July 1, 2014...last transfer!!

Howdy from the Washington Seattle Mission!!!
   How's the fam this week? Sounds like you had some fun going to the hot springs! I've always wanted to go there but never got the chance. So Elder carpenter got transferred. Off to be a big kid district leader all by himself. So My new companion is elder Kirk. He's from Cedar hills. Great guy, i've met him a few times before. He's been out for about a year or so. They made me senior comp again, but took district leader responsibilities off of me for my last transfer. Apparently Elder Kirk has had some similar struggles to some of the ones I had earlier in my mission, so I think that's why the Lord put us together. It will be a great chance to talk with him about it and just kick butt and work our tails off this last transfer I
have left!! Not a whole lot happened this week with the work. We found a couple people who may be interested when we go back, but other than that not much has happened. Man coming into my last transfer has given me a lot of reason to look back and reflect on my mission, how i've done well, how I can improve, just little things like that and it's been a lot of fun to
think back on all my good memories. :) I love this mission so much and I wouldn't trade it for the world. But at the same time I am very excited to come home soon. My soul can feel that it's almost time and the closer it gets, the more okay i become with it. It's hard, but all the good things in life are. Well I hope you all have a good week! Love you tons!
Love, Elder Brimhall :)

June 24, 2014

Dear fam,

   Hi! Nice prank you bums!! Haha it was fun though to see and talk to you for just a minute haha, and yes we did enjoy the treats very much, so thank you! Grant pulled a prank like that my first transfer haha, so I guess it makes sense to do another prank near the end! This week has been good! We have talked to a lot of people who are not interested and seem to be having very little success, but this week we got a referral who is very interested and says he can just feel the truthfulness of the church, and so we think he will be baptized very soon!! So that is a huge miracle and i know the Lord is blessing us for our diligence, he always does :) One thing that has sucked this week is i've had a big ol' cold sore on my face for a week haha it stings pretty bad, but it's starting to get smaller so that's good! Hey I had a good idea about how to use technology for good in the home, including video games, cell phones, and computers. You'll have to remind me to tell you about it when i get home, cause it's kinda hard to explain over email. Man I'll tell you what, the Gospel is definitely true! It's amazing how living the standards of the Lord helps with life's every day challenges. I had a couple of really cool personal experiences this week with prayer and revelation. I was laying in bed one night just thinking about the Law of chastity and all that it entails, but wondering why such a good thing is so addictive in it's corrupted form. I think the Lord was waiting for just that kind of moment, because all of the sudden inspiration flooded my mind and everything that I've been taught about the Law of Chastity in my life made sense. Everything clicked and i understood things that I've never understood that way before. i won't give details yet, maybe when i get home, but it was a huge testimony builder to me that when we are trying our best to do the things the lord wants us to, then he helps us to do them and to understand why we do them. Another experience i had, is that when Elder Carpenter was in the shower, i decided to kneel down and say a vocal prayer. I've done it in the past and i knew that it a more spiritual experience when you pray personally out loud, but this time the Lord just wrapped his arms around me tight and i felt the love of the Lord. I couldn't see his body or feel the physical touch of his arms, but it was as real as anything i've ever felt. If we give ourselves to God, then he will give himself to us and we will feel the embrace of infinite friendship and love. If you have not done this lately, please do. Find somewhere that you can be alone, and talk to the Lord vocally as if he was physically present before you. It's a great experience! That was my week! The Church is true! God lives, and Jesus is the Christ!! Hope you have a good week guys! Love you!

Love, Elder Bailey Brimhall :)

June 8, 2014

Hola Familia!

   So this week was pretty good! We had small miracles all throughout the week that kept our heads up and helped us to feel the power and support of the Lord. I've been really focusing lately (the last couple of weeks or so) on trying to purify and sanctify myself. It has proven to be a remarkable experience. I would say that my knowledge and discernment of the spirit has increased by double or even triple since I started this little purification exercise I've been doing. Pretty much all it consists of is me praying every morning for strength to focus and determination, then I keep my eye out for everything that seems out of place in my life, or things that don't seem Christlike that i'm doing, and then i change them. It's simple to think about, hard to do, and worth every ounce of effort.

