Elder Brayden S. Jarnagin: Awesome Week and Training

Awesome Week! (From Monday, November 21, 2016)
We have had a super awesome week! This Monday we were able to go up to Fallon for our Zone activity where we just played sports, like you do when you are in an area in a city. It was fun to see everyone! On Tuesday, we went over to Jim Button's house. He is a less active member who has been reading through the standard works (Scriptures) and he is loving it. We read with him and invited him to pray before he reads and he was super excited to start! That was great to see because before he wouldn't have really thought to do so and probably wouldn't have tried it! It has been great to see them progress!

I have been studying how to teach the lessons in a simpler form and that has been great! I realized I needed to do that when I was on exchanges with Elder Bentti. We were teaching some of their new investigators who are Primary aged girls. I realized that I could do a lot better in teaching in a simple way that is powerful and can impact everyone. It has been fun/ humbling to go through the points and realize that there is a lot of points that I don't teach. I was able to apply what I learned in our lesson with the Funks on Friday. We were going to teach the Gospel of Jesus Christ and luckily, I had studied the points that morning, because I was able to learn and write down what I learned I was able to apply what I learned and teach the doctrine more simply and powerfully!
We had an interesting day on Saturday. We had two set lessons, both of which we had. The first was with Eric Soto, an investigator who hasn't been progressing for the 2 months we have been teaching him. We decided that it was time to talk about his goals for our visits, we talked about baptism and the importance of it. He said he wasn't interested in coming to church and he said no. I decided it would be good to see if he had any desire at all, just to learn more. I asked him if he wanted to know if what we taught was true. He said no. That was pretty sad to hear, but that lesson went well because I could tell Elder Abbott and I were doing our best to follow the Spirit and ask inspired questions. We then had a lesson with Jessica Bradley, a less active whose family are recent converts. Elders in the past had not been able to get them to progress and come to church and neither could we for a long time. She came last week and said this week that she was planning on coming this week as well which was kind of a shock. We are super hopeful that they will continue to progress! Sunday was amazing! The Funks came to church! They all loved it! It has been great to see them progress this far and we are so excited to help them progress towards the waters of baptism!

We had biscuits after District Meeting

Making biscuits

Elder Jarnagin says, "Someone really hung in there."

Training! (From Monday, November 28, 2016)
We have had a great week! On Tuesday, we were able to have another lesson with Jim Button and that was great! He talked about how he prayed before he started to read and how he has seen some blessings because of that! He said that he felt strongly impressed to give to some charities! The part that I thought was really cool was that he said that he was going to see his ex wife on Thanksgiving and he felt strongly impressed that when he sees her that he should forgive her! It was so amazing to see the atonement working in his life, changing him for the better!
We had a great day on Wednesday, Elder Steinberg and I on exchanges! We were able to teach Bruce Sanders and that was good. Bruce is showing more and more in lesson that he is really understanding the scriptures! We decided that we should go out to Smith Valley because we hadn't see the people out there in a long time and Brother Rowley, our ward mission leader had suggested that we go out and see the Schofield family. We did and they let us in, which they have never done before. We had a good lesson with Brother Schofield, really just to understand him and where he is coming from. I felt prompted just to ask him "Have you been a member for a longtime?" I was not sure what asking such a simple question could do, but I did it anyways. From that he really opened up to us about how God has been a part of his life and how and why he feels uncomfortable in church. That was amazing to see that one question can really make a great difference! We had a great Thanksgiving as well! We had dinner with the Hellers and that was great. They thought our typewriters were pretty neat/weird. After that, we went to the Funks and spent a good evening with them. They are such awesome people! We ended up just naturally talking about some questions that Sister Funk had and that was great! We have seen a lot of miracles, like the Funks coming to church again and their progression in the Gospel, and members that have been willing and ready to help us in the work, even at a moments notice! This weeks studies have been good as well, I finished the Book of Mormon and that is always a wonderful experience that strengthens my testimony. I had a bit of a struggle in choosing what should be the focus in this study of it. I decided to look for the commandments that Christ gives us through His prophets or Himself and what are the blessings from those. I'm not sure exactly why I am studying it that way, but I think it will be really helpful down the road and I have learned so much already! I am excited to train, the past couple of days my thoughts and studies have been focused more on how can I not only be exactly obedient, but how can I be a better example of obedience! It is going to be a great new transfer!
(Elder Jarnagin will be training a new Spanish speaking missionary who arrived to Nevada on Tuesday. We are excited for both of them!)

PS Ironing my new tie at the funks