The lord has blessed us by putting people who are prepared in our path!

HELLER!

Happy Merca Day! 

President and Sister Mansell arrived in the mission on Thursday. We will get to meet them this Wednesday!

Transfers is coming up on July 13th. There is a good chance that I will be getting transferred and I don't want to. We will find out this coming Sunday night what will happen with transfers.

At Zone conference we were encouraged to do family history every week to find names to take with us to the temple. I found a name and I was so excited! Sister Holland has been showing us the ropes because she is a family history pro! We went back to look at the guy that I had requested to do temple work for and he was gone! Apparently I was going to seal him as a spouse to his daughter and that definitely didn't happen. So I was back to square one of searching for a name. Later this past week I found so many names!!!! It was super exciting!!

On Tuesday we got to see a lady named Annie. Sister Johnson talked to her about the Book of Mormon and she was interested in learning more. We took her a Book of Mormon and she said she would look into it and might attend church this Sunday! She didn't....

We went to Waynoka on Thursday and right when I knocked on this door an earthquake came! I call that my power and authority ;) We also had an earthquake on Monday night. We were at the Smiley's and it sounded like a car hit the house!

We also took our truck to Enid to get the rear axle looked at. That took most of the morning and a little bit into the afternoon. We are going to have to go back to get a new axle on our truck this week and it is going to take all day to do. Luckily the axle is covered by warranty. Yay for sitting in dealerships all day!

We found quite a few people to start teaching this week! The lord has blessed us by putting people who are prepared in our path!

Our neighbor told us we can come talk with him and his family. They live in a house right next to our apartments. They are super nice!

We were coming home from church and I saw one of the former investigators named Roman we had wanted to go see. We have seen him walking around but never stopped to talk to him because we were headed elsewhere. The spirit told me to go and talk to him so I turned around and we pulled up to him! We asked him how he was and he said good. Then he said he was going to say something but forgot so we sat there for a minute and he told us that he wants to get baptized. WHAT?? We were like uh... OK can we come talk to you tonight when you get home and he said yes! Unfortunately he got stuck somewhere else but we are going to see him this week!

We were out with Brother Durrence and as we were driving to see someone this guys motorcycle just died right when we got by him. I watched him and realized it wasn't working and I instatnly knew we needed to go talk to him. Once again he was another former investigator we wanted to try and see. I had never met him before though unlike Roman. This guys name is Ronny! Somehow his motorcycle just ran out of gas. Coincidence? I think NOT! He told us we can come and talk with him Wednesday night :)

Jay also called us and told us that he missed us. Jay is an Atheist and his best friends are Mormon missionaries (us). He told me that he loved me and that he only loves a few people and I am one of them. Brother Durrence was in the background listening to the conversation I had with Jay the whole time and he thought Jay was amazing! We watered their flowers why they were down in OKC so they are going to take us to Gambino's Pizza!!! BEST PIZZA IN ALVA!

We were able to see Don Saturday evening! The 6 week training he has been attending has been kicking his butt. He has been studying the Book of Mormon more and told us that his prayers are being answered. Don is awesome! He told us that he feels like his family has come together since studying with us and that he is down to 1-2 cigarettes a day. He told us his health is better than ever and he loves it! I love Don so much! Unfortunately we had to move his baptism date back to August 6 because of church attendance. I took a picture with him because I might not get to see him until his baptism if I get transferred  and he doesn't come home next weekend. It will all work out in the end though :)

Enjoy your holiday and stay safe!

Love Elder Brisk

That is all.

Alva gives everyone free newspaper flags!!! 

Potentially my last time seeing Don until his baptism 

Slug's (#4) have advanced and started climbing the ceiling!! 

My companion must have taken a selfie without me noticing...oh Elder Bills

Storm of the week (rained literally all week)

Wall clouds bring tornadoes :)

Missionaries LOVE the Temple!

HELLER!!!

Recently there has been a theft issue with my package(s) If you plan on sending me a package please send it to:

Elder Kyler Brisk

  

503 Magnolia Dr

Alva, OK 73717

You may still send letters to my current address

Elder Kyler Brisk

914 #2 Flynn St

Alva, OK 73717

We had a pretty busy week. Unfortunately we weren't really able to work in our area a whole lot. We had Zone Conference on Wednesday in Stillwater, District meeting in Woodward on Friday and then exchanges with the zone leaders in Enid Friday and Saturday. We did a lot of driving this week.

The zone leaders also gave us a beautiful floral couch. Our apartment is so small we could barely fit it in but on the bright side we have a couch!!! It is ugly but its a couch!!!