   This week is Father's day!! Are you doing anything cool for dad?? I hope you get to have a good week/father's day dad! I sent a card in the mail this morning so it will probably get to you late this week haha so it will be a few days early but that's better than a few days late I figured. We're not doing too much today. We might go meet up with a couple kids in the ward and play ball if we're lucky.. But if not then it's fine. 

   Our investigators are kinda dragging their feet right now and not really progressing and fast as they need to, so that's a little frustrating, but like I said, the Lord has been showing us little miracles all week to help us keep our heads up. One of those miracles being a nice lady who talked to us for a while during tracting hours. Her name was Kristi, and she is a young mom who has a couple kids and a husband, and they go to the local baptist church, but she has a book of mormon that a friend gave her. We offered her a chapter to read and then after that she kind of vented and said that she's really looking for clarity in her life. So we testified that this is the message that she needs to give her clarity, and invited her to church. She didn't come this week, but we had a very good spiritual feeling about this lady and I think large miracles will stem from that conversation :)

   Well that's all for this week! Hope you all have a great week! Love you!! Remember, the church is true, the book is Blue, and Moroni is always on the ball! ;)

Love, Elder Brimhall :)

  P.S. Good luck in that championship game Bryce!!! And be careful river rafting!

May 20, 2012

Howdy family!!!

  This week did indeed fly by as usual. It's the start of my last two transfers! Weird. Neither of us got transferred, so elder Carpenter and I are still together! I'm glad cause we get along really well and work and teach together in unity so it's a good companionship. Thanks for checking out all those options for pale grants and stuff for me mom! I'm gonna need them! yes i got my temporary drivers licence, which i have some info about by the way. So on that form it asked me if i have reoccuring athsma or respiratory issues that i have to have an inhaler for, and I put no, but i bought an inhaler a couple months ago because a doctor gave me the prescription because a mixture of springtime allergies and illness left my throat a little tight, so he just said go get an inhaler. So if the DMV calls you and asks why i bought an inhaler but told them i don't have respiratory issues, now you know and can explain to them that i don't, but it was just a one time thing. :)

   We have some good things going on right now with our investigator bob. We've been having a hard time with him and his less active wife, but we talked to him yesterday and he said that his marriage is going to be broken up unless his wife agrees to do four things with him which include marriage counseling, quit drinking, quit smoking, and start going to church. It's going to be a rough road for just a week or two, but it's a huge step and we think that he will be baptized this transfer.

   That's about all I have for you right now! But I'll include pictures, including one from Diana's baptism two weeks ago, going to do service, and district pics.

May 12, 2014

Hi fam! 

I was so happy to talk to all of you yesterday!! So my mission President gave me permission to start looking online at different college classes and stuff so i can think about what i want to take and stuff this fall. As for work mom, i am definitely planning to do tables and cabinets and stuff with you when i get home, but i was also thinking about just doing something else on the side for a few extra bucks. That's super cool that Lumiere is doing that tv broadcast thing!! Good Luck! Today should be fun. I'm planning to go play basketball with the priest's quorum this afternoon haha so that will be good cause I haven't gotten to play basketball for a little while. Well, It's official now. less than 3 months before the plane ride. Crazy. The mission is the fastest and slowest experience in the world, i swear. But i love it so much! I'm so excited for all of us to talk about our mission experiences in the not so distant future, especially mom and dad if you guys get to serve a couples mission later on. that would be way cool. But anyways, Diana is doing well. We were super excited for her. And it was a pretty big relief for me, because i had been working hard for so long and haven't had a baptism in like 9 or 10 months, so it was nice to finally see the fruits of hard labor :) Well I don't have a whole ton to update you on since I just talked to you yesterday haha but just know that I love you all and hope you have a great week!! 

Love, Elder Bailey Brimhall :)

Birthday Week!

Howdy family!!! 

