Anchorage Vacation

Hey family!

It feel like it was just yesterday that I was emailing you! This week has gone by so fast. Like I said in my last email President flew us into Anchorage for most of the week for Zone Conference. You would think that it would be such a nice break, but the whole time I was there all I wanted to do was to get back to Bethel! Zone Conference was great as always but I'm not going to lie... being back in civilization with all of those people was a pretty strange! It was great to be able to go out to a fast food place and eat something other than ramen noodles for once! But hey, I guess I shouldn't be complaining because I'm sure that Kate would kill for a package of those things instead of the bugs and worms she probably has to eat! haha. The roads in Alaska in the winter are crazy! They try and plow the roads but it gets all packed down before they even get a chance. So all of the roads are literally a pure sheet of ice death trap. Without the studded tires it could get pretty sketchy! But I still get pretty scared when we're going 60mph down the freeway on that stuff! I guess it's too expensive to ship salt up here so the plows try and pour dirt on the roads but that doesn't really do anything.

 

This past week has really been so amazing and we really have been so blessed! Because of how slow things were going we really decided to crack down and do everything we could to qualify for the blessings of investigators we really need. Finally things have really started to pay off. The night before we left for Anchorage we received a text from a girl saying that she had really been going through a hard time lately and needed the gospel in her life. WHAT?!! I'm pretty sure I've never heard of that happening before! I guess she had met with missionaries a few years earlier but nothing had really come of it. Then just yesterday we had a guy just walk into church during our priesthood meeting and say "Is this church?" Everyone kind of looked at him big eyes and we told him it was the Mormon church. Then he said "Oh Awesome!" and came and sat down and listened. After the lesson we went up to him and asked him if he'd be interested in learning more and now we have a lesson with him in a few hours!! It really reminded me of this scripture from D&C 121:

 7 My son, ^apeace be unto thy soul; thine ^badversity and thine afflictions shall be but a ^csmallmoment;

 8 And then, if thou ^aendure it well, God shall exalt thee on high; thou shalt triumph over all thy^bfoes.

No matter what it is we always have this promise. We are given trials and burdens to test our strength and to build character. These trials build us into the disciples of Christ that we need to be and to reach the potential our Heavenly Father knows we can reach. At times our faith may be tested but so long as we endure it well we will be blessed with better understand and strength. 

Our Heavenly Father knows each and everyone of us personally and by name. He knows what we are going through and so long as we are obedient to the commandments he gives us then we qualify and will receive all of the blessings he so desperately wants to pour down upon us.  (There is a ^alaw, irrevocably decreed in ^bheaven before the foundations of this world, upon which all ^cblessings are predicated And when we obtain any ^ablessing from God, it is by ^bobedience to that law upon which it is predicated D&C 130: 20-21)

Love you guys!! Have a great week!

-Elder Brown --- Out