We have to go to Enid on Tuesday to have our truck serviced at a Nissan Dealership. Apparently our truck needs a whole new rear axle :)

Elder Bills and I have decided that as missionaries you become a total buzz kill. Since the 4th of July is approaching everyone and their dog has decided to light fireworks EVERY night. Unfortunately it isn't dark until it is about time for us to go to bed so we get to hear A LOT of fireworks before we go to bed :)

At Zone Conference we are now encouraged to do family history every week to find names that we can take to the temple. If our ward/branch is going to the temple and we have names to take to the temple we can go with them. Missionaries LOVE the temple. I don't think there is a way to explain how much missionaries love going to the temple. A good analogy would be like the worlds biggest Taylor Swift fan going to a Taylor Swift concert. I hope that helps you understand the love missionaries have for the temple.

Don left for his training again and we were unable to see him before he left. Now we have to wait clear until Saturday to see him :(

We currently have 2 investigators that are still on date for their baptism. Drexel and Shyann. We have been unable to see Drexel so we aren't sure if he will make his date or not. Shyann is still on date because her date is for November 5th of 2016. Why so far out you ask? Because she feels like she needs to wait until then. We don't like it either but whatever!

Have a great week!!

Elder Brisk

That is all

Our goal is for all 3 of us to be companions one day :)

Elder Nicholas, Me, and Elder Bills

Elder Neves goes home in 2 weeks.  I'm going to miss that Peruvian boy!

Other Random pics from Zone Conference.

Elder Van Halder and I

Elder Bledsoe, Sister whose name I forgot, Sister Rees, Sister Weber, and I

Plus other random people in the back ground..

    We said Goodbye to President and Sister Walkenhorst at Zone Conference. 

                                               The Mansell's will arrive on Thursday this week!

Elder Bills fell asleep on the way home from zone conference and I scared him SOOOOOO bad!! 

Exchanges with Elder Mangum! He said he wasn't going to eat a cookie

My companion moaning and having compulsions in his sleep ​

Once again we thought Alva was going to burn down.

Stillwater has Transformers

I love Alva and I love this branch.....I hate humidity!

Heller!!

Sorry last week's email was terrible. Zone P-day was so fun though! We did little minute to win it games and somehow I got chosen to participate in the paper airplane game. The goal was to make a paper airplane and fly it as far as you can in a minute. Well I use to be really good at that when I was a child but somehow I forgot how to make a good paper airplane so I threw a snow ball with wings. No we did not get last place in that game thank you very much.

We also played water balloon volleyball and that was really fun! President Walkenhorst showed up out of nowhere and everyone was wondering what the heck he was doing there. When President Walkenhorst calls you or you see him somewhere other than where you expect him you evaluate yourself in hopes that you realize he isn't going to rebuke you.

Elder Mendlove and I were put in charge to gather everyone up to play ultimate Frisbee and since missionaries are oblivious to people yelling at them we stood on the stage and sang the ABC's together. It was actually really fun because everyone started clapping their hands and beat boxing to it. That still didn't get everybody's attention so I pulled out the old primary trick and said if you can hear me touch your nose and some did and then I said if you can hear me fold your arms and everyone was folding their arms looking at me and then I said if you can hear me run outside to play ultimate Frisbee and this group of missionaries rampaged through the door outside. #PrimarySkills

We went to Beedles Nurisng home to help the Old folk play bingo on Tuesday. We hadn't gone to help out the past few times and when we walked in everyone about fell out of their wheel chairs! They were so happy to see us! I guess if someone helped me play bingo I would love them too!

We met with Don this week and we decided to teach him the Word of Wisdom. It was awesome except for the fact we sat outside on the porch for this lesson. Was Don basically committing himself to live the Word of Wisdom worth all the sweat? Of course it was!

We knew that Don was going to be doing a training since he is working at the prison and they decided to start it this past Sunday. Don wasn't able to come to church and he was actually pretty bummed about it. The training is 6 weeks long and he will come home Friday nights and leave on Sunday afternoons. So hopefully this Sunday Don and his family will be able to come to church but we will only get to see him on Saturday nights now :'(

Humidity is the worst thing ever. When it is over 100 degrees with humidity you might as well curl up and die. Elder Bills and I were getting home at 9:30 one night and it was 98 degrees with 50000% humidity.

THE HOLLAND'S ARE HERE!!!!!!!!!!! 

Elder and Sister Holland FINALLY arrived on Friday evening. We thought they would have been here on the 11th, and then on Thursday so FINALLY they are here. They really like their new home which is good because if they didn't they would of had to trade us apartments and they would HATE ours. Of course I asked Elder Holland if he was related to the apostle and he told me he actually just found out he is not really a Holland so no. That is OK though because I still make apostle jokes to him and he loves it!

