Sister Brianne Watson: January 2016

Saturday, January 30, 2016

DOLL-FACE-DOLL

Very very very VERY vERY Very long week. Lots of tracting and walking around in the negative degree weather with bitter cold winds which wasn't the most fun thing in the world, but we tried our best to make it as enjoyable as possible. We meet the most interesting people while tracting so we got some pretty good laughs from it! This week was another blur so I'll just go day by day :)

On Monday we had our District P-Day where we got together with a few other sets of missionaries to spend our P-Day together at a church. We all brought Nerf guns and we had a big Hunger Games nerf war! It was so awesome...the elders set everything up as a battle field with all the guns and ammo in the middle of the room. Each team (there were 4) started at each one of the exit doors on the outskirts of the room. When they said "go", you all run at once to grab some guns and ammo and you proceed to shooting each other. It was SO MUCH FUN! Best district P-Day I've ever been to. Sister Cox and I asked the zone leaders for a priesthood blessing afterwards and I've never felt so much power in a blessing since I've been out here. The elder that gave me mine said EXACTLY everything I needed to hear and it brought me so much comfort.

On Tuesday we tracted for about half of the day in 5 degree weather with winds at -11... *smiles through the pain* Nobody was home and we had zero success but maybe that's just because God didn't have anything for us to do that day...who knows! At least we stayed productive right? We did family history with Michael as well and holy smokes, I love that man!!!!! He's so funny and he makes fat jokes to himself all the time and he's like 66 years old. He's a hoot.

On Wednesday we had a missionary broadcast!! At 12:00 we had to be somewhere with wifi so that we could watch a live broadcast of missionary training given by general authorities to every single missionary serving. Apparently there are currently around 75,000 of us!! It was two hours of pure edifying, rebuking, and inspired messages about how we should be carrying out our missionary work. It was their first time in a decade that they've aired something like that for all of the missionaries serving. Very cool!

On Thursday we spent most of the day tracting again...yaaaay. BUT if you remember the picture I sent...last week?....of us taking a picture with the vibrant yellow and brown house, we finally tracted into it! It's a miracle that we did because a very old lady lives there who is in desperate need of service. She was so incredibly grateful that we stopped by because her younger sister who is pretty old as well was the only person that could care for her. She said we were her angels and we immediately set up times for us to come over and serve her :) I'm so glad we knocked at that door!

Friday...tracting, tracting, and more tracting. We taught Vivian this day as well and ughhhhhh...we don't know what to do with her. She isn't progressing and we have tried absolutely everything. Her
situation that she's in is making it difficult to prepare herself for baptism but we also can't drop her because we feel like she needs us right now. She's coming to church faithfully every Sunday and she's reading the scriptures and keeping all of her commitments, but that ONE trial is keeping her from entering the waters of baptism. #Strugglin. Brother Sypher sent us packages this day which was absolutely needed and we are so grateful for him :)

Saturday was a very good day. We did our bible study at the nursing home and it went VERY well! The residents loved our message and they're growing a lot more comfortable with us. There is a lady there named Julie who is the spunkiest old woman I've ever met! She wears about ten bracelets on each wrist with necklaces and bright red lipstick. She calls anyone and everyone "DOLL-FACE-DOLL" and it makes us laugh soo hard! Imagine it being said over and over in a nasally voice, with hard vowels, and as fast as you can...that's how Julie says it. She asked us if we could sleep over because she never wanted us to leave!

Hahaha and during the bible study we would ask her questions and if she didn't know the answer, she'd just say "DOLL-FACE-DOLL" We taught them about faith and we went over three different stories in the bible that had to do with people exercising their faith (Noah's ark, Daniel in the lions den, and Esther). It was so cool because these people hadn't ever heard these stories before so seeing their faces as they heard about God flooding the earth and Daniel being safe in the lions den made everything so worth it and it was so much fun! I can't wait to go back next Saturday :)

Sunday we taught gospel principles about our gift of agency which was great! Michael said it was what he needed to hear and he loved it so that's all that matters. After church we had a Linger Longer where the ward stayed and ate a potluck lunch together. I love visiting and getting to know the ward better! It's going to be so difficult leaving this ward once it's my time to transfer :( I've grown such deep connections with so many of them! Geez! Nobody prepared me for this!

