Got One

Hey Everyone!!!

That's so crazy that Kate's in Vanuatu now! I'm pretty excited to hear all of her stories so you'll have to be sure to send me her emails and some of her pictures! I can't believe that summer is already over and that it's already time for school to start again! It was so weird to see everyone up here go back to school since this was the first time I haven't had to go to school at the end of the summer!!! But anyways I hope school's going good for all of the kids! I can't believe that Lizzy's a big 9th grader and that she'll be in high school next year and driving!! That's a pretty scary thought if you ask me... 

So this week has been a little bit hectic to say the least... We had Sister Olson's baptism on Saturday and it really was so amazing!! We spent most of the time Saturday getting everything ready like making the programs, cleaning the building, filling the font, and I even did some decorating to make it look nice and pretty (you should be proud!) Just to give a little bit of a refresher, we started teaching sister Olson the very first week I got to Kenai. What really has amazed me the most is the complete change that she has made since we first met her. It was SO COOL to be able to be there step by step and to see the complete transformation she made as she grew closer to her Heavenly Father and accepted the gospel. When her step-son Leif baptized her I had never felt the spirit so strong! I had goosebumps all over and I've even have to say I got a little teary eyed haha! It was just amazing to see all of your work finally pay off especially after all of the ups and downs we have had. She asked me to confirm her so I was lucky enough to do that yesterday! I had never done this before so I was a little bit nervous but it was amazing to be able to give someone one of the most valuable and precious gifts they can ever receive in this life! Even though this is a huge step in the right direction for her, her journey is just beginning! The point of a missionary isn't to baptize people. Its to get them to the temple so that they can make those sacred covenants with their Heavenly Father and be sealed together as a family for time and all eternity. The Temple is the goal!

Another family we've been working with is the Demello family. Sister Demello called us one day and said that her and her family have been inactive for a while now but that they wanted to come back and needed our help to do it and that they had a daughter that needed to be baptized! Can't get any better for a missionary right? They've had a rough couple of years but it has been so cool to work with them and to help them come back to Christ! In just the two weeks that they've been coming back to church and taking the lessons their lives have done a complete 180! It just goes to show how much the gospel really does bless our lives and how Heavenly Father really wants to help us! All we have to do is to show him our willingness to do whatever he asks. 

Hope everything is going great in the land down south!!

Love you guys!

-Elder Brown

Trek

Hey guys!!!! How are things going down there?? So I got the pictures from Masons party... what the heck? He's only 1 year old and he gets an ATV? I thought that maybe since I'm you're actual child that I would get something like that!! haha :) And I was really confused by all of those pictures.. you guys looked like you were happy and having a good time? Thats not supposed to happen while i'm gone! So I heard through an email that Kate is leaving for Vanuatu this week? I'm kinda sad that she's going to Vanuatu... I was hoping she would stay in Baltimore because lets be honest... its nothing compared to Alaska! But Vanuatu comes pretty close. Now I''m going to have some competition to see who can take the best pictures so i'm going to send one that I think will be pretty hard to beat!

Anyways... So this week was pretty unusual! We had zone conference up in Anchorage for half of the week so we drove up there Tuesday night. All the time while we were staying there we got to stay in the mission home which I LOVE! It's kinda got that home away from home feeling. For our zone conference we wen't on a Pioneer Trek to kind of build up zone/district unity! We drove up about 50 miles from Anchorage to this area called Pioneer Peak. By far the most beautiful place i've been and that I probably will ever see! So before we hit the trail with the handcarts we did a couple of trust exercises with our district. So its kind of hard to explain but pretty much our district leader was on these stilts and he had to fall back and we were supposed to catch him. Well needless to say he kind of fell back right when this plane flew over us so we were all looking at that... I'm sure you know where this is going! So he did a trust fall from about 4 feet up and fell and smacked his back on all of these rocks in the parking lot! He was a really tough sport and kept on going but we found out yesterday that he tore 3 discs in his neck so he's in a neck brace now..  I guess our district needs to work on our unity a little bit more and maybe not getting distracted so easily?... So we started pulling the hand carts and it was so much fun! It had been raining for a while so the whole trail was full of mud. On a lot of parts we were about calf deep in mud pulling the handcart! We got to a big river and all of us figured that this was where we were going to stop since it was about 50 yards across and it was fed by a HUGE glacier in the back of the valley. We figured out we had to cross it so we had to wade waste deep in freezing cold glacial water across the river! It was pretty fun. To end it all off we had a big fire and roasted hot dogs and smores and had a devotional. Made me pretty happy :)

