Dec 10 Update - Exchanges Every Day, First Snow!

Hi Everyone!  This week was crazy busy and pretty legendary!  We literally had some kind of exchange every day this week!  We just feel really good right now.  We feel a sense of faith and peace about the mission goal of 280 converts, and our teaching pool has picked up, and it seems all the elders in the zone are doing ok.  There are always troubles and hiccups and things that need to be addressed, but that's just the nature of the work.  It's called missionary WORK for a reason.  Other than the usual though, things are going well here.  Let me give you a few highlights:

        We played a super fun game (sort of like signs) with the branch at FHE on Monday, and it helped bring everyone together!

        We were with the Fall HIll (Spanish) Elders in our area on Tuesday, and Elder Knight and I had a great time!  We got several meaningful contacts that morning on UMW, and then this afternoon we knocked on a door where a guy answered and said he was on the porcelain throne!  That was unexpected.  We left him a card.  We also found a hispanic that night in some apartments that they were pretty sure didn't have any hispanics.  The second little miracle of that night was Ariel!  We knocked into her, and she works with some members at staples and wants to come to church!  She's not very religious, and was really glad we came and talked to her!

        Wednesday was work days and interviews here.  Unfortunately, President got caught up in interviews and couldn't come out, but it was still a great success!  I went with the Culpeper Spanish Elders into the hermana's area, and found a couple potential referrals for them.  Working with Elder Bonner is always a great time!  We also had a good lesson with Valerie, and President Smith got to talk to her for a bit, which was really good for her!  We have started working with a hilarious guy named Travis, who has a very colorful background.  He is pretty funny, but unfortunately doesn't seem to be progressing much right now, so we might have to adjust his teaching schedule.  We will see what happens there.

        Thursday was a great day!  We were on exchanges with the Stafford Elders, and went tabling on UMW together, which was a great success!  We continue to learn how to do it more effectively.  I was with Elder Katoa, and he is a great man!  He is already a super good teacher, and teaches very simply and clearly.  He said he learned a lot from me, which was good to hear.  I'm really not a great role model, but I'm glad to have helped him.  We taught Amani and passed her off to them.  We also popped into institute for a bit after dinner with Lydia at panda express!  We taught Travis again after we left institute.

        We met a couple new people to start teaching on Friday.  We taught Justin, who is a freshman at UMW and very shy but interested!  He actually came to church on Sunday!  He seemed to enjoy it.  We also taught Liam, who is pretty interesting.  She believes in God and likes religion, despite having same-sex attraction.  She is really neat, and we see a lot of potential in her!  We also started an exchange with the Fredericksburg Elders that night.

         We had an interesting exchange on Saturday, it just kinda felt weird.  We had a good day though overall.  We had breakfast coordination with Bishop Meppen, and his wife is an excellent cook!  We also found a couple neat people.  We had the Branch Christmas Party that night, and it was a blast!  We are well-liked among the branch, and it went really well.

        Sunday was super interesting!  Church went well, and we had Justin and Amani there, and it started snowing!  We got a few inches over the course of the day, and the cars were grounded, so we walked!  It was a blast, we walked over to Travis and taught him and then shoveled snow for Brother Bowler and his neighbors.  We also video chatted with Chris and Valerie to read the Book of Mormon together, and (former) Elder Noorda and (former) Elder Pennington joined in!  It's been a great week.

Plus, I got to go to a member chiropractor for free to get adjusted!  It was sweet!

Have a good one!

Elder Brown

Fall Hill exchange

Tabling

It Snowed

legendary polaroid 

Some members stole our phone

Dec 3 Update - 18 month mark, #lighttheworld miracles!

Hi Everyone!

This week was amazing!  There are so many miracles happening in the mission right now!  Also in the zone and our area!  Side note: I hit my 18 month mark on Friday.  We did nothing special for it.  Let me tell you about a few miracles we saw!

