September 16, 2013

"First Baptism in the Book"

Hey ya'll!!!

This week was awesome! Mainly because of the subject of this letter but also with the General Authority. I am going to appologize now, I was unable to attach photos to this email do to the lack of technology here at the library. They need to get updated. But I will send my SD card home soon so you can then see my first 6 weeks.

So like I said last week, we had a general authority come, Elder Neil L. Anderson, and we also had Elder Calister come from the Seventy. It was awesome! Elder Calister talked on how we need to emphasize the Great Apostasy in our lessons. 'Without the Great Apostasy, there would be no need to have a Restoration.' That's what he said. How did I remember this? I did exactly what I didn't do in school and I took notes. Haha. Then Elder Anderson gave an awesome talk. It was more like a training you could say. He had questions and a slide show about the Atonement. I got to shake his hand though which was awesome! He gave us all some scriptures on how to help us understand the Atonement better. He shared some of his stories as a Mission President and how he saw how the Atonement changed peoples lives. It is so true. It was a fantastic experience. After the meeting ended, I finally saw Elder Weaver. Those that don't know him, he is in our ward back in Utah. You'll see a picture of him soon. He is a District Leader and you could tell that he just loves being on a mission. We had a good time catching up and sharing a couple experiences.

So this week was pretty great when it came to talking to investigators. The Deleon family is interesting. The dad, Ramon, has PTSD, so he has deep deep questions. Like too deep. He takes his questions so deep, that it doesn't even makes sense. Like in one of our pamphlets that we have, it had the first verse of the song "I am a Child of God." And he said that it needed to be changed because he wasn't given him a good earthly home and good parents. So he is stuck on that. But the whole point of that song is to show that God and Jesus really do love us and can show us the way. But those are some of his questions. It's going to be awhile before this guy accepts baptism.

We were able to tract this week again. Elder Williams our District leader allowed it to happen. So we were able to find a family that used to have missionaries come over and then they just stopped one day. So we refreshed the Restoration with them and now we have another appointment with them on Saturday. So something good came out tracting after all. Haha.

The Batista boys baptism was awesome! They had their grandparents come down and their Uncle too. The Uncle baptized them, but me and Vaoga were the witnesses and were able to stand in the circle when they received the Holy Ghost and when Adam got the Priesthood. They were so ready. They were just so happy when they came out and they hugged their mom. But the mom, who is very inactive with the church like didn't even hug them back. So we were like what the crap! But they are going to be awesome. There were so many people that came to their baptism that we had to go get more chairs from the other classrooms. They have a lot of support from the ward and I think they will be okay.

Just a couple things, there were some questions whether you can send packages to my appartment or not, yes you can. When you send them to the mission home, I won't get them for a longer period of time cause we are so far south from the home. But you can send them there. And second, Happy Birthday to my Padre Sean!! Turning a whopping 44 today! Hope you have a great birthday man!

I love you all and thank you again for all your emails! As I said before I always loook forward to reading what everyone has said on Mondays! I hope yall have a fanominal week!!

Elder O'Brien

September 9, 2013

"I Have Been Healed"

Hey Ya'll!!!

This had to me the most interesting week so far! A lot of crazy investigators that we had this week. In fact I don't even know where to start. So I will start like this. Our investigator Maddison is no longer and investigator, but a Less Active. We found her records in the church that she has already been baptized. Oops. So we now get to reactivate instead of Baptize which is just as important in my opinion. We were able to set another Baptism date. Her name is  Andrea. She is in her 30's and she loves reading the Book of Mormon. We set a date so hopefully this one will pull through.

