Elder May - April Email

We had the pleasure of attending Stake Conference yesterday where Elder May spoke along with his mission leader, President Pugmire.  I am probably a bit bias but I thought his talk was absolutely amazing.  Our stake president said in his closing remarks that each missionary's mission is perfectly perfect for him or her.  That statement resonated so strongly with me as Brian and I have believed this for awhile.  Each missionary, either proselyting or service, are servants of the Lord and the Lord knows them all perfectly.  We love this Elder and are so proud of him and his desire to serve the Lord.  

April Email

Hello Everyone!

April feels like a super long month for me. Probably because it was such a bittersweet month for me. It was the last month before my brother got home, we had the mission activity at the Mesa Temple Visitor's Center, Elder Ferrell was released from his mission, it was Elder Haws's 21st birthday, and Sister Briggs's wedding, and I got to speak in my Stake Conference. It was a lot of events for others, but I am glad that I went to all of them and pictures to remember each event like a memento of sorts.

My brother, Hayden, gets home from the Florida Tampa Mission on May 2, 2018. He initially left on April 27, 2018 and because of transfers, he gets home a little later than expected. I am excited that he is coming home but it makes this month feel like it was being dragged on for a little too long. We spent this whole last Saturday all day just planning and preparing for his arrival. The closer it gets, it still feels a little unreal that it's going to happen, but I have planned for everything. I haven't seen him in two years which doesn't feel like a ton of long time, except for the fact that I have been given very little time to communicate with him. As our family, each of us only got about an hour to email with him once a week and then we got to phone call or Skype with him only on Mother's Day or on Christmas, so it wasn't a long time in length of time, but it has been a while since now we can actually fully communicate with one another again. I am ready for him to be home and I am ready to be with my brother again.

Our mission activity at the Mesa Temple Visitor's Center was a ton of fun. I got to take care of Elder Dayton Hayward and Elder Taylor Ferrell again as we had testimonies and the videos learning more of the translation of the Book of Mormon with the latest videos of Oliver Cowdery and of David Whitmer.  These videos were incredible. They were so detailed, and they brought me new definitions and a better idea on how the Book of Mormon was translated. It was incredible and afterwards, I just got to spend some time with Elder Haws and Hayward and Elder Ferrell which is always the best.

The most bittersweet thing for me this month was the release of Elder Ferrell from his mission. He was released from his mission on April 15, 2018. Elder Ferrell and I were companions since March 2, 2017, which was a little over a total of 13 months together. I had been able to be trained to become a caregiver for whenever he needed me, I moved in with him and lived at his house for about 3 weeks while being his caregiver full-time, I was able to travel to Modesto, California with him while he went to Yosemite National Park as he went to a muscular dystrophy camp to learn how to be more independent with his physical disability. I was able to throw him a surprise birthday party for his 21st birthday, we were able to go to the Easter pageant together, we had a mission release party for him with Brett Zollinger, both of the Atkin's, Elder Tassainer and then him and myself and he was able to help me a lot be a better district leader, a better missionary and just a better person. He taught me so much, and there was a lot of laughter between the two of us. I truly will miss him, but I had a much better mission because of him.Elder Haws turned 21 this month. His birthday was on a Sunday, so we decided to go out to eat on April 20 instead. He invited Elder Newbold, Elder Tassainer, and myself to join him at lunch. It was fun. We got to celebrate and catch up on one another's lives and we got catch up on Elder Haws and what he is planning on doing with being 21. We were hoping that Dayton could have joined us too but he was out of town, so I think Elder Haws was going to call him or something.

Sister Kaylyn Briggs invited Elder Ferrell and I to go to her wedding reception to her new husband, Gavin Gardner. It was a wonderful time to see her, but it was also almost like a mission reunion for some of us. I was able to see Elder Elijah Begay, Sister Haleigh Bunn, Elder Dylan Wilson, Sister Heidi Beck, Elder Mike Hepfinger, Elder Keaton Schlink and Elder Ferrell all at one party. We danced all night and we were able to just spend some time together and be able to keep photos and celebrate Sister Briggs becoming Sister Gardner now. I know that we all love her and we all just came to support her. It was a blast.

Finally, I was asked to speak in stake conference. I was asked on Thursday by Sister Pugmire if I could speak. Initially, when I first got the call it was sent to me like I was speaking for 20 minutes on the YCSM program, but I was terribly mistaken as she was only asking me to speak for 2 and a half minutes. Now, our stake has about 7 wards in it. If there is about 100 people in each ward, that means that there were at least 700 people that were going to listen to what I had to say as it was broadcast to different buildings in our stake. It was a terrifying thought, but as I stood up to speak and I walked to the podium, the anxiety and the nervous feelings had left, and I was fully confident in what I wanted to say. Every single one of my ideas in my head had perfectly flown through my mind and I said exactly what I was wanting to say. It was perfect. I spoke on our identities and our abilities and though we have different abilities and disabilities, our identities don't change.

All that matters are that we have the desire to serve others. If we have the desire to serve others, then we are called to the work. It doesn't matter what abilities that we have or if we fit into the criteria. All that matters are that we have that desire to help others. That is what I truly love about my mission. It doesn't focus on my capabilities, but it rather focuses perfectly on what I want to do to serve others and how I can perfectly capitalize on my abilities to help serve others. I love my companions like Elder Ferrell and I love all my friends like Elder Hayward, Elder Tassainer, Elder Atkin, and Elder Haws and Hawks. I love my mission and I love my abilities to serve others in my best capacities. I love all of you and I am so excited for May!

