Elder Braden Miles, Washington DC South Mission: April 6, 2015

In the western most part of the mission

We had an awesome week! We could tell it would be a great week because we had a lot of solid appointments set up. Surprisingly, most of them actually happened! We had a lesson with Jason on Monday at a member’s house. He had dinner with the members before we got there. When we sat down for the lesson the members said "Jason, tell the Elders what you told us". He then told us that he was planning on asking the bishop at church the next week when he could get baptized! We hadn't even talked with him about baptism yet because this was going to be our first real lesson with him. He has loved everything so far. We watched conference yesterday morning at the member’s house with him and he soaked it all in. He read from the Book of Mormon and had some good questions for us too. We have another lesson tonight with him and we are going to choose a baptismal date with him. We are also passing him off to the singles ward missionaries because we feel that would be good for him. He will most likely get baptized in early May and I look forward to attending!

Doing service at a member's farm

We had a lesson with Brittany on Wednesday. She is going through a rough time due to some health concerns in her family. We showed her the new Easter video put out by the church and we teared up a little bit. I hope we brought some needed comfort to her life. She talked about how she knows it wasn't a coincidence we were there that night. She knows that God put us in her life and she is very excited about it. We talked about baptism with her and she said she has never felt the desire to be baptized in her life until now. Hopefully we will be putting her on date this week as well. She watched all of the Saturday sessions of conference by herself and really loved it. We haven't heard back if she watched the ones yesterday.

This week we introduced Larry to the Elders in the other Manassas ward (he lives in their ward boundaries). He was very intrigued by our church... then he watched conference! He had Saturday off of work so he told us he would watch the sessions at his house. After the first session we asked him what he thought and this was his response: "I found it quite enlightening. Many of my questions were answered by the speakers during their presentations, and it makes me eager to witness what follows in the later sessions.

After the second session he sent us this text: "Awesome! Powerful! I'll be at the Stake Temple (he meant stake center) for the 8:00 session." We were also there for the priesthood session so we had some time to talk with him there. After the session our bishop started talking to him and invited him over to watch conference at his house the next day (this is making it very hard to pass him off). After the morning session we met him at the Bishop’s house for lunch. We were talking to him and in a summarized version he was amazed by conference and wants to join the church! He also asked if we could bend the rules and keep him in our ward :). He will definitely be getting baptized and whichever ward it is in I will be there! Conference is great.

Yesterday we had breakfast, lunch, and dinner with

Braden Vaughn Miles (BVM) Rox!

members. First time that has happened on my mission. They were all amazing. We had dinner with a family that is very "well off" and it was incredible. We love eating at their house. They also had some family friends over. The mom has been reading the Book of Mormon and had a lot of questions. She has loved it and we hope to teach them soon! This week was amazing and I wish every week could be this good!

Love,

Elder Braden Miles

Washington DC South Mission