4/5/10

Dear Everyone,

Hope you all had a great conference weekend! Weren't the sessions this year great? As I've told some of you already, we were able to get two of our investigators to come watch a session and they both really enjoyed it. (One was an English investigator and the other was Spanish). We had a lot of others promise to come...but unfortunately something seemed to come up for all of them. It really was too bad. There are few ways that you can feel the Spirit more strongly than listening to the Apostles and Prophet of God testifying so strongly of Jesus Christ and his reality. I was sad when it was over. I enjoy listening to the speakers so much.

After the last session, we went over to a relatively new convert and his wife's home to have Easter dinner. It was really great. Also, one of the sisters in the ward made us all Easter baskets and it made me think of all the fun Easter times at home. (Except for last year when you told us we were too old for it Mom. :)

So, this week has been a week of ups and downs. Elder Davis and I had a lot of great lessons with people and got a lot of new investigators. Also, a spanish couple that I started teaching right before Elder Wilson left accepted the invitation to be baptized. They live on the Arkansas side and it's been really hard for Elder Davis and I to get ahold of them, especially since they've been in the process of moving down the road, but one of the young member couples that live here (the wife is Spanish and the husband served Spanish speaking to SLC) have become really good friends with them and that's helped a lot. We've had a couple lessons and dinners in there home that were really spiritual. This spanish couple that said they'd be baptized said they still want to learn a little more before they set a date, but that they do want to be baptized. They also still need to be married, but Elder Davis and I have already married one investigator couple so far and we have no problem getting it done again. :)

The big let down this week is that Barbara Nixon who we've been visiting almost every day the last two weeks called us yesterday and told us she's going on vacation for a month. She had told us that her grandaughter was moving to Mississippi from out West this conference weekend and that she had promised to go spend time with her, but she was going to try to work things out so she could come to Conference. She called us on Friday to tell us that she wouldn't be able to change afterall and that she wouldn't get back until Sunday night. Then, she called Sunday night and told us that she's going to stay with her sister and grandaughter in Mississippi for the next 4 weeks. She said she might be coming back on the 17th for a day so hopefully we'll get to go see her then. It's a bit of a let down that she'll be gone for so long, (and since I might be getting transferred out of here in two weeks that I won't be able to see her again) but I know that she'll get baptized. On Wednesday and Thursday when we were visiting her she said that she hadn't had a cigarette since Monday morning. I know she knows it's true already. She's just been jumping around from church to church for so long that she's afraid of doing it again. I have no doubt that she'll take the step when she comes back though as long as the missionaries keep in contact with her.

Thank you for your prayers and your letters. I hope you're all doing great and enjoyed conference as much as I did. The Prophet and Apostles are inspired and blessed with such power and authority from God. They remind me of Nephi right before Christ came who it was said of that so great was his testimony and faith that those he preached to could not disbelieve his words. I love you and pray for you all. Look for opportunities to share the Gospel in every thing you do and you will be happier than any other time in your life.

Tu hijo y hermano en Cristo,

Elder Bradley Bishop

3/24/10

Dear Everyone,

Thanks for all of your letters again, and if I have time I'll try to reply to all of them individually again like I've been doing the past couple weeks, but I figured I better write a general letter today since Mom was getting on my case that I wasn't writing enough to her as much as I had. :)

Fishing was great last week! I'm pretty sure there was no fish in the pond, but we still had a good time. Sorry that it took so long for me to write this week, but we had our Zone Conference on Monday in Shreveport and our Mission President wanted us to be able to go out and apply the things we learned the day after the Conference so we're having our P-day on Wednesday this week. Next week it should be back to Monday. It seems like our P-day has been changing every week for the last month.

As always, things have been great here in Texarkana. It snowed again on Saturday and then it's been sunny and warm the last couple days. Supposedly it's going to rain tomorrow or Friday, so we'll see what happens. Elder Davis and I are almost completely out of miles for this month so we're spending the remainder of the week on bikes or walking.

