12/9

Dear Everyone, Hope you're all doing well.  Thanks for the card Mom.  I got it yesterday and wasn't sure  if I was supposed to read Kaytie and Ryan's letters or wait for Zone Conference when I  get the other ones, but I decided to read them anyway.  Thank you so much Kaytie and  Ryan.  I loved your letters and your testimonies.  I'm really looking forward to see  everyone else's in a couple weeks.  If you see Kevin or his family again, tell them I  said congratulations: both on Hillary's marriage and on Kevin getting his call.  It's  really cool hearing where all my friends are getting called.  Keep me posted whenever you  find out about others getting their calls.  It has gotten a lot rainier here! And colder.  We had one storm yesterday that the other  Elders said was about like the storms they have on a regular basis in Louisiana.  It  really was "pouring buckets."  The rain and the cold makes it a little less fun  to tract, but it makes you all the more appreciative when you actually get in the door  with one of your investigators.  I decided to go out and buy myself a jacket since we  don't like to wear our suits too much on rain days and since most of the white shirts I  have are short sleeved.  One lady whose door we knocked said my mother would be ashamed  of me for not dressing warmer and said I needed to get a jacket, a scarf, and a beanie.   I said I'd get the jacket and she gave us a return appointment. :)  Our investigators are doing pretty good.  We had at least a couple pretty solid  commitments from two of our investigator families about coming to church on Sunday.  We  even brought a member with us to go pick one up Sunday morning.  They didn't answer the  door and the other family didn't show up either so that was a little disappointing.   However, we did have one of our investigators come for the first time that day.  His name  is Allen McDonald and though it's hard to tell for sure since we've only taught him once,  but we're pretty sure he's going to be golden.  His parents are both inactive, but their  hometeacher was visiting them regularly and when Allen moved back in with them to work  for his dad, he got interested in the Church.  Their hometeacher had showed them Elder  Holland's testimony about the Book of Mormon from General Conference and it really made  Allen interested.  We went over with the hometeacher and had a lesson answering some of  the questions he had.  His main concerns were about the Pre-earth life and then the Book  of Mormon, but he was very receptive. The mom and dad were both converts from years  before and were very kind and supportive.  They were both bearing testimony to him as  well and so hopefully this might be the thing that gets them active again.  We haven't  had much luck catching the rest of our investigators this week.  We took some of the  April 2009 Conference CDs that a member gave us over to one of our other investigators,  Johnny Deaton, to listen to.  He has trouble reading because of his eyesight so we're  working on getting him the Audio for the Book of Mormon so he can listen to that as well.  I loved the First Presidency Christmas Devotional.  It had been a really hard day Sunday.   Our other investigator families hadn't come to Church and it had been raining all day  and everyone kept slamming the doors in our faces.  We spent the day trying to round up  our investigators to come watch the Devotional with us, but none of them could come.  So,  it ended up just being one of the members, Elder Wilson, and I in the chapel as we  watched the Devotional.  As I watched it, I felt so much peace and happiness as I  listened to the Tabernacle Choir sing and the First Presidency speak.  It had been a hard  day, but the Spirit lifted me up again as it always does.  I love hearing those three men  speak.  We had been challenged at our last conference to try a little caroling for our tracting  to try to get people to listen to us a little more readily.  Bad idea.  We tried it and  it didn't go so well.  I'm far from the most talented singer in the world and  Elder  Wilson sorta sounds like a bullfrog.  We had some doors close on us after we had a single  line out from Joy to the World.  Anyway, it was a funny experience.  What made it more  funny was that Elder Wilson thought we sounded good.  However, to my relief, we both  decided we wouldn't do it again if there were just the two of us singing. :)  Today is Elder Francom's last P-day.  He and Elder Knight are the other two Elders that  we share our apartment with.  Unless something changes, the other three of us will be  remaining in Texarkana for the next transfer.  In fact, because of the changes they are  making about missionaries staying longer in their areas, there's a good chance I'll be  here for at least 6 months.  That's alright though.  There isn't as much Spanish here as  there is in other areas, but I'm still greatly enjoying the work, both in English and in  Spanish.  Yesterday, we went down to Atlanta which is about 30 miles south of us.  The  missionaries down there had found a couple Spanish families and so we went to talk with  them.  Too bad none of them could talk that day, but they were all friendly and we had  two of the families that were very excited for us to come back.  I don't know if I've already mentioned it, but the mission also received a challenge a  transfer before I got here to read the Book of Mormon by Christmas.  The cool part of the  challenge is that we were told to mark the scriptures with three different colors.  Green  for any attributes of Christ that we found, blue for Doctrines of the Gospel, and then  Red for every time one of Christ's names or titles are written.  It has been such a cool  experience!  They gave us a copy of the Book of Mormon to use and the whole book is just  full of color.  This challence has really made me notice and look for things that I  haven't in the past.  For instance, now whenever I read the scriptures, the Savior's  names always stand out to me.  It's great!   Well, that's about it for this week.  When are Kaytie and Ryan getting to Arizona?  I  love you all and I miss you, but I'm growing so much and am always striving to become a  more worthy representative of my Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.  This is His gospel and  his work.  Every day I'm working to do what he would have done and say what he would have  said if he himself were ministering to the very people with whom I am speaking.  Thank  you for your prayers and I pray that our Heavenly Father always is watching over you and  blessing you the way he has me.  Tu hijo y hermano, Elder Bradley Bishop