gained any weight at all. :-/ too bad for him. even though he ate himself STUFFED, it did nothing for him. and yes, if it's a holiday that might even be REMOTELY connected to them or somebody, they jump on it like today's special of the week, ha ha ha. and yup, they closed the day before it too. xD

OK, so Elder Lehr would be going home... January 8th. that's his flight day, but his family is coming the fourth, and he gets to go hang out with them... oh, the 8th in the morning he gets to go hang out with his family before he goes back, but that's it.

holy crap, we now have a zombie car! SWEEEEEETTTTT! it's even missing parts, just like a REAL zombie! (thanks Bryan. :P )

alright, so a roster of the things Bryan got me:
1 very shiny super durable universal utensil. otherwise known as spork by the normal people.
1 very classically styled tie.
1 shockingly fun hot potato ball.
and 1 pair of singing monkey balls.

and they are quite amazing. however, I have a feeling that he took some of your ideas for Christmas presents. ;)

yeah, I think that if you send the San Diego picture in the Christmas box that should be good. :) as long as it doesn't take too long.

OK, so for news this week.

Damary's couldn't come to church... darn it... her daughters have been in the hospital for the past little while suffering with a nasty fever and throwing up... soooo... we haven't even had the chance to teach her since the last time we talked... I just hope everything's OK. however... that also means that her baptismal date fell, because she has to come to church for at the very least three weeks before she can be baptized... so... yeah. we have to talk to her about that. darn you Satan and your dirty tricks! :(

we also found a mother on Sunday named Carol Saez. my gosh... she is super duper hunky dunky big mac super size really really really prepared. at least from what I feel so far... she basically knows half of the things that we say before we say it... while we had been teaching her, one of the things that came to my mind was something in preach my gospel and the scriptures... I don't remember EXACTLY where, but here: "they are kept from the truth only because they know not where to find it". so we have entered to show her where the truth is! WOO! :D last night she said " I will read the Book of Mormon tonight and I will pray tonight. I promise you." wow. but I feel good about it. I almost felt like I did when I was teaching Fernando back in Caguas, so maybe we were led to find her. To be quite honest, I skipped talking to a few other people till after talking with her because I felt slightly pulled there... ooo, I hope something REALLY good comes of this. while we talked to her last night, we invited her to get baptized when she knows that the Book Of Mormon is true and she said yes. :3 and on Thursday we have another appointment with her, so if she has received an answer, we're going to extend a specific date to her. cool beans.

wow, sounds like you had a fun experience with your talk there, huh? ;) but that is a really good point about prayer. thank you very much for sharing that with me. I'm definitely going to try and implement it in my teaching.

speaking of the gospel and things, have you guys read any of those assignments that I gave to you? :P you know, 2 Nephi 31 or 2 Nephi 2?

Im feeling a little better. I'm not feeling sick in my stomach all the time any more, but I still sleep horribly. but the best thing to do is just go on. I've noticed that even if I don't really know what I'm saying because I'm so tired, the Lord has definitely been putting words in my mouth. without a doubt, ha ha.

as for the stuff from last Christmas... well, I've mostly held on to it all in my bags and stuff... except for the candy. that's long gone. ;) but I had to leave my last Christmas tree back in Caguas because I didn't have enough space... so we might hit up the Kmart and get one there. maybe even today.

and speaking of today! yay! finally we might have a P-Day activity! :D we've been talking with a less active about going on a hike up to this old castle/tower thingie out on the coast in Guánica, so we really hope that we can do that today. if so, pickies! :D

and we might even be stopping by Marshall's today, as well. a newer, bigger one opened up in the plaza to replace the older one, and they've got TONS of new stuff. :3 but it's just to go look. no worries. :P ah! and we picked up some ice cream. moose tracks, 4.99 from Walgreen's. just so you know. :) but Elder Lehr had to buy it because I forgot my card... so I owe him the money... eh heh...

but anyways, I think I might have to get going. we have to go shopping, and we might go to pizza hut with Elder Ralston and Elder Patton :D

ah! and transfers. President told us yesterday in district meeting that we shouldn't expect to see very many transfers/changes this transfer in the ponce zone. he's been pretty pleased with the things so far here, so I think I might be in Yauco for a while.

so yes. I think it's time to bust a move! :D

I love you more than my kidney loves to act up! :D

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Re: Let it snow!

2010-11-24T21:54:00.000-08:00

Wed, Nov 24, 2010

BLARG! darn you thanksgiving weekend! :'( so, our email place was closed. we had to come over to ponce to do our email... but it closes at ONE! :'( suckage! blarg.

OK, so Rapidito: we had a lesson with an investigator: Damary's, this last Sunday, and well... she was reading the Book of Mormon and REALLY wanted to know if it was true. she prayed, and she received a VERY explicit answer to her prayer. :) mmm, ghood stuff. and she wants to get baptized as soon as possible. and so were planning for the 18th of December. :3 woo! huzzah por la verdad!

HECK YEAH I GOT BRYAN'S PRESENTS! :D
do you realize that I noticed that you crossed out the expiration date on those pears? ARE YOU TRYING TO KILL ME?!?!?!?!?!? what IS this?! gosh. I opened one up and took a look inside. very questionable looking. very much so. fortunately the other one was fine. but STILL! >:(

I love my b-day card. very funny! :)

would you mind sending me a picture of the San Diego temple? a cousin of a less active family is asking us tons of questions about the church and he's visited that temple before, and I told him I would try to get him a picture of it. :)

Tawny found me the most amazing Christmas present? that's so epic you don't think you can top it? :3 ooooo... wow. it has to be good. I'm definitely going to have to make a video then.

they DO actually celebrate Thanksgiving. ha ha ha. it's a holiday! OF COURSE they're going to celebrate it! and we've been invited to a TON of peoples houses to eat... so hopefully we'll get the chance to share something with somebody that day. xD

CRAZY SNOW! darn it... how come I COULDN'T be there! blarg. oh wells. when I get back that just means there's going to be more next year. :3

sooo sorry this email isn't any longer... but they are about to close up, so I've got to bust a move...

I love you more than I miss the SNOW! :'(

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

moar pickiez! :D

2010-11-17T21:38:00.000-08:00

1) my birthday card! :D

2) my magnet from Hannah!

3) SWEET GUITAR PEN!

I used it during personal study today, too. :3

4) push button, receive bacon.

Wed, Nov 17, 2010

pickies!

2010-11-17T21:12:00.000-08:00

Wed, Nov 17, 2010

1) our neighbor got me a suprize birthday cake....

and then she found out that we were fasting...

but we got to keep half of it! :D

2) from left to right- some random guy; Anna, our neighbor's friend that helped her out with getting the cake while she distracted us; Armando and Melani, Annas son and Mireya's daughter; and Mireya, our Neighbor. :3

3) my side of the road birthday toad, Dave. ;)

4) he was tasty. :3

Re: Fw: Happy 2 days after your birfday!

2010-11-17T20:47:00.000-08:00

Wed, Nov 17, 2010

ok. whooo.... so there is a TOOOOON of stuff that I need to tell you about first before I get into anything else. but first:

Thank you everyone for wishing me a happy birthday!!!!!! :D

and now for something completely different:

so. first off, we had zone conference yesterday. absolutely AMAZING. *whew* wow... It was a very powerful meeting. and actually, it's a part of some of the changes that the first presidency is making. so we had a new format that involves the meeting being, at the very least six hours. but it's ok, because it's so spiritually packed that your brain feels like it's going to explÃµd! :-O this whole zone conference was about the restoration... but not just about the lesson itself, but a little bit about the HISTORY of it, to give us some better perspective. and after that was my favorite part. :3 we got to watch the Joseph Smith movie. :D oh my gosh that movie is so amazing. we actually got to see it in the MTC as well, but this time....... I dunno. it was just so much more powerful. it really strengthened my testimony of Joseph Smith. I know without a doubt that he was a prophet called of God, and that through him, God and Jesus Christ restored the true church on the earth and that this church is the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. punto. there's no doubt about it. and it's amazing.

and this last Sunday I also got the opportunity to give a talk about Agency. Perfect. especially because we got the chance to hear from Elder Bednar in our missionary meeting about that when he came. and speaking of which... I DID tell you in depth about that, right?... I coulda sworn I did... Elder Bednar, in our missionary only meeting, talking about Agency, and how all of us are Agents unto ourselves, not objects? right? like in second Nephi 2? and how we, as missionaries, need to help our investigators be agents unto themselves, and us not turning them into objects? :3 well... either way, I wanna invite you guys to read second Nephi 2 and search for agency. well, you know what? just be an agent unto yourself. read 2 nephi and follow the guidance of the spirit. find what HE wants you to find. :3 but read it, at the very least. it's amazing. would you do that? I wanna know what you guys learn.

and YAY! I got my birthday package! :D those ninja band aids are perfect. just what I was needing. because REAL ninjas don't really need band aids, right? so this way... when I use one, I will be able to throw people off of my REAL identity. I'm actually wearing my birthday Tie right now. :3 it's amazing. :D guitar pen? LOOOOVE IT! now I'm REALLY a rock star. only real rock stars have guitar pens. and that guitar book... ooooooo. OoOoOoOoOo... OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!! gimme gimme gimme! :-( I wanna know whats inside! gah, only seven and a half more months. and then guitar-ness. it's coming.

BRYAN sent me birthday presentS?!?!?!?!??!??!?! PLURAL!? what?!?!?! I don't believe it! This is almost as intense as the time I forgot how to sit down. but not as intense as camping. I don't even know what to say. especially since he already sent it. but if he got it from a website... then it has to be VEEEERY good. oooo, I'm excited. also, I like how Dad wished me a happy veterans day on my EPIC birthday card of win and awesome! that was great!

so, another thing that they have started changing in the mission field, which is to coincide with the new and improved missionary curriculum, as they put it, is something called the Doctrine of Christ. when we first started studying it, they had us start with 2 Nephi 31. so, I also wanted to invite you guys to study that too. maybe you can add these two things to your family home evening scripture reading, or family scripture study. I dunno, but just study the heckstersickle out of it. there is something AMAZING waiting within. I promise you. it is incredible, and it's changed my view of the entire gospel. and if there's anybody else that wants to join in, Do it. then email me about your stuffs. I wanna guide anybody that has any questions in this quest for awesome and amazing. :3

so. NOW onto stuff in the email. :) so, Elder Lehr opened up his Mario ball, and the one that he got was the Mario on his Motorcycle. that thing was pretty sweet! and he was pretty excited too. now he has a Mario cart AND a Mario motorcycle. :3

now unfortunately... they made us fast in preparation for zone conference... so I didn't get to eat ANYTHING on my birthday!!!!!!! WAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!!!!! I died inside when Elder Crawley called us up to let us know that! >:( Grr, angry. so we might just pick up some ice cream tonight, or during our shopping today. :3

YEAH! it gets SOOOO FREEZING at night, you don't even know! I feel the cold just eating away at me in those low 70's! i't hurts so bad! :'(

and whats the fish head song?

aw, hannahs first date with Mckay! :3 how did she like it? was it cute? ;)

so, for missionary correlation meetings: we usually start out with our investigators, but then it moves into stuff about some of the families that are needing help that either WE have found, or ones that the auxiliary leaders think would need some help, or be the most probable in bring back to church. unfortunately, when we had our zone conference, we had Presidente Rivera (stake president) come in, and some of the things that we talked about with him, was how the Ponce stake used to have FOUR wards in Ponce, and now there's only 3. there is over 1500 members in the stake, and only a little bit less than 600 are active... things are getting bad in the ponce stake, and both him and Presidente Alvarado want us to be working the stake program of CRR: or conversion, Retention and Reactivation- right now, we only need to be working on conversion and reactivation (retention naturally kinda comes anyway... that is, if your ward is supportive enough... which doesn't happen ALL the time. but still) so yeah.... things are a little dire here, I guess you could say. and it's getting worse every year, so we're having a very big need to work HARD in everything that we do.

and we DO have a Branch mission leader. he's actually the return missionary son of the Branch president, and he's the go getter type of attitude. very good for the Branch.

so yeah... I think I might just have to bust a move now and email President. but it's OK. I've got some good stuff in this email, right? so yeah. but I wanna hear about your studies in 2 Nephi 2 and 2 Nephi 31! :D

I love you more than how cold it gets here at night!!!!! BRRRRRRR!!!!!!