First bit of news is that Antonio and Lorretta are getting married this Saturday still. They've been waiting to go get the marriage license until Antonio got payed and today was the last day for them to get the license for the wedding to take place on Saturday (There's a 3 day waiting period). They gave us a call this morning to tell us that they had just gone and filled out all the paperwork so we're pretty excited about that. We're still a little nervous about whether everything will turn out good since they waited until the last minute and since we're the one's that have to try to organize it all in two days, but it's going to happen and that's all that matters. Lorretta said she still wants to be baptized, but she got sick last Sunday and couldn't come to church so we'll have to extend the date again. It's better this way anyway though, because there's still some other problems that we need to work on with her before she can get baptized.

I'm not sure how much I've told you about our investigator Barbara Nixon, but she's another lady that we've been working with. She's a 58-year-old Black woman and has been investigating churches here in Texarkana ever since she moved here 4 years ago. We tracted into her a couple months ago and finally started having lessons with her about 3 weeks ago. She has a lot of different ideas that she's taken from other religions she's studied, but she has great questions and every time we give her an answer, she says how much sense it all makes. She came to church two weeks ago, but didn't come last week because of the snow...as little as it was. She has a ton of potential though and she's one of the people we're focusing on this transfer. She turned down a baptismal date when we taught her the first week because she said she didn't want to jump into anything, but you can tell that the Spirit's really been working with her and we're hoping to have a date with her this week. I think the biggest thing that will hold her back is the Word of Wisdom, (she drinks coffee, tea, and she's been smoking for 46 years) but she said that she was going to try to quit and we're going to help her as much as we can.

One of our spanish investigators, Agustine Martinez, came to church this last Sunday BECAUSE of the bad weather. We've taught him all of the lessons and the only thing keeping him from being baptized is because it's so hard for him to come to church. So many of the Hispanic population here work on Sundays because that's the day that businesses are closed and the construction companies have them go work on roofs or cement. I would love to see Agustine get baptized though. I began teaching him with Elder Wilson and he was the first person that I really felt a connection with as I taught him. Of course I cared for all our other investigators, but he was the first one that I really felt I was meant to come out here and teach.

The day to day things are still going well. At Zone Conference, the Assistants said that they were going to begin a 40 day fast and all those who wanted to join in were welcome to it. (Instead of fasting from food or water, each missionary chooses things that he wants to give up for the next 40 days so that we can focus on the work of the Lord and double the baptisms in our mission which is what our goal has been since the mission conference a couple weeks ago). For instance, one of the ideas that was put forward by the Assistants was to go out and work for an hour on P-day. So that's what we're going to be doing. Elder Davis and I also decided that for the next 40 days, we won't say one word to each other in English unless we're with an investigator. :) Our mission-wide "fast" is starting tomorrow and there's a couple other things that I'm planning on doing as well. Part of our mission conference had focused on Consecration and Sacrifice and it's been on my mind a lot lately, what other things I can do to more fully give myself over to the Lord.

Well, that's all for today. I hope that you're all doing well and I continue to pray for you. I love serving here so much and am just overwhelmed every day how much the Lord has done for me out here as I have tried to serve him. It really is true what it says in Mosiah that no matter how much we try to serve the Lord to pay him back for what he does for us, he immediately blesses us for the service we give. I love you all!

Tu hijo y hermano en Cristo,

Elder Bradley Bishop

3/9/10

Dear Everyone,

I already replied to all of your emails to me so I'll keep this general letter fairly short. Sorry I didn't write yesterday, but it's transfer week so we had our P-day today. One of the Elders in our apartment, Elder Bowen, is getting transferred to Ocean Springs, MS. He was a really fun Elder to be around and so we're all going to miss him...plus he was a bit OCD so he would always clean the whole apartment for us. :)

Yesterday we went out to a members house who lives out in the backwoods and helped clear some land. Once again there were trees involved, but since it was a large property we could just chop the trees down and not worry about them falling on anything so I didn't have to climb any more trees. (You're welcome Mom.) The member had actually already cleared many of the big trees so most of the stuff we were clearing was just briars and small trees and so there wasn't too much logging going on. Elder Bowen and I spent most of the time splitting the wood that he had already chopped down with a wedge. They were some big logs and I'm definitely a little sore today.

