4 Score……and 365 Days to Go!

Hey Momma!!

Holy Cow that's crazy... what're you going to do with all of the time you have now?! Meg and Quinn are gone, no baby to watch, and no more Mia Maid activities! Looks like you're going to have to find a new hobby!

That's really cool about Sidona's cousin in Anchorage. Tell her to still send me the package, because I'm sure in a few months they'll have me down in Anchorage. 

So Guess what this week is.... I've officially been out a YEAR!!! woot woot!!!! That means only 6 months till Kate comes home! I can't believe that it's already been a whole year... Looking back it seems like it's gone by so fast, but then it's been filled with a lifetimes worth of memories. What's going to be weird is to see Kate come home and then I'll still have 6 months after that! crazy stuff. 

So this past week's been a lot of fun! Monday-Wednesday I stayed in Anchorage for Leadership training and then Elder Wang from Taiwan and I started the 8 hour drive up to Fairbanks. We got a really late start so we ended up staying in Healy at the church there for the night. So the drive's supposed to be one of the prettiest in the world where you can see Mount McKinley and all these mountains and glaciers and such.  However, when we drove through it was pouring rain the entire time and all we saw was fog. I guess the trees on the side of the road were green and pretty. My new area's a little rough around the edges... but that's ok it'll get there! Last night we found a new family to teach and they are now our leading investigators. They're really amazing people so we'll see what happens. My new comp is from Kanosh Utah (Somewhere by Fillmore?) and he's a total country cowboy but we'll get along good! He's about 6'4" and 280 so I don't think anybody's going to be messing with us (or him at least haha).  The new mission President gets here in about a few hours so I guess we'll see how that goes. It was pretty sad to see President and Sister Beesley leave... I'm gonna miss them. 

I've got to say i'm a little disappointed that you haven't taken the boat out yet... But I guess I'll let it slide! 

Well that's about what's been happening in my neck of the woods but I hope you have an amazing week!

Love you guys!!

-Elder Brown

Summer Solstice

Hey guys!!

Well I think it's pretty safe to assume that you had a pretty good week! Thanks for sending me all of the pictures and rubbing it in my face :) Looking through all of them brought back so many memories! Gosh that sounded like the perfect week! Beach, pool, Disneyland, Angels game, restaurants, etc. What more could you ask for?! Now that you've got all the big trips out of the way what're you gonna do for the rest of the summer? Just sit back and relax? 

Well this week we got transfer calls and it turns out that I'm headed up north to the land of Fairbanks! It's one of the wards dad served in so I'm pretty excited and hopefully I can meet some more of the people that he was able to work with. It's pretty sad having to leave Wasilla. This has by far been my best area missionary work wise so I'm going to miss it. I'm going to be serving with cowboy Elder Perkins and the work in the ward's supposed to be a little bit rough but hopefully we can change that! This coming week Sarah's 2nd mom that we're teaching and her son have been a little bit nervous because her husband's coming home this week and she wasn't really sure how he'd take it when she told him that she's getting baptized. She's really strong and decided that no matter what he says she knows that this is true and she's going to get baptized! That's one of the other hard things about leaving is next month we have 5 baptisms planned... bummer. haha! 

Well I hope you guys are recovering a little bit from your crazy week!

-Elder Brown

Lucky Dog

Hey Momma!

Man I'm so jealous of you guys getting to go down to Newport for a week! I miss that place. You need go to Hotdog on a stick and buy one and send it up to me! So who's all going down with you? Are all of the marrieds getting to come this time? Sounds like you didn't have a very good Friday the 13th... but hey it could've been a whole lot worse! At least they were able to figure it all out and get it all fixed up. I guess you can just be glad that you have pipes that can break unlike poor Kate! 

Well you'll definitely have to take tons of pictures this week and send them to me so I can see how much fun I'm missing out on! I'm kidding :) Newport has so many memories... going down there with the Brown's was so much fun! Something I'll never forget. 

This week's been a pretty good one. It was Elder Fatani's "Senior Companion Week" Since he's just about through with training so I just got to sit back and relax and let him run the show. It was pretty nice! Transfer calls are coming up this Saturday so we'll see what happens!! There's a ton of new missionaries coming out this next one so I think either Elder Fatani's getting shipped off somewhere else and I'm staying or we're both leaving. We'll see what happens! 

Well I hope you guys have fun in Newport without me... BOOO!!!

-Elder Brown

Cloud 9

I honestly don't even know where to start to talk about this week. No words can really describe how amazing things have been going and it's definitely weeks like these that make everything worth it. We've been so blessed to see so many miracles this week that it's pretty crazy! It's amazing what a little tender love and care and a whole lot of hard work can do for an area. This week we were able to pick up 5 new investigators that are progressing so fast! There's a ton to talk about, but I'll just share a few stories. You'll probably think that I'm going crazy (and I probably am) but last Thursday night I had a dream where I was standing on one of the streets in our area. The next day I woke up and we had decided to go tract for a few hours the night before so we went to the street. We tracted for a few hours which was good and we found a few less actives that we didn't know lived there. We were getting tired and so we decided to try one last house. When we were walking to the door this lady came out to meet us (I was assuming just to tell us to go away or something like that) She told us that the night before she had been praying and asking God to send us or to send someone who could give her a blessing. Jane has met with missionaries a few times over the years and is really good friends with a lot of members of the church. She was just about to call her friend and ask him to come and give her a blessing when we showed up. Heavenly Father knows all of his children.

This past week we've been working a lot with Sarah's (the one who got baptized in the lake) "adopted" mom and her family. We were having a lesson last night at a members' house and were teaching the Plan of Salvation. Throughout meeting with her she had been telling us how she's been bouncing around to all of these different churches but every one that she went to she could just feel that there was something missing. Near the end of the lesson she just stopped us and told us that she knows that she's been taught this before. That the piece that was missing from all of the other churches was finally all coming together. It's amazing how one of the purposes of the Holy Ghost is to "Bring all things to [our] remembrance" I know that it not only brings things to our remembrance that we have learned in this life but also in the life before. All of us were taught the Plan of Salvation before we came to this world and throughout life the Spirit will testify that to us. 

Love you guys have an amazing week!

-Elder Brown