December 29, 2014

"Christmas Week"

Hey Y'all!

This week was really awesome and also pretty slow at the same time with Christmas being this week! But to start off we had a Christmas Devotional on Christmas Eve and we were able to watch a Christmas Carol. It was an old one, but it was still really good! It was nice actually watching a Christmas movie for the Christmas Devotional. Last year we watched a Book of Mormon movie, which was really good, but it didn't really tie into the rest of the Devotional. So I was happy with this years movie! Plus anytime I get to watch a movie I usually take advantage of it. After the movie President talked about the Christmas story and tied it into the Plan of Salvation and how everything before Christ was born lead to him being born. Even Abraham. So I thought that was really cool. We then got to read letters from our parents and also from Bishop and the Stake President back at home. President also wrote us a letter as well. So that was pretty cool! On Christmas we had a District Meeting and it was pretty good! We tried to go eat out at IHOP afterwards, but they ended up taking forever and we had to take our food to go. Omelets that are fresh taste better than when they are in the fridge for a day. But me and Elder Smith got to call home when we got home and that was really great to talk to my family. I always enjoy calling home to them. We then had a really good Christmas dinner at a members house. They made a lot of food which is always good! We then went to the nursing home and visited our investigator there. We decided to bring her some oranges for Christmas and talk about the Christmas Orange. Oranges ended up being her favorite fruit so I know that Elder Smith was inspired to tell that story and bring those for her. Plus we got given a lot of them from a member, so we had some to spare. But that's really all that happened for Christmas.

Saturday we were able to find 2 new investigators. I had been trying with Elder Reas to get in contact and teach this potential investigator. Me and Elder Smith finally got in contact with her on Saturday and at first she didn't want to take the lessons. But once we started talking with her we were able to share part of the Restoration with her. It was really cool because she looked like she was just agreeing and kinda listening to what we had to say, but her son was in tune and listening the whole time. He wanted to say the closing prayer but he ended up getting to scared and he said that he will do it next time. It was really cool. She told us that we could stop by on New Years Eve and talk to her more, so that's good that we will have something to do on New Years. We were also able to stop and talk to this guy in an apartment complex and we ended up giving him a Book of Mormon and he told us to come back. We don't know how solid he is because right before he left he asked if we had a Koran. We told him that we don't have one. Haha I thought that was kinda funny.

We were able to play basketball last Monday with a bunch of the youth in our ward and it ended up being a really good turn out. We had a youth bring his dad and he played like Shaq man. He would just throw his body around and could just score whenever he wanted. But it was still a blast to play with all of them. But other than that, that was our week. It was pretty slow because of Christmas week, we had a lot of time to fill. But Elder Smith had a good time for his first Christmas which is really good. I hope all y'all have a great New Years and don't do anything stupid for it either! Love Y'all!

Love,

Elder O'Brien

"Christmas morning breakfast"

December 22, 2014

"My Young Padawan"

Hey Y'all!

Nothing really happened on Monday or Tuesday of this week because Elder Reas wanted to say goodbye to all the families that he liked in the ward. But Wednesday was the day that I got to go pick up my "son", or my trainee! It was pretty awesome! His name is Elder Smith (no he is not related to Joseph Smith or the other Elder Smith I was companions with sadly). He is from Show Low, Arizona. It's up in the mountain area, I think North East is what he said. But he is 18 years old. So I'm finally older than my companion! I've always been younger in age than my companion. It feels weird to finally be the older one. But he is so excited to get to work. That afternoon I decided to take him tracting because that was the first thing that I did on my mission. So I figured that I would keep the tradition. It poured rain right as we started knocking on doors. It was still fun though. He taught his first lesson to one of the 9 year olds that we just baptized. We taught the Plan of Salvation and he did a great job for his first day out. 

We were also able to pick up 2 new investigators this week. We were looking up people that the missionaries had taught before in the past and we decided to try one of them. So we went over with a member and we were able to teach her the Restoration! She enjoyed it. Her son had gotten baptized a few years earlier and now she is thinking about getting baptized! Elder Smith invited her to be baptized and she is going to be praying about it. I think he was pretty nervous to do it, but I thought that he taught that lesson really great as well. We were also able to teach a lesson to a members friend yesterday. He is 12 years old and is one of the smartest 12 year old's I've met. We were at our Ward Mission Leaders house on Saturday to introduce him to Elder Smith and he was over there. We asked him if he wanted to take the lesson and he said yes. So we taught him yesterday and was talking to him about church because he came to church as well. He said that it felt different at our church than the church that he got baptized in. He said that he felt more involved and felt like people recognized him here and didn't at his parents church. He really like the Restoration and kept asking us questions all night. Because he was at a members house when we taught them and we went and dropped food off at people's house for them with the members and he came along with us. He kept asking questions and was talking about how he can be baptized and when. We didn't set a date with him because we want to make sure that it's okay with his parents before we set a date. But he is a smart kid and really wants to get baptized. So we are excited for him!