We did have something unfortunate happen last night. We went to go visit Antonio and Lorretta, but she was working and we got to talking with Antonio. As we did, he mentioned that he has to go to a meeting with his Probation Officer tomorrow. This caught us by surprise and made us both pretty sad. For those of you who don't know, if you are on parole or probation you can't be baptized. :( So, he's on probation until September and I guess he'll have to wait until then. We didn't tell him right then because we wanted Lorretta to be there too when we talk about it so we're not really sure what's going to happen. Hopefully they still will want to get baptized, but Lorretta may decide to wait until September as well. Who knows? It's a little disappointing, but the Lord's time isn't ours and we'll try to keep working with them to get them ready for that day. For instance, we're still going to try to get them married on the 27th of March.

Last night we had a FHE at some of the Spanish Members' house with one of our investigator families. We talked about the Family Proclamation and all read it together. The couple said they liked it (the proclamation) which we were really glad to hear because they aren't married either. However, they're a really nice young couple and we're hoping that we can get them baptized next transfer.

Thank you all for your support in your prayers, letters, and everything else. It's been hard to have all the people I've been working with seem to fall through and decide not to get baptized. Still, as it says in Jacob 5, I keep on working with the hope that one day perhapsI may bring some soul again unto Christ.

Dios este con vosotros y concede que se os derrame su Espiritu.

Tu hijo y hermano en Cristo,

Elder Bradley Bishop

3/1/10

Dear Everyone, How has everyone been? Ben told me a little bit about how all the Brocks are doing which was cool to hear. Sorry it took me so long to write, but Elder Davis and I did some things this morning before coming to the church to email. We don't have a whole lot of time left so I'll have to keep the letter today short as well. I'm glad you liked the pictures, but you should know that I felt a lot safer climbing the tree in those pictures than in the last set of trees that we cut down...it was a lot taller with a lot fewer, thicker branches. What more damage was there from the Chilean earthquake? We heard a little about it a day after it happened, but not much. If you want to let us know what's happening with that or any other events that would be fine...I don't know if you forgot, but we don't really get to stay very caught up with the news. :) Some of the news here in Texarkana is that we finally got Antonio and Lorretta to church! We went over to their apartment Sunday morning with Brother Taylor and banged on their door a couple times until Lorretta's brother let us in. Then, we went and knocked on their bedroom door to wake them up. We waited around for a while and then got up and knocked on their door again. In short, after staying in their apartment for almost 45 minutes we finally all headed over to the church. We were about 20 minutes late and the sacrament was already being passed, but we got them there! It was actually a very spiritual meeting and they both said they really enjoyed it. Afterwards we went to the Bishop's office to set up their marriage date which will be on a very exciting day. I don't know if I've said this in my previous letters, but we set their new baptismal date for the 27th of March. They'll be getting married earlier on that morning and then that also is Lorretta's birthday. :) We thought it was a good day for her to be "born of water" too. We also went and taught a Cuban man last night named Ricardo who had just moved from New Orleans. He had been street contacted by some missionaries down there and they gave him a number to get in touch with us. He's a really nice man and we think he has a lot of potential. Well, the other missionaries still need to write home so I'll get off now. I hope you're all doing well and I enjoy hearing from you! Tu hijo y hermano en Cristo, Elder Bradley Bishop