I was studying about Joy this morning in my personal study and I'll share with you what I learned and what I found in the February 2016 New Era. "Sometimes we think joy and enjoyment are the same, but they aren’t. To enjoy is temporary. It’s taking delight or pleasure in an activity or occasion. Enjoyment is what you feel when you’re being entertained or eating your favorite treat. Joy is lasting. Joy can be eternal. It’s a feeling of great pleasure and happiness. The good feeling you get when you recognize that Heavenly Father loves you or when you feel peace and happiness in the temple--that’s joy."

I have always put joy and enjoyment together in my mind but it is so good to remember that that they are so different. Enjoyment is temporary and can be diminished in an instant. Joy is something that is deep within us and comes through doing the things we should be doing and seeking out the things that bring us that joy. Sometimes it is difficult to point out he joy in little things when we are bombarded by trial or hardship but those flecks of joy are ALWAYS there. It depends on our attitude whether or not we recognize them. I love you all so much and I hope you have a wonderful week. Thank you for the prayers in on behalf! We feel them and we appreciate them.

Some guy in a Fed-Ex truck stopped right after this picture was taken and asked us "what we were sneaking up on" hahaha

Hunger Games

New England in a picture. They LOVE their cats and they all have mud rooms that we always have to awkwardly walk into..

BIBLE STUDY SQUAD. there were two more people but they left before we got a picture.

Me and Julie!!

Sister Cox and I summed up in a picture!

Black hair, don't care

I'm having the HARDEST time writing this email!!!! I've sat here for so long staring at the screen and I'm not getting anywhere. This week has been the biggest blur of all and I can't remember a single thing.
Whew.

Sister Cox and I decided to DYE OUR HAIR! We needed a change in our life so we went to Rite Aid and bought some hair coloring and dyed each other's hair...it's worked magic! It's given us both more motivation and we just love it. It was so fun! I'll post a picture of it :)

Monday night we held Family Home Evening with the Lilly's which was super fun! We taught them about the Plan of Salvation but focused a lot on the Atonement. I love that family SO MUCH. They fed us dinner and they remind me a lot of my family...loved it! We went snowshoeing this past week with a member of the ward and holy cow...it was the best!!! I haven't done it in years and the area was so beautiful and it was so peaceful and I wish I could do it every single day. It was a huge stress reliever and sister cox and I absolutely needed it. We be struggling'

We have our new mission vision for 2016 and its "Every member or family invite at least one individual or family into their home to be taught by the missionaries." Our goal is to teach the members the missionary lessons, ask them what friends they have that would be interested in hearing those messages, then the members invite that friend to their house for us to teach them. We had about 5 different Member Lessons this week which is AWESOME for us! Our area doesn't have a lot of members....they all live toward Oxford which is an hour away so member lessons are difficult. We are hoping they can think of friends for us to teach! We had a on Saturday!!!!! The roads were too slippery for us to go out so we ended up staying in the apartment doing as much missionary stuff as we could. It was nice to relax and put my thoughts back together and relieve some more stress. *thank you Heavenly Father for the snow*

I'm so sorry that this email is short and not very entertaining...I'm trying my hardest I promise! The Christlike attribute I'm working on this transfer is humility. I'm working on putting God's will above my own and making sure I am obedient and do what I can to please Him. I only have this opportunity once and I don't want to put it to waste!!! Also....please keep sister cox and I in your prayers. She's struggling with things which is causing me to struggle and it's been a problem. I'm doing my best to keep things positive but we need extra help. THANK YOU. I love you all so much and I hope you all have a great week!!❤️

New hair!!!!

This house is a nasty shade of yellow and brown. We took a picture with it because it's our "banana house" SOOO yeah.

Winter Wonderland!!

(Cat)astrophic

I still don't know how to start out these emails.....so hi everyone! Hope you're all enjoying the new year and going back to school and working and all that real-life stuff. While you were doing that I was teaching and preaching and working as missionaries dooooo... I didn't know I was going to write that until it happened but it seemed to have worked out hahaha :)

Anyway, this week was pretty productive! We had lots of lessons and miracles and nursing homes and cats. Put that together and you get a mission in New England! To start out, let's talk about the Bible study we did in the Rumford, Maine nursing home. We went to visit a member of the ward who
lives there earlier in the week which was a lot of fun. She's a very sweet lady and of COURSE I loved seeing and being around the elderly folk. Sister Cox and I don't have a community service opportunity every week like we should so we got the idea to ask someone if we could volunteer at the nursing home once a week. We could help them clean up, paint nails, play Bingo, whatever they want.

