Dearest family and friends,

I love you all a lot and am doing quite well. Some moments incredibly difficult. When people you have come to love exercise their agency in a way that damages them and keeps them from coming unto Christ. If this mission were about me and my learning, my progess, my life, it would be perfect. I am learning a lot, growing and changing. I feel right now much like the ancient people who wrote the Book of Mormon. In one instance they write that they worry the people who will read their writings in the future (that would be us today) will mock them because of their weakness in writings. They talk about how they are gifted and strengthened to speak with power, touching the hearts of men, but that their writings are weak. That is how I feel.

It is vain to try to express here in these words how I feel precisely. How could one express the complexities of human emotion. But I know that I am not alone in this thing. Each of you have had experiences that stir and incite memories, feelings, and desires that you would not know how, or even want to express fully.

I encourage each person to take a few minute now to take a moment to ponder where they are. What dreams they have had in their life, and what things they hope yet to accomplish. Share those feelings with your Father in Heaven in prayer. Just talk to Him. Even if you have not before, or it has been a long time.

Though time is incredibly short today because we went downtown for a few hours, a lot of fun but quite a long time spent in travel, know that here I am. Still working, serving, forgetting myself, and loving. 

In conclusion I want to express my love for my family. I am realizing that I am only the product of the love that I was given all my life in my loving home. I would also like to ask all those that are able to look for ways to support my family in small and simple ways. Those good members of the church that live near us, my long time friends, extended family, and all those that read this. I know that the Lord often works through others and know that He will help and bless you as you reach out to others.

With greatest love,

Elder Brighton

Dear Family and Friends,

Another week, and like I imagined it would, it flew by. The mission is implementing a new sort of training that includes divisions for 3 days. What this means is that missionaries in positions of leadership go and exchange companions with those that they lead for a number of days. Since my companion is the district leader (a district consists of 2-4 companionships) the zone leaders (a zone consists of 3-4 districts) came and we did divisions with them. So Tuesday through Thursday I was out of my normal area working with another missionary. I learned a lot and really enjoyed seeing how other Elders work and teach. Then when I returned, Elder Sosa, my companion, went on divisions with a companionship in our district. So I was then back in my area, but with another companion. Once again, I enjoyed the time and learned a lot Friday through Sunday. Starting tomorrow Elder Sosa will leave once more and another missionary will becoming with me again. Certainly makes the time pass by rapidly.

I would like to make a list of things that I feel that I have really learned on my mission.

Ironing- despite my mother´s best efforts and multiple intents, I never really ironed before. I may have known how, more or less, but now, each morning I iron my shirt and this last week received a compliment on how nicely my shirt was ironed. What progress!

Shopping- We can get in and out of the store in less than 15 minutes, and that is shopping for the entire week.

Patience- more than just waiting. Being happy while I am waiting for things to happen. Realizing the things I can control and the things I cannot. Focusing on those things that matter most and letting go feelings of anxiety or inadequacy when things that I cannot control go poorly.

Peace through prayer- Out here sometimes there is not someone to talk to. I guess I always have my companion, but there are some feelings that you just cannot express. I have learned and felt what it is like to go to God in weakness, expressing my imperfect emotions, and knowing that He loves me enough to accept me as I am so that He can help me change and grow. I recognize that I have often had fear to express weakness or doubt or concerns in prayer. I tried to always keep them ideal and say and ask for only those things that I knew that I should. But as I pray openly and express the sentiments of my heart, I have found that the Lord helps me to recognize His will, and I can then work out in myself how to put my will in line with His.

I do not think that I can express how important prayer has become to me; to know that God listens, and to receive his guidance through the Holy Ghost. That is, to have thoughts and feelings that I know do not come from myself. This is the way that I know God communicates through us. Feelings of peace, encouragement, love, acceptance, patience, and thoughts that come suddenly and about things I had long forgotten. This is the power of the Holy Ghost.

Were I to exhaust the list of things I have learned in these few short months I would not have time to do the other things necessary on this brief day of preparation. So I will leave it at that and happily await your letters so as to have meaningful and personal communication with you my good family and friends. I wish you all the best and ask once more for your prayers of support.

Much love,

Elder Brighton

Dear Family and Friends,

Firstly, a quick note to say that this last week I received mail! So many of the letters that you have sent me over the last weeks (and months) arrived. I spent a good amount of time today responding to them. If it takes a while to get to you, know that I want to take my time to give good and hardy replies to everyone. Thank you so much for your support through your letters. It is a great uplifting experience to get your letters.