So we have a investigator named Mr. Voldrez. Now he told us that he knew his purpose here in this live. He said that he was put here to heal people. Yes to heal people. Now being my curious self, I asked how he does this. I'm not going to lie, I had the intent to prove him wrong from the beginning. But this is what he did. He put his hands on my shoulder, said some weird prayer, and began to rub my shoulders and like continue down my arms and did like some waving motion around my body. It could be hard to picture, but I'm sure that however you do picture it, it was probably the way he did it. Now once he was done with this, he then asked me if I felt a vibration throughout my body. I said to him, No I didn't, am I supposed to? He said yes. Then he began saying and trying to cover himself, "Well it only works on people who have cancer. So you don't have cancer." Well that is good to know isn't it. So everyone, I don't have cancer. But we are still teaching this guy.

We did have a overall hard week though. We didn't pick up any new investigators because we have been teaching the members and trying to get referral's from them. We haven't gotten any yet, but we did get permission from the District Leader to have us be able to tract again. So we will be tracting later today.

The Deleon Family canceled on our appointment yesterday. Both the parents work so it is hard to find a day that we can stop by. They are still interested and are trying to find an open day. We stop by their house occasionally to see how they are doing too. We do have a baptism this weekend for sure. Adam and Ryan Batista are their names. They are getting baptized on Sunday. The reason why is because their uncle is baptizing them and that is the only day it works for his work schedule. So they will have to wait a week to get the Gift of the Holy Ghost. I am really excited and I will put pictures on the next email with them.

Speaking of pictures, you can attach them to the email and send them to me. I can also do the same. But I will be sending home pictures next week because next week is Transfer week. Like I said before, me and Vaoga are staying here in Killeen.

One last thing is that this week Neil L. Anderson is coming down this week to speak to our whole mission! We are so excited to listen to him. It is all the way up in Ft. Worth so it is going to be another long drive, but it will be totally worth it. My spiritual thought of the week is Alma 32:28. Faith is like a seed. We used this scripture in one of our lessons this week when we talked about Faith.

I always look forward to reading your emails this week! I'm sorry if I didn't answer every body's questions. But if you do have questions that you want answered, please write me a letter. I have all day to write letters, and only 1 hour to email. I love all of you and thank everyone for your support! I hope ya'll have a fa nominal week!

Love Elder O'Brien

September 3, 2013

"Your Weekly Texan Update"

Talofa!! (hello in Samoan)

I hope everyone had a fantastic Labor day weekend!! I know that I did! We played basketball as usual. It has been really hot here lately. We had a storm last week so it has also been humid as well. So you can imagine my excitement to walk outside and immediately start sweating. But life is all good! This week we were told to go back to Utah by some guy in a car which was pretty funny. My companion laughed cause he is not from Utah. Biking this week has been good. I had to fix a flat tire on my bike which was a first for me so hopefully it holds. I am still sore from riding my bike mainly because I am on it every day. I would much rather be on bikes though than a car because we get to talk to more people.  

So a lot has happened with our investigators since week one. Remember that girl that i set a baptism date with that first week? Yeah she sucks. We cannot get a hold of her and she is never home. It's like she completely vanished. But whatever. We have started to teach members and get referrals from members so our lessons taught has dropped a lot and we didn't get very many investigators. However we did find a pretty solid family. They are the Deleon Family. They are Mexican, but speak English. They make fantastic Mexican food! It's nice and spicy! The guy has no religion background but was really interested in our message. He is a family oriented man so when he found out that the church is really big about families, you could imagine his excitement to learn how he can help his family.

Jonathan who I mentioned last week has been okay. We haven't really talked to him much because he has started school so it is hard to catch him sometimes. We do know that he is well on his way reading the Book of Mormon and does have questions for us. We have an appointment with him Thursday to answer some of his questions. Maddison is really progressing. We have committed her to be baptized and she said yes. But she has to get permission from her mom to do so because she is only 17. The mom used to be a Mormon and then she left that church. So hopefully she lets her be baptized.

There is another family that we found. It's the Ponilla Family. The mom and dad are both half Korean. The the dad, Joe is his name, is a big dude. Probably 6' 3" and a good 250 pounds. Not the typical short Korean. But we were able to give them a tour of our church building. Joe and his wife, Michelle, both said that there is something about the church building that they haven't felt before. They invited us to come to their house on Tuesday to teach a lesson so hopefully it goes awesome.