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Wed, Nov 10, 2010

2010-11-10T20:29:00.000-08:00

Wed, Nov 10, 2010

Ha ha ha ha! yeah, alright alright. I won't go out partying for my birthday. *sigh* you convinced me. at least I get ice cream. but NEXT year... ;) naw, but how cool that Steven and Bryan and Devin came. thats cool beans that they still stop by... makes me happy inside. :D and speaking of birthdays: pin the body part on Mr. potato man?! GENIUS! when I saw that I laughed. out loud. that was great. I still have no idea how to play Bunco. :-/

my gosh, Bryan. ridiculous. no punctuation for ANYTHING. but good. I'm glad that he was thinking a lot of the same stuff that I was thinking. that means that we're still on the same brain-wave-length-mind thingie. yeah. go special connection thing! so, now we just have to get the money together. perfect. and I still haven't gotten that letter that Steven sent. but now I know whats inside. at the very least did Bryan drop off the Rock band pedal?

so, before I continue on, NEWS! :D we've been doing really really good this past little while. we've found three families just in the weekend. :) one of them was the sister of our Dueño apartment owner person that we met Saturday night at a party they were having for the Dueño's birthday. she told us that they had the missionaries over about 9 or 10 minutes ago, back when there was sisters in the area and she wanted us to stop by. :3 and another family was a daughter of an under-the-radar less active that got baptized about three years ago in another area. the daughter's name is Damaris and she's got three little daughters: 5, 7 and 11. and she told us that she had been reading her moms Book of Mormon along with her Bible reading and she said that she really likes the Book of Mormon more (good choice. ;) ) and she wants us to teach her about it. but she also told us that she's had the sisters over before (at least 10 months ago). but still! she WANTS us to teach her! :D woo!

and for other news: How's Hyrum doing? has he gotten out yet? is he feeling better? I wanna give him a hug!

the weathers just been really, really rainy this past week. fortunately not any wind or anything... just a ridiculous amount of rain. but it's nice. :) it makes the nights nice and cold.

and for Marcia and Francisco: well... they've been talking... and it's looking like Marcia is going to be moving out... :-/ they told us that it had only been a temporary housing situation anyway... and so for now, Marcia is going to live in Guánica. which, for the least, is in our area. it's just a bummer that we couldn't get things resolved yet... but maybe this is the chance that we've all been praying for, because now technically they CAN get baptized... but I was thinking in consulting with President about what would be the BEST way to go about this. but maybe this is what they need. maybe they'll get baptized and then the spirit will help clear things up. :) We'll see. we just have to keep moving forward.

I also wanted to ask if you happened to have a spare copy of my baptism foto that you would be able to send along with my special foto of my... dare i say it, my BIG present? :) so what is it? and speaking of fotos... jeh jeh jeh... I actually got my haircut... like two weeks ago... :D we have a sister in the branch that has a little home salón and transfer meetings have been changed. :-/ the first presidency has been doing some rearranging of things in the mission field, and now only people that are getting transferred go. otherwise we just hang out back at home or whatever.

and we might not be doing much for P-Day today... Elder Lehr has had this nasty head ache for the past 6 days, and so sister alvarado suggested that we stop by the doctor today... but we had been PLANNING on going to Guánica to hike up to a cool little castle up by the coast with a less active guy (19). so we'll see how long the doctors visit takes. also... I forgot to mention it last week... but Elder Lehr's Birthday is the twenty-fourth of this month... heh heh heh... ooops? so yeah... OK. now seeing as I have three cards that I have to send... Donny, Hannah and Bryan, I might just get myself a small box and send those along with my memory card. :P that way you'll finally get it!

YAY morning family prayer! :D boo for 5:15 in the morning. and YAY for ms. knight! alright! :D can you get any pictures? ;)

OK... I've got to bust a move. we're gonna be heading out to take Elder Lehr to the doctor then. soooooo, I love you more than Elder Lehr's head hurts!

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Re: Happy election day! Pictures

2010-11-03T21:54:00.000-07:00

Wed, Nov 03, 2010

alright! so, picture one, normal picture.

picture two: CRAZY PICTURE! :D I love Elder Lehr's face in this one! xD

Re: Happy election day!

2010-11-03T20:15:00.000-07:00

Wed, Nov 03, 2010

Hola mami!

not much went on this last week... we've been working extra hard to try and find people to teach, and we've been having some slight success, but I know that as we continue, the lord will bless us for our diligence.

but for an update with things that are going on with Marcia and Francisco! so, seeing as the last time that we were able to stop by them, we weren't sure if we were going to leave or not we were able to get some pictures, so I'm gonna upload those in a minutorz.

alright! so, picture one, normal picture.
picture two: CRAZY PICTURE! :D I love Elder Lehr's face in this one! xD

so yeah. Marcia was able to make it to church last week, but Francisco couldn't because he had to work SUPER late. He's an electrician, and ever since some of the storms have been passing by, a lot of people up in the higher parts of the island have been without power for a while... so he's working to replace some lost power poles, and stuff like that. but, the class in gospel principles last week was about eternal families... and marcia was very attentive. very good. hopefully things are working around in their heads so that they will feel more comfortable talking with president. :D and they've both also read the family: a proclamation... so yeah. we keep praying for them! :D

oh my gosh, are you serious? dad was gonna forge my name for my vote?! that's so ridiculous! xD ha ha ha!

eh heh heh heh... yeah.... it seems that there be no more... manly issues. for now.

ah, so robin DID have a cancerous moll then. speaking of cancer... wait.... molls? no... that's not it... speaking of then (yes, that's it.), YAY! robin went to church! so awesome! but that crazy fat black lady... uhm, not so much. but hopefully chase will start going to church. should I send a letter for her home, or do you have her new address?

whew... the tie and the spork... do I want to save those for when I get home... or do I want their awesomeness here? ooo... I think it might be best to keep those at home. I wouldn't want anything to happen to an 1nd3struqt@b1e ut3nsi1. or an 8-bit artic1e of c10thing.(indestructible utensil. :) ) however, just knowing they were there waiting for me nice and cozy would give me such joy. just like knowing that Yoshi on a cute little cart-like vehicle is there. :D

so yes. whoops. sorry 'bout that. if I don't keep my concentration, my mind powers change the text color without me knowing. *ahem* anyways, you should tell Hannah that her pictures are aMayzeeng! I had no idea that she had SO many pictures. and so many awesome ones, too! sweet!

ah blarg, I'm gonna have to bust a move to email president...

I love you more than very hard, hybrid utensils and 8-bit objects!

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Re: Happie Halloweenie

2010-10-27T19:52:00.000-07:00

Wed, October 27, 2010

WOO! transfer news! I get to stay another transfer with Elder Lehr! :D plus, I think I might know whats gonna happen the next two transfers as well because he goes home four weeks AFTER this next transfer ends, so I might be staying here to hold down the fort. plus president Alvarado has been wanting us to stay in areas longer, so I might be continuing in Yauco for a while. :) but that's OK with me. the people here are super nice (especially compared to Santurce. *shivers* ) that and it's got a really nice small town feel... but thats kinda due to being a small town. heh... yeah. sooooo, I continue here. :3 woot woot!

so as for my stomach, things are getting better. every day is a little bit better. :) I just need to continue eating slow so that I can build my stomach back up. :-/ but it's better than not being able to eat at all, right? xD

ew, grody. I saw robins picture. did she have a cancerous moll like Donny?! :-O

AH! you know what? I had the most awesome dream last night. :3 I dreamed that... well. OK. so I'm still in missionary attire, right? but this time I had my guitar. and I was walking around with my companion, who wasn't Elder Lehr... but that's really not important to the story, so I'm walking around with my guitar, and we're on our way to go teach somebody. so we get to this house, and we get to the back sliding glass door. guess who was there sitting on a couch? EDDIE VAN HALEN! oh yes. that's right. I dreamed that I went to go teach the gospel to Eddie Van Halen. SWEET! :D

so you think you could send me the foto on my facebook of me with Herman Li in your reply email? :3 Elder Lehr wanted to see it.

WHOA! that is one sweet mo-hawk that you gave Donny! :-O crazy! :D but I really like how his hair looks now. it looks really really good! and did you notice that specific foto makes him look a LOT like Dad. a LOT. it's krayzee!

DAH! I completely forgot that I didn't write anything for what I wanted for my birthday! DOH! I remembered <---that was on purpose. thinking "I'll come back to this after I finish my email" ... blarg. well, I guess I have a chance NOW, right? so lemme think... I always welcome more music. can't lose with that. but you know... I AM coming home in like... whoa... in eight months... and I AM going to need guitar stuff. :P ha ha ha, but really. ok. lets see. I'm not even really SURE... :-/ gosh. I love crackers. :3 really anything that you think would be good. or epic. I like epic things. :D like an 8-bit tie, or a titanium spork. you know. thinkgeek.com has some pretty epic things. :) and you can't lose with 8-bit.

unfortunately, this week was kinda barren of crazy things or updates... we've been kinda busy with a little emergency that happened on Sunday with the branch and some of the members... but things SEEM like they might be on an uphill climb. we'll have to see with some of the other members and what they say. :)

sorry this emails kinda short... we ran into one of the young women in the branch who goes to the same university and we ended up talking about some of the families that she's working with (as part of the primary presidency :) ) so we might have some less actives we'll get to help reactivate soon. :D YAY! extra support in the branch!

so for that, it's looking like I might have to go a bit earlier than normal this time. I've still got to email president and we've been here a while... :-/

BUUUUUT, I love you more than Dragonforce and Machinae Supremacy! and that's a lot. I hope you feel honored. ;)

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Re: Epic or what?????

