April 13

I am leaving Santa Rosa.

These last 5 months here have changed my life.

I LOVE Santa Rosa, CA with all of my heart.

The members, the investigators, the crazy people on the street, the missionaries, my companion.

Santa Rosa has been amazing.

Leaving is just heartbreaking.  Gosh I do not want to leave.

I am being transferred to...

Rio Vista(:

It's an island kinda in the middle of the Sacramento River. At least I think it is... honestly I have no idea.  It's in the middle of nowhere haha

So just in case you are thinking, "man, Sister Bryant has been out on her mission almost a year now.  Maybe I should send her some love"...

 

My new address is:

301 S. 4th St. Apt C

Rio Vista, CA 94571

 

(:

But this area has been amazing.  We started with virtually nothing.  We had 2 investigators... 1 of which really wasn't interested at all.

And now we have 20... 4 of which will be baptized pretty soon.

It is devastating to leave.

But it's okay.  The Lord knows where I am needed.

It just proves to show that hard work brings miracles.  The Lord will bless you if you put forth that effort.

I am so grateful for this Gospel and for the opportunity I have to serve a mission.

I LOVE my mission.

It is the best thing that has ever happened to me.

So here are just a bunch of random pictures, just to give you a little taste of my love for this area.

March 29

So I have been the worst missionary in the whole world because I haven't written anything in quite a while about my adventures in Santa Rosa!

Mostly it is because I love it so much that I don't really have time to say anything.

But I think I will say a few words today.

I don't remember if I mentioned this, but back in November, Elder Ballard gave our mission some very specific promises.  He said that if we would contact 20 new people per day every day, and pray for our investigators to come to sacrament meeting, that they will and that our investigators will double and we will be able to baptize weekly!

And guess what! We are seeing the miracles being fulfilled!  So amazing!

We finally put it into practice and we have contacted, as of today, 1,107 people!  Amazing!

And yesterday, we had SEVEN investigators at Sacrament Meeting!

And we have 3 that are going to be baptized very soon!  We are so excited!!!

Miracles truly happen when you believe and when you are obedient. 

So... I just thought I would let you all know that. 

And it proves to me that Elder Ballard is truly an apostle of God!  He speaks for God!  And I am so grateful that we are able to watch General Conference and listen to them!

Get ready to receive some revelation!

I love you all. And I love my mission!

Love,

Hermana Bryant

March 10

So I have like 0 minutes to write this, just know that I am loving my mission more than ever right now.

Hermana Hardy is the best companion I could ever ask for.  We get along so well.  She always has me laughing.

Our area is amazing.  Sooo much potential!  It is crazy!

This last week was transfers.  And a few funny things happened.  

On Tuesday, we had Hermana Ellsworth with us.  Which was wonderful!  I love her!  And we were making brownies. Well, lately, our oven has just not been functioning correctly at all.  Whenever we turn it on, there are these SUPER loud cracking noises, and then it starts to stink like crazy and the fire alarm goes off.  So we had to stop our adventure of making brownies because of it, just because it started stinking so bad and everything.

So we opened all the windows and inspected our oven and nothing!

Then, I had this revelation to check the drawer underneath...

and I found this poor plastic plate.  That was once a Polar Bear/:

Apparently you can't put things that melt in the drawer under the oven.  Who knew?

On Tuesday night we had our last dinner as a Santa Rosa Spanish Branch.  I love all these missionaries so much!

In this picture they are making fun of me because I have gotten into a habit of putting my hand under my chin and smiling whenever I mess up... which is apparently always.  So yeah.  From left to right it is Elder Parker Albertson, Elder William Wright, Elder Eduardo Perez, Elder Bryant Nelson, Me, Hermana Lauren Hardy, Elder Mori Dunlap, and Elder Dallin Jeske.

And this my district.  Well... the best picture we could get.  I am going to miss them all too. Such a sad thing that everyone is changing!

I love them so much and I am so sad that some of them are leaving!

But the best story of the week is this HYSTERICAL lesson we had with one of our less actives.  We were teaching him the word of wisdom, which we knew would be a challenge for him because he owns a restaurant.  Anyway, we have been putting off and putting off teaching it and finally we knew we couldn't wait.  So we were teaching him in his restaurant and then all of a sudden he goes, "ladies, we are going to have to pause.  The wine guy is here".

We witnessed a full on wine tasting in the middle of our lesson on the word of wisdom!  It was hysterical!!!!

So funny that we couldn't help but take a sneaky picture.  Anyway, we think we are going to have to reteach it.  It was too funny.

I love missionary work.  It is so much fun.

Life is to be enjoyed, not endured!

Have a blessed week!

Love,

Hermana Bryant