Tuesday, July 26, 2016

Elder Broadhead is coming home

 Friends and Family,
I can't believe I finally can post Landen's final email, he will returning home August 2nd. His homecoming is August 14th at 8:30 am in the Little Valley Stake Center, please come he would LOVE to see you. It has been an incredible two years filled with MANY new and unforgettable experiences for him. Thank you for your love, support and especially your prayers in Landen's behalf. We know that he has been blessed with good health, safety and the opportunity to witness many miracles as the Lord moves the work forward in South Africa. It takes a village to raise a child and we are very grateful for the village that continues to bless Landen's life. 
                                                                    With love, The Broadhead's






Monday, July 25, 2016

7.25.16 #BestForLast



July 25, 2016
Well family,
I can honestly say that there hasn't been a happier time on my mission then this past week. I think that God truly lived faithful to the ageless saying of "save the best for last." Elder Swindle and I experienced miracles every day, great improvements throughout the mission, and even some back flips and Biltong today for our Pday :)


Like I said I haven't been happier! Who would have ever thought that happiness comes through getting rejected 1000 times every day (it is a rough estimate, really rough) and finding those diamonds that are waiting in the rough. I'll share a couple of the people that we met while we were finding throughout the mission
#1 Jean-David. I was on splits with Elder Weidmann from Switzerland (he knows Elder Martin) and we stopped this guy and he shared that he attended seminary classes in Uganda when he was a minor. He lost contact with the church until last Saturday night! He is now in the Elder teaching pool.

#2 Tsholo- Also on splits with Elder Wiedmann and after we met David, I saw a guy walking toward the car park. So we walked with him and found out that his cousin is a member in the Free-state Province and he had been to church many times when he lived with them there. So he also agreed to see the missionaries and have them over.. . . man, I am going to miss finding all these diamonds. 



Besides the diamonds in the rough that I was able to meet, I also got to revisit and reconnect with a different places and different people. The first place was Rabie Ridge (my second area!) I was able to spend the day with Elder Sorge from Temecula, California who has 2 weeks under his belt, and I had about 2 weeks to go :) We had a wonderful day visiting almost every person that was once taught by  Elder SIbanda and I. Some highlights, Hlalani and Jethro Magutshwa will be going through the temple to be endowed and sealed in October of this year :) and we added a few people to their teaching process. Great to be back in Rabie :)


Another headline was on Sunday, I was able to be companions with one of my former companions :)
Elder Sibanda companion Part 2 We attended church with them at the Munsieville Ward. Munsieville is a small township outside of Krugersdorp, which is about 20 minutes from the mission office. They meet in containers, (yes storage containers) and their small branch is growing slowly but surely! We attended Sacrament meeting and found out that they were having a Missionary Fireside later that evening and we were invited to represent the mission. We presented a 15 minutes lesson on member missionary work and then went on splits with them to end the night. Serving  with Elder Sibanda was just like old times. We visited a member family who had the craziest conversion story that I know. I'll try and attach it below, and then taught another lesson to a less-active family that is working on their family to be sealed, but their kids aren't on the church records.

I guess as I conclude my second to last email as a proselyting missionary, the greatest thing I have learned on my mission is that you can do everything that you set your mind to. Whether it be an excellent teacher, or a brilliant soccer-player, or a burger flipper. We do our very best then God steps in and helps direct and refine. Each of us has unlimited potential inside us and often we set limits that we can only do so much, or go so far. Elder Clegg has rubbed off on me so I will quote Travis Rice "We'll never know our full potential, unless we push ourselves to find it."  I have been able to witness this throughout the course of my time here in South Africa and know that it’s true. Ralph Waldo Emerson echoed the same thoughts with his famous quote. 
“That which we persist in doing becomes easier to do, not that the nature of the thing has changed but that our power to do has increased.”
As we continue to grow in a knowledge of Jesus Christ and His restored gospel, our power to become who he intends us to be increases and we see a  little glimpses of the potential that each of us as sons and daughters of a living God have been given. God is real, He lives today,  and his love is  greater than we can comprehend

7.18.16 #goulash

July 18th, 2016
Whaddup Fam!!!
With all changes and emotions and new ideas/assignments, the only word that I can think to describe my thoughts right now is goulash. So, goulash it is! 

