Week 99 My Joy is Full.

Hey family! I cant believe this is my last email! I truely can say I completed my mission! I have made it 23 months!! My joy is full! I can't express in words how I feel!

Today I had my departing interview with President! He looked me in the eyes and told me I completed my mission! The Lord accepts it and is proud of what I have done! That's comforting to me especially when satan tries to plant seeds of doubt in my head!! He gave me a lot of council and advice to propel me into my future life and I feel nothing but confidence and equipped with what I need!!

This week is going to be fun!  We are recording tomorrow for 4 hours not sure we will finish,  but we will see. Then we have "meet the elders" wed thurs fri.

Fri is the temple trip to Fort Collins and then sprinting down to Parker!! Sunday I go to church and then spend the day at the mission home then monday I'mhome!! 

Sat we have a baptism as well! Donna Gallegoa  is getting baptized! A lady that just popped up in our teaching pool! So great end to my mission.  

Cant wait to see you. I will end with my testimony that,  God is our heavenly father and he sent his son Jesus Christ to redeem the world! His church has been restored to the earth through the prophet Joseph Smith! The evidence of that is the Book of Mormon which is another testement of Jesus Christ! Because of that knowledge I pledge to serve the Lord the rest of my life and concecrate myself so I can be a worthy vessel of the Lord and recieve revelation for me and family and others in my stewardship! I cannot be more excited to come home and share what I did these last two years! For I do not boast of myself but I boast in my God for  in his strength I can do all things!! 

Cant wait to see you next monday! (Today) I Love you guys! Thanks for letting me share my light with the world!

The last time,

Elder Brown

Week 98 Life is Good! https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c-xncrfD1hM

Watch this!!!!  My week highlights!
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=c-xncrfD1hM

 Dear Family!
 2 more weeks is right.  I'm just enduring to the end at this point and finishing the race!! It's been a long hard 2 years but has been worth every ounce of sweat, stress and pressure to meet the needs of my brothers and sisters here in Denver.   I'm honestly just happy. I'm not scared I'm not nervous to come home but simply optimistic to what the future holds. I Cant wait to come home and share the gospel with all my friends. I know there are people being prepared. I might be able to teach Naheem.  The sisters got back in contact with him so I'm super stoked! I'm just on fire to share the gospel of Jesus Christ honestly!

This week was awesome especially the highlight Sat night! We got to perform at the  16th street mall in downtown Denver! Honestly I wish we did more stuff like that because it's way more effective to do stuff like that then most of the finding activities we do as missionaries. Hopefully we can score a Denver public advertisement when we go back down to the mall this week and then we can maybe score some action on the church news lol!

Thanks grandma's for your emails and encouragement during the mission.   I wouldn't have been able to survive without those gift cards. I may have set a record for the most subway visits out of any missionary ever haha! 

My flight itinerary comes in tomorrow and you should be receiving it next Monday!

Anyway I shared with mom pics of our photo shoot you will like them a lot!!

Love you guys and cant wait to see you! 3 performances this week and 2 next week for Meet the Elders. And looks like we will be having over 500 at each!!

Love you all,

Elder Brown
 

Week 96

Alright weekly email!!

This week has been fun!! Spent three days consecutive practicing in Brighton for our performance during MLC! Exhausting 9am-10pm one day out of the three whew!!! But it turned out great! It felt natrual to perform and bare my testimony maybe a little flash on what I will be doing later in life! I mean it was a legitimate show!! We had equiptment rented from guitar center! We had mics and speakers a mixer(soundboard)  We are getting a recording of it soon!

We are performing this Wed in Brighton. 

Also exciting news we potentially will be speaking on the local radio station as well as performing at 16 street mall!!! Because the BOM play is in town the church is scheduling shows! So exciting!! We have 4 scheduled stakes so far so its going to be fun.

As far as the work goes not a ton of time and our investigators have been flakey. So much work but the ward is not ready to fellowship in. The ward struggles!   But thats pretty much it.  I will keep you updated though I love ya, Dad super cool experiences btw I love to hear those. We need to go do a session at the temple when I get home

Week 97 Amazing Week

Amazing week! I don't know where to begin! So much has happened concerning the firesides and they are really starting to take off! So last week we performed Wednesday in Brighton and they loved it! I got to see some families from the Fort Lupton Ward and people I know from Brighton. So let me tell you what came out of Brighton. An investigator came with a set of sisters from Westminster because she heard about our performance and wanted to see it. They went but we didn't get to see them because we were talking to all the youth and the others who were in attendance. Anyway the day after the performance was over the sisters Missionaries went to her house for a lesson. The lady said I know the Book of Mormon is true and that we have a Prophet on the earth today because of the fireside. They put her on date for this Saturday and Elder Hasse and I got permission to go and we sang Peace in Christ for her baptism. Beautiful ceremony and the spirit was very strong,  I almost cried.   A very memorable experience for me!