Sounds like things are going well at home right now so that's really good to hear! Things here are going good too! haha I don't care if you would rather wait to send my birthday gift then wait, or if you would rather send it now then send it now! :) I am just fine either way. Holy crap, it looks like you guys tore it up turkey hunting! Trey didn't have to do any of the work! He just walked into a good hunting day haha! Hey speaking of my birthday, it shouldn't be the focus on sunday, Mother's Day is WAY more important than my birthday haha, so let's just focus on that. Happy cinco de mayo! haha I think we celebrate that more here than the mexicans do:) Just another reason to party!!! So as for the work, yes we are still working hard and the Lord is really blessing us! We have been teaching a lot of lessons lately and we found four new investigators last week alone, which is more than i have found in one week in a long time, so that was super nice :) Hopefully some of them don't drop us! Too bad you guys have to miss grant for his birthday too! Bummer, but I'll give him a quick call even though it'll be like 11 or 12 for him in florida haha. Oh yeah, i'll most likely be calling in the mid evening. for you guys like 6 or 7 or 8 ish. most likely the 7 or 8 ish. I'll try to let you know. And I think it will most likely be facetime, so mom or dad, watch your phones, i'll be calling! And we will be having a baptism hopefully this weekend! I'm not getting my hopes up too much because last time she failed her interview, so hopefully this time she passes. Oh trey, I forgot to tell you I think, practice the piano. A lot. Like if you have the choice between call of duty and piano, choose piano. The spirit will help you to think and to relax as you do so. Oh hey mom, i got that paper all filled out and notarized at the bank and i sent it back to you on friday, so hopefully it will get there today or tomorrow. I also sent some fun pictures :) well I love you lots and hope you have a great week! Have  fun with the spirit!!!

Love, Elder Bailey Brimhall :)

March 16, 2014...car wreck!! :(

Hey fam!!

So this was a pretty interesting week! Haha Jason (Elder Petersen's dad) told us you were worried sick on the phone with him asking him questions and details about the accident haha. So yeah our car is totalled. What happened is we were waiting to turn left on woodinville-duvall road and we were stopped just waiting for traffic to pass by, when a guy in a Big SUV came around the bend at about 50MPH and literally didn't see us right in front of him and slammed into the back of us. Haha Our car had the brakes on the whole time and we still slid about 65 feet away from his car because of the impact. Haha My nametag flew off of my pocket and they found it on the hood of His car! He was fine, no damage to him. I don't want you to worry, but according to crash statistics, Woodinville-duvall road is the third most dangerous street in washington because everyone speeds and doesn't really watch out. Right now it's not looking like we are going to get another car for a while, but we are on foot, because the physical therapist that I saw said that I'll ruin my right leg if I bike on it, because the calf muscles and ligaments are really tight and contorted right now and shouldn't be stretched too far. It's a little painful, but not bad at all considering the seriousness of the crash. Who knows, maybe my bum leg will get us another car haha but I doubt it.

Other than that things are good! The whole ward knew about the crash within like 30 minutes of it happening haha. It was funny. Our investigator Scott finally made it back to church, and it was awesome to see him there! We're really hoping to see some progress from him soon! He seems to be changing little by little, and hopefully it's for the best! We've been picking up the work a lot and our teaching pool is full of new investigators, so we are super excited! Hey dad, sis told me you scared mom half to death because you had to work late and didn't tell her. I'm sure in the future she would appreciate being woken up rather than not being told at all :) haha. Well that's about it this week! Hope all is week and you all have a most excellent week! Love you tons!!

Love, Elder Bailey Bryce Brimhall :)

March 6, 2014

Hello family!!

   So as for this week, the work went pretty darn good! We had more lessons than usual and we found 2 new investigators from tracting! So the zone leaders issued this challenge this week: for each area to try to reach 15 contacts each day. What they classified a contact as is talking with someone about the gospel and inviting them to do something. Sounds easy right?? Well if you think it's easy, you'll have to remember that bothell is in the middle of nowhere. Plus i'm in woodinville which is outside of bothell. Plus i'm in cottage lake which is the least populated (but largest geographically) area in the zone. Well Cottage Lake (us) currently holds the record at 40 in one day :) Nailed it:) I think the closest behind us is the zone leaders with around 20.... again, nailed it:)

   Hey that sounds super cool about the cabin at Strawberry!! You can count me in to put my fair share of labor into that baby! Sick. Also the bathroom looks nice! Haha and the veggie garden sounds good. I'll be expecting a nice delicious cucumber to bite into on august 11th ;) Man i can't believe how fast the last 6 months has gone! Is it really almost general conference again?? I'm so excited! General conference is like my favorite day of the semi-annual period!! It's my last conference in the mission field :( Sad day, right? I feel like as a missionary I understand way more about what all the speakers are saying than otherwise. Hopefully I'll be able to keep that up after the mish. Sorry if I spent too much cash at value village last week. I did find a suit though for pretty darn cheap and it's classy and it fits like it was tailored to me haha so i love it. Thank you!