So we stayed up in Anchorage until Saturday because Elder Bednar was coming up to reorganize some stakes and so he was going to have a meeting with all of the missionaries! On Friday we got to go to the Anchorage temple which was so amazing! If you haven't been to the temple lately then you definitely should go see the new video! I learned so much from it! On Saturday we got to meet with Elder Bednar and there really aren't words that can describe it... along with Elder Bednar, Elder Maynes from the Presidency of the Seventy, and Bishop Causse from the presiding Bishopric were there. It was amazing to be in a small meeting with that many men high up in the church. There were only about 60 of us in the meeting with them so it was very personal. All the other missionaries in Alaska had to watch it over PVC so we got lucky. He didn't give a talk but rather we all had a discussion with him on seeking learning by faith. We were able to ask him questions and he would answer and talk about all of them! One thing that we talked about that I loved was about how he hates some parts of the LDS culture or habits we all fall into. When we pray we often pray for things that we simply want God to give to us but we aren't willing to do our part and act on our faith to put us in a position for him to help us. He used a few examples that I really liked. Example 1: All too often in our meetings we pray and say "please bless all of those people who are not here today that they will be able to make it next time". Instead of praying for that and just forgetting about it immediately after, we have to ACT on it! In order to really act on that request we would have to go and find those people who were not there that day and visit them, tell them that we miss them, and get them to come back!!!! That is just one example, but we can apply that to almost everything that we pray for. Example 2: People often pray for the missionaries asking Heavenly Father to help them find those people who have been prepared to receive them (I was guilty of this too) The way that members can actually help the missionaries and act on that prayer is to do their part and look for their own missionary opportunities. We all know those people who do not have the gospel in their lives and we can reach out to them and prepare them to receive it. "Every member a missionary". If you think about it... a huge way that Heavenly Father answers prayers is through us! 

This entire discussion with him just reminded me of the scripture in James 2 that says that faith without works is dead. The way that we learn and become converted to the gospel is by exercising our faith ! Hearing Elder Bednar bare his testimony was one of the coolest things ever! It wasn't a testimony, it was a statement. He pretty much stated that he knows/has seen personally Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ. There are only a few people in this world who can say that! When you're around him you just know that he is an apostle of Jesus Christ.

So one more funny story and then I'll stop writing.. So this week we were doing service for this lady we are teaching who has a bunch of dogs and were putting up a fence for her. So you're probably thinking that the fence was to keep the dogs in right? Wrong! In the last two weeks she's had two of her 6 dogs taken by wolves right out of her backyard! So we had to put up the fence to try and keep the wolves out haha! Its just so cool to be up here where things like that happen!

Well I hope you guys are having as awesome of a week as is possible without me being there!

Love ya!

-Elder Brown

P.S. We have a baptism with Sister Olson this Saturday and her son Leif got the priesthood yesterday so he can baptize her! So Cool! i'm pretty excited. Then we have another one set up for the 7th!

Editors Note:  Not sure if Elder Brown's story about dropping his District Leader is true.  Sounds a little fishy to me.  You know his personality, likes to tease.  I'll verify it next week:).

Fruits Of His Labor

Hey Guys!!!

Mom i'm so sorry to hear that you're sick!!! Pneumonia sounds awful but at least its passing through you pretty quick!

