Week 69 - CJ's Getting Married?!?!! What The . . . .

Dear Mom and Dad,

What the crap?! CJ is getting married and NOBODY TOLD ME!!?? What a little fetch!! Tell him that I am rebuking the crap out of him through this email! Wow you leave for 2 years and everyone just decides they're gonna move on in life without me... Oh well. Anyway, I think I got pretty much everyone's cards and letters and stuff. Other than Christmas life was pretty boring this week except for we went on exchange with the Zone Leaders this week which was fun, Elder Gough and Elder Aiono. Tell Garret that if he wants to get girls he's gotta get a license! Haha anyway I'm doing really good. And Dad I finally get a companion who is old enough to buy the drinks and you gotta go and ruin the party! Anyway you guys have a great week!

Love, Elder Braken Park

Week 68: Butchered a Cow!

Dear Mom and Dad,

This week has been really busy. We've done a lot of service, and visiting Less-actives. We've gotten pretty settled up here, and winter has been pretty generous to us this year not too cold yet. I have gotten your packages, but I wasn't sure about whether I was supposed to open them or not. If you could let me know I would appreciate that thanks haha :) Christmas eve we are going over to our Ward Mission Leaders house so I'm not sure on an exact time, but I'll be calling the night before to let you guys know. So no worries! So apparently Grandpa served in South Bend, which is where our Zone Leaders and the Stake center are, so I'm spending time in the same places Grandpa did! I thought that was super cool! But anyway I helped butcher a cow this week, that was fun... and gross. But still interesting experiences! anyway that's pretty much everything I have. I love you guys! Talk to you thursday!

Elder Braken Park

Week 68: Pictures from Niles

"The Leg Lamp"

Braken - Niles, Michigan

Week 67: Getting Under Way in the New Area of Niles, Michigan!

Dear Mom and Dad,

So this week I have had the chance to excercise the christlike attributes of charity and patience.... A lot.... Haha. So here's the situation we live 5 miles outside the city of Niles, and this transfer president decided to have us share a car with the Mishawaka Elders, who live about 10 miles south of us. So we have had to do a lot of walking no big deal, keeps my girlish figure. Haha anyway, so we finally get the car and mishawaka has put 300 miles on it. Now we only have so many miles to use in a month, and since we are so far away from Indy, that ended up being about half our miles gone. So it's been a stuggle not to go Teancum on a couple of missionaries. But anyway we have had some good success! The ward here has really stepped up and has really supported us. We found a new girl to teach, who's name is Hannah. We talked about the Book of Mormon with her and She was really interested in it. So that's pretty much our week so far. So Elder Van Sickle is like me in the fact that he just likes anything sweet so hopefully that helps haha. No our house isn't nearly as big as our Crawfordsville one, but that was to be expected haha. Garret did tell me about Savanna and I gave him some girl advice for what it's worth from me haha. Well that's pretty all I can think of so I love you guys I will talk to you in 2 weeks! and I'll email you next week too ;)

Love, Elder Braken Park

Week 66: Transfers! I'm a Michiganary!

Dear Mom and Dad,
So the move went alright, I left a bunch of stuff in Crawfordsville. Haha that's to be expected though. We have a mission conference and Elder Sneddon is in Lebanon which is close to there so he's gonna bring all the stuff I forgot so I can grab it. Leaving Crawfordsville was super hard, but I think this will be a super awesome area and companionship. His name is Elder Van Sickle. He's into pretty much all the same things I am, he loves Halo and Star Wars, and he also plays Magic. We talk all the time about whatever, so we are super close. I'm super happy about this companionship. I thought of another thing for christmas. The movie Prince Of Egypt on DVD. President Cleveland said we could watch it so I thought I'd ask for a copy. Let me know thanks! Well that's pretty much my whole week, getting settled. Have a great week Love you guys!

Love, Elder Braken Park

--Here is an email that went out to everyone--

Dear Family and Friends,

So another transfer has come and gone, and I finally left Crawfordsville. I'm in a little town called Niles, in Michigan. My new address is 1204 Ontario road Apt B, Niles, MI 49120. My new companion's name is Elder Van Sickle, and he is a total stud! I'm looking forward to this area and the opportunity to work here. Thanks for all your love and support!

Love, Elder Braken Park

WEEK 65: HAPPY THANKSGIVING!

Dear Mom and Dad,

So this week has been pretty good. Mostly just setting up for transfers and doing a lot of service. For Thanksgiving we ended up going to Matt Allen's. He's a good ol' boy from the country Dad would like him haha. He has a wife (actually her name is Shelly haha) and 2 kids (boy and girl) about Mason and Peyton's age. So of course the food was amazing so I felt like I was stuffed over the brim, but that's the tradition haha. I did get your package and the shoes were awesome! They fit great and I have no complaints! I would love another CTR Belt for Christmas so you can add that to the list thanks! As far as the work goes like I said we've been doing a lot of service. We rang bells for salvation army, We helped at a Train museum, and helped our landlord around her antique shop. It's been a pretty fun week! But we are going to have to give all our Investigators to the sisters here. Ugh. Oh well I'm sure they'll be taken care of. Anyway that's pretty much it for this week. I'll send a letter with my address on it when I get there!

Love, Elder Braken Park