Elder Braden's ONE YEAR mark!

So, it's been exactly a year since my baby (brother) embarked on his two-year service mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. He spent two months in the Missionary Training Center in Provo, Utah and then headed down to the California San Fernando Valley Mission (Spanish speaking). Quinn really loves what he's doing there and I'm so impressed with his maturity, obedience, and love for the Lord and the people there.

It was Elder Braden's birthday last Saturday, so I made him another t-shirt. For Christmas he got a shirt with a picture of the little boys in white shirts, ties, and bike helmets with the caption "We love our Unky Elder Braden!" For his birthday t-shirt, we replaced the bike helmets with party hats and the caption said, "P-days? Good. B-days? Better!" Here are a couple pictures from that photo shoot, we went with the second one for the actual shirt:

I obviously miss Quinn a lot, but I'm so excited about the experiences he's having and it's been great to hear from him every Monday through e-mail. I love it when I'm near the computer at the same time and we can write back and forth a little.
Elder Braden sent me one of his camera's memory cards a while back to empty and send back to him; it's fun to see all of the pictures he took his first few months out. Although sometimes it is confusing to see just the pictures without any kind of caption or story:
I guess he just really liked this lunch!

I also found pictures of the various ways Elder Braden was able to prepare for the mission field in the MTC, including levitating:
and running up brick walls:
Here's his desk set-up in one of his areas in California:

I've been thinking a lot about the importance of sharing the knowledge I have of our Heavenly Father's existence, His plan of salvation for all of us and the role of our Savior Jesus Christ in that plan. Sometimes I worry too much about offending someone or my own discomfort instead of focusing on the joy and happiness that the gospel brings to me and the possibility of helping other people come to that same joy and happiness. SO, hopefully my various friends and family will indulge me as I try to be more vocal about my testimony of the Church. . . . . . Still there? :)

Especially since my sweet younger brother is knocking on doors in Southern California trying to share the gospel message of truth and hope and encountering doors like this:

(I will totally admit that I laughed when I read it.)