Elder D. Highlander @mr-mormons-adventures - Tumblr Blog

Week 63!

Hey everyone! This week has been pretty crazy and pretty awesome! As the title suggests, winter has finally come to Missouri, and he came with a spiked baseball bat. Winter hit us hard here. How hard? Read on and see! Wednesday: Wednesday was a fun day. We had district council, and two of the other companionships brought some food for people to eat: cheesecake and a tin of cookies. The cheesecake was alright, but the cookies were way stale. So