Brad's Mission

Keyes Family + Lewis Family + all you other people!!!!
What's up!!!
How are you!?!?

I am attaching some audio recordings from my companion's voice
recorder! haha they are kind of weird and we're super dumb on them,
but it's still kinda fun to listen too! They will get better in the
future I promise! haha

I cannot believe it's already time to do e-mails again! It's crazy how
fast time is flying by! I can't even believe it you guys!
The cold stint is over with here is so. cal! We're down to 80-90
weather every day, with not a cloud in the sky! About 2 weeks ago
there were some great Santa Ana winds comin through that cooled things
off a bit and there were a couple sprinkles which meant we got to see
clouds!!!! You guys!! Clouds are soo awesome!! Never take for
granted...granite...clouds!! But now we're back to no clouds and
perfectly sunny again. Just like usual! haha the awesome thing about
fall is that instead of the 95-110 range, we're down in the 80-95
range instead. Depends on the day.

We had some awesome stuff happen this past week! I don't really know
where to begin, I figure for the most part you guys will all learn
about my mission when I chime in on like every conversation and
say,"When I was on my mission...." and then I'll spout off some story
that you guys haven't heard. I'm totally going to be that guy that
refers to his mission all the time. I'm chill with that cuz quite
frankly, my mission is the best so it's cool!

Ok I wanted to say something before I forget. But You know that big
crazy building looking thing off the 15 by brigham city where we wrote
"Welcome Home Elder Lewis" and stuff? that'd be pretty dang awesome if
yall did that! That'd be really sweet!

So a little bit about what happened this week!
Presdient was in San Diego for a big Mission President Seminar all
week until Saturday. Immediately after he got home he called us up to
meet with us. He's on fire! He was so inspired by the Seminar and
wanted to share with us everything while it was all fresh on his mind!
It was so awesome!! I actually sent chad the audio recording of it.
Elder Hartt bought the voice recorder and we've been having some great
fun with that! But President talked about how in his training, The
GA's talked all about the Book of Mormon! It was really inspirational
to hear because we were already planning on training our mission on
the Book of Mormon in the month of November! Training the missionaries
on the importance of the Book of Mormon, how we use it, the power that
it has in conversion to the gospel, and everything else that it does!!
He was absolutely on fire! He asked us to do some pretty crazy stuff!
He wants us to decide if we should split our mission or not, and if we
should create an asian mission! Haha some heavy stuff! The GA's at the
seminar told all the Presidents that their compliment would be met by
springtime, so that means within 3 or 4 transfers our mission will
grow by 100 missionaries. So crazy. It's cool to see how the Lord has
kind of prepared us for this. We already have worked out a lot of
areas to create and split. things are falling into place! We have
recieved heaven's help in preparing for all of this! It was a really
spiritual experience this morning taking some final moments of study
to prepare for zone leader council in 2 days. It's all on the Book of
Mormon. The spirit was nearly talking audibly to me this morning. He
was working with me so smoothly that my studies for training the
mission just flowed. The promptings being recieved were clear and
simple to follow. That's one of the greatest things I've learned on my
mission is how to recognize the Spirit. Probably one of the hardest
and most important things to learn in life. When we focus on
recognizing the Holy Ghost and His influence, we can more fully
fulfill our purpose and find greater happiness in life,and Heavenly
Father has a greater opportunity to guide us in our decisions.
Something we all long for! I'm excited to continue to learn to
recognize the Spirit throughout my life. I feel like this is only the
beginning.

We are having a special zone leader council this wednesday! Normally
our councils are the first tuesday of every month from 10am to 3pm.
This council will be Halloween night from 5pm to 830pm. haha We have
no other time available to do it. Next week we are booked because
Elder Kopischke from the 70 is coming to train our mission wednesday
thursday and friday. When happens for zone leader council is, us and
Presidnet & Sister Bowen train the zone leaders, and they in turn,
train the rest of their zone the very next day about the things that
we trained them on. It works really well. That way the information
recieved from Priesthood keys (Presidnet Bowen) gets to the
missionaries as quick as possible so that they can apply the
inspiration he recieves. The brethren know what their doing when they
organize this stuff or something :). We figured we wouldn't have too
much important stuff to do Halloween night anyways! haha it's a pretty
weird night to be a missionary! I remember last year when big rob and
I were on bike and we got around 2 million shouts of ,"Nice
costumes!!" haha. We'll see what craziness happens this year. Anaheim
is full of crazy people so we'll see what's up.