First of all, I'll give a back-ground of my assignment for the next 3 weeks. Elder Swindlehurst and I have been assigned as "FIT" men, what it stands for is Finding Investigators Team. Basically, are assignment takes us all over the greater Johannesburg area, visiting missionaries and training them about the keys to finding, trying all kinds of new ideas, and being innovative with the time that we have left. I'll share one innovative Idea that we had this morning. Elder Clegg served as a zone leader in a neighboring area called Krugersdorp and he noticed that every morning between the hours of 6-9 that there would be loads of traffic backed up for kilometerssssssssssssss. So low and behold, the group of 3 courageous (or crazy) FIT men awoke before 6 and took off.   The weather was like the 2012 State Champion game between D-hills and Hurricane minus the snow. It was like we were breathing fire as we were standing on all corners of a robot, trying to find those precious souls that Heavenly Father would place into our path.

As I think about it. What we share has to be the true and we all have a desire to share that light and truth with anyone who will pause for even a second. What in the world would convince 3 young men (20-21) to leave their homes and families to a foreign country to stand out in the bitter cold at 6 in the morning to be rejected and mocked (that gets a little hard) and eventually experience success. I can't formulate words to describe my thoughts other than a quote by James Freeman Clarke "Strong Convictions precede great actions."


Other than that there were a TON of Highlights this week. 
1) On Tuesday we had our departing Temple trip for the missionaries who would be going home. By coincidence, I received a name of the deceased brother to a missionary who is currently serving in our mission. After I got out of the temple, I called him and he verified that it was his brother who had passed away almost 20 years ago! Do you believe in Miracles????

Florence almost two years later!


2)Do you remember when I emailed about Florence almost 2 years ago??? My first area
See the picture below (she is in the relief society presidency now)

3)Do you also remember the email in Vereeniging where I shared about meeting a golden lady named Mpho???? (she is now married to a member and are going to the temple in 1 year from July 16th 2016)


Love you all!
love elder B!


7.11.16 Interviews and Endings

July 11th 2016

Hey fam, The only way to describe this week is when you are having one of those
bad dreams where it feels like you are being chased and the enemy
continues to get closer and closer....OTHERWISE :) check the Dunns
blog for an activity that we had on Saturday.


 With the end of my time as a full-time missionary getting closer and
closer, I have been able to reflect on some of the great experiences
that I have had and the wonderful blessings that have come from
serving as a missionary. #1 The opportunity to do interviews! I feel
like that is my favorite time as a missionary to hear about these
wonderful experiences of how they met the missionaries and how there
life changed. I was able to do 2 interviews! both were girlfriends of
members who are about to get married.


Also, I'll share a highlight from a talk that I listened to from Henry
B. Eyring.
“ I have another encouragement to those who now wonder if their faith in

Jesus Christ will be sufficient for them to endure well to the end. I
was blessed to have known others of you who are listening now when you
were younger, vibrant, gifted beyond most of those around you, yet you
chose to do what the Savior would have done. Out of your abundance you
found ways to help and care for those you might have ignored or looked
down upon from your place in life.


When hard trials come, the faith to endure them well will be there,
built as you may now notice but may have not at the time that you
acted on the pure love of Christ, serving and forgiving others as the
Savior would have done. You built a foundation of faith from loving as
the Savior loved and serving for Him. Your faith in Him led to acts of
charity that will bring you hope.

It is never too late to strengthen the foundation of faith. There is
always time. With faith in the Savior, you can repent and plead for
forgiveness. There is someone you can forgive. There is someone you
can thank. There is someone you can serve and lift. You can do it
wherever you are and however alone and deserted you may feel.”


Love the Mountains that you are given :)

Love you all
Elder Broadhead
Funny things

We received an online referral for the Book of Mormon from the church
headquarters, so we called it turns out that it was an elderly member
who thought she was downloading the Book of Mormon.....#dinosaurs

Drunk guy #1
He approached me and after everything I said to him he would say "and then"

Drunk guy #2
Approached Elder Ratsi and asked him if he could bring his eggs to church.


