Sister Brianne Watson: 3 Words

I...am...blessed.

I become more and more amazed at the love Heavenly Father has for me! I've been transferred to South Royalton, Vermont and I've never seen anything so beautiful in my life. There are rolling hills filled with fall colored trees everywhere I look, it's the home of the Joseph Smith Memorial, and it's the area where Sister Crook just barely was serving from before she trained me in Maine. She would talk about South Royalton 24 hours a day about how much she loved it and how much she missed it and now I'm here!! My companion is Sister Daughety and she's from North Carolina. She's way fun and she has such a cute southern accent :)

The members in this ward are incredible with their willingness to help the missionaries in any way they can and they're very welcoming to me. I don't even feel worthy to serve in such an area..this is a missionary's dream in this mission!

To add on to my awesome life right now, I have the opportunity to serve at the actual Joseph Smith Memorial twice a week. We are able to help put up Christmas lights and plant flowers and I painted two black poles that hang in the bridge that they have. OH, and remember my love for old people? Senior couple missionaries serve at the JSM so I'm around them all the time and they love us so much! They're so dang cute and so funny :) if I'm still here during Christmas time, cross your fingers, I'll be able to give tours to people in the memorial!! There is such an amazing spirit there that I can't even describe and I never ever ever ever ever EVER want to leave.

It was suuuuuch a busy week though. A recent convert and a member of the ward got married so we were helping out with setting up and stuff throughout the week, there was a baptism (not a convert, she turned 8), member meals, meeting new people and trying to remember names, weekly planning, served at a thrift shop, rehearsal dinner for the wedding, zone interviews, and teaching investigators/less actives, and stake conference. I'm so exhausted physically and spiritually and emotionally but hey, I'm in South Royalton, Vermont.

Stories...we went and visited am elderly member in the ward named Sister Pease who can't leave her house due to her health and stuff. She's the sweetest lady ever! And she lives above a barn so all during the lesson we could hear the cows mooing like crazy which was pretty interesting..she told us her conversion story and I just love hearing about the lords hand in other people's lives. It's such a testimony builder to me!

I met THE Brother Sypher!! If sister crook could see me now...her and Brother Sypher were so incredibly close when she was here. He's an older man with a nice white beard that he's super proud of and he's so funny. Sister Crook and her old companion sister Mulford (that I just replaced here) got really close to him because they basically saved his son Kenny's life. Sister Crook would talk about Kenny and Brother Sypher all..the..time..and I can't believe I've met Brother Sypher in real life. He's always been a figure of my imagination since I've heard so many stories about him and it was like meeting a celebrity when I saw him!

He's heard plenty about me through emails from sister crook (her mom would forward him her group emails) so we both knew each other really well without officially meeting. I don't know, the whole situation is weird but apparently Brother Sypher had a dream the night before I was transferred that I would be coming. He said he started crying when we texted him and told him that I took sister mulford's place. We immediately hit it off when we met and I sent him some pictures and videos of sister crook and I because he missed her so much.

The next day when we were at the wedding rehearsal dinner he told me that he considered both sister crook and sister Mulford his "angels" and both of his angels have left him. Then he pulled out his phone and showed me a picture I sent him of sister crook and I the night before I left at the table at brother smith's house when they threw that going away party for me. I have 2 of them so I don't know what one I sent you guys last week but one of them show a very distinct looking halo above my head from a light outside behind me. "When they took out sister Mulford, I was devastated because that was me saying goodbye to both of my angels...but look what he sent me instead because he knew I was struggling." I started crying because I knew how much he loved those sisters and in reality, I did kind of feel bad for taking their place since they were all so close but him sharing that with me and loving me right off the bat helped both of us. God works in the most wonderful way.

Did I mention my surroundings are absolutely beautiful? The fall time is absolutely my favorite. Everything is either apple crisp for dessert or something that involves pumpkin. Pumpkin ice cream, pie, shakes, and candles. Everything here in Vermont is pumpkin spice and everything nice. ;) #poetry

Something not so great happened after the baptism...the old bishop came up and called me Sister Scar while looking at my cleft lip. At the same time, I had a 9 year old girl all up in my face staring directly at my scar on my lip, not knowing that the old bishop just brought it up. She started saying things about it, but I just decided to turn away and talked to my companion and Brother Sypher instead. I don't know why, but it really bothered me and I just wanted to cry because that hadn't happened before since leaving home. It didn't even happen at home! Then come along 2 people that happened to bring it up very rudely and made me so uncomfortable. Ugh. Good thing the rest of the ward is stinkin cool. As a lesson to you all, never point out something obvious like that to someone. They obviously know it's there and more likely than not, they're self conscious about it so just let it be. Thaaaaanks.

On a higher note, we had zone interviews so I got to sit and talk with President Stoker one on one for the second time since I've been out. As I was sitting there with him, I came to realize how much I'd actually grown since my last interview. He even brought it up and told me that himself! He told me I look a lot more confident and I have a glow about me and there's a distinct light in my eye. My first interview...I was really struggling and I was really quiet and unsure of myself. Even an elder I came out with pointed out how much more different I am now than when we first came out. I've seen it too..I'm a lot happier and I smile a lot more and I have the spirit with me more because I'm choosing to be happy. I guess that leads me to the quote my mom sent me this week which happened to be completely inspired..

"As you draw nearer to the Lord, He will guide you to become the best version of yourself."

Being a missionary has completely molded me to a different person and I'm just incredibly happy. There is no other word to describe myself or my mission right now.