The first is David.  He is super cool, and came out of nowhere!  Some sisters up in Alexandria contacted him and referred him to the Freddy A sisters.  He decided to come to church, and it turns out he is YSA, so they came to our branch with him and passed him off!  He is super humble and prepared.  We set him on date during Elders Quorum!  In part of the lesson, we divided into small groups and each studied a different gospel topic essay, so we studied the apostasy with him and one thing led to another.  We essentially taught the restoration in the 15 minute study break we had, and it was sweet!  He is super excited to work toward the 29th, and absolutely loved church!

The second is Terry.  We only had about an hour on Saturday to find people to teach, and we have a standard of excellence in the mission to make meaningful contact with 10 new people every day.  So we petitioned the lord to help us and went downtown.  We decided to share the new light the world videos with people, and they are so powerful!  Everyone we showed it to agreed to help us light the world, and we got more than 10 meaningful contacts in that hour!  The first of which was Terry.  We were there to contact him specifically.  He was the one we were there for!  He is a less active member from Stafford who has been thinking about going back to church recently.  He was in tears by the end.  Powerful.

The third is Megan and Travis.  I was on exchanges with Elder Replogle, and had planned to tract some apartments we were working through, but didn't feel super confident about it, so we prayed and were directed to some other apartments across the street.  We found Megan in the first building we knocked, and Elder Replogle had contacted her on a previous exchange!  We had a powerful lesson with her, and even got her boyfriend Travis (who seems a little rough and didn't want to talk) to open up a ton!  By the end, he told us we had to come back and talk again.  Always follow spiritual promptings.  

The fourth is Valerie.  We were on exchanges with the Culpeper Spanish Elders for this one and followed yet another spiritual prompting to video chat Valerie (a recent convert who is struggling a bit).  We had a powerful lesson with her and the next day she came to 3 lessons and testified!  She's back!

The fourth is Lamar.  We haven't had a lesson with him in almost a month, so we stopped by on Sunday and were going to stop teaching him if he wasn't there, but he was!  We had a great conversation, and work is going better for him, so he said he would start coming to church again!  We were beyond excited about that.

In other notes:

We were on exchanges with the Chancellor Elders on Tuesday, and wrestled.  It didn't end well, but was really fun!  We found out on Wednesday that Chandler received some crazy revelation and is now engaged to the girl he just started dating.  We also started teaching an interesting guy named Dylan who really wants to hang out with us, and called Elder Larson "lord larson" until we corrected him.  He came to church!

Anyway, it was a great week here, and the Lord is in His vineyard with us!  I know He will help us acheive our goal of 280 convert baptisms this year, and that this is the most important work to be done! I LOVE BEING A MISSIONARY!!!

Elder Brown

Legendary Exchange Pics (Chancellor and Culpeper Spanish [Trio])

(Chancellor and Culpeper Spanish [Trio])

A nasty black widow 

Nov 26 Update - Faith Promoting, Miracle-Filled Week, Happy Thanksgiving!

Hi Everyone!

This was a fantastic week in Fredericksburg!  The University of Mary Washington went on Thanksgiving Break this week, so we got a little more creative in our finding efforts and saw great miracles!  God always provides.  Here it is laid out in detail.

We had dinner with Brother Bowler last monday and breakfast this morning at IHOP.  Dinner was his famous 10 minute spaghetti.  It's super good!  I need to get the recipe.  We also had a great time at Family Home Evening, and had a good chat with Jon (a member) and Mark (who we are teaching).  Mark seems to be sticking with his doubts for now.

We had a great exchange with the Fredericksburg Elders on Tuesday, and I was with Elder Berger!  We taught Amani the restoration, and she had a lot of really good basic questions!  We had a great fellowshipper there who invited her to church, but she seemed a bit hesitant.  I don't think she has had good experiences at church in the past (spoiler alert:she didn't come).  It's ok though, we will keep working with her.  We also video chatted with Ellie, and she is doing ok.  Still really looking for an answer, and feeling a bit conflicted between what we teach and her catholic roots.  She firmly committed to come to church this week though.  We saw some sweet miracles tonight tracting together, and helping people connect more with their family history.

