Week 8- Fall is Coming and so Is Conference.

 My T-shirt finally came

My jimmied belt.

Transfers are coming up in a week and a half! How crazy is that!! We met with the  Bishop Saturday night because he invited us to come over to discuss our progress reports which Elder Merkley says never happens. We go over there and basically the Bishop tells us the work we are doing is fantastic. We got three people on baptism date this week! The one guy named Zach we saw one day working on his car...tattoos, dirty,  whatever you want to use to describe  someone who doesn't look interested at all,  actually started talking to us. We got him to go from believing in nothing which he referred to God and JC as a bunch of BS hahaha! To believing in them and realizing there is more to life than just fixing cars and getting into trouble. It's crazy how the spirit can work with people and ways that you couldn't imagine by just looking at people. This guys life has now totally changed and he is on the road to a better outcome. Hopefully he continues to read the BOM and pray to know if it is true. Anyway the Bishop told us he prayed in ward council that Elder M and I could stay in the ward because they are afraid the work is going to go down like it has been for the last two years again. It humbles me to know that people recognize the good things you do and it makes me strive to be better. Yes I know I am not a perfect missionary and I never will be, but that doesn't stop me from striving to be one. I know if I can have the success I have had from working hard in my first area I wonder what the Lord has in store for the areas to come.

But with all the positives there comes negatives. We got a Car this last week which was a total surprise since its the last two weeks. Yes we can get to places and appointments a lot faster and yes it saves us from the long bike rides but we don't have the opportunity to contact people on the way so our finding hours decrease. So after using the cars and realizing how lazy it made us we decided to take our bikes out and only use our car for dinner appointments and far away appointments. We take our bikes out and we park them to tract in this neighborhood. We come back after an hour of tracting and my new slime tire is totally flat laying down on the road. It had a 3 cm hole in the bike and it looked like somebody jammed a stick into it so the green slime totally leaked everywhere because the hole was so big. Its the third time in the transfer my tire popped and I was so angry I felt like loosing my temper and throwing my bike and yelling at the Lord.  Then I thought of the blessings he gives me and how can I blame him for this.  We were miles from home and I couldn't walk my bike back to the house because we had an appointment. We called the zone leaders and they picked us up and took us home. The next day we woke up and our car wouldn't start and I was like you got to be kidding me. The battery was totally dead and jump starting it did nothing! I  just laughed and looked at my companion saying you got to be kidding me. So we walked everywhere we went that day and took it into firestone and got it fixed. Anyway, I guess the Lord really wanted us to walk or something because he took away every single source of transportation. So now we use the car but we get out of it and walk a lot so it is teaching us to be disciplined.

Anyway those are the highlights of my week.   My comp plays baseball we talk a lot about that.  He is super funny and athletic and he is 1/4 Mexican so he makes a lot of Mexican jokes and can sound like a Mexican.

I got all the packages from Amy and Grandma, Tracy the Lapps and you.  Tell them all thank you!

I'm watching conference at the Ellis's the lady who feeds us dinner all the time that had three sons serve missions. I will get you here contact info because you would get along really well.  She is kind of like Aunt Karen. 

fall is coming it got cold Sunday 49 degrees.

I have all warm gear but I need winter boots that's all and gloves.

I have trouble getting up in the morning so my companion turns all the lights on and talks like a Mexican dude and jumps on me in my bed to get me up!  I'm so tired in the morning.

 

 I did get taller and I have been lifting every morning. I'm starting to get bigger muscle wise, but I broke my belt the other day while I sat down in the car.  It snapped right after dinner because my companion said I eat to much and I'm going to get fat.  And then when it snapped we started dying and he kept saying see you are getting fat. 

 

Love you Mom!

Week 7- I'm on the Lords Errand

Hey Mom how are ya! 

