Bump Day, Transfers, Training, Service and a Video

Email #26
Area: Cosmo City
Companion: Elder Perez

Hey Everyone,

I got some news this week that I will be training a greeny!!!! Can't believe that I am finally training. I also found out that my trainer is training again as well. Elder Reaveley is in the group that is coming out and I am not sure if I will be training him, but I will find out tomorrow. Elder Reese is now leaving after being here 7 1/2 months. He just finished training Elder Ajei and is happy that he is finally leaving. 7 1/2 months in one area gets a little old after awhile from what he tells me. I will be here almost for that long. I will be here until July 22, if I don't follow up train my son!! There are only 2 companionship's in the zone that are not being transferred, so this zone will be all new guys!! But apparently that is happening throughout the whole mission there are many that are leaving their areas. So this will be an interesting experience and if I get an African companion that will definitely be different. Although I have had a Kenyan companion, he was a great companion and I learned a lot from him! So I am looking forward to training and I am really excited!!!

The work is going great I met this older lady yesterday at church and she was going to this other church with her daughter. She passed the chapel on the way and said that she was going to this church. I asked her if she was a member, because I had never met her before. She said that she wants to become one and that has never happened before and so that was an amazing thing. She also said that the past churches she she has gone to, it has been to noisy so this church is perfect. When she walked into the chapel she saw the hymn books and said that she has a book like that at her house. She is going to show us her favorite when we see her this week.

We did more service this week mostly for members! We washed a members car, the Mokgawa's (the g makes the h sound just to know how to say it) that only gets washed 2 times a year so we thought that it would be nice to wash it for them since they are both working and don't have time. We also went to paint a members house brother Lucky and sister Agnus. Those two families are both in the branch presidency so they just asked that we would help and us missionaries loving to do service we said yes. Besides they cook for us all the time so it's the least we could do! Well that is the week and what happened generally, but have a good week love you guys!

Elder Bryner

Elder Perez & Elder Bryner

Self titled: Spray tan

Dinner... Ha Ha

Video of Cosmo City

More Visitors At Church, Teaching A Lot

Email #25
Area: Cosmo City
Companion: Elder Perez


Hey Everyone,

Not much happened this week love you have a good week! But really just had a normal average week just with lessons and stuff hahaha! We had 10 more at church this week. There is this one family we are teaching that was at the crush that one day we did the service project for. She and her mom and her mom's mom are now joining in on the lessons. Her grandma was at the Roman Catholic church and said that she just left her church to come and listen to the missionaries. The lady in charge of the crush is Amanda and she was the one who told her grandma to join us. They definitely are prepared. We play soccer on Fridays at the chapel and a bunch of people come and these 2 guys came to church 2 times now. We are teaching them and hopefully they continue to come to church and we can continue to meet with them.  The branch is starting to grow a ton! I will be here in Cosmo for awhile I feel like. Elder Reese is leaving and Elder Perez thinks he is leaving too. So I might be training and get a new District leader. A ton of changes in the near future. That place last week was really fun and got to go bowling and it was forever since I have been bowling so that was nice to go and do that. They had an all you can eat place like Casablanca and it was sooooooo good holy cow the food was just a bunch of african food and just really good!!  We try and do something every P-day, but today I think we are going to go and play tennis with a member and we only have to pay 3 dollars for everything so that is really nice but hopefully this week will be more fun filled of stuff.  Nothing really happened this week I am sorry for the disappointment and just sometimes the missionary life isn't too exciting haha. Much love and appreciation from dear Elder Bryner!!

Watched Conference, Temple, Teaching, Sang at Old Folks Home, Bowling

Email #24
Area: Cosmo City
Companion: Elder Perez

Hey Everyone,

Finally got to watch General Conference and it was so great!! I loved all the messages and there wasn't a single talk that I didn't take notes on so it was definitely a powerful conference. I learned so much from just sitting and with my spiritual ears opened and just pay attention you really will learn something that the Lord has to tell you. It really is interesting how each conference there is always something for each person that is listening to the broadcast but I am for certain that God does answer our prayers and I definitely want to get tickets the April conference when I get home. President Eyring is such a powerful man he just really speaks from the heart and he knows the scriptures like they were right in front of him just reading it.

People sometimes randomly come the church on Sunday and just listen and we get there details and find where they live and start teaching them so that has happened a few times since I have been here. On Sunday we watched the Sunday session of general conference and we had 13 investigators come to watch and we are teaching all of them so that was just a cool experience. The lady that we did the service for at the crush was there and she brought her kids which was like 5 or 6. That was just awesome and when we taught them last week they just plainly asked so Jesus came to this side of the world and on the Americas? We said yep and they said okay that makes sense! By far the easiest explanation that I have given about the restoration and the Book of Mormon. We taught a less active lady and called her to repentance, she has known what she has been doing is wrong knows what she has to do so that was a great experience as well.

Other than that not to much happened this week but we are meeting a lot of new people through the members. they are really starting to get the idea of member missionary work it makes our work so so much easier and not have to go knocking the doors so much!! We actually haven't knocked for quite awhile we have just been booming with people through service and referrals!!!

We went to the temple again last Friday and that was definitely a powerful one!! When I get home I have set a goal to go to all the temples from the bottom of Utah to the top and go each week to a different one. When I think about it that is a lot of gas and driving but through the efforts in trying to do such a task will bless many. If there is anyone that would like to join me you are more than welcome. So start preparing yourselves spiritually and physically and the Lord will bless us for partaking in such a glorious work!!

