P-Day, Stake Conference, and Mini Missionaries

This week has been Top Notch! 

As you know, on Saturday of last week we got our mini missionaries, I was paired with Elder McCarthy from Cork. It was a major blessing serving with someone who is so new to the church and has such a desire to serve God. 

Our week together went something like this;

Sunday: We had Stake conference in good Ole Dublin and got to hear from Elder Mendosa of The Seventies from Spain. 

Monday: On Monday we traveled down to Sligo and had and amazing P-day inside and beautiful canon. We had a lot of fun swinging on vines; I was the spitting image of Tarzan! Later on we took a peaceful walk along the beach, wouldn't trade those times for anything! 

Tuesday: We had a great district meeting where we focused on these three questions. What lack I yet? What must I do? Or what am I willing to do?

Therefore what? I would recommend asking yourself these questions. It was something that really helped me to figure out where I am and where I want to be. Heavenly Father will show us the way to get there if we are genuine and willing to make a change. 

Wednesday: Wednesday was filled with classic chapping, and ended with a life changing visit to the chiropractor!

Thursday: We had a lot of really great lessons on Thursday; the first was with Gary and Charlotte. As always we had a wonderful time with them! On Thursday I had a lot fun playing with their cute little baby Rosie! she is the sweetest little babe in town! It made my heart melt. Charlotte is progressing so well and everything is looking good for her baptism this Saturday. We are actually going to go see them right away after this email! Later we had a heartbreaking lesson with a heroin addict. It was a very humbling experience to say the least. The state of this women was something I have seen only a very few times in my life, and something you would only expect to see in a scary movie. Yet I felt a fraction of the love our Heavenly Father has for her. I understood in that moment that every soul truly is precious in the eye's of God. His love is perfect, and every living thing can be healed through the atoning sacrifice of our Savior, Jesus Christ. 

Friday: Friday was pretty stellar, for the first half of the way I went on splits with the other mini missionary Elder King, we had a grand time dancing up to people's doors while we were chapping!  

Saturday: On Saturday morning our two young lads were off, back to Dublin and Cork. They grow up so fast!! Later that day we traveled down to Athlone and had a lesson with Robert, then finished the night with a solid dinner appointment!

Sunday: Sunday we got an unbelievable amount of rain, but there was sunshine in my soul when Robert, Patrick, and Charlotte all joined us at church! We had a great sacrament meeting focused on Joseph Smith and the Restoration that I really enjoyed too! 

Well Folks, that about sums up my week. I love and miss each of you. Thank you for your love and prayers! 

Love, Elder Brycen Cluster

May we press forward with a steadfastness in Christ having a perfect brightness of hope, til our work is done! (2 Nephi 32:20

Mini Missionaries, Stake Conference, & Charlotte

This week was absolutely on point!! I've got a lot to tell you all, however we’ve got a couple other missionaries that need time on these computers this weeks, so I’ve gotta make it fast! 

P-day was sweet, Elder Schmidt and I went on a bit of a road trip and saw the ancient Book of Kell's. If you've never heard of it you should look up the movie "Book of Kells" on Netflix, it’s pretty exciting. We also explored the Castle of Trim, I loved it!

 

However, my absolute favorite part about this week was the lesson we had with Charlotte again. The spirit was so strong!! She expressed a few concerns to us, and with the help of God, we addressed them so well, that she asked to set a solid date of March 4th. Elder Schmidt and I had one of the hardest high fives I’ve ever had in my life after she said that. What a blessing!!

The other main event of the week was Saturday night when we received our fresh mini missionaries! Mine is named Elder McCarthy, He is from Cork and has been a member for about 9 months now. He is a complete champion! We are going to have an amazing week, and hopefully by the end of our companionship he will be even more ready and excited for the real deal. The number one struggle is probably trying to understand his strong southern Irish Accent! Things get interesting when you can't understand your own companion! I'll keep praying for the gift of tongues, and I'm sure I will get it down in no time! 

Sunday was Stake Conference down in Dublin. That was a power house meeting to say the least! The best part was having our three investigators join us!! The all had a great experience. Some of the speakers were, Sister Donaldson, President Donaldson, And Elder Mendosa, the Area Seventy from Spain. He was so amazingly humble yet spoke with great power and authority. There were many incredible testimonies shared in between their talks too! That’s really just scratching the surface, but I’d better give these other missionaries a chance to email their families. 

I love each and every one of you. Thank you for all of your love, support, and prayers!

