Elder Bronson Scott Puzey

Well the biggest news is that I got to talk to the fam on Christmas which was awesome and it felt good to see their faces and hear their voices again. A couple different things happened this week. 1) We saw Santa get shot down. I'll send a couple of pictures and a video but we were driving to our dinner apointment when Elder Nordgren takes a look out the window and he's all like, "Holy Crap something just blew up in the sky, that's crazy!" So I pull the truck (more like half of it) off the road and hop out to take a look. We couldn't decide if we were seeing the beginning of World War Three, saw Santa get shot down or it was the beginning of the Second Coming. Well because we're missionaries we had absolutely no way of looking up what happened so when we went to dinner we asked them what happened. Apparently it was just a satellite rocket from the Space X program or something like that. Not even close to as cool as what we hyped up in our heads. 2)...

This week went by a little faster than last week which is surprising because we didn't have a whole lot of success. ALL of our lessons fell through the whole week so we spent almost all day everyday tracting and contacting people. It was a little rough. But we've been making the best of it and having a hoot of a time while out walking around.  Yesterday was the day that we were patiently waiting for. We headed over to a potential investigator named Ross with Brother Arnold from the ward. We had talked to him, or really we stood there and he talked to us for 40 or so minutes a few days ago and said that we could come back on Sunday. So we head over Sunday and he again begins talking to us for a good 20 minutes without the three of us saying much of anything but we finally asked if we could sit down inside and share our message. We learned that we couldn't ask him any questions or he would just go off again so it was one of the most simple and fastest restoration lessons ...

This week felt like an eternity but we finally made it to P-Day! Wednesday night was pretty fun though. We went to the Woody's to do a Book of Mormon study group. They're an older couple that sometimes don't make it to church just because of medical stuff. Sister Woody can hardly hear anything so the whole night it was basically Brother Woody (they just call him Woody) telling Sister Woody when it was her turn to read and then she wouldn't hear him and say "Whaaaat?" At which point Woody would repeat it louder and then louder once more and then we would all laugh cause Sister Woody would say something witty. They're awesome and I can't wait to go back this week.  On Thursday and Saturday we were on exchanges. Elder Gress and Elder Stewart are both awesome guys and I'm happy to be serving with them. On Thursday I was with Elder Gress and right before dinner we went to a Christmas Tree lighting and there were TONS of people there so we were runni...

It doesn't feel like anything crazy happened this last week but we've finally entered December so that is super exciting!! We were able to gain a couple of new investigators so here's some information about them.  1) Vivian is an older lady that is a member of another church (I'm like 90% sure it was started by an excommunicated bishop but oh well) and she teaches Sunday school there. She recently lost her husband and was intrigued that we believe that her husband's father (who didn't "accept Christ") was not in hell.   2) Tonio is an 18 year old guy that really just wants to learn a little more about what we believe. He has a TON of questions which makes it a little hard to teach but at least he'll listen to us (most of the time)  3) Bruno is Tonio's dad and he's a kinda investigator. He listened to the tail end of our second lesson with Tonio. That's when the lesson went a little off track and we started discussing things that...

So we've been here for a week now so we're starting to get things figured out. This week actually flew by for me cause we were super busy! So Monday was transfers and that takes the whole day so that was over instantly. On Tuesday we were down in Rancho again to help bring up the luggage of the new missionaries in our zone. On Thursdays the assistants came up to the desert to talk to us and the other two zone leaders in our stake. All four of us have never been zone leaders before and have never had a companion that was a zone leader so they answered the questions that we had and walked us through some of our responsibilities and such. It was much needed. On Saturday we were back down in Rancho (I'm not complaining cause I love the valley) to go on exchanges with the APs. They live in the backyard of a members house and they call it a barn but the inside is exactly like a house and it is so nice! It's probably 3 times the size of our apartment. While on exchanges Elder ...