On Sunday there was this random guy at church and so I sat by him:

1 because I am a missionary

2 He was sitting in the spot next to mine where I always sit.

Anywho come to find out that he is Randy Stewart from Waynoka and that he hasn't been to church in 20 years. For some reason he just decided that he would be in Alva on Fathers day and would come to sacrament meeting. Everyone in the branch was basically interrogating me on who was sitting by me and when they found out it was a Stewart from Waynoka they couldn't believe it!!

Brother Stewart was so nice! He told us to come by whenever we want :)

Miracles are in the works people! The branch has been praying at 7pm every night for missionary work and we are starting to see it working. I love Alva and I love this branch! Not just because everyone, not just the fathers, got donuts and brownies on fathers day! 

Missionary work requires the members and the missionaries working together otherwise it won't be as effective as it should be. Call up your local missionaries and invite them over for dinner or take them to lunch or have them share a message with you and your family! They will love it and I KNOW you will love it too. Volunteer to help them by praying for their investigators or families they are working with. Don't wait to be asked to help. Just do it!

I hope you enjoy the overload of pictures from the last 2 weeks :)

Love Elder Brisk 

That is all.

Enid Zone P-Day/STM

Me riding in a combine with the little Sister Anderson 

When a severe storm comes through in the middle of the night but you are dead asleep...

Oklahoma Scenery for y'all

Elder Bills drawing of the Alva apartment

Slug #2

Brother Z actually really loves us 

McDonald's is our source for the temperature! :)

Alva missionaries aka Alva moving crew!

Heller!

This week was just crazy! That is how I will put it.

Yes we did find another Slug in our apartment and are now looking for a new place to live because ours is being invested by creepy crawlers and it is not worth the rent.

Our truck had to get an oil change and they said there is a bolt broken that will need fixed so they want us to come back to Woodward to get it fixed in a couple weeks and we don't have miles for that! I hate transfers because it makes us lose 320 miles.

Elder Bills finally got to meet Don. We went by his house but his brother who lives next door told us that Gabe had a game so they were at the ball fields and I told Gabe we would watch him play sometime so we went up to the field. Unfortunately the game was over but that worked perfect! We took them to the church which is literally right by the ball fields and gave them a church tour. Don said that he had goosebumps as they looked around the church. It was great! Then we had a spiritual lesson with them where we committed Don, Tristain, and Gabe to be baptized on July 9th and they accepted! WAHOO! Don was very emotional that whole night. It was the best!

This week Elder Bills and I have not been the Alva missionaries but the Alva moving crew. We had to deep clean the Holland's new apartment because we were under the impression they were arriving last Saturday and then we had to move all the furniture from Woodward to Alva in a U haul. Driving the U haul was quite the experience. It didn't have cruise control so my foot was cramping after driving for an hour. The Armstrong's helped us out and gave us root beer floats for our hard work!

We did do an exchange with Woodward this weekend and that consisted of moving all that stuff to Woodward from Alva and then going back to Woodward and then Saturday morning moving their furniture into their new apartment.

We had a lesson with Drexel on Sunday night and we taught him the Plan of Salvation We set a baptism date with him for July 9th as well! It was a great lesson besides the fact that we were bashing with our member while teaching the investigator! In fact at this very moment I am typing this email he is texting us still trying to fight us on the gospel... Never in my entire life have I had to bash with a member of the church. Good thing I love this member or I would rebuke him hard core.

The Hollands will be arriving around Thursday this week and we are super excited to have them in Alva! The branch can't wait for more missionaries!

We have been getting everyone in the branch to say a prayer for missionary work in Alva and missionary opportunities for themselves every night at 7. We are hoping to see some miracles coming from that shortly.

Elder Bills and I are having so much fun! Cows are the funniest thing to us now. It is an inside joke. You just had to be there! We were laying in our beds last night laughing our heads off. Just picture a cattle truck flying by you on the high way and then a cow falling out. That is only half of it 

Brother Smiley is one of my favorite members. I think we are just a little bit to close. He was telling us about how he woke up pooping his pants one time and Elder Bills and I were on the ground laughing/crying our heads off and he was just calm as can be telling his story. Lets just say he destroyed a truck stop bathroom!

Sorry if this email seems rushed. We had like an hour to email today because we are going to Enid to have some fun with the other missionaries in the zone. I left my camera at home so I am unable to send pictures this week but I will be sure to send them next week!

As President Walkenhorst would say "Love and appreciate ya!"

Elder Brisk

That is all.