Hey Ben,

The week's been going good and there's lots to write about. I'll try to
get all your questions answered though. Firstly the young Spanish couple
are doing pretty good. We couldn't go over there last week because the
day we usually set aside for our lesson was the day we had our mission
conference. We tried going over earlier that week, but no one was home.
We called them up and asked if we could come over earlier this week but
they said they'd be busy until tomorrow so that's when we're going over
there. We're going to try to get them to church this week though and
hopefully we'll get them to go see the Testaments with us this Sunday at
one of the member's houses. I'm pretty sure I mentioned that we're going
to start doing that. A young newly-wed couple in the ward want us to
bring over the Spanish new members and investigators we have every other
Sunday to watch it until "all the Hispanics in Texarkana have seen it."
As of last night we now have 10 investigators with a baptisimal date. As
of about 3 weeks ago, our mission president really challenged us to start
challenging people on the first lesson. Some have told us that they won't
say yes until they know for sure it's true, but a good number have
responded in the affirmative. Unfortunately, none of the ones with a date
have come to church, but we did get some long term Spanish investigators
to church this last Sunday. Then again, the fact that we were having a
Potluck that day after church probably helped them make the decision to
come out.
Elder Davis and I have both had colds the last week or so and that hasn't
been much fun. I actually started losing my voice yesterday so I had to
tell Elder Davis to say a lot more than he usually would. He was scared a
lot, but it was good practice for him anyway. My voice is a little better
today, but still really scratchy.
For your next question, I assume you meant zone conferences? We've only
had the one mission conference and that was this last Friday. Two MTC
trainers came down and talked with all of us on how to improve our results
as missionaries. It was a great conference and I learned a lot of things
that I need to improve on. All the Zone Conferences have been awesome as
well. I love going to ZC not just to see other missionaries, but because
I learn so much each time I go and I get a renewed fire for the work.
It's like each conference is one of those turbo boost platforms in the
racing video games. (Please don't tell anyone I used that analogy.) :)
Since I don't have a lot of time left, I'll answer your last question and
answer the others next week if you still want. I love studying the
scriptures all the time! It's amazing how much you can learn as you
reread them every day. You know that I've been memorizing a scripture in
Spanish every day and that has blessed my life tremendously. I have
trouble remembering all the references perfectly, but it has been really
cool to become better aquainted with the scriptures as I memorize them and
then apply them to both my life and use them when we're with members or
investigators. Yesterday, Elder Davis and I were studying Lehi's vision
because we wanted to use it with a couple of our investigators that I've
been working with pretty much since I got here. It was amazing as we were
reading it and discussing the dream, how much it truly applied to our
investigators. They've grapped onto the rod, but it seems like every time
they start to move forward, the mist of darkness prevents them from seeing
the tree of life. We know how much they need to attend church in order to
make the goal of Eternal Life, but so far they've been blinded by those
mists and have been unable to take that step forward. We shared this with
them and I hope that we can help them overcome their problems and take
those small steps along the path to Eternal Life. Pues, eso es todo por
el momento. Vaya con Dios mi hermano.

Elder Bradley Bishop

Dear Everyone,

Well, Ben asked me a lot of questions which took me a while to answer so I don't have a whole lot of time left today. So, if you want to read some more about how things have been going, ask him to forward it to you.

Because I don't have much time, I won't be too descriptive, but here's some things that have happened this week:

Among other things, we had a fantastic mission conference on Friday. Two MTC instructors came down and talked with all of us about how to improve the results of our mission. I learned a lot and having been trying to implement a lot of new aspects into my own personal service and also into my work with Elder Davis.

We had another tree cutting expedition this week for one of the Spanish members in the ward. These trees were about twice as tall as the first ones we took down, but we finally finished it. By the end of our time working, he had huge branches covering his entire front yard. We then loaded them all into a trailer and took them down to a mulching yard that they have here in Texarkana. It was a lot of fun and I learned a lot of new Spanish words too. :)

Elder Davis and I have both been sick this last week. Then yesterday, I began losing my voice. Elder Davis thought it was hilarious as I would go up to people to talk with them and my voice would crack every time I said the word "missionaries." Had a great lesson that night with a man named Robert that invited us into his home when we contacted him out in the parking lot of his apartments. We were with a member from the ward and he gave a powerful testimony of his conversion 5 years before. The Spirit was there very strongly as the three of us testified of the truthfulness of this gospel and of the Book of Mormon. I thought my voice being the way it was would take away from some of the spirit as we were testifying, but it didn't and the man named Robert accepted our invitation to be baptized. (That's another thing that I've been wanting to tell you. We have a woman named Connie with a baptisimal date and now this man Robert has a date as well. Maybe I'm just being stupid, but I thought it would be really cool if we ended up baptizing two people with my parents names. They both have the same date too. :)

Well, my time's up. Sorry I didn't write more, but I did send you a CD in the mail yesterday with all my pictures from my first 3 months here as well as a letter I wrote you last Wednesday. Just as a heads up, at the Mission Conference President Tucker made a lot of organizational changes around the mission so we'll now be having P-days on Mondays. So, as of next week, (March 1) I'll be writing you every Monday instead of Wednesdays.