   Well fam i hope you have a dandy week and keep the Lord in your thoughts every day! Love you so much!!

Love, Elder Bailey Brimhall :)

Feb. 25, 2014

Hey fam!!

So no worries! I did not get transferred and neither did elder Petersen! Not only that, but we got a car this transfer!! yay! haha Biking is pretty fun, but we have the biggest area in our zone by far and it's been raining a ton lately haha so the car was a refreshing. Plus my bike needs a tune up again, which i didn't feel like paying for so that was nice too. We have been having some slow weeks lately, but we are working super hard! It's just that not a whole lot of people wanted to talk to us lately haha. but we aren't letting it get to us too much. But we did have a lesson with ruth and just testified and really were pouring our hearts out about the gospel to her, and she kinda broke down and cried and talked about how she really loves and respects the church, but she's afraid to join because she doesn't want to do it alone. her husband is in no way, shape, or form, interested and so she feels like she'll have to do it all alone, so if you could keep her in your prayers please that would be nice!

Sissy!! I got the picture you drew and the picture you sent and the bracelet you made me!! Thank you so much!! I have been wearing the bracelet every day, and that little picture of you is taped to the back of my planner so that i will see you every time i look at my planner (which is a lot) :)

So yeah things are pretty good. I was really glad that Elder Petersen didn't get transferred haha he has been one of my favorite companions. I'm super stoked for this transfer. Oh by the way mom. Last week I copied almost 200 pictures onto a CD and i'm going to send it home in the next couple weeks. I won't have time this week because we had to go to the mission office today, but i'll send it next week :) Oh and thanks for the fishing pics dad! But next time how about you send me pictures of both of you! I miss fishing.... #septemberdovehunt :) Can't wait!

Well I hope you all have a wonderful week! love you lots!

 

 Elder B with his district!

 

 Those are some hard workin' hands!

 

Apparently this is Bailey's handiwork...graffiti of baptism ;)

 

 

Feb. 10, 2014

Howdy family!

So this week went pretty good! I did a whole lot of worrying about Trey and Dish haha. Hey thanks for all the pics!! Poor sissy in that hospital bed :( I could hardly even recognize her she's changed so much haha. and Dad that fish you caught was a beauty!! That must have felt good to pull that sucker out of the water.

So this week it snowed for two days and so for the past few days we've been riding around in snow!! haha it's been kinda fun, but it also kinda sucks. The snow made it way warmer haha because of the cloud coverage, but it also made it super slippery and wet. Have you ever ridden a road bike in the snow?? Well if you ever plan to then here's a tip- don't turn very sharp at all haha. Your tires will fall out from underneath you very quickly and you'll get a swift kick to the rear from the asphault ;) Not that fun haha. But this week was good.

As for scott, please just keep praying for him. he's coming along. Not baptized yet, but I have confidence that he will get there. Please also pray for Ruth. Oh man I love Ruth. One of the sweetest ladies on the planet, but She's kind of afraid to join because her husband isn't interested and she doesn't want to do it alone. So prayers for her and her husband would definitely be appreciated. :)

No I did not fall off the Hannant's roof this week, but i'll tell you what, that was quite a little adventure! haha We didn't finish on that day so we went back for a few more hours the next day too and it was so steep! I have felt pretty sketchy back rolling stucco on roofs, but i don't think I've been on this steep of a roof! It's steeper than it looks in that picture! It was a lot of fun though :)

Sorry about not sending pictures. It's such a pain on these computers. But i think I'm going to put a bunch of pictures on a CD and send it home soon. Is that okay?? Speaking of CD's. Do you remember that talk I sent home by Elder Holland that is almost an hour long?? Well I can't find my copy of it, i think I left it in another area. If you still have your copy could you send it or a copy of it to me?? Thank you!!