Well after 6 months (roughly 4 transfers) of being in the Adelanto/Samoan area it's time for me to finally head out. I moved all the way to Hesperia, Bear Valley Ward (which is about 15 ish miles from where I last served). My companion is Elder Nordgren, he has been out for 4-1/2 months so we are both pretty new still. This morning we headed down to Rancho Cucamonga to do some transfer stuff. That's where we picked up the keys to our truck (a new Charcoal Toyota Tacoma) and the keys to our apartment and church buildings and such. My companion and I were called to be zone leaders in the Hesperia A zone and we have both never 1) been zone leaders 2) served in the area 3) been companions with each other. So we're whitewashing in and have absolutely no idea what we are doing in the area or as zone leaders. Wish us luck. I'm looking forward to the change though! An Elder that I used to live with (Elder Reilly) used to be here and said that the ward is awesome so that's...

Since the last email I sent we were able to talk to Camille again and gave her a second lesson. She told us that right before we came over she had been praying and asking for forgiveness for something and felt that there might be something more that she needed to do. So it was no coincidence (because there is no such thing) that we talked to her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ which includes sincere repentance and baptism. We told her about the joy of repenting and having our sins washed away when we are baptized and the promise that we make with God that we are going to try our absolute best from then on. She accepted to work towards baptism on the 13th of January so we are really excited to continue working with her and helping her see how the restored gospel can help her and her family feel more happy and more united.  On Saturday I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Muhlestein who is going to be home in one week. I was able to pick his brain a little bit about things th...

So as most of you know, Elder Kunz and I cover two wards. The Adelanto ward which is just a normal ward up here in the desert and then the Mojave Ward which is the Samoan ward. In Samoan culture (and really any Polynesian culture) they love to feed missionaries because they have a strong belief in being blessed for feeding servants or messengers of the Lord. So most of our dinner appointments are in the Samoan ward and on Saturday we were able to have dinner with the Jacksons. They have three boys that are still home and they are so cool. They all love football and sometimes on the weekend we will spend our workout time at their house in the backyard with the weights. Ahmir is a Senior this year and a few weeks ago they had senior night. At some point during the game Ahmir got tackled pretty badly and both his Tibia and Fibula were broken. So back to dinner, we had some good nachos and then taught a quick message like we always do and this night we talked about faith. God gives us tri...

This week I was able to go on exchanges with Elder Hartzell in the Silver Lakes area. Towards the end of the exchange we discover that for a short period of time he was actually living just a few minutes from my Grandparent's house in Eastern Washington. He became friends with the neighbor that I used to play with growing up. So that's cool! Elder Kunz and I were able to go up to Barstow to be there for a baptism. This is the first person that I've interviewed to be baptized so it was exciting to share that moment with Minnie. On Saturday we were able to go to a fireside with Michael Mclean. For those of you who don't know who that is, he is a songwriter and has created many things for the church and his own projects (including 40 albums). The reason that I love him so much is that my family was able to go to one of his plays, "The Forgotten Carols" a few years back. Ever since then I have loved listening to the soundtrack come Christmas time. He talke...

So this week one of the Samoan Bishop's sons came home from his mission. He served in South Africa somewhere so he started his journey home on Monday and was picked up from the airport on Wednesday. The homecoming party was on Saturday and it was a pretty good time. Just like every Samoan party ever there was a TON of food ranging from shrimp to taro to chicken. It was really cool to see all the family members come together and celebrate the accomplishment. After being in Africa for two years the returned missionary was a little more skinny than the rest of the family but a few months home might fix that. The best part of the party was the Samoan Elvis that graced us with a few songs. I'll send a video of it but I'm sure the sound quality won't do it justice.  In other news, the washer in our house broke so this morning we had to go to the ghetto to find a laundromat to use. Luckily we made it out of there with the remainder of our quarters and all our white shirts....

So there were a few miracles that happened this week that I wanted to share, I know they were some birthday gifts from my Father in Heaven. So Friday night we had dinner with the two other missionaries that we live with and it was at a members house from our Adelanto ward. We didn't know this until we got there but it was actually her birthday so I got an early birthday cake and some free homemade soap. So thank you Sister White! After dinner, Elder Kunz and I go to a referral that we had gotten and she is a very solid investigator, she has already accepted baptism and the whole reason that she wanted to meet with us is because she is going through a tough time and she has seen in some family members, how the gospel has blessed them. On Saturday (my birthday) I was on exchanges with one of the Zone Leaders, Elder Richins. So around lunch time we discover that there is very little to eat at their apartment so we decide to go to the new Café Rio that opened the day befo...