Oh Man It's Getting Cold

Oh man the leaves are gone, it's gettin darker and darker and it's starting to get pretty darn cold! It's just about time to whip out the hat and gloves and I'm not too happy about it... But by the looks of the pictures you've sent me and all of the hikes you've been going on lately you're still living the dream! It's kinda scary that Lizzy can start dating in just a few months! I'm pretty bummed that I'm not going to be there when her first date comes to the door to pick her up. I need revenge for all of those time I had to get the talk from all of those scary intimidating dad's before I could take their daughter out. I had it all planned out what I was going to do but I guess it'll have to wait until I get back :) 

Well what can I say this week was just a dandy one. We didn't really have a whole lot of time to work in our area because we were so busy doing other things but it was pretty fun! Wednesday afternoon we flew down to Anchorage for a meeting with Elder Evans for MLC. There was only a few of us in the meeting so it was so awesome to be in such a small meeting with a General Authority. After the meeting we went to bed and then woke up bright and early to meet Elder Evans and his wife and President and Sister Robinson to fly back up to Fairbanks with them. Elder McCusker drew the short straw and lost the bet so he had to drive when Elder Evans was up here! It's pretty intimidating when you have a General Authority right next to you so needless to say we drove like grandmas to the Stake Center but made it safe and sound and without getting rebuked on our chauffeur skills! The meeting was so awesome and we talked about so many cool things that are going to help us out so much in our missionary work! He told us that within the next couple of months we're going to be getting iPads so that's a pretty big bummer. I was hoping that our mission would never get them while I was out here just because I don't want to have to get back on Facebook... So I guess we'll see how it goes.

At the end of the meeting something pretty cool happened. We were talking about different and more effective ways to find people to teach other than tracting and he gave us an apostolic promise that if we tried this then as a result of this meeting people who would have otherwise never heard or accepted the gospel will be baptized as well as their posterity for generations to come. Then he gave Elder McCusker and I a challenge that for the rest of our appts for the day we had to try this and then report back to President Robinson how it worked. Well we did it and as a result we found someone who told us that she wants to become a Mormon and be baptized as well as a bunch of other really promising investigators! Things lately have just been on fire and we've been finding people left and right! Apostolic promises are pretty cool :)

 

Well that's pretty much how this week went! Dawn finally got her patches to help quit smoking and is still planning on the 4th so we're real excited for her!

Hope all is going just great! You guys are awesome!

Love,

-Elder Brown

Fall?

Hi mom!

Hopefully you didn't think that I forgot to email you this week, you know I'd never do that. ;) Ooooooo yess please send me up some salsa! I'm not going to lie I definitely don't miss the annual salsa making day, but I love eating it! Thanks for sending all of the pictures!

This past week was Alaska's Fall. It literally lasts less than a week. Last Tuesday the tree turned colors so it had been so pretty and then today we looked out the window and what did we see? No leaves. Just goes to show that the old saying that Alaska only has two seasons (Winter and construction) is pretty true.

 

These past four days or so have been absolutely crazy! We got our transfer calls this last week and it turns out that Elder McCusker and I are staying where we are so we're pretty happy about that! Oh man there's so many cool stories to tell you so I don't really know where to start. 

I guess I can talk about Rick our blind investigator! So Rick has been meeting with missionaries for around 5 years, but recently has been really thinking about joining the church. This last fast Sunday we were both fasting for Rick and what we needed to do with him because he hadn't really been progressing lately. We went over during the week and had dinner with them one night. After dinner he completely randomly asks us "How long would it take for me to be ready to be baptized?" Both of us were pretty taken back, but told him that we would be able to prepare him in a few weeks. He went on to tell us that the night before he had a dream that he had this great desire to be baptized but was really stressed out because both of us were getting transferred out and weren't able to baptize him. Ever since he had this dream things have completely changed and he's been doing so great! He's just convinced that drinking 2 glasses of wine a night is good for his vision so we just need to get him over that and he should be good to go!

 

To answer your question about Dawn, she got the answer to her prayer this week and so she's planning on the 4th of October to be baptized! Her daughter Courtney said that its "so uncool" to be baptized on the same day as her mom so she's shooting for the 25th of next month. Hopefully we can move it up a little bit.