Tuesday I did an exchange with Elder Wood! He is so cool and an elder that I look up to it was so weird because his personality reminds me of dad weird. He taught me how to be more personal and teach the restoration in a minute because sometimes that's all the time you have with street contacts. Everywhere I go I swear me and and whatever Elder I'm with break records in certain areas. The bishop this Sunday told us we are doing such a fantastic job he says this areas poppin more than it has ever popped before. He said its finally time we get elders that want to work and who can fill up a whole progress report. He said keep working hard and try to get more members present to scheduled appointments. Kelly moved to California because of her home situation and needs to be with her kids. She said thanks for all the help and to give her the elders number in California, so we are working on that. I knew it was all good to be true. She was progressing and then moved all of a sudden. I thought for sure we could get a baptism. Elder Merkley hasn't had one on his mission yet and he has been out here for 7 months. Anyway we are doing great work and my skills are getting a ton better as a missionary. I still have a ton of room to grow. 

The Broncos played this week and nobody answered that's typical but what are you going to do haha. I got a new bike an elder gave it to me for free and the reason i spend 48 dollars is because I spent 12 dollars on a new slime tube so that even when it pokes a hole through the tires the slime fills in the holes and it patches it up right then and there. It was a quite wise investment I shall say hahahahaha. I'm good on food and thanks for the snacks gum and muscle milk. I have gained 5 pounds in muscle I'm not getting that fat because I burn off everything I eat when biking. we bike more than a marathon each day its crazy my legs are already getting so much bigger. And I'm  more ripped because the only way I stay awake in the morning for personal study is if I lift weights and do insanity or p90x with my comp. Me and my companion drove down to a trainers meeting with all the new missionaries and their trainers. I'm like best friends with the AP's(assistants to the president) my comp told me that if you get really close with the Ap's and they see good in you they will appoint you a leadership position. haha! Me and my comp got the car, from the zone leaders so we got the truck to drive down. its was an hour and a half drive. His dad is a professional racer so he can drive really well. We jammed out to music and ate at L&L an Hawaiian BBQ. It was amazing. Anyway I got all your packages.  I'm in good spirits I love it here I don't want to leave.  Hopefully I stay put this transfer and stay another one because its fun.  I Love it here and I know I am on the Lords errand.  Tell everyone I miss them!

Driving to Denver with my Driver!

Week 6- Humility keeps the spirit!

Hey Mom crazy week! This week was busy.  I will try to answer your billion questions again haha!  I love you but you still stress me out sometimes hahaha. Okay here I go...

1.) Zone conference was long! 9 Hours of sitting in a prolonged meeting, Holyyyyy crappers! But I got a lot of things out of Zone conference and probably my most humbling and spiritual experience of the whole week so I will spend a little bit of time on this. A lot of the theme was My brothers keeper and what the true meaning of Love is which is crucial to have in our lives because it is what allows the spirit to be present. What does it mean to be "my brothers keeper?" Well think about your family mom. Not just our family but your brothers and sisters. I'm laughing because your family may not be the best example hahaha just kidding that was a joke Dad might get a kick out of that. anyway, think about your family. Dusty Rob Amy Kory. What would happen if one of them was murdered and killed. I know that sounds harsh but think about it how would that make you feel. awful right! that would be terrible. And think about if you could go back in time and have the chance to do something that enables you to save their life. I know if you had that chance you would. But we need to ask ourselves,  would we lay down our lives so that our brothers or sister could live? Because that is what love truly is. "I will be my brothers keeper, I will protect him and I wont let anything happen to him because I love him." Now there came a time when the savior was on the earth and he was among his apostles including Simon-Peter. The Lord asked Simon-Peter do you love me. his answer was yes. he asked again, Do you love me. he thought about it again this time a little longer and said yes Lord. he then asked again, do you love me. Simon- Peter thought about this like it was a trick question and after a lot of time he said Yes Lord I love you. But without saying it when the savior asked do you Truly love me what do you think that means. Well now think about the Savior. He loved us so much that he laid down his life not only for me but for everyone. He is the keeper of his sheep. Now think about that the savior loved us so much that he laid down his life for us he suffered terribly not only physically on the cross but he suffered in the garden for all of our sins pains agonies and everything that is not of the spirit. Let that resonate deep in you and think about it. stop reading and think about that please. Now how does that make you feel. Lets go back to Peter and let peter represent us. Will we lay down our lives for the savior!  Will we follow him to the ends of the earth. Will we serve him. will we love our neighbor, Will we be the peace keeper in our families, will we look at others needs instead of our own selfish needs. I hope and pray we do. because he suffered in that garden and on that cross and we need to pay him back by serving him with all of our heart might mind and strength. I love my savior and no matter how much I am accused,  made fun of like the Eminem line "chewed up and spit out and boot off stage," I will be my brothers keeper. I will follow him to the end of the earth because I love him and he loves me. I will follow him to the ends of the earth because he is my Savior and my King. I can't say that I truly love him because nobody is perfect and  I haven't followed him at times because of my sins and decisions I have made. But I strive to everyday.  Just because I'm on a mission doesn't mean I am safe. But we need to work toward truly loving the Savior and not just loving him. Simon-Peter, was asked to lead the apostles and he knew that he had to leave his fishing behind and follow the Lord whole-hardheartedly. We need to do the same thing in our lives. We need to be truly converted and work towards that. As we do that the Lord will direct our paths and show us the way. That's all he asks us to do. Anyway that is my testimony of that sorry that was long.