Wait there's more. So after Wednesday in Brighton,  President was able to schedule a gig in Westminster for the youth conference that was going on there. The Stake President was hesitant at first but said he'd give it a shot.  Sister Savage said that was our best performance yet. And here were the results. The youth want an album,  they said the songs were so awesome! Ton of them said they felt their testimonies grow and caused a lot of them to act. And two non member Laurels were invited that we got to talk to after. They said, "honestly, I have seen you guys around my neighborhood so many times and I was always scared of you and I always heard weird things about Mormons. But tonight I loved it so much and realized that you guys are just normal people." They then agreed that they felt good inside and it sure was the spirit testifying to what we said was true. They then decided they wanted to go to church the next day. The two non members friend got up in fast and testimony meeting and bore her witness that she gained a witness at the fireside that the Book of Mormon is true and that Joseph smith was a prophet and that the Church is God's church on the earth. After testimony meeting was over the two non member girls said that they believe the church is true and that they quote, "already feel like members and would agree to getting baptized" how freaking cool is that!!! 

Also, after the fireside we shared with all the parents the post I posted on facebook of the flyer. they said we are sharing it with with everyone they know in the mission and they are going to invite their adult friends to the next one in Arvada! Apparently the news is spreading and starting to be heard around the mission. We are performing for both zone conferences so the missionaries can see it and so they can get hyped to invite investigators. Because,  if these instigators go they will most likely have spiritual experience if not better than the one Savory Pond's sisters investigator had!! So stoked!!! Now there are two posters in every Stake in the mission. 

But every time I do these firesides I get such a strong feeling and thought from the spirit that this is what I'm needed to do for the rest of my life. I don't know how it's going to be done, I dont know the logistics but I know I can do it and the ability to bless others life's will be well worth more than a big home and a lot of material things. But I know if I trust the Lord and sacrifice my talents for others he will provide for me. Parable of the talents explains it well!

We are still taking a lot of time a way from our areas. Investigators aren't acting so they are kinda slipping through the cracks a little. But the Lord is still blessing our ward with new investigators and members coming back into reactivity. We might have a baptism Saturday or next depending on if this lady is ready or not. She has been coming to church for years and knows everything is true. Bishop is a little skeptical she may or may not have health problems so we are playing it by ear. We have this new investigator named Dani who is super solid only problem is he is on probation. But the girl he is dating is a less active LDS lady so they are definitely of the house of Israel but it will be a process before he is baptized. That is okay though because that is the people I  have been lead to my whole mission because that is where God knows I can best be used for. 

Anyway super excited to come home! But super sad at the same time mixed emotions! But I'm ready!! And yes I'm packing a box and giving it to Sister Simmons.   Tell her I will bring it to her Friday the 29th at the Parker event!!

 I gotta go!

Love ya!

Elder Brown

Week 92 Give Me This Mountain!

Hey its Elder Brown Your favorite!!

We worked so hard this week I'm beat hahaha! But it feels good because we found 6 new investigators that we have an opportunity to help! We also found 2 solid potentials that will be new investigators next week and they know the Book of Mormon is true already. Their names are Rolando and Dora. We had 2 investigators come to church this week their names are Desiree and Jr. They are homeless now because Desirees father kicked them out. But they gave up living in a motel so they could be closer to the church and come Sunday,  and they did!!!!! So hyped! Also we taught the restoration to the Gonzalez family. They are super interested and the Mom gets emotional every time because she feel like its speaking to her. Her name is Alma!!! Fancy that! Her kids are Luis and Sonya. They are 13 and 17! They weren't able to come to church because the kids have soccer tournaments on the weekends so I'm not sure how we are going to get them there. We found 3 families last night as well that want to meet. So there is so much work going on I could send you a list of people we have been teaching too. I have taught over 60 people here its crazy so much work going on just people are very flakey. Hopefully next we can get them the gift of the holy ghost. 

So crazy you are probably wondering why there is so much going on. Well lets say president fired us up and helped us expand our vision. And because of that people have been flooding in. We had a meeting with him Saturday morning. And because the leadership has been bagging on our zone for such high numbers and unrealisticgoals president decided to create a group called the Ensign Elders. He gave us the key to baptizing 6 people a month and promised us the Lord will pour our blessings for our work and diligence. He taught us how to be directed! He said that tracting aimlessly wont help you baptize 6 a month but relying heavily on the Lord asking for forgiveness and praying often will do it. I can do all things in Christ who strengthens me, that scripture just came to my mind just now because sometimes in life We limit ourselves because we forget that we often rely on our own flesh and the flesh of others. But in the strength of the lord David defeated Goliath, Caleb conquered the promise land. Nephi built a boat, the brother of Jared found light for his vessels and Samson slayed 1000 philistines with a jawbone of an ass! My testimony of the Lord and his strength has grown exceedingly. He can do anything through his tools. We just have to make sure they are sharpened. So give me this mountain!!! 

