Sister Brianne Watson: Time is flying!

MY HALF-WAY MARK IS IN TWO WEEKS. WHAT. The thought makes me want to scream and cry but it also makes me want to throw a party. I don't know man...I wish I could stay out here with the New Englanders forever and embrace the dense forests and their accents and their animals and their love for everyone and the tourist towns and the rivers and lakes and eat their whoopie pies BUT I'm excited to jump into life again as a new person with a brand new outlook on life.

It makes me crazy to think about how bittersweet the whole idea of leaving this place is...good thing I still have a little under a year!! Heavenly Father certainly knows me inside and out since He sent me to the beautiful, humble, and unique mission of New England. I have grown so many deep connections with people that I couldn't have lived my life without knowing. He knows my strange infatuation with nature and the beauty of lakes, trees, rivers, bridges, etc. I am so overly thankful for everything I've been blessed with out here!

Here is some bad news though...we dropped Vivian.😥 it was so painfully devastating to sit in front of the sweetest woman on this earth and tell her that we need to stop meeting with her twice a week. I was so nervous walking in to her home because I've never dropped someone before but I knew that it's what we had to do. With a prayer in my heart, I just talked about our purpose as missionaries. recited to her Our Purpose which states: "Our purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end."

She seemed to understand and she was happy to hear that we were going to use that time with her to go find other people instead. I'm going to miss visiting Vivian A LOT but we can't do anything to help her if she isn't going to be baptized!

So here's a little bit about Bethel...its just a small, quaint, little tourist town where people from all over the world come to ski at Sunday River. Almost all the houses here are seasonal and are only lived in during the winter which obviously makes it very difficult to do missionary work. It's either that or people become snow birds and escape the cold snowy weather and move to Florida for the winter. Whyyyyy. But this past week we decided to tract at Sunday River! We were literally tracting at a ski resort! #welcometomaine Hahaha i never imagined myself doing something like that on my mission but we were desperate AND it made a good journal entry.

I don't know if I've mentioned this in past emails but since we are currently living an hour away from the church, bethel is completely worked over, and all the members are also an hour away, our mission president is having us move to Norway in April! Right by the church! Right by all the members! AND WE WILL BE BY A WAL-MART! That right there is the biggest luxury here in the wilderness of new england...it is every once in a blue moon that we get the opportunity to walk the aisles of wal-mart and now we will be right down the street from one!!!

Are you all ready for this hilarious story? Oh my gosh...okay, so we were getting a ride from one of the members last week and we were talking about "claims to fame". We were sharing stories that we've had that could potentially make us famous so OBVIOUSLY I share my story about my wisdom teeth video on YouTube. When I finished talking about it, sister crockett was like, "so THAT is why you are so familiar to me!!! I knew I recognized you from somewhere!!" Hahaha she saw my video before coming to this area and she shared it with her niece who fell in love with it and shared it with all her friends and it became this huge thing in bethel. Her niece even wanted to be "just like that bri girl" and record herself after she got her wisdom teeth out and so she did! WHAT!!! That's it. I am famous. Wow.

Sigh...the weather has been ridiculous this week. It can't decide whether it wants to be spring or the depths of winter and it's getting really old. One day we were prancing around in 50 degrees and the next day we are slipping and sliding on the dangerous icy roads in the freezing rain. H e l p.

The McLaren's got sealed in the temple on Tuesday!! AHH! I can't even explain to you over email the glow and the joy that was in their countenance when we went to visit them that night. Brother McLaren suffers from depression so he's been a little bit down recently but that night and the days since then he has been so happy and so much more talkative! The temple is such a wonderful place and I don't miss anything quite as much as I do the temple. I am so beyond happy for the mclarens and their sacrifices they made in being sealed together in the house of the Lord.

Well, that's all that I can think to talk about right now. I love being a missionary and I love this area and I love my companion and I love this opportunity I have to dedicate to service. Have an amazing week!!!!