We went to Fredericksburg's district council on Wednesday, which went well.  We talked a lot more about family history, and then we stopped by a less active at his work place before blitzing with the Chancellor Elders.  I love ministering!  I got to spend a couple hours working with Elder Schultz and it was a great time!  We found some neat people this evening, and one lady in particular was very interested in Family History!  Her granddaughter had just asked her about it earlier that day.  Tell me God doesn't put us where he needs us!  The little girl already had the pamphlet partially filled out by the time we left!

Thursday was thanksgiving, and we had district council, a meeting with the district leaders, and a planning session with the sister training leaders.  We also had a brief companionship study before heading to the Caldwell's (the family of a super cool member named Chandler) for thanksgiving dinner, and they fed us well!  They had a bomb variation on pumpkin pie: turtle pumpkin pie!  It had pecans and whipped cream and caramel!  We didn't talk to a whole lot of people tonight, since most everyone was with their families for thanksgiving, but we still had a good time.  We also video chatted with Valerie.

Friday was most excellent!  We met a guy named Dustin, who's in a bit of a financial crisis, and appreciated the support a lot.  We couldn't do much to help him temporally, but we are giving him hope in Jesus Christ!  We also had a really good fellowshipper who has been a great source of moral support.  We blitzed the Spotsylvania sisters area and tracted a street for them for the rest of the afternoon.  We started an exchange with the Fall Hill Elders that evening, and I was with Elder Young!  He is hilarious!  We made some sweet contacts that night, and had one of the funniest lessons I've had in a while!  It was with a new person named Devin, and he likes to muse a lot, and has a lot of funny thoughts.  Just very honest and open, especially in his prayer at the end!

Saturday was pretty packed.  We did some service, had another lesson with Dustin at the church.  We gave him a church tour and taught the restoration, ending with a very powerful priesthood blessing.  We also had a great meeting with a less active fairly recent convert.  We read Alma 6 and 7 with him, and he had some sweet comments, and committed to come to church!  (He didn't show)  We then went to chick fil a, and elder young used some gift cards to get a 64 count nugget tray.  We ate the whole thing, yum!  We ended the exchange looking for Hispanics in a richer neighborhood in the rain.  That was a lot of fun!  We had a great joint lesson with Ellie and the Fairfax Sisters (in the DC South Mission) to prepare her for church.

Sunday was a day of miracles!  Dustin and Ellie both came to church!  Church was perfect for Ellie in Fairfax!  There were so many converts up there with catholic roots (like her) who bore powerful testimony!  The talks and lessons were all perfect too!  Dustin came to the branch, and got some great fellowship and definitely felt the spirit too.  He wants to keep coming and also come to all the activities!  We finished the street in Spotsy this afternoon, and knocked in some more apartments that evening.  This week definitely built my faith!

Have a great week, all!

Elder Brown

Sweet exchange pic (yes that is the Chick Fil A nugget container and sauce we are holding)

The results of thanksgiving (Elder Larson)

District Picture

Nov 12 Update - Extremely Busy Transfer Week!

Hi Everyone!

This week was great!  Very busy, and very stretching yet revelatory.  This was transfer week in the mission, and Elder Larson and I stayed together, so rather than packing up, we continued as usual and got an early start on planning all the things that need to be planned in preparation to lead the zone into the best transfer yet!  This is an extremely important transfer in the mission, as we are currently at 218 baptisms, and our annual goal is 280.  We have 7 weeks to baptize an additional 62 converts, and we can do it!

We did a lot of planning this week in preparation for District Leader Training, the zone goal, zone conference, companion studies, and all while we are in the midst of helping create a branch mission plan.

Ellie is doing well.  She came to FHE on Monday, and the branch just took her right in!  It was sweet!  We taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ on Tuesday and met again on Thursday, and had a great discussion about what kind of lifestyle members of the church live.  We also video chatted with her and some other members of the branch to read the Book of Mormon together, and it went really well!  She had some great comments.

We discovered that we have a crockpot this week, so we have been experimenting with that this week, which has been fun.  We also had a temporary trio Wednesday morning with Elder Lemmon during transfers, and had a great time!  We ended up getting caught in a conversation with some Jehovah's witnesses who felt very obligated to push their point with us on UMW.  We weren't able to cut it off without being very rude until about a half hour in.  We also saw Marcus again that evening, and he is doing well!  He definitely has potential.