Hope you all are doing well!

Tu hijo y hermano,

Elder Bradley Bishop

Dear Everyone,  Well, I made it through the sub-freezing weather and now it's starting to

 warm up a bit 

again.  As you know, I hadn't brought much winter gear, but I thought it would probably be enough to keep me warm anyway despite the cold since I would be wearing more layers 

than I did back home.  However, I didn't really account for the icy wind that we had  here. I also realized a little late that whereas back home I would only be outdoors for  at the very most an hour, here we were knocking doors for hours on end without ever being  let inside to get warm.  So, in the end I ended up freezing my tail off, but I survived  and I learned that I only like the cold bits and pieces at a time.  I also learned that I  don't like the wind nearly as much when it adds another 10 to 15 degree drop to the  freezing temperatures.    Anyway, besides the weather here, we've been having lots of other fun experiences. Doing  stuff with members, knocking doors, and...being chased by a dog.  Yep.  I can now  offically add that part of mission culture to my checklist of things accomplished.  Elder  Wilson and I had gone to try an inactive member, but when there was no answer we decided  to tract a street next to it.  As we were walking towards the street we saw a German  Shepherd about 20 feet away from us, but couldn't figure out if it was chained or not.   Then, it took a couple of steps closer to us and we could tell that it definitely was not  chained.  So, we decided that rather than taking our chances, we'd just walk back to the  car and try another street.  Elder Wilson turned around and started walking back towards  the car and the dog started sprinting at us.  I let out a shout and we both started  booking it for the car with the dog snarling behind us the whole way.  When we got to the  car, the dog was too close behind us for us to get in so we ran around to the back side  of the car.  Then, the dog came around one side and chased us twice around the whole car  like some crazy game of duck, duck, goose.  Well, after two loops we decided we'd had  enough of it so we stopped and I started swinging my backpack at it and Elder Wilson was  brandishing his scriptures ready to bop it on the head with some "scripture  power."  I guess we looked at least a little intimidating because it backed off a  little and Elder Wilson shouted at it and it backed off a bit more.  We decided it would  be smart to keep the car between us and the dog, so Elder Wilson got in the drivers seat  and I got in the backseat on the driver side and we drove off.  Afterward we had a good  laugh about it.  After that incident, I now consider myself a fully broken in missionary.  :)   The rest of the week has gone pretty well.  We went out to one of the member's farms and  helped pull up about 150 lbs of frozen turnips out of his garden.  We also chopped some  more trees down yesterday and had some trouble getting a stump out, but finally got it.   Some other service we've been doing a lot lately is giving blessings.  Elder Wilson and I  gave two this last week and we've given about one a week since I got here.  That's always  a great experience as well and it's humbling to see how much faith some of these members  have in the power of the priesthood.  Giving all these blessings and seeing the faith of  some of these people has in turn strengthened my own faith.    Because it was so cold last week, we didn't have a whole lot of success in getting in  doors.  You'd think that because people didn't want to be outside in the cold, they'd all  be at home and we could come in and speak with them.  Instead, people just wouldn't open  up their doors because it was too cold outside.  So, it wasn't a very eventful week as  far as teaching goes.  We still taught a fair number of lessons, but none to anyone who  has really been progressing a whole lot.  We tried to get one of the spanish members to  come with us for one of our more promising investigators, but when we came for the  appointment we found out the investigator had been called away for work and so that fell  through.  Still, the work goes on and I'm still doing great.  I can't believe that Elder Wilson is  going home in just two weeks.  It'll be a big change without him here anymore.  Well, one  of the members is taking us out to lunch today so I better go.  I love you all and I  continue to pray for you every day.  Tu hijo y hermano, Elder Bradley Bishop