The Activities Coordinator was more than happy to accept our help and she immediately assigned us to hold a Bible Study every Saturday! Okay lady....so we had a day and a half to plan an hour long bible study for people that most likely couldn't hear us. Neither of us have taught to a group of people from different denominations only out of the bible before so we were kind of terrified. I'm not entirely familiar with much of the bible either so that was hard too. We decided to go over Matthew 5 and cover the Beatitudes and discuss how we can become perfected throughout our lives. Around 8-10 people showed up and a few of them even participated! They said they loved it and they're going to come back next week so that's good news. Lots and lots of prayers went into that bible study so I'm grateful for God's help in guiding the lesson.

Oh.....my.....cats. I have never been around more cats in my ENTIRE life before coming out on this mission. This week tops them all!!!! I felt like every house we went to had at least 3 or more cats. It is quite disturbing actually. We met with Vivian twice this past week and she has 3 cats. We met with a less active lady as well and she had FIVE cats plus a dog. It was so difficult to share our message when I had cats climbing all over me and on the table in front of me.

Then one day when we were tracting, we knocked on a door and heard a, " COME IN!" so we awkwardly walked into this random house trying to find whoever yelled at us. She wasn't in the rooms around us so we had to keep yelling to her to find her. It was like playing Marco-Polo! Eventually we found this old lady digging through her fridge and she didn't even say hi to us or anything...it didn't even effect her that there were two strangers in her house staring at her. Finally we told her who we were and asked her if she wanted to learn about Jesus Christ and stuff and she agreed. I walk into the room next to us and lo and behold....SIX CATS. TWO DOGS. The room was tiny and there were piles of dog/cat poop in some places which didn't help either. It was so so so disgusting!!

Last night we went to visit our investigator named Annette which went well! She's coming to church this Sunday and everything. While we were sitting there (she has a cat and three dogs by the way) we could hear her cat making the strangest noises from the kitchen...it was a mix between a cry and a yell and it was so weird. Annette said it was because she was "in heat". Yup. So the cat comes out and jumps up on the couch behind me, then she comes down between me and the couch cushion behind me which was fine because I was sitting up on the edge anyway. Then, the cat starts whimpering and pushing her stinking backside into me!!!!! Tail was up and everything! Annette was like, "sorry about that...a cat in heat just wants babies." WHAT. It was horrendous. Moral of the story: I will never ever own a cat. Ever.

I got closer to death than I ever thought possible this week..it was a few nights ago and the roads were pretty icy and we were driving to dinner. We had a T in the road up ahead so there was a stop sign and we had to turn right or left. Sister Cox started braking for the stop sign but we started sliding and the brakes wouldn't stop! So we slid straight into the road with cars coming at us and I watched a

truck coming right toward us and I literally accepted my death right then and there. Somehow, the truck BARELY missed us and we were able to turn and fishtail our way down the road while also almost hitting a road barrier. It was the most terrifying 30 seconds of my entire life and we ended up crying/shaking the rest of the drive to dinner...BUT thanks to the protection of the Lord, we came out alive and safe. In any other circumstance I'm sure that would have been a lot worse but the prayers of protection coming from everyone at home definitely saved our lives.

Another miracle....we pulled over on the side of the road to contact somebody but since there was deep snow, we got very stuck there. I guess the snow covered up the ditch so our front right wheel was stuck in the ditch and the other wheels were stuck as well but leveled up higher if that makes sense. In other words, there was no way we were getting out of there alone. I got out of the car to start

attempting to push us out and immediately a car that was passing stopped to help us. He had a big truck so he said he just needed a strap to hook us together but he didn't have one. Right then, another
car stopped and asked if we needed help and he had a strap for us!! As we were attaching our cars together, ANOTHER car stops and gets out to help us push and clear the snow from around the tires. With all of their help, we got out of the ditch of death. SO BLESSED. Within 7 minutes we were out and driving again and I have nobody to thank besides Heavenly Father....seriously. We would have been stuck there forever!!

