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