2.) I'm fine, I am eating, maybe just send me money instead of gift cards because there are some places that we eat that I don't have a gift card to ha ha. Mitchel is at the MTC no way! On Thursday every time the Broncos scored, I literally could hear the whole neighborhood cheer at the same time.   It was crazy. People are more friendly when the Broncos play. They invite us in to watch but we say no ha ha. Its like when the Broncos play it is their Sabbath day. So Friday we find out the score and that's how we teach people lessons. Bring up the Broncos and their hearts are softened:)  So yesterday I beat to teach this kid playing basketball.  He was 16 and pretty good at hoops but I beat him so he had to listen to what we had to say.  He seemed really poor but super nice. He had a little bit of an African accent. We taught him the restoration and he retains information well so hopefully we can follow up with him. Oh somebody gave me their bike so I will try to live off of that but I am going to buy a tube because I popped a tire and the patch kit wont fix it.  Amanda and Brad had a Baby.  I'm happy for them! I live in a basement yes it is small but its good. I workout with my companion every morning we do insanity and p90x. Send me some protein powder so I can have some for breakfast instead of spending a bunch of money on food. My companion will stay probably for another transfer but I will leave most likely. Who knows.

Well Mom I've got to go! I love you so much and I miss you! Tell everybody I miss them. 

Dad thanks for the email I hoped I answered your questions as well. I'm trying to humble myself everyday! Humility keeps the spirit.  I miss you so much!!

Love always,

Elder Brown              

Week 5- This has been one of the greatest experiences of my life

Hey Mom and Dad,

Mom you and your million questions will never change I guess. I'm laughing really hard right now in the library hahahahaha! I will do my best to answer them all.

1.) I ate, yes, if I didn't eat that would be a problem

2.) I had dinner appointments everyday except two days.  Sis Ellis who is the bomb fed us three times this week and chastised the relief society saying its time for me to share the wealth and time for you sisters to step it up and feed these elders hahaha. I love her!  She has three sons who served missions and said if there is ever a time you don't have food just come over and I will feed you.

3.) I got all of your packages.  Thank you for the food and I'm figuring out what I need to get at the grocery store. I spent about thirty this week for food.  So I am getting better.

4.) Elder Tanner my zone leader gave me his bike because they have a car but the other bike I have is done so if he is nice he will let me keep it until I'm transferred but he hasn't asked for it back so until then I do not need a bike. I'm looking around for people leaving but there aren't many missionaries with bikes so it will be a rare occasion if I get one.

5.) My companion has helped me enough.  He obeys the rules exactly.  He often has to wake me up because I sleep through my alarm. We have tripled the amount of Book of Mormons handed out this week from 4 to 13 how crazy is that and then to put the icing on the cake we doubled our lessons from 10 to 21 this week. And We have 4 new investigators. 