Will decided to stop meeting with us on Thursday, which I was kind of sad about, but he has his agency.  I think he ran into some anti.  I hate that stuff.  We also did all our companion studies that day.  In addition we saw miracles that evening!  We found 2 solid people for the Fredericksburg Elders to teach, one right after the other!

We had an amazing Mission Leader Conference on Friday, where much revelation was received!  President Smith said it was one of the finest, perhaps the finest Mission Leader Conferences he has seen in his time here.  It was very powerful.

We had a very busy day on Saturday with District Leader Training being immediately followed by the hand-off lesson with the Fredericksburg Elders.  We also had to rush after that to help the Chancellor Elders with some service!  So we didn't have lunch, but that's ok!  We raked a TON of leaves for this lady, who was super grateful, and it was super fun!!  A good workout too.  We continued to see miracles that night as well, as we made several good contacts downtown!  One in particular was a girl named Heather and her mom Robin, who seems to have been searching for the fullness of the gospel and an assurance of truth her whole life!  We met her again yesterday, but unfortunately weren't able to teach her much.  She insisted on a tour of an admittedly really cool historic building called the Old Stone Warehouse in downtown Fredericksburg (where she volunteers, also where she told us to meet her).  It wasn't all bad though, we got an offer for a free tour for FHE and also heard about a couple service opportunities.  We also met a salesman who ended up giving us the hand warmers he was selling for free!  They are pretty neat.

Have a great week everyone!

Elder Brown

Nov 5 Update - Halloclean, miracles, revelatory planning, and Exchanges!

Hi Everyone!

This week was sweet!  We have some very solid people we are teaching, and are feeling very good about our area and zone!  Nothing feels better than knowing that you are doing exactly what God wants you to do.  Don't ask me how I know, it's just kind of a feeling.  It feels great though!  This week was most excellent, let me run you through it:

We gave a blessing to a member at FHE Monday night before heading out to Culpeper for exchanges.  Road Trip!

Tuesday was most excellent, I was with Elder Meyerhoffer for our exchange, and we had a great time!  He is a superb missionary, very knowledgeable about the gospel, and an excellent teacher.  It's no wonder he's training.  We attended their district council, and it was very spiritual!  I was impressed.  We had some solid contacts, especially from following a couple promptings, which, once again, feels amazing!  We also attended their ward Halloween party, which was fun!  It's been a minute since I have been in a family ward.  Culpeper has a lot of Hispanics, which also means lots of delicious taco trucks and an equally delicious Tienda (taco restaurant)!  All those places that say they are authentic really aren't.  These places were legit!  Best tacos I've ever had.  Excellent Horchata too!

Wednesday was fun.  Happy Halloween!  We had our district council, after which we had lunch with a recent convert.  Her dogs were hilarious!  We did a bit of finding before 6, when we had to be in for Halloclean!  We did a brief video call with the Stafford Elders to coordinate on the branch mission plan, and then jammed to some tunes while deep cleaning the apartment.  It was a great time!  We drew names out of a hat to determine the winner in our zone.  To remain unbiased, we dis-included ourselves.  The winner gets a steak dinner with President and Sister Smith and the AP's.

We attended Fredericksburg's district council on Thursday (3 in a week!) which was most excellent.  They did a really fun role play on teaching smoothly (with no filler words).  We had an excellent lesson with Will and another one with Ellie this afternoon, and they should both be coming to church!  Their fellow-shippers were key in this.  

Friday was a blast as well. We had an excellent planning session that morning, and then Exchanged with the Chancellor Elders!  I was with Elder Replogle, and we set John on date!  He talks a ton.  We also had an excellent companion study in which I was able to give him some advice on a few things, and we did some sweet role plays, including the one from yesterday!  Friday night was so funny, it got a bit out of hand.  Exchanges are pretty much the best.

We had some sweet service on Saturday morning cleaning up a cold weather homeless shelter with the branch.  The Haderlies took us all out to Burger King after!  We had another amazing planning session Saturday afternoon, in which we received some amazing inspiration from Heavenly Father on how we can help the zone to achieve their end-of-year goals, and how to help the people we teach to progress towards baptism.  We also did transfer calls, and we are staying together!

