Christmas

Holy Moley family. Well there's so much I need to tell you about these last two weeks but not enough time so I'll have to fill you in on Christmas!

It sounds like things have been really crazy lately! I've gotta say you were making my mouth water when I saw all of those pictures of the cookies and caramel pretzels you made this year... oh man I miss those!! Ok next year I have a new goal. I've only been to Temple Square to see the lights once and I was so little. Plus i've never even seen the statue of Christ or been to any of the visitors centers or museums so next year that's a must see. In the pictures of dad's grave it looked like there's no snow! Hopefully you get some before Christmas or else you'll definitely just be dreaming for a white Christmas. The snow here was running pretty thin until it finally snowed yesterday and is supposed to today and then on Christmas! Oh the missionaries made you miss Kate? Ouch... But it sounds like the missionaries have been following you everywhere.

These last two weeks have just shot by and been really crazy! I don't even know if I told you this but turns out that I'm training Sister Wright's Nephew Elder Jensen! It's been a blast so far. We are pretty different but we get along really great and it's going to be a pretty fun three months :) Starting off in the new area (Beach Lake) was pretty ruff. The last Elders in here left us nothing to work with so we spent the first week just going around meeting everyone and all of our investigators. We went in to church on Sunday and one of the people we were teaching, Michael, walked up to us and said "I want to be baptized this Saturday. What do I need to do to make it happen?" Well we both were pretty shocked but super excited so we were able to teach him the rest of the lessons and he was baptized last Saturday! Even though we've been running around with our heads chopped off we've been able to see a whole lot of miracles. In the last 2 weeks we've been able to pick up 6 new progressing investigators which is really great! 2 of them are set of baptism coming up in January so it should be a pretty good month :)

Hope you have a Happy Christmas!!

Talk to you in a few days!

Love, Elder Brown

Transfer to Eagle River

Hello Hello team! 

Well what do you know transfer calls have came and gone and everything happened just like I was afraid it would... President Robinson called and told me that I'm being transferred down to Eagle River to train a new missionary so I'm having another kid! I was so bummed when I got the news but it's going to be alright! Fairbanks 3rd ward has by far been my favorite area and like I said before I could have stayed here the rest of my mission. It's the place! This week has been awesome! So we had a lesson with our new investigator Alice on Sunday. She was taught by missionaries before in California and she wanted to badly to be baptized last Sunday on the 6th of December but we had to tell her that that wouldn't be able to happen because we still had about 12 discussions that we need to have before she's baptized. I've never met anyone who wants to be baptized so bad so we put her on date for the 23rd of December.
  

The good news is that I might be able to train either the new Elder Brown coming out or else Sister Wrights nephew so that would be pretty cool! 

So I haven't received any updates on Liz and her driving so I'm going to assume that you're all dead because she crashed and killed you. But I got the pictures! The good news is that I didn't see any snow in the pictures and so hopefully that'll help her get adjusted a little bit before then...

Anyway I need to go and get things all packed up for tomorrow. We fly out in the morning at 6 to Anchorage and then have transfer meeting at 1 so it'll be a party! Maybe next week you'll dig down deep and find some love in your heart to email this poor forgotten boy freezing his buns off in the interior of Alaska ;) But I still love you anyway!

-Elder Brown

Thanksgiving

HAPPY LATE THANKSGIVING!!! Looks like you guys had a pretty good one! My thanksgiving was pretty A- ok... Holiday's on the mission are pretty brutal because you pretty much have to go around and beg people to let you in haha! So for most of the day we just stopped by everyones house and told them that we're thankful for them. Just wait next Thanksgiving Ping Pong tournament you all better watch out! There's a ping pong table at the institute up her so i've been workin on my skills :) I can't believe the day has finally come... Liz is officially almost 16! Make sure you don't let her drive around any of her friends because we all know that's pretty hazardous. 

This week has been so great! I have no clue what Elder Jolley and I have been doing but we just keep on having Investigator after Investigator come out of no where! But hey I guess that that's nothing to complain about. Tuesday night we went to have dinner and Brother Wood's house. He was just barely released this summer as mission president in South Africa. We were having dinner and his daughter in law Alice who's from Russia came up to us and asked if we could teach her the missionary discussions because she wants to be baptized. We were pretty shocked but of course we told her that we could probably work something out haha. That night we drove down to Delta Junction for exchanges with the Elders down there which as always what a blast. The whole drive down was a white out with a couple of inches of snow on the road so it was pretty fun but a little sketch mcgetch. One of the members in our ward (My man Doctor Brother Buma) has MS really bad and is confined to a wheelchair. On Friday we went over to his house and taught his assistant Jessica the first lesson. It went really really well so we're excited to see what happens. Last night we had a lesson with Alice and her husband Johnny. Haha oh man she sat us down and made us plan out all of our lessons so that she could know how soon she could be baptized. She's great! The Church came out with their big He is the Gift initiative this week and It's going to help so much! We have 250 pass along cards that we have to give out before Christmas so It'll be fun :) In your Ensign this month you're going to get 9 pass a long cards all to your self so I triple dog dare you to hand all of them out! It's kind of crazy when I think of myself back home I never even thought about doing missionary work and sharing the gospel so I'm so excited to start when I get back!

Transfers are coming this week... Thing are starting to go so great that i'm pretty sure that I'm going to cry if I leave. In the next 2 transfers there 30 new missionaries coming in so I think I'm probably going to leave and train. Pray that I stay!

Love you guys!

- Elder Brown