12/12/11

Sorry, I have been really bad about updating Bryce's blog.  Here are his latest emails and look at the picture tabs to see pictures that he or others have emailed as well as through facebook.

Hey Dad!

Well it sounds like that was a really good trip.  How are things going out there?  How is everything working and has that project that we looked at still going well?

It sounds loke that you have a lot to do this holiday.  Well we are going to be planning on usuing skype this year for christmas.  I will have to figure out the time difference but  we will try to do it when it is chrtistmas eve for you guys.  We planned on talking to you at 8:00am here according to Thailand time.  I dont know when that is for you but I think that should put you at 5:00 pm back at your place.  If you could figure that out that would be great because I would use the internet but I can't do that hahaha.

Well I think that you would like my new comp.  He works for NASA.  He worked and when he goes home is going to continue to work on a moon rover.  He is only 22 years old and ends his mission close to the time that I hit my year mark.  Well he is realy cool and we joke around all of the time.  Also dad I found really cool laser pens here.  I would like for you to find out what is illeagal for those.  There is one that they have that is 5000 wats.  It started burning the case that the guy pointed it at.  I would guess that it is illegal but I just want to know before in case that I want to buy one hahaha.  My last comp gave me one that is only 500 wats and it goes way far.  We chase dogs with is on the 9th floor of our building at night.  You can also really easily point to stars very nicely and it is green.  The other powerful one is blue and it was so cool but super dangerous.

Well that is about all that I have right now.  Things are just going really well right now and I am probably the happiest have been on my mission.  I am working super hard everyday and am tired more than I ever have been but I feel so good every night.  Some days I feel like I get up and 10 min later I am going to bed again haha.  This time is flying by so fast.  Way to fast for me.  I feel the spirit so strong and answers come to me so fast and it is just awesome. I love you so much Dad.  Thank you for keeping me in your prayers and all that you do for me.  I love you so much.

Elder Bryce

Hey Momma!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well this week is really awesome!  I was a little scared to get a new companion but he is way awesome!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Him and I have so much fun!!!!  We joke around all of the time and he is really out going!  hahaha He is way fun and teaches really powerful.  The best thing is that he talks to peopole the same as he teaches lessons.  He is so outgoing in lessons just like he is normally.  Well just to tell you a little bit about him.  His name is Elder Olive and it is the first one that doesn't have a long name that I cannot spell haha.  He is 22 and he is from Hawaii.  Before he was a missionary he got a job at NASA as a computer engineer because he help design and build a dust sheild for a moon rover that they are going to be using soonish.  He wasnt going to serve at first and then he had a sudden desire to serve.  It was really cool.  He is a really good missionary and we have just been having a blast.  Things have been getting back to normal slowly.  We go and help people as much as we can but most people are getting finished or their house is still flooded.  We have started teaching some new investigators and those lessons have been really awesome!.

When you guys come here I will have to take you to a members place and he make the coolest fried ice cream that I have ever seen and it is soo good.  It is like french toast and ice cream!  I have been running about 2 kilos everyday so i make sure that i am burning it off after i eat it.  Not going to lie i have lost almost all of the weight that i gained in the MTC and am almost back to normal.  I feel great!  The spirit is so strong with us and I feel it everyday.  I also love christmas time here hahaha.  Our recent convert is in charge of our apartment building and she made them put up a bunch of Christmas decorations and she gives us refferals everyday.  It is way fun!  She even brought one of her friends to the service project that we had today.

This week has felt so good!  I feel like it is a fresh start but i did realize that I am starting to get old in the mission.  I have only 3 more transfers until I hit my year mark.  This time is going by way fast!  I always thought that 2 years was such a long time but I feel like I have no time at all to do anything!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

I wanted to tell you how much I love you Mom.   I make sure that everyone that I meet I tell them about you and Dad.  I love talking about you guys so much.  I have seen how much to gospel has blessed our family and it is so amazing how much it has.  I have been blessed so much out here.  I have not been able to see my progression but my old trainer Elder Gudmundsen says that I speak Thai really well and that I have changed a lot since I first got into country.  I have felt a little bit of a change but it is just a little weird because it is the first time that someone has been a ble to compare my growth.  I feel so good right now Mom and I just feel the love of Christ in me all of the time!!!!!!!  I love you so much and for the whole skype thing we planned on talking to you at 8:00 am our time but we dont know what time that is for you haha.  I love you all so much thank you for all that you have done for me and I thank you so much!!!!!!!!!!  I dont think that  I could ever pay you back for what you have done for me except build those stairs that Adam said he would hahaha.  I love you so much Momma!