I am so thankful for the blessings and the protection and the love I receive from Him every single day as I serve. I love recognizing those different blessings and watching my testimony grow from it.

NEWS: they cancelled all future transfer meetings! Yep, they don't exist anymore. Now they're going to call us on Sunday nights and tell us who our new companion is, where we are going, and our travel plans. It's a new mission-wide thing and I don't know....I'm just really going to miss transfer meetings :( oh well!

I love you all and again, I'm grateful for your prayers that saved my life this week!! No prayers go unnoticed, always remember that. Have a great week!!!❤️

Brother Sypher from South Royalton sent us these pajamas and WE LOVE THEM

Our missionary board creation that we made at the church. Hopefully it works!!!

They put out SO much sand in the church parking lot to help us not slide on the ice....so I pretended I was on a beach somewhere

{Love} me some < Miracles >

Haaaaappy New Year!!!!!

This week was l o n g. The first week of every transfer is always the longest and I'll never understand it..but we survived! It was a pretty good week overall and we saw a lot of miracles and a lot of love directly from Heavenly Father. We got our first huge dramatic snowfall this past Tuesday which was thrilling! We got several inches and since we couldn't drive in it, we got to walk in it.. :,) we walked a good 6 miles to an appointment which ended up being a bust since the lady didn't want to take lessons from us. C'MON GRACE this was my first day wearing my brand new winter boots so you can only imagine the horrible blisters that are on my feet.. That I got in a blizzard.. Walking 6 miles.. She didn't want to be taught.. Blizzard. Blisters. Grace..

After that we went to Vivians and taught her a lesson which was just...interesting. As we were teaching in her tiny living room with piles of clutter (there are little pathways getting from one room to another) one of her 3 cats started doing his business in his litter box RIGHT next to me. So while I'm bearing testimony of how Jesus Christ should be the center of our focus in our lives, I have her cat marking his territory inches away. Sister Lilly was there sitting across from me trying so hard not to laugh and offend Vivian which made me try not to laugh and it was just a giant struggle. #missionaryprobs

New Years Eve was AWESOME WOW SO MUCH PARTYING YEP just kidding we planned and went to bed at 10:00 hahaha but we did go out and get Ben & Jerry's ice cream during our dinner hour at 8:00 so that was pretty rebellious (Not really). We did it to celebrate my 6-month mark and New Years Eve :) there is only so much you can do to celebrate events and holidays as a missionary! Again....#missionaryprobs

Let's talk about some miracles shall we? Wednesday was full of them. Last week we had a very hard time with our miles and we just accepted the fact that we were going to go over our limit and it was depressing. We calculated them throughout the month and we had hardly any left over the last week...we ended up only being able to use an average of 20 every day which was impossible since one of the days we had to drive an hour to get to the elders apartment so we were out of luck.

As we were sitting in the elder's driveway on Wednesday we decided to recalculate our miles one more time just to see how much we would be going over our miles limitation. At the end of it, we came out having 119 miles leftover!!! We have NO idea how it happened. The math didn't make sense....yet it did make sense...we can't even explain it! We had been checking it all throughout the month and now all of a sudden we had exactly the amount we needed to last us the rest of the week. We both sat there screaming with joy and praising and thanking the Lord for that amazing miracle. We had been praying that whole week for a miracle like that to happen with our miles. We are truly loved...but it doesn't even stop there!

As we began to reverse out of the driveway, our tires got stuck in the snow and we couldn't pull forward onto the road. The tires would spin but we weren't moving anywhere. Right then, I said a rushed prayer out loud asking for help to get us out of this so that we could make it to our next appointment. IMMEDIATELY a truck that was passing us stopped, reversed, pulled into the driveway, a man got out to push us out, freed us from the snow, and then left. We couldn't even believe it! Two huge apparent miracles in a row. We felt so much love and we were in good spirits the whole rest of that day :)

Yesterday we were asked to give the lesson in young women's which is always a scary thing to be asked to do....but since I'm a missionary, I didn't have a choice so there I was teaching about Zion to a group of teenage girls! I was so nervous but it ended up going very well and three of the five girls came up to us and told us that we said exactly what they needed to hear. YAY! There was one instance that after I finished sharing a thought I had about not judging others or something, one of the girls blurted out, "JUST FOR ME" hahaha

I came across my new all-time favorite conference talk this week called "The Love of God" by Dieter F Uchtdorf in the October 2009 general conference. I love everything about it! It reminded me that God loves me individually, personally, and perfectly.