2010-10-20T19:32:00.000-07:00

Wed, Oct 20, 2010

YAY! I DID get the package. and you absolutely right: it IS freakin' epic! HECK YES! a Mario WALLET?! SWEET! I love it! it's amazing. I also love my new chase card. thank you for that. gotta get that activated. I came home two nights ago, and it was just chilling right outside our door. :3 and of course I came right inside and opened it. wheat thins, goldfish, some sweet fortunes (speaking of which, there were some random numbers on those... do you happen know what those mean? ) and some nice letters. :) aw, tell them thank you very much. xD also: that Archie Mcfee catalog was very much welcomed.

but yeah, like I already told you, I'm feeling better. but just not as good as I COULD be. I just need to take eating slow and let everything go down easy, but I'm getting things back together. ha ah ha, and don't worry, president's made it pretty clear to everyone that the only way someone is going to go home is in a casket. xD ha ha ha. we are ALL our brother's keeper. but don't worry about me. I'm fine, and if anything goes wrong (but it probably won't :D ) president would let you know.

so, for ponce: well, we spent a little while trying to figure out if there was public transpo to take us up there... but seeing as Yauco is such a small place, there isn't any. sooooo, after some more searching we discovered that there is two gentleman that go back and forth from ponce to Yauco in some cars everyday from 8 in the morning till 1 in the afternoon. fortunately it's only four dollars per person (it's a 22 mile trip one way) and if we are to take a taxi, it probably would end up ridiculously expensive. so we took the public car. so on Monday we went for the first day, and since we weren't able to stay any later than one because of the guy, we just spent the whole morning contacting in the pueblo square. the people there are quite nice. :3 it was an enjoyable experience. and then yesterday we went again, but this time we had our own car because we had to head up there anyways for district meeting. so we worked the morning in the pueblo and then went to a small area near the beach and worked there all the rest of the day. it was a long day, but it was good. we found this one older guy, ex marine from the 'Nam war, who had talked to the missionaries a TON a while back. probably at least 5 years back. he's a Pentecostal. he told us that when they talked it wasn't a fight or anything, just a mutual share of beliefs. he was an interesting guy. he would probably require a bit of work to get him to have an open mind. -- so it's looking like we might just be going up to ponce to work whenever we have a slower day without a lot of appointments. our next day will be Saturday. :)

so. ideas for you to send me for my birthday. obviously the most important paragraph that I'm going to write. (He forgot to finish the paragraph!)

YAY! Ella wants to come for a visit?! SWEET! so does that mean she's coming in the summer to visit us when I get back? :D 'cause that would be sweet.

whoa! you cut the house number?! :-O so what, are you just gonna be carrying your cell and the 846 # with you all the time? whose gonna have that one? or are you just gonna leave that at home? as for recording the voice message... I would probably say turn the volume up in the home phone all the way so that you can step back from it with the cell... that probably would keep the cell mike from maxing out and clipping to cause all that static... and if that doesn't work... I might have to think on it. xD

oo, Toshiba. well, can't lose with a free laptop, right? :D do they all have built in internet and everything? would mine play games? ;) is that what Donny doing at the table in his hair picture? {:o)

you're gonna have to send me a picture of the house after it's all painted! I wanna see that! :D

so an update on Marcia and Francisco! :D well, we stopped by last Wednesday night and Marcia was out with Frances and her singing class she just started, so we only got to talk with Francisco. but it was PeRfEcT! he felt comfortable enough with us to tell us why he got divorced with Marcia. so we're gonna talk with president and get another cita with them both soon.

aw poop... I'm gonna have to bust a move... it's kinda late now. well, after my email to president I'm gonna bust a move out to clean the car! YAY! :D I'm so excited! I can't wait.

so, to finish: oh yea? well I love you more. :P have a super duper, hunky dunky, big mac, super size, really really good day! :D

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Re: Ohhh, nooo

2010-10-13T19:17:00.000-07:00

Wed, Oct 13, 2010

WOOT! early especially awesome birthday present! :D I'm excited! but yes... you're right... heh heh heh... I DO need to get my pictures sent home... especially since I haven't sent them home since... heh... ooo... the end of my second transfer... yeah... I need to get those sent out. my bad. I'll get on that.

AH! so the double date for Marcia and Francisco! well, they ended up having it on Saturday night in President's house which is up in Guaynabo (Bayamón). I don't know what they got to eat, but I'm pretty sure it was good. ha! anyways, Marcia and Francisco brought Justin and Frances, so they could meet president's kids. when President called us, he said that it went great. they enjoyed their time. They have only briefly talked about the church and that was it. But, president wants to have another cita (date) with them! :D woot! so this way they will get the chance to have a much calmer atmosphere and have the spirit there in order to discuss the church and what we may be able to do to heal the damage. soooo, no baptismal date yet, but we continually have them in our prayers.

goodness, Gma Laster is already up and trying to do things! GAH! she needs to be careful! she needs to be there when I get back! I promised her two birthday hugs when I get back! :'(
and then one week till Robin leaves... wow. whats she gonna do with all her stuff? is she just gonna ship it down there? pay a truck?

and then Gma is leaving too... you said that you had been considering renting out the room? ...wow. you know what I just realized? the house is gonna be really empty now... and... heh, much more quiet, too. xD ...just remember to pay your tithing, and wash behind your ears. ;)

speaking of which, how are those laptops that dads been bringing home from work? are they pretty good? I wouldn't know, since you never wrote me back about that. :P ;)

HA HA HA HA HA! "In the news... true story... the owner of the Segway company died riding one! He went off a cliff and fell to his death, so sad!" --- IRONY! ha ha ha! that's HIL... that's horrible. I feel so bad. that poor gentleman. but really though. THAT is some irony.

so yes. NEWS! because things have been a little difficult in Yauco to find new investigators, Presidents giving us a task: we're to be going to Ponce four days out of the week to work there. we actually just got the call from the zone leaders this morning, so I'm not too sure how it's going to work just yet, but they DID tell us that we are going to be searching for public transportation to take us up there at six thirty in the morning. wonderful. *sigh* well, thats just how things go. new Mission story! :D sweet.

so yes. I'm trying to get better. I'm sick and tired of being sick and tired. xD so I'm gonna keep my eye on all the things that I eat, and definitely going to keep myself hydrated. I don't need to get another kidney stone. that's for sure.

but, I've got to go bust a move and send my email to president now!

I love you more than I get sick on the mission! :D

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Re: Hi, hi, hi!

2010-10-06T21:33:00.000-07:00

Wed, Oct 06, 2010

Hola hola hola! good thing we had o come to ponce today, otherwise I woulda missed your email! :D but I'll explain a little bit more about that in a bit.

so for now, here's a little update on things in the life and times of Elder Bryan :3

so first off, I'm sick. yes. that's right: sick. *sigh* I don't know from what, but I've been either throwing up everything I've eaten, ooooor... well, lets just say "or it just runs right through me". :) so yeah... I guess it really started last Monday, but it was just a little hiccup more than anything, and then it just got worse and worse since then until anything involving food just made me feel sick, at one point it was bad enough that I couldn't even eat soda crackers... :-/ but it's getting better. for the least, right? so I've only had some sprite and soda crackers for the last twenty four hours.

so, one of the changes that we've been experiencing is that all of our district meetings are now combined with another district up here in ponce, so every Tuesday we have to make a trip up here. so yesterday, we had our district meeting plus interviews with president. unfortunately, I had to be in the bathroom for most of it. but interviews were good, and since he couldn't make it to the last appointment with Marcia and Francisco, he told us that he would be coming with us tonight (or last night, in today's tense) to the lesson that we had. which he did.

so for the lesson that we had. man, they are seriously so amazing. they really are. :3 So after conference we stopped by their house to find out if they had had the chance to be able to see conference (they had dish network and since they were sick, they were thinking that they probably wouldn't have been able to make it. so we told them to just check it out on BYU TV. fortunately, both of them understand English pretty well.) so we stopped by on Sunday night, right? and they only had a chance to see a little bit, but they recorded all of Sundays session, which means they got to see President Monson's talk (which was amazing. I loved that one too. as well as Uchtdorf's. they both were really really good.) and since they had them recorded, we left them the assignment to see them and take some notes, and after wards, compare what they learned. And when we stopped by last night, they got to see Sunday mornings session! :D and they took notes! :D and president Alvarado Had his notes! :D and he got them out of the car! :D and brought them inside! :D and they all talked about it together! :D WOOT! ok. so President made it. on time, obviously, and he brought one of our zone leaders with him, Elder Oviatt. and they talked and got to know each other and talked about conference, and president reassured that they had received an answer form the spirit that the Book of Mormon was true. so after going through all that, they got to talking a bit more about their family. well, I don't really remember if I mentioned this or not, but they aren't married. :-/ soooo, president talked a little bit about his family and the importance. from some observations about responses of the two, it really seems to me like Marcia really wants to get married again. Francisco seems a... well, a bit apprehensive about the idea. but after a little while, president suggested that they could go on a double date with him and his wife. sweet! so they are going to go this Friday, and they were thinking about going to presidents house so that Justin and Frances, Marcia's kids could meet presidents kids and so the whole family could well, you know, meet each other. sweet. so yeah. that was out appointment with them yesterday. it was amazing. I wish I could have participated, but my mind was kinda fuzzy. but, they are still amazing. so on their double date, president and his wife are gonna talk a bit about the family. :) it's going to be great. :D

oh my goodness, yes. Elder Hollands talk was just so... wow. it was wow.

oo, note for dad: AH! I found out that the legend of the seeker TV series is based off of a series of books! :D I'm not too sure what its called, but I'm sure you'd be able to find out! Elder Lehr had been telling me about this series that he had read that he loved, but he couldn't remember the name, and after describing it, I was just thinking... "wow, that sounds like this!" and turns out, it is. sweet. so you should look those up! :D

hey. who DOESN'T need two laptops? :D but are they GOOD ones? :3

whoa whoa whoa. Hannah got a BIKE and an IPOD!? ha ha ha! what the crap?! look at this! look at this! people are just falling for her left and right! my goodness.

poop... I took too long with my presidents email... and now I have to go.

I love you more than it loves to rain in the month of October! :D

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Re: YAY for better!

2010-09-29T18:46:00.000-07:00

Wed, Sep 29, 2010

YAY, emailing from PONCE today! :D we got a call from the Zone leaders last night about a car. turns out they want to hook us up with a much newer car than the one that we have. woot! so we drove all the way out here during Spanish study (don't worry, we had permission :P ) to pick up the car and do email, and then after that... since we're in ponce... heh heh heh, we might just be stopping by the Marshall's mega store that's just down the street as well. ;) so yes. WOO! NEW CAR! :D

but, it's been WAY too long since I've been awake enough to really string my days together. :-/ before it just really seemed like every day was completely disconnected and things just weren't really... I dunno. they just weren't connected. that's pretty much it. however, things are getting steadily better. I haven't had a week like that fantastic one two weeks ago, but things get steadily better every day. and that's what counts, right? yes. I occasionally wake up in the morning from an uncomfortable pain, but it's not unbearable hurt like it was before. so I just wake up earlier and then have get a bunch of cat naps before the alarm goes off, but I DO sleep through the whole night, which is whats making the biggest difference. :3

but yes, while we had been talking to the doctor, it appears that just more than anything it could quite possibly be just the healing pains. I mean, I DID have a big fatty stone, and it WAS really pokey... *sigh* BUT, last week we had to get Elder Lehr a little haircutsie, so we didn't have as much time as we had been hoping for. sooooo, we went and hung out in the pueblo a little bit, with Elder Gonzales and Elder Patton until we had to go get his haircut. the pueblo is basically the city Center. it's got all the governmental buildings and administrative stuff like that, and then every pueblo ALWAYS has these little shops with all kinds of crazy stuff. there's TONs of souvenir shops and stores with cheap clothing. stuff like that. so we hing out there for a little while, and we went into this one store that was a sports/gun shop 'cause Elder Gonzales wanted to see the police badges they have for sale there. I was quite tempted to buy one that said "special police" on it. xD

ha ha ha, glad you liked the pic! :D ha ha, Franklin! you're right!