6.) We did the same thing for P-day. We played speed and basketball with Elder Wood who is really good and plays at SVU.   I helped a missionary clean out his car for zone conference coming up this Thursday. We didn't get to the gym until 1:30 and only had two hours to play. But it was fun. I ate at subway with everyone and used my companions gift card because his mom sent him a bunch. If you send me gift cards or if other people send me gift cards, send me Wendy's, Dairy Queen, Subway, Red robin and maybe like 20 bucks in cash so if we decide to go to a local restaurant then I will have cash.

7.)That is awesome that Madisons friend is coming to this mission. 

8.) No it hasn't rained for like a week but the weather is starting to go up and down but nothing extreme. I dont need winter stuff quite yet give it another month.

9.) So our investigator Kelli is no longer progressing as an investigator. She is still struggling with her addictions.  Like Dad said in his email it might be a long process especially since she has completely changed her life around. She has gone from 2 packs a day to two cigs a day which is a big change but we challenged her to 0.  We told her the blessing that will come and that heavenly father will help her. We told her to pray often because she is not doing that enough. Hopefully she will keep commitments and follow through but we are slowly helping her and it may take a while. Other than that we had a really good week as far as new investigators go and the ward told us that they haven't had a good set of elders for a long time since the old Elder Brown who also was from Pennsylvania was here.   They said there is something about Elder Browns hahaha! 

10.) So it was fast sunday. I started my fast and we brought two investigators to church with us Nate and Steffen. I felt prompted to bare my testimony. I shared two blessings that happened during the week about the rain storm and the lightning storm. I think I already told you about the rainstorm one. Where I prayed the rain would stop and a lady came by and gave us this free umbrella. but this week it was 8:40 near the end of the day and a huge lightning storm hit Arvada.  We could see dark clouds coming from all sides of us but we continued to tract.  I was freaking out because Colorado has the highest rate of people getting struck in the US. But my companion kept saying we would be fine. I told him we need to go home now this lighting is too much and there were streaks flashing in the sky right by us every 5 seconds. We street contacted this dude who was smoking a cig on the side of the street he wanted to walk and talk with us and he was probably high,  because the lighting didn't seem to bother him at all. So as we are walking I'm flinching every time lighting strikes.   But within a minute I looked up into the air while my companion was talking and this cloud of blue sky was right over us and the miracle was it continued over our heads as we were walking. We weren't walking in a straight line either. We were walking left and right,  up and down the blocks while we talked to this guy who took our book of Mormon copy and said he will read it because he has interests in religions. It bore testimony that night that the Lord is watching over his missionaries as they are doing his work and I know as the eye of the storm was following us it was god protecting us as we continued to do his work. I shared those two stories in my testimony and concluded by bearing my testimony about the gospel of Jesus Christ. It was so cool and I was calm and looked out into the audience extremely confident. 

I Love you so much and I wish you were here to see me. This has been one of the greatest experiences of my life and guess what,  I'm only two weeks in!! But I know there will be plenty more to come possible leadership positions and training opportunities along side with trials. Please stay safe.  I pray nothing will happen to our family while I'm gone. Please bare testimony of the power of the spirit and how it directs the path of peoples choices. I was riding my bike in the night and I thought I heard somebody yell Yo from this house. I ignored it because my companion didn't hear anything and we kept riding into the night. About half a mile later the spirit whispered to me go back now! I stopped my companion and I told him we need to go back and its already 9:00 at night. We head back and This guy named Steffan  said come please I want to talk. This man is in an assisted living home and got into an accident a long time ago but can hold conversations and can remember things if we repeat it to him more than once. He came to church the next day and after texted us that night that his  life has completely changed.  He said he knows this is what he wants and needed. Now he needs to keep exploring. He thanked me for my testimony and said when is the next time we can meet.  If I didn't listen to the spirit then his life along with his friend Nate's wouldn't have changed and we would have missed a golden opportunity.

I love you Mom and Dad thanks for the advice it helps me so much! I love you so much I miss you Tell the girls hi for me and tell me more about BYU!   Tanner M I thought was going to start.  Thats cool. I love you so much bye!!

I ran into some of my friends from the MTC at a meeting.

Me so tired!