Thanksgiving service

Heller!!

Not sure if you have ever seen a deer jump over a fence or not...ITS SO COOL! We saw this deer on the side of the road on our way to Seymour and we stopped to take a picture but this stupid truck past us and scared it and it literally turned into a reindeer, graciously jumped and glided over the fence for a good minute and then landed. We also saw a Buck do the same thing except it was running from a dog. Lots of animals were seen this Thanksgiving on the way to Seymour. It was basically a Texas Zoo.

Last Sunday Elder Davis and I fasted for a new investigator. After Church we got a referral for a lady named Victoria. She requested a Bible like everyone does. We were able to deliver her bible to her and she was so cool!! She said she hasn't been going to church and she lives with her mom, son, and 2 grandson's. With the Holiday's we haven't been able to meet with her again but she said she might just surprise us and come to church!!!!!! she didn't..

We went to Quanah on Wednesday with the Johnson's to do service at the hospital. They have a cool program where they feed people who need help with Thanksgiving and so we got to slice some Turkey and ham. We also got to do dishes and I must say that commercial dishwashers are literally so fun! Washing dishes in 1.5 minutes is a blast! Elder Johnson decided he is going to be a dishwasher when he gets home! There were also 3 sisters from the Triangle Ranch and the 2 sisters serving in the Childress Branch. Our church was representing well. Quanah is actually right outside the mission boundary but President is so cool and let us go! They had free hot chocolate and an endless supply of multiple coffee creamer flavors so we tried all of them and Elder Johnson fell in love and is now addicted.

There are these former investigators who have met missionaries for years here. Their names are Kenny and Michelle. They invited us for Thanksgiving so we went by the day before to make sure we were still invited and they invited us over for ribs that night and then Thanksgiving the next day! They love feeding us! We are hoping we can start teaching them but they just went on a cruise and now they are going on another one and then going to Vegas so not sure if we will catch them before they go...Wish us luck!

We saw Tom this week. He has been M.I.A. for a while. Not much has happened there. He still wants to come to church but when Ricky went by to pick him up he didn't answer...same ole Tom!

Thank the Lord we were able to see Lupe this week! He wasn't to bothered by the fact that the young women's presidency spoke but he is use to having a preacher and since President Lowery didn't get up and preach it was a little weird for him. A lot different than the other church's he has been too. He said he would come to church again though but he got sick so he wasn't there this Sunday. Next week!

MIRACLE!!! So this week we had a huge miracle. Elder Davis and I have been trying to visit every member on the directory and there is this family named the Blevins. Every time I have been by they just say they are not feeling good or say they will call us...never do. So we went by and Brother Blevins came out and was all "listen guys I'm probably not going back to the Mormon church." He went on to say a lot of other things and that he has a problem with the Book of Mormon. Well he was talking to us and we couldn't get a word out so he goes "Let me tell you my testimony briefly" Well then he invited us inside instead of sharing it briefly. Long story short we went inside. He told us of this dream he had when he was in a coma for 8 days after a heart attack and how he saw Jerusalem. Then on the right he saw this big white building and he knew that is where Christ was and that kind of jump started him to behave. I didn't share this with him but I interpret the white building in his dream as a temple. I had him explain what it looked like to me! Of course Christ would be at the Temple! Anywho we offered to do service, he accepted, said he would feed us this huge meal, and then invited us for Christmas dinner at 11:00 and gave us a whole pumpkin pie. WOAH! So he probably IS coming back to the Mormon church :)

The church has released the new Christmas initiative for this December. 

The video is called #LIGHTtheWORLD and is on https://www.mormon.org/

This year we are encouraged to be a light as Christ was. On the website it gives ideas of how you can be involved everyday by completing an act of service. For example Dec. 2 is Jesus Honored his Parents and so can you. It gives an idea that you can call(not text) your mom. Sorry Mom I won't be able to call...

I hope you will checkout this website and plan ahead to participate this Christmas season. It starts on December 1st so don't delay!

I love Christmas!! Our apartment is already decorated! The tree is up and I have no presents under it so please help!! :)

Love Elder Brisk

P.S. Hot Chocolate with Hazelnut cream is the bomb and I recommend it to all! :D

That is all.

HAPPY TURKEY DAY!!!!