"Though we are incomplete, God loves us completely. Though we are imperfect, He loves us perfectly. Though we may feel lost and without compass, God’s love encompasses us completely." "He knows and loves you. He is mindful of you. He hears your prayers and knows the desires of your heart. He is filled with infinite love for you."

I have felt this love from my Heavenly Father and from Jesus Christ more apparent on my mission than any other period of my life. As I have relied on Them, I have found great comfort and exceeding joy. I have found a great love for serving and for the people in all of my areas. I have seen miracles and I have seen the light of Christ change people for the better, even myself. This mission is hard, it's demanding, it can get overwhelming, and the thought of home sometimes seems more comforting and appealing than being out here..but even if the opportunity was placed before me to leave right now, I would shut it down. There is NO greater way to learn and to grow than by reaching so far out of your comfort zone and helping people come unto Christ.

Sister Cox and I have talks all the time about how much we've learned and how far we've both come from being out on our missions. I have a completely different view on life and the purpose of it. I have a whole new reliance on my Savior and my testimony has grown immensely! I feel so blessed to have been chosen by a living prophet of God to serve in these specific areas of Bath, South Royalton, and Bethel. I cannot wait to see where else I am needed in this next year of my journey :)

Thank you for all of your prayers and love and support!!! I hope you all had a very happy new year and you all made a resolution to become a better servant of Christ in some way. There is always room for improvement soooo figure out where your weaknesses are and work to improve them! I promise that you will find great success as you strive to progress and become better. It's hard, but it's possible.

LOVE YOU ALL
HAVE A GREAT WEEK
MAKE GOALS TO BECOME BETTER
GOOD LUCK

Our long trek in the snow!

We made missionary snow angels :)

Fellowship of the Unashamed

Hellooooo! I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas!! I definitely did :) it was difficult being away from home of course...but I honestly will never forget spending Christmas on my mission. This one was so different and so good and so fun and I GOT TO SKYPE MY FAMILY!! It was my first time seeing them/hearing them for 6 months. It was the best Christmas present I'll ever receive :)

Christmas started out with us waking up at 6:30, exercising, opening a few packages, weekly planning for about 4 hours, teaching our investigator Vivian, caroling at a couple people's houses, eating a big ham dinner with the Lilly's, and then skyping my family. Christmas Eve was so fun too!! We had district meeting about two hours away which took up a huge chunk of our day but it was a potluck lunch so Sister Cox and I brought a ham while every other companionship in our district brought other things such as potatoes, rolls, salad, dessert, etc. Tis the season! It was nice to be with other missionaries on such a family-oriented holiday because we knew we were all going through the same thing and we could support each other and such. After district meeting we went to the Lilly's and made sugar cookies with their family, then we went and had tacos with the McLarens, then we went back over to the Lilly's for a steak/lobster dinner :))) #spoiled

Oh...speaking of Vivian....SHE HAS A BAPTISMAL DATE!!!!!!! F i n a l l y. She has agreed to baptism on April 16 and I really could not be more excited for her! She is so sweet and I hope she continues to work toward that goal without the adversary ruining anything...

Transfer calls came! Sister Cox and I will both be staying here in Bethel together for another 6 weeks!! I am pretty excited about it..I really love the people here and I love my companion and I love Maine and I love the tiny tourist trap of bethel. I could definitely survive another 6 weeks!

