Final Letter from Elder Bryen North

going to get him

Dear beloved readers!

This is my final letter to close out my Mission letters! Thank you so much for reading and praying.

My mission was a huge experience in maturing spiritually and mentally.

He has landed

I know the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints is the church restored by Christ onto the Earth. Just as we respect the prophets of old and adore the apostles of the New Testament, we have the utmost gratitude to Joseph Smith who sacrificed so much without compromise to bring others what he knew to be true. To point others to their Messiah, their Savior, their Redeemer. If you still don't know much about the church, please get yourself familiar with what I had just spent 2 years on my feet doing all I could to share with others. Give a local Latter-Day Saint the blessing and opportunity to answer your questions and tell you about what makes them happy.

My work ethic has molded from the meager philosophy it was into a practical tool that I know I need to keep sharp so I can cut my own path through life. Seeing and talking to so many people of so many backgrounds was a motivation in thinking, 'there is no reason I cannot make it in life just like all these people have.'

I have not eliminated all my anxiety or fears, but I certainly know how to better deal with them now than I did then.

A mission is a sacrifice, but it was absolutely worth it. Having something as good as the Gospel in it's restored form, no faults, just like that Savior who taught in his life, and after his Resurrection. If you're not completely confident in the Resurrection, I invite you to Read the Book of Mormon and pray asking in faith if it really happened! If Jesus' life, death and atonement are real! Seek sincerely to know if you can see your family again after this life is done. Pray with faith and real intent and you will be answered.

I'll see a lot of you soon, but see you or not, I love you and pray you feel God's love.

-Elder North

MOM HUG - BEST THING EVER!

Group photo

Welcome home Elder North

Getting released as a missionary

Putting his last sticker on his chart.

 We are so thankful for everyone's love and support for Bryen over the last two years and would like to invite you all to hear his report on his mission on Sunday July 12th at 10:10am at the LDS church building at 2742 West 14400 South, Bluffdale, UT 84065.  Our sacrament meeting is last so after that we will come back to our house and we welcome you to enjoy some lunch and visiting with Bryen.  Our address is 4111 Red Tail Drive, Riverton, UT 84065.  If you cannot make it to his talk then come about 12pm and we will be back.  Thanks and look forward to seeing you on Sunday!

Letter home from Elder North

Date:  June 22, 2015

Area: Lakeland, Tennessee

Companion:  Elder Bunderson

 

Dear 2nd Gigs,

My last Monday Preparation Day, it's been a crazy time. I mean the whole thing. Strange to think of anything but Mission Life at this point. Twice I've auto-piloted to backing someone from outside the car when I did not need to. It's habit now.

Final preparations don't take as long as one would think, though it's a tad more nerve wracking since I won't be able to get anything just handed around the mission back to me if I forget it. I am pretty adept at packing now and capable of living off a closet's worth of space.

We're going to go fishing with a guy we met. He lives outside of our area but he fishes in our area, we're trying to get him in touch with his area's missionaries and trying to teach his friend.

Sunday we went through the entire ward roster with our Ward Mission Leader and Brother Deter, so that list we made of people and families should help flesh out our time.

I'll see you all soon!

-Elder North

 

Letter home From Elder North

Date:  June 15, 2015
Area:  Lakeland, Tennessee
Companion:  Elder Bunderson

Dear Clocks,

We had an excellent lesson on Saturday with a woman named April. We had been trying to get in touch with her for a while and are glad we were finally able to. She had a friend over and together they are definitely interested in learning about the church. Hopefully that interest includes a willingness to pray.

Just earlier we helped a new family move into the Ward.

I've got my letters from the mission informing me that I need to get ready to go home. I suppose when you get to the point that the mission is informing you of how little time you have left that you ought to at least try and look forward to what comes after mission life.

Keep up the good work and I'll be seeing many of you soon. Read the scriptures, because they are the words of Christ.

-Elder North

Letter home from Elder North

Date:  June 8, 2015

Area:  Lakeland, Tennesse

Companion:  Elder Bunderson

 

Dear Rapscallions,

 

We did a number and variety of interesting things this week. We saw the new Angel Moroni get placed on the temple. We got to toot the horn of the old one and then we helped load in the new baptismal font. They had to remove the front doors of the temple and we got it in there, then had to lift it up. We laid it on the railing for the night and came back the next day to help after they had built an A-Frame above and around where the font needed to rest. We pushed it out to the center resting on six boards, hung it from the A-frame by chains and removed the boards. We then lowered it down into place. Pretty crazy, it weighed 1500 pounds! No one was crushed.

 

We performed 2 tests to try and finalize how transfers will be done. I thank Dad for the advice to talk to Stake Technology Specialists, that got us in touch with Brother Day, who knows his stuff and is training Elder Bunderson on it.

 

I see you had a good time in Chicago, good for you! It seems like an exciting place.

 

We are going to have another major meeting on Friday this week with Elder Kopischke, but apparently there will not be a bus like last time...so getting there is going to be fun!

 

Keep praying for the missionary work, but not just for the missionaries, but to recieve and recognize your own chances as well to share the gospel!

 

-Elder North

Letter Home from Elder North

Dear Highbloods,

The advent of the iPads is now going to arrive in the mission as of Thursday, where we will likely leave the meeting with them. They already introduced them in the Mission-Wide meeting last week. Elder Bunderson and I may have some specific responsibilities with them on this side of the mission but so far they haven't given us any major, concrete jobs to do.

We'll probably go fishing with a guy and his wife that we met while walking around. That'll be neat.

We don't have a lot of major things going on since we both just got here, but that should start picking up soon. The members feed us absurdly well so we have been meeting with people in the ward each night.

Remember to do your home and visiting teaching!

-Elder North

Letter home from Elder North

Date:  May 25, 2015
Area:  Arlington, Tennessee
Companion:  Elder Bunderson

Dear Cemeteries,

I am serving in Arlington 2, very close to the Lakeland area I served in before. A very interesting thing that happened this week was we had dinner with The Garret family, and Chad Garret was one of Grandpa Terry's Boy scouts! He shared with us how Grandpa would circumvent a Merit badge requirement he considered dangerous. He found the Whole 'air pants balloon' thing for the swimming merit badge to be too dangerous too often and instead would follow the instructions to the letter in such a way that they would not have to do it normally.

Biggest surprise on my Mission? How shockingly slow so many people are, Christian people, to pray. It is the crux of our teaching as everything hinges on the spirit teaching them the truth of the gospel and if they don't pray it's a tough thing for them to find out!

I've become pretty accustomed to talking to new people, the advice Dad gave me before I left helps. People expect missionaries to talk to them and talk to them about their church. No reason not to fulfill their expectation! Act our part and do what we can.

I had served around my new companion before back in Kennett, his name is Elder Bunderson.

Our address is

9345 Triumph Circle

Lakeland TN, 38002 Apartment #203

-Elder North

Letter home from Elder North

Date:  May 18, 2015
Area:  North Little Rock Arkansas
Companion:  Elder Reed

Dear Ghouls,

I am being transferred! Onto a new area for my final run. I had an extremely excellent time with Elder Reed here in the office. Dwayne still wants to be baptized and won't be moving away and despite the many things they need us to do we still managed to do a good amount of proselyting.

This week is crazy for the office elders, with at least four days needing to be spent over in Memphis.

I've got to pack and go to a new area for the last time and I probably need to offload some stuff permanently. I've been taking pictures more so I'll come back home with as loaded a camera as possible.

Congratulations to Mikel for preparing for his mission! It will be excellent all around I am sure.

-Elder North

Letter Home from Elder North

Dear Cameras,

Had an interesting meal a few days ago. We had decided to go to a Mexican restaurant called Los Nogales. It was a pretty authentic place and look at the menu I decided I'd get two Gorditas. One of the options was called 'tripe'. I had no clue what that was and asked the Waitress. She said she knew, but didn't really know how to explain it and just said plenty of people ordered it. So I got 1 Gordita with Tripe and 1 with Beef Tongue. The Tongue was really bland and tasteless but the Tripe was pretty good! Later I learned it's some stomach lining of cow. I'm fine with that, I'd totally try it again if it's served to me.

Glad to see everybody doing well. Mikel, prepare well for your Mission! It will be over before you know it. See you all too soon!

-Elder North

We got to speak to Elder North yesterday and it was wonderful.  Here is our whole family minus Jered.  We got to talk to him after.  Bryen comes home in about 50 days on June 30th and then his homecoming address will be on July 12, 2015 at 10:10am at our church 2742 West 14400 South, BLUFFDALE, UTAH 84065-5006.  After we will have some food and you will be able to catch up with Bryen at our house.  Would love to see you there.

Letter Home from Elder North

Date:  May 4, 2015
Area:  North Little Rock, Arkansas
Companion:  Elder Reed

Dear Butlers,

How soon will Mikel get his VISA? Is it all in soon enough so he won't need to be a VISA waiter?

There are a couple tasks we've been given that I cannot talk about until they either are dropped or succeed. We have been taking inventory of what furniture and items the mission has in storage though. We have several places where the mission stores unused boxsprings, mattresses, desks, chairs and many other items.

We continue to find new people to teach though, despite our constantly busy schedule. We will have a packed week this week though, LOADS of things coming and going. We need to close down some apartments, fix some phone issues and take inventory of the Memphis storage unit.

-Elder North

Letter Home from Elder North

Date:  April 27, 2015

Area:  North Little Rock, Arkansas

Companion:  Elder Reed

Dear Salamancas,

We had a pretty interesting week, here are some highlights-

We had dinner with a lovely Hawaiian woman, Sister Kircowski, who runs the Primary. Living with her is Sister Jackson, a four foot two German woman about eighty years old. She told us about how when she was a little girl she was baptized, but her parents told her nothing of the gospel so that she wouldn't accidentally blab about it to the SS. She remembered hearing a man shouting on the radio and tried to ask Mother why that man was shouting, and she was shushed, having to wait till they were home for her question to be answered. "That is our Fuhrer, don't say anything." Mother explained. She remembered Jewish people being rounded up onto traincars and going away. Later when she came to America people would ask her what she knew about what happened. She didn't know anything and when it was explained and shown to her she realized that's where they were taking her neighbors.

We went to meet someone one day and ended up running into Joe, a guy Elder Reed met with Elder Johnston during an exchange. I had not met him and he was pretty out of it, but was telling us to come back another day. We said a prayer with him and during it he draped his arm around Elder Reed as he gave the prayer.

I found some powerful salsa in a missionary apartment we closed down. It was delicious.

We are making excellent progress with one of our investigators, Dwayne. Last night we taught him the first half of The Plan of Salvation with a senior missionary couple, the Cheney's. Pray for Dwayne, that he continues to make excellent progress and receives powerful answers to his prayers.

-Elder North

Letter home from Elder North

Date:  April 20, 2015

Area:  North Little Rock, Arkansas

Companion:  Elder Reed

Dear Otters,

First full week here serving with Elder Reed in the office. Most exciting news is that one of our new investigators came to church! Dwayne and two of his young kids, he seems very excited and we will be speaking with him and his fiance more in the coming week. We've got a few other investigators between our chores.

One of the major things we did last week was update the contact list of the Mission and update all the Missionary phones. We wrote up the list and put it on one phone, then placed it on a blank phone. From there we double checked it and were able to have two phones with all the contacts. We had the missionaries delete their contacts so we could give them the right list. We ended up having to drive to Memphis at the last second to go handle that last meeting because the phones quit on the Assistants, who we had tried to instruct on how to do it themselves. 

For P-Day last week we did a little touring of Little Rock, riding a trolley and visiting the Heifer center. Many cow puns were uddered.

-Elder North

Letter Home from Elder North

Date:  April 13, 2015

Area:  North Little Rock, Arkansas

Companion:  Elder Reed

Dear Frankenstiens,

I am now serving in North Little Rock with Elder Reed! He is from Murray Utah. He's been out one transfer less than me and it is fantastic!

Our calling and are is unique, we are what is called "The Office Elders", or "The Moving Elders". We close apartments, get people furniture, help run the Mission Office and do whatever else the Mission President needs done offhand that he doesn't give to the Assistants. It is a time consuming job as we still do all we can to proselyte and teach the gospel at any opportunity.

This may be my final area and I look forward to it very much! I have a unique calling and an excellent companion.

-Elder North

Letter Home from Elder North

Sara Gates and kids with Elder North

Date:  April 6, 2015
Area:  Morrilton, Arkansas
Companion:  Elder Barker

Dear Maple Leaves,

This was an excellent Conference, for sure! We got a lot of fantastic talks. I particularly enjoyed Wilford W. Anderson's analogy of the gospel and joy in the gospel being compared to dance and music.

Conference is always an enormous reminder to me of the obvious and necessary role of the priesthood and apostles in Christ's Church. At no point did he rescind his mandates on how the Church is to be organized. Recognizing this and following the counsel to know them by their fruits makes 

They gave me the official call Sunday morning that I was being transferred! We knew pretty well ahead of time though since Elder Barker got a call informing him that he would be training. I will be moving what will be even more likely to be my last area. It is possible it won't be, but unlikely. I did not have a whole ton of time in Morrilton but it was good and I met a lot of good people. There is a pretty solid Ward here and I hope they can continue to grow.

Elder Barker got his Easter Package from home so I mooched some of those candy-coated cadbury eggs to celebrate the occasion. We spent Sunday conference at the Peterson home, they fed us Chicken Spaghetti and I preformed some Magic Tricks.

I've pretty much already said goodbye to people here, Anna, Austin and Sister Gates in particular. On to the next area!

-Elder North

Letter Home from Elder North

Date:  March 30, 2015
Area:  Morrilton, Arkansas
Companion:  Elder Barker

Dear Buggy's,

We are taking on what will hopefully be our final week without the car. Hopefully it is done in time before one of us needs to be taken out of the area. 

Transfers are now approaching and this should determine my final area hopefully. If it is here in Morrilton, or elsewhere. So long as I don't get moved at the last second that is. We are excited and looking forward to Easter and Conference! Always an excellent combo so we have been handing out these cards with the Church's Easter Video linked on it! I encourage everybody to go check it out. HeLives.Mormon.org

I managed to avoid any sickness this past period of cold weather. Elder Eatchel had a couple little bouts of sickness. 

This week really was exhausting. Thank you all for your prayers!

-Elder North

Letter Home from Elder North

Date:  March 23, 2015
Area:  Morrilton, Arkasnsas
Companion:  Elder Barker

Dear Flippers,

Our car is smashed! We were driving down the road from a dinner appointment and hit a small deer. Elder Barker and I sustained no damage, the vehicle took it all. We're on foot for the foreseeable future now, likely to the end of the transfer. It's not so bad though since Morrilton is relatively small, we're very close to the Church building and people are willing to give us rides here and there. I'll send the pictures that Elder Barker took.

We have met a large number of people because of not being in a car and I'm certainly getting a good degree of exercise daily! Tonight we will be doing family home evening with the Gates again tonight. It was pretty great last week so I'm looking forward to it. This week we will have a District Meeting in Danville.

Two cool things this week was a less active and long time investigator who both had concerns seemed to suddenly have overcome them on their own and came to Church. We can't really pin down what was said or done that did it but simply our contact provided the means for the spirit to work.

The coming week will be another walk week, the car is estimated to be repaired by the end of this week if they got the parts today. Wish us Joy!

-Elder North

Letter Home from Elder North

Date:  March 17, 2015
Area:  Morrilton, Arkansas
Companion:  Elder Barker



Dear Paps,

Elder Barker says Hello.

Things have been interesting here on the Arkansas side. Things are much more, the same than I thought they'd be? My real expectations were not too wild but I suppose it's that missionary work has a lot of same factors wherever you're placed. I believe you are now in touch with Sister Gates. She's great and gave a talk this Sunday about following the first great commandment.

This week was our week without the car and it's been rather fruitful. A decent number of people have let us in to speak with them and share what we know. We're hoping they will let us return and come to church as well. Raking up a large amount of potential investigators.

Yesterday we had a great experience with Sister Gates, sharing Family Home Evening with them and Brother Stover. Brother Stover is an older gentleman who helps us missionaries a great deal. He converted to the church about 9 years ago and is a strong member. He also made us a great cabbage and sausage stew to eat. The day before I shared some of my Siracha with Logan at the after-chuch potluck, since he said he likes hot sauces.

