Friday, September 21, 2018

Sep 17 Update - Becoming Wild Men, Huge Miracles, Baptism Coming Up!

Hi Everyone!  
This week has been amazing!  There were some more growth pains, but the growth was soooo worth it!  We also saw some amazing miracles, and to be honest, the whole Stafford Zone is seeing miracles like crazy!  The best of which happened on Sunday!

We had institute again on Tuesday, which was good, but we still only had about 5 or 6 people.  However, it was a different crowd this time, so maybe we will see more as they all come together.

We had a solid district council on Wednesday morning, and had cookie brownies after!  We also got a sweet district picture.  We did some online proselyting and some member visits, trying to recruit YSA members in the family wards to come out to the branch.  It was a lot of driving, and not many answered, so we need to find a more effective way to do that.  We had dinner at IHOP with some super cool members!  #breakfastfordinner #ihopisthebest

Thursday was a pretty amazing experience for me!  We had an exchange with our zone leaders, who are Spanish, so I got to try pupusas for the first time!  I also got to experience the gift of Tongues.  Now, before your thoughts move to the crazy weird ideas, some background:  I have a natural talent for language, I took 2 years of Spanish in high school, and have already been on several Spanish exchanges.  The gift of Tongues, much like any way the Lord works, is conditional upon our preparation, effort, faith, and desire.  Information leads to revelation, so the more you already know, the better it will work.  At least that's my understanding.  So I didnt speak perfect, and I could hardly speak at the beginning of the exchange, but by the end it was really cool!  I was able to speak fairly smoothly to native speakers, and I got several compliments!  I also learned a lot of principles to apply into my missionary work!  
We have firmly made the decision to become wild men!  Now, once again, before your thoughts move to the crazy weird ideas, more background: in Moses 6:38, people call Enoch a wild man because of his bold prophesying, and that was the subject of part of our mission conference.

Friday was a busy day with lots of appointments, so we had to move a few things around.  So that was cool.  We had a really good lesson with Jacob, and read the book of Mormon with him!

Saturday was pretty neat!  We went to Alex Vega's baptism in Culpeper (Piedmont Ward) with Chandler, a super cool Returned Missionary who has only been home a few months.  After that, we helped out with the day to serve event for a bit, and then had another lesson with James, the practicing Catholic.  We read 1 Nephi 13 with him, and he was pretty fine with it, so we might get somewhere with him!  We decided to just walk around our neighborhood after dinner, and saw some major miracles!  We were able to talk to a Hispanic YSA and refer her parents to the Spanish Elders, and we were able to teach a kid (and his mom) about God!  It was really neat.  We initially talked to his dad, and then he came out and asked us some legit questions about God!  Like how He created the earth!  He is very spiritually mature for his age, and we have another appointment with them tonight!  It will be a handoff lesson with the Rock Hill Elders (family ward).

As I said in the beginning, the biggest miracle was on Sunday!  Paula came to church on her own!  This is a girl I have been talking to on Facebook, and she had been taught a lot already and been to church several times, and was good friends with a member.  Not only that, but she told us she knows it's true, and wants to join the church and be baptized and read the book of Mormon more!  We have a video chat set up this week to set her on date, and get things moving to prepare her for baptism.  We are beyond psyched!  Missionary work is the best!
Also, most of our preparation day today has been spent helping the Spanish Elders get around, as their car died.  So that's fun.
Elder Brown

District picture

Bug Season! Giant praying mantises



Sep 11 Update - Mission Conference, Hurricane Florence, Some Crazy Miracles!

Hi everyone!
I'm not sure if I mentioned this last week, but preperation day is Tuesday this week because of the All mission conference with Elder Allen D. Haynie (part of the new area presidency). This week was excellent and very very busy.  Some days we didn't even have a chance to fully plan, and just had to plan as we go!  Also, Florence didn't really hit us.  It turned south, and being here in the north end of the mission, Stafford was hardly affected at all.  Just a tiny bit of rain and a breeze.

We called OrbComm on Tuesday to pair our new tiwi (little robot box that yells at us when we speed or drive aggressively) with our car.  That was pretty neat.  We also did some good member visits, one of which we were specially prompted to do!  He had just moved into the area, and he came to institute and brought his brother as well because of it!  We also had dinner with one of our favorite members (though we have a lot of those) at Mission Barbecue, a really good Barbecue place here in Stafford!  (I also thought the name was pretty appropriate.)  We also had institute (my first institute class on my mission), and it was super great!  It is a brand new course on the new Saints book the church released.  The book is free on gospel library, go read it!

