February 24th, 2014

Another great Transfer in Republic and I am staying here with Elder Padilla, there will never be a dull moment with him!

This week was crazy as usual we finally have a good teaching pool again a lot of our people came back and we have two new investigators so they are keeping us busy along with less actives and member visits.  Now onto spiritual stuff. We had three really great lessons this week with investigators .. not that the others were not great but that lesson was just really good. # 1 One investigator took a turn for the better when we were just about to drop them due to not progressing but then BAM  the spirit did its thing! :)  #2 is a guy we found through street contacting and he is super legit, not interested in being persuaded in changing religions at this time. We said, "Perfect we will do the informing and let God give you your answer, that is all we ask!"  He said that he could do that so we just had our first lesson with him and it went great   #3 we had been spinning our tires with an investigator and we had what I call a  "Come to Jesus Meeting '' and we were frank and we asked questions and such .. pretty much now we are all on the same page!

 

Now to some fun stories.  We went to contact some referrals this week  and I will just want you all to know that contacting or let alone just finding a new address here is way crazy!! (especially since my GPS broke) So now we get maps out and such and luckily I have a good sense of direction so that helps a little. Between odd sets of directions and roads that the GPS knew the names of but there no posted signs, it makes for some interesting times!!  On this particular day we were following the directions correctly and the road got narrow and then the snow got deep.  It was to late to turn around so we keep going pushing snow in front of our jeep and trying to stay on the packed part where vehicles have gone before.   I was looking for a turn around at this point or the house that was suppose to be here by now and there was nothing and no place to turn around and deep ditches on both sides!   The packed snow was pushing us on and off and some how we didn't sink all the way down to get fully high centered!!

The bad part dun dun dun ... so the packed snow pushed us off due to two different ruts and than BAM, we were high centered and spinning aimlessly and in the middle of no where.   We were on the top of Vulcan Mountain Road Curlew, WA, no one around.  Lucky me I wasn't in proselyting clothes and I had a machete with me so we cut down a bunch of little pine trees, dug out the under part of the Jeep and dug trenches behind the tires, filled everything with pine bowels to spread our weight to help us get out.  Elder Padilla isn't strong enough to push a car out and he is from Arizona, he has no clue how to drive a car to get it unstuck from a situation like this in the snow (it takes skill and throttle control ).  I put him in the driver seat and with trial and error and a lot of learning and me pushing with all my little heart, we got out!  Elder Padilla was pumped and he just learned a new skill!  And we were saved!!  But ya two hours to get unstuck  with only a machete :)  After we got out we then we had to back out in reverse for four miles, I kept track but it was the longest back out ever!!

Now you may ask, "Josh you have AAA why not call a wrecking service?"... ahhahaha  no cell coverage! And its not like we could have walked to a house for help because the last 6 or so houses we past didn't have a car,  they were just little shacks.  Good times!

We also found a sweet place to go climbing and see mountain sheep. There are even stairs at one point so we can get even higher .. but not to worry we only climbed half of it and then we will do the rest next p-day with the Canadian Elders.

 On march third is my 9 month mark which is crazy!  I can't believe it's already been 9 months, time is flying out here in the mission field! 

All in all I am doing good, having fun, and trying to do great missionary work.  I hope you all have a good week!  Thank you for all the pictures of little ones and all your cute faces!  Stay safe and warm and do something crazy this week!

Enjoy the pictures!  Nothing to specific, just fun stuff we've seen lately!

Love you all,

Elder Joshua Braman 

Curlew Mountain

We had a trip down to Colville for Zone meeting and on our way down we took  Mustache pictures and some weird videos but ya that was fun to have the trip over the pass made interesting!!!