Well I think that's all this week! Love you all and hope you all have a powerhouse week!

Love, Elder Bailey Brimhall :)

Feb. 3, 2014

Ugh, Elder B should know better than to send his paranoid mother a picture like this! Service projects are great...unless they're on the roof of a very tall house!!

 

 

GO SEAHAWKS!!!!

   Man so I wasn't able to watch the game but i was getting updates from the members like every 5 minutes haha!! Seattle wins!! 43-8!! Woohoo! Well now that I have my seattle bragging out of the way i can tell you about my week. I finally got my bike back this week! There was one more thing that they needed to fix which was an extra 20 bucks so i just paid for that with my credit card. Hope that's okay. So I'm going on a fruits and veggies diet for a little while so I can drop the weight that I need to while i'm still on bike. I'm starting my diet today haha elder petersen and I both are doing it haha so this should be an interesting next few weeks.

   Trey called me this morning and we talked for about 20 minutes or so just about his mission so far and he asked for some advice. I told him two things. Number one was that at some point during his mission he would face trials bigger than before and maybe even feel doubt within his frustration, but never ever ever to lose the knowledge of the divinity of his calling. The lord called him there for very specific reasons and expects trey to fulfill his purposes while he is in india. Number two was simply to follow the two great commandments given by the savior to the scribes and pharisees - to love the Lord with all his heart and never give that up, and to love everyone around him no matter what happens or what they do. If he follows those two commandments to the best of his ability then everything else the lord is asking of him will fall right into place.

   As for the work, our investigator Scott is super close to baptism and we are hoping for this weekend but it will probably be next weekend or the weekend after. So please pray that Scott will gain the ability to recognize the spirit more fully in his life and follow the promptings from the holy ghost.

   Haha i gotta tell you a story. So my comp and I were talking about our families the other day and he is an only child so he doesn't have siblings obviously. But he was like "yeah you have 3 siblings right?" and i said "no" and then he's like "Oh yeah I forgot, you have 3 brothers and 1 dish" hahahaha I laughed so hard that he remembered that we called sissy the dish:) It was really funny.

   One more story! So I was just joking around in planning a few days ago and I said to elder Petersen, "This week we will be tracting on the edge of our area and will find a guy named james jacobson who will accept a date for baptism in the first lesson. haha Well a couple days ago we were tracting on the edge of our area and ran into a house where the doorknocker said Jacobson haha. We both freaked out and like were super nervous. Well I took lead when a man named roger opened the door and said he would listen to our message. I taught the restoration and he accepted a date for baptism!!! I may have messed up the name james, but everything else was proved to be prophetically true haha. :) i thought that was a cool story.

   No real requests for the box, but thank you so much!! Also thanks for trying to help so much with my drivers licence! I love you all so much and hope that you all have a really great week!!

Love, Elder Bailey Brimhall :)

  


Jan. 27, 2014

Hey cool pictures!!

I liked that you sent those pics to us! I always kinda wondered what my plaque looked like haha :) And Bruce looks like he is getting pretty tall and good at wrestling! Still not quite as tall as me yet, but close :)

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!!! Man you guys had better make dad's birthday super awesome!! Make sure he has a great day! I'll be sending out your card today dad :)

So this week went pretty well. To answer your question, yes I do get along with my companion very well. Elder Petersen and I are a very unified companionship. Maybe the most unified comp i have had yet haha we can finish each other's sentences! It's a blast. our area is so freaking huge and has a ton of huge hills haha so that has been interesting. Well i want you to know that the Lord saved our butts this week. So I was riding my bike on friday morning when my custom integrated derailer on my bike (the most expensive and necessary part) randomly snapped in half. We took it to the cheapest bike shop around and they said that it would be at least around 150$ to fix, so i decided to borrow an old bike from a member. Well a couple hours goes by and the rusty chain on that bike snaps. ouch. There's another at least 30 or 40 bucks. Well as i pled to the lord for help, a wealthy member of the church finds us. Asks what happened to my bikes, and how much it would cost. i told him it would be at least around 200 bucks for the fixes, but that i would feel awful to let him help. Nonsense! he says haha. For that cheap I would have to help. He threw my bikes in the back of his pick up truck, and took us to the bike shop. And just for good measure he bought me a new head light and tail light because our area doesn't have many street lamps at night. I am so grateful to the lord for looking out for me! I love you and hope you all have a really great week!