Love Elder May

 

 

Elder May - March Email

This Elder has my heart and exemplifies the service the Lord would perform if He was on the Earth today.  He truly is amazing and we love him so much.  As we watched General Conference and reference was made to the number of missionaries serving, my heart was overwhelmed and humbled knowing that Elder Bryson is one of them.  We love him so and are oh, so proud of him!  Enjoy!!

March Email:

Hi everyone! Just another classic month has just passed by for me! March was a very long and exhausting month but just the same old events had occurred. I don't know if it did for anyone else but for me, March felt incredibly long. We had our leadership council, I went to Save the Family with a friend named Emily, we had our mission conference with Elder Porter, and finally, I went to the Easter Pageant with Elder Ferrell.

Our leadership council was super good! It was the first time for me that I was given as assignment and I was actually able to follow through with it. I was able to speak alongside Elder Tassainer, Elder Hawks and Haws, and Elder Begay. I was able to speak on district meetings and their importance. I talked for way longer than I was supposed to and I didn't even notice. I felt pretty bad for taking up other people's time but I think that whatever God wanted me to say during it, that it must have had some impact on the people around me.

My sister-in-law asked me if I could take one of her sisters, Emily who was about 16-17 years old, with me to Save the Family to volunteer during spring break and it was so much fun! Everyone loved Emily there. People were telling me that she was so kind and loving to those around her, she was super smart and getting it done without needing supervision and she just kept asking for more tasks to help with. Emily and I would talk during the car rides and I got to know her a lot better and she would tell me all about the service that she was able to do and how much of a difference that she was able to make while she worked there. I had coworkers asking me if she could come back after spring break to continue to help at Save the Family.

I was recently asked by the Pugmire's if I could give a tour to them on Save the Family and what it is that we provide. For those of you that don't know, Save the Family helps homeless families with minor children find a home and reach self-sufficiency. We have classes and we do lunches for our clients and we have case management programs and youth classes and career development specialists and anything we can do to help out the families that we serve. It is not an LDS charity. My service mission is involved a lot with Save the Family and helping with whatever Save the Family might need. Anyway, when the Pugmire's got here, they did not tell me that every single member of the YCSM leadership was also going to be there. I had the Mortensen's, the Thornock's, the Bradshaw's, the Pugmire's and even Elder and Sister Edwards from the Quorum of the Seventy here to see Save the Family and what it is that we do. It was super nerve-wracking but it was so great to see everyone be so excited to see everything about Save the Family.

The March mission conference was a blast! I was able to spend time with my two best friends both while serving and not serving, Elder Taylor Ferrell and Elder Dayton Hayward. Elder Ferrell sat behind us in the chapel with Dayton and I sitting at the front. I had kind of a unique experience with Elder Hayward on that day. At the beginning of the meeting Dayton kept falling asleep. I asked around on what to do and the people around me just said to let him sleep. The longer that I let him do this, the more uneasy I was getting and I started trying every way that I could to wake him up. He would wake up, yawn, and then go back to sleep. That's when it hit me. Dayton's spirit was asking me, pleading with me to try and keep his body awake so that he could focus but his body was just so tired that it couldn't handle being awake at the time. Dayton kept asking me and I didn't want to give up on him so I tried every possible way that I could to keep him awake. Slowly, he kept his eyes shut but he started to have a bigger and bigger smile with me sitting next to him in the chapel while listening to Elder Baker and Elder Porter. 

 I lied. I actually have two unique experiences with Elder Hayward that day. After the conference was over, people were taking things down and I had just moved Dayton to the side while waiting for his dad to come by. Elder Baker walked up to me and Dayton and asked me how I speak all the time to Elder Hayward. He continued to tell me that he had watched me all day and wanted to try the same ways that I speak to him but he wanted to see if he could have a conversation with Dayton. I was already kneeling on the floor next to Dayton so Elder Baker did the same. He put his left hand on Dayton's right knee and then I put Elder Baker's right thumb into his left hand. As soon as Elder Baker grabbed Dayton's hand, Dayton squeezed right around his hand and his whole face lit up and he started smiling like crazy. Elder Baker started to ask him questions vocally and Dayton would blink or not blink and then soon Elder Baker and Dayton went silent and I could tell that they were actually talking with each other and having a conversation. It was beautiful to watch. I am so glad that I was able to be a part of that and I just love Dayton and Elder Ferrell. They are two of my very best friends. My mission would not be the same without them.

Because of the vast distance between Elder Ferrell and I, we try to do something together each month as a companionship. I noticed that we hadn't done anything together this month so we decided to go the Easter pageant together, just as our companionship. He had never been there before and I had been there only once but it was a super long time ago. We were able to go around these giant crowds and we saw one chair at the very front row. Well, we sat there and it turns out that they were reserved by a family. The mom asked us that the family that was coming didn’t make it and she asked if we could stay there with her family. She has a nephew that also has a physical disorder that causes him to use a power chair so when she saw Elder Ferrell there, she immediately loved him and was thanking me a ton of times for helping him as I do and for him for being there. Their family was so kind and the Easter Pageant was spectacular! 

This was a summary of my most recent month. It’s crazy to think of the amazing experiences that I have been able to be a part of because of my service mission. I am so grateful for the YCSM program and I am grateful that when I came home early, that there were people in my life that didn’t give up on me and pushed me into serving a second mission, a service mission. I am so grateful to everyone who have helped me get to this point and I am so excited to see where my mission takes me next!

Love,

Elder Bryson May