Good Day, Mate!

Wow another week down under has flown by! Thank you Aly Brignone for the letter I just loved it!

Building the Kingdom:
Brendan Burke- He is getting baptised this weekend but there is still so much that we need to do it is not even funny! It is stressing the daylights out of me! But I trust the Lord will see me through! He didn’t make it to church this week which was killer and his fellowship (his girlfriend) is in Thailand so hopefully he will stay focused!

Felicity O’Brien- We had to move her date back a week but she is still wants to be baptised! But she is kind of living with this guy (This guy is named Ben and is an illegal immigrant from Tonga who is a member who referred her) she didn’t come to church and she is picking up smoking again which is not good!

So this next week will be intense it was not the best week but we will live and work hard!

My Week:
So remember that drunk who wanted to beat up Elder Vernon? Well, we ran into him this past week again and yes, he was drunk but he liked Elder Chan more than Elder Vernon!

We had a neat experience where me and Elder Bybee (we were on exchanges) were walking down the street and we heard a lady yell for us from her car. It ended up being a less active who was just sitting thinking in her car that she could really use a priesthood blessing and then two missionaries happened to be walking down the street. So we set something up where we could come by and give her a blessing. It was way good! It was my first experience where I know that the lord put me at the right place at the right time!

I love the Gospel! I just wanted to say that! This past week has been a battle! Emotionally and spiritually! I am not going to lie; I don’t know what to do half the time! I have only been out four months and now I need to help another missionary become a missionary. It is the most scary and hard thing I have ever done! I am stressed all the time and I am having a hard time being me! But I am finding the Lord is always there he is holding me up all the time! And I know that this is His work! That through Him I can rescue people and bring them to a knowledge of where they came from, that they have divine parentage, what the purpose of this life is and what they can become! It is such a humbling calling but I love it! I have cried so much! Haha I am such a baby, but the Lord has heard my pleading and he has answered my prayers in so many ways! I love being a missionary even though it is so hard and stressful and tiring and what not but it is so rewarding1 I know this is Jesus Christ's work! Because if it wasn’t I would have messed it up a long time ago! Thank you for your love and support I couldn’t do it with out you!

Elder Landon Brough

Is Amare Really Going to Cleveland?

Sorry I didn’t inform you about me having preparation day on Tuesday this week we had temple so please forgive me! That is so exciting for Nathan Usevitch! Tell him congtrats and that he is in my prayers! Let me know about anyone else who has gotten their call. Sounds like you are all good. That makes me happy! Grandma wrote me this week and she said she wanted to send me a package and she told me to request some stuff, tell her a cooking timer, one of those you wind up, a thing to hang my ties up on, then Mike and Ikes and Fastbreaks. That would be great! I love you all and when am I going to get a picture of my family!!!!

Thank you Dalton, Morgan, Alix, Elder Andersen, Seth, Terri Family and Grandma and Grandpa Brough for the letters this week I loved them.

Building the Kingdom:
Brendan Burke- Still has his date set for Feb 27 and all is good with him. He is doing so well and he enjoyed stake conference this past week!

Felicity O’Brien- Set a baptismal date for March 13 so that is way exciting we went to go teach her and she said she read the first 27 chapters of the Gospel principles manuel so I just said do you want to get baptised and she said yeah and I was like sweet as mate!

So we have two dates with our two investigators so that is good but we are frantically looking for new investigators.

My Week:
It has rained so much this past week it is crazy! But I am still working because I know my wife will be prettier!

A little more about Elder Chan, his parents are both converts and he was born in the church and he has a 16 year old sister. He lived in Illinois for 9 months as a foreign exchange student and he is a mean cook! I really like that aspect! I love him though, he is excited to be here and I am excited to have him.

Driving here is crazy! Someone told me that Sydney is the worst planned for city in the world and you can see it! Roads go everywhere and the lanes are tiny and it is just crazy, and me as a silly American driver has a hard time figuring it out! I accidently drove on the right side of the road, I didn’t realize what I was doing until I saw a car coming at me head on honking its horn. It was scary but nothing happened, no worries! But man it is crazy here there are no stop signs it is all give way here and they have heaps of round-abouts! I have gotten so many fingers thrown at me it is not even funny!

Nothing else has really happened this week lots of tracting and street contacting trying to find new investigators and no luck, we have started to work with members because I realized that is where the refferals come from!

Not the most exciting week but it works for me. I will send you my love to those who wrote me and I would love to have love sent my lovely way. I would just love that!

Love Elder Landon Brough

It's a Boy!!!

I loved your email and sounds like everything is well. Well I am short on time because my new companion had problems with his email account so here I go.

So thank you Alix Hague for the letter! I really enjoy letters from anyone but I really enjoy pictures as well! But just a letter is fine too!

So let me do a bio on my son… Elder Chan, exactly like Jackie Chan, but no relation. Elder Chan is from Hong Kong and he speaks Cantonese and Mandarin and English… kind of, but we can communicate. I was a little bummed at first because I thought how am I going to relate to him but I found that we share many similarities the most important is that we both have a strong testimony of Jesus Christ and we both want to work our tails off and be obedient so as long as he wants to do that I am excited to be with him, just as long as I don’t have to learn Cantonese. That stuff is confusing as!

The Assistants to the president moved into our flat and I love them. Their names are Elder Sunnex and Elder Boardman. Elder Sunnex was trained by Elder Lamereaux (I think I misspelled that) and he is Maori. Elder Boardman is from Draper Utah and I believe he comes from English descent but I could be wrong. I love them both and they help me so much because I have so many questions!

A little more information on the Mission merge. President Simmons has been out 6 months so I will finish my mission with him. And my mission bnoundaries will be pretty much all of New South Wells except the south west quarter. It is going to be pretty big, nothing like Elder Joshua Smiths mission but it will be pretty big! The headquarters for the mission are not decided yet but I believe they are going to keep them in the North mission.

Oh and mom they do have Outback steakhouse here.

So while I was waiting for elder Chan to get here I was put with another missionary who was training and that missionary happened to be Elder Colton Dana. So He and I got to work together for a few days and it was so much fun! We were able to teach a few lessons to people. I just loved it. We even ran into a really weird guy who came out to us while we were talking to this other guy. He was wearing this necklace made out of chicken bones and chicken feet and he was video taping us and he kept on saying we were a cult and that he kidnapped some missionaries in Newcastle and that he beat them and stuff and Elder Dana with a big grin on his face just said we teach about Jesus Christ, would you like to learn? Of course the guy said no, but I am so glad I got to share that experience with a friend.

So investigators… nothing has happened with anyone except Brendan. So we taught him this past Friday about recognizing the spirit and I felt I did a bad job, it was decent but it could have been better. Then this Sunday we had teastimony meeting which was way good and then gospel principles class was rocking as well! We then went to Elders Quorum. This was the first time he has gone to Elders Quorum and of course they talked about Home Teaching the whole time. Yeah we read from first Nephi but nothing that would apply to him. Later that evening we went to Melissa Hale’s (Brendan’s girlfriend) cousin’s baptism. The service was great and after the meeting I just asked him how he felt and what he said shocked me! He said today in Elders Quorum when we read first Nephi I felt something, Elder Brough I think we need to reschedule. We have a date for February 27 and I am so excited I just pray I can do everything I can to help him so keep him in your prayers!

It was a great week! Lots of ups and heaps upon heaps upon heaps of downs but those few moments were I am on top of the world trumps all the discouraging times! I love being a father, a friend but above all a servant of the lord. I love you all and thank you so much for your support!

Elder Landon Brough