Love, Elder Bailey Brimhall :)

Jan.20, 2014

Hey fam!! 

So i like my new ward. They are super awesome haha in fact one of the members paid for some of my groceries the other day. So that was nice. It's a really big area and it's pretty tough to bike in, but it's fun. I love eler petersen! He a great missionary. him and I both go home the same transfer haha so that's pretty cool. We're like one of the oldest companionships in the mission right now. Sorry I don't have pictures of anything yet, but I will get some to you eventually. :) Thank goodness for nana and papa. They are freaking life savers haha. and you are too, but it's just in time because I thought I had more mission fund money than I actually did in my account, and I ran out this week. So I'll have to buy groceries out of my home account. We weren't super successful with numbers this week, but i thought we were successful because we went out and worked super hard! I don't really know the family we are staying with very well because their garage is seperate from their house so we don't really talk to them a whole lot. I haven't heard anything about Ginger and Pepper since i left. I suspect I won't hear anything for a while haha since i won't be talking to anyone in the bellevue zone for a while. My legs are in a lot of pain haha! we have just been biking and biking and biking. We practically haven't stopped biking for a week! But it's all good because we are having a lot of fun at the same time. We do a ton of tracting in this area. Probably about 4 hours a day. It's pretty tough, but it's all we really can do, because we don't have a whole lot of investigators right now. Oh well. Well that's about it on me for this week!! Hope you are all doing very well!  okay love you all so much and hope you have a great week!!

Love, Elder Brimhall :)

Jan. 14, 2014

Howdy doo fam!!

 

So this week was super amazing because of two things! So first off, We had a rough start to the week with almost no lessons and then in the last like few days we had a bunch of lessons! So that was good, and then the second great thing was that after becoming best friends and helping them and being there teaching them for four months, Pepper and Ginger and Margaret finally came to church this week!!!! It was definitely the highlight of my week! So the lowlight of my week is that today i was transferred. :( I'm in a town called bothell way up in the boonies haha and yes I'm still on bike. So that should be fun. But i really like my new companion so far! His name is Elder Peterson, he is from Highland Utah. He went to lone peak with bella and avalon, though he didn't know them very well. We live with a member family named the lathum's. They have a seperate garage that we are living on top of. I haven't lived with members before on my mission so this should be fun! That was super exciting to hear about the furniture going into that store soon! That's really great! Thank you all for writing me by the way. It is really great to be able to count on having a bunch of emails from my family every week! I love you all so much and hope that you have a super fantastic week!! Keep the faith!!

Love, Elder Brimhall Sr. ;)

Happy New Year 2014!!

Hey there fam!!

   Man I will tell you what. Getting to talk to all of you last week made me soooo happy! It went by way too fast!! I'm so glad that I got to though! Also I can't remember if I even said thank you for all the gifts you sent to me! So thank you soo soo much!! I did absolutely love them and I really needed them too! The scarf and gloves were very needed! They come in handy when riding a bike :) And thanks for sending all those pictures! It made me smile to see everyone in the family together!

 

We had a really good Christmas! We were at a members house for quite a while, we had lunch there. We watched the lion king haha so that was freaking awesome! They gave us each a stocking haha so that was super thoughtful of them and we were very grateful. Then we went to pepper and ginger's house for dinner and for me to skype! They also gave us a stocking! Man we love them a lot. Haha They also gave us each a gift card to starbucks. Stoked to use it! :) But yeah our christmas was really good! I got the best wake up call ever! Haha Trey called me at 6:30 in the morning haha so that was fun to talk to him. It's really good to hear that he is doing well. We don't have much planned for this week yet, but we do have a new investigator, so we are very excited to teach her some more. She has had a lot of contact with the church in the recent past. And she has a very good experience with it, so she is super open!

 

 Man can i just tell you guys. I love you! but I am so glad that this is the reason that i am away from home! Missions rule! We have no plans for new years except go inside a little earlier than usual haha. Well I hope you all have a wonderfully fantastic week!! Be good! 

Love, Elder Bailey Brimhall