Picture Overload

Sometimes Bryce sends us his camera card to empty off so he can have room for more pictures. Whenever he does I find a lot of pictures he never sent via email. So I thought I'd share just a few. Some of them are old but you get the idea :)

P-day basketball

Apparently he doesn't need any more ties.

This one's for Dad:

We love you Bryce! 8 months to go...

Nationals Game

Bryce and his companions got to hit up a nationals game on their last p-day.

Bryce with Elder Peterson

Elder Bolos and Bryce

"3 homers in the first inning! Not a bad game to go to."

Thanks for praying for more people to teach. We could use it. We are trying to change things up and maybe work with the youth. This ward is the most challenging one I have been in yet and I think I will be here at least until thanksgiving so we gotta try some new things!

Bryce's story of the hurricane & quake

"On Tuesday we were eating lunch at Buffalo Wild Wings when the earthquake hit. It shook for about 10-15 seconds then stopped. We called everyone to make sure they were ok but I don't think anyone in the DC area was injured by the earthquake. the news may say otherwise though. The Washington monument now has a crack in the top, the national catholic cathedral lost millions of dollars worth of heavy statues and other old stuff, and the temple lost 4 of its 6 spires. Those are the only ones I can remember.

The hurricane was more exciting but not quite a big deal. Loudoun county is about an hours drive from the city. Irene was not sure if she wanted to hop on board land, or stay going north up the coast until Saturday. It was 400 miles wide so I woke up saturday to light rain as a result. As the day went on it was overcast by 12 and then for the rest of the day. The only thing that was different from a normal overcast, rainy day was ,the clouds. They were moving quick. We tracted almost all day that day because we had no appointments. It was kind of fun from 7-9 because it was raining nice and hard and at every door we got asked, "did you guys know you are in a hurricane?!" haha and no one let us in either! Only one tree fell in our area that I know of. No power outages of any missionaries in our zone. we live with members so we were just fine.

So there it is!"

Hurricane News

We recently received this email from Bryce's mission president regarding the recent storm: 

"We are grateful to report that all of your missionaries are safe and back to work. The storm caused the second-largest power outage in Virginia history as 2.5 million people were without electricity at one point earlier today. Along with the power outages, four people were killed by falling trees in Virginia. Several days before Hurricane Irene approached, each missionary was able to make certain their 72 hour emergency kits were up to date with nonperishable food, fresh batteries, flash lights and water bottles etc.. Cell phones were charged, each car was filled with gas, and safe houses were designated by each bishop where the missionaries could go if necessary to stay with ward members. The members here love their missionaries!  We hope this week to avoid any major hurricanes or earthquakes so we can have an historic baptismal month! Thank you for your continued faith and prayers."

A Little Update

"I left Annandale on Thursday and went with Elder Pomeroy to the Tall Cedars ward in the Ashburn stake.  It's good.  I like Elder Pomeroy a lot. We had a really good relationship before we were comps because he was my ZL when I was in ashburn.

So far Tall Cedars is a really good ward.  It was recently a branch but a few weeks ago it was changed because of some move-ins.  There are a bunch of huge homes and town homes with minimal apartments so tracting is less than effective (unlike Annandale).  So we work with members and such.  With a little knocking every day too.  It's similar to every other area I have been in before Annandale.

Our most progressing investigator doesn't speak English!  She speaks Thai and I am less than fluent in that so her daughters translates for us.  She comes to church faithfully even though she doesn't understand it.  She would get baptized but I guess in Southern Thailand there are threats of invasion and no church organization there right now and she has to go back because her visa is a visitors and ends in 3 months. Dang. She is great though!"

Jose and Yessenia

Annandale Zone!

Distractions

"Last Monday we found a 16 year old Ghanaian who is so sweet! And we talked to Isaac for a while. We watched the restoration video with him but right when the first vision was about to happen he started sneezing and had to go into the kitchen to grab a paper towel. Elder LaRochelle and I just laughed then rewound it. Then yesterday we were teaching a hispanic man the same lesson, only without the video, and right when I was getting to the first vision, his cute little 2 year old daughter came out of nowhere from her play area armed with her toy airplane that just happen to make wonderful airplane noises and jumped on his lap. These are just two examples of what happens all the time! President Albright says that hes convinced satan controls dogs and cats! haha. They are a big part of the problem sometimes. But I would think that just because distractions always come up while trying to teach this message that it must be true."

The Book of Mormon

To read about how The Book of Mormon goes hand-in -hand with the Bible. Click here.

"Please do not misunderstand. We love and revere the Bible, as Elder M.  Russell Ballard taught so clearly from this pulpit just one year ago.  The Bible is the word of God. It is always identified first in  our canon, our “standard works.” Indeed, it was a divinely ordained  encounter with the fifth verse of the 1st chapter of James that led Joseph Smith to his vision of the Father and the Son, which gave birth to the  Restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ in our time. But even then,  Joseph knew the Bible alone could not be the answer to all the religious questions he and others like him had."

-Elder Jeffrey R. Holland