The Six Month Mark!




 

Elder Bird and Elder Kirkham came out together and celebrate
six months in the mission field with a tie burning ceremony.

In some ways it's gone by fast, at other times it seems like an eternity. On February 4th Brock will hit the sixth month mark, and he's spent all that time in Abany-Corvallis.

     It looks like he commemorated the milestone a little early with the customary tie burning, while Brock's companion burned a shirt for being out one year.

Elder Bird watches Elder Lindsay's shirt
go up in flames.



Elder Bird and Kirkham each have
one less tie in their wardrobes.

         I will fill you in on a few things.  Today we picked up another elder! Yes, we're in a threesome now. Ugh! But he is cool. His name is Elder Lewis form Mesa, Arizona. He is going to Brazil, but doesn't have a visa yet so our threesome is only temporary. Haha!  But yeah, we picked him up this morning at 7.



     Tuesday we went on splits with the Spanish elders and got a lot done.  We met a woman named Andrea who had been really struggling and has been praying for help and guidance.  She was about to give up on everything and then we knocked on her door and we told her we were from the church and she just started crying.  It was kind of awkward at first because she gave us hugs and then she invited us in and we talked to her and set a date for the 29th! Pretty cool,  so we have been teaching her and her family.  Pretty chill!


     On Wednesday we taught a couple lessons to people but did mostly finding.  We taught Caley and Jordan and just talked to people all day! 

This is from a recent zone conference.
Elder Bird with his mission buddies!

Elder Bird with Elder Blackburn who goes home
in a few weeks.  "We are way tight," Brock says.

    Thursday we had district meeting all day and then went to the Vaughns for a lesson.


     Friday we did some more finding. We did 17 total hours of finding this week! Then we taught Jordan.  She is sick! She is way stoked for baptism and asked us, "Can I just do it tomorrow?" Haha! It was funny!


     Saturday we visited some less actives and some former investigators.  One was Shelly Chapman and she was way happy to see us.  She wanted to set up an apointment to be taught right away.  She said the next day they were going to a funeral for her 8 year old son's best friend and he was really down and emotional about everything.  We just talked to him!  He told us he wouldn't have anyone to go hunting with or play basketball, or baseball with! :( I just wanted to give the little kid a hug he was so cute! So we talked to him about the Plan of Salvation and his mom loved that.  We are going over tomorrow to teach them! They are way sick!  She has 3 boys, they are all pretty legit!


     Yesterday we went to church, taught Jordan, and went to the Oberfoells.  She is from New York.  Really tight person.  I am way close to her and her family.  They made us dinner and we hung out there for a little while and then went home.

Speaking of P-day, hanging out on the coast at Lincoln City
recently looks more like a dream vacation.  Elder Bird says, "It
was pretty nice, just really wet."

     Right now I am in Corvallis about to play ball with everyone, and then we will go shopping. That's about it for my P-day!


I hope you have a great day and week!  I love you and hope all is well!


Love,
Your son, Brock!

Back To The Drawing Board

Elder Bird and little Alex Vaughn.  Brock and
his compaion baptized his family and someday
Alex will have his turn!

After enjoying a wonderful holiday season blessed with several baptisms, Brock says he and his companion are back into the "search" mode for souls waiting to hear the Gospel.  From the pictures and letters we get from Brock, we can tell he really loves the people, and the children he gets to know.

 We have been doing a lot of finding and haven't seen much from it this week.  We are really pushing the members to start doing the work here so we don't have to do it all!  We came up with a program called M3 that is starting this Sunday, so we will keep you posted on how it goes.  Were basically teaching a missionary prep class for all the ward missionaries and how to get them to really start doing missionary work.  So it should be good!

Brock with his Oregon sweatshirt along
the coast at Lincoln City.  Has he forsaken
BYU and Utah??

 Caley is doing well.  We set her date for the 29th of this month!   It's just hard to get her to church because of her baby and everything, but she really wants to come, just things come up all the time.  So we try to be patient! :)  And Jordan is ready for baptism! We're just going to finish up all the lessons with her and talk to her and her parents about baptism.  She wants to get baptized really badly but her mom is the hold up.  We have talked to her mom and she was really nice and said she would support it. She just doesn't want her to rush into anything!

Today we got approved to watch the Ducks game, so we have all day off!  We're going to brother Dunmire's house to watch it in his theater!

Hope you have a bomb week! :)
Love your baby boy,
Brock

Kick Off To The New Year!

Elder Bird and Elder Lindsay recently cruising
down a dark Albany alley.

     How's it goin'!  Things are going alright this week!   

    
    Friday we had a stake New Year's party with a bunch of drawings for prizes.  Haha!  One of those prizes was a PS3, haha!  Imagine that!  And guess who won the PS3?  Any guesses???? Haha!  I did!!  Wow!  I was shocked! !


    New Year's Day we woke up and played some football early in the morning.  It was freezing but way fun!  

Elder Lindsay, Tom Whalin and Elder Bird at their
New Years Day baptism!

     Then we had Tom Whalin's baptism at 4pm!  It was cool!  He is a really cool guy and he needed this in his life.  He and his fiance are getting married soon and sealed in the temple in a year and hoped I would still be here when they go through.  But we will see . Haha!  Doubt it though.



This is the Christmas baptism of four members of
the Vaughn family.  Brock has worked with
them for months and is really close to them.

      But now we have baptized everyone we taught.  We have a low teaching pool now so this week we're  focusing on finding new people!


     Caley's baptism should be coming up soon.  We have a few things to work out with her.  We have a solid invetigator named Jordan too!.  She is 16 and we're teaching her this week.  She has been to church for 5 months straight and wants to take the discussions and get baptized.   So it's always good to find Willy Wonka's golden tickets every once in awhile!

The four Vaughn's white Christmas!
Ina (mom), Sandra, Gabby and Sabina.

     Well, that's about it.  Let me know if there is anything I can do for you!


     I love you tons!       
     Your boy Brock!