Today we are going to be playing basketball with the young men at the church because there is no school because of the winter break. So they are going to be hopefully bring some of their non member friend and we can get to know them. We also were able to invite some people there so hopefully we get a good turn out. But this upcoming will be a tough one because of Christmas this week. Last year it was tough and nothing really happened. But last Christmas on my mission! Love y'all and thanks for emailing me this week! Can't wait to call home on Thursday! 

Love,

Elder O'Brien

December 15, 2014

"Training Meeting =Ana's Island Grill"

Hey Y'all!

So I'm going to be staying in Burleson for another 6 weeks. I am really excited because I also get to train a new missionary! I got a call last Wednesday saying that I will be training. I was really excited! Although there was kinda a spoiler alert. We had a zone meeting on Wednesday and one of our Zone Leaders came up and said that he heard I was training before I got the call. But the phone call from President just was the confirmation. But on Friday I had to go up to a meeting in Grapevine which is right above Euless. The meeting was fantastic! President talked about how we need to give the new missionary a good start to his mission. It's important that he hits the ground running and doesn't slowly get started. He really focused also on how we need to apply the Atonement of Jesus Christ in our lives every day and strive to become our best. It was a great meeting and I love listening to President speak. But after the meeting, I couldn't help but to take a nice drive through Euless and stop at Ana's Island Grill. Holy cow I miss eating at that place like 2-3 times a week. That food is truly amazing. I had a hard time deciding which was better, the meeting or eating at Ana's again. Haha! It was a tough decision. But I'm very excited to train a new missionary and I really hope that everything will go well for his first couple days. Me and Elder Reas have been trying to set up appointments for his first couple days so that he can just jump right in and lose himself in the work. 

But about this week! It was a some what slow week for us. People are starting to disappear for the holidays. A lot of people usually disappear into stores and don't show up until like 8 in the evening. We had quite a few appointments cancel because they were too tired because of all the Christmas shopping. Who knew shopping could wear  you out right? We have been sharing a video called He is the Gift. I recommend watching it. It will take up a whole 2 1/2 minutes of your day, but it's worth it. A lot of the people that we show the video to are not members and they love the video. Everyone usually takes a second look on why we have Christmas. We were talking to a family yesterday and she said it's so hard to find a nativity set here now. She said Wal-mart only had like 2 or 3 of them on sale. I was pretty shocked when she said that and Texas is a huge Christian state. But she really enjoyed the video and shared it with her friends right after we showed it to her. It was pretty cool. We also were at the hospital yesterday for awhile. A less active member was there and he already isn't doing too well. So that was quite the scare when we found out he was in the hospital. We gave him a blessing and found out that he will be getting released today though which is good. 

This week we are hoping to set a baptism date with the lady in the nursing home. She has a doctors appointment this Thursday to see if her foot is okay. She had a spot that still needed to heal from her surgery that was smaller than the size of a dime. So hopefully that is all healed. We are seeing her tonightwith a family that will be willing to drive her to church each Sunday. We are really happy and excited for her. 

Last P day we helped someone move and it was supposed to take like 30 minutes to move, it ended up taking about 3 hours. So there was a lot more stuff that what we thought. But it was all right because we got some good food afterwards. So it was all worth it. We are going to be playing basketball this week and I'm really looking forward to it. It's been a long time. But I will let yall know about my greenie (new missionary) next week! Love yall!

Love,

Elder O'Brien

December 8, 2014

"Great Week for a Baptism!"

Hey Y'all!

Man this week was awesome! We were able to have 2 baptisms and both of them were fantastic! We had our ward breakfast on Saturday morning and we got (had) to help cook. It was quite the system that we had going. We had 3 griddles cooking pancakes and we had 2 doing bacon and sausage and then another one doing eggs. It was pretty cool. Me and Elder Reas switched off running food inside and flipping pancakes. After the ward breakfast, we then ran to a members house and printed off the programs for the baptisms. That took a little bit longer than what we thought it would. But we then went back to our apartment to change into our suits and wait for the Joshua Elders to come so we could car pool up to the church building in Fort Worth. They showed up later that they thought they would. We were going to try to get there at about 12:30 to set up and make sure everything is going good. We didn't leave our apartment until 12:30 and it's about a 30 minute drive up. So we were kinda stressed out. But we got there and everything went really well. We had the first baptism at 2 and it was supposed to end at about 2:45 but it didn't end until 3 because one of the talks was super long. But besides that, the baptisms were great! Both of the kids were smiling after they were baptized and it was really cool to see them get baptized. I had forgotten how spiritual they really are, so it was good to have that reminder. On Sunday they got confirmed a member of the church and they were also given the Gift of the Holy Ghost. And both of the kids were really happy and smiling after that. It was really an awesome weekend for us! 

