I'm being Transferred!

I have some big news! This will be the last email from El Paso! Saturday night I found out that I am getting transferred up north to a new area! Just when I started to get comfortable and thought I had things figured out, I get thrown a curve ball and find out that I am leaving! I didn’t realize how much ive grown to love the people here until I found that im leaving. The Elder’s are my brothers and the El Paso 11^th ward is my family. It is going to be hard to leave! I was looking forward to a change, but didn’t expect this! It has been a rough transfer, a fresh start will be good for me! We have made my last days in El Paso the best..we used me leaving as an excuse to have some fun! Elder Mongeli and Mower had a sleep over last night ha we played cards again all night and had a lot of fun! It is going to be hard to leave these guys!  “Ill go where you want me to go, dear lord.” I am so grateful for the hard times and trials I have had in my life. Especially the trials I have faced this last transfer, I have never felt closer to Heavenly father. It is so humbling to work towards aligning  my will, with the lords will. Thy will be done.

I was reading a conference talk from President Uchtdorf and he said, “Not to get discouraged-never give up or flea our allotted field of service. Take courage, find our faith, and keep trying. Your Heavenly father mentors his children and often sends unseen heavenly help to those who desire to follow the savior.” I know that unseen Heavenly help has, and will continue to help me get through this. As we desire to follow the savior by aligning our will with the lords will, our burdens  will be a lighter weight to bear. The desire to follow the savior will turn our feelings to feelings of compassion and love for the great work that we are involved in!

It was really hard to say goodbye see you later to everyone yesterday at church. We just found out that Jose Montoya is gaining custody of his 2 son’s and they have decided to get baptized into our ward! Huge bummer but im so excited for them! I am almost all packed up and ready to go north to my temporary new home! Tomorrow at 10:30 I will be leaving El paso and making the drive to with lots of stops along the way. I have no idea where I will be going to but I will find out when I get there! My guess is somewhere in Albuquerque! At least I will be escaping the El Paso heat! Have the best week for me and know that i am working hard.

I love you,

Elder Broulim

Weekly Journal

7-15-13

It used to be that I would wake up on Mondays and say “ahhh noo its Monday!” Now Monday is a day I look forward to every week! Im in love with the voice recorders! I love hearing your voices! Emails went great, it sounds like everyone is doing awesome! After emails we had a bbq at the church as a zone, Elder Mongelie cooked up some bbq chicken Samoan style! We had a fun day and a good night. We had a lesson with Ishmale and his family. I gave them a book of Mormon and they gave us some awesome mexi food! Good trade. There family would look so great dressed in white! J Their main question was why we need another book (the bofm). This is a great question because there are so many easy answers! Ishmale really struggles with the word of wisdom, so we will work on that down the road. I love you all!

7-16-13

Got my last Dr. appointment out of the way today, so it was a great day you could say! Everything checked out pretty good! We had a good night teaching with our Elders quorum president, brother tolman. We visited a lot of less actives. We had an awesome lesson with a lady named Alecia Maldinado and her non member husband. We talked about the importance of raising a family centered around JC. Families are my favorite to teach about, it blows my mind how important families are! I love you guys!

7-17-13

Wow 3 months today! Whoop whoop. We had a pretty exciting morning! The whole apartment complex woke up at 6 am to no power and the fire alarm going off! It was pretty funny to see everyone standing outside in there PJ’s! There were some very unhappy people to say the least! When lunch rolled around we hit our favorite toco tote! The people there know us by name. I met a lady named Julia and had an awesome gospel conversation with her. She was very interested in learning more but didn’t live in our area..bummer. We contacted missionaries in her area and hooked it  up though! Tonight we had some good lessons. We had a good lesson with a guy named paul. We taught him the Plan of Salvation and it seemed to really open his eyes. I invited him to baptism and he told me that he couldn’t swim! HA. He should have a date pretty soon. I found a cool scripture this morning that I want to share.. D&C 122:7. EVERYONE READ THIS. No matter what the trials, rejection, and hard times we go through are for “experience, and shall be for thy good.”