Elder Bryce

12/7/11

Hey Momma!

Thank you for the Christmas package.  Sorry I cheated a little bit and I looked in my stocking and I took all of the pictures detached the candy and put all of the candy back into the stocking but kept the pictures out hahaha.  It was weird to see all of those people hahaha!  Now I feel like they are all right here with me.  I think that is one reason why I dont get home sick is if I have a picture with you guys with me I feel like you are here with me the entire time haha.

I have a few pictures from p day and the baptism that we had this last week.  This week is going to be interesting.  My comp is moving and I will be getting a new comp and I really dont know the area so I just have to really use my faith and pray really hard hahaha.

We have basically been serving this week and will be for a while.  Some of the area is still under water so we can't help a whole lot right now but we help as much as we can.  Sorry for this email I am really tired.  We have basically just not stopped moving since we got here.  We have had to go all over Bangkok to get things taken care of and haven't had a moment to really rest for a second.  I love it so much though.  So much is getting done and it has just been nice to work all of the time.  So for Christmas I will be able to skype.  So that will be really cool.  I love you so much Momma!  Thank you for the Christmas tree and the fake snow haha we have been having fun with it.  I took some pictures too so I think that you will like it haha.  I love you so much mom.  Thank you for your prays for me and I have felt them help me in the work.  I love you and everyone so much.  I pray for you everyday.  Sorry just a side not before I stop but could you give Matt my email.  I want to hear from him.

-Elder Bryce

Hey Dad,

Well this week has been a little different hahaha.  We have been cleaning most of the time here.  We have been walking around in the area that is still flooded in rubber boots and just asking people what we can do for them.  We cleaned and built a wall for our branch president and then we cleaned some of his house.  It was pretty fun because we caught a lot of fish too hahaha it was great!.  It sounds like the ward is doing well.  I know that is one thing that we are focusing on is serving the less active members now and getting them back to church and getting them involved as much as we can in the teaching process.  Many of them have just gotten lazy or they just forget what happened to them during their conversion but people are starting to come back to church.

One thing that all of the senior missionaries told us to tell our parents is to tell us to tell you that you all need to serve a mission as a couple and that the world doesn't have enough of you right now to help the church.  We eat lunch with them every once in a while and they always ask about our parents and when they are going to serve their missions.

Not much has happened this week but I do have some cool pictures that I will send in moms email to everyone.  We got to see some cool stuff.

I love you so much dad and I will talk to you next week.

-Elder Brycee

11/27/11

 

Hey Dad!

Well it is really weird because in your emails you always say that it is not getting very cold and the girls always say that  it is freezing and they really don’t know what to do hahaha so what is it really like over there hahaha.

I can't believe that the elk haven’t come down yet.  This late in the season too.  Sounds like you all had a good time duck hunting.  I was talking with my comp and he told me that when I get home he wants me to help him get into hunting hahaha.  I told him to just look you up and that you would help him out so that he wouldn’t have to wait for a year before I get home. Christmas is big here.  I wouldn’t think that it was but everyone loves it.  Not a lot of people put up lights except for bad places.  But most foreigners do and they are in very big neighborhoods.  Thanksgiving was way fun and really weird.  I have not been in a room with that many people who could speak English in a very long time.  We had everything that you would have in a regular thanksgiving dinner though.  They even were watching snoopy in English!  It was way weird.  It felt good when the Thai missionaries that were there came up to us and started talking with us in Thai.  It was funny because they sat at a different table with all people who could not speak Thai.  it was a good time for them to practice their English skills hahaha.

I love you dad and thank you for that story it really helped me out a lot because I was concerned with that same thing.

I love you so much dad and thank you for everything that you have taught me.