Zone Conference!!!!

Elder Bills is one of my favorite human beings!!

 Service outside the mission!

 Helped Robert with his Christmas lights and about died. 

LOOK MOM I'M ON THE ROOF!!!!

 Did Service in Vernon too and everyone was calling me Turkey Man!!! So much fun!!!

 I ate a good serving of all of this..

#FAT

The Texas Zoo as mentioned in the email

Everybody loved my Turkey Tie.

 To bad this was the last time I could wear it on my mission :(

 Why does my companion love cats so much??

16 Months!

HELLER!!

Great Googly Moogly I hit 16 months tomorrow!! Time flies by so fast out here it's crazy!!

Not sure if you know about Tiwi, the little box that yells at us for our driving, but the one in our new car is very sensitive. Since we got the new car I have gotten 7 aggressive drivings :D

Fingers crossed they don't call and get mad at me because they think I am driving like a maniac. Luckily we were able to call the Tiwi people so we could reset it. Now it is nice to me! :)

I was called to be the 1st Counselor in the young mens presidency of the Vernon Branch on Sunday and Elder Davis was called to be the 2nd. We are so excited to work more closely with the young men in the Branch so we can prepare them to serve missions and become converted to the Gospel of Jesus Christ. This new calling also means that we will get to be involved in all of the youth activities and we are super excited for that as well!!

This week Elder Davis and I have been searching for people who are ready to accept the Gospel of Jesus Christ in their lives. We have found a lot of Potential Investigators!! Unfortunately we haven't had much contact with Stephanie or Paula because everyone and their dog is getting sick!!

A week ago we met a lady named Holly and she was very nice and invited us back sometime because she was feeling sick. We went back this week and her Husband Joel was home with their 2 little girls. Joel is a stay at home Dad and Holly works at Walmart. They are an awesome little family and said that we could come over on Tuesday. This young family is just want the Vernon Branch needs!

It is so important to talk to EVERYONE!! You never know if you will be passing up someone that Heavenly Father has placed in your path. For example we like to put our bikes on our car and drive to the park as a central location and then bike around from there. While we were getting our bikes there were these 2 guys sitting in their truck. I went over and started talking to them and they were so cool!! Their names are Samuel and Daniel. They are buddies who have both gone through a recent divorce involving children. Samuel is a lot more talkative than Daniel!! We were able to teach them about God's love for us which is why he has provided us the Book of Mormon to help us through our trials. Hopefully we can meet with them again this week!

In Seymour we had 20 minutes before our appointment with a less active member so we decided to walk the streets. We saw these 2 guys and ended up talking with them for 30 minutes!! They were so intrigued by the Book of Mormon and even wanted to download the LDS Gospel library app on their phones so they could listen to it! James lives in Lubbock so we had to pass him off to the other mission but his Brother (Still don't know his name) Lives within our area and is moving to Seymour so hopefully we can teach him!! Once again...TALK WITH EVERYONE!

A few weeks ago I mentioned a guy named Lupe Ramirez that we met. Lupe told us to give him a call the Saturday before church that week we met him and when we tried calling him his phone didn't work. We figured he really wasn't interested and didn't think to much about it. Well we saw Lupe again and he started asking us why we didn't call him to go to church!? We were so confused and of course his phone number worked there. We were able to set up another time to have a lesson with him on Tuesday.  We went over Tuesday with Robert Gomez and they were instantly friends! Within the first 5 minutes of being there Lupe said he wanted to follow us over to see our church and we were so shocked!! We immediately and joyfully accepted and gave him a tour of our church where we also watched the Restoration DVD. He loved it and said he would be at church on Sunday....LUPE CAME TO CHURCH!!!! Guys this kind of stuff literally never happens!! The only problem is he isn't to fond of "Woman Preachers" and the entire stake young woman presidency spoke Sunday...He said we could come see him this week so I guess that is a good sign!!

We went to see Floyd who we still haven't had a lesson with and he said we should go pray with his neighbor who just got out of prison and he was going to see if we would actually go pray with her so we walked across the street and started talking with Jessica and her cousin Shane. Jessica was in Prison for a drug problem and is interested in attending the addiction recovery program the Johnson's hold on Tuesday nights. She even claims to have been to our church a a young age. We said a prayer and exchanged contact info with Jessica. We went back over to Floyd's house assuming he would be super pleased with our "Christian example" but he just kind of brushed us off. Oh well!!