 

So! Healy, (one of the areas in our zone) Is getting shut down this transfer except they had a baptism planned for this coming week. They had to push the date up a few days so that it could happen before the Elders there were transferred out. So on Sunday Elder McCusker, Elder Wang, and drove down to interview her. Their investigator's name is Shu Shu and she's from China. She speaks pretty good English but doesn't really know Gospel terms very well, so we brought Elder Wang with us to translate. I was able to interview her and it's so amazing how during the interviews the Spirit really tells you whether or not they're ready. She passed and so Elder Wang and I drove back yesterday so that he could baptize her and translate. It was a pretty cool experience! But needless to say after 9 hours of driving in 2 days I'm pretty sick of it.

This week Elder Call (head of the missionary department) is coming to our mission and so we've been really busy putting together a Zone Conference. When he get's up here we get escort him around so that should be pretty cool! On Wednesday evening we're flying down to Anchorage to go to a meeting with him and then the next morning we're flying up with him and then having Zone Conference so it should be a pretty busy week! 

Love you guys! 

-Elder Brown

Bee Hives and Chasing Pigs

Goooooooddd Morning! 

Man I swear you guys are always doing something fun! Going to the Zoo, Utah football games, going to the temple and all your fun hikes! I'm jealous! Now that I look back I miss doing all of the little things with the family! In high school you get so caught up with hanging out with friends and thinking that your cool that you don't really pay attention to all of the small and simple things that really matter and you end up missing a whole lot! But I'm pretty glad you're taking tennis! When I get back I'm going to sit down and watch your old lady lessons so I can get a good laugh :) But hey since you're a pro, now I'll have a buddy to play tennis with! Thank you so much for sending me the Utah schedule!! That helps a whole lot so that now when members take us out to eat I'll know what time we need to go haha! 

I swear it was just yesterday that I was emailing you so this week has really flown by. For the first two days of the week we drove down to Delta Junction and went on exchanges with the Elders down there. It's really in the middle of no where so we did a lot of service. In the morning we went and helped some lady clean out the honey from her bee hive (we didn't have those white astronaut suits so it was a little scary with 20,000 bees flying around) which was an adventure! After that we went over to a pig farm and chased pigs and grabbed them and put them in different pens which was pretty fun! 

After we had all our fun in Delta we went back to our area and things are still going pretty good! We've been seeing so many miracles lately and the work's going great! I'm not sure if I've told you about Dawn and her daughters but if I haven't I will again anyways because they're the bees knees. We've been teaching Dawn and her daughters Aubree and courtney for about a month now. They finally made it to church last week and are absolutely loving it! Aubree was baptized when she was 8 but has been inactive her whole life but the other two both aren't members. We taught them about the temple this week and they all are in love with it. Our ward has a temple trip to Anchorage this next week and Aubree's going to go try to go on it. She's so excited! This week we committed Dawn and Courtney for baptism on the 4th of October so next transfer's looking really good! 

Transfer calls are coming this saturday so we'll see what happens... I'm really hoping that everything stays the same but you never know.

That story with Kate meeting sister Dukes in Vanuatu is pretty sweet! But I reminds me that I have to start getting ready for college pretty soon...

But we'll talk about that in a few more weeks!

Hope everything's going good!

Keep on keepin on :)

-Elder Brown

Definitely Not the MoTab

Well Hello Hello :) 

Ok calm down mother I didn't intentionally forget to email you again! Yesterday was Labor Day so all of the libraries were closed so we couldn't really email!  Sounds like you had a pretty good weekend! I'm so jealous you got to go to the Utah game! Could you pretty please send me their schedule????

Things are still going really great in the Fairbanks 3rd Ward and I'm loving every second of it! This last Saturday Scott was baptized and it was probably the best baptism I've seen yet on my mission! He asked me to perform the ordinance so it was really cool to be able to do that for my first time. Out of his entire family Scott's the only one who's a member now but all of his family and extended family living in Fairbanks came to the baptism to support him. You could feel the spirit really strong at the baptism and after his family came up to us and told us that they started shaking and crying when he was baptized and asked us what that was. We told them that what they were feeling was the Holy Ghost and that it's something we feel when we know something is true. Needless to say we picked up the rest of his family as investigators so we're really excited for that! It's amazing to see how just the decision of a 14 year old boy can bring an entire family into the gospel. 

