So far my card reader isn't working. I remembered my card and everything though. I had an awesome time talking yesterday it was so much fun. After we talked I went to dinner. We had turkey and potatoes and shrimp and candy it was great. Then we got to watch 17 miracles. It's an amazing movie. You should watch it. After that we went home. Today we went shopping. Tomorrow is called trunky transfer tuesday so our whole district is getting together one last time and having a fry anything you bring lunch! I bought pickles, bacon oreos, and all sorts of stuff!

Christmas was so awesome! Today's gonna be cool too. I think we'll finally have time for p-day sports! I'm excited for superhero dodgeball!. I'm gonna try and figure out the picture thing now. NO one has a card reader. It's so frustrating I didn't have room to bring my camera. I just brought the card and the reader that doesn't work. 

Oh today with my Christmas money I got an AUX cable, external speakers and day/ny-Quil. I also got a lot of food.

Well the library was closed today so we're all in the family history center. There's not much time. I have to be considerate.

I love you! I'll talk to you next week,

Elder Damewood

 I'm excited for Christmas. I should be calling sometime around 6-9 your time. I'm excited for that. I'll try and do it as early as possible. Yes we had our baptisms. Sheryl and Danielle Peters were baptized! It was so amazing. I'm soooooooooooooooooooo happy! I love this mission. I got the box. I'm excited :) 

  So Elder Oaks came to our Christmas Devotional. It was so awesome. He talked about so many cool things. I got to shake his hand which was really cool. Then we took a big picture together as a mission and had a slideshow. I love this mission. Once i had a dream I had to come home temporarily and when it was time for me to go back I was switched to the London England mission! I was so mad! Then I woke up here in SLC and was fine again. 

  Today I took a test and got my driving privileges so that's cool. 

  Man I really love it here. I'm going to do my best these whole 2 years so that when it's time to come home i won't feel like I need to stay and do more.

  I can't wait to call and talk to guys it's gonna be fun.

  out here people eat Jell-o like crazy... it's weird.... Pretty soon I'll just start talking about it and telling people they're the green to my jell-o... Utah is getting to me!

  It's starting to get snowy here. I haven't slipped yet though so that's good. I wouldn't wanna fall though ouch. 

  Did I tell you about bacon ends and pieces? It's a cheaper way to eat bacon. It's got a higher fat content so there's a lot more grease splatter. I'm afraid of making the floor slippery. It wouldn't be fun to fall on the kitchen floor.

This week was amazing! We got the standard of excellence which is 1 baptized, 3 on date for baptism, 5 to church, 8 lessons with a member present, and 3 new investigators. We almost hit the double but we only had 7 to church.. other than that we had at least double to S.O.E.. We baptized the Brown family this past Saturday and confirmed them on Sunday. It was amazing. Pictures coming next Monday :)

It hasn't snowed here for a while which is nice. I got the package from the ward and my book. Did you order a copy for yourselves? I also go a package from the Gomms. 

Cheryl is doing great! She has had only 1 cig in the past 2 weeks and is  going to get baptized this Saturday cuz she's done smoking! Her daughter is getting baptized Saturday as well. Pictures on Monday...

Thanks for all the Christmas presents. Even though I'm not home I still feel the magic of this time of year. It's different but Christmas is still awesome on a mission.

Elder Damewood

                                   Brandon with President Winn getting ready to meet his trainer.

                                                             Brandon hugging his trainer

                                                                 Brandon and his trainer.

                                        Brandon with his mission pres. and his wife.  President and Sister Winn

                                       Brandon's basement apartment.  December 2011

                                           Still at the MTC.

                                       Brandon in his room at the MTC with his companion.
                                           September 2011

Things are great! We had an awesome week. It made me really happy!
I can't wait to get my box! I'm so excited.
The Brown family is doing great! They are getting baptized Saturday.
I'll be sure to take pictures. Cheryl is doing a lot better. She has
pretty much stopped smoking and her daughter is getting baptized on
the same day as her. It's gonna be so cool! I can't wait to take and
send the pictures of it!
That's about all I really have to say for this week.
I love you,
Elder Damewood

Thanksgiving was really great. We had two dinners and a nap. We had so much pumpkin pie it was crazy! We also tried pumpkin spice egg nog. It was pretty awesome. It was gone really fast.

Cheryl is having a lot of trouble quitting smoking. she's getting pretty discouraged... We're working with her though. 

There's an Olive Garden somewhere... If i can't use it in this area I'll use it in my next one i guess. 

We had a sweet miracle this past week. Elder Davis was at Leadership Training Meeting so I was in my area with Elder Lopez. We did some tracting and knocked on this door. A guy opens and says, "Come on in Elders!" Usually this means they're just a member that won't give us referrals because they say they don't know anyone, but we get inside and his wife is running around crazy getting ready for their daughter's birthday party pretty soon. We get to talking and he says he's an inactive member that wants to come back to church. I give him the address and time for church and he gets excited to go. Then he points at his wife and 9 year old son and says they need to be baptized. We don't stay long cuz of the crazy party stressfullness so we set up a return visit. Me and Elder Davis go and eat awesome burgers at their house and start talking about church and stuff. Then the wife asked my favorite question ever. "What do I have to do to be baptized?" We talked about the interview questions right there and they both committed to baptism. They are the Brown family Tim and Tanna are the parents and the kids are Xavier, Phoenix, and Aurora. They are so awesome!
It's not getting cold quite yet. I think the weather is just being nice and waiting for my sweater to come.

Well that's about all the really cool stuff oh except this last thing. We had a contest on Thanksgiving and you'd get points for doing certain things. Our zone won so we got to have morning study and breakfast at the mission home. I'm not sure which house it is but I saw Thomas S. Monson's house. They live like across the street or yard or something from each other so I looked at all the houses I could to guarantee I saw it. 

Well that's it for this week. I love you all so much.

Cheryl is not baptized yet. She's having some troubles quitting smoking but she's made great progress. I know both her and her daughter will get baptized. It'll be so exciting. 

It's not hard to stay warm... yet....
Oh yeah, in case you couldn't tell I'm doing email today lol.
I don't really have much to say since last week. Transfers happened so the district is changed up a bit. Elder Fore is in my district. That's pretty cool. Elder Davis was surprised that someone in our district used to be in my seminary class. 

I'm just having a ton of fun out here.

Here's your answers: 

 How is Cheryl coming along?

She's doing well. She is having kind of a hard time stopping smoking but she's going to and it'll be great! If she doesn't smoke at all then she'll be baptized this Saturday!

 Are you working hard?  

Yes.

How is the family that you were teaching doing?

The family that I was teaching.... I don't know who that is. Most of our investigators are doing well though. 

 How are you doing on your budget?
Good.

I got my box. I loved it! Those weird water tube things actually came in handy. I gave one to Sheryl so she'd have something to do with her hands. Thanks for the help! I ate most of the food in it already. There's still  the Goldfish left. I liked the box. Brooke's picture of Jack looked awesome. I'm glad it finally got to me. The cd's are great! I love the Carol of the Bells! It's the most rockin MOTAB song i've heard. Also the david archuletta angels we have heard on high song is super great! it had like a million key changes and goes back to the original key. It blew mine and Elder Davis' mind! Oh and Track 13 on that cd is just a guy with a funny accent talking for 15 minutes. I couldn't stop laughing when it first came on.  You know we go to three sacraments a week to try and get to as many wards as possible? It's crazy!

We had a very long day saturday. We had so many things planned but they all fell through cuz of sickness and arguments with ex's and all sorts of dumb stuff. It was just like last saturday except this Sunday wasn't a miracle day like last week. More things fell through, hardly anyone went to Stake Conferece (Lynn G. Robins of the 70 was there. He was super awesome) and then out Temple Square appointment with our Arabic speaking Investigator fell through cuz he wouldn't get out of the car and we don't know why. When we called Temple Square the sister who answered was no help. They have an Arabic speaker and wouldnb't put her on the phone cuz of "rules" or something. I know the Temple Square Mission Pres. would be fine if she talked iof it meant a baptism. Anyway we think he's mad at us now but we can't tell cuz he speaks Arabic. 

Fred isn't really progessing that fast. We're going to his house for dinner Thursday. He's making us jambalaya so I'm pretty excited for that. 
I ran into Sister Giles who served in Orlando. Remember her? It was so cool to run into her!
Cheryl is doing awesome! She bore her testimony yesterday she said, "I'm not a member... yet... I'm working on it" I'm so happy.
We are also teaching a Bosnian family. They say a lot of funny things cuz the mom hardly speaks English. We're trying our best. We pick out some words but we don't know what she's talking about. She says stuff like, "Big kid bite wrist bite arm bite shoulder don't good. He no bite, he big friend. Parents. Bosnia, America bomb don't good, kill bad men kill bad babies, don't good. Kids sometimes help sometimes don't, sometimes eat sleep, no dishes laundry cook clean don't good."
We don't know what she's talking about but they're great.
ok. Saturday was the worst day of my mission yet. we had so many cool plans. We were gonna take the Bosnians to Temple Square. We were gonna be double booked at 2:00 for lessons we had so many cool lessons planned. Everything but one lesson fell through. We were just trying to talk to people and everything fell through. It was the worst.....
And then yesterday happened. Best day of my mission! We were so far behind since the day before was shot. We had a lot to do. We set our goals high to achieve our weekly goals. We knew those were the numbers the Lord wanted us to get so we tried our best. We had 2 investigators say they'd come to church. we had 5. We didn't even know the 3 others until yesterday! It was a great day. We were able to achieve the the Dry Standard of Excellence. The Standard of Excellence is 1 baptism, 3 On date for baptism, 5 at church, 8 lessons with a member present, and 3 new investigators in one week. The Dry Standard of Excellence is all that just without the baptism. We were so excited when all these miracles came together. We had to put one more person on date. One of the Bishop's in the Stake introduces us to Hannah. She came to church and set up an appointment for that night. We went and asked her to be baptized on Dec 3 and she said yes! I'm so excited for it! Miracles happened yesterday my faith grew so much.
 Man I love being on a mission.
I went to the Salt Lake Temple this morning. We go like every 6 weeks so it was my first time going. It was really cool! I mean it's the same thing you just go to different rooms sometimes. I think I like Orlando better though. The grounds look better :) The live session just doesn't have as good of acting and there's no costumes. It's still great though
We had snow. yay...... It looks nice but Elder Davis always makes it fall off the branches and hit me. then when i try to get him it still falls on me. I guess I just don't have very much experience with snow. It's great though. 
Let's see what else is there........ We got moved to the library from the Family history center for emails. That's ok though. I just have to remember to bring my camera. I really don't have time to take pictures but if i see anything super cool i'll take a picture.

Fred's doing well. he offered to feed us Thanksgiving. I'm so excited for some soul food.

We have a ton of investigators. I can't mention them all it would take forever :)

Here's some of my favorites. Sheryl came to church yesterday. She is married to a trucker and while she was on the trip with him she read the whole Book of Mormon. She's so ready to be baptized! Then there's Desiree. She moved here recently from upstate New York. She was on date but missed church so we had to move her back a week or 2. She's cool though. 

We've had to drop a few investigators. They dodge our appointments. Why don't they just tell us we don't want you to come? That would save so much time!

Today i went to a sub shop that was on Food Network: Moochies. It was the best sandwich I've ever had! I'm still full! I'll be full for at least another 15 minutes too lol.

This morning my companion gave me a workout sheet called the Ab Ripper. OUCH! I'm sore lol. 

Today is an all day p-day i'm so excited! For the first time on my mission it feels like a true break time. Oh except we have a ton to do. Shop, e-mail, umm eat, and play sports. Even a lazy day is a busy day.

Well I think that's all for this week. Oh yeah! This was a miracle week. We added 9 investigators! My faith grew so much. I'm so excited to baptize them all!

If you want to see Brandon's mission, Sister Winn the mission president's wife has a blog that she keeps up with.  If we are lucky Brandon could be in some of the pictures. It's  mamawinnsplace.blogspot.com.

This week was a little tougher than the last few. We ran out of miles so we biked. our phone screen broke and we're having a hard time finding. I'm still having more fun than ever though. It's pretty weird. I love it here. 

I'm not sure what I should talk about now. I'm learning and growing a lot. I know my area and I love the people. I love my 2 hours of study in the morning and i love just being a missionary. One of my favorite things is putting on my tag. It's true! I'm really here! I have the tag to prove it!

We're teaching a guy named Fred. He's from Louisiana. He's got a Cajun accent. I don't know what he says. He's awesome though. 

Keep up with the blog. It's pretty cool and I should be on there every once in a while. 

Today we had a field trip to the tabernacle organ and the beehive house. I wanted to get a pic of the organ but i had a bad seat. so just Google it an you'll see where i was. There's a bunch of pillars there.I was behind one....... The Beehive house used to be Brigham Young's. There were a ton of people there and we moved to quickly for me to even get pictures. I know you'll be mad i don't have pics but i tried. just Google the beehive house too. 

Well since the field trip took up most of our pday I have to go.

I love you all!

Elder Damewood

Brandon's first baptism

Hey guys I'll answer those questions first.

Are you on a bike or in a car?

Car, but we're using up our miles pretty quick so we want to start using bikes soon.

Did you get your bike and how is it? 

Yes, I haven't ridden it yet though. We need helmets first.

Are you guys in an appartment and how do you like it?  

We're in a members basement. It's super nice! We have a washer and dryer down there. The only thing is their dog is annoying. 

Have you had a busy week of appointments?

Well we haven't had too many appointments.. It's hard to find people to teach, hardly anyone speaks English here and Rose Park so we hand out referrals a lot more often than we teach.

 Are you getting the teaching thing down and haveing some spiritual moments?

Yeah, I'm getting pretty used to teaching. The thing is we've had 3 baptisms and now we have no one left to teach we're looking as hard as we can. We've had tons of Spiritual Moments already. Elder Davis was driving and stopped and said I've seen myself on that doorstep. We ended up placing a Book of Mormon and we're gonna try and start teaching them soon. The baptisms were great. I can't spell their names(they're from Guam) they are nicknamed Tete and Lala. They are super solid converts. They're 11 and 13. I got to confirm the younger one. That was so amazing!

This week went great. I really can't believe it's already been a month. Well, i didn't get the package Friday so I'll get it this Friday. I'm excited. I remembered my camera so here's those pics. The first few are from the MTC. My Companion is the tall white one and Elder Teripaia is the short Hawaiian awesome guy! Elder Lee is the taller dark one. He's from New Zealand. The sun was always so bright that it made our shirts glow in the sun.

Anyway. We've got a lot planned this week. One word: FIND! We need people to teach! 

I love you all and I'll talk to you next week!

-Elder Damewood

Hey everyone!

So my first area is In Rose Park! It's kind of in North Salt Lake. It's so much fun here. I love being a missionary. So. My mission address is: 

Elder Brandon Damewood

Utah Salt Lake City Mission

3487 S. 1300 E. West Entrance

Salt Lake City, Utah 84106

I get the mail every Friday. The Zone Leaders bring it to us.

P-Day is Monday. That's when I get and send emails. 

Ok now for the cool stuff.

I left the MTC Oct 5. We got to the mission office and I met the Presidency and my companion. His name is Elder Davis. He's been out a year he's from Portland and he's so cool. He likes pretty much the same music as me even though we can't listen to it lol. 

Alright so then we played EXTREME STREET CONTACTING! We went downtown and talked to as many people as we could it was a ton of fun. Then we dropped my bags of and went to appointments. We had dinner and a lesson and I really don't remember much of it cuz i was very lost. After 2 days of not knowing what was going on I finally got used to the area. Now I know my investigators. I kind of know how to get around. We had a baptism already and we have 2 this weekend. We don't have one scheduled for this weekend yet but we're working on it. Then the one after that it should be easy to put someone "on date." 

So we've done some tracting. Once a lady opened the door like 5 inches then said something i didn't understand and walked off leaving the door open. We knocked again after 2 minutes than waited for 2 more. Finally we turned around and heard the door close behind us it was so funny. 

I've already had one person pay for my lunch so far so that's cool. I don't know what else to say? What do ya'll wanna know?

Love,

Elder Damewood

p.s. oh yeah we get to go to the temple every month here! Whooo!

So, Brandon had some time left.  I love this letter it is cute.
So I have some time left over to write an email. I don't really have much to say though. I don't have any stories beause nothing much happens the day before you leave... I think I'm going to miss the MTC. It's weird, this 3 weeks has really flown by but it feels like i've been here for years. I don't know if you know what I mean but it's weird. I'm really looking forward to get into the field. It's gonna be great. I hope that tomorrow I can send you where my area adress is and tell you where I'm serving. I don't think I have much else to write.... But i still have 12 minutes. Umm the food is good.. It could be better but it's good. My roommates are awesome. Elder Lee is from New Zealand and Elder Teripaia is from Hawaii. That's cool to hear about the grass at the temple. Speaking of bad fish we had something here called Cod Nuggets. They were pretty good. The British Elder in my district Elder Needham hates when we have "fish and chips" me and him both know it's not even close. 50% of the people in my field are members. They make up 2% of Church membership worldwide. So that's pretty cool. I've still got 8 minutes. How's the new season of My Little Pony: Friendship is Magic? Is it pretty epic? anything that gets sent to my mission office will get forwarded to me within a few days so just make that my official address and it'll be fine. I really like getting mail. It's the only thing that's kind of different. I'm either studying or studying with my companion, or my district, or my zone, or I'm eating. Letters add a little flavor to the mix hahaha. wow 5 minutes left.. hey it's 11:11. I wish for something good for lunch.. I'm pretty bored if you can't tell. I'm waiting for my companion to do his emails then I can go to lunch. After lunch I'm going to the Temple then packing up until dinner, choir, devtional, then bed. I leave here at 6 in the morning tomorrow. I'm super excited! I've been reading the Book of Mormon like crazy. I'm on Alma 32 already, it's one of my favorite chapters too. The one's before it are all about The missionary journeys of the Sons of Mosiah, they're a really good role model. The thing is I'll never be able to catch up to them. They had thousands of baptisms... I'll only have hundreds lol.

Well I'm pretty much out of time. I love you all

Elder Damewood

Sweet dad! That's all good news. We beat Buffalo and Bama beat Fla Whooooooooooo! That puts me in a working mood. I sure wish i was going in the field tomorrow. Wow! My wish just come true. I'm so excited! I get to meet my president and my trainer and get to work! It's so cool!

Ok Everyone reading the Blog, you can no longer send DearElders to me here at the MTC, they will not get to me, send it to my mission home and then I will get them from now on. Maybe by tomorrow my specific address will be on here so it gets here faster. We'll see.. I'll keep you posted.

 

 

Hey Everyone,

  

It's still going great here. Elder Russel M. Nelson gave a devotional here last tuesday and someone else will be speacking tonight. I don't know who yet and it might not be a gen. authority because conference is so soon.

Umm in the Haloween package I don't know what I want except the rest of my black socks. They run out pretty fast.

I'm going to have to wait til i'm in the field to send pics

So i've been avoiding the Chocolate milk and eating the salads, my pants are fitting better now! it's great. I love mission life.... The shirts, ties, name tags, and the crazy schedule, it's so great!