We will be getting a vehicle tomorrow, so that's nice. My respect goes to those missionaries who walk or ride bikes anywhere they go. They're areas are often smaller but they would still be doing a lot of moving that I'm not quite accustomed to.

Everybody keep up your prayers and best of luck to Caice!

-Elder North

Letter Home from Elder Bryen North

Date:  March 9, 2015
Companion:  Elder Barker
Area:  Morrilton, Arkansas 


Dear Meatshields,

Exciting to see so many plans solidifying, new developments each week. Congratulations to Mikel, going to serve in South Africa, where Flintheart Glomgold is from.

Here we have an interesting variety of investigators! We met a guy my age, Jarrot, who despite his youth has had numerous near death experiences. Anna is a long time investigator who needs messy marriage papers handled before she can be baptized. Austin is also a long time investigator who has been consistently coming to church and gets himself to Stake meetings and institute.

Personal news, I was asked to give a brief testimony in Sacrament early last week to introduce me to the ward. Some people ended up not being able to speak so it got upgrade to a 15-18 minute talk! You can ask Sister Gates about it.

Elder Barker is a stalwart companion who I appreciate very much for his diligence. It's possible (though unlikely) that he is my companion for the rest of my mission. Slightly more likely is that I stay in Morrilton for the rest of my mission! That or it's my second to last area.

-Elder North

Elder North's new address is:

Elder Bryen North

102 Eastgate Dr. Apt. A

Morrilton, AR  72110

Letter home from Elder North

Date:  March 2, 2015

Area:  Morrilton, Arkansas

Companion:  Elder Barker

Dear loved ones,

I have never been more grateful than I am right now for the restored gospel. The airtight security that it gives when combined with a faith in Christ is the most marvelous thing on this Earth. My best wishes to the Johnson family. 

My new area is fine and I have a wonderful and diligent new companion who has been more than helpful in showing me around. We have long time investigators already and I hope we will be able to share with them what they need to be baptized. 

I think of what's happened and dread anyone having to cope without the certainty I have in the gospel.

-Elder North

Elder North is talking about the tragic news that he received about our dear friends 13 year old son passing away.  Elder North's new area seem to be taking good care of him and I am thankful for several ward members who have friended me on facebook and given me updates and info on my boy.  I will have to send out his address as soon as I get it.  I forgot to ask so I have someone working on getting that for me.  Thank you for your love and support.

Letter Home from Elder North

Date:  February 23, 2015
Area:  Jackson, Mississippi
Companion:  Elder Eatchel

Dear Fast and Furious,

I am indeed being transferred again! I may be onto my final area with this one, and I am finally going to the Arkansas side of the mission. I'll be leaving Benjamin before he gets baptized but I'm sure Elder Eatchel will handle it. His date is this Saturday and they'll be scheduling the interview once the two new missionaries arrive. Going to have to do so quick!

 

I look forward to meeting Deven's fiance! It's going to be interesting coming home to so many changes.

As for a guess as to Mikel's mission? Hmm, I'd say he's going West Coast for U.S., Europe for foreign.

I've had a good time here in Jackson and now I've got to go strong into my final transfers! A re-commitment to support my companion and investigators for the last leg of the race. I have to leave very early since I'm going to the other side, this is going to be a big change and I have absolutely no clue who I'll be serving with. This will likely be my second to last companion. I've made a lot of friends on my mission and with other missionaries and I hope that all these relationships I've made will leave lasting impressions of a good example.

Pray for Benjamin's baptism this Saturday!

-Elder North

 

We found out he is now in Morrilton, Arkansas with Elder Barker.

Letter home from Elder NOrth

Date:  February 16, 2015
Area:  Jackson, Tennessee
Companion:  Elder Eatchel

Dear Ice Kings,

This place is iced over today! Ice everywhere! Not too dangerous though, at least not yet!

Things continue to go just fine with Elder Eatchel and we still have rice. He thought his rice wouldn't last through December but it's now mid February and there' s still plenty.

We had Benjamin to church this week, and his friend Paul! Paul is the member who got us in touch with Benjamin and he is very excited to be baptized and has a date for the 28th! Our first lesson with him was yesterday and Paul is excellent and supporting.

It's not a bunch of things to report but this is one of the best things to go on in a while. Jackson Ward seems to just attract people who want to be baptized.

-Elder North