Love, Elder Brycen Cluster

A New and Exciting Assignment

This will be another shorter email because I want to go explore Ireland :) But this week has been mighty fine! There were two pretty big and exciting things that happened this week that I’d like to focus on for this email. 

First was another lesson we had with Charlotte. Charlotte has been going to church and learning about the gospel for quite some time now, but every time we have tried to get her to commit to something she always takes a step back. We have been constantly fasting and praying for her that she would commit to a baptismal date. As Elder Schmidt and I drove out to their home in the countryside we carried that prayer in our hearts and into our lesson. Right from the start the gift of the spirit was strong, we could all (Even Charlotte) Recognize it. We went over the gospel of Jesus Christ over and over again, this time focusing on repentance. We were all filled with joy as we testified of the love and mercy that God has for each of us. We know that we can be forgiven of all of our mistakes. With this knowledge and the guidance of the Holy Ghost we invited Charlotte to be baptized once again. This time she accepted and agreed to working towards a date near the beginning of March! God as a plan and a purpose for each of us! We just have to let him guide the way. 

The other big new we got this week came in a phone call from President. He said that he had an assignment for Elder Schmidt and me. He continued to speak of two lads down in Cork who wanted to go on a mini mission to see if it was for them. Starting on Saturday it will be our job to show them the ways of missionary life in a four man flat in Mullingar. It's going to be a great learning experience for all of us, and hopefully by the time they are done with us they will want to go and do the real deal! I'm sure we will have a lot of fun. Please pray for these new fellas, that they have a good and uplifting experience! 

Thank you for your love and prayers. I love you!

Love, Elder Brycen Cluster 

I Believe in Christ. He is my Savior and Redeemer.

It’s been another exciting and eventful week in the vineyard of the Lord.

The main events were:

P-day: We mostly just slept this time. We really needed it. It was probably the best three hour nap of my life.

Tuesday we did some solid work then drove up with the Sligo Elder's and spent the night in Dublin with a couple of my missionary buddies from back in the good old days in Aberdeen.

Wednesday morning we were off to the Stake Centre for an All Ireland Conference with Elder Johnson on the Seventy's. The main focus of the conference was learning how to become most effective with the new changes in the Missionary Schedule and Key Indicators. I'm pretty sure He was just winging it with the spirit most of the time but that made it even better! One of my favorite parts was a musical number given by a senior couple named the Angels. I'm not sure what song they even did but that brought in spirit in strong. We are sure blessed with some amazing leaders in this mission. After our conference I witnessed a little miracle. There in the parking lot of the stake centre and a new Hyundai with our name on it just like President promised! You should have seen the smile on my face when I hopped behind the wheel of that lush swaggin' waggin. Driving through the traffic of Dublin during rush hour was a little less exciting, but we arrived to our flat safe and sound just in time for me to make my Garda appointment. (The Garda is the Irish Police) I had to sign up for what we call a Garda Card so that I don't get deported. That asked me lots of questions and took my fingerprints and what not, It was pretty fun and exciting! I passed!

Some other big hits of this week were service and a lesson with Gary and Charlotte. The lesson went really well too, she's really coming along! Our service was taking down some trees. That was fun!  Now that we have a car we should be able to start seeing that twice a week too, that's going to make a huge difference!

And then of course you have testimony meeting Sunday. There may not be many members in our little branch in Mullingar, but the members we do have, sure have a solid testimony! There wasn't more than a couple of second of silence where someone wasn't bearing powerful testimony. I contributed my testimony with those of Mullingar Ireland. I Believe in Christ. He is my Savior and Redeemer. Through His Atonement I will live with my Father in Heaven along with my friends and family for all Eternity in a state of never ending happiness. How grateful I am for this knowledge and the opportunity I have to serve God by sharing it with others. 

I close with words from the Doctrine and Covenants: “Call upon the Lord, that his kingdom may go forth upon the earth, that the inhabitants thereof may receive it, and be prepared for the days to come, in the which the Son of Man shall come down [from] heaven, clothed in the brightness of his glory, to meet the kingdom of God … on the earth.”

With love and gratitude to each one of you,
Elder Brycen Cluster            

                                                              

Ask of God

Friends and Family!!! Sorry it has been so long since I’ve sent one of these big emails out! I've been so busy teaching repentance, and going on epic wilderness adventures that it has been hard to fit in! My Mum gave me a speech about how people still need to know I'm alive and want to hear about my life and stuff though, so here we are! I'll try my best to fill you in on some of the good times Elder Schmidt and I have had the last couple weeks. 