This last week has passed rapidly and I suspect the following will as well. We have been working hard and for me, I am really learning what it means to have faith and patience. This work is one of humility and love. We go out and try to talk to anyone that will just listen. Invite them to learn, to put in practice the things that Jesus taught, that is love, obedience, faith, repentance, things that will in reality change lives for the better. But, in the end, the choice is out of our hands. And so we take comfort in that we are not alone in this work; this work of salvation.

This past weekend was General Conference. I had meant to mention it last week so that I could invite you all to view it live. But it is okay. It is all still available online to watch now. General Conference is the opportunity we have every six months to listen to the Prophet and the Apostles. They are men, like we read about in the Bible, called of God to lead and direct the church in these days. They receive revelation about situations, trends, and things we should be aware of. In recent years they have focused especially on the importance of family and doing all we can to strengthen our homes and children from the many sources that are doing all they can to degrade families. This last weekend was a wonderful opportunity to hear men truly inspired of God and know what it is God would have us do in these days to be happy.

I would invite all to go to lds.org and take a few minutes to watch some of conference. If they do the same as they did last year, there will be a short video with clips from several of the different talks. Though all were wonderful, a couple that stick out in my mind right now is a talk by Russell M. Nelson. He talks about missionaries and what it is they do. It was given in the Saturday morning session. The other that sticks out is one by David A. Bednar from the Sunday afternoon session. I hope you can find a few minutes to listen to these inspired messages. Let me know what you thought!

One of the exciting announcements from the Conference is that the required age for missionary service has been lowered. As of now, a young man who has graduated from high school and is 18 years old can leave to begin his mission. Likewise, a young woman can now leave at the age of 19. This is very exciting and truly inspired. As the Prophet noted in his announcement, with things as they are in our times, youth are forced to grow up a little faster. The maturity required to live worthily at the age of 18 ensures that that young man will be prepared to leave and serve a mission. It will be exciting to see over the next months as younger missionaries arrive in the field. I am particularly interested in what it must be like to go from thinking you have a year or two to wait until you are eligible to suddenly being able to leave. How exciting!

I hope you are doing great my friend. I think of you and pray for you frequently. Keep on praying for me, I need it. This time I have to serve is short. Before we know it we will all be together again. Keep striving to make the most of everyday.

With much love,

Elder Brighton

Dear Friends and Family,

This week I will rely on the fact that a picture is worth a thousand words. Hopefully my family is able to upload a number of the pictures that I sent them this afternoon.(Look on the photo tab) This morning my companion and I went on a small hike to a nearby gully sort of thing. We greatly enjoyed the scenery and were able to watch as the sun came up over the valley. I hope you are able to enjoy the photos, even if they are not of the greatest quality.

Upon arriving at the sort of waterfall, we had our studies there in the open. We read together of a group of missionaries that likely walked these same sorts of terrain a couple thousand years ago, doing the same work that we are doing today. Their history is recorded in the Book of Mormon. They were the sons of a King, Mosiah, and they left everything behind to take the message of Jesus Christ to a people that they did not know. As the passage describes some of their difficulties and trials, it strengthens me to know that I am not the first to embark in this type of work. And as they eventually found comfort in the Lord and success in the work. I too am comforted and inspired. It was a meaningful morning and I hope that you are able to feel a part of it with me. For anyone interested, the story of those men can be found in Alma, chapter 17. It can be accessed easily from lds.org. Just search in the search bar. Let me know what you think about them, their attitude toward the work, and the results that came of their sacrifice.

I am thinking especially of Alicia today and this week as she begins her mission, entering the training center Wednesday. In the future, once I know what it is, I can post a link to her blog so that anyone interested can read along with her experiences and adventures as well.(Link is on side bar) Although hers will undoubtedly be more exciting and of a higher quality, I ask that you continue to read along with mine as well.

Much love,

Elder Brighton

My dearest family and friends,

First, my apologies for missing last week. I will do my utmost not to allow this to become a habit. Speaking of which, that is what I have been thinking about a lot this week and would like to talk a little about today. Habits.

But first, how are you? When was the last time you took a few minutes to ask yourself that and think about where you are and where you would like to be (physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually).

As another note, I received mail this last week and was very happy to receive the card from my extended Brighton family. Thank you all for your expressions of love and support. Odd that it took so very long for it to find its way down here, but very glad to have received it at last. I also received a number of other letters to which I will respond very soon. They were all dated from June and July, but I have confidence that the letters sent more recently will arrive soon. Along these lines, a quick note about the dearelder service. Awesome, and I encourage its use if it is easier for you. The one thing they do not do is date the letter, so if you do not mind including the date at the beginning of your letter as is customary, that would be awesome so that I have a sense of time. Thanks a bunch!

Now as to what I have been thinking about this last week. Habits.