Haha oh man... yep after about a month of trying Sister Pearce finally persuaded us to sing in Sacrament meeting. I was pretty nervous because I've never done anything like that before but I think it went O.K. It's kinda cool how our ward broadcasts all of its meetings online so people in the Villages can see it so I'm glad you guys got to watch! Definitely not MoTab quality but a lady came up to us after and told us that when we were done singing her daughter looked over at her and said "Mommy why am I crying?" Her mom told us that that was the first time that she's really felt the Spirit so she asked for the song so that her daughter can remember the first time she's felt the Spirit. Kinda cool! 

Tonight we're going to drive 100 miles down to Delta Junction to go on exchanges with the Elders there so that should be pretty fun! Next transfer they're putting Elders back in Barrow (the northernmost missionaries in the world) and they'll be in our Zone so we're trying to talk President Robinson into letting us fly up there to go on exchanges with them too! Hopefully it'll happen so we'll have to see!

For those cold and lonely days when you need to hold someones hand...i named her, Amasepha

Scott's baptism.

D-Day

Thank you so much for decorating my room and throwing all the candy on my bed! I'm a little confused though... it's not my half birthday till next month and I'm not turning 12 so I wasn't really sure what that picture you sent me was of. I sure hope that someone hasn't moved in and taken over my bedroom! I'm sure that's not the case but if it is there's going to be a battle when I get back.;) I can't believe that Marissa Woodbury's already home... gosh I swear it'll be only a few more emails then Kate will be home! So thanks for all of the pictures you sent me of Ben's party! They were killin me! This is pretty weird but honestly the thing that I miss most is just being able to jump in water... ahhh! But thats alright I'm still having fun out here :) Benny boy looks like a little stud! I'm so glad that Grandpa Wayner was able to give him the priesthood. 

This week things have been just pretty darn crazy. President Robinson and his wife came up this weekend to interview all of the missionaries and so that we could have a Stake missionary Correlation Meeting with President Duval the Stake President up here. Most of the week before they arrived we were running around trying to set up their interview schedule and prepare everything and then still trying to meet with all of the people to keep our area up and running! Interviews with President Robinson and then the stake meeting went really good! 

This Saturday Isaac was baptized which was such a cool experience! He's such a great kid. Most of his family's less active and so we're really hoping that he'll be able to lead them back to church! Elder McCusker baptized him and then I confirmed him yesterday in sacrament meeting. 

The work in 3rd ward is so good! If I could stay here the rest of my mission I would be a pretty happy camper. All of the members of the ward are so great! This next Saturday Scott, one of our other investigators is getting baptized so things are moving along! Last night we had a really cool experience. We went over to give our Ward Mission Leader Bro. Marshall a blessing and we ended up getting there right when Tim (a guy Bro Marshall's been trying to share the gospel with) and his wife got there. Tim went to a Baptist school in Florida where he took a huge class they teach pretty much on proving the Book of Mormon wrong. One day while he was in class he was reading in the Bible the scripture that says "By their fruits ye shall know them" He spent a lot of time thinking about the fruits of the baptist church and the fruits of the Mormons. The spirit told him what he needed to do so his quit school and came up to Alaska where he met Brother Marshall. We had an awesome lesson with them last night where the spirit hit them like a train. Tim and his wife are so primed and ready! 

The 25ths of Augusts are are always pretty tough. Enough said. :) When I get home I'm just gonna go to the temple every time. I always feel so close and like he's sitting next to me there. But Luckily every D-Day on my mission I've just been too busy to even think about things so that's been such a blessing! Definitely some divine intervention there. :) 

Well Elder McCukser and I are going to go Gold panning and get rich, so in a few days I'll send ya some gold nuggets so you can go buy yourself somethin nice. 

Love ya guys!

That Weekly Letter

Mason turned two??! It's going to be so weird to come home and hear him talking... I still remember the night when Meg went into labor and I sat in the waiting room for 6 hours. Yep that's never happening again. Next time I'm just waiting at home. That seemed like a pretty sweet birthday party though! Mase looked like he was having a blast and of course I loved his backpack! Ben and Liz are you excited for school?? Well too bad cause you've only got a week left of summer so you better live it up! 