I also got the opportunity to go on an exchange with the zone leaders this week. His name is Elder Russell. He is from Spanish Fork, Utah and he is a pretty chill guy. We were able to teach some lessons that day and I really learned a lot from him. He is really good and starting lessons and really good at asking questions. He was able to give me some advice and things to study to help me have confidence in teaching. Which helped me a lot.

Next Wednesday we have Elder Neil L. Anderson coming to our mission!! I am totally excited for that! But I am also excited because I will be able to see Connor finally. I have been dying to see him. But I will also be emailing next Monday again. Cause of Labor day this week I was a day late. I was able to see a couple football scores this weekend when we walked into a house and saw the TV on. Kinda made me sad knowing that I won't watch football for 2 years, but, I will get over it. My thought for this week is 3 Nephi 11. This is when Jesus came to the America's. I read through this chapter this morning during my personal study and I loved it. I just want to thank everyone for their emails and their support! I am sorry I don't get time to email everyone back. I only have a limited time to email. Hopefully this week we can set another baptism date and bring people to this amazing Gospel. I love you all and thank you so much for your support!!

Love

Elder O'Brien

August 26, 2013

"Week 3 ha"

Hey yall!!!

So this week has been pretty great! We were able to pick up some solid investigators this week! we have taught them this week about the first 2 lessons, The Restoration and the Plan of Salvation. They responded really well. Their names are Maddison and Jonathan. We were able to give them Book of Mormons and they have been reading them. We were so happy to hear that. They accepted the invitation to go to church and they were so excited to come. Sunday comes, and they don't show up. I was like, Are You Kidding Me!!! But we have appointments with them this week, so we will have to tell them that there is no excuse to miss church. Haha. I was able to give a blessing to this baby that I feel sorry for. The parents are not the best. The husband comes to pick us up, and you cant even see the bottom of the car floor because of all the Energy drink cans in the car. He smokes and just isn't all the way there. The mom just doesn't really take care of the house, and I'm not going to lie, me and my companion were really scared to eat dinner there that night. But we did and gave that baby a blessing. I hope he turns out okay.

I was able to go on my first exchange this week. I switched spots with another missionary for a day. So I went to a different area with a new companion. The guy I was with was pretty cool, and the area was not as awesome as ours though. But that day we were able to commit one of their investigators to quit drinking and to a baptism date. So that was pretty cool! But like I said it was only for a day, and i was happy because like i said, our are was a lot better.

I am in a biking area, and after not biking for a couple years, I am pretty sore. Our area is kinda big for a biking area and it takes a long time to get from one side to the other. But on Friday, we made that long trek to the other side of our area and had a lot of success. We taught 9 lessons that day and were able to pick up 5 investigators. So we have a lot of investigators now, the only problem is that they are not good at keeping commitments. Like we have this awesome family that we taught that day. They agree with everything, what we have taught has blessed their lives, and they just have a hard time reading and knowing that the Book of Mormon is true. But I just don't think that they are reading enough and praying about it. We gave them a week to read and they said that they would and they read a page in it. Like come  on. I know that this is new but only a page??? Frustrating stuff. But oh well.

On our P. Days, we have a zone activity. I am so happy cause our zone activity is playing basketball. One of the Zone Leaders actually is from Kaysville, Nantz is his last name, and he is really good. Our zone is really great. We have a lot of older missionaries in our zone, so we are pretty experienced, both in basketball and in the Work.

My companion Elder Vaoga, has a really cool conversion story. He was converted into the church at age 16. But he was into like drinking, smoking and all that stuff. He had a lot of those addictions and just had, what he thought, was a really good life. One day he was at a lake, and his best friend jumped off a cliff into that lake and his a rock and was killed. That week he asked God why this happened and if he was really there. 2 days later, some missionaries came to his house and talked to him. Not only did they answer his questions that he had, but he changed his life completely. He then converted his whole family into the church and is the first person in his family to serve a mission. He is the youngest of 11 kids. So he had been through a lot, and he is a really great missionary.

