Over the Rainbow

July 10,2017

Hi Everyone!

This week has been excelente!. We have a couple of new missionaries living with us and we are all the biggest nerds anyone has ever seen. We all have such a good bond that it has ended up becoming a very spiritual pension for everyone. We are always talking about our investigators and how we can help them. Elder Peterson is a new district leader so I have been helping him out, but i don't think anyone can be completely prepared for a responsibility so different. Especially because he has sister missionaries in his district. But things are going very well in Arica. I can´t complain because I saw how things were when I got here. All I can do is keep at it with all I´ve got.

On a good side and funny note, this week I was walking through the Agro (it is a HUGE flea market) doing contacts in a part that I haven´t been to yet and I came across an entire store of onesies! Because it gets cold in our house at night, I got one for cheap, like 6USD. I got home that night and put it on and everyone starts teasing me. But it is okay, because the very next day every single one of them went and got one!  Today, we spent p-day with the president, and we saw him a couple times downtown. It was kind of weird, but I am looking forward to the conference that we have with him tomorrow. 

I hope that you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Brayton

cooper.brayton@myldsmail.net

Vallenar

August 21, 2017

Dear Family and Friends,

Vallenar, up until now, has been a blast. To be really honest, I was really nervous coming down here because I had always heard about it being such a difficult city but I haven`t seen any of that yet. In fact the exact opposite. The people here are amazing and even though the zone is small, everyone is really close. I will repeat what I said the other week about this place being straight off of a post card. Every time I turn around I am finding another cool sight. So something that we do a ton of here is contacting. We live right next to the main plaza of downtown, so almost every time we walk through we are talking to someone new. Even though the people never live in our sector it is still fun to meet new people. 

I am still getting used to the way that we are doing things here. We decided that we are going to change everything that we can to try and find new approaches to missionary work. Really they aren`t too drastic but I am still getting used to it. Just one example, so this week I was actually in my area all day for only 2 days, and the other days I left to go help other missionaries. It has really been a huge privilege to be able to serve them as much as I have been, but it is going to be awhile before I know my own sector. I wasn`t really sure what all was going on at first but now I am just going with it.

So now a little bit about my companion. He is defintly one of the funniest latinos I have met. This week while we were talking together it hit me who he reminded me of. My companion is a latino carbon copy of Grey Livingston. For those of you that don`t know who that, you have to meet him. Grey is sort of a neighbor of mine, we both live way out in the middle of the woods and we get along pretty great.  But they are seriously very identical as far as personality. That is something that will make this transfer go by way faster than I would like it to. So from here on out, whenever y`all think of me and my comp just picture a Peruvian Grey!

I hope that you all have a great week!!

Love,

Elder Brayton

cooper.brayton@myldsmail.net

Life in a Postcard

August 15, 2017

Dear Family and Friends,

Yesterday I didn´t get the chance to write because I got transfered to a new city. Everyone in Arica was telling me that I was going to leave and I just didn´t want to believe them. But Friday morning we got the call and the Lord has sent me to Vallenar! Sunday I left at 7pm and I arrived yesterday at 6pm. 23 VERY long hours in total, but it was worth it. Until yesterday I thought that every city in the northern Chile was desert. But I get here and Vallenar is the most precious town ever! There is actual green here, no more dirt, like trees and grass and everything! I haven´t taken any pictures yet but when I do y´all will see what I am talking about.

Last night we went out to work with the time that we had and I immediately noticed two things. 1. that the people here are very kind and loving. Not that they weren´t in other places but here everyone acts like family. The second thing is that it is very, very cold here. I have been lucky enough to be in the warmest part of Chile both winters and now I am very far away from that. I am in the downtown part of the city were everything happens and I am in another branch. I can´t tell you too much about it because I have only been here for a day but I am learning more and more every hour.

My new companion is Elder Reluz. Another Peruvian for the win! He is still pretty fresh in Chile but has a ton of energy. One thing that I noticed right away about him is that he is extremely confidant whenever he teaches, which isn´t something that you see too often with newer missionaries. I am really exited to get started with this new transfer. Vallenar is like a different world to me in all aspects. The culture, the people, the missionaries, the mission. It is going to be a blast here. I can already tell that all the people that we find are going to be great!

I hope that you all have a great week.

Love,

Elder Brayton

cooper.brayton@myldsmail.net

New contacts and old friends

August 7, 2017

Hi Everyone!!

These last two weeks have probably been the most productive of my mission yet. I keep telling myself, and occasionally, my companion that we are here to learn. If we can say that we are better than we were last month or last week or even yesterday---then we are doing something right. Finishing these last two weeks with more than 50 new contacts between the two companionships, we have our sector sprinting right now.

It makes me sad because transfers are coming up this week and everyone is telling me that I am probably leaving to go to another city. Wherever I go, it will probably be my last sector. The ``old man`` jokes have already started but I don't let them get to me. I got to see one of my old companions from the MTC {Missionary Training Center -- this is where he first went in Mexico City for his initial training} this week, Elder Shelton. It was sweet to see him again even if it was for a couple of hours! This week is going to be short but I love y'all!