We meet with Brother Ricky Gilpatrick every Friday night at 8 pm. We have been focusing on asking for referrals and Ricky gave us the name and address of a lady he does service for. We stopped by Janice's house after church and she was outside! Janice said she was baptist and wasn't interested, just like everyone else in Vernon, but after talking with her she loved us!! She even referred us to Cindy, this lady she works with that is "bitter and hates the world". She wanted us to go by but didn't know her address so we followed Janice over to her co worker Cindy's house and she pointed it out to us. We were being secretive  because Janice doesn't want Cindy to know she sent us. Janice said that she had a prayer roll with names she would love to give us!?!?!? Like OK whatever I guess we'll take em!

Usually the Holiday weeks are slow but we are busy clear until Wednesday afternoon!!

HAVE A HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Love Elder Brisk

That is all.

I lost my clip name tag so I had to borrow one from Elder Davis until my new one comes! 

Nobody even noticed 

 Elder Christiansen and I were trying to be serious because we never were!!

 Had to say goodbye to Elder Christiansen and Sister Scadden 

 He hasn't learned that I send weird selfie's I find on my camera home....

New car and new investigators!

HELLER!!!

I was SO comfortable and FAST asleep then the phone rang at 11:30pm and the zone leaders told me the transfer doctrine. I will be staying in Vernon with Elder Davis! That means I will most likely be in Vernon until December 28th.

This week we went to OKC to get our new car! We got a 2015 Nissan Altima and it is so nice compared to our old car. We love it so much!

This week we got 2 of the most solid investigators I think I will ever have!! Their names are Stephanie and Paula Taylor. Stephanie has 2 kids, Paula and Joey, and Joey is dating a member of the church. In fact they have been dating for 4 years. Her dad is over a lot of church owned ranges in the area so they are very active. 4 weeks ago Stephanie and Paula came to church with Joey and Sister Richardson and they loved it so much that Stephanie and Paula came back the following week by themselves!! They said they would have us over and feed us so we were able to go over on Wednesday night and we had dinner with them. The whole time they were so nervous but so excited!! We taught a great restoration lesson to them and they were so glad we came. They both already had a Book of Mormon and said all they wanted to do now was finally read it! Some of the members were shocked when they found out that they are investigating the church because they thought they were members just visiting. Paula has a 2 year old boy named Ryder and he is so cute!!

We were able to go to the Overstreet's house this week. They said we can come help them feed baby cows on Tuesday so we might be going out there tomorrow. It will give me a good chance to finally sport my overalls the right way!! I love the Overstreet's but they are so confusing. They haven't been to church since I have been here but they are always talking to us about how we need to help their son bring his family to church.

We have interviews with the Mission President every transfer now and so we had interviews on Friday. I told President Mansell that I wanted to stay in Vernon and he said OK. I also told him I want to train a new missionary and he said he would definitely give me that opportunity if that is what I would like to do!! I am so excited! It might not happen soon but for sure sometime before I go home!!!!

This weekend was the Lawton Oklahoma Stake Conference. We had Elder Stoddard at our stake conference and he talked about member missionary work so much!! He had us all talk to the stake about how they can help us find investigators and kept calling on Elder Christiansen to help him because he had fiery red hair! I am so excited to see the Member missionary work in the Lawton Stake explode!! Missionaries succeed best when the members help us out and not just by feeding us.

Sister Scadden and Elder Christiansen are being transferred so we are sad that our district is getting split up so we are going to Altus to have one last district p day together :'(

Have a GREAT week!

Love Elder Brisk

That is all.

It got cold fast!!!! 

Favorite District 

Meet Marquisha!! 

It is like God grabbed my head and twisted it for me!

HELLER

It's wet and cold here. It also doesn't help that my electric blanket is broke so that is how my week went...

This month we have so much stuff to go to that we are at 7 miles a day. So we have been biking a lot and it has been so fun!!! Except for the fact that nobody is outside. We might as well go ride our bikes around Walmart all day.

