Dear amazing family and wonderful friends,

I hope you got the chance to watch the leadership broadcast about missionary work last night. It was amazing! It was mostly about things that we already are doing or know we should be doing as missionaries and as member of the restored church, but I could feel the urgency in the message. We are in the last days and we as the Church are organizing ourselves to more effectively bring the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ to all the world!

In other news, I am leaving Rohnert Park. Wednesday I will be going to Vallejo, California, where I will be training two brand new Hermanas. I'm excited for the challenge and have heard wonderful things about my new area from other missionaries who have served there.

It has been a wonderful 18 weeks in Rohnert Park and Cotati, and I am so grateful for the experiences I've had here. It's a wonderful thing to be able to look back and see that change and growth has taken place in this area during my time here. I'm so glad I could be a part of it.

I love you all! Hope you're enjoying the summer. (:

Love,

Hermana Brighton

Dear family and friends,

This was an INCREDIBLE week! We received a new Hermana in our apartment. Now Hermana H is training Hermana L, who came to the mission in the middle of the transfer because she had broken her foot in the missionary training center and had to wait for it to recover. So we divided Rohnert Park once again! We now have 3 sets of Spanish missionaries in our town!!! Hermana W and I are working mostly in the area where we haven't been doing a lot of work before. Already we have seen miracles this week.

On Thursday, we had the chance to help a lady we are teaching with her garden. It was amazing to see how she changed from not really wanting us to come by to making us dinner and wanting to hear the message of the gospel. On Sunday, she came to sacrament meeting and stayed for all of the church meetings. She's started reading the Book of Mormon, too, and read 15 chapters in one night! 

I love being a missionary. I am so grateful for the opportunities I have every day to be a part of miracles. 

Thank you to all of you for your love and support. Thank you for your prayers.

Love,

Hermana Brighton

Dear Friends and Wonderful Family,

Hi! I hope that you all are having a great day!!

This was a really busy, really great week. This next week that's coming will be even busier and even more great! We are going to the temple on Wednesdaymorning. It is always such a blessing to go and feel the peace of the house of the Lord. Then, on Wednesday night, we are receiving two "mini-missionaries," young women who will be spending three days with us and getting the chance to see what missionary work is really like. One of the sisters will be working with me and one of them will be with Hermana Hooton and Hermana Wallace. 

One of the sweetest moments of this week was sitting in sacrament meeting yesterday at church and listening to so many of the members share their love and appreciation for the missionaries. Their trust in us is increasing, and that is such a wonderful and rewarding thing to see and feel.

Also, we had a leadership council for the whole mission this last Friday. Heavenly Father's work is really taking off all over our mission. We have a goal as a mission to baptize 101 people in the month of July. I don't remember if I'd mentioned that before. So anyway we are really gearing up for that and working to exercise greater faith in everything we do. Please pray for us to be able to increase our faith to find the families that Heavenly Father has prepared to receive the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Please pray for the windows of heaven to be opened over our mission at this time. 

I hope that you are recognizing the miracles Heavenly Father is sending you in your life. I know that as we seek His help, He lifts us to be able to do all that we need to.

Love you all!!

Love,

Hermana Brighton

Dear family and friends,

Happy Memorial Day! Hope you all have had a great weekend.

This week has been good. My companions and I are continuing to learn to work together in a trio. There's lots of great advantages to being three instead of just two, including that housework goes faster, we have extra brainstorming power, and we can visit anybody and don't have to worry about asking if there is another woman in the house. Some things take a little longer with three or are a little more complicated, but we are adjusting to that! I love Hermana Hooton and Hermana Wallace, and they are amazing missionaries--obedient, full of faith, and so supportive!

Yesterday all of the missionaries in our area (two zones) had a meeting with one of the members of the stake presidency. It was a get-to-know-you that they have at the beginning of each transfer here. It was all really great, but the end of the meeting, when we knelt down to pray together was the very best part. He addressed our Father in Heaven, then said "It's me, Chris," and continued with his prayer, invoking the power of the priesthood to leave a blessing upon each of us and each of our families. The Spirit that filled the room was so powerful. He was a son speaking to his Father. There was no doubt about that. I am striving to make my prayers more sincere and more powerful like that. I know that our Father in Heaven hears our prayers and that we really can and should pour out our souls to him and trust that he hears every word.

I love you all. May you receive the strength and help you need from our Father in Heaven this week.

Love,

Hermana Brighton

Dear Wondeful Family and Friends,

Hope you are having a great week! 

This will be short, but here is the update:

My new companion is Hermana Taysom W. from Joplin, Missouri.

She has 3 younger siblings (this means we are a companionship of three oldests!) and she went to BYU-Idaho for a semester before her mission, studying Human Biology. She's so prepared and so excited to be here!!