WOW, Bryan got a job on fort Lewis? huh... I wonder what He'll be doing there. how did you hear? did he stop by? if so, how are things with him and Breanna? I sent her a letter like four weeks ago and I still haven' gotten anything back. >:(

aw! :3 tell dad that I say hi back. :)

sweet! I'm counting Freddy as my baptism then. now I just have to get some pictures of his baptism. :) and the date.

so the lesson with Francisco and Marcia this last week. like I explained last week, we had been planning on having president come to the lesson with us... but we had that lesson with Presidente Ortiz and his wife where we found out that they weren't married yet, and I let president know about that in my last email. so after all that, we went to our cita with them without president. we, for some reason, weren't able to get a hold of him that day, but I think that he just might not have come because they weren't married yet. *sigh* so we now have the goal of getting them married first, and THEN getting them baptized. but it sounds like they really want to come to conference, and we might even get them to com to Saturday as well! :D we don't have an appointment set up with them yet, but were going to try and teach them tomorrow or Friday night.

and for singing at the bible church. that was interesting. one thing I did note, was the prayers. everyone started out in these, "songs of Praise'' (with tambourines and loud noisy hitting percussion instruments, no less) and right after they finished there was a lot of everyone saying individual "prayers" out loud that consisted mostly of "oh Dios, nos bendigas oh señor Dios". and those seemed to go on for five or six minutes mostly repeating that same phrase. I dunno... I could totally tell the difference between the sweet quietness that accompanies the spirit and the "loud" uncomfortable feeling of his absence.

buuuuut... unfortunately, I've taken my time in emailing, and now time has come to an end... :-/ we've got to have some time at Marshall's, you know. ;)

plus, FREE LAPTOP?!?!?!? :-O heck yes I hope there's one for me! maybe two? ;) ha ha ha. but really: are they nice? :)

time to bust a move! I love you more than we have things come up on P-Day.

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Wed, Sep 22, 2010

2010-09-22T20:56:00.000-07:00

oh yeah. thats right.t

HEY! >:(

2010-09-22T20:47:00.000-07:00

Wed, Sep 22, 2010

well that's not very nice! not sending me an email for no reason? gosh, I feel so offended. in fact, I feel so offended, I'm just gonna go home and eat cheese-its while I sit on the couch crying. yeah.
WelI... guess I won't. I thought I was going to, but that probably would take too much time, and I'm feeling lazy right now. so I'll just keep typing. :P

well, this week has gone by much better. I would probably have to say that it's one of the best that I've had in a very long time. :3 I've been sleeping, I wake up, and I'm NOT TIRED! :D YAY! that's the best ever. however, this last night I didn't sleep very well because my back hurt a little bit. probably just a bit more healing pain. Doctor Perez said that if some more pain comes up I could just take some pain meds to let it down, but things should be going upwards from now on! YAY! I've been needing this.

but yes. this last Monday we got to have a pretty interesting experience. :D currently Elder Lehr and I are teaching an older couple, and in one of the lessons that we had, we ended the lesson with a song and after we finished singing Ramón asked us if we would possibly be able to sing at a bible study that he, his wife, and a few other members from his church do every Monday. after some consideration, we figured it would be a good opportunity to share the spirit with others and to get ourselves seen. so, we called the zone leaders and everything checked out green, as long as we were reverent and proper representatives of the Lord, and of the church. so on Monday, we go. it was a very interesting experience for sure. I know I've already said that.... hmmm... lemme try and explain... gosh, I'm tired again today, I don't know if I can... lets see. I can't seem to be able to think right now... I might have to wait till next week to get everything organized in my mind, 'cause I'm quite tired today... blarg! I hate being tired! I can't think! and I start talking about the same thing over and over again! >:(

OOOO! and when we had stake conference, I introduced Francisco, the father of the family that we are teaching, to president Alvarado, and now president is coming to a lesson with them this Saturday! :D WOOT! so this next week I'll be able to tell you how that went. however... this last lesson we had, we had the president of the branch and his wife with us, and we discovered that they AREN'T MARRIED!!!!! NOOOOOO!!!!!! they HAD been married, but they got divorced for some reason and were apart for a while, but then they got back together... but they still didn't get married again... so we might be talking about setting a MARRIAGE date for them, rather than a baptismal date. but we'll have president with us. that's all we need. :3

whatever. well, I'm sorry things are so short this week... that tiredness sucks up brain power massive bad... that and I was talking to you on your phone. :D (sending emails to phone via text)

but yes, I must bust a move I think. Gots to get that email to president typed up!

I love you more than the zone leaders love to forget about getting me a new box spring (mine's currently broken right in the center. I think I might have to get a picture of it. ;) )

~Brandon (Elder Bryan)

Re: You're both staying right???!!!!

2010-09-16T23:18:00.000-07:00

Thu, Sep 16, 2010

hola a tí, mi madre más fantastico en el MUNDO!

well, SURPRISE!! we BOTH are staying! :D they moved P-day to Wednesday for some odd reason this transfer day, so yeah. and the best part is that we had to go to Bayamón yesterday! :D so we didn't get ANY P Day! isn't that fantastic?! :D yes. quite so. so we left at 8 thirty to get there and got there at about 10 thirty, and then, the best part was, we waited till 4 till it was our turn! gosh, that was my favorite part. thats what I live for. so yeah, and then after all that, it was just to tell me that there really ISN'T anything wrong with me! sweet. buuut, Dr. Marcos' assistant doctor told me that the pain could possibly be from healing in the ureter. either way, I hope it goes away SOON. grr, angry. but yeah, now that I've answered that question, you're gonna give me a NEW question of the week, right? :D

so Hermana Miller is in the Canepas metro district... that should be up in the city, near san Juan or Bayamon... huh. however, a shot for the Dengue... I actually don't have any clue if I got one... or if there even IS one for that... I understand that the best way to avoid getting that is to just use OFF... but I'll have to find out.

ok. so a list of baptisms would be:

Herminia - Rio grande
Fernando de hostos - Caguas
Fernando Luis de hostos (hijo) - Caguas
Lester Ojeda - caguas
Octavio - caguas
Luis Eduardo Mendoza - caguas

I just found out that a person that me and Elder Harvey found right before I left got Baptized! :D his name is Freddy Huertas! and Luis Eduardo Mendoza and Freddy both just got the Melchizedek priesthood two weeks ago! :D

ah, and as to last weeks P-day, we didn't get to go to the dry forest! >:( by the time we had everything taken care of, it was CLOSED! blarg! so we went to this little beach place that was also part of the dry forest, but in a different area. so maybe we'll get to go next week, seeing as I got to stay here. :3

oh yeah! of COURSE you didn't steal my money. especially now that I KNEW about it. :P

so for jobs... wow. so they both pay fairly well... in either area was there a chance for... whats the word... or thingie... it's like, moving up in the career. and unforunately (or furtunately, take your pick) E like designing things and how things work or do you AND I like listening to peoples problems and trying to help them... so, the question is, which one has better options and flexibility, as well as payment and uh... that moving up in the world thingie. :3 psychiatrist... so what all do THEY get to do? the whole talking and listening to people thing? and some possible ORs could be... you know. a professional rock guitarist. or something in wood working/ carpentry. I've always kinda enjoyed messing around with wood (and that would also aid in my guitar building hobby :3 ) so is there anything in those two?ha ha ha xD

oo, a dark slate grey for the new color on the house? :D that sounds tight! you gots ta get picatures of of the whole thing. I wanna see what it'll look like. :3

so, unfortunately, I've been taking way too long to get things taken care of today, so I'm afraid I'm going to have to bust a move so we can actually get stuff done today...

BUUUUT, I love you more than sergio, one of our investigators loves to cancel his appointments! :D

~Brandon

Re: Rain, rain go away!

2010-09-08T22:47:00.000-07:00

Wed, Sep 08, 2010

querido mamí,

well, you know, you're right, the rain here isn't going anywhere for the next little while. we keep getting these fake hurricanes, too! like... I'm not sure if I mentioned it last week or not, but we had to go in early due to the one right before "Gaston" causing some high winds and heavy rains. it's just crazy that hurricane season has just barely started and we've already had 3 headed in our direction. but we've been really lucky that things have been safe so far. however, it's been ridiculously hot. ESPECIALLY right before it rains. jeez... it's been up around a hundred this whole week just because that huricancita had been close. it's so weird how hot it gets right before it rains... but oh wells. I'm just glad I have a car now. that's a bonus. :3

so, this week from the view of Fabian. I've decided to change his name. turns out he's a boy, so... it would be kinda weird to have him named Jenny anyways. :P looks like you're safe mom. ;) but anyways, I've called the doctor and the NEXT POSSIBLE OPEN TIME, was this next Wednesday. (speaking of which, remember that this next Wednesday is the end of this transfer, so P-Day is getting moved to TUESDAY!) but yes, we're going all the way to Bayamón for this visit. hopefully he'll be able to tell me why they can't see my stone, and if I should get surgery or wait for it to pass, and give me some sweet drugs. that would be nice. :) ah, and quite ironically, while we went out to do some contacting, we met this guy that makes bonsai trees and he had this lemon tree with TONS of ripe lemons on it, so he gave us a whole bag full. :) I made some fresh lemon juice that night. however, I don't really know if its helped or not. Buuut, the lemons here taste AMAZING!

yeah, I DID get the box from the Jones, AND one from the KEYS! :D the one from the jones had some awesome letters from all the kids, and Bryan and Breanna, as well as some M y Ms, and some skittles. :3 and then the box from the Keys had a card from all of them and Cameron's Graduation foto, some freakin' sweet Spongebob EASY MAC! oh yeah! and other snackage that I can't really remember right now cause I'm so brene dehd. but yes, I thoroughly enjoyed both of their packages. :3

so, a little more about Elder Lehr: he IS the oldest... uh... well, as far as I can remember at this point. I DO know that he's got two younger sisters and two younger brothers. and that his mom has an AMAZING singing voice. oh my gosh, there was a recording that he had on one of the CD's that they put together for him of her singing for sacrament meeting and it was A-may-ZING! I wept with joy. but he's not really sure if he knows an Alex Olson... not right now anyway. but he might later on. I'll ask again. but you could ask Elder Olson if he knows a Joshua Lehr, too. :3

ok, so what are some possible things that I would be able to do with a Psychology major? do you know of anything spiffy? maybe that involves giving people drugs and telling them to do ridiculous things? xD but really. what IS there to do with a psychology major? or an electronics/electronic engineering? I just gotta know so I can start at least coming up with a plan... I feel so EMPTY without a plan! :'(

you know... I think sister miller just might be in the Hato Rey area. I do believe I have met her before, but only really in passing at the last stake conference. brown hair, taller? what are some of the things that she puts in her blog? I'm interested.

ah HA! I KNEW that I had more money than I thought I had. ha ha ha, I checked last week and I was like... wait. that's weird. I coulda sworn I had more... so now I know what happened to it. :) :P how much did you end up stealing? and that's so lame that they put a hold on your card... did you not have enough money or something? or did they just wanna mess with you for a while?

of COURSE they observe labor day here. it's a holiday, right? anything that's a holiday is good enough for them to celebrate! :D ha ha ha, but really. they celebrate all KINDS of holidays. it's almost ridiculous. almost.

so... erm... could you tell robin that I'm sorry I haven't written her yet, but I'm going to be writing her soon enough? :) really soon? like hopefully today? :D

Gah, hey, come on now. I sent two letters to Cameron because I had been writing one to him already and then he sent me an email saying that I haven't replied to him yet but he included all kinds of updates on what was going on... so instead of scrapping my last one, I just sent him that one and then a new one too! :'( but I'm trying to send Donny a letter today...

so did you end up sleeping on the couch then? :3 or did you just unplug the buzz saw? you know... taking all those power tools out of your room might be better for your sleeping. plus, I don't know if it's good to have power tools running without an operator. :-/

DAH! I just lost the game! :'( poop...

well, I've got to bust a move... I haven't written president yet... GAH! it's so much harder to remember to email him rather than write a letter. *sigh* oh wells.

I love you more than Bryan hates losing the game! :D

Re: Dodged the storm!

2010-09-01T22:38:00.000-07:00

Wed, Sep 01, 2010

ha ha ha, Elder Lehr actually just got an email from his mom mentioning that you sent her the email with the pickies. she said she really enjoyed them :D but I would seriously love to be Elder Lehr's comp for more time! that would be AWESOME! :D he's great. we are indulging a little bit in our love for video games. but we're just talking about them. that's all! I promise. but it's been great. except for the fact that things are difficult to get done due to me being so tired all the time and pretty far past the ability to coherently think or follow the spirit... :-/ makes things inconvenient,... especially for lessons. you know...

but He's from Orem. he actually went to BYU before hand, and he's going to go back there when he gets back... so if I get into LDS BC, we're definitely going to be hanging out after the mission. he's great. he really is. it's just so fun to be around him.

but yeah! no storm for us. we did have to go in early due to wind and heavy rain, but other than that and a little bit of wind in the morning, that was it. :-/ nothing SUPER exciting. Except that we have a second one coming that might come close to causing us a bit more wind tomorrow. and then the one after that on its way. :D YAY! what fun! I'm excited. so we might get some really fun weather for the next few weeks. We'll have to see.

oh, OK. well, last week I ended up asking for money 'cause I was two and a half hours away from where my money was... that and I had been expecting to be able to pay through the mission account... heh, so it was kind of a surprise. but it should be all good now. I'll pull the money out of my account to pay him back and then I'll get reimbursed.

NO I HAVEN'T BEEN SHOPPING TOO MUCH! ...that's ridiculous.

ok, so. we picked up me results from the 'ospital (arrr). guess what? nothin'. all it says is that I've got "early/mild" evidence of some thing called "Nephrocalcinosis" in my kidney. whatever THAT is... but other than that, that's all the technician felt I had a problem with. wonderful. plus, there's no blood in my urine, which means if there IS a stone in my ureter, its not cutting it while it moves. sooooooo... I've got a ghost stone! nobody knows what my problem is. I talked with the mission doctor yesterday, and he supposed to get back to me yesterday to let me know if I actually needed to get to Caguas sometime to do a follow up visit, but he didn't... he was gonna look up Nephrocalcinosis to find out about it... but alas, I continue waiting. so yes. however, I continue sleeping HORRIBLY and now... there's some slight pain returning in my manhood. in the same spot. "it was driving me crazy!" -Albuquerque. so... I continue falling apart. ISN'T IT WONDERFUL?! *eye twitchy*

a quarter cup of lemon juice. just straight up like that.... huh. I'm gonna have to check that out. we haven't been shopping yet today (plus we juts got our money for the month :) ) so I'll pick some of that up. that'll be nice to see if that will help.
dah... pictures... yeah... erm... well... you see... I haven't sent them yet? eh heheheheh...

*ahem* oh... eh... actually, I haven't emailed Ehren either... DAH! I'm sorry! :'( I've been failing so much recently! I'm going to try to do that today. really. I am.

aw sweet! Tacoma malls getting an H&M?! yes! fancy clothes!

wow, you and Robin are going back down to Cali again? well, tell grandma hi from me! and chase wants robin to move down there... huh... that would be interesting. maybe a problem... Plus, robins always had that draw to Cali... but she hasn't applied to any schools down there, nor does she have a job to be able to support herself... that would be interesting.

but yes, I've got to bust a move so I can go email president.

I love you more than my body likes creating invisible problems! :D

~Brandon

Re: another week...

2010-08-26T20:01:00.000-07:00

Thu, Aug 26, 2010

woot! so. updates on how everything's going. well, as you already know, we stopped by Caguas yesterday. :3 ha ha ha, it was funny cause we actually DID stop by Annie right before we went to the hospital. kinda Ironic that she heard my voice. :D but yeah. we were at the hospital the WHOLE day. super duper fun. we got there at 10 in the morning and left at 5. but basically it was a follow visit for my tests. but he said that basically, because I was still having pain, be it in my special place or in my back, my (possible) kidney stone has been causing me pain for over a month now. So, he gave me orders to get a CT scan to figure out where it is which we got taken care of today in ponce. we get to go pick that up on Monday, and then, unfortunately, we might have to get ourselves back to Caguas, a two and a half hour drive, so we can have Doctor Perez take a look at it. wonderful. but I'm going to talk to Hermana Alvarado to see if there's someplace... well, just a little bit closer, cause Wednesday is our P-day, and I haven't really had a real P-day here in Yauco yet (to answer your question). So much stuff to get ready for. hospital trips, Zone conference prep. stuff like that. it's all so wonderful. :D

a little bit more about our visit yesterday: IIIIIIIII didn't get any sleep past four in the morning cause my back woke me up. and we also got out of bed at six. joyous. that just made the day that much more wonderful. :D so we get to the hospital at ten because the sign up list was supposed to come out at 10:30. buuuuut, we get there and it is just PACKED chock full o' people. LOADED. so we wait till about noon thirty and then we get called in. after filling out a new patient sheet because for some reason I wasn't in the offices system, even though I spent three days at the hospital... I dunno. but anyways, I fill that out and they call me in,
I get the follow up visit and boom. all done with that. so after that, we go out and they ask us to pay. we're like "OK, the mission has an account and we're going to pay for that." and the secretary like "oooo.... you have to pay in cash."

"WHATJKLSD:LF?" we don't have cash!" (it was $85 by the way) and neither of us have very much money this month, eh heh heh... yeah.

"well, lemme call the supervisor. we'll talk with her"

time passes. and some more time passes. "is the supervisor coming?" "wellll, she's actually at lunch, but she'll be back really soon." some MORe time passes. "you sure?" yeah, she's coming back right now." then we come to 3:00 and the supervisor finally walks in. turns out they aren't authorized to charge the account, nor do they have a system to charge it even if they were... (they're in a new part of the hospital.) so we're like "oh crap, what do we do?" we call sister Alvarado- can't send us money on our cards that fast. so after TONS of running around, the number for the Caguas Elders pops into my head (personal revelation for sure). call them up and the zone leaders end up saying, OK we can hook you up with the money. but you're going to have to come and pick it up from the Caguas apartment. hey, that's cool. as long as we can get the money.

well after running up to go pay for our parking, we search around for the parking ticket. it's gone. GREAT! so we can't leave. we call up the zone leaders "um... we can't exactly leave... can you bring us the money? :)" and we had to have the money by four thirty. luckily they get there at four fifteen and I was able to get myself my prescriptions for the cat scan, which they wouldn't give to me till I've paid, obviously.

yes. long day. so we did that, which is basically what we've done this whole last week... it's been really hard cause I haven't got very much sleep and haven't been able to think, so even in lessons I'm just destroyed, and we've been doing some more finding. however, we do have this family that I haven't told you guys about yet, unfortunately...

Francisco and Marcia Morciglio. (more-see-glee-oh. with stress on the "see") but yeah. they have two kids, Justin and Francis. Justin has 12 years, and Francis has 6. Francisco is amazing. he's really reading and praying and he KNOWS that the church is true already. Marcia is still struggling, I think that she might have a few doubts, but part of the problem is that they're leaving to go on vacation from this last Tuesday till the week after the next. so they are going to be out till then, but we just need the chance to extend a baptismal invitation!

Bryan cut his hair! why so short?! :'(

also, that renaissance fair banner with the DC logo is SAWEET! did you get any other pictures from the chain mail artists?

ok... so the current address of where I'm at would be:

Elder Brandon Bryan
Urb. Costa Sur
A21 Calle Brisas del Mar Apt. B
Yauco, PR 00698

and as far as I know, things get here fairly well, although Elder Lehr said that he had a slight problem with one of his packages ending up at the neighbor's house for some reason. but the people here are SOOOOO NICE that if it came for an elder, they know where to put it. but really. the people in Yauco are SOOOOOOOPER nice. you might even say they are souper stars. ;) but I love it. plus, president Alvarado is wanting us to break out of the basic contacting and just start talking to people. be their friends. and then after that, they are going to see that we as missionaries aren't robots, but people that care about them and then they will open up to us. :D

poop... I should probably send this so I can email president. apparently in the west side they started emailing instead of writing letters, so I gotta get that out.

Love you so much! I'm feeling much better though... even though I still get crappy sleep... but yeah...

I love you more than I had to wait at the hospital!

~Brandon

Look!! Sis... he is pretty good n hope h

2010-08-25T20:19:00.000-07:00

Wed, Aug 25, 2010

Look this beautifull n big smile!! don't worry Sis... he is pretty good n hope he feel better son ;-). God bless the elders! He made my day!! I'm sooo happy :-D.

Your crazy n awesome son, he is so special 2 me. The other guy elder Lern it's so cool 2 :-).

Ur son don't have idea how much his visit help me to feel better. Trust me, much better!!.

Ur hug :-D!!

:-)!!

A little blurry, sorry:-(.

Hahaha Chilling in the hammock ;-)!

Hope you like! Love, Annie

Re: Getting better?

2010-08-18T19:43:00.000-07:00

Wed, Aug 18, 2010
woo, so this week... welp, still not much better. still getting horrible sleep, so I'm so tired to the point where I can't really think, and I'm fighting to stay awake... :-/ however, I got my test resultzorz. heh, Wish I took a picture of the doctors "impression": so. we had zone conference last thursday and afterwards we had some stuff to take care of, like car inspections which were at the dealership and by the time we figured out where all of the keys went and why there was a missing set, and pickin' up my "new" bike. (not that it really matters, neither of us have helmets and Elder Lehr doesn't even have a seat for his. (stolen)) so we're going to continue using our car for now. but, we had to go and pick it up from the zone leaders in their apartment (in ponce). so, we figured hey. we're in ponce, lets go get my results. well, by the time that everything was taken care of, and I got my bike, and we got to the hospital, archives was closed. YAY! :D so we had to go back the next day and get them. so, results: after I picked 'em up I opened 'em up. and then I pulled 'em out, and then I unfolded them, and then I read them. well, I discovered that the testicular scan that I had was an unremarkable scan. even worse, I took a look at my renal (kidney area) scan... apparently it was so unremarkable that it was gross! DAH!!! it said "grossly unremarkable renal scan." great. so there's obviously nothing wrong there, if it was so unremarkable it was disgusting. I hope no one threw up.

but yes. things have unfortuantely changed to the point where I'm almost completely sure that its another kidney stone. which sucks. but I'm hoping that it's already made it past the difficult part and is just taking its sweet time going through, instead of getting stuck at everyones favorite spot: the ureter! :D

yeah, Yauco is a pretty small place. but we have a Big K mart and a sweet grocery store called "Mr Special" alright! but no Walmart. we do have the basic fast food necessities, not that I really feel up to eating out anymore. now that I feel like crap all the time, I don't want to feel even more like crap after eating fast food, so I've been trying to cut it down to a minimum. we also have another even smaller town that's attached to our area because they are included in our branch. the branch is pretty small here. we've only got about seven priesthood holders, and two of them are priests. but, the branch president's son has served a mission, and he also has another son out in Mexico right now with about a year left.

ah, the neighborhood garage sale. well, I hope that you don't sell any of my stuff. >:( that just wouldn't be very nice. :P
hey, I got the pics you sent, but they were all so small! :'( I DID find you in the crowd though! :D hidin over on the right side near the bottom. what was that a picture of? it looks kinda 90's ;)

yeah, I just don't really know whats going on. ESPECIALLY since, jjust like you said, I love talking with people and everything. I just don't get it. I don't know if it's connected with the lack of sleep, and I hope it is, cause that means when I start getting more, everything will smooth out. did you know that doctors can't tell the difference in Brain activity between a half crazy person and a person that isn't getting enough sleep? yeah. learned that last sunday in the gospel principles class: Word of Wisdom. great. thats comforting.

emailing steph back and forth? I have no idea what you're talking about. thats ridiculous.

so yeah... basically I'm just gonna be fighting to keep myself awake so that I can at least say "hi" to people for this week... I dunno. just one more thing for me to cause a problem with.

but yeah... gah! I keep fighting to try and come up with something to write, but I'm just running on empty so my minds just blank all the time, :( but, I'm trying. thats what counts, right?

so yeah, we'll see if things go better this week. I'm trying harder to focus myself on whats been going on here more than just replying to your email, so this week I'm gonna write down specific things I wanna go over, that way I can remember them in the computer lab and not spend half my time thinking. :D

well, I think I'll go with that fer now!