Elder Brycee

Well today I have to hurry.  I got one package and I guess that the other one is at the office.  Not much happened this week but we are doing a lot of service for our area and with a lot of missionaries.  The water is going down there so we might get in there this week.  We just need to buy boots and then we are able to go.  Other than that not much has happened this week.

We did have a really cool experience this last week.  One of our investigators got an answer to her prayer.  She said that she prayed about the book of Mormon and that she heard a still small voice from above her tell her that it was true and that she needed to read it everyday and to apply what it says to do in the book.  She is so ready for baptism but all we are waiting for is for the flood to be over so that we can have church again in our branch.  She is so excited about the gospel and everything that we teach her.  She loves us so much and she loves all of the members too and she just loves everything about the church.  We also are helping another area teach this one guy that is way awesome! He is the security guard at their apartment and one day Elder Stott and Elder Alstom just bought him a cake and sang happy birthday to him on a random day and they are just really nice to him and so one day they asked him if he would like to learn about Christ and he said that he really wanted to learn because they were his friends.  Just being a really good example to people really helps them see that we are messangers of Christ and that we have something very important.  Sorry this one is short but I still have to email my president.  I love you so much mom.  I am grateful to have you as my mom and raising me into the gospel.  thank you for being the best mom in the world.  I love you so much and thank you for your example and your support and your testimony to help me grow and learn.  I love you so so so much mom and i am grateful for everything that you have given to me.

elder brycee

ps this year i will see you guys on skype.

11/21/11

 

Hey Momma!!!!!!!!!!!  Ok since I never answer your questions I will answer them now so I don’t forget hahahaha. I have not gotten my package yet.  It is at the office but I went there to get it and the office elders put it into their car and they left because they were going to give it to me and they never met me hahahahaaha so I should get it within the next week or two weeks.  Probably the same time that I get my Christmas package hahahahaha.  No I have not gotten a chance to go to my area.  It is still flooded but this week we are going to try to rent a boat and get some supplies to our investigators and members there.  The Church in our area might be dry by Christmas but they are still not sure because people are saying that there is a lot of water still in the North that really needs to come down so who really knows haha.  We have been able to teach our investigators which is nice.  Some of them are coming to the church here and we just teach them after.  One of them is a lady who is really rich but she has a very soft heart.  She loves Christ!  She is willing to obey every commandment and she really loves the church.  We taught her the law of chastity and she said that she loved this church and knows that the restoration is true because no other church really teaches this law.

She gained a testimony right in front of us that it was all true!  She loves the Book of Mormon and she really wants to be baptized asap.  We gave her a date for Christmas day but she is ready so we are going to be baptizing her asap.  She really is ready.

The only thing that I can think of is to send razor blades and starbursts.  and also my camera is not working anymore.  I heard it is expensive to get repaired here and I was worried about that.  It just won’t take any pictures so I was wondering what I should do about that?  We are not allowed to eat food off of the street anymore or anything with rice because of the water.  So we have had to eat foreign food and that is really expensive. That is really awesome about football!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It was really odd.  Before I left Buriram I actually saw a Thai newspaper with American football results hahaha I loved it haha.

That is really wierd about Ciara and tanner I will tell you why in a different email why.

This week was really cool.  We have done a couple of service projects and one of them I had something really cool happen.  We just started working and I started to talk with a guy who was working security for the water plant that we were working at that day.  We just talked and I shared my testimony and he taught me some stuff about Thai and I taught him English.  Later that day he had to go do something else but right before I left he came up to me and gave me some Oreos.  When Thai people give a gift to a foreigner it is a pretty big deal.  It’s not huge but it really means something special.  It means that they respect you and thank you for something that you may have done for them.  We bowed to each other and then I had to go.  He was a really awesome guy.

Yesterday was really good too.  We went to a members house to teach a referral that they gave us.  This family is so funny and they joke all of the time hahaha.  They love us and were sad that we might be going to our area this week.  It was a really good lesson and we felt the spirit really strong in that lesson.  This family is so cool here.  It really reminded me of you guys hahaha they were very sarcastic.

