Sister Brianne Watson: Portsmouth, Parades, and Priesthood Blessings

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!!!☀️

This is my favorite holiday and I've honestly been scared out of my mind to approach this day while I am 2,391 miles away from home BUT Heavenly Father loves me. He sent us the bishops wife who invited us and the elders to a waffle breakfast at her house, the Boxford 4th of July parade, and a delicious BBQ cookout for lunch afterwards at her house. She is such a lifesaver and she really helped us have fun on this wonderful holiday :) without her, I would have spent it sitting in my apartment staring at the wall, wishing I was at home with my family working at the Olympus firework stand. I am blessed!

This past week I had the opportunity of going on exchange with my sister training leaders in Portsmouth. This time, Sister Brown stayed here in G-Town and I went to Portsmouth with Sister Bolton. To be completely and brutally honest, I always DREAD exchanges and I complain about it every time it comes around but for some reason, I always come out loving it and being grateful for it.

This time around we saw SO many cool miracles! Here's one of them: There we were, driving back from doing service at the church when we realized that we needed to stop for gas. Sister Bolton stopped at the nearest gas station and apparently it was a "we serve you" gas station where they have workers that pump your gas for you. We had no idea that's what it was until some random teenage kid comes up to our car window haha but I ended up asking him if there were more gas stations like that around town which led him to ask us if we were from around the area. We told him that we weren't, but we were missionaries for our church. He started asking questions and he even asked for a "brochure!" I immediately thought that we should give him a Book of Mormon but Sister Bolton gave him a pass along card instead.

We then proceeded to head back to the apartment and I said, "dang, we should have given him a Book of Mormon!" And Sister Bolton said the exact same thing, saying that she had the prompting but was too scared so she gave him a pass along card. NO. We decided to awkwardly drive back and face our fear of the uncomfortable situation but we said a prayer for strength and it went SO well! He took the Book of Mormon and we got his number so that we can contact him again in the future. #seedplanted

Then we have the super uncomfortable encounter with a man in the park...we won't get into that...lets just say it's a good thing I don't serve in Portsmouth 24/7😳 We also got a referral from somebody that we ate dinner with while on exchanges! One of the ladies was talking about Georgetown and I piped in saying that I currently serve there and she said that her daughter lives there. She's a less active who is a returned missionary from a long time ago but fell away after marrying someone who wasn't a member. When she moved to Georgetown, her records didn't follow her so we don't have any information about her. Luckily, her mom that was there at the dinner appointment in Portsmouth gave me her phone number and address so now we can go visit her and teach her and her husband. Exchange blessings are REAL!

Also, while sister brown and sister pierce were here in G-Town they saw many blessings too! They found quite a few potential investigators and got some referrals and a return appointment with someone they contacted on the street. I'm so excited to hopefully start teaching them!

Confession: Sister Brown and I have been enduring lots of emotional trials recently and we feel very overwhelmed and stressed about our area. The negativity is taking over us and after a long talk about it with each other yesterday, we came to the conclusion that we needed a Priesthood blessing. We don't live very close to any members that we'd feel comfortable asking so we decided to just ask Elder Davies and Elder Chase who are serving with us in G-Town. When we texted them, they were at a dinner appointment with the bishop about 30 minutes away but as soon as they got the text, they made us their first priority. They came right away along with bishop and his wife (Sister Adams). She brought us a "care package" and everything haha she's so cute :)

We talked to them briefly about what's been bothering us and then they asked us who we wanted to give us the blessing. Elder Davies gave me mine and as soon as he said my name to begin the blessing, the spirit flooded the room. I felt so much love and peace and comfort and so much extra strength that I have been seeking for so long. There truly is so much power with the priesthood. I was blessed with every single thing that I've been needing and I know that Elder Davies was speaking as a mouthpiece of Heavenly Father! It blows my mind to know that we have that access to such an incredible power.

Well, I'm going to go take a nap or something. I love you all dearly!!!❤️