Josh's Mission Nov 25 2013

yokwe family!!

I honestly didn't see that coming. that is so amazing that dad is the 2nd counselor.(Doug has been put in as the 2nd Counselor in our Stake Presidency) wow, my heart is just so full at hearing that. and that's so great that Marinda's dad is bishop. The Lord truely has a plan for us. I know that that is true. We are here to do His work. I love this gospel so much and I am so grateful that I have a wonderful family. Thank you everyone for being great examples and for helping me to become who the lord wants me to be. 

dad, I love you. thank you so much. I don't even have words for what I am feeling right now. I know that you will do great! I love you!! 

that's so great about caden, that's awesome that he got that answer and recognized it.(Caden is an 11 yr old in our ward who was just baptized) I was thinking about that the other day. how many times does the Lord give us an answer and we just don't recognize it? will you this week, look for and pray that you will recognize answers to your prayer? I  know that you will find them. because we have found them in the most unlikely places. We met a guy last week that had talked to missionaries before and really liked them, but had never been taught by them. He let us right in and this week we had a great lesson with him and his daughters. Bill, that's his name, is great, and I really hope and pray that we can help him with his life and help him to accept the gospel. We also have been trying to meet with a less active for awhile, Franly, but he works a lot. but he just recently lost his job (blessing in disguise?) and we meet with him and carlina, his girlfriend. they are marshallese so they don't really stress getting married. they have two kids and live together. we are helping them to be together as a family together forever. Carlina, really wants to join the church and be with her family. the Lord blesses us so much!!

Things are great! we have ups and downs, but things are slowly getting better here in our ward. the members are starting to get the vision of helping each other with the work and the ward council is trying really hard to get more involved with us. It's really great to know that the Lord has provided a plan for us and that as we are faithful, things will work out the way they need to. I've been thinking about prayer a lot lately and making heavenly father's will ours. what does that mean? to make his will ours? I know that He has a plan for us and that as we trust in that, have faith that he knows best, everything will be made for our benefit. the Lord has promised us that as we are faithful, he will bless us. I know that that is true. I know that the Lord has blessed me so much. It's so great to be here on this wonderful earth in this great day and age! 

So for thanksgiving we are spending most of the day with a member family. I'm not exactly sure what we are doing, but I do know we're having dinner with them. So this next sunday, our ward is putting on a Christmas celebration, it's going to be so great. we are actually singing in it. I'm pretty excited. 

I remember going down to DBH for thanksgiving. that was so great. that's something also that I've been thinking about. Serving others. I know that when we serve people, we think less about our selves. In PMG, it talks about how serving other will benefit not only them by the service you give, but you as well. you will feel a love for them that the savior has, charity. one thing that I like that it says is that service and selfless actions destroy envy, jealousy, self doubt, and thoughts that are harmful to your testimony. I know that that is true. 

I love you all so much and I am so thankful for you! I'm so glad that we have the gospel in our lives, I can't imagine being with out it. This thanksgiving, I would challenge you to do something that our bishop challenged us, write a list of 100 things that you are thankful for. that sounds hard but as you get going, it's pretty easy. One thing that helps is making categories and writing 10 things in each category. I know that showing gratitude is so important. Will you do that? I will, and I'll tell you how it goes next week. 

Again, I love you and thank you so much for everything. I'm so grateful for everyone's prayers especially, thank you. 

Elder Broadbent

Josh's Nov 17 Letter

Yakwe Family!!

 

 You know, I've really come to appreciate being a Broadbent. There are a lot of Marshallese people that we work with, most of them can't even say my name right, but I know that I represent two of the greatest families of all time. The Broadbents a wonderful and while everyone might get a few scraped heads, here and there (it's a good thing that everyone has hard heads) it is the way that we react to our trials and tribulations that matter. I hope that I am doing everything that I can to be best Broadbent, and that everyone who I meet knows that my family is the best. Also, I and really everyone who is baptized, represents the Lord Jesus Christ. While I might physically bear his name next to my heart, we all partake of the sacrament each Sunday and covenant with Him to take His name upon us. What does that mean to you? what does it mean to take His name upon you?