Ok about my new comp.  His name is Elder LeSueur.  He is from Arizona and he is the last member of his family.  He is way funny and I have learned a lot from him.  We are setting goals and really wanting to improve.  He actually goes home in April.  Him and I joke around all of the time and have not really had any problems.  He is way different than I am but he is so much fun to be around hahaha.

I love you so much Mom and everyone at home.  I miss you but I know that the Lord is taking care of all of you for me.  I love you.

Elder Bryce

Dad make sure you send pictures.  I have one person here who wants to see them even more than I do haha I forgot to tell you some stuff haha.  Right now we have 10 elders in the house.  It is a little packed but way fun hahaha.

This week we get to eat thanksgiving dinner 2 times.  One is with a Thai family who just likes to celebrate it and the other is with foreigners in Bangkok.  I am way excited hahaha.

One other thing is last week I thought about grandma. I pulled out her picture and I started to cry a little.  Then I opened my PMG to a random page and it was on the Plan of Salvation and that made me stop.  I don’t have time right now but I love you so much and I wanted to thank you for all that you have done for me.

Elder Bryce

An interesting week

 

Hey Mom and Dad!

  

That is one thing that I have been working on now is just being bold but also not being overbearing.  President Smith and Elder Gong said something really cool today in Zone Conference.  They said that the difference between the two is that being bold is having the spirit with you and being over bearing is leaning to our own understanding and not really focusing on the spirit so if it feels right refer him the Missionaries.  Tell Tyler and Creed that I said hi and that i am doing well and tell the members of the ward the same thing that ask about me.  Well this moves has been interesting.  I thought I would be leaving Buriram on that Wednesday or Thursday and it turns out I got a call from the Ap’s Monday night saying that I needed to get out of Buriram by 8:00 the next morning hahah I didn’t start packing until that night because we had stuff to do and then we had to go and teach.  It was a very interesting two days after that.  I had no idea how crazy it was until I got here.  Over half of my zone are not in their areas.  I have not even seen my area.  It is a place called Saphan Mai.  The water  is up to peoples chests and it is dangerous to go in the water.   After I got here I learned that my comp wasn’t even in Bangkok yet hahaha that was actually really funny when I learned that so I was staying with 2 other elders for 2 days and they were not able to work because we had to buy food storage and the traffic is terrible now because a lot of the roads are closed.  After that I got a call from the Ap’s that said that I was going to be meeting my comp at the bus station that next morning.  I finally got to meet him and now we only have about 4 weeks in the transfer and we can’t work in our area.  It sounds stressful and it is a little bit but it has actually been a really fun adventure hahaha.  I might move back out of Bangkok again until the flood waters are gone and people said that it could be 2 weeks to a month before the waters are gone.  This has not happened for over 60 years.  And that one was not as bad as this.  I had no idea how bad it was until I got here.  In the Esan we had no idea what was going on until this all happened and now I know.  The good news is that the Lord is preparing the hearts and the minds of the people to receive the Gospel.

We actually had a person really come up to us and very meanly say "thank the Lord" .  She I’m sure was Buddhist and I judged her for a small moment.  I thought for a second and then I felt a feeling of guilt.  I don’t know what she has experienced or what the flood has done to her house and then I saw her as a daughter of God.  It was a really small but a very cool experience.  So I will tell you a little bit about the house that I am in right now.  Well there are 8 elders in the house right now.  The other companionships are able to go back to their areas but we are the only ones that are not able to go back.  So we work in a place called Bangnaa.  It is hard because we don’t know where to go to invite because that house is actually in the sisters area and same with the area around the church.  But we do the best that we can and we plan for our investigators.

Sorry I am almost out of time now but I just wanted to share a really cool experience before I stopped.  So Elder Gong is a member of the 70.  He has a mission tour and the question was asked how can we have to the same desire as the 3 Nephites.  He answered and  said that we need love for the people that we serve and that desire will come over time.  As we read the scriptures and study about Christ and really be like Him.  It was amazing to hear that for me.  I just felt the spirit tell me what I need to start doing more.  It felt really reassuring when he said that and I felt very strong after that.

I love you all so much Thank you Mom and Dad for everything that you do for me.  Thank you everyone for your prayers.  I love you so much and I know that everything is true.