So what are the Tennessee scores? I heard about Florida :( but what about other games? Put them in a DearElder please.

Thanks for figuring out the dear elder stuff. I liked getting letters, keep em coming.

I'm having a lot of fun here. Whenever I do miss home as soon as i get a little sad it's time to go to class or eat or study so I hardly have time! Sure I'm looking forward to coming home but not untill I've done my work! I can't wait to get out into the field. One more week! Weeks fly by here too so it'll feel like about 2 days or so. I can't wait to go to devotional tonight. Last time i was in the choir.   We sang Consider The Lillies to an Apostle and he thanked us for the unforgettable music! it was so cool! Well thanks in advance for the Haloween package. How about a Christmas mix CD of all the MoTab Christmas songs?

I'm so excited to get out in the field. The MTC is either Spiritual Boot camp or the Lord's prison. There's these great mountains and I can't get close... Snow is probably coming there's really good weather and fall colors are showing up. I went to the Provo Temple and took some pictures of the grounds. I thought you'd like to see how it is and compare. I think it works differently out here with the grounds crew. I think they get a lot of help from BYU students.

Anyway keep those letters coming, words from home really help.

This is Elder Damewood's first email.  He talked about his ankle in the email.  The day before he left he rolled it in the back yard just walking around.

Oh mani just realized i don'thave my camera or card on me. Thepictures will be in next weeks email.

 

Anyway wheni got here i met my companion elder rowe. he's so cool. he's from arizona and he's really great

the Spirit is so strong here. I've never felt this great 24/7.

 

Thank you so much for all the support over the years. I don't think i could have made it this far wothout you. It means the world to me.

 

Brooke, the other Elders in my room tasted your lemon bars. They loved them! thank you so much for making them. I love you, Avatar State Yip Yip!

 

The weather here is amazing! It is cool in the mornings and warm in the day.

 

The mountains are bigger than i imagined. They thake up half the sky!

 

The classes here are so intense. Not only do my great teachers teach me the Spirit teaches me even more. I feel more ready to teach every day. All this focus is tiring though. I hit the pillow and just fall asleep only to wake up at 6:30 feeling like i only blinked. I'm so busy here that I'm too busy to even miss home.

 

I sang in the choir sunday and I'm going later today. We're singing Consider the Lilies. The director told us about the song. he said when Jesus left to get the one lost sheep he counted the 99 to make sure they were there first. He still takes care of the ones who are doing good. That was really comforting.

 

My ankle is doing better. It still hurts and gets swollen some times.

 

So P-Day is tuesday here at the MTC. I'll  be sending these letters to you every week. I'll try and remember to bring my picture equipment next time. I have some great ones.

 

 

Dad, This is what we would call camping weather! It's so nice out I wish i didn't have to have my classes inside. Have a good one man! I love you so much.

 

Mom, Thanks for all you've done to get me this far. When I was unpacking I was so thankful for all the preparations you made. I have everything I need. It means a lot. Thanks I love you.

 

Thank you so much for your prayers.

Elder Damewood

 

Sunset after being set apart / Airport leaving

Tonight's Photos of Elder Damewood and Family

ok one more thing

Here's my MTC address to be used until the end of Spetember. I'm leaving the MTC 1st week of Oct and won't be getting letters sent there too late. So if only use this address until about Sep. 25th at the latest.

Elder Brandon Leon Damewood
MTC Mailbox # 165
UT-SLC 1005
2005 N 900 E
Provo, UT 84604-1793

address

ok I forgot to give you my address!

Elder Brandon Leon Damewood
Utah Salt Lake City Mission
3487 S 1300 E West Entrance
Salt lake City, UT 84106

1st

Hey everyone thanks for coming to my blog. This'll probably be the only post i make since I'm leaving this Wednesday. My mom will be posting the letters and pictures i send her to this blog.

So if you wanna see what's going on in SLC keep checking in and look out for future posts.

-Elder Damewood