Lizzy and Ben: Shutting mom up in her room all day and throwing some saltine crackers under the door doesn't count as taking care of her!! I'm sure Kate will whip you guys into shape though :)

It sounds like you guys have been living up your last few weeks before school starts! Its SO weird to hear that you are all going to Cherry Hill and swimming still! I can't believe that it's still warm enough for that down there! This week it hasn't gotten over 50 degrees so i've had to whip out the sweaters! If I think this is cold everyone's telling me that i'm in for a rude awakening in a few weeks haha!! But it seriously has been raining ALL DAY everyday for the past week! The rivers are really starting to fill up and the whole area's on flood watch. I can't believe that Mason's already one! I can still remember sitting in the waiting room for hours. and hours. and hours. and he still didn't come!!  I'm glad you got the pictures and hopefully you can see how amazing it is up here!

This week has probably been my favorite so far! We taught Sis. Olson the third lesson (Gospel of Jesus Christ) We had already gotten a soft commitment out of her for baptism but she had told us that she wanted to find out for herself whether it was true or not which obviously is a good thing! The lesson went really well and the spirit was so powerful!! My companion and I both bore our testimonies and she ran out of the room bawling... I wasn't too sure if that was a good thing or bad things... Well when she settled down she came out and told us that she knew that it was true and that she had been waiting for this for her whole life! Music to our ears! So we set a date for August 24th! We came back a few days later and started teaching them the commandments. After the lesson we started talking about who would be baptizing her. Bro. Olson and Leif (18) both were baptized in 2003 and neither of them have the priesthood. With how soon the baptism is we were a little worried that they wouldn't be able to get it before then but our bishop was really great and they're both getting it next Sunday! Leif will be doing the baptism because Bro. Olson has Parkinsons pretty bad and can't walk too well. I'm so excited for all of them!

Right when I got here we started teaching a less active family, the Spanns. They're such an amazing family! Both of them were pretty rebellious earlier and have tattoos of skulls all over but i've never met a nicer couple! We've gotten them to come back to church and now we're working with them and the bishop and they've set a date to go to the temple to be sealed for time and all eternity. There is nothing better than knowing that no matter what happens in this life, you can be with your partner not just for this life, but for eternity! The Atonement of Jesus Christ makes up for everything that is unfair in this life. 

A few days ago I was pretty down in the dumps. It had been raining all day and literally no one who we had been trying to see was home and if they were they didn't want anything to do with us! All week I had been praying for a family to teach. I realized that we can't pray for things and just expect them to be given to us. Sometimes we have to show the lord that we are willing to do anything for him, and to actually work for that blessing before he'll help us out. Anyways... My phone rang and it was a random number we didn't know. I answered and a lady came on the phone and told us that her and her family had just moved into Kenai. They weren't active and hadn't been for some time. She said that she wanted us to come meet with them and help them get reactivated and that she had a few kids that wanted to take the lessons and be baptized! Can't get any better than that right??! We start teaching them tonight and i'm pretty excited :) Like I said, the lord is always watching over us he's just waiting for us to call upon him to help us out! if we are doing everything we can and staying faithful then he will bless us!

Our area is heating up! We have 3 other investigators that are getting close to baptism and 4 really solid potentials! However, as every other missionary knows anything can happen. Like is says in the scriptures without the Lord I am nothing. All I can do is try my hardest, "study and little harder, pray a little longer," and try to help them feel the spirit. Teaching with the spirit is the key ingredient. He is the ultimate and true teacher and without his influence conversion is impossible.

This week I decided that i'd try a little experiment. I wanted to see whether or not constantly being optimistic and happy makes a difference! Let me tell you this much... Its not easy! I came across this quote that I really like:

"The greatest revolution of our generation is the discovery that human beings, by changing the inner attitudes of their minds, can change the outer aspects of their lives."

No matter how bad we may think our day is going, it can always change. Everything is mental. If we can just take a second and calm down and readjust our attitude, it can make the biggest difference! For me it was just as simple as putting on a really big fake smile for just a minute and then things started to lighten up! As members of the church, we need to be the the light that shines in the world covered in darkness. Its that light that we show (our optimism, mood, attitude) that brings other people into the gospel. And honestly... nothing is really ever THAT bad. Just by making a simple change in our attitude and smiling just a little bit more we can not only make a difference in our lives, but in the lives of everyone around us. Chill out, smile just a little bit more, and be happy. (Yes everyone I know that this is pretty hyprocritical coming for the Elder Brown you knew but hey people can change :)  )

I know this is really long so I'll stop but I hope you guys are doing great!