We taught Marisella this week! She's so golden its rediculous. We
taught her the Plan of Salvation. She ate it up! Loved it! Asked
awesome questions! At the end we asked her if she would pray to know
if it really is God's plan for all of us and she said,"Well...I don't
think that I need to pray. It would not make sense, because I already
know that it is true. Why would I pray to know something is true if I
already believe it? I feel that it's true! I feel it in my heart! I
can feel it right now!" Soooo awesome. She came to church with her
daughter and loved it too!

We also got in contact with Chiante and Kennedy again. (the samoans
that are way golden) They've been on a trip for their anniversary and
they got back last night! Chiante texted us like 8 pages about all the
things she loved from her reading assignment. (we gave her Mosiah 18
to read) She absolutley loved the chapter. She said it really spoke to
her and she knows that it's true and said she feels really good about
baptism. She's actually been telling everyone at her work about her
baptism and inviting them to come. We assigned her 3rd Nehpi Chapter
11 to read. And we're meeting with her this week.

Taught brother Kor. He didn't come to church last week, but he read
the first 8 chapters of Nephi instead. It's hard for him to understand
scriptures since he has no reigious background whatsoever, so we took
the time and read 3 nephi with him and really broke it down and talked
about it with him. At the end of the chapter he was really feeling the
spirit wether he recognized it or not. he said,"Wow, this really made
sense to me this time. I really hope that this is true cuz that's
incredible." So cool to hear. He's at the baby stages of gaining a
testimony for himself. he's such an awesome guy.

John Bennum came to church! He's an awesome guy. He's a few bricks
short of a full pallet, but he's still a good guy and pretty sharp.
It's tough to teach him because every lesson goes the exact same. He
brings up the same stuff and says the same stuff almost word for word.
We recorded us teaching him this last time actually! I sent it to chad
as well!(the reason i sent it to just chad is because some of you
don't understand 2012 technology things like "zipped" or "compressed"
folders. i'm sure he will find a way to share it with everyone). We'll
record more actual lessons and send them to you! It's pretty cool!

Man we are so blessed with awesome people to teach!! I love every one
of our investigators. They are so solid and so much fun to teach and
to be around!! Heavenly Father really has blessed us alot! Elder Hartt
and I are loving life!! He's the man! There's not a missionary in this
mission I'd rather be with than him. We're getting along great!
Tomorrow morning we're going with President to pick up some new
chinese missionaries (their transfer cycle is different than spanish
and english. normal transfers aren't for 2 weeks). It's going to be
fun! It's super weird being at the airport. It feels more like a
cemetary when we go. But it's still fun to get the new greenies!

Things are happening here! We have so much going on and so much to
do!! There's never been a greater time to be a missionary than right
now! The Lord really is preparing hearts for great things, member or
non-member, he's preparying souls for big things to happen. I can feel
it! The Spirit is really working with people all around us! I hope
that each of us are praying to recognize the Holy Ghost everyday. When
we not only pray for experiences, but pray to recognize them, then we
have the edge up on seeing miracles take place. I have a testimony of
that. I believe it with all of my heart!

Dad, the pictures of that machine you were hooked up to are nuts!!!
That thing looks crazy! When I showed Elder Hartt, all he could say
was,"Man! Your dad looks so tough! What a boss!" Yup! that's right!
Keep hanging in there dad! You know you're in my prayers and in the
California Anaheim Mission's prayers! I love you!

I want to leave everyone with a reading assignment! And I would love
to hear your thoughts on this assignment in your next e-mail!!
Preach My Gospel mentions "The Doctrine of Conversion". I have studied
this in depth on a couple of occasions and would like to get your take
on the doctrine of conversion. If you wouldn't mind reading the
conversion stories of Enos(Enos 1), Alma the Younger(Mosiah 27), And
King Lamoni(Alma 18).+ any references you would like to share with me.
I would love your take on what the doctrine of conversion is.

Alright you guys! there are others waiting on this computer!!

THANKS SO MUCH FOR THE PACKAGE!!!! I JUST BARLEY OPENED IT!!! THANK YOU!!

I love you so much! I can't believe I have 7 weeks left! Seems unreal.
I miss you!
GLORY TO GOD IN THE HIGHEST!
Love
Elder Keyes