Sonny was confirmed yesterday and she is excited for girls camp with the young women this summer and also a Trek that the youth are doing in June. It's such a great blessing to continue working with her to help her learn and grow in her faith.

My new leadership responsibility involved teaching in our weekly meetings. I did that for the first time this Thursday. It went well. I'll also be going on 24 hour exchanges with 6 other sisters--two trios, one English and one Spanish. It's going to be fun!

Thanks for your prayers and support. I love you all!!!

Have a great week.

Love,

Hermana Brighton

Dear Wonderful Friends and Family,

Time is flying! I hope each of you is enjoying each and every day and finding many opportunities for growth and for service to those around you. Many of my happiest moments this week and really throughout my mission have been when I've had the opportunity to help someone around me. I can think of countless moments like this that Heavenly Father has blessed me with, and I know that He blesses us all with such opportunities when we seek them. What a great miracle, to be able to make a difference in the life of another person, through a smile, a word, a testimony shared, or a helping hand. 

This Saturday, Hermana H and I went "service tracting," which means we put on jeans and yellow Helping Hands T-shirts from the church and went out on our bikes looking for people that we could serve. We didn't even make it to the area of town where we'd planned to go because on the way, we found a family that was laying sod in their backyard and helped them (it turned out looking awesome!), and we found a man who had an injured foot and was trying to set up a pitching machine for his son. They were all very grateful, and their hearts were definitely softened when we showed up offering to help them with their obvious needs. 

On Sunday, Sonny got baptized!! It was an incredible moment. Especially in the moment right after she was baptized, as she came out of the baptismal font, I felt so much joy with her. In teaching and helping her, my understanding of this scripture in the Doctrine and Covenants has increased so much:

"And if it so be that you should labor all your days in crying repentance unto this people, and bring, save it be one ^asoul unto me, how great shall be your joy with him in the kingdom of my Father!"

I am so grateful for the opportunity I have to know Sonny and to be a part of her life forever. 

This week we also got some exciting news about the upcoming transfer, which starts this Wednesday. Hermana H and I will remain together, AND we will be receiving another companion. Another brand-new sister straight from the Missionary Training Center. So we three will be learning a lot together as we continue with Hermana H's training and begin from the beginning with the new Hermana.

Also, I have received an assignment to be a sister training leader. Meaning, I'll be attending additional leadership meetings and working with sisters from other companionships to teach and train them.My stewardship as a missionary will thus be increasing quite a bit this transfer--I don't know yet how many other sisters I will be responsible for but I will be finding out more details of my new responsibilities at a meeting this Wednesday. Please keep me in your prayers. I know that greater responsibilities will bring greater challenges but also greater learning and greater blessings, so I am very grateful for all that lies ahead. 

Thank you for the ways that you as my friends, leaders, and family members have helped and supported me before and during my mission. Thank you for your love and your prayers.

Much love,

Hermana Brighton

Dear Family and Friends,

I love you all!!!

I hope that each one of you is doing great! Thank you for your prayers on my behalf. I've certainly felt them this week.

We saw incredible blessings this weekend and are looking forward to a very busy and fulfilling week. 

Story: Friday night we prayed that 1: we would be able to know what we could do to help Josefa come to church on Sunday (she had told us that she didn't think she was going to be able to come) 2: we would be able to find someone else during the day Saturday who would be able to come to church on Sunday. Saturday after our studies, we visited Josefa. We taught her a little bit about faith because she is coming up to a hard week with her daughter Sandra possibly going through back surgery. Then she asked us if we could go with her to get some groceries to make tamales to sell. Well, we thought about it a little and both felt that it would be good for us to help her. It took a lot longer than expected! We got back from walking to the store and back with her so tired...but she was able to make her tamales in time and make arrangements with her children so that she could come to church on Sunday! It was a miracle. Then...after we got back with Josefa, we decided to still go try and see another family before dinner. Well, we didn't see them because we started talking to a girl who was outside their apartment. She was doing algebra, struggling a little bit, and we offered some help. I helped her graph a system of inequalities (sometimes I miss algebra-it was fun!) and then we started talking about what we do as missionaries and about the Gospel. It was amazing to see how she just wanted to learn and know how she could believe in Christ and have His power in her life. She came to church on Sunday too! She is preparing to be baptized next Sunday. She wants the gospel in her life, and she wants to have it now. 

Heavenly Father loves us. His Son, Jesus Christ, lives and makes it possible for us all to be of service to God now and to prepare for eternal life with them and with our families.

Please continue to pray for me and for these dear sisters and the others we are teaching and preparing to make sacred covenants with God.

Much love,

Hermana Brighton