Elder Bryce

PS I have been having some leg problems and I will keep you updated on that.  And I will keep you updated on everything else.  I love you so much and please pray for the Thai people right now.  They need it.

Bryce is moving to Bangkok

Hey Momma!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Well it sounds like everything is going very well back at home. But here we started singing Christmas songs when October started. People kind of acknowledge Halloween here but it really isn’t that big or anything so for me it was just a kind of normal day for us hahaha and very boring.  Although we did dress up in our house that day and took some pictures because we had 4 elders there.  But here people really don’t go out and trick-or-treat.  They might do it more in Bangkok but they really don’t do it here.  Really the only thing that is really exciting is the rice harvest right now.  I will actually be helping on Wednesday with one of our investigators.  I have heard that they have Christmas here but its not very big.  It is big with the members but that is about it.  I am going to be serving in Bangkok so I actually might get Thanksgiving dinner because most of the Missionaries there go to the international branch and they eat with families there.  By the way I am going to be moving to Bangkok.  I am going to miss Buriram a lot!  There are so many people here that I love and that I want to still help and see them baptized but I know that the Lord has work for me to do somewhere else.  These last couple of weeks were just really awesome!  Having 4 elders here was really awesome and really helped with the work here.  We have so many investigators that are really willing to follow Jesus Christ.  I love them all.  Some of them are more different than others but they all mean so much to me.  They are really my best friends.  I am really going to miss my comp after this transfer too.  It has been so much being with a Thai elder.  I have learned so much from him and him and I are now just best friends.  I actually did show a picture of Ciara to him and he wants to marry her.  hahahaha He said that he would go to America to marry her if he has too.  hahaha we just laughed after that.  My new comps name is Elder Lesuir or something like that.

Ok experiences for the week.  We had a really good lesson with the Filipino family that we have been teaching.  They have so much faith and really want to be baptized and they understand everything and how important it all is.  Yesterday was probably the coolest lesson I have had since I have been here.  Yesterday we just asked a couple of questions to see if there was anything that they still didn’t understand or didn’t know.  While we were asking we started teaching about baptism and the mom asked who can baptize.  We explained the Priesthood to them and then we started talking just about parts of the  church and how it works.  Her daughter usually never talks in lessons and we were really concerned with her for a while because we would ask her questions but she would never respond and she would never participate in lesson.  We found out how she was feeling the other day.  She is so excited about it all.  She was asking about how soon she can be baptized and then she asked about being a missionary.  She actually added Ciara as a friend on facebook so tell cc to accept her and to start talking to her because she wants to practice English.  Teaching this family has been a very special experience in my life.  This family has been willing to give up things just to follow Christ and his true church.  In another lesson with them they had a friend who is catholic and the lesson before he had some problems with the 10 commandments and that we should only pray to God and not to saints.  The next lesson he said that he prayed about it and that it felt right that he needed to stop praying to saints.  We invited him to go to church but he said that he would be fired from his teaching job if he didn’t go to the catholic mass.  He then said that he is going to pray to heavenly Father to find another job so that he can join this church.  These people are so amazing mom.  I cannot thank my Heavenly Father enough for the opportunity to share his message with them and also to learn from them.  I want to see them in white so badly.

I think these last couple of weeks I have really started to uncover things that I would have never thought of before and I don’t want this to ever end.  Noticing the changes that this gospel brings in the lives of others is something that cannot ever be fully comprehended.  There is nothing else in the world that can do the same thing.  I love you all so much.  Thank you for all that you are doing and all that you have done for me in this life to help me grow and be the person that I am today.  I love you all for everything that you do.

-Elder Bryce

10/30/11

Hey Dad!