Sunday was pretty legit.  Will came to church!  Unfortunately, Ellie wasn't able to make it as she was home with her dad, who was undergoing a medical procedure, so it was a pretty good reason not to come.  Will was unable to attend the YSA, so we went to Fredericksburg's sacrament meeting with him!  I really don't miss family ward.  It is a lot noisier, and the testimonies are often weird or drawn out.  We saw some sweet miracles this evening!  We followed a prompting to visit Nicole, and met her roommate Tamara!  We are now teaching her.  We also met an amazing man, Brother Theodore!  He is a very sincere follower of Christ, and already believes Jesus Christ visited more than just one group of people!

Anyway, it was a great week!  I hope all of yours were great as well!

Elder Brown

Dangerous ramen!

Elder Li and Elder Johnson

Who does it better? Stewie or Elder Larsen?

Oct 29 Update - Choir, Senior Stroll, Teaching Scattered Israel, exchanges!

Hi Everyone!

This week was really good!  We had all sorts of sweet stuff happening, with tons of miracles!  

To start, Monday night had some sweet miracles!  There was a political debate between two congressional candidates at UMW!  We felt a bit out of place, as campus suddenly got very political, but we still made some sweet contacts.  One of which was a girl named Ashley, who absolutely loved Mosiah 2:41, which we shared with her, so much that she wrote it down!  We also blitzed some nearby apartments with the Stafford Elders, and met 2 really cool girls named Leslie and Anna!  Leslie's friend Megan also took a selfie with us to send to her member friend in VA Beach.

We had our choir recording on Tuesday, and sang Angels We Have Heard On High, which will be played on a local radio station, 95.9, during the month of December!  We also sang a couple other songs for a mission Christmas CD.  We also exchanged with the Fall Hill Elders, Elder Knight and Elder Lemmon, which was a good time.

We had a service opportunity on Wednesday morning in which we pushed some senior citizens from a local nursing home on wheelchairs through the canal trails in downtown(ish) Fredericksburg.  It was a wonderful experience!  They really enjoyed it, and many of them were super funny!  We ran into Anna again that night, and met her friend Jordan as well!  We also met another wonderfully prepared girl named Ellie!  UMW is full of Scattered Israel!

On Thursday, we had a really good lesson with a guy named Will, who I found last week on exchanges, and also saw Alex again!  He's not doing too well, and his father isn't the biggest fan of us, but we just try to help him get through the stress he is experiencing, and he will definitely accept it at some point.  It's just a tough time right now.  We also talked with President Jenkins that night, and he is just way too wise.  I'm definitely going to keep in touch with him after the mission.

We had another lesson with Ashley on Friday, and also exchanged with the Fredericksburg Elders.  I had the privilege of going with Elder Li, and we managed to get a return appointment with a Chinese family!  We also had lunch with the Jenkins, and breakfast the next day!  Elder Li made us some spicy ramen for lunch, which kind of wrecked us.  It was straight up painful to eat.  We also had a bomb lesson with Valerie that night after exchanges!  It was on the plan of salvation, and she understands it way better now!  It was really neat to see the understanding of the genius and love of God's plan dawn on her.  She also fed us Bon Chon Chicken for dinner, which was bomb!

We fasted on Sunday for additional direction on how to best get the branch more involved, and also for guidance on how to better lead the zone.  We met yet another girl last night named Nicole, who we definitely believe to be scattered Israel!  We are so excited to see the hand of our omniscient and loving God pouring out his blessings on our area!

We had a lesson with Ellie this morning with Lydia there, and she loved the plan of salvation!  She is just so open to it, and she's coming to church!  Also, Lydia got a parking ticket, so we felt kinda bad.....anyway, that's all for this week folks!

"God is good, every day!" - Walter

Elder Brown

Exchange pics with Elder Li

Exchange pics with Elder Li

Sweet plan of salvation lesson with Valerie

Elder Larson's aunt sent me a flag!

Choir picture

Choir picture

Senior Stroll

Oct 22 Update - Getting a sweet knife, finding scattered Israel, interviews and other meetings, plus exchanges!