7.4.16 #blessed

July 4, 2016 #blessed
Hey Fam, 
I think this is the first time that I have been happy to hear that STG is HOT... It will be nice to get out of the ice-box here in Jozi.Besides the cold-spell here, things in Kagiso are absolutely
 wonderful. And In honor of our national holiday, I would like to share some experiences that help us realize our blessing.  Given, was baptized last week and was confirmed. He went to his cousins house the entire week, so we weren't able to see him until Saturday night. So we went by and he shared about his experience with his cousins and his attempts to share the gospel....The reason why this email is titled blessed is based on something that Given shared
with us in the short 20 minutes we had that really caused me to reflect and think. He said, " I am so blessed with the knowledge I know have."

For those that are members of the church, we are blessed by many things such as guidance from living prophets, additional scripture, temples....  (Relief society jello socials :) even potlucks lol  with each of those wonderful blessings requires our efforts to take advantage of these wonderful gifts from our Heavenly Father. I think of the Prophets latest address where he said these words:   "May we choose to build up within ourselves a great and powerful faith which will be our most effective defense against the designs of the adversary—a real faith, the kind of faith which will sustain us and will bolster our desire to choose the right. Without such faith,
we go nowhere. With it, we can accomplish our goals." #makethatchoice


How Blessed are we!
Elder Broadhead

6.27.16 #seek and hide

June 27th, 2016
Whaddup Fam,
Another week in the books here in the goldmines of Johannesburg South Africa and as I thought about the week. I'd just like to share about an experience that highlighted the week for Elder Ratsi and I. It just
 happens to be about Given, who we are convinced that might be more "golden" then the chains of Puff Daddy. As we met with him on Saturday evening, just a handful of hours before he was baptized, we met to have a lesson with him. As we showed up and knocked on the back door, he opened and I don't think I have ever seen a bigger smile on some ones face. He invited us in and we began chatting, and Given shared with us his life story. (Seriously this guy is golden) He was born in Venda, South Africa. Somewhere in a village far-far
away from the hustle and bustle of the Johannesburg Area. He was raised by his grandma, who like Lehi, taught him in the ways of righteousness. When he entered into high school, one of his close friends gave him a book titled "Teachings of the Presidents: Joseph Smith" I have no idea, how or why that book ended up in the remote village of Venda, but somehow it got there. Given read it, pondered about it, but quickly got engrossed back into his studies. He later graduated, and felt like he needed to move in with his cousins here in
Kagiso. He did that and met missionaries and really that is all she wrote!

As I conclude this email, my thoughts this week have been drawn to the parable taught by the Savior commonly known as the "Pearl of Great Price" I'll throw in the verses and then add my thoughts.


45 Again, the kingdom of heaven is like unto a merchant man, seeking
goodly pearls:

 46 Who, when he had found one pearl of great price, went and sold all
that he had, and bought it.


There are people prepared, our brothers and sisters, who are searching for this "Pearl". They are kept from the truth, only because they know not where to find it. #seekandfind

love you all!
Elder B

Monday, July 4, 2016

6.15.16 Its COLD Outside



Hey Fam,


Currently emailing and seeing my breath at the same time...I guess I
took growing up in the heat of Southern Utah for granted, but needless to say this week has been COLD! The work continues to go forward,
regardless of the weather. This week we were blessed with a baptism,

I'll tell you more of her story. Her name is Mamello Pinerose Sediti, she is the sweetest 14 year-old you'll ever meet. Both of her parents
are deceased, so she moved in permanently with her Aunty and Uncle who 
are both members of the church. We have been working on trying to help them get to the temple to be sealed, then Mamello came into the picture so it was a great opportunity to go through all the lessons with the family and her baptism was amazing! Despite the cold weather, the chapel has a geyser so the water was warm. I was tempted to float around in it after the baptism was over just to stay warm.

Other than that Given, who I mentioned in the last email, is doing wonderfully and even announced his baptism to the elders quorum on Sunday :) This week I have been studying about remembrance, which seems like it is stressed in every page of the Book Of Mormon.  I thought that I would remember some of the great people that I have been able to teach and help accept the gospel. I only way I
could convey my feelings of being an instrument in the hands of the
Lord is from the Hymn "How Great Thou Art" and the line reads....Then I shall bow, in humble adoration, And then proclaim: "My God, how great Thou art!""

Even though it is cold, the warmth of the gospel makes it all worth it!
Elder Broadhead
Alma 28:14