Sister cox and I had a very very hard time after our Skype calls on Christmas night so we ended up sitting on our living room floor crying together for a good hour or so. It was so hard getting back into the missionary mode to plan for the next day and knowing we had to wake up the next morning to tract for about 3 hours...no thanks. The road we were going to tract has houses VERY spread apart so we'd only knock on about 10 houses in those 3 hours. So the next morning came and we were dragging ourselves around the apartment getting ready to head out and we just had NO motivation at all to do anything. I decided to go to my desk and read out loud to myself and sister cox this paper that was given to me at a missionary meeting..it says:

"I am part of the fellowship of the unashamed.
The die has been cast; I have stepped over the line.
I am a disciple of Jesus Christ.
I won't look back, let up, slow down, or be still.
My past is redeemed, my presence makes sense, and my future is secure.
I'm finished and done with low living, small planning, smooth knees, colorless dreams, tamed visions, and dwarfed goals.
I no longer need pre-eminence, positions, promotions, plaudits, or popularity.
I don't have to be right, first, recognized, praised, regarded, or rewarded.
I now live by faith, lean on his presence, walk with penance, am uplifted by prayer, and labor with power.
My face is set, my gait is fast, my goal is heaven.
My road is narrow, my way is rough, my companions are few, my guide reliable, my mission clear. I cannot be bought, compromised, detoured, lured away, divided, or delayed.
I will not flinch in the face of the adversary, negotiate at the table of the enemy, ponder at the pool of popularity, or meander in the mass of mediocrity.
I won't give up, shut up, or let up until I have stayed up, stored up, and paid up for the name of Christ. I must go on til He comes, give til I drop, preach til all know, and work til he stops me, and when He returns for His own, He will have no problem recognizing me, my banner will be clear.
For I am not ashamed of the gospel of Christ for it is the power of God unto salvation for everyone that believeth."

As soon as I finished reciting that, we were both very motivated to represent our Savior Jesus Christ and we headed out the door. We saw immediate blessings! The second house we walked up to had a man standing on his porch. We went and introduced ourselves and we offered to share a message about Christ with him. We found out that he's the son of a lady named Linda who goes to the Methodist church and she LOVES US. We've shared messages with her before and she loves our church more than anything. She would join our church if she wasn't scared of the Methodist church being turned into a bar with the little amount of people attending it. She says that she talks about us missionaries in her church so the congregation knows who we are!

Anyway, so yeah that was her son. He was interested right away which shocked us a little bit...nobody is ever interested in "hearing a message about Jesus Christ" right away. We were so used to rejection hahaha but we taught him the restoration right on his porch! He believed everything we said and he already had a very strong faith in Christ before we taught him. He took a Book of Mormon and promised he would read it and we made a return appointment with him. MIRACLE. Heavenly Father is so good to us...we really needed that to happen :)

Here's a funny story...we knocked on a house and the lady let us in right away. She wasn't interested in hearing a message, but she let us in anyway...weird...then she told us to go downstairs and hang out with everyone. WHAT! Soooo we awkwardly walked downstairs and met even more people who weren't interested either. They kept talking and talking and talking and it was so strange and we were just stuck in some stranger's basement without a single clue of what to do. Finally someone went upstairs so we followed them and left. SO AWKWARD. The things missionaries have to go through..seriously..

Church was cancelled!! It was freezing rain which caused the roads to be icy so bishop just cancelled it altogether. It was a huge blessing for us though because church is an hour away and we are completely out of miles!!! Instead of going to church we ended up walking to the airport in the freezing rain so that we could use their computer to print out maps...our lives are thrilling. We walked 7 miles total! My feet are killin me but it was good exercise soooo I'll survive.

Last night we also drove a total of 22 miles that we DON'T have in order to deliver a Bible to some guy that requested one. He came in our iPads as a referral so for the past two weeks we've been trying to contact him to give him this bible but he was always working. We decided to try him one last time last night which was a mistake...as we were walking up his driveway, he started shining a very bright flashlight at us from his window which was so uncomfortable so we pretended not to notice. Finally he yelled at us and asked what what we wanted so we told him we had his bible that he requested. "Nope. That was someone playing a joke. Bye." And he walked away....OHH sister cox and I were so angry! He was so mean about it and we used so many miles to give him his stinkin bible that he doesn't even want. Some people..

I'm just babbling and I don't know what else to say!! I'm going to be hitting my 6 month mark in a couple days so that'll be a cool milestone :)

OH, THANK YOU SO MUCH TO ALL THOSE THAT SENT A CHRISTMAS CARD/PACKAGES. I love you all so much and it made me so happy to hear from people at home. I'm so blessed.