As I have been pondering how I can become the type of person, the type of missionary and servant of the Lord that I want to be I have been impressed by the importance of habits. I think there is some sort of saying that we are the product of our habits or of our actions. Those things that we repeatedly think, we repeatedly do. And those things we repeatedly do, well, that is pretty much who we are. And at the least, it is who we appear to be. Though good intentions are … good, without an action to follow, they are lost in the land of almost, and could have been.  Not a place we want to find ourselves.

And so I have began a study of my habits. The things I find myself doing with the time I have been given. For example, we arrive home most evenings at 9:30 or so, plan for 30 minutes and then have 30 minutes before we retire to bed. What do I do with those 30 minutes? The answer I found is usually think about food and pitter in the kitchen eating and making food. Sure, this might fall somewhere in the ´´acceptable´´ to ´´good´´ category. But what would be ideal. For my part, I think writing in my journal, studying the scriptures, or writing in and cleaning up the records we keep for the area in which we work would be ideal. And so, because I want to have the habit of doing these things, I have realized that I have to start doing them. By making the conscious decision the first 40 or 60 times, it will eventually become a habit, and it will be a great one instead of just letting what comes naturally take control. And at the end of the day, I am going to have a habit either way, so may as well make it a great habit.

And so my thoughts have been along these lines this week. Taking note of those small decisions I make throughout the day and seeing if there is a little tweak I can make, so that in a couple of months I can examine my habits and find that they have become excellent.

This same principle applies in all aspects of life. We all want to be that person of our dreams. Doing the things we always hoped we could do. I am starting to believe the way we do that is though habits and through goals. Perhaps set goals to develop habits. How about that? J

I believe that those people that we admire, that do something consistently or ´´excellently´´ were also once where we are now. They had the desire to do something, to become something, and so they began to do it. And then one day, it became natural.

So my invitation for myself, that I will also extend to all of you my good friends and family is to examine our habits. See where we are at, how we pass this precious time that we have been give, and begin to make the conscious decision to develop the habits we want to have. I think some key times may be the first 30 minutes of the morning, the final 30 and those areas during the day when we have more control over our own time. In everything we do, we have a habitual way of doing it. The way we walk from one class to the next, the way we greet our friends, the way we spend that 25 minutes in between one class or activity and the next. What is that habit we have? Ideally, what would we prefer that habit to be? Do it!

That is all that I have to say about that I think. Goals and habits, I sure to love them.

I ran into a scripture this morning that I wanted to share. I feel that is explains well what it is that I feel as a missionary. It is found in the Book of Mormon, written by a prophet that lived about 550 years before the life of Christ here in the American continent. He also strove to teach and help the people of his time to come and learn of Jesus Christ and develop their own personal relationship with Him.

Wherefore we labored diligently among our people, that we might persuade them to come unto Christ, and partake of the goodness of God, that they might enter into his rest.

And also I found this strongly worded passage that follows closely behind.

Behold, will ye reject these words? Will ye reject the words of the prophets; and will ye reject all the words which have been spoken concerning Christ, after so many have spoken concerning him; and deny the good word of Christ, and the power of God, and the gift of the Holy Ghost, and quench the Holy Spirit, and make a mock of the great plan of redemption, which hath been laid for you?

 Know ye not that if ye will do these things, that the power of the redemption and the resurrection, which is in Christ, will bring you to stand with shame and awful guilt before the bar of God?

O be wise; what can I say more?

That one there is for anyone who likes their medicine a little stronger.  

I feel to include here a quick note to invite anyone with questions or curiosity to visit mormon.org. There you can find all kinds of answers to questions you have, and questions you did not know you had. J The best part is you do not have to ask anyone if you don’t want to and you can do it on your own time.

Well I am doing quite well. As I described it recently to the Mission President here, my skills with the language are really improving. I am able to undertstand almost everything. I described it in this way.

 ¨I am getting to the point where I can open up more in the language and share experiences, stories, and thoughts. As far as my raw language skills go, I am at the point where I can understand what people say. The only time I do not understand is when they use words that I do not know. In other words, I am beginning to recognize those words, phrases, and instances when I do not understand because I can understand the rest. Patches of darkness in light as opposed to the other way around as it may have been at the beginning.¨

Really doing well and hoping the same for all of you. When you find a spare minute, I would love to hear from you. Truly, it is great to receive your letters and see how everything is going for you.

With much animo and love,

Elder Brighton

Just a note to anyone who may have written, he said mail came last week from the mission office and there was nothing for him so your letters won't get to him for probably another 4 weeks or so. Keep writing, he'll get them.
Dear family and friends,

Another great week in Mexico! A lot of hard work of course, but wouldn´t have it any other way.

For some reason today I do not know so much what to share in regards to the events that have passed this week, and so I will share an idea. Just a quick thought on the subject of prayer. What is it and why should we pray?

