Healy

Hey Mom! 

This weekend we drove 2 hours down to a little town called Healy where some missionaries in my district are stationed and stayed with them for a few days. It's so pretty down there! Healy's only a few miles north of Denali National Park which is right where Mt. Mckinley is so that was a lot of fun! But man am I glad I'm not serving there... There's only a few hundred people there and they've already tracted out the whole place so most of the day they just walk around town and hope someone walks by that they can talk to. Rough life. But they have a few really solid investigators so that's why they keep them down there.

Scott and Evangaline (the ones with the Diner) are still doing really great! We're just really trying to get him to hire some new staff to work on Sundays so that he and his wife can take Sunday's off and come to church! That's really the only thing that's keeping them from being baptized so I really hope we can make it work! All things are possible with the Lord right? So I'm sure it'll all work out. Transfer calls are this week which is sooo weird because I feel like they were just yesterday... Man time's flying by!

Well hopefully you're still alive and that things are going good!

Love ya!

-Elder Brown

The Diner

Oh man I can't believe Reggie died out on you! I don't know what it is with him but it seems like his battery just keeps on giving out a whole lot more than it really should. Maybe it's because he's an old grandpa now. He's 20 years old this year! Haha I still remember that Homecoming Day Activity... but at least we were able to wake board and tube for most of the day before he died! Sounds like he gave out on your right at the start. Just remember that after you get a jump start you have to leave him on for quite a while so his battery can charge all up again. Just look down at the battery life gauge and don't turn it off unless it's at least half full.

Well to be honest and I don't want to sound like a Debby Downer but things up here have pretty much been the same old same old. Lets just say there's a lot of opposition up here. I loved the talk by Elder Corbridge last general conference where he talked about Jesus Christ and Joseph Smith and how the truth will always be defied.

Things have just been like a roller coaster lately. One second you think you're finally going to catch a break but then everything just crashes and burns. We've really been struggling to get things going here but that's alright because it's all going to change this week! Like I said before the Less active work has been going so great and we've been able to help re-active a lot of people which has been awesome but it'd be nice if we could get both sides of the teaching pool rolling.

Last night we finally caught a break with a couple that we're teaching. They're the nicest and most amazing people I've met but are just so busy that its just crazy. They own a diner in downtown Fairbanks where they have us over for lunch and dinner a couple times a week and feed us. Their main hold up is that they can't come to church on Sunday because they're the only ones working at the Co-op. Scott (the husband) grew up living in and LDS family but was never baptized but he already knows everything's true. I was pretty shocked when I was looking at his keychain and saw he had a container of consecrated oil on it! Anyways, last night when we were walking over to their diner they came outside to meet us and told us that they need and want to be baptized. We were both pretty shocked but so happy! We talked about the sacrifice that he would have to make of finding someone to run the diner on Sundays and he was really nervous about it. But he told us that if the Lord had gotten this far in life then he knew he would make it happen. So hopefully within the next couple of weeks we'll finish up the lessons and have them baptized! WOHOO! :)

I loved your story about going to the temple and meeting the woman there. The temple's by far my favorite place to go. No where else can you go and separate yourself from the world and find and feel that kind of heavenly peace. I've been thinking a lot lately about what I call the STP (same ten people) Every ward I've been in Alaska has those same ten people of families who do everything for the ward and truly live the law of consecration. Our stake president was talking in our ward a few weeks ago and  said something that I really loved, pertaining to the temple. He said "when I said yes, I meant it" It's amazing to see how much happier those families who give their whole selves to Gods work compared to those who only give a portion. 

Have a great week! 

Love ya!

-Elder Brown

District Leader

Elder Brown has been called to serve as a District Leader in the Fairbanks Zone, F North Star District as of June, 24, 2014.

Happy 4th of July!

Happy 4th of July!!

 

Thanks for sending all of the pics! it looks like you guys had so much fun this week! Silver Lake looks so pretty so you'll have to take me up there next year so I can come and see it! I'm glad you were finally able to take Reggie out to get some exercise this week. But of course you can't take him out without something going wrong. But hey at least it wasn't too catastrophic! So since Ben is going to be turning 12 this next August I sure hope that he's getting REALLY close to getting up on a slalom ski! Oh man I still remember what Dad would do with all of us... Some how he'd get us into the water to try and get up and then gave us two options. 1. stay in until you get up or 2. swim to shore. haha! Maybe you should try that one with Ben! Actually I haven't seen any pictures of Lizzy either and she's like 6 years overdue! Just wait till I get back we'll make sure that changes.

 

This week has gone by really quick and has been a lot of fun! Now a few weeks every transfer I get to go out into a few of the bush areas as well as a couple areas in Fairbanks and go on exchanges and try and help them out a little bit. This week we went to Delta Juntion which is an old really scattered Russian town about 150 miles out of Fairbanks so that was a lot of fun! For the 4th of July we went over to our Ward Mission Leaders daughters house and had a BBQ outside on the shore of the lake in their backyard. There were tons of people water skiing and tubing and all of that fun stuff. You're going to think I'm weird but I think that that's honestly what has been one of the hardest things for me on my mission. Not being able to go in water! Needless to say it was nothing short of torture to have to sit on the shore and watch it all haha! Last month had been the raniest June in history so all of the rivers were about to spill over the banks and flood the whole town. Then this week we got a huge heat flash and it was 93 yesterday! Since air conditioning doesn't exist in Alaska the nights have been miserable. I never thought that I'd have to deal with the heat when I was called here.

This last week we had a seminar with our new president, President Robinson. Him and his wife are so amazing. I was a little nervous coming into it but they're going to be great. So here's somethin new. I guess the church is coming out with a movie that's going to actually be playing in the theaters this Fall. Turns out that we're going to be able to take our investigators to the movies!! It was pretty funny when he announced it and all of the missionaries were going crazy haha. I never thought I'd hear a Mission President say "So here's the game plan, you're going to grab some investigators, take them to the movies, grab a big old bucket of popcorn and you're going to watch it!" I'm pretty excited it should be fun!

 

Well thats about it for around here!

 

have a good one!

 

-Elder Brown