I love you right up to the moon..and back 900 times.

7-18-13

It rained today! I guess you could say.. I MAKE IT RAIN! We had a good day today. This morning we had a lesson with a new investigator named Fatima! We taught her the restoration, she had some deep questions that really made me think. It’s lessons like this one that I learn the most! I invited her to baptism and she said, “Once I read that new book I will! Chill out!” the baptism replys always seem to be the best. We had apartment inspections today. It was the first time this apartment has ever passed! We got docked on 2 things.. dirty dishes and a dirty mirror! Im becoming more and more thankful for you everyday mom! Tonight we had an awesome lesson with Dwight! I love going over to his house to chill and read some scripts. We talked about preparing to receive the priesthood, and what an honor it is to hold it! We read D&C 121 together! awesome chapter, read it!

The rain kept a lot of doors closed but it was still a good day.

7-19-13

Busy Busy day and im tired! We had an awesome brunch with Jose Montoya! He cooked us a super good mexi dish as usual. We had district meeting right after and it went great. Our district has had some struggles so we had a group counciling sesh! It was pretty frustrating to see that the sisters (in our old area) taught 5 lessons total for the whole week..ya 5. We teach that many in one day. There excuse is that there is no one to teach..HA. Small taste of what we have to deal with! We taught a lot of good lessons today. Jose has a friend named ferni that he met while he was in prison and rehab. Jose has been wanting us to teach him for awhile now but we haven’t been able to until today! It was a nice rainy day, We sat outside of our apartment and had an awesome restoration lesson! The spirit was really strong and I got a little choked up! Ferni looks like a scary guy but is so sweet. Goes to show that you cant ever judge people by there looks.. It was so humbling to teach about the atonement and how ferni can have a second chance with life. After our lesson, Jose and ferni sat in on our lesson with Manny. We read from the bofm and it was awesome! We find out transfer news tomorrow! My guess is that I am leaving actually! I talked with president and he says he has “big plans” for me.

7-20-13

Happy Anniversary Mom and Dad. Im so glad you both fell in love 100 or so years ago! I love you. Great day, hung out with Dwight and Joe (I told you his name was paul last week, oops) Had an awesome lesson with them both. They are really funny. Both single and are 19 year olds trapped in a 50 year olds body. The stake had a big pioneer day celebration party. It was an awesome way to get investigators out with us to meet the ward. There was lots of great food and games. Dwight and Joe took us out to eat afterwards while we anxiously waited for the phone call to tell us transfer news. I was pretty shocked to hear that I am being transferred up north somewhere! Ive got a couple days to pack and im out of here. Pretty stressed about it, but its all part of the game! I will miss El Paso.  I will miss my ward family in the El Paso 11th ward.

Another week has come and gone, do you miss me yet? Ha.  All of the letters mean so much! They truly do. It has been hard as far as missionary work goes. We worked hard and contacted a lot of people, set up lots of appointments, but everyone canceled on us. Even though we had a rough week in that aspect, We are leading the zone in numbers. Hard work is paying off, we just wish we had more investigators that were actually progressing. This week alone we found 8 new investigators! We taught 38 lessons total. There is so much work to do around here. We have lost contact with Enoc, its pretty upsetting! Ray is progressing, but won't be ready this next Saturday as planned. Yesterday (Sunday) We had a very successful day. We were able to visit almost everyone we had planned and more. Earlier this week we had a hard day where every single appointment fell through, so we decided to just knock as many doors as possible. That also wasn’t very successful either, but as we were on our way back to the apartment.. I had a strong feeling that we should stop by Alecia's house. Alecia is a lady that we have been trying to get ahold of since I have been here. Every time her daughter Ruth answers smoking. She tells us very rudely that her mom isn’t home and “im not interested” then shuts the door. Because of my prompting, we did visit once again. Not surprised, Ruth answered again. Said something along the lines of “you guys again? My mom isn’t home”.  Just as she was about to shut the door I noticed that she was wearing a necklace with some haircutting scissors on it. I asked her if she cuts hair and she told me that she just got done with hair school! I said, no way my gf is in hair school right now, that is really cool. Saying this sparked up a conversation all about hair, nails, waxing… she was shocked that I knew what shellac  was haha. (Thanks bai). Her attitude towards us totally changed and she asked us if we wanted water and to come in to cool off. HECK YES! We talked more about hair school then she asked the question, "so what do you guys believe?" We threw down a sweet restoration lesson, she cut us off half way and told us to come back later that day so that her kids could hear the lesson too! We were excited and returned that night to a totally different Ruth and taught her and the kids a good lesson. We got a return appointment too!  This week we taught a lady named Dora.  Dora is in her 50s or 60s and is struggling with the loss of her father.  Elder T couldn't wait to talk to her.  Another is Maria.  She is really struggling with depression and loneliness.  She wants to know her purpose in life....THE PLAN OF SALVATION IS GOING DOWN!!