Hi Everyone!  
This week was sweet, and jam-packed with goodies!  We had a couple dinners with an awesome member named Chandler, and he is an excellent salesman!  He knows a lot about knives, and Elder Larson had some spare cash lying around and kinda wanted one, so they started talking, and by the end I wanted one too!  We got some high-quality spyderco manixes on a sweet discount!  I'm super happy with it.  Plus they're made in Golden, CO!  Shoutout to Elder Carman!

We had a sweet exchange with the AP's on Wednesday, and I got to ride around with Elder Karren and Elder Fairbourne in the cherry blue transfer van!  We had a blast, with 2 *bomb* new member lessons, and some lit finding on UMW!  We also had some great conversation!

We had interviews on Thursday, which went well.  I just love President Smith!  He's the man.  Once again, we had a bit shorter interviews, because interviews ran a bit late, and we had a lesson to get to.  We had to buy some UMW homecoming shirts!  We also had an amazing Spanish exchange in Culpeper with Elder Bonner and Elder Ellsworth from Thursday evening to Friday evening, and let me tell you now, the gift of tongues is super real!  I was with Elder Ellsworth, and he is just such a solid guy.  We had a lot of great lessons and contacts together.  Once we got rolling and warmed up, the Spanish just started rolling!  I straight up held my own in several full conversations!  It came off so smoothly, and though it wasn't perfect, I could definitely tell that the spirit was helping me out a ton.  I have some basic vocabulary and a vague memory of conjugation from my two years of high school Spanish, but definitely not enough to speak that fluently!  We also got tacos from a truck, which were super delicious!  I made so many connections there.  We had several miracles together, and then had yet another miracle Friday night when Elder Larson and I got back!

We had dinner with Chandler at a delicious Peruvian chicken place called Super Rico, which is when we got our knives, and afterward headed to the Wawa convenience store next door to use the ATM, when we were approached by a total bro named OJ!  He had made a gospel rap CD and wanted us to listen to it.  One thing led to another, and soon enough he was super excited to read the Book of Mormon and meet with us again!

We had a lot of meetings on Saturday, including a mission wide district leader training on baptismal interviews. It was held over video chat, after which we had a Mission Leader Council over video chat.  We also had a sweet lesson at the UMW and did some very effective weekly planning.  That night we street contacted downtown for a couple hours, and took a different route than usual.  It paid off!  We had meaningful contact with several people, and a possible referral who lives in Stafford.

Sunday was legit too!  We had a great sacrament meeting with several excellent talks, and had some sweet marines come down from Quantico, as well as some new move-ins who are super solid!  They will be a great help to us in coming weeks.  We had yet another meeting, this time a YSA conference call, following which we saw some amazing miracles!  We visited some folks in our old complex, and were able to reconnect the White Oak Sisters with someone they used to teach and found an amazingly prepared couple for them as well!  They are definitely scattered Israel.  They both grew up in Arizona, and had several good member friends, and also both have attended our services before.  We had like an hour and a half mega lesson with them and taught the first three lessons all together.  I also cut the chancellor elders' hair today, so that was fun!  Have a great one!

Elder Brown

University of Mary Washington homecoming shirts

UMW homecoming shirts

Zone Leaders  Elder Brown and Elder Larson

Exchange with the AP's

All district council meeting

Oct 8 Update - General and Zone Conference, finding those who are prepared, and trying to kindly stop teaching those who are not..

Hi everyone!

This week was great and very busy!  Let me just give you a few highlights.

We had choir practice (the Fredericksburg zone missionaries are going to record some Christmas songs to play on the radio!) on Tuesday morning, and also had a great lesson with Sara, where we taught about temples and family history!  It went very well, and she is excited to study it further, we were also able to give a blessing to a member's grandma, who is not a member.

Wednesday was a great zone conference!  We did a lot of skill workshops, and the AP's trained us very well!  It was very interactive and fun, while still being very spiritual and learning a lot!  We had an exchange with Elder Ellsworth and Elder Bonner, and I learned a lot!  Elder Bonner is absolutely fearless about talking to people, and very in tune with spiritual promptings!