Just a heads up, I will be emailing all yall on Tuesday next week since it is labor day. The Library will be closed that day so it would be hard to email yall. I keep everyone of you in my prayers and I hope you guys have a great week! My scripture of the week is Mosiah 7:33. Check it out!

Elder O'Brien

August 19, 2013

Tyler O'Brien	9:41 AM

"Week 2"

Hey Ya'll!!

I just want to thank everyone for your emails this week! I look forward to reading them each Monday! A lot of you had questions so hopefully I can answer them all. Monday is my Prep day. I only have 1 hour to email so i try to narrow down what happened this week. It has been pretty hot and humid here. We had a couple thunderstorms this week and the lightning was awesome!

This week has been a roller coaster week. We did not have very much success finding investigators on Monday and Tuesday. We had a lot of appointments with people that cancelled on us. I seemed like we were riding our bikes/Ferrari's all over our area just to be told 'no not today.' On Tuesday we had a girl text us named Danielle. Elder Vaoga and his other companion had been teaching here before I came here. We had a lesson with her last week and it went really well. But we got a text from her saying that she didn't want us to come over anymore. She found a church with her friend and chose that one instead. We were pretty sad and upset about that.

Wednesday I had my first zone conference. This is when all the zones that are in the southern part of the mission meet together. So the cities Waco and Temple join with us. I was able to see one of my roommates from the MTC there. We talked about the first week and stuff and we had about the same reactions. But President Ames and the AP's were able to come down and give us trainings. We had a lot of role play opportunities to help us incorporate what we were taught into our lessons. It was the longest meeting ever though. It started at 9 and went until 4 in the after noon. It totally ruined our prosiliting day. We didn't have very much success that day either because of that.

Thursday was about the same as this week. We had a lot of appointments scheduled and a lot of cancelled. But so far, only one person dropped us this week. We were able to talk to a couple people though that were not interested at all at first but then once we started talking, they finally agreed to let us come back.

So on Thursday I came back to the apartment kinda disappointed with what had happened this week. Both me and Elder Vaoga prayed really hard that night that we would be able to have a successful rest of the week. Thankfully our prayers were answered cause Friday was the most successful day I have had so far. We were able to teach 8 lessons and were able to pick up 6 new investigators. One of those 6 thought we were hitting on his wife and went to go get his gun. But we were able to show and prove to him that we were not here to pick up on his wife. We set a return date for this weekend, so hopefully that wont happen again.

Saturday and Sunday went by way too fast for me. Even though people kept canceling on us, we kept pushing forward to talk to everyone. We were able to have a second lesson with this woman and her family who are Catholic. Her whole side of the family though are Mormons so she just wants to know more about what we do and believe in. She seems very interested and has read through the Book of Mormon. So we can hopefully help her gain a testimony because she has already read through it! We were pretty impressed.

Sunday I had to give a talk. Thanks to Linda who was able to send me some valuable resources, I was able to talk about Covenants and Ordinances. I am starting to get to know the Ward Members a lot better. But I have a long ways to go to learn all the names. The Bishop here is really cool! And the members here that have us for dinner really know how to cook. Haha!

So I am starting to become more comfortable here. Even though sometimes people suck cause they cant remember appointments with us, they are still very nice and some are willing to listen and accept. I hope and pray that we will be able to set a baptism date this week and that I will be able to tell ya'll all about it.

 I love you all and have a fantastic Week!

August 12, 2013

Tyler O'Brien	9:48 AM (6 hours ago)
"First Week"

Hey Ya'll!!!