On Wednesday we go to an old folks home and sing hymns and we do it every week. But this week was a little different. There was a lady that was crying on the couch and was sitting by this other lady and she was trying to put a pillow over her face and biting the pillow and just being really weird. These people are senile and a little crazy in the head but that is why they are in the home in the first place. But the lady stands up and starts walking away and as funny as I am, I covered my mouth and did the walky talky sound "kshhhhh, We got a runner, over!!" Then she turns around and starts walking towards us and says "get these kids out of my house!!!" and smacks Elder Perez and Elder Reese right across the face. They start crying, just kidding, but the workers get up and tackle her and pull out a stray jacket and tie her up! Just kidding again, it was just a towel and tied her to a chair and her legs were flying in the air and she just all of sudden bit her arm thinking that she was biting the worker but in the mean we were singing hymns trying to not let the spirit go away!!! But that was one of the crazy things that happened this week but if there is anymore in the future I will gladly give you the news!!!!

Love,
Elder Bryner

Elder Bryner hangin out at Carnival City

Elder Reese

Elder Bryner

Elder Perez

Elder Reese

Elder Reese

Elder Bryner with kids at the crush

Elder Perez

Service, Conference

Email #23
Area: Cosmo City
Companion: Elder Perez

Hey Everyone,

Another good week and it just flew by. It's crazy the time that is flying by. A lot has happened this week and we have done a lot. We did a ton of service this week and it was so nice to see that our efforts are working. We did some service for a member that was moving and they have been deciding to move for some time now, but just as we were going to go to her house she was moving everything herself as her husband was gone. But luckily we had shown up when we did. The husband did not get home until the next day, so we were able to help her get everything moved into her new house. It took about 3 hours to finish moving everything. We also did some planting with the members at a crush, which is just a day care for kids. We planted all kinds of vegetables and made the yard and everything look nice. When we were finished my companion and I talked to the lady who owned the crush and we made a return appointment to come and share with her. So just from doing service you can find many opportunities to jump in and share a message with them.

We went to a concert that was organized by the church. The group was called 4 Reasons and they were a really good group. It was just inspirational music that they sang to the stake. I hope everyone enjoyed General conference, but I won't see it until this weekend. I am looking forward to watching it. My first on mission so we will see how it goes. All is well and have a good week.

Love,
Elder Bryner

Excerpts from Dad's email

Wow that is just crazy that you met a guy that lives here and that his daughter works at Yankys. So we are going to pay a visit to Yankys and get her reactivated really quick so that is just the coolest and smallest world. My ward mission leader served with Jed Facrell's older brother in Uganda and his name is Jack Nkuna or Elder Nkuna be sure to tell grandma I forgot to mention it to her but be sure to let the Facrells know as well what a small world it is.

Elder Perez and kids at Crush

Missionary week

Email #22
Area: Cosmo City
Companion: Elder Perez

Hey Everyone,

What a great week and it went really fast this one. Sunday was really sweet yesterday. It was missionary oriented and everything was pretty much done by the missionaries. My companion and I spoke in sacrament, the other Elders blessed the sacrament, we conducted and taught the combined with the priesthood and relief society! It was just about missionary work and to encourage the people of the ward to really focus on missionary and get the missionaries people to teach. So now we really are going to start picking up in a few weeks with finding some new people. Already yesterday when we went to a lunch appointment to sisters came over to the members home to chat with her and we got return appointments with both of them for this coming week. The work is really picking up in this area. In the entire zone our district is doing the best with investigators at church, people on date for baptism, and for the most investigators progressing. So the lord is really helping us with that. We don't go looking for recognition. Just like Christ he did it freely out of the charity of his heart to just bring the knowledge to those that do not have it. There are people out there that are the lost sheep of the fold and it is up to us as missionaries and members to go and retrieve those lost sheep and bring them back into the fold.

The members are really great better than you can ask for, but they are just being the members they know they need to be. Every Sunday they feed us and that is really nice of them, I feel so loved hahah!!! The investigators are good. There are many of them that are not baptized because they are together, but not yet married and if they live together they need to be married and have been trying to get it figured out for awhile. The way they get married over here is really weird, they have to pay the parents. It's called Labola and without it, they do not have permission from the wife's parents to marry. It's different you pay to marry your wife, but I am glad we don't do that because they say it is very expensive. Don't worry about the cheetahs, it was tamed and very safe it has been raised in that facility so it was the nicest thing ever. It was so cool I never thought I would in my entire life get to see a life size cheetah and get to pet it and just be close enough to do so.

Today I ready in Jacob 5 of the Book of Mormon the longest chapter in the Book of Mormon. But it plainly speaks about the Lord and the servant of the Lord and the work that he is doing to help bring up his vineyard. We are the servants and we need to help Him in making his vineyard get rid of the bad trees producing the bad fruit and to graft in the new branches to help the trees or the people to produce good fruit.

Love,
Elder Bryner

Safari

Email #21
Area: Cosmo City
Companion: Elder Perez

Hey Everyone,

I haven't had to use the rain jacket too much lately when it is raining really hard, we usaully have the car but it is doing okay. Last week we had 10 lessons, but we are going to have more this week hopefully. The last area was great, but I'm here to make this area better and its going good so far just little at a time.

Be obedient and do what you are suppose to do and there is nothing else that you can do to change anything. If that's all you do then the Lord won't hold us accountable. Just do our best is all we can do. Don't stress yourself out too much and don't run faster than you have strength. Powerful words from Elder Holland. Love you and take care have a good week.

Elder Bryner

Outside toilet

Elder Perez