-Elder Brown

Alaska: The New Frontier

Hey Family!!! 

I hope everything at the house is going well and of course i'm sure you're missing me! 

This week in the mission we have been focusing on fellowshipping inactive members and part member families. There are a TON of part member families and so we've just been trying to make a plan of attack, if you will, to try and bring them back in and get the rest of their family baptized. 

Fellowshipping is huge for bringing people back to church and keeping them there.  We spent some time figuring out who the families are, and who they are friends with.  We would go over and meet with them and talk about what needs are. Then we would head over to the part members house and ask if they need any service done or help around the yard. While we're working with them we start talking about the gospel and set up a time to come back and teach their families the lessons. When we teach the lessons we bring the friends to it so that they feel a lot more comfortable. We were excited when 3/3 of those families attended sacrament meeting! 

This week we went over to help Brother K out on his ranch. A ton of people out here are literally self sufficient and hardly go to the store for anything! He is a little different. He thinks that the Liberals and "Obama lovers" are trying to sneak on his land and spy on him so he has booby traps ALL OVER! When we walk around we have to always follow him so that we don't get caught in any of them. Plus he has three bomb shelters on his properties for when the "terrorists" come and bomb the back woods of Alaska. I asked him about how many acres of land he has and then he started accusing me of being a spy that was sent to come and map out his homestead. 

I little different kind of guy, buy you gotta love him! He has a big lumber mill on his property and he needed a bunch of trees cut down so he could finish his house. We went out with the chain saw and downed about 3 100ft trees and had to haul them a few hundred yards back up to the mill.  Yea so I guess you could say i'm pretty much a lumber jack now so you probably should start calling me Paul Bunyan now. He's a nice guy but our efforts might be used more productively somewhere else. 

I had my first encounter with a member of the Alaskan wildlife family yesterday the cow moose. We were walking down the steps of our a less active members house and weren't really paying any attention to anything but right as we turned the corner there was the big mama Alaskan moose with her baby about 10 yards away (keep in mind most of the members here live 2-3 miles off of the main roads on an ATV path/dirt road). They're so much bigger than the little moose back in Utah. My companion has been in Anchorage for most of his mission and all of the moose are pretty much tame there so he thought was he knew what he was doing. Our truck was the opposite direction of the moose so he figured that he could just walk to the car and be fine. The moose started charging after him but luckily she was just trying to scare him so she didn't run too far. The bad thing was now she was between me and the car! So I had to sit up on the deck for about 20 minutes for her to slowly feed away so I could make a break for the car!! Haha I got pretty scared when she started chasing after him. 

So from now on i'm expecting a weekly report from you guys and what you've been doing since I have no idea! I'm felling a little bit out of the loop.

Love you guys!!!

-Elder Brown

Reunion

I know kate "Claims" that Baltimore is beautiful but its got nothing on this! Our apartment is right next to the beach where the Kenai River meets the ocean. Most of the week has been such good weather and it has been SO HOT! (70 degrees) Usually its never like this so everyone is outside tanning. Yesterday the hot streak ended the fog rolled in and the temp dropped down to 40 degrees! Its getting a little chilly up here! 

As we were going around visiting the members, we went and saw the Thomas family. We got talking and some how it came up that her maiden name was McCubbins. That name some how sounded familiar but I couldn't really tell where it was from. Then I realized that that was the same family dad taught 30 years ago! How cool is that?! Anyways she completely remembered him and even knew his first name! Their family got really close to him and so she immediately got on the phone and called the rest of her family and they set up a reunion party for that night. We we went over to the party and started talking about dad and how close they got to him. They told me a ton of hilarious stories about him. They told me about how they were falling away from the church when they first met him. They said that he was the reason that their whole family is still active today in the church. (11 kids and 50-somethin grandkids) It was so cool to meet up with them and I was amazed that they still are here, let alone live in the exact same house!