 

So a few updates with investigators. It's hard for me to remember who I tell you about, but we have had to stop seeing a few people this week. Tom said that he could no longer meet with us because his parents don't want him to. He had a talk with his mom, who isn't doing very well and she got pretty upset that he had been meeting with us. It was heart breaking, because I know that he has felt the spirit. He really wanted to continue meeting with us, but felt it was best to stop so as to keep the peace in his family. but I know that we helped him and someday he will have the courage to find out for himself that this is true and what he needs. We also stopped seeing Katina and her family, they just weren't progressing.

 

It was great though. we had an investigator at church yesterday. Pierre is his name and he is so great! He totally agrees with everything that our church is, he really loved the Plan of Salvation, and we also had a church tour with him. it was awesome, the spirit was so strong, we invited him to be baptized on 28th of Dec, but he said he couldn't because he would be out of town. He does have troubles with understanding authority, but he has so much faith, really feels the spirit strongly, and learns fast. We are going to try and get him more committed to a date.

 

I love this gospel so much! it is truely amazing how the Lord blesses us. He has blessed us so much here. The members are making plans to work with us more, so that's great. And we are still meeting with Branton, a less active and mike also less active. they both have so much desire, but lack motivation. but Branton has really been thinking about coming back, and he talked about wanting to be with his family forever. Mike is going to make goals, so that he has something to work for.

 

So transfers are this week. guess what!?! I'm staying in Dubuque with Elder Dragon and he is going to be District Leader. He was so surprised, but I kind had a feeling because our DL is about ready to leave. Elder Tekanene, our DL has one transfer left and is being transfered. I haven't really talked much about him, but he is so great. He is from the Gilbert Islands. I am really going to miss him.

 

I love you family! thank you so much for your love and support and prayers. it means so much to know that you are all there for me. I love you, have a wonderful week.

 

tomak eo kojparok

Elder Broadbent

Josh's Mission 11-12-13

First off, sorry i didn't email yesterday the library where we go was closed for veterans day. 

I love that kind of weather as well, that's basically how it has been the last couple of weeks. but we did get our first really snow storm yesterday. I was great! I love the snow and it's gonna be a great winter.

that is so awesome to hear about Karlie's dad! I can't believe that Bishop Anderson moved! is he still teaching at BL? It is so true that when the Lord wants something done, it happens...fast. We have been working with our members a lot more this past week and We are finally starting to see some improvement and success. One of our members has been talking with less actives that live by them, and they had them over for a little gathering, they also are trying to invite someone to their home for us to teach. On sunday, we had a less active young man come to church with another family that we've been working with, so that was great. and One of our Marshallese members has been bringing a nonmember to church with them. The work is going forward despite the hardships that we go through. I love how the Lord blesses us so much, He has given us everything, we need to realize what blessings he has given us and thank him for that. I was thinking the other day about something that i remember Sis Brandley saying, having a thank you prayer. how often do we thank our Heavenly father for everything He has done for us? I know that I need to do better at that.

Thank you so much for praying for Tom. That means so much. Unfortunately, we haven't been able to meet with him, he went out of town, and he mentioned that his parents don't like that we are meeting together. I know that we've done our part and now we have to let him use his agency. If we can't continue meeting with him, I know that he has felt the spirit and will one day remember that things that we've talked about. I don't know if I told you but we tried meeting with this woman, who was a media referral, from mormon.org. Well we did meet with her, Lauren is her name, and it was a really great lesson. the spirit was really strong and we felt like she was golden. We talked to her Saturday, to see if she could make it to church and she said that she wasn't ready to change religions, but that she appreciated that we had met with her and she felt like she had the tools necessary to move forward. that was really hard, because I could feel how much she needed the gospel in her life. but I know that the Lord has a way of preparing everyone to accept the gospel. It's been a huge lesson for me to learn to trust in the Lord and his time table. I know that the Lord will bless us for what we are doing here.

A great example of that is that we are working with a lot of less actives. we've been able to meet with so many and help the members become more involved. so that has been really good.

Before I forget, we had interviews with pres and sis Jensen, it was great! I love them so much, they are the best! but sister jensen wanted me to tell you mom and dad, how grateful she is for raising such a wonderful family, for being such good examples, and for helping me to be who I am. also she was wondering if we are related to Cecil B Broadbent? I thought the name sounded familiar but I couldn't remember. I guess he served as mission president after her dad in Germany.