Wednesday was pretty sweet as well!  We had district council first thing, which went quite well!  We decided to start doing a district prayer every Saturday for the people we are teaching, and to do a district pump up every Monday night to get us ready for the week!  We also had a sweet exchange with the Aquia Elders!  They are super great, and we saw some sweet exchange miracles with them!  We set several appointments, and found some new opportunities, and some of the appointments were quite possibly YSA's!

Thursday was our busiest day, we finished off the exchange with the Aquia Elders, and had about an hour to start weekly planning before lunch.  And then things got really crazy!  We were going to see Todd and Kori this evening, but that didn't work for them, so we moved them up to the afternoon right after another appointment we had, which was right after lunch, so we had just enough time to plan out what we wanted to teach before running around.  We had to pick up a fellow-shipper on the way (which wasn't really on the way), and then their appointment went long, so we were late for dinner!  We are forever grateful for the forgiveness and patience of that angelic member!  

Friday was our big planning day.  We did our weekly planning this afternoon after comp study, and were sending texts and making and answering calls all throughout, so over all it was about 4 hours of sitting in the apartment.  We were super ready to get out by the end!  We had a really neat dinner with another of our favorite members, during which we were able to help him know how to encourage his recent convert friend to remain active and to separate themselves from many around them who were not good influences spiritually.  I think it really built a lot of trust with him.

We had a very unique opportunity on Saturday to have a stake missionary meeting, which was presided over by Elder Sinclair of the 70!  It was a really neat meeting, much like early church meetings with much prayer, and each of us seeking revelation.  Very cool.  We did some visits in the rain after, and got to talk to one of our members after an appointment fell through.  We also had a lesson with a practicing Catholic!  We had a great dinner appointment, and were able to set up a chapel tour with a girl over Facebook!  It was a great day.

Sunday was fun, we had 6 hours of church!  We had Stafford stake conference in which President and Sister Smith spoke, and so did Elder Sinclair!  They gave excellent talks.  Then we went to the branch (which still had church because it's technically in the Fredericksburg Stake), which also went well.  We had dinner with the Haderlies that night (he's from Montana!) and had pot pie!  Brother Haderlie was getting some flak for liking ketchup on his pot pie, but I was right there with him!  I can relate to him a lot, and he also kind of reminds me of dad.  Good times.  We also had one of the most fire🔥 face2faces I've ever seen!  Elder Cook and the historians just gave the most solid answers ever!  To some hard questions too!  I received a very distinct spiritual impression at the end, which was really neat.

Finally, the all mission conference with Elder Haynie went very well on Monday!  We received some great training on setting expectations, and finding scattered Israel!  It seriously changed my perspective so much!  Always remember: the reason why member work is so key is because scattered Israel (the believing blood) likes to hang around gathered Israel!  So we will create our own personal finding army of members!  We will also ask for referrals from everyone!  And, of course, talk to everyone as well!  I had Panera bread for the first time tonight with the Paul's, who are super cool!  Then we had a really neat Family Home Evening on family history!
Anyway, sorry for the long letter, and sorry for sending it a week late!  I had technical difficulties last week.
Elder Brown

Fun district picture

In the car, My companion and I were testing the lighting for a video chat

Spider Season


Thursday, September 13, 2018

Hurricane Florence

I want to let you know I am safe.  The mission is aware of the storm and we are taking precautions.  We have all the basic emergency preparations, and know well what to do if things get worse.  It was stake conference for us this past Sunday.  We even had Elder Sinclair (one of the area 70s) there!  
Elder Brown

Monday, September 3, 2018

Meeting with the Bishop's, Zone Conference, Finding Miracles, Chapel Tour Open House, Mowing the Lawn at my first house!

Hi Everyone!
Sorry, I didn't send a weekly last week, it was a crazy day, so this week's will be a bit long to make up.  We got a lot done these past two weeks!  We have met with 2 of the Bishops in the Stafford stake so far to discuss YSA opportunities.  Bishop Anderson of the Rock Hill ward was super cooperative, and a really cool guy!  He really helped us a lot, and he is very grateful for the information we are now reporting back to him.  It is a very mutually beneficial relationship, I love it!  We also met with Bishop Turley of the Hartwood Ward, and he was also very helpful!  We were expecting that some bishops would not want to give up their YSA's, but these bishops totally understand!  They have given us a lot to work with.  

We had zone conference last Thursday, and it was super good!  We talked about putting on the whole armor of God, and pretty thoroughly identified the natural man.  Satan has no chance now!  We are all working together to make sure we all continue on the paths of righteousness and help others to put on the whole armor of God as well, it feels great!  We got armor of god coins as a physical reminder to carry around with us.  We also discussed the new standards of excellence in the mission!  

We saw some sweet finding miracles these past two weeks as well!  Talking to everyone is critical here.  Everyone we don't talk to is a missed opportunity, so I always feel pretty bad when I don't open my mouth, because someday, I will see them at the judgment bar, and they might ask me "why didn't you share this with me?"  And that will be a very sad day.  So I am getting very Bold here, and we are working to become fearless!  We are getting creative, and have gone contacting in the parking lot of some shopping centers here.  We had a sweet miracle the first time we went, and talked to 2 skater kids outside target!  Missionary work can be hard, but it is so rewarding!  Near the end of the conversation, one of them admitted he had seen a lot of missionaries before, but never wanted to talk to them because he thought they just wanted to convert him to their church.  Now he understands that we just want to help him come closer to Christ.  He is now reading the book of Mormon and pretty interested in coming to activities!  We answered a lot of their questions, and taught them unto astonishment (Alma 10:12, 11:46)!  

We had another neat miracle from talking to everyone last Friday!  We were visiting someone in the area book and saw a YSA on the way who was trying to unlock his car with a coat hangar (he had locked his keys in the car😂 so we had a captive audience😂) and talked to him.  His name is Edmond and he is from Ghana!  His sister Emma has actually been to girls camp and some sacrament meetings with a friend!  We taught him again this Friday, and he only had about 10 minutes, so the spirit helped us teach the restoration in the most complete and concise way I have ever taught it!  He was really responsive, and understood well and agreed with the whole thing!  It was sweet!   

We had one more cool miracle from following a prompting.  We were walking around in an apartment complex and had the feeling to visit someone we had already visited, that we knew had moved, but we decided to do it anyway.  Her mom opened the door and welcomed us in (much different from last time) and let us teach a young woman named Autumn who moved in with her just a few days ago!  She has had a lot of trials and is seeking peace!  We had some other cool experiences with finding, but this is getting long, so I will save those for later!

We had a chapel tour open house come and see event thing on Friday, which was really good, but I think our time could have been better spent elsewhere.  There were too many missionaries there for the amount of people coming in.  It was definitely a success, don't get me wrong.  We just didn't have any YSA's there.  We also have gotten to know some of the members pretty well, and that has been very rewarding!  Though it is still weird sometimes to realize I am having dinner and going to church with people my age.  The only thing that separates us is the name tag.  This week's elders quorum discussion was especially weird as a missionary, discussing the responsibility they have to seek out an eternal companion!

Elder Barkume installed our tiwi on Saturday, and we were his guinea pigs for using mounting tape instead of the glue kits they usually use, so that was cool.

We have had some good lessons with Todd and Kori, but brought in the word of wisdom too early.  They were in full rejection mode about coffee and tea, so we had to set that aside and clearly guide them to focusing on the book of Mormon first.  I really hope that was for the best, and think it will be.  The spirit helped us out with my blunder there a lot.  Also, we live in a house here with the Rock Hill Elders!  It's been pretty interesting, and I mowed the lawn for the first time in over a year this morning!  Anyway, I hope this was more inspiring than annoying.  

Be Bold, be fearless, and go bring peace and light to those who are desperately searching!  They are all around us, and the spirit will be our guide.  Just open your mouth!  The gospel is true, Jesus Christ is the Savior, and his church has been restored by the prophet Joseph Smith in these latter days.  
Talk to ya next week!
Elder Brown


Living in a House in Stafford
Elder Brown and companion Elder Weaver




My new area Stafford



Armor of God Coins



 





 We are guinea pigs for using mounting tape instead of glue kits when installing Tiwi.  A device installed in the car to monitor how and where we drive.


Big Spiders in Virginia