First off, Ireland is an amazing place and I love it. There really are a hundred shades of Green over here! The accent is a lot of fun, and I can finally understand most people so that is exciting too. It’s honestly like a whole different mission over here. One thing that is the same as Scotland is that fact that there are still sheep EVERYWHERE. I'm super happy about that!! Looking at all of those fuzzy little guys brightens any day! We also get a bit more sunshine in these parts. That’s an exciting change! Within the last two P-day we have gotten to go to some pretty cool places. There is a place just outside of Mullingar called Forth Abbey. It was one epic Castle! Places like that have their own special spirit. There were ruins of a church building just up from the Abbey where Elder Schmidt and I spend a good 30 minutes singing church Hymns.

This week we got to spend a good couple days in an area called Sligo (On exchange with 

some Elders in the District), we were lucky to get to go there for p-day, and super blessed because they have a car. We drove to some amazing places! Our first stop was to Conney Island, where when the tide is low you can dive across a nice sandy land bridge to a majestic land of old broken down houses and beautiful hidden beaches. Just like in the movie Women in Black!

Later we went on a drive/hike to a place we call the Highlands of Ireland. I had a fun time discovering waterfalls and running with the sheep.

Another HIT of this week was when we were at a member’s home. I was having a good time running around and playing with their dog. It was dark and I completely underestimated how fast this dog was. I was sprinting full speed when all of a sudden I hit the ground on the gravel, and realize I just tackled the dog down! My knee was pretty scraped up, but I was mostly just sad that I ruined my trousers and felt bad for the poor pup. I'm happy to say she shook it off a lot faster than I did though.

 All in all, the best adventure I’ve had so far in Ireland has been getting to know and teach our investigators Mark and Charlotte. Mark was supposed to get baptized last Saturday, but we found out that he has a few weeks to wait. I'm not really too bothered as long as he gets there in the end. Teaching Charlotte has been absolutely amazing! Her husband is a member and she has been to church many times, just never really had a desire to be baptized. Just this week I had such a powerful and spiritual lesson that all of us including Charlotte all left in tears. I committed her to pray about baptism and she happily accepted.

 

Just in closing I would like to remind you all of the love our Heavenly Father has for you. On Sunday I gave a talk in Sacrament on finding faith. As I gave my talk, I came to realize more and more that as we build our Faith we can feel God's love for us ever greater, and recognize all of His miracles in our lives. It all starts down on our knees. If you lack wisdom, ask of God. 

Love, Elder Brycen Cluster

Ireland's Call

Sorry it’s been awhile since I've made one of these big emails! So much has happened in the last couple of weeks! I'll cover as much as I can.

Things got interesting on New Year’s Day when I got a Call from President saying that he had to move some people around in the middle of the transfer, and that he needed me in the Republic of Ireland. It’s a small town right in the middle of the country called Mullingar.

Traveling there was a nightmare to say the least. I was supposed to leave Monday at 4:00AM, but we couldn't figure out how to get into the bus station to save our lives and ended up missing our bus. So for all of Monday and Tuesday I was in a trio with Elder Parsons and my replacement Elder Oxspring (He was my MTC Comp.) We finally got a another bus Wednesday morning that took me down to Glasgow, then to my sweet town of Stranraer, where I caught the long ferry ride over to Belfast Ireland. The Ferry was definitely the best part of it all! It was all fancy! I just sat outside and enjoyed the scenery and sunset.

The ferry docked at Belfast, and we caught another bus to Dublin. We finally arrived there at 9:30PM and spent the night with some other missionaries. I also got to meet my new companion Elder Schmidt (Son of Jon Schmidt.)  Elder Schmidt  is a champion!  I've only spent a few days with him and we are already way close. We have loads in common! I think we are going to have a really good transfer together.  

Thursday morning we caught the train to our area (Mullingar.) We’ve been working really hard!! The Branch seems cool; I'm in a biking area so that’s nice too! I need to get back into shape.... It’s possible I could finish my mission here. We'll see!

Elder Schmidt and I are determined to get this area on fire and to baptize this transfer; I know we can do it with God’s help! Ireland is so different from Scotland. I am back to not understanding a word anyone is saying, and trying my best to get to know the area and Irish lingo! I also found out that the Irish are just as crazy as the Scottish. I’ve had a lot of wild experience here already! But that will be a story for another time. 

             

There have been so many big changes for me, but with change come new starts and new opportunities. I'm excited to see what this new chapter has in store for me. I know that God will lead the way and guide our every step as we learn to humble ourselves, and rely on Him.

I love you all, and am so grateful for your thoughts and prayers!

Love, Elder Cluster