I love you all so much and I am so grateful for you mom and dad and everyone else. I really can't even tell you how much it means to me to know that I have a family that loves me, supports me, and prayers for me and the people that I work with. I want to tell you that the best thing about teaching people is the knowledge that I have that we as a family can be together forever with our Heavenly father. I know that the Plan that He has for us is the only way that we can return to him. I was wondering, how has the knowledge of the plan of salvation affected you lives?  and what does that mean to know that we have that plan? do you feel like that is restricting? why or why not?

I love you all, thank you for your prayers.

Kojparok eo tomak

Elder Broadbent

Josh's Mission Nov 4 2013

It's been a really good week. That's awesome to hear about the scout activity. and that is so awesome that dad invited people from different churches. The relief society activity sounds like it went great as well. I told Elder Dragon that dad was a cook, so he asked me if I cooked, I said that I liked to. I tried to make an Asian dish, with pasta, chicken, and veggies, but it didn't turn out so well. I put too much garlic salt in it, and so to try and calm it down, I tried putting peanut butter in it, trying to go for a sort of Tia style, but it didn't work....

I just want to say that I love going to church. I love that it's a place that is completely away from the things of the world. there are so many distractions in the world and church is a great place to get away from that. We have a problem here with retention of members and so I just appreciate it so much. If we could understand the importance of church, we would never consider missing it. We would look forward to it and go through our week thinking about the Savior and what He did for us, how we need to improve, and what He wants us to do. Yesterday we had a lesson with a less active that hasn't been to church in a while. When he was going to church he baptized a bunch of his friends and helped so many people. But then he started working and got busy and lost sight of the important things. As we talked he told us that he knows that he needs to go to church and that he can see how happy he was and that he wants to feel that happiness all the time. He really wants to change, and I hope and pray that he does. 

 

Elder Dragon and I were talking the other day about how great Utah is. He is from Farmington, not sure if I told you that. We were talking about how there are so many people there that are LDS and that even those who aren't, for the most part, act like they are. There are just good people there. So then I got thinking about something that Brother Brandley used to say all the time, that is "do your neighbors and friends know that you are Mormon? if not, tell them."Does everyone know that you are LDS, if not, will you tell them? One thing that our Bishop has been working with the ward members on, is to use LDS terms and words in our everyday lives. When people hear us talking about hometeaching, the sacrament, going to church, or using any words that they are unfamiliar with, the ask questions. It's a great way to start conversations. Will you do that? will you let people know that you are LDS, by your example and conversation?

So Tom is struggling. He has been having a lot of back pain. He was hurt while in the military and has a lot of pain. His parents, who live near by him are really struggling as well. His dad has Alzheimer's and is having a really hard time. His mom has kidney stones and has been in the hospital for the past week. He still is struggling with the concept of God and praying. Although he did pray with us, which was so awesome! We explained to him the pattern of prayer and why it is important that we address our Heavenly Father and close in Christ's name. Have you ever thought about that? he asked who we are praying to if we say it in christ's name. We pray to our Heavenly Father in Christ's name, because it is only through christ that we can make it back to our Heavenly Father. It is only through Christ that we can receive answers to our prayers. Thank you so much for praying for him, I really appreciate it. really you don't know how much that means to me. oh, and we set a date with tom, I don't know if I told you that. He was really hesitant to accept it, but I know that he can receive his answer.

We also met with a lady named Lauren. She was a media referral. and she is so awesome! she really wants to know what our church is all about. She wants to know why LDS people are so happy. Why are we so happy? what is it that makes us happy? She has so much desire to find out for herself. She is really busy though, so that will be our biggest hold up with her. We told her the Joseph Smith story and said, yeah, I believe that could happen. She accepted the invitation to be baptized and said that if she got an answer she would do anything for it.  

I love this gospel so much! I love how the Lord works. I love that He knows us perfectly and if we do all that we can, seriously do everything that we can do, then we will bless us and make up the rest. I know that this Gospel is true. I love the people here so much and I want them to feel of the joy that comes from the knowledge that our Savior suffered, died, and was resurrected, for us! 

I love you all! Tomak eo Kojparok (Keep the Faith, in Marshallese)

Elder Broadbent   

Some pictures finally!

MTC district Oct 2013

Elder B with MTC companion Elder Harper

 In Dubueque, Iowa

Trainer Elder Dragon

District Oct 2013