As I read through Dad's journal its awesome to realize that I'm literally tracting on the exact same streets he did some 30 years ago.

For just getting into the area we've been doing really great! We have two golden investigators right now and we're waiting for a few more to get back into town so we can teach them. Last night we  taught a lady named Barabra who really is amazing! She's been looking for the truth her entire life and she thinks she's found it (she has). We taught her the gospel of Jesus Christ lesson and at the end we challenged her to baptism and she accepted! The other person we're teaching is Sister Olsen. She's about 30 and her husband is around 70. She's from the philippines and doesnt really speak english very well. She gets so excited every time we come over and we got her a Book of Mormon in Tagalog and she loves it! We're going to get her to commit to a date tomorrow so thats pretty great! A lot can happen in a month so i'm just hoping and praying that they're able to stay strong and come through! 

The Word of Wisdom is a huge problem up here. Just about everyone and their 10 dogs smokes. I'm really thinking that they should start to show those Terry smoking commercials and maybe that'll open their eyes! Anyways, do you remember how in the movie the Proposal they say that you cant let the small dogs out cause the eagles will take them? Well thats actually true!! We were at dinner with the members last night and this little girl was bawling the entire time. The mom told us that yesterday she let her puppy outside to play on the grass and a eagle swooped by and took it! I felt bad but I had to try so hard to not laugh!! Our area is huge. Its nothing like the lower 48 and all of the houses are sometimes miles apart. Most of the time we're either off roading or driving on dirt roads in our truck which is pretty fun! I love it up here in Alaska. Its so me! I'm pretty sure i'm not coming home for a lot longer than two years and if I do i'm moving up here as quick as I can! 

My comps name is Elder Wingard.  He's a really good guy.

I love being a missionary and even though i've only been out a month time really is going by WAY too fast! 

Hope everything is good at the home!

Love you guys!!

-Elder Brown

This is what I eat every day.

Walking In His Footsteps

Hey Family! 

Hope everythings going just great down there in the land of the prophets (thats what they call it up here) This week really has been amazing! Its kinda weird to think that i'm finally here!

Well since I really couldnt email you last week i'll kinda give you a breakdown... Flying in here was really cool. Looking out the windows of the plane you could see all of the mountains with all of the glaciers which i've never seen before so it was so cool! The airport's right by the ocean so flying in you could see that there still was a few ice chunks flowing around out there! 

The temp when I landed was 48 degrees which was almost a 60 degree difference from when I took off! 

Well I went and met the A.P.s and President Beesley and they took me to the mission office for training. It was a little weird since it was just me and they usually have about 10 or 15 missionaries but it was fun! Then I went to the mission home and ate dinner and I found out that I was getting sent to the Soldotna area in about a half hour. Elder Coombs is a zone leader down there and his comp was leaving a week early so me coming a week early actually worked out really well! 

We drove down to Soldotna (4 hour drive) and got settled in. I never actually realized how huge and far away everything is up here! Soldotna looks like its just across the bay from Anchorage but its a way long drive! The drive to Soldotna honestly is breathtaking. Just like those pictures you only see on greeting cards. 

The Alaska mission is by far the most expensive mission in the church. Everyone has to have vehichles because the houses are so far apart and so you go through gas pretty quick. Most of them are on dirt roads in the middle of the forest which is awesome! The mission cars are actually really nice and we have a 2010 Chevy Colorado.   But for most of the transfers the elders and sisters have to fly in to their new area.

The whole sun not setting till 2am thing kinda throws me off but its pretty cool! I'm just a little worried for what its going to be like when winter hits...Anyways, The reds are running and everyday there were between 100,000-300,000 red salmon going up the river everyday! So everyone from Alaska who are trying to fill their freezers come down as well as all of the sport fishers from the lower 48 so it honestly is a zoo here! There's RV's parked in almost every parking lot and people even camping out on baseball fields! 