Gosh this week has zoomed by so fast! I can't believe that it's already time to email again! There's so much that's been happening lately and I've never been happier in my life! Like I said in my last email last Monday we drove down to Anchorage for transfer meeting and then stayed there for a few nights until MLC on Wednesday. Our meetings ended up taking most of the day so we weren't able to hit the road until pretty late so we ended up driving 4 hours up to Healy and then sleeping there for the night. The next morning we had to wake up pretty early so that we could make it to Fairbanks to go house hunting for 2 sets of sister missionaries. The lease on their apartment is ended really soon so we had to go and tour a bunch of other apartments and find one that would work! After a few hours we finally found one so now we have to have it all furnished for them by the end of the week... fun stuff. 

On the first Friday of every transfer we have something called Zone Meeting where all of the missionaries in the Zone come together and Elder McCusker and I got to put together a 3 hour meeting/training. The theme that we decided on doing was "Come to the Edge" We talked about the stories of Enos, Alma the younger, etc. and how each of them came to a point in their lives where they were standing on the edge and had to jump. We compared it to missionary life by talking about how just like Alma and Enos each of us has things holding us back from reaching our full potential as a servant of the Lord (disobedience, fear, lack of caring) and how we wanted this to be the point in their missions where they make the jump and put all of the things holding them back, behind them. As in the cases of Enos and Alma it always takes sacrifice but when we make the jump the Lord will never allow us to fall. 

We did a really cool activity where we set up a course of tables in the gym that seemed to get gradually higher and higher  up off of the ground until it reached the stage. We had all of the missionaries wear blindfolds then they had someone lead them along the course until they made it to the top. At the top, thinking that they were about 5 feet in the air we made them jump off when the stage was only 1 or 2 inches below them. Oh man I wish I had recorded it! Everyone at the top was freaking out and some of the sisters started to cry haha! We were mean and made them jump anyways :) 

The work in the 3rd ward is awesome! We have more investigators than I've ever have had and after this week we have 3 people on date to be baptized by the end of the month! 

Well sorry for the long email but I hope you have a great week!

-Elder Brown

Transfers

Hey Family!!

Man mom I can't believe how much you guys are traveling around this summer... I swear you go on a new vacation every single week! San Francisco looked like it was a lot of fun though.  Thanks for sending all of the pics!

This weekend we got our transfer calls! Since I had only been in the area for 1 transfer and Elder Perkins had been there for 3, I was pretty sure that either we both were going to stay or at least he would stay and I would leave. So I was pretty shocked when I found out that I was going to be sent over to the Fairbanks 3rd ward to serve as a Zone Leader with Elder McCusker. I was finally getting to really get used to the 1st ward and all of our contacts so it's a little bit of a bummer that I'm not going to be able to stay, but at the same time I'm really excited! Elder McCusker's an Orange County California boy that came out with the group of missionaries that I was supposed to come out with last year. Ever since transfer calls things have been a little bit crazy just full of trying to get everything all packed up, doing laundry, etc. This morning we drove the looooooong drive from Fairbanks to Anchorage so that we can go to transfer meeting tomorrow and then we're going to sleep at the mission home and go to MLC on Wednesday then drive right back up to Fairbanks and get to work!

I don't have too much time but I'll try and answer some of your questions before I have to go!

So I guess Fairbanks is supposed to be a really dry and sunny place but it has been raining almost the entire time I've been up here. June and July set records for the most rainfall in history so we've been getting a whole lot!

Right now the sun sets around 10:30 or 11 so each day its getting darker and darker. The light's not really a problem anymore so that makes things a whole lot easier.

I actually have met a lot of people that still remember Dad! Right now I'm trying to hunt down a family that he taught and baptized (the last one while he was up here). Rumor has it that they're still up here so hopefully I can find them. Fairbanks is a huge military town so people move in and out quite a bit. But this last Sunday I met the lady that Brent Carling was talking about, and we went to dinner with him before I left. She's awesome!

Got to go!

Love,
Elder Brown

Just eatin some Muk'tuk steaks (whale blubber) for dinner!