First why.

We are literally the children of God. You are the child of our Father in Heaven. And just like your parents on the earth like to hear from you and know what is going on, our Father in Heaven wants to hear from us. How are we doing, what are we feeling, what questions do we have and what do we want help with.

What is a prayer. It is a comunication with God. It goes two ways if we take the time to wait and listen for an answer. After praying, if we want an answer, we need to take a minute to stay still, quiet and allow God to communicate to us by the power of the Holy Ghost through our thoughts and feelings. We are likely not going to hear a voice, but I promise that you will have distinct thoughts and impressions that you will recognize did not come from your own mind. 

I would love to invite you to say a quick prayer, if nothing else, for me. I can use all the help and prayers I can get here. Still working hard to learn the language, the culture, and let go of myself and my desires and needs and just focus on the people around me. So a quick prayer from you would be awesome. We can both benefit.

Praying is simple and easy. Just remember that you are talking to someone who loves you and wants to hear from you.

Start by adressing your Father in Heaven (¨Dear Heavenly Father¨ for example)

Give Him thanks for the things you have in your life (family, friends, health, food, etc...)

Ask Him for things that you need or want 

Close ¨In the name of Jesus Christ, amen.¨

Really the most important part is to be sincere. Talk, and then when you finish your prayer, take a minute to be still and pay attention to your thoughts and feelings.

I wanted to share this today because I have seen incredible blessings this week from prayer. I know that there is in fact a God and that He lives and is involved in the world today. He is waiting for all of us to reach out to Him. We do that through prayer.

And so these are my thoughts for the week.

To anyone fearing that this blog will become a weekly sermon, I would give you a word of comfort. I promise to keep this blog completely genuine. What I am feeling I will share. I imagine that will usually be exciting or unusual events from the week. The promise holds true, write to me, and you will get a letter back!

I will in turn be praying for all of you and hoping to hear from you soon.

Much love,

Elder Brighton

Dear Family and faithful friends,

How are all of you? I hope that the adjustment to this new school year is going well and that you are becoming comfortable with all the newness that each year must surely bring. I know that I am certainly adjusting to my share of newness here. Having completed now the third week here, somethings are beginning to feel familiar, so that certainly helps. The week went by pretty quickly this week. 

This week I was finally able to convice the Elders that live with me to take turns running with me in the morning. They rotate days and we go for a comfortable little 12-15 minute run. I have enjoyed it immensely. 

With the short time that I have I´ll tell a few experiences that I have had and enjoyed in my time so far. We have visited with and helped a family from the church here a couple of times. The most recent, as we were leaving, the father offered to give us a ride to our next appointment. They live on the top of a big hill with some bumpy roads that wind down over a couple miles to the main highway. He has a small dune-buggy sort of car, like a big go-cart, that they use to get around. We hopped in and sat in the back. He drove it out of his driveway, out onto the dirt road, and then turned off the engine and cruised down the hill. There were flat spots where we doubted we would make it, but sure enough, it would creep to the edge of the next drop and we would go zooming down again. It felt very much like a roller coaster.

Over the course of the last two weeks, two of the important local leaders have been released and new leaders have been called. The bishop of our ward, the man over the local congregations who makes sure that every memeber in the area has their temporal and spiritual needs met, was released after a number of years of service and another man from the congregation was called. This is a normal process. Each position in the church is voluntary and unpaid. Leaders seek inspiration for those that can serve in each and every capacity and call men and women to fulfill the many responsibilities. The position of Bishop is a particularly heavy and important one. Additionally, just yesterday the Stake President was also given a release after 7 and a half years of service in the position, a very long amount of time. In his place was called another humble man, a follower of Christ who has a heavy burden, but will be supported and blessed by the Lord for his selfless service to come. His responsibility is to look over several congregations in the area and ensure that the Bishops have the resources and support to provide all that is necessary for the members in the wards. 

That is a little bit about the organization of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Each member of the congregation has a calling, an assignment from the Lord to serve in some capacity in the church. Each position is voluntary and requires sacrifice so that through loving service rendered by each member, all are edified and uplifted. Sure would love to answer any more questions you have.

To conclude I want to share a few of my goals for the coming week so that you all can hold me accountable. I will do my best to give a report on how it went next week.

Smile more! I am finding that many see me already as the "serious" missionary. I do not mind that at all, but I really want to make sure that people can see how much I love them. So I will be sure to be seriously happy. :)

Serve someone I live with each day. Serving always helps us be happier right?

Develop strong relationships with more of the members of this area and ward. Learn to love and be loved.

Well I hope to hear from you all soon. Letters are great, dearelder is great, pictures are wonderful, really any form of communication is the best. Thanks for your support!

Love,

Elder Brighton