The work up here is actually pretty good. My comp showed me a scripture that actually perfectly describes it: Jeremiah 16:16. All of the elders who go to South American and other places are pretty much fishers of men because they literally catch them by the net fulls but up here. We really have to be hunters up here because everyone is just hiding and we have to go find them. 

People are up here in these isolated areas for a reason. They dont like to be found and they dont want to be bothered. I guess we kinda look like FBI agents in our suits so we've had some pretty... interesting experiences with some people. The work up here really is a lot of reactivating members. There seriously are HUGE amounts of inactives. 

Everyone is so busy because of the salmon so its pretty hard to get appointments. I love Elder Coombs and i'm really lucky to have had him for a week. I've learned a ton from him and I feel like I am really starting to get in the swing of things. 

This week I committed 2 people to baptism which was really cool! The only bad this is that we got transfer calls on Saturday. 

I found out that i'm getting transferred to the Kenai Ward to get trained! Its really close to where I already am. I love it here so i'm so glad for that! Also if you haven't already figured it out thats the exact same area that dad started in! Getting up here on his birthday was pretty cool but starting in the same area he did is just amazing. 

They're whitewashing the area which means that both of the elders there are leaving so we pretty much have to start from scratch. Its going to be a lot of work but i'm really excited for it.

So I have to drive back up to Anchorage today to meet all of the other greenies coming in and go to training (again) with them. Then tomorrow i'll meet my trainer and we'll come back down. He's supposed to be one of the best so i'm really lucky.

Anyways... Do you know who Brenden Frasier is? Well my comp is really obsessed with him and he was staying with one of the members in our ward. Even though I have no clue who he is I thought it would be pretty cool to give him a Book of Mormon. My comp was freaking out and saying that he wouldnt do it so I ran up to the door and of course he had to come with. I knocked on the door and started talking to some people but the Frasier guy left to fly home just a few minutes before... Dang! 

So I know how I was complaining about the food at the MTC... well let me tell you. I'm going to send some pics home of what I eat for breakfast and lunch and you'll understand what i'm going through. Words cant even begin to describe. But we've had a ton of salmon that have been just caught that day. My favorite way it has been prepared so far is to grill it on tinfoil and then just to put a lot of lemon pepper and garlic salt! 

So since the salmon were running we decided to head down to the river today and catch our limit. We got down to the river only to find out that yesterday was pretty much the last day the reds were running so we caught NOTHING! (of course it stopped on our P-day) But the Silvers start running in a few weeks so hopefully i'll be able to fish then. Anyways i'm sorry this is so long but there's just been a lot going on!

Love you guys!

-Elder Brown

Arrival At Anchorage Alaska

Early this morning we got to talk to this cute Elder. We made a conference call to his sister's at work, so all of his siblings (except Kate) could be part of the conversation.

He LOVED the MTC and was sad to leave!  Wow!  You don't hear that much.  Time flew, as we laughed and talked about his MTC experience.  We loved hearing from Elder Brown!

Once Elder Brown landed in Alaska, and was brought to the mission home, we received this picture via Quinn.  Quinn's Uncle Ken Lambertsen, is a counselor in the Mission Presidency.  The text photo (to Quinn, not me), was an added perk!  We are so glad he is there safe and sound.

It happens to be Steve's birthday today.  Happy Birthday Steve! Mike arriving in Alaska on his birthday made us smile!  We miss Steve every day, and love him so much!

Got this photo via text message from a stranger that said, "From one Mom to another!!!" This mom sat behind him and asked if she could take a picture and send it to his mom.  She has a son on a mission in Peru.

Brother Lambertsen and Mike - Anchorage Alaska 2013

Steve - Anchorage Alaska 1980

Mike's Mission Picture 2013

Steve's Mission Picture 1980

Made it here great and i dont have a lot of time but i'm headed down to Soldotna for a week until the rest of my district comes in. Tell Ben to look it up on Google earth. Its crazy here! 

love ya!

-Mike