That is a really good looking deer.  I am pretty sure that we don’t have those here.  I have something that is kind of like it in the north but it is really weird looking and thee tai people just don’t think it is that cool.  I think that there might be some in the Bangkok zoo but I haven’t been so I really don’t know.  I hear that they have a lot of American animals at this zoo hahaha.  I am going to be really excited for this next story.  Tell Ryan Jess and Troy and the Moeller clan that I said hi and that I am doing well.  That sounds like just the perfect hunt for you.  The animal wasn’t big so it was easy to carry and you didn’t have to do a whole lot to get it done hahaha.  I would say that it is the dream hunt for me hahahah.  This week was a really fun week.  We have had 4 elders in my area and they are just the coolest people in the world hahaha.  We have fun all of the time and it is really cool to see how much work we are able to get done with 4 people.  Not a lot has happened this last week.  Just everyone is trying to get back up on their feet from the flooding that has been going on.  There are a lot of camps that are outside of Bangkok for everyone.  All Missionaries are safe and are able to work in other areas of the mission.  My comp loves the pictures that you sent.  He said that he kind of wants to do the same thing one day but killing animals is really weird for people here because they value some of them just like a human soul.  I think that is way cool about those people getting baptized.  Now the ward just needs to make sure that they stay active in the church and do all that they can to also start talking to their families.  I really think that is the coolest thing in the world.  I love you so much Dad and i love seeing these pictures of you and just hunting hahaha my comp loves them just because he never sees them.

I love you so much Dad!  You really prepared me for this work.  I love you and I will talk to you next week.

Elder Bryce

Hey Momma!!!!

Ok so to answer your questions.  I wont get my Halloween package for the next couple of weeks because of everything that is going on.  The Mission right now is just really disorganized because of the flooding.  We can’t even get new planners or Book of Mormons or anything from Bangkok right now. I don’t know what is going to happen with transfers meeting until everything gets back to normal.  I wish I did know but no one really knows.  We have asked all of our leaders but they really all don’t know either.  Elder Osbourne and Elder Grover came here.  I knew Elder Osbourne in the MTC.  He is way funny and Elder Grover is just awesome!!!!!!  We have all had a blast here in Buriram and with 4 elders here we have been getting a lot of work done.  I have been doing a lot of walking lately hahaha.  I wish I could tell you more but that is basically all that I know about transfers.  We might find out more this next week but everything is just really up to the flooding and how much water is going to be let out of Chaing Mai.

I really hope that he is really ready too!  I told him that in the letter that i sent him but i still haven’t gotten his letter.  We haven’t gotten mail for 2 weeks so it is probably waiting.  Well This week was really really fun.  We started inviting by a Baptist church and have found a lot of people that are really interested.  They are all familiar with Christ but really don’t know what he did for all of us because most churches don’t ever teach that very well or they just don’t know themselves.  Most of the other churches here really do not like us because of how bold we are in telling everyone that we are the only true church on the earth.  They really don’t like to hear that.  They also just don’t take the time to study about it and some of our converts are unsure about there testimonies because of some of these churches.  It is really sad because they say that they follow Christ but they try to destroy the faith of other people.  This week all of our investigators are doing really well.  Sorry not a lot has happened this week so this might be a short email.  We did have a really good experience with a guy named John.  He is from England and he came here because he had no more family or friends that were alive in England.  He is just a lonely man that doesn’t have a purpose now.  We talked to him for a while and then asked him to pray.  He prayed and asked God what he should do in this life because he has no one to talk to and he just doesn’t know what to do with his life.  He told us that hi goal is to just make everyone smile a lot more.  He builds awesome vehicles that really just make people smile.  He loves us and after his prayer he was crying.  We told him that God has a plan for all of us and that we were going to teach what his purpose is next lesson.  Then the next day he couldn’t meet with us.  I have never seen a man like that cry and be so lonely.  The Gospel is what he really needs in his life.

I love that story too btw in Mosiah. (The King Benjamin speech story). We just talked about it the other day and had the same thought hahaha. I love you Mom so much!  I really wish I would have done a better job telling you and expressing it to you and Dad whenIi was still home.  I love you so much and I know that the Lord is watching over you for me.

Elder Bryce

p.s.  I cant believe that you almost didnt get the machine hahaha

Hey sorry I forgot something. So the other day we met this family that was exactly like ours!  The mother was so nice and really liked foreigners.  Her sister married man from Germany and he was really awesome to this family and even did all of the ceremonies that they do for Buddist weddings and even wore all of the clothing.  This family fed us dinner although it was not the best but they were so nice.  We ate fish, rice , crickets and veggies.  That was about it hahaha it was ok but the fish was weird.  You would basically eat the entire fish.  Sorry that was a little extra story for the week