Workin' Hard

Brady is still in the Leeds 1 Area. This week, they are getting a new mission President. And Brady's companion, Elder Remington, is leaving the week after, so lots of changes are coming his way. Brady will be sad to see Elder Remington go. They have had a lot of success and a lot of fun!

Investigators:

"Guiseppe is our golden investigator. Even when we explain things to him awful, he understands it, and is able to tell us what we are teaching him in a lot better way than we do to him. He always gives us something to drink before we start our lessons, which I really enjoy. It's usually orange juice because it has lots of vitamins and we need vitamins because it has been very hot in England this whole last week. His wife is a Buddhist, and he keeps on telling us that he wants to get baptized first so he can help us bring his wife into the church also. It was really sweet when he said that and we were really excited."

"We have officially decided that John Carson is pretty crazy. He was participating in the lesson, which I thought was a good thing, sometimes though they would ask a question and he would give an answer that didn't even have to do with the lesson. It was really funny, and every time in Sunday School his hand was the first one up and would try to answer the question."

"Both John and Guiseppe passed their baptismal interviews. It was really neat to see how excited both of them were, and how happy they looked to know that they are going to be baptized on Saturday, July 3. I am really excited and I hope that they are prepared to face the opposition that they will end up facing this week. I know that they will be fine, and that the baptism will go through, but it is still kind of scary."

"Things with Victor and his family aren't going so smooth anymore since he went out of town."

"We were teaching this chav yesterday. A chav is kind of like a gangster. He usually always tells us how he doesn't want to be taught, and all this stuff. But yesterday we were able to teach him a lesson. He just choose some random scripture from the Book of Mormon and we had to teach him from it. He opened up the book to Moroni's Promise (pretty sweet) and we kind of laughed inside. We then were able to teach him how this promise works, and we even got him to say the closing prayer. He made a request to know the Book of Mormon is true, and said a really good prayer."

Brady with President and Sister Stock and Elder Remington

Brady on his P-day

Brady and his companion and roommates. Elder Remington, Elder Moore, Elder Valdivia, Elder Davis

Bar Burrito, which Brady says is almost as good as Cafe Rio

Brady and Elder Douglass, one of his favorites from the MTC who is now serving in Scotland, loved the drink Vitmo!

Leeds 1

Since leaving the MTC, Brady has been serving in the Leeds 1 Area. Here are some of the highlights:

Elder Remington:

"I am glad to say that I am out of the MTC, and my new companion, Elder Remington, is so funny, and really awesome. Elder Remington is from Alberta, Canada so he thinks this weather isn't really that bad, while I get cold. I am having a lot of fun with Elder Remington, and he has been teaching me a lot. I always imagined with my first companion, that I would get someone who knew the area, and could help me figure out where we needed to go and what kind of buses we needed to take. Instead, I got a companion who is also new to the area. Elder Remington says I am too skinny, so he is trying to make me eat a lot more food than my body can hold. Somehow, I think I have lost a couple of pounds, which is really weird. So, he says he is going to make gain weight, I told him that most likely isn't going to happen because my metablosim is too high, and I just don't gain weight that fast. I found out that I get to kill off Elder Remington, which means that I will get to be his last companion. It kind of sucks because I really like him as a companion, and I don't want to get a new one after just one transfer. And I still kind of struggle on the buses and using the map, so we might be getting lost a lot after Elder Remington leaves."

Tracting:

"At the first door I knocked on, the lady told me to go away or she was going to call the cops on me. I hurried and ran away."

"We had so much fun out tracting when we were in this area called Chapeltown. It's an area with a bunch of old people, and they had these speaker phones from inside their house. So instead of talking to us through the door, we talk to them on the speaker phones. After they tell us they aren't interested, we always say 'ok, love ya bye' and then try to hurry and run off."

"We went to the city center, and started talking to people, and tried to see if they wanted to get the lessons. I have never had so many people tell me to shut up and go away before in my life!"

"We were talking to this guy out on the street, when all of a sudden, this random guy starts singing, and totally blew it for the guy we were talking to. When he was singing, it kind of sounded like he was putting a curse on me, and I didn't know what to think or do."

"I had my first guy yell at me. I stopped him in the street and he said 'do we have to do this right now it's cold outside?' So I asked him if we could go over to his house and teach him a lesson about it. He then freaked out, and told us how our religion is fake, especially the Book of Mormon, and how no one wants to hear about it. Elder Remington then stepped in and told him about John and how he is now getting baptized. He didn't enjoy that too much and told us to shut up, and then just left."

"I knocked on this door, and as soon as I started talking, the guy told me to f off. I was taken by surprise, and didn't know what to do. It was really weird, and I think I most likely ended up laughing."

1st Neat Experience:

"So, I had my first neat experience. We were going to knock towers since it was really bad weather, and we decided to pray about which tower we should knock. I chose this one tower and we had no success, so I was like 'what the heck'. Then, we ran into one of the families we have been teaching in the road and were able to talk to them. We found out that Victor and his family read from the Book of Mormon that we gave them every night. We were so excited, and we have his baptismal date of July 10 because he is going to Italy for a week. So as we were teaching them a lesson, we asked if they wanted to come to church. It was stake conference, and they both really enjoyed church, and said they wanted to keep on coming every week. I even caught a little glimpse of Victor shedding a tear, and on the inside I was jumping for joy because I was excited to see our investigator cry a little."

Frustrating Experiences:

"This week has been really frustrating for the most part. We had a lot of people who we were supposed to meet with and teach them the lessons. Well, they all ended up flogging us, and it kept on making me so frustrated. I don't understand how we can set up an appointment with them the night before, and then the next day they just decide to leave and don't even think about us. We showed up to this area where we had an appointment with this guy at 3. We showed up at 2:30 and started knocking doors. 5 minutes later, we watched him walk out the door, and we couldn't stop him because we were talking to somebody else."

"Victor and his family might be moving to a different part of the city soon, which is sad because then they would end up getting taught from the missionaries in the Leeds 5 instead of us. I really hope they can stay so we can baptize them, but I guess it doesn't matter just as long as they get become members of the church."

"Elder Remington and I call ourselves the 'Referral Missionaries' because we get everything going, and then we have to give the investigator to the missionaries whose District they are in since they aren't in our area."

Awkward Experiences:

"So, I got my first sex offer. Awkward. We thought they were offering us a drink, and then we soon found out that they were offering us something totally different."

"I was talking to this girl, and I thought she seemed interested in the church. Well, come to find out, she is a lesbian. I didn't know what to say so I think I just said 'oh, awkward' and went and talked to the next person I saw."

"One of the weirdest things for me to get used to is all the Elders say I love you to each other when they give us a call. I usually just say thanks, and hang up the phone."

"It seems weird to think I have already been out 6 weeks, the time has just flown by. I guess that is what happens when you are busy getting lost in the Lord's work."