                             Other Elders in the ZONE...(Elder Magalei on right)

                             Two Cool (And Handsome) Missionaries standing at the BORDER....?

"Dreaming of my Momma"

First week in El Paso

"Holy El Paso....it's crazy here!  I have been teaching a lot about families.  The gospel blesses families so much.  We are so blessed.  My first week went good.  There is a lot of work to do around these parts!  I haven't been outside of Idaho and Utah very much...NO ONE knows about our church!  No one knows what it is really like to be happy! Ha, I have a whole new outlook on our church...I never understood how truly blessed we are to have been raised in it!  Missionary work is so great.  I love being part of this army of God, fighting for the right cause.  I can't lie to you...This is the hardest thing I have done in my life.  It is not easy to be away from my family and friends but  it is SO rewarding.  We have been teaching a man named Jose  Jose is in protective custody because he just recently got out of a gang and out of the drug cartel.  He had to leave his wife because she is still involved.  Jose was baptized when he was young but obviously became a wangster.  We gave him a blessing last night because he is so scared.  I can't tell you the joy it brings to me to hear people pray to their loving Heavenly Father for the first time.  It brings tears to my eyes every time...it is amazing.  I have had a lot of amazing experiences lately.  My companion, Elder Justin Taylor is going to be a forever friend.  We were called of God to be companions.  He blows my mind.  I have to pinch him sometimes to see if he is real. He shares the best messages and I learn so much from him.  We are so much alike and get along great. He helps me open up when I am having a hard time.  He lost his mom unexpectedly about 6 months ago...He has only been in the field for 2 months and is already a trainer.  I couldn't imagine losing my mom!  Elder T is the strongest man I've ever met.  When I am feeling low, I think of him.  There is always something that happens in the day that makes it all worth it though.  I love seeing the spirit touch peoples lives.  We got chased by a BIG dog yesterday, I ****** my pants a little.  We also taught an institute class with no notice.  It was good.  There is a Tongon/Poly Elder that is a college football player named Elder Mongolie.  He is in our district.  He is second cousins with Manti Tao (thought Garrett might like that).  There are a lot of nice people around here but there are alot of very mean, but it's all part of it.  No one can touch me!  The violence in Mexico is crazy...they say you can pay someone 50 dollars for someone's head.  I am SO grateful for wherewe live!  So, I have met people who remember Elder Ricks!!!! (Richard's cousin who served in the Tucson Mission a few years back who also served in El Paso) It is so awesome.  So our ward consists of like 50 people.  We as missionaries pretty much run the whole thing.  I did announcements ha ha.  I LOVE MY FAMILY! Letters work better for sure but I love e-mail  It just takes forever to read the e-mail because these computers are so dang slow and ancient.  Can't wait to talk to you all on Mother's Day!  Please send me whatever you want.  I am doing great right now.  Thank you soooooo much for the package..it made my whole day.  I love it.  Please send things for Elder Taylor too...we cry together all the time talking about you.  You remind him exactly of his mom.  I love you all so much. 100 degree dry heat is really HOT!!!