The Brubaker Family

The Brubaker Family

President Brubaker and I are excited to be here as the Mission President and companion of the Belgium Brussels Netherlands Mission! We love your sons and daughters, and feel to thank you for the wonderful missionaries you have raised! This is a very unique mission. Our mission includes two countries, and five languages, not including many dialects spoken in the Netherlands. The missionaries are teaching many people from all around the globe. With the help of the Spirit, the missionaries are finding those who have been prepared to receive the Gospel. This is truly the best mission in the world, and we are honored to be a part of it. We will try and take good care of your sons and daughters. We love them so much already!

We have 5 children and 11 wonderful grand children. We have so much fun together! We are grateful for the support they have given us as we prepared to leave for three years. Our home is in Salt Lake City, Utah. We have raised our family in the Millcreek Holladay area. We enjoy many activities together. We are happiest when we are hiking in Southern Utah, cross-country skiing into our rustic cabin in the Uintahs, enjoying a good game of Train or Settlers of Catan, or just being together and sharing a meal with each other. We love our family so much!!!

Thursday, September 01, 2011

Zuster Garvin and Elder Jex Will be Greatly Missed

Elder Jex and Zuster Garvin have been a big blessing to our mission. Since there was only the two of them, we decided after their interviews with President Brubaker we would go to the molen (windmill) museum only a few blocks away from the mission office.


We hiked up many flights of narrow stairs (more like a ladder) up to the top of the windmill. it was a
blustery day at the top. I guess it is why there are so many molens in the Netherlands!
It is one of the largest windmills in the Netherlands, and is located right in the middle of the city of Leiden.
Elder Jex's most memorable moment.

Later in my mission me and Elder Weatherston were sitting at home wondering what to do when we got a phone call and it was an investigator, Lucy, and she said “Hey, I want to talk to you guys about something but I don’t have much beldegoed, can you call me back?” I said sure and we called her back and she said how she had been thinking about how we said they can be baptized and she knew we had more lessons, but Feb 6 is her husband, George’s birthday and she wanted to know if they could get baptized on that day so that it would be really special for him and we said sure, ya, that works and then rearranged our plans because we had been planning on the week after that. But if they wanted the 6th, we would do it and we start everything, got the ward to agree and they are now good members, even if they are busy a lot and can’t make it to church every week, but they were so golden. When we taught them I sometimes wondered if they had a script or had read PMG because their answers were so perfect and inspired.

Zuster Garvin most memorable moment.

Zuster Harrington, Zuster Jeffs and I were all serving together in Den Haag. We felt like we needed to visit some less active members and so we headed over. As we were teaching them about the love of God and the importance of church, their friend, Danso, came in. Our eyes lit up! We invited him to sit in on the lesson and we told him that as missionaries we teach people about the restored gospel of Jesus Christ. We showed him a baptismal calendar and he seemed very interested to meet with us again. After a lot of effort, trial and error we were able to schedule some appointments to teach him the blessings that come from the restored gospel. His desire was there, he wanted so badly to learn more about his Savior. As we taught him the message of the restoration, it all started to click for him. Later when we taught him the plan of salvation, we committed him to read the pamphlet. The next appointment we walked in and there he stood holding the pamphlet as he boldy and joyfully declared, “THIS IS POWERFUL!” he had taken it to work and read it in his lunch break as he sat nearby the construction work of the train tracks. He came faithfully to church and loved to learn more . One Sunday he brought his friend Sandra to church and she shared the same enthusiasm for the gospel as Danso. After a lot of hard work, from him and us, he was baptized and confirmed a member of the church of Jesus Christ of Latter day Saints. He told me, “I’ll never regret it! It feels so good!” his friend Sandra will be baptized this Saturday.

We see many interesting bicycles contraptions in the Netherlands! Zuster Garvin called it the Dutch mini van!
We had a delightful evening with the missionaries. After dinner we enjoyed talking and sharing our testimonies of this wonderful Gospel! ( I forgot to take pictures!)
The next morning, we realized school has begun! We passed hundreds of students on their way to school!
Zuster Garvin was so happy to greet her family at the airport!
Zuster Garvin has been a diligent, positive, precious missionary. We just wish we could keep her!
We will miss Elder Jex's sense of humor, his positive attitude, and his willingness to do whatever was asked! In nine hours he will be home! No doubt his parents will be there to welcome him home!

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