Josh's first two letters! Sept 26 and Oct 2 2013

Hello everyone!!

Well I was going into withdrawals not having Mary's letters - and truthfully I was a bit worried that Josh's letters would be - well quick and not so inspiring - well boy was I wrong!!  I don't know if he will keep this up but the first two letters are great!!  He wrote the first one the day after he got to the MTC but didn't mail it until the 30th - so we received two letters in two days!  I'm pretty sure he won't be able to write next Wednesday because he heads to Iowa that day so it will likely be more than a week before we hear from him again - oh well!

Please let me know if you do not want to keep receiving these emails!

I hope you are all doing great!!  Thank you so much for all your love and support!! 

Laurie

Sept 26, 2013

Dear Mom, Dad and family,

I made it through the first couple days!  Everything has been so great!  I have a wonderful companion, Elder Harper.  I can tell already that he is going to be an amazing missionary, help to me and blessing in my life.  He is so on top of things and pumped to do the Lord's work.

   The Spirit here is absolutely amazing.  It's like nothing I've ever felt before and I love it!  I want to tell you that I was anxious as we pulled in the parking lot and down pass the swarm of missionaries, but as soon as I stepped out of the van I felt a calm and reassuring feeling from our Heavenly Father.

    I am just so excited to be here doing what the Lord wants me to do.  Yesterday as I lay down for bed, I marveled at the day's events and how much I've already felt the spirit bless and help me.  And all through today I felt different than I have have.  I can already feel a change within me and it is awesome.  I feel like I should tell you about the investigator that we met today and that we will be teaching.  Dale is a great guy who has a lot of qualities.  He feels like he doesn't know what he should be doing.  He doesn't have the greatest of families and doesn't believe in God because of that.

   It made me realize how blessed I am to grow up in the gospel and to know that I have a loving Heavenly Father.  I am so grateful to you, mom and dad, for teaching me and helping out family to keep the spirit in our home.  Thank you all for your great faith, testimonies and prayers.  I really do love you and you want to know what?  I love Dale already, so much.  He is a wonderful son of our Heavenly Father.

    We've talked a lot about how I am doing what Christ would do if He were here.  It truly is a blessing and a privilege to bear His name as well as our family name over my heart.

    I really can't even describe how I feel right now.  This is so natural and it feels like I've been out for at least a week.  Not in the sense that's it's taken forever, but that there is no way I've experienced all of this and done anything I have in only 2 days.  It's unreal but amazing!

     I know that this is right, that I am here right now for a reason.  I know that what I am doing is real and that the spirit's teaching real people.  I love this Gospel so much and I already love this work, so I can't wait to have that feeling in the field.  One thing that the Branch Pres said is that "You think you have a testimony?  Do you have a testimony?  I know you do.  By the end of this 2 weeks that testimony will grow more than you could imagine."

   I love you all!!  I love this Gospel!!  I know Christ lives, that Heavenly Father loves me and everyone!  I hope that I can feel that love for the people that I teach.  I love you and thank you for your support.

                      Love,

                           Elder Broadbent

Oct 2, 2013
What a wonderful week. As I'm sure you've noticed, my p day is Wednesday, but I'm not sure if that is how it will be in the field. I don't know if I can express the love that i feel from our heavenly father and the help that he has given me already in the past week. It has just been so amazing and I've realized just how much I need the spirit to really do His work. I hope that this makes sense, but I feel like i have been here for more than just a week. i feel like I have learned and grown so much in the last week, that it's hard to believe that I only left last Wednesday  Just think about it, I think that the reason for that feeling is because I have never learned so much and felt like I have grown in such a short amount of time. 

I just want to say thank you for being such a wonderful family. I have really felt your prayers of strength and comfort. I love you all so much. 

alright so I just want to tell you that I know that the lord puts us exactly where he knows that we need to be. My district is amazing! they are the greatest bunch of elders and sisters! they all have such strong spirits and I know that we needed to be together at the beginning to really kick us off good. One of the sisters, sister Malloy, was having a hard time the first few days, she got really sick and she asked if we would give her a blessing which we did (awesome by the way!!) but she was still feeling homesick and that something was wrong at home, she was thinking that she needed to go home, but on Sunday she did a complete 180 degrees flip and she is now helping all us more than she will ever know. at the beginning we all decided that we didn't want to have the plateau effect that some missionaries feel, and we almost did, but I know that sister malloy is the one that will keep us from having that and that she will help all of us to reach the higher standard that the Lord wants us at. 

it has just been such a great week and I can't tell you enough how much I love everyone already, how much the Lord has helped me, and how I know that this church is the the true gospel of Christ. I know that Joseph Smith was a prophet of God. He did see God the Father and His son Jesus Christ. He translated the Book of Mormon through the power of God and I know that the book of Mormon is the words of God through His prophets. I Know that Christ loves me, I know that he suffered, he bled, he died for me and that He was raised from the dead three days later. 

We had a devotional yesterday with elder David a Baxter (he came to our Stake Conference a couple of years ago -L), he is so awesome. I want to share something that He said " we are the Church of the New Testament, restored. We don't use the cross as our symbol because we follow a living Christ. we do not believe in a dead God." have you ever thought about how the LDS church doesn't have "symbol". If we did, what do you think it should be? oh, and he also brought up a lot of questions that I really felt like we will have to answer. will you all think of a question about our church that you want answered and pray about it? I would like to hear about it in your next letter.

i love you family. so much. you have been such great examples to me and I know that as we all continue to keep Christ as our example and to live as he would have us, that we will be blessed. I really do love this gospel so much and I can't tell you enough or express to you through words how much I love you.

One more thing that I need to tell you. At the beginning of the week, we were talking about a missionary in the field that was have such great success. He went from dead area to dead area and everywhere he went, there were baptism after baptism. Finally, his mission president came to him and asked, "why are you having so much success? what are you doing differently?" the elder said, "whenever i knock on a door and someone answers, I picture them in baptismal clothes and that helps me to get them to the waters of baptism" later we were talking as a district about that, and Elder Harper (my companion, I told Mary that already) said that his motivation is his family. He will picture his investigators as his own family and feel the same love for them as he has for his family. I went a couple of days thinking about this. and I felt like I needed to have my own source of motivation. I know that I am out here because heavenly father needs to be, but I felt like I needed that reason to wake up in the morning and continue with the work. my purpose is to invite others to come unto Christ by helping them receive the restored gospel through faith in Jesus Christ and His atonement, repentance, baptism, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. that is my purpose, but I needed a reason. and so I went and prayed with that question. what is the reason for me to get up in the morning, why am I here? the reason that I really did it is because we had a teacher take us to the chapel and say that this is holy ground were we will receive revelation. I really liked what she said, expect revelation, expect and answer. and so I prayed and I expected an answer. I asked, what did Christ do for me? He died for me, he gave his life for me. I asked why? because he loves me. that is my motivation, I will do anything, literally anything to bring others to Christ. I will give my life if necessary. why? because I feel the love that Christ has for everyone and I have the same love. 

I love it out here so much. I love you all. thank you for everything that you do for me. 

Elder Broadbent