We had a lot of great meaningful contacts at the University of Mary Washington on Thursday, and yet again on Friday!  We also had a great lesson with Valerie, resolving some concerns, and getting her back on track.  We had another great lesson with her on Friday as we began the new member lessons, and UMW was popping! 

We had some great lessons, and met the most prepared man I've met in my life!  He asked us what we teach, his jaw literally dropped at the first vision, and he actually stopped us to testify that it was true!  He was super stoked to read the Book of Mormon, and we put him on date for baptism right then and there!  He had never felt the spirit strongly in his life (though he yearned for it) until he met us, and was overjoyed at the promise of the gift of the holy ghost after baptism.  He was so cool!  We were pretty much on Cloud 9 for the rest of the day.

Then Saturday and Sunday were general conference, which is always amazing!  I found it interesting that there was a common theme of the need to improve our personal conversion to Jesus Christ and remain firm through the many increasingly difficult trials which are to come.....that's a bit scary!  But also really exciting! 

In other news, we got a referral for a schizophrenic, and we did not feel good at all in his house.  He is definitely not accountable, but wants to join the church super bad (when he is on the positive end of his mood swings).  He also calls us a lot, so we are trying to find a way to either kindly explain to him that while he is welcome to read the Book of Mormon and come to activities, we with be meeting with him....or just seek to end the conversation on a good note, dropping off the contact.  It was a pretty interesting weekend.  Lamar came to conference, and he absolutely loved it!

Anyway, I hope y'all have a magnificent week, I know I will!

Elder Brown

Elder Larson, my new companion and I in a giant chair.

Cool view of a river behind our apartments

Oct 1 Update - New Area, New Responsibilities, Same Branch!

Hi Everyone! 
In an amazing turn of events, I remained in the Rappahannock Young Single Adult branch!  I was transferred from Stafford YSA to Rappahannock YSA, which is the Fredericksburg side of the Branch.  I am now companions with Elder Larson (different from my trainer) and we are serving together as Zone Leaders!  That definitely threw a few of the members for a loop when I showed up on Sunday.

The funniest part about this is that I actually blitzed University of Mary Washington (UMW) (where we currently do most of our finding) with Elder Larson on Tuesday, and then the next day, we are companions and back at UMW!  

We had a coordination meeting with the Branch Mission Leader to talk about the Branch Mission Plan, and then had a great lesson with Todd and Kori!  They prayed about the Book of Mormon with us at the end (for the first time)!  

There was loads of Traffic on Rte 1 heading to UMW, apparently a couple tractor trailers jackknifed on I95 and caused a pretty big accident, so traffic was diverted and thus clogging up all the other main roads.  Stafford could definitely be better-planned.

Wednesday was a blast!  We took a sweet picture that morning, and Brother Bowler took us down to transfer meeting!  For those of you who don't know who that is, he is pretty much a mission legend.  A super cool retired member in Fredericksburg who takes missionaries out to eat a lot and takes them all over the mission, wherever they need to go.  Super converted, super missionary minded, and super sweet!  And he bought us Panda Express before transfer meeting!  I was so happy!  We had an amazing lesson with Sara, who decided she wanted to be baptized on Friday!   That's a convert for sure!

Thursday was great as well.  We planned out our exchanges for the transfer, and did companion studies with every set of elders in the zone, and made some sweet meaningful contacts on UMW.  We also cleaned out the old apartment (oh yeah, we also moved) and popped into the last few minutes of Institute.

Friday was baptism day!  Sara's boyfriend and parents showed up as well (all nonmembers), and it was sweet!  We actually spent most of the day at Mission Leader Conference, which was super cool as well.  We took Elder Raty and his companion back with us, and he baptized her!

Downtown was popping Saturday night, so we went street contacting, only to realize it was a beerfest.  That was no bueno...We also did District Leader Training that morning.

Sunday was cool too.  We made a bunch of visits after church, and got an impromptu member dinner out of it.  We also called a few people and set a couple appointments!  I cut my hair this morning, and I'm not sure what to think of it.  At least it was free!  We also washed the car today in preparation for Zone Conference, and it was beautiful outside!