Love,

Elder Brayton

cooper.brayton@myldsmail.net

San Joseph

July 31, 2017

Dear Family and Friends,

Sorry for the sometimes sporadic emails where I write a ton or a little bit. I have been trying to make it a higher priority to at least mention something but very often the time gets away from me. Many times I blank out on what happened during the week if I don`t have my journal. This week, like most of the weeks, passed very quickly. In looking back on it, I am amazed at how much we actually did. One of the things that I am convinced of is that there are many things, very specific things, that can be learned only in the mission. Not that they can`t be learned back home, but they are things that are forced upon one in the mission. Like for example, planning. Something that I never thought of as that important until I arrived to Chile and I realized how little time there is in a day. Sure there are 24 hours, but after sleeping and eating and studying and the occasional meeting, there isn`t an unlimited amount of time to the things we need to get done. It happens at the very least, once a week, where we run out of time in the day to teach, contact, and find.

So, it is crucial to us that we, everyday, maximize the time that we have to do these things. It is so important that they have dedicated a large chapter of Preach My Gospel just to the importance of planning and using time with wisdom!

I hope that you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Brayton

cooper.brayton@myldsmail.net

The learning never ends!!

July 17, 2017

Hello Family and friends!!

Every week I try and talk about or at least mention some of the things that I think that are important that I have learned or experienced. Well this passed week, being a week full of conferences and intercambios {exchanges (when they get a chance to work with other missionaries)}, I am not sure where to start. One thing that I can say that will never stop surprising me is how much there is to be learned still. We did intercambios with one of the new traveling assistants and he is good! I felt like a new missionary again! It was very much a humbling experience and a learning opportunity. We went around the zone doing interviews for different areas, including our own, and several people were able to get baptized because of it! He helped me learn, or helped me realize, the importance of staying humble at all times and the attribute of being ``teachable``.  The missionary has way less time in the mission than I do and I thought that I would be able to teach him some things.... but boy was I wrong! Also, the conference that we had with President was bomb! We were talking all about planning and using time more effectively. The interview that I had with him following the meeting was equally uplifting. It never ceases to amaze me how much he loves the missionaries here and all he does for them.

We recently made a trip back to the caves with some of the new Elders who had never been there before. I will send along some of those pictures. I hope that you all have a great week. Remember....to never stop learning!!

Love,

Elder Brayton

cooper.brayton@myldsmail.net

CAmBios!

July 4, 2017

Hi Everyone,

Welp, the day has come. Elder Capuñay and I received our cambios {transfers} and he is headed down to Copiapo. I just came from down there so I was able to tell him all about it and all the cold weather that he should expect. He is headed down to Piapote, a sector that was part of my first district. We sent him off this morning and I am already with my new comp. He was on the other side of Arica so we just met up in the middle this morning. His name is Elder Lopez. He is a newer missionary with about 4 months in the mission. He is from Chihuahua, Mexico, so we are pretty much neighbors. He is my first Mexican companion. I think it will be good to get used to learning and getting familiar with the sayings and different vocabulary that there is in Mexico... seeing that that will be most of what I see and hear later on. 

This last week I have been sort of reflecting on the different things that I have learned on my mission. I was trying to maybe sum up what I had learned in a couple of sentences but I came up empty handed. I have been blessed to be able to come to where I am today only because I have followed the councel of Jesus and other leaders of His church. Our Heavenly Father, like any other parent would for their child, wants the absolute best for us and has given us all the things that we need to be happy. And despite all of that, more often than not, I see people doing the exact opposite of the things that they know they should be doing. Their only excuse is that everyone else is doing it..... Well that is just great, but wasn't it Peter that called us a peculiar people? He called us weird because we go against the grain of normal. But that is what we must do and that is ALL that is asked of us. The bar has been set by our Savior and although He lived a very difficult life, I know that He is the happiest person to be on this earth. Never has a person been so obedient and never has a person been more happy. A quote I read this week that I loved was counsel given from a father to his kids was:  

“The testimony I have of the reality and love of Jesus Christ has been the compass of my life. … It [is] a pure, burning witness of the Spirit that He lives, that He is my Redeemer and Friend in every time of need. Our challenge … is to come to know [the Savior] … and, through faith in Him, to overcome the trials and temptations of this world. Let us be faithful and true, trusting in Him.”

I hope that you all have a happy 4th of July. Be careful with the fireworks!

Love,

Elder Brayton

cooper.brayton@myldsmail.net

West Coast Winter!

June 19,2017

Hi Everyone!

Well, I can't say that it has been a slow or boring week because things like that don't exist, but as I sit down to write everyone, my mind has gone completely blank. Things still continue to move at an outstanding rate, with all of the divisions, intercambios and interviews that happen during the week everything passes very quickly. In one week more we will be ending another transfer and possibly getting a new comp. One of the things that we have been doing recently is a string of activities in the church to try and get people out of the streets or out from their homes. We have been seeing better results every week as people spread the word and invite their friends. Sorry this week is going to be really short. Here is a talk that I have been studying this week that talks a lot about the grace... something that I now understand and appreciate much better!

Thank you again for all of your prayers and support!

Love,

Elder Brayton

cooper.brayton@myldsmail.net

His Grace is Sufficient