You could imagine a whole bunch of grandpas and grandmas and how they would react to a couple of handsome young men, one from their native country



Andrew's Artwork

 What do you want for Christmas?
Christmas...well my list isn’t that big so you’ll have to be a bit creative filling it up but here goes, mostly just silly things
-more music from Jon Schmidt
-more socks ;D
-a booster pack of awesome yugioh cards for my ever geeky companions...and my ever geeky me.
-an English hymnbook
-lots of prayers for the people in this area

Did you get your shoes repaired?
As for my shoes I haven’t had them resoled, I did look for new ones today but they hardly have Americanly sized shoes here and the ones they did have weren’t up for a year of walking or were just plain weird so I'll keep looking and get a pair resoled. My socks are dying too because of the holes in the bottom of my shoes that let nasty water in and when it dries it hardens and is really kinda gross. I'll get right on fixing em if I can find a place.

Did you get to baptize the other Martin?
No the other martin I didn’t baptize, during the week they picked somebody from the ward to do it and that’s fine with me, I hardly knew him. On Sunday it turns out that he didn’t even show up, either sick or nervous I don’t know. The sister missionaries didn’t seem so happy that day.

Tell us a spiritual experience you had this week.
I'm using my new agenda now so I don’t have all my spiritual experiences that I’ve written down during the week.. Hmm alright I have one for ya. I was doing morning divisions with Elder Davis and he was playing some music that was so incredibly amazing, it wasn’t specifically church music but it was talking about Christ and I felt the spirit so strong! Afterwards I went home and after eating lunch I was pondering about Lehi's dream and the iron rod. The words of our last general conference came into my head I can’t remember who but the sister said to ¨hold on the to the rod with BOTH hands¨. I remembered something that they talked about in seminary like picturing yourself there with the numberless multitude holding on to the rod. I instantly had an image jump its way into my mind of me holding on to the rod with all my might, both hands held firm, then me reaching up and partaking of the fruit of life when the spirit hit me so strong with a confirmation that if I hold on to the rod like I am doing right now I WILL PARTAKE of that fruit. I sat there at my desk with tears streaming down my eyes for a good few min.  That experience has definitely been a huge help to me lately, now more than ever, I KNOW that this gospel is true. I KNOW with all my heart and feeling that God loves me, and so does his Son. I want so much to give this joy and happiness to so many others that I thank my Heavenly Father every day for the opportunity to be here.

There is a ward member in our area that owns a taxi so he gave us a lift to the area office pretty far away from where we live, down in the big city. We got to the building and inside saw my first bishop from Juana de Arco who commented on how much weight I've lost. He told us the doctor was on the 3rd floor so we went, and they told us that he was on the fourth. We get up there and they said the he is on the fifth floor teaching a Spanish class so we went. On the fifth floor was a small office type thing that said that he wouldn’t be in the class and he might not even have arrived yet, so we could go into the class to wait for him if we wanted. We entered and it was a group of senior missionaries learning Spanish. You could imagine a whole bunch of grandpas and grandmas and how they would react to a couple of handsome young men, one from their native country. The teacher was one of the teachers from the CCM and she had us come up and tell where we were from, what mission we were in, and after bear our testimony having the older couples listen for words that they recognized. Their Spanish was so little that it reminded me of when we were in the CCM and didn’t know a thing, I kept almost wanting to correct them but I decided not to look dumb and interrupt and make them feel inadequate so I didn’t but it was a great experience and there was a lot of love and a good spirit in that room, people really wanting to serve the Lord. We went back down to the 3rd floor and found the doctor and he fixed everything up within 5 min and we were out again.

I love you all so very dearly and hold that each and every one of you will work so much harder on holding on to that rod! God loves you and wants the best for you, always trust in him and you will never truly be sad, even Lot had that eternal peace when he lost everything, and in the end everything he had was literally doubled.

Please keep yourselves strong and safe, follow the spirit, strengthen your

families with the gospel, it’s the greatest thing you could ever do, and after my two years in heaven are up and I will see you all again.

Until then my God be with you, I love you,

Elder Andrew James Bronson