I love you more than I need sleep and a clean kidney. you got any spares handy?

~Brandon

Re: What's new this week?

2010-08-11T19:31:00.000-07:00

Wed, Aug 11, 2010
so, to start off, I HAVE been transferred :D I've been moved over to Yauco, on the south side of the Island, twenty minutes away from Ponce. I now have a new companion, as well. his name's Elder Lehr. he was born in Cali, but he moved to Utah when he was a kid. kinda strange that Annie asked how I was liking the west... huh. how did SHE find out?! :-O that's weird. but yes, I'm officially in the west mission. President did a lot of major moving around this last transfer, probably to get the integration of the two missions moving.

yeah, I've had a chance to go to the doctor. we've been driving a lot to ponce these last few days to get some tests done. :3 so I got a Urine test and a Sonogram. yeah, that was weird. especially since they checked out the "problem areas" *ahem* soooooo..... we're going to be getting the results for that tomorrow after Zone conference (which also happens to be out in Ponce) and then we take the results of the test to the Urologist to find out whats been the problem. buuuut, it might just be another wonderful buddy. yay. that makes me so excited. :D can you tell? :D

for the printing out, I would just say the last email from you, and the last one from dad.

we also had a small trade off for the past few days. Elder Tartakoff came to stay with us two starting Sunday at six PM till noon on Tuesday. he actually just got released as an AP and is now a zone leader, but ironically, he's really basically an AP, because he still has some AP responsibilities. but he is amazing. just one of the most loving and Genuine people. I unfortunately... I've been lacking a LOT in the caring about other people category, I don't even know why, either. but that's one of the other things that bothering me. I'm not sure if other people are rubbing off on me in their apathy, or if I'm just tired or worn out, but I just have to try really really hard to put happiness forth... :-/ *sigh* lame.

anyways, Elder Tartakoff is amazing. he's just... he knows how to teach, he knows Spanish, and he's awesome. so I feel all lame. yeah.

ah, Stephanie says you haven't updated the Blog in forever! whats the dealio, yo?!

so robin spent some time with Chase in Cali, or is she still there? she came back with you, right?

but yeah... I;m sorry I haven't written very much... I'm going to try and just focus on other things next week. I need to quit writing about my problems and just focus on the amazing people around me. that's what I need to do. cause there really is some amazing people here. so much more nice than the people in Santurce. :D plus Elder Lehr is amazing. I'm going to try and be more focused on others this week. serving. plus, the scriptures say that when we lose ourselves, we find ourselves. so maybe that's all I need to do.

Well, I love you lots and lots and lots. more than not, I suppose. :P :D

~Brandon

Re: Ya, right!

2010-08-03T19:27:00.000-07:00

Tue, Aug 03, 2010

yeah.... I know I need to relax... I'm sorry. everything has just really built up to the point were I have gotten sick of it. I don't really know what the problem is.

But you asked about transfers. I honestly wish I could tell you. Everyone seems to enjoy keeping secrets now, so we keep getting people telling us there’s not a transfer meeting, and then there is and all kinda of ridiculous stuff. BUT, at least one of the three of us is leaving, because we've been told that we need to ALL pack our bags and be at the meeting by 8. Suckage, cause we don't have a car. Which means we have to take the train, 20 minutes walking WITHOUT all of our baggage. so we might just have to get up nice and early tomorrow sweet. so, MAYBE I'm going somewhere, maybe I'm not. But at least you guys know that I'm going to transfer meeting tomorrow. if that counts for anything.

So. Both your message and the one from dad really helped me get things back... into perspective. So thank you. Very much and Thank you very much, Dad. I'm sorry that I haven't written any more. I was mostly pondering on your guys' emails. They’re very helpful. I just wish that I could print them out. Yeah, that would be nice. but I'm going to do my best to keep myself up on top of things this week. Both of your emails had things that I just really needed some assurances and help with, and they really gave me a boost.

but times up, so I’ve gotta bust a move.

Thank you so VERY, VERY much, Mom AND Dad. I love you so very much.

~Brandon

Re: Ya, right!

2010-07-28T19:02:00.000-07:00

Wed, Jul 28, 2010

GAH! OK OK, I'm sorry! :'( I didn't mean for you to worry so much... but still. So... basically... *sigh* well, I mean, I don't even really have a problem with things being slow here. I understand that sometimes things just don't go overly fantastic and are kinda slow sometimes. (I also have been sleeping a little bit better, bit for some reason I still can't manage to sleep a whole night through...) but... how can I really explain the problem? I don't know. It's wierd, 'cause it's like, the problems this, or the problems that. but really, it's more of... this?

*sigh* well, basically I had been considering going home. I... I don't know. I've... past tense? I had? I don't know. just being stuck with people. people that, sure, they're cool... you know, I don't even think thats what the real problem is. is it? I don't know.

no, I didn't forget the WAY TOO OFT quoted "forget yourself and go to work". no, I didn't forget the whole, this is work for the lord, this is salvation for other people. I already knew that it wasn't an option for me to go home. besides the fact that president wouldn't let me anyways.

I'm sorry... this has all just really been stuck up in my head. I didn't even really tell president that, just a little skiff about that I had been considering going home. like I said, I already know that going home isn't an option. I think of all the people that have told me they look up to me. Donny, Hannah, Cameron. what would they think? how would they feel? what about you? and dad? and Grandma? what would the adverse effects be? and then it comes down to: am I being selfish by wanting this? *sigh*

but don't worry any more. I'm quite a bit ways away from wanting to go home as bad as I did last week. I know that I have the support of president if I need it.

so yeah. thats... thats it. kind of. but really, I need to write a little bit. something about this week. just something else.

well, two days ago I got the flu. still got a little bit of it, and it wsn't as bad as it was yesterday morning. (threw up a little bit) but I picked up some theraflu and stayed home for most of the day to get some rest. I'm feeling better now. my stomachs calmed down quite a bit and I'm not as stuffy, but the congestions still there. so hopefully I'll be better within the next few days.

I also wanted to ask: did Dad get my Fathers day card? I'm trying to figure out if people have gotten my last few letters that I've sent out, cause I sent one to Andrea like my second week here and I havent gotten a reply yet. so I was just wondering if things were getting where I sent them. :)

we've also found a person! :D he's a twenty year old Dominican. we contacted him just out on the street on his way to work and we stopped by to teach him yesterday. we shared a lot about the book of mormon. He seemed SUPER excited to read it and started right after we left. He lives alone, and NOT with his girlfriend which solves a few problems there. but we're going to be stopping back by tomorrow to see how his readin gwent and to teach a little bit more. :3

we also have two Elders staying with us in our tiny apartment. they came from the west side from an area that sounds like its going to be closing. so they'll be staying with us for the next week till transfers.

President is shifting the focus of the mission from baptisms more to retension and reactivation. thats one of the biggest problems that is going on right now, is that the church is shrinking here. :-/ people are going inactive faster than there is baptisms... like, in Rio Grande, 30 maybe active members. 350 on the whole member list.

poo... out of time. well, I've got to bust a move. I will be doing email on Tuesday next week, for the next week is transfers.

so yeah...

I love you more than the computers here love to take their time to boot up!

~Brandon

suprize! :D

2010-07-19T13:43:00.000-07:00

Mon, Jul 19, 2010

hey, guess what? P-day was on Monday today. :3 turns out they have a mission-wide leadership training for all the missionaries that are leaders, so they had to re-structure the whole week. :-/ so I get to email you today. *sigh* which sucks cause nobody emails me until it's Tuesday. but it's OK. it's whatever. I'll just try to ramble on the most that I can so I can fill up some space. but we're also having interviews with the president today as well, which started at one and we're STILL waiting to get in.

so yeah. this week has kinda sucked. :-/ we only taught one lesson this whole week. and the only other lesson that we taught was to a member who invited us over for dinner. so yeah... kinda sucked.

I'm still having this horrible sleeping problem, but I'm getting better. it got really bad a few days ago, and I even took some of those Advil PMs, but that just made me feel tired ALL day, plus even then I STILL woke up. so I just was feeling like CRAP... goodness... this last week and a half has just sucked. it really has. I'm not really sure if I wanna talk about it just yet, but I more than likely will next week. we're still waiting for our interviews with president, so I'm just gonna sit here and type away till it's our turn to go. :D but don't worry. it's not a problem with Elder Ralston or a worthiness issue or anything like that, but I want to talk to president about it before I say anything. sorry to be leaving you hanging and stuff, but I just wanna grab some guidance from him first. :) so DON'T WORRY, and "don't panic"

my minds still super fuzzy though from all that lack of sleep, but it's getting better.

lemme see... our search still continues for new investigators. AH! we had a trade-off with one of our zone leaders on Thursday. heh heh, it was actually with him that we found that one person to teach. maybe he had a fresher mind than we did? :)

hey, hows dad doing? hows the job and everything? I sent him an email like a few months ago and I haven't gotten anything back so I had been wondering if he got it and all that stuff. but mostly it was just about like, his mission. how it went and if he had any stories or anything, 'cause I never really heard too much about it.

well, looks like it's my interview time!

LOVE YOU!

~Brandon

Re: pooped

2010-07-14T12:55:00.000-07:00

Wed, Jul 14, 2010

well, it's alright if you're having a hard time typing... I'm just utterly destroyed right now... gah, I have had just the most HORRIBLE time trying to sleep this week... actually, it's been more these past two weeks... *sigh* I don't even know why, but I just have this inability to be able to sleep the entire night now... last night I woke up at 2 in the morning. blasted wide awake. so I'm like, great, what am I going to do NOW? so I try to go back to sleep. cause, you know, it's good to get lots of sleep. so, after I fall back asleep, I wake back up. five different times. and for the past two weeks, I've woken up at least twice if not more every night. it's seriously just destroying me, it really is. i forget what I'm saying halfway through my sentences in Spanish, I can't really think, I have to FIGHT to focus on what people are saying... I dunno, man. I had been thinking... i still have those advil... er whatevers PM pills... so I had been considering just drugging myself up before I went to bed... but I'll have to see how things turn out. I'm thinking about calling Sister Alvarado to see what she thinks... well, I should actually probably do that first, eh? yeah. I'm gonna do that.

yeah, it woulda been kinda inconvenient had me foot been broken... but I was blessed. and super lucky. good thing I put tons of points into my luck my last level up. helped me out a TON.

aw man... that's too bad that you haven't been able to find Luigis or Yoshis... gosh though. you've got to keep trying! cause YOSHI'S MY FAVORITE! :D but having all three would be amazing. :3 would you keep trying please?

wait... buy me pants? what do you mean? ha ha ha, I don't need any pants... the one pair I brought are doing me pretty good so far. :)

my goodness... I just read about cleverbot. I don't think you told me about it before, so I had to go look it up *hush hush* HA! that thing is AMAZING! I LOVE IT! I had to try it out a little bit. wow. I can see how you would be able to spend hours on that thing. I just love how sarcastic and joking it is. how did you guys FIND that thing? I LOVE IT! it's perfect for finding your own random generator inside.

oh my goodness. you have to show me all the videos when I get back. I'm losing all my "culture" ha ha. that one with the french guy dressed up like Mario sounds HILARIOUS! you have to just get a nice collection of videos to blow my mind with when i get back. I'm excited. :3 and maybe some other fun crazy websites. :D

*sigh* I'm just so whipped I can't even really think... lets see...

well, Elder Taylor, our district leader had been training Elder Perry, but then President Alvarado gave them (the moving Elders) the responsibility of cleaning up every. single. apartment. in the whole mission. so they got a new companion, elder Perez, and then about last Saturday Elder Perry got replaced! :'( they just took him away, cause he wasn't really getting the chance to learn or anything. all he was doing was cleaning... so now we have Elder... erm... Elder Holler... Elder Holles... I can't remember... this sucks. I can't even remember simple things anymore. plus, my teaching is just going downhill... I can't track where I'm going with things, I'm tired all the time, I'm getting even LESS organized... I'm just falling apart!

lemme see... OK. so like, the moving elders. they now have the commission to help clean up every apartment to spic-n-span cleanliness (which sucks for us, we have one of the worst apartments. no joke. (not that it's us or anything, it's just a crappy apartment) ) and then they have to teach the Elders about the doctrine of cleanliness. the moving Elders hit up one apartment everyday (excepting P-day and Sunday) so yeah. whelp, just forgot where I was going with that.

look at this, isn't it fun? :D

other than that... not much has really happened. we're still searching for people. every day. we haven't had any appointments set up ALL day for the past three... or four days, so yeah. that makes for a FUN day, especially because we have to walk and there's barely any members to visit... we've just been having some really long days the past little while. but we're trying. we've also taken up trying to discover how many people ACTUALLY still live here in Santurce...

but yeah. I'll probably have some more exciting news next week. maybe a bit more FULL of an email, but I do have to go email Donny really quick, so I'll go do that...

I love you more than the amount of sleep I'm losing! :D

~Brandon

wee wee.

Re: We finally have sun!

2010-07-07T12:40:00.000-07:00

Wed, Jul 07, 2010

YAY! I got my package! :DDDDDDD thank you so very much. made me happy inside. that polo that Donny didn't wear? that things AMAZING! how could he not wear that?! well, I LOVE it, so I'M going to wear it. the only problem is, I would almost prefer to just save that for when I get HOME! that tie was pretty amazing as well... heh, I don't think I'm going to be able to do anything to it! :3 pears... AHHHH!!! the MARIO CART! did you know that those Mario carts COME OFF THE CANDY BASE?! :DDDD that thing is amazing!!!! did you happen to see any more? I was seriously not mind starting a collection of all the different people... :3 you know. just to have when I get back? like a little extra coming home thingie? ;)

OO! story time. ok, so the moving Elders came to pick us up for the combined mission meeting, right? well, they were lost for a moment (and a little late), so we told them that they would be able to meet us on the main road. well, we start to head out there, but then they found our house from behind. they come around and stop right next to us. we start to clean off the seats and everything, and of course my side had more stuff to clean of. so Elder Ralston finished before I did. So he closes his door, and Elder Taylor thought that I was already inside, so he jumps on the gas pedal and jets forward RUNNING OVER MY FOOT! AHHHHHH!!!!. but really, it wasn't so bad. our miracle for the week was that my foot wasn't broken! :D YAY! he only ran over my toes and my foot right in front of the arch in my foot. wow. that was a redundant statement of redundancy. anyways: *whew* any farther back would have seriously broken my foot. that would have put a damper on the whole meeting thing. boy was I blessed there. (man, that would have been a GREAT start to the new mission presidents term, eh? yeah. and great on my medical record, too. along with the four hundred dollar plastic surgery on my toe and my two thousand dollar (approximate) visit to the hospital with Steve. man I suck) so yeah. I thank everyone for their prayers for my safety. they REALLY helped me this week. :D

I like your spiffy text there, by the way! make me think of an old computer screen! :D now if it was only Green and black. ha ha ha!

that's a bonus that the weather was nice for the mariners game, even if they DID lose just like every year the students go, ha ha ha! but it's nice that you had some sun, for sure.

so, info about the CHANGES! WOO! so. first of all, we had a FULL mission meeting last Friday. that's right. east AND west side together. the meeting was VERY revolved around UNITY and WORKING TOGETHER, which is understandable if you have those "eastside purists" ha ha ha! but President was really focused on the unity thing, so all of us have a strong feeling that this next transfer meeting things are just gonna be CRAZY change ups all over the place. ah, one of the MOST fun things: district meeting now starts at 7:00 in the MORNING. yes. and we are to be in our seats at 6:30 studying till it starts. tasty. so yeah. we have that... and the best part. P-Day is remaining Wednesday. SWEET! that's perfect. it's so much better on Wednesdays anyways! makes your week go by much much MUCH faster. plus, Puerto Rican's have all kinds of random holidays that they celebrate on Monday, so lots of stores are closed including barber shops and things like that, so he kept it on Wednesday for us. lets see... those are the two major things that have happened so far. Anything else, we just haven't been told about yet. :-/ people just love to hoard their info! it's horrible.

ha ha ha, my P-day clothes? oh... well... you know. just some really sweet shirts... like a batman shirt, and a thunder cats shirt... they both looked just absolutely AMAZING, so I had to get them. but other than that, I'm still running fairly well on all the stuff that I brought. we don't actually get to spend TOO much time chillin in our P day clothes anyways, so everything's pretty well still fresh. except for my service jeans. those are getting a work out. :D

for the fourth? hmmm.... lamentably, nothing. *sigh* the fourth of July means NOTHING here! :'( it's probably the only thing that they don't celebrate here, ha ha ha!

AW MAN!!!! A ZOMBIE WALK!!???!! ha! that would have been AMAZING to go see! :D

sounds like shingles is just bundles of joy!

oh poo... sisters are out of time... gah! that means I gotta bust a move.

I love you with a love as deep as the ocean *cheesay!*

~Brandon

Re: OOOPS!

2010-06-30T12:28:00.000-07:00

Wed, Jun 30, 2010

oh goodness. well well. yeah. I most definitely does sound VERY MUCH like you've been having a very interesting last two weeks. I had been wondering how bad things had been going on with you when you said that they were pretty... interesting... especially cause Steph has been having *ALMOST* as much of an interesting week as you... but wow. you win, for sure.

so, first things first. looking at that throat picture... its looking like the Laryngeal Ventricle would be the thing that I might have pushed on. which would correspond to what Sister Dewsnup said about it possibly being something connect to my larynx. So, If that's the thing that I would have pushed on, that would have explained the slight swelling and problems with my voice. cause it looks like they are quite fairly close to the "vocal fold and false vocal fold" wee! look at me pretending to know what I'm talking about! :D so yes. now I know to not mess with that, eh? ...yes.

so, for your question about Sister Krout. I'm not sure if I already said that she was from Washington, but I'm trying to think about where EXACTLY she's from... it might have been over in eastern Washington... but it might have also been down by Tri Cties... naw... that was Elder Brownie... yeah. I think that Sister Krout is from over in Eastern Washington. I'll have to ask her a bit later. but sister Vazquez is From Guatemala. :)

YAY, hump day package! :D the best part about having the moving Elders in our district is the fact that they pretty much have to go to the mission office once a week to take care of things, so we get hooked up with mail and everything every week at district meeting :D so I should be able to get my stuff at the latest by next Tuesday (heh, as far as I can imagine. things are just so ridiculously unpredictable in the mission that I've just really quit trying to make plans for things other than myself.) wait. you want to know if what you sent was LAME? whats that supposed to mean? like, you WANT it to be lame, or just ridiculous, or what? xD ha ha ha! but I should be able to let you know by next week. :D if it anything "lame" anyways, I'll probably enjoy it.

NUH UH! I got a shirt from Tomas too?! :D SWEET! gosh, now I feel special. it's really cool that we got victor's younger Brother as our new student. Victor's awesome-awesome. you gotta gets that to me. :D

So yeah. sorry about forgetting about the memory card... heh heh... I didn't mean to...? I promise I'll get that out the next thing I send. but I'm glad you enjoyed the nails. heh, Elder Ralston thinks I'm a dork for picking ém up. He just doesn't understand. geniuses (geniui?) are always criticized in their time. :P

wait. Seattle has a Rock and Roll marathon?!?!?!?!?!?!!?!!!!!!11111oneoneone!!1 When did THIS happen?! is it every year? do you know who played this year? if it was fairly recent... wouldn't that mean that I would pretty much be able to go right when I get back? :D

and Bryan came over for dinner? huh. any news? anything interesting?

so, for my socks and shoes, I'm actually... my shoes are actually doing quite nicely. the rubber on the bottom of these things is just super hard! so I might just get nice and lucky and not have to replace any of my shoes! :D that would be a bonus. especially since they are just so ridiculously expensive. :-/ and for socks... they are failry fine as well. I've... *sniff* I've lost one of my Sunday socks (you know, the day of the week socks?) and some of those are getting worn out... but other than that, everything is looking fairly fine. P-day clothes... well, lets just say I've ran into some new things, so everything there is covered. :D I might just have to toss you a picture of the piece of woven gold that I have. :3 plus, if you're EVER strapped for ideas about what to send me, just remember: Goldfish are my friend. ;) and for Annie's husband, heh heh. that's kinda funny that she put widow... her ex is NOT dead, but I wonder if she just "wishes" he were, or if she just considers him to be... ha ha ha! either one I would expect from her... but I couldn't say for sure. :D but he is American. and ex missionary of about... twelve years ago? Creo. I mean... I think. but he is CURRENTLY living in Mexico with his... new wife? I'm exactly very clear on that one anymore... so yeah... that would be about that. any other questions to stimulate my mind?

Heh heh, changes from the new mission president? hmmm... that's a really good question... as far as I can tell, nothing YET, but that might just be because the missions don't combine until the first of July...wait a second. isn't that my ONE YEAR MARK?! WHAT!? as you said. hump day for sure. (GAH, thats so weird. I've already been gone for a year? WHAT HAVE I BEEN DOING THIS WHOLE TIME?! :-O ha ha ha!) where does the time go? seriously. but we all keep hoping they're going to have a BIG new mission wide meeting to get all this stuff organized. however, we don't know anything yet, so we'll see. next week is possibly when things might start trickling down to us lowly foot soldiers.

OH! fun story. so, you know how we've been having those super heavy rains these past few weeks? well, since our apartment is on the second story, we've got ourselves this little balcony out the back of the apartment. well, this balcony has a drain for the rain, but it's just this little PVC pipe stuffed into the concrete wall. so, now that we've have this set up, last Thursday, we had come back for lunch. perfect timing, cause it just started POURING buckets. I was just so scared that I was gonna get hit with a bucket we ran back to the apartment to avoid getting hit. (plus I heard that it was going to rain metal ones that day, and I'm not a fan of those. they're kinda heavy :-/ ) so as we start making lunch, this rain is just EXPLODING everywhere, and it was so windy. then all of a sudden, water just starts pouring in from outside!!! turns out that little dinky drain in the wall was just no match for the rain. sooooo, as things went on, the water got deeper in the apartment to about... well, half a foot? it was definitely around my ankles. goodness... so we open the front door and we start sweeping the water out of the apartment down in the (concrete) stairwell that heads outside and we got ourselves a nice little river going out the door, heh heh heh! yeah... it was fun. the WEIRDEST thing was that it didn't get ANYTHING DAMAGED! neither of the couches, nothing paper. nothing! we definitely were blessed by the lord there. I don't even know how it worked out, but he helped us for sure.

hmmm... got a picture of that blown blood vessel in your eye?! :D

other news for the week? hmmm.... our searching continues ever still for a person that will actually even BE at their appointment... *sigh* so the apartment river is probably the BIGGEST thing thats happened in the last week. :-/

well... I actually got to use all my time today! :D YAY! plus a little bit extra... So... I've gots ta be bustin a move now!

to finish,

I LOVE YOU more than Elder Ralston likes to be sarcastic. :D
XO!!11one!11cheese!!!

~Brandon :)

oh, wo is me.

2010-06-22T11:58:00.000-07:00

Tue, Jun 22, 2010

*sigh* here I am. sitting here in the computer lab of the library and there is just NO EMAIL from my family. *sigh* OH, WO is me! WO IS ME! whatever am I supposed to do? how am I ever going to be able to tell you about the crazy fight between Elder Ralston and the Gremlin, or that we got shot at by a paintball gun on Friday, or my trade off with Elder Burton last Monday, or our Zone conference on Saturday. *sigh* I guess I just can't, cause I just don't have anybody to ask me about it. but it's ok. *speeds up* it's whatever. I understand that no one wants to talk to me, nor do they remember that this week is transfers except STEPHANIE! WHY CAN SHE REMEMBER AND NO ONE ELSE!? *deep breath* WHHHYYYYYYYY?!

*normal* but yes. speaking of transfers: hey, guess what? *drum roll* I'm...................................... STAYING HERE! YAY! but really. I'm staying here. so we're having P-Day on Tuesday just like every other six weeks my entire mission. just throwing that out there. so yes. me and elder Ralston are going to continue here in Santurce. Buuuuuuut, Elder Burton my district leader, and Elder Mason, his companion are BOTH getting transferred. WOOO, whitewash in Hato Rey! so, we're getting some SISTERS! :D we're going to have Sister Krout (from Washington. WOO! go Washington!) and Sister Vazquez (from Guatamala) I've actually had sister Vazquez in my district before (back in Caguas) and I've met Sister Krout and had her in our district temporarily (complications with her old companion... family issues... :-/) so we're getting some awesome sisters to be with us.

as for the paintball gun, it's not as Dramastic as it sounds. (that's right. Dramastic) we had just been out tracting on Friday, and (I'm not really sure if they were REALLY shooting at us, plus it sounded like the gun was running out of air) but we just kept hearing this *thunk thunk thunk* and I saw some paintballs fly by us so we crouch down behind a car and wait. well, they stop and wait for about five minutes behind the car, but nothing else happened after that. luckily, none of us got hit. But, the weird thing was that about two hours later, I look at Elder Ralston's back and he had this HUGE glob of paint on his back. I was like, "what...?" he said that he didn't feel like he got hit or anything, and I didn't see any shards from the paintball, so it just kinda... I dunno, teleported onto his shirt I guess. xD

so yeah... everyone else is done now... cause they just don't write ANYTHING TO THEIR FAMILIES! GAH! I don't even know what they say! "hi, bye, I'm still alive" and that's it? what the heck?

I don't know... but I'm sorry I kinda dilly dallied away my time... but yeah. I'm gonna cut this a little short cause we also have to go pick up some Elders that are going home tomorrow ''cause their going to work in Santurce for the day. so yeah... I guess that would have to be all for now... okthxbai!

but really though. I Love you more tha-- oh NO! THE MONSTER!!!! AAAAAaaaaaaaaauuuuuuuuuuggghhhhhh.......

~Brandon

Re: An anatomy lesson

2010-06-16T11:47:00.000-07:00

Wed, Jun 16, 2010

OK, thank you very much for the photos of Victor! I remember him very well now. He was super nice. Victors sweet! so I gots ta get back to him! and we're getting his brother this year? :D and as for the neck picture... well, it didn't come through the email any bigger than the little thumb nail on the attachment thingie thing thing, so, he he he, I can't really see anything except this really colorful lump. :3 ha ha ha! so yeah... you think you could hook me up with a little bit bigger picture this next time? :D but it IS feeling better... part of it Ive discovered is how I sleep. :-/ I got a paper from a super nice sister back in Caguas about relieving neck tension and some stretches that you can do, as well as, like, proper sleeping, with a bunched up pillow under your neck for support and something behind it to lay your head on. so I've been doing that, and at first it was a HUGE relief, and now it's just getting steadily better every day. but then again, it all depends on how I sleep. ha, which... erm... has been kinda going downhill this past week... erm... cause I've been feeling some back pain in the same spot I did with Steve... but it's weird, cause I don't feel any other pain throughout the day. just at night when I sleep. so, since I've been to Santurce, I've upped my daily intake of water to at LEAST a gallon every day. usually I get in about a gallon and a quarter... but I talked to Sister Dewsnup about it, and she said it could possibly be residual healing pain... BUT, it could also be ANOTHER one... *sigh* so I don't know yet. she just said "oh no Elder Bryan... you better drink LOTS of water" ha ha ha, yes. lots... so yeah. dang it. so many problems! WHY?! :'( so basically all I can do at this point is just drink water. update next week? :)

gosh, I guess the people here are just so hard that they choose to look past my dashing good looks and my shining personality. *sigh* ha ha ha! but really though, sometimes it really does have to turn into the whole we just keep talkin'. unfortunately, people just seem to turn their brains off! :'( ha ha ha, you know whats funny? we usually say like TWO things and then ask them a question just so we can keep it brief, right? well the great thing is that they just sit there smiling and shaking their head yes and saying "exacto" (exactly) for like five seconds and then they're like, "wait, what was that?" gosh. people these days. you know what? back in my day, everybody listened to what you had to say. look what this world is coming to *shakes head and grins* oh well. that's life. :D ha ha ha!

oh, no, we don't have any AC in this apartment. even better? it's a metal roof! :D woo! so it gets super hot during the day and then the heat retains itself in our little room. concrete houses just are not the best for insulation, but it's not like we have any other choice, right? but the bed really helps the nights! :D Van Halen - "hot summer nights are the time of the year!" heh heh heh... that's a little out of context... but hey, it works, right? but yeah, you should totally get a new bed. you'll feel AMAZING! it's definitely worth it. and who doesn't want to feel amazing, eh?

oh yay, more showers eh? This'll be fun. that just means that contactin' is going to get 3 kabrillion times more fun! :D we also heard and zone conference yesterday that sister Dewsnup has done some asking around and it's looking like this year is gonna have a pretty active hurricane season. uuuuuii, this is gonna be fun! :D so probably TONS more rain throughout this whole summer. that's crazy that you guys have been getting hail and thunder out there! anything near home or just in the area?

aw darn! Donny didn't just narrowly avoid some rare form of cancer? blah! well, at least he got it burned off. that's what counts. but what the heck is Sebaceous Nevus? O.o ha ha ha! I have NO IDEA what that even means.

BLARG, no... I haven't had the chance to reply to Ehren yet... do you have his address so I can just write him? that's going to be way easier than anything else... that way i can work on it during the week. much more simple.

hey hey hey! that box should be there VERY soon, OK? :P gosh, I only got it sent out on Monday, so you calm down missie. :P

that's very good that you've gotten better at the editing thing. very relieving to know xD but yes. I've still got to have everything sent to the mission office, so If she gets something sent out soon it'll get there before transfers! :D woo! that would be nice. I don't I seem to have lost the ability to really express what I wanna say in English now... blarg! oh wells.

but yeah, it's looking like time is about up... I've gots to get myself some lunch! I'M STARVING! *crazy eyes*

so yes. I LOVE YOU more than I now love to drink water! :D

~Brandon
xOx0Xcirclexo

Re: Tamana, tamana, tamana!

2010-06-09T11:40:00.000-07:00

Wed, Jun 09, 2010

well, news for the week. *sigh* still not much is happening around here. the people seem to be really really hard, and it's so weird, but it's like less and less people want to talk to us every day, so we're REALLLY scrambling for appointments. :-/ buuuuut, it's not like we can really do anything. we're trying and that's what counts the MOST out of anything. if people don't want to talk to us... well, it's really not our place to take away their agency. It's just really saddening that they don't want to even listen and understand the message. so yea. like I said, it's not like we can do anything except continue to try. SO WE GO ONWARD! :D

but yeah. nicely enough, the weather has decided to calm itself down a little bit. we've had a huge turnaround in weather. it's been really hot for the past few days, and even this morning was pretty toasty. quite toasty indeed. bonus is that the university here has some AC. mmmm, a/c. so it's better than nothin. plus the elders from hato rey come to pick us up and save us from having to walk around on P-day, which would be LAME by the way. but is the forecast for US looking like more rain? (oh, by the way, guess what time of year it is? :D HURRICANE SEASON! WOOO!!!! so now we get to stock up on water and food! :D doesn't that make you just excited? :D )

whoa! Donny's cancerous spot on his forehead was cut off? wow. right then even. did they send it out to the lab to find out what it was? plus it's a bummer that he had to stay home from the Tamana concert and Stake Conference... was he just feeling a little sick, or was it residuals from the "surgery"? Ha ha ha! I love how the doctor threw that in there. nice. so is Donny have a little circle scar from that then? or is it just gonna fade away?

OK.so for my neck, it's calmed down a lot, so I'm not sure if it was just a weak little inflammation that I caused or what, but everything is coming back stronger than it was, so I don''t know... but it HAD been on the front of my neck, right above my Adam's apple that I had bumped... I'm not sure what it was, bit it's like... a little bar right above it... but all I did really was just push a little bit on that "bar" thingie and it popped out of place then popped back in, so I dunno. but all this fasting and praying I've been doing for help seems to be paying off. :D but it would still be good if you could maybe get some info about it, just so I know what it is at least. you know. handy info. :)

and of COURSE I remember Sara Wilson! :D ironically... or strangely? she popped into my head the other day. heh, don't even know why, but I had been wondering whatever happened to her. Perfect timing, eh? :D

however, my shoe inserts should be on the way within two days. I've been really trying to finish up the letter from Annie so that I could send it with that. I've only got one more page to translate, so it should be done soon. either tonight or tomorrow, and I've already got the box ready. :) so yeah. there ya go! just remember: patience. :P :D

AH! quick question. I need to know this! what is the new show from Bill Nye about? it's called "the eye of nye" right? whats it about?! :-O

anyways, I gots tuh bust a move, yo!
I love you more than Elder Ralston loves skateboarding! :D <3 <3 <3