So this week was my first week! And holy cow this is going to be weird to get used to! That is wearing the shirt and tie everyday and getting up at 6:30. But this week has been very eye opening for me. I have always visioned me going up to doors and knocking and I will never forget the first door me and Elder Vaoga went to. But Elder Vaoga is from Samoa. His last name is pronounced as Vaona (The G makes a N sound). He is 20 years old and has been out here for 7 months. He loves to joke around and is a great teacher. We are going to be together for 2 transfers, or 12 weeks, in the city called Killeen. Killeen is at the bottom of my mission, and is about 3 hours South of Fort Worth. It is also one of the last places on my list of places to go on vacations. It is a Military town and there are people moving in  and out of houses all the time. The mission has this thing called the 12 week program which is just training and getting myself comfortable in the mission field. The weather down here sucks. It's like 100 degrees with 80% humidity. So you can probably imagine my enthusiam as I get ready to go outside for the day. I have never been so hot and sweaty ever! And the locals say that it stays this hot until October hits. Totally stoked for that month. haha

But back to that first door experience. I was so nervous that I didn't say a thing. I stood there as stiff as a board! The kids name was Talilee, and no I can't remember how to pronouce that. But after that door I started to settle down and actually talked about the Joseph Smith story at the next street that we tracted at. We knocked on this guys door and he let us in. His name was Richard. This guy is like 50 years old, but looks like he could bench like 500 pounds! We taught him the whole first lesson about the Restoration of the Church. We gave him a Book of Mormon to read and we set another appointment to come back to. I felt more relaxed once we got inside and out of the heat. We were also able to talk to 2 other people that day and got 2 return appointments. So my first day was pretty awesome. That was Wednesday.

Thursday was our planning day. For planning days, we plan from 10-2 for our next week. We got into depth for eveything that we plan. Set goals, figure out streets and appointments, etc. I never knew how organized I could be. Once that was over we went to our first appointment of the day. His name was Ken Patrick. We taught him lesson 2 which is the Plan of Salvation. He had a hard time understanding with the spirit world and the Kingdoms, but after a couple scriptures he was able to figure it out. We were able to track 3 streets after that. We taught 6 other lessons and get 3 new investigators. The reason why that number is off is because they can choose whether they want us to come back or not. After tracting, we visited other investigators and we have and just introduced myself to them. We followed up on commitments and left after that.

Friday I had my first Zone meeting. In this meeting, there was a lot of role playing in it. These meetings are designed to help us teach better and help recognize peoples needs. There was a lot of good advice given by not only our zone leaders, but other missionaries. However the kid in my ward, Connor Weaver, he is not in my zone. So no I have not seen him yet. The Zone meeting went from 10-2. So after the meeting, we had 3 appointments with investigators. 1 appointment cancelled and completely dropped us. The other 2 cancelled and rescheduled us for this week. We were able to tract more streets and I did finally get a door slammed shut on me. Usually the people here answer and kindly say no. This dude straight up looked as us and slammed it shut. It sucked I'm not going to lie. We didn't really talk to anyone that day so it was kinda depressing for me.

Saturday was a great day. We were able to talk to 4 people and they all asked for us to come back. We talked to this one woman though named Erica. She was like totally prepared for us. We got there and it was like a answer to not only her prayers, but ours. She has gone to one of our churches before and wants to know more. I extended the invitation to here to be baptized and she said yes and we also set a date!August 31. So within 3 days, I went from stiff as a board to inviting someone to be baptized! it was so cool! We invited here to church and she said she would be there!

Sunday came and I met the Bishop. He is a total cowboy with his accent and all. I was able to meet the Ward members and it was weird cause a lot of them have tatoos and stuff cause they are converts to the church. But they were all nice. None of our investigators showed up to church which was really depressing. But that just means we have to work harder this week to get them there.

Well thats my summary of the first week. Ill be talking to you guys in 7 days. I only have an hour to type emails so I try to summarize everything as best as possible. my new address is

Elder Tyler O'Brien

101 W. Central Express Way #1306

Killeen, TX 76541

Hope everyone is doing great! I love you guys

Elder O'Brien

Letter from Brother and Sister Ames...