See ya next week!

Elder Brown

Sara's baptism!

Panda Express

Another Preying Mantis

An interesting sign I found Downtown (never thought those would go together...)

Sep 24 Update - Aw man! I just got here! In other news...

Hi Everyone!

As you can guess by the title, transfer calls came this week, and I am leaving!  I have had just one glorious transfer here in Stafford YSA, and it has been super great!  Elder Weaver and I both got calls from President with new responsibilities, and it should be a good time!

Anyway, this week was jam packed!  We had a pretty interesting night on Monday.  We had to stay in our apartments the whole day because of all the tornado warnings in the area (Stafford had nothing but a light breeze and a light rain).  At the time we got the call, we were with the Zone Leaders (long story, their car broke down, and we were helping them out), so we had an unplanned sleepover!

Tuesday was interesting.  We had a sweet district council (pun intended, but it really was excellent) with refreshments by Elder Little (brownies with marshmallow cream and chocolate frosting, way too sweet but really good!).  We had an interesting discussion with Todd and Kori.  We just stopped by and they were both home!  We got a bit of an earful though.  They were super not ready to be committed to a baptismal date (they are still working on gaining a testimony of the Book of Mormon) so we have decided to read with them and answer questions, focusing a lot on helping them keep their basic commitments and gain a love for the Book of Mormon.  We had Institute that night, which was excellent!  I highly recommend Institute for every Young Adult!

We had interviews with President Smith on Wednesday, and though my interview was fairly short, I loved it!  Nothing brings a smile more to your face than knowing that your mission President (and the lord) is very pleased with your work.  He dropped a very slight hint about transfers, referencing my "brief stint" here, but I really tried to reason myself out of thinking that.  Too bad predictions don't determine results!  We also had exchanges with the Aquia Elders, which were great!  Elder Koster and I had a great time together.  We read Jacob 5 with Todd and Kori, and they loved it (with a little explanation)!  We also had a great member dinner and lesson with one of the coolest people they are teaching!  He is super close to baptism.

Thursday was interesting as well.  The Aquia Elders told us about a cool place called serve, where lots of YSA's volunteer.  We also made contact with a couple folks, and talked to a lady while she was waiting for her ride to show up.  She seemed super interested in the book of Mormon, and always wondered how one can know what is true and what is not.  We were about to get contact information and set an appointment when her ride arrived, and she just super abruptly cut off the conversation and got in the car.  Nooooo!  We are praying super hard for another opportunity to talk to her.

On Friday morning, we visited a member who is pretty cool (most of them are) and he is more than willing to help us out in many ways.  We also crossed paths with the Aquia Sisters this afternoon.  We were also able to have several good conversations just walking around a neighborhood!  We also did a lot of much-needed organizing the large amounts of information and lists we have received over the course of the transfer.

We went to Rock Hill's baptism on Saturday morning with Patrick (our newest person being taught), had lunch at 5 guys (so good!) with Wagner.  He has been so awesome, but is leaving for Japan soon (in the navy)!  He will be greatly missed.   We had another lesson with James, the practicing Catholic, and it went pretty well.  I ate way too much food at a member dinner and was waddling around a neighborhood when we got the transfer calls and the call from President.

Sunday was sweet!  The other elders had a super cool guy with sweet dreams come to church, named Lamarr!  He's my man!  He absolutely loved the whole thing, made about half the comments (all good comments too) in Priesthood, and was raving about it after church!  I love seeing that!  Valerie, a recent convert, made us sack lunches for after church, and we had a meeting with the Garrisonville bishop.  It seems that every bishop has loads of candy.  I'm pretty sure that's not church policy, must just be deeply embedded in our culture.  We went to the Stanford's home for a rebroadcast of the face 2 face with Elder Cook, and wow!  Their home is super nice.  They have a sweet home theater and basically the whole basement is just full of good party group meeting stuff!

I got some ties today at Ross, which made me pretty happy, and became barber Brown today.  I cut my hair, Elder Weaver's hair, Elder Loftus's hair, and Elder Cox's hair.  Now I have to pack.....so bye!

Elder Brown