We can email on mothers day at 4 my time 6 your time. I'm sending you a funny card today mom, you will like it! 

I will send you a separate email answering your questions and dads cause I always forget them.

 

 Love you 

Elder brown

Week 90-April 23 I'm Turning 20!

Not only am I turning 20 but but we found 20 new investigators!!!!!!!  I'm kidding,  that would have been an awesome email though. But we did have quite the week full of 4/20 blazing festivals, walking down town filming a music video, interviewing companionships about mountains they have over come and coming to discover Elder Brown has an altar ego young Busy B....he's the new rapper in me.... We were with the Ap's like 3 days this week so me and my other half Elder Blackham didn't get to write much music but we did get to arrange a primary song...Armies of Helaman and a Wise Man Built his House Upon a Rock! 

 Since we had to be with the AP's the majority of this week we weren't able to get in as much proselyting and finding time as we would have like to. But we found a good bit of investigators! We had two promising miracles happen this week. We were led to a potential Lady's house. We went up to her house and she got out of her car but she told us to come back in 20 minutes because she was on the phone with her boyfriend. We decided to go tracking somewhere and the first door we knocked on we picked up as a super solid potential investigator.  She prayed that morning to find peace in her life and we came and knocked on her door right as things were crumbling down for her. After that we went back to that Lady's house and we started talking with her and picked her up as a new investigator. We had return appointments with both of them and they are both solid and both want to continue our lessons. Other than that we picked up a bunch of other potential investigators and will be trying to contact with them throughout the week.

 It's nice to have smart phones and be up to date with the 21st century as for Facebook you can comment I just can't comment back and so try not to be so diso. 

Thanks  for all the birthday wishes I really appreciate it. I love you guys so much!!!!!!  

Elder Brown

Week 89 April 16 Awesome Week

Awesome week this week!

My new companion is Elder Blackham.  We serve in the Sloan Lake Ward. With two other Elders.   

He is from Mount Pleasant Utah and is 8 months out on his mission. Back home he played in a band called the Melting Rain look it up on Spotify. He is a super talented singer songwriter, guitar player and drummer. He plays a little piano too.

This ward is definitely interesting. It's really ghetto in most of the area but has some wealthier parts as well. I didn't go to the ward this Sunday since it was stake conference. Pres and sis Savage spoke.  We haven't had much receptivity from finding through our own efforts which has been really hard because we work like crazy. But we had a weekly planning session yesterday and had 4 potential investigators reach out to us. We set really high goals to show the lord our faith and in return he has blessed us with prompting people to reach out to us. We have a lot of  teaching appointments this week. Haven't taught anyone but I had an amazing experience. 

So at stake conference yesterday,  I was sitting in the back on the metal chairs (so comfy....) and I looked to my left and there sitting with her step mom is April Tavenner the one me and Elder Beck were teaching in Arvada. I looked on my phone and in the contacts was her number. I told her during conference to look my way over text and she came running over and gave me a hug and started breaking down crying. She has ignored the missionaries in Arvada because she  has been dealing with a lot with her family. Her mom wants to put a restraining order on her so she can't see her daughter. Such a hard thing to overcome. But she told me to call her so we could set up a time to meet. I had a strong witness that I know I was called to this area for her....unbelievable I would have never guessed....coincidence?? 

As far as the music goes it has been so much fun! So we are permitted 3 hours of practice time a day to write music and prepare for our firesides we are performing in the next month. So we talked to president he is not sure when but he said that we will be traveling from stake to stake performing firesides and sharing our testimonies. We have written one song already and 3 are in  the works. The first one is a funny one and that's what the Savages want. It's about a missionaries schedule with some commentary in between. It will make you laugh. It's so fun to jam out too when we come home at night. We just have a blast. 

Oh yes I went to the funeral.  I forgot to tell you I spoke and it was hard to speak but people told me that what I said was needed. They turned the chapel into South Sudan and a minister from the African community came and spoke. The church was packed. Sam still wants to get baptized  Elder Braegger said!   What a great experience for me speaking. I saw everybody from the old ward too. 

I performed at a convert fireside. Wish you could have been  there. Such powerful music. I was in 4/5 of the musical numbers crazy. We get our smart phones this week...so pumped!

Love you!!