Last night we watched the First Presidency Christmas Devotional at a Less Actives house and it was really good. They really enjoyed the talks. We have been really working with this family because they are really awesome and really need the Gospel in their lives. So we were really happy that they enjoyed it. We also went on an exchange with our District Leader this week and we ended up being in Fort Worth for 2 1/2 hours almost because we were supposed to meet our Zone Leaders to get a few papers for our baptisms on Saturday and they ended up not being able to meet us there. So that really killed our afternoon that day, and our miles for the month. But we will have to make it work. We were also able to see the lady in the nursing home and she was actually going to be leaving for the weekend to go to her sisters house. We were really excited about that and hope that she gets a really nice break from the nursing home. She needed it cause she's the youngest person there. We are going to be stopping by on Tuesday to see her and see how it went. Other than that, we were trying to find people to teach throughout the week. Had some success but not as much as we wanted. 

We went bowling last week and we bowled 4 games in an hour and a half. Needless to say that there were some sore arms the next day. We are helping some people move today. They aren't members, but we told them that we would love to help. We might get some lunch afterwards too. So that's always good. I hope y'all have a fantastic week! Thanks again for the emails! Love yall!

Love,

Elder O'Brien

December 1, 2014

"STUFFED..."

Hey Y'all!

So almost all your emails said something along the lines of wow, we had so much food. But really, I have a hard time believing that you had more food that I did on Thanksgiving. We started off by going to the Elders Quorum Presidents house and we ended up eating with just their kids while the parents were trying to call a doctors office to see if they were open. Their kid was breathing weird and wanted to take him in. We felt so guilty eating while they were trying to find a place open. The kid ended up being okay and is doing better as well. So we were able to get away with not eating as much which I know saved me for the rest of our dinners. The next house we went to was a less actives house and they made even more food that the first house we went to. So we were able to eat a lot of it thought because we got away with eating not very much at the first house. I had a lot of stuffing because they made really good stuffing! It was pretty great! We ended up talking with them for awhile after and they we ended up leaving with only an hour left before we had to go home. So we could only go to 1 of our other 2 dinners left. So we decided which one to go to and it ended up being a really good choice. The family we went to was already done eating, but still wanted us to grab some food anyway. So we grab it and by that point, I'm so sick of food by then, but I still try to eat a little bit. But while we were sitting down, one of the family members that was in town for Thanksgiving started asking all sorts of questions about what we do and also questions about our church. We ended up talking for about and hour about what we do and what we go around and share. She was really interested and wanted to learn more. So what we did is we gave her a card and website to where she can request missionaries. We also gave her a pamphlet on the Restoration and invited her to read more. We were really happy that we decided to go to that house because she really could be baptized. After that we then headed home and we both felt like we were going to pop because we were so full. But it was for sure a successful Thanksgiving this year.

Now for the rest of the week. We are going to be having 2 baptism this weekend. Both of the 9 year old's we are teaching are ready to be baptized. We have taught them everything and they are ready to go. They are going to be interviewed this week as well. Saturday is going to be a really busy day for us. We have those 2 baptisms and we also have the ward Christmas breakfast in the morning. So we are going to be running around like crazy on Saturday. But it will all be worth it though!

We also were able to find a really awesome new investigator this week as well. We had our Ward Mission Leader come out with us yesterday when we found him. We got a referral from some other missionaries and told us to go see him, he is 16 years old. So we went there last night and our Ward Mission Leader ended up knowing this guy, his son plays baseball with him. So that was really cool. We ended up talking about the Book of Mormon and why it's important to us. He was really excited to start reading it and also wants us to start seeing him a couple times a week. But we thought that was really cool how they knew each other. 

Today we are going to be going bowling with the other Elders in our District. Last week we went to that museum and it ended up being a fail because it was directed more to the kids instead of the adults. So we felt really out of place. But oh well. I can't believe it's already December though. It's going by way too fast. Love you all and thanks for the emails this week!

Love,

Elder O'Brien

PICTURES: