TRANSFERRING FROM THE MADISON ZONE.... jk still in Madison

Hello all who still have the desire to read this email... not sure if there's anyone, but I'll write it anyway! This week is transfers. So the big news is that all 3 of us are leaving the area... it's really sad to have to leave a place after not really getting to spend as much time as you wanted to there. But life goes on! So I am leaving Madison 3rd ward to go to the 1st ward. Little weird, but I have heard good things about it! I'm also super stoked for my new companions! They have both been on their mission for about the same time as me, and they both seem like really good guys!

Well anyway, that's that. But this week was really good! We had a really fun couple of days with exchanges and all sorts of stuff.

Monday was a normal p day, oh wait, we actually called our families!! Like that was real weird, but of course it was good. It was all good for a day. Then we played some basketball and just had a good time at the church.

Tuesday we went to two district councils and that was pretty much the entire day lol. That was a little bit rough. But then we had exchanges and I was with Elder Chue. I have been with him before, so we drove home and hit the hay really fast.

Wednesday I was able to work with elder Chue. We did a little bit of service with some members and some finding. We were supposed to have a lesson with Momma Jean, and she cancelled. But that's alright.

Thursday was a killer day. We drove to Richland center which is an hour away. So that was a little intense, but we helped clean out an apartment for the new missionaries who are going there this week. It was something President asked us to do, and we got a typewriter out of it, so that was neat!

Friday we did all of our work for the week 😂 just kidding, but it felt like it. We had time to find for like 20 minutes.... and we did our weekly planning! It was a pretty good day! We had a dinner at Chipotle with some members and it was delicious! We also had a lesson with Mary Ann, who has now read to Mosiah, which is a lot. So that is exciting!

Saturday we helped some people move and then had the rest of the day to work! It felt good to finally get out and do some proselytizing. Sometimes you just get sick of all this other stuff and want to go and do some testifying. We also had stake conference this week. Which means we went to the adult session. Elder Kim B. Clark of the 70 came and he is a good guy! Really funny!

Sunday we found out that we are all leaving so that was sad. Then we went to stake conf and had a good time feeling the spirit. The stake president asked all the members of the stake to have us (the missionaries) in their home in the next week. So that should be helpful for us!

He also invited all of us to share our testimony of The Savior more frequently. So I just want to let you all know that I know without a doubt that Jesus Christ lived on this earth. He sacrificed His perfect self for all of us imperfect people. He loves me, he loves you! Never forget it!

Hope you all have a great week! Love ya!

Elder Reynolds

Here's some pictures with my favorite people

Elder Evans x2

Hey everyone!

Big news is I can call home and text my family every week now, so that's going to be an adjustment and a little exciting! Hopefully you all have had a good week, we got a lot more snow and had some weather that thought it was gonna be spring, but turns out it's still winter lol!

Monday we had a nice relaxing p day. We went to a place called I'm board, where you can literally just go and play board games! It's pretty fun, so we played a couple games and had a good time with the elders in our district! So that was pretty much it, we had a dinner over in a little town called cross plains, and the members we had dinner with are awesome! It was a good day

Tuesday was pretty normal day! We had our district meeting, and in the meantime it snowed like a foot and a half this morning. So we are driving through the kinda power road and then we get to the church parking lot and it wasn't plowed at all, luckily we didn't get stuck, but there was a lot of snow! Anyway we had a good district council and then we did a little shoveling for a lady that was struggling. So then we went to lunch at chick fil a... I've been there a few too many times recently. But we did some finding and had dinner that night.

Wednesday we drove to Dodgeville, which is like an hour away, and went to the district council there because they are in our zone. So we had a good meeting there, and then the senior couple that serves in that district took us all out for lunch! So that was a good meal at Bob's BBQ! Then I drove back to Madison with Elder Evans, this is the first elder Evans this week. So we were on exchanges and we had a good night doing some finding and going to mutual. We were asked to help out with the activity and that was fun!

Thursday was dope! I was with Elder Evans for the entire day, and we put in the work. We got to teach Emily in the morning, and she had read all of 1 Nephi!! So that was really cool to see! She is doing good, and said she might come to church next week so that is cool! Then we hit the doors, pretty much until dinner at 6:30, but dinner was awesome!! We went to Compadres, a Mexican restaurant with some members and it was delicious!! Then we drove to Dodgeville to give elder Evans back to his companion. We didn't get back to Madison until a little after 10... so that was rough, but it was good that we were able to do an exchange.

Friday we did missionary work in our area with all three of us for the only day this week pretty much lol. We did our weekly planning, had some time to find, and did some service at the Waunakee neighborhood connection. It was a good day! Turns out there is a lot to do in our area when we have time to work in it all together! Then at the end of the day we exchanged with the elders that are in our district.

Saturday I was with elder Evans again... round 2 for this week! It was a different elder Evans but it was just as good! We did some walking and it was a flashback to my time on campus! I haven't walked for a long time. But we had an amazing dinner and met some cool members. It was a fun day! So it was kinda weird that it happened that I was with 2 elder Evans in the same week. I keep telling my comps that something happened with elder Evans and they ask which one and sometimes I don't even remember, so that's awkward. But it was some good times this week!

Sunday church got cancelled. So that was a bummer. But then we had a some time to do more missionary work! We did some calling of people in the ward we want to work with and then had a couple hours to go visit people we had already met and tried to meet some new people too, it was good! Then we had dinner with the bishop and his family, and that was amazing! Good times!

Well that's pretty much all I got. Thanks for all your prayers and support! Have a great week!

Elder Reynolds

Ice Ice Baby!

Hey everyone, just Elder Reynolds here reporting on a wonderful cold week in Wisconsin. We got plenty of weird weather, which caused there to be almost a half inch of ice layering everything by Sunday morning.... so that was a little bit fun for us! But we had some freezing rain on Tuesday night, and the ice just never went away. I never thought it would be that bad, but then it snowed just a little on top of it and man, that made it real slick. So I may or may not have fallen and embarrassed myself at least once 😉 but other than the ice it has been a pretty good week!

We had a good p day on Monday, we went to guitar center because elder Olsen loves guitars and doesn't get to play one that often, so we went there and he played guitars for like an hour and then we went over to the church. It was a good time, but not a ton of other missionaries were there. Either way it was good!

Tuesday we had a day full of missionary work! We were on exchanges, and I was with elder Rich in our area. We did some finding, got to teach Emily a lesson! So this was a cool experience. We got to her house and the member was there too, so we get in and Emily walks into another room and comes back with her Book of Mormon and a notepad of questions!! People this doesn't just happen everyday!! It was really cool to see her questions and have the chance to respond to them, good times! It's always fun to get to teach someone that actually studies and cares to learn! It was one of my favorite lessons in this area so far!

Wednesday we had interviews with president Williams! So those pretty much take the entire day because our district is really big and for some reason we always end up going last. Anyway, after those we had exchanged with the assistants and I was with elder Pinter again! He is a really good guy, and we got to go to Zupas for dinner with a member! After dinner we had a couple people to drop by, and we gave a book of mormon to one of them, so hopefully it goes well as he starts to read it!

Thursday we had a pretty normal day. We were with the assistants for most of the day, so it was fun to go tract, and stop by some people. We tried messaging some old missionaries that had served here before to see if there was anyone that they thought would be good to stop by, and we got a couple of good responses! Then we had dinner with our ward mission leader and it was a great time! I love him, and his family.

Friday was a really good day! We started the day off with a church tour with Mary Ann! It is only the 2nd church tour I have done on my mission, and it was good! The spirit was really strong, and we invited her to be baptized while we were looking at the font.... she said no. Which wasn't a surprise, because she claims to be reading the Book of Mormon just to learn about it, but if you learn about it you have to decide if it's true or not and then that leads to change! She doesn't quite understand that we don't think, but it was a cool lesson at the church! Then Friday night we had a lesson with "Momma Jean"! She is a super nice older lady that we have met with a couple times now and she told us that "I usually go to an all black church, but I feel so much sincerity from you, so I want to come to your church". So that was pretty cool! She wasn't able to come this week, but hopefully in the future she can!

Saturday was a long day, we basically had weekly planning, calls, and dinner. The rest of the time was spent finding people to teach. And it was alright, but not the funnest day of the week!

Sunday we had church, and we spent about 30 minutes between ward council and church chipping away at the ice that was on the sidewalks. Turns out it was pretty useless cause we didn't even get half of the church sidewalks done, but maybe they will get there one day! I also slipped twice on Sunday.... one of them no one but my companions saw, so it wasn't as bad, but the second one was right as we were leaving a members house.... I slipped down the stairs and like 3 of their family saw it... real embarrassing moment for me right there. Good times tho!

BIG NEWS!
The missionary email address for me is changing from bryce.reynolds@myldsmail.net to bryce.reynolds@missonary.org
Kinda weird, but its cool! If you accidentally send something to my old email it will be fine, but starting tomorrow I will have that new email address!

Anyway, I hope you all have a great week! This week I was thinking lots about what it means to take the name of Jesus Christ upon us, like we covenant to at baptism. Well I decided that it can mean a lot of things, but that most importantly it means that we are willing to publicly say that we believe in Christ! We need to have the courage to stand up for what we believe in! I think that's interesting, and powerful too. 

Elder Reynolds

We met this guy who calls himself Corey "the truth". He apparently cuts missionaries hair really cheap....not sure if he does a good job or not, but it's alright!  It was really random and funny that we met him randomly walking down the street.

Cold, only -50? We still go outside

So this week was another cold one here in Wisconsin! On Wednesday the highest temperature was like -10, but the windchill made it like -20.... either way it was really cold. Luckily we were told to stay inside and try to do missionary work from the apartment. Later on in this email you will see how well that went! But other than that day, this week was really good! Lots of good times in the mish.

Monday last week it snowed a decent amount, and we didn't really notice until after p day was over because we were inside all day balling up. It was a pretty fun p day! Elder Lewis and Olsen tried to build a snowman but the snow was too flaky, so that was rough. But it was a good p day!

Tuesday we had district council, and it lasted way longer than it was supposed to. But it was super spiritual and good! We did some work, but it was in the negatives so it was a little rough. People think we are pretty nuts for being outside, and they aren't wrong lol. It was real cold. But we were able to visit a few people that we had met before, and they didn't think we were quite as crazy.

Wednesday, we had what some are calling the "polar vortex". I have no clue what that is supposed to mean, but I know it was really cold outside. On Tuesday night we went to the other side of Madison and I was on an exchange for Wednesday. It was terrible timing since we didn't get to do much missionary work, but it was a good time. I was with Elder Kleinmann, and we sent some boiling water into the air and most of it didn't hit the ground... that was neat. But also a little scary... so we were told to stay inside unless we had appointments, and we had 1 in their area. So we did that and played board games the rest of the day pretty much.... we tried to do some missionary work, but its hard to stay focused. So we had a good time!

Thursday I was back in my area for a day. But it was also really cold outside, so we did our weekly planning and then stopped by some people that we knew had kids at home because school was cancelled so we thought they would be home, but turns out nobody was home. We did get free Chick fil A though so that made it a good day!

Friday we had MLC, and that was the good ol meeting that makes life more exciting. We drove to oshkosh early in the morning and had a good hour and a half drive. Had a great meeting and then drove the hour and a half back. That was pretty much our entire day. We stopped at a Wendy's on the way and we met this really nice guy that is now messaging us, so hopefully something good will happen and we can teach him! It was cool.

Saturday we had a good day! We knocked some doors on Elder Place, so that was pretty neat. We met one person that told us we could come back. Other than that it was a lot of nice people that weren't interested. All the appointments we had set up got cancelled, so we tried by a few more people, did some more finding, and had dinner! It was a good day, full of real missionary work. It was hard work, but that's always a good thing.

Sunday was normal for a Sunday. We were at our bishops house for a while last night, and while we were there he goes "hey Elders, how are dinners looking this week?" So we told him that the calendar was pretty empty.. he then proceeded to email the ward and tell them that... so now we have a dinner every day this week lol. Bishop came in clutch!

Well that was my week, I hope you all had a great week and were able to stay warm! Here's a good scripture for you to look up, remember that no effort is wasted! Moroni 9:6
Work hard and make the most of anything you do!

Elder Reynolds