We met this guy named Lupe and he was talking about how he doesn't like church's because all they want is your money. We assured him he could come to church with us and they wouldn't say anything about his money...because last weeks meeting was on tithing and fast offerings so that is out of the way 

Apparently there was an armed robbery at Sonic and someone got hurt and some guys stole a bunch of money on Tuesday night. Robert was interrogating us the whole time we were at dinner because he thinks we snuck out at 11:30 at night to hit up sonic and he wants some of the money we took. We just told him he had to be part of the job to get the cut.

We saw Amanda in Seymour this week. We actually had a really spiritual lesson which is rare for Amanda's house because there are always just random people walking in and out and making her mad so she yells at them while we sit there on the couch. But this week was better!! We talked about the Book of Mormon and figured out she isn't to sure about it being the word of God yet. She also isn't reading so no duh she doesn't have a testimony of it and here we are trying to get her to church. Whoops!! Moral of the story...read your Book of Mormon please and thank you :)

I went on Exchanges to Altus, Oklahoma, with Elder Terry. The same Elder Terry that was my roommate in the MTC! It was pretty overcast but luckily it didn't rain on us because we had to bike everywhere all day! #NoMiles We went to Walmart at like 8 pm to talk to people and we ended up meeting 2 less active members. One of them didn't have records on the ward roster so it was a miracle! The lady we met who wasn't on the roster had this little boy with her so why she talked to Elder Terry about her problems this little kid entertained me. This was our conversation:

Kid:Do you like Halo?

Me: Well yeah!

Kid:Did you know that they made a Halo 5 pack with everything in it!!!!!?

Me: You're kidding!

Kid: I'm kidding. Oh yeah I'm kidding like I'm kidding they did!!

Me:*laughing inside

Kid:I don't know which gun I should get? (Nerf)

Me:I don't know!

Kid: I'm going to get (some kind of gun) for when the zombie apocalypse comes!!

Me: You'll be pretty safe with that gun!

He was at Walmart picking everything out that he wanted for Christmas. Just like every other kid in the world he wanted literally everything. I think he is my new friend!

When we were exchanging back Elder Davis and Christiansen realized they lost the bike lock key so we had to cut the wire to get Elder Christiansen's bike off of the car to put mine on and then I saw that Elder Davis used 21 miles when he really had a max of 7 miles to use because #NoMiles. So lets just say I about killed my companion Saturday but don't worry he is still alive :)

We were doing Weekly Planning Saturday night and I ate to much candy so I couldn't be locked in the apartment so it was like 7:30 pm. Raining and I said lets go ride bikes!! So we rode our bikes around for 2 hours until we found someone who would accept our message! We were headed back to the apartment and all of a sudden my head just turned 90 degrees to the right and this guy was just chillin' on his porch. It is like God grabbed my head and twisted it for me, because all I wanted to do was find a new investigator. So we talked to this guy for like 10 minutes and he asked if we could explain the Book of Mormon in 3 minutes. In my head I said "Psh can I ever!!" So we talked to him and he took the Book of Mormon! Then when we were leaving his dog literally stood up on 2 legs and gave me a hug. It was the coolest thing EVER!!

I have learned this week that prayer and fasting is important. Fasting is literally so hard but it makes me feel the spirit so much more in this work. A lot of times we only fast on fast Sunday. I love fasting for a purpose. When we fast we are showing God that we want his help. Since Thanksgiving is coming up I have tired to be more thankful than needy in my prayers. I saw this quote that said

"What if you woke up tomorrow with only the things you thanked God for last night?"

That scared me when I saw it so if it scares you then don't worry! The Atonement is real and you can start right now by saying a prayer and thanking God for the many blessings he bestows upon you everyday! I have a testimony of prayer and I know it works. God loves you, hears your cries for help, and will answer your prayers.

Love and miss y'all!

Elder Kyler Brisk 

Cutest puppies and fatest dog EVER!!

Elder Hilton and I after Leadership meetings 

The Sound Park is on the top 10 things to do while in Seymour Texas

 Exchanges in Altus with Elder Terry, Sister Scadden and Sister Hernandez! Best district ever!! 

 Yay for wire cutters!!!

 Biking in the rain all day everyday 

 Cotton is so cool!!!

 Selfies because we're on point

 Always remember to fill up on gas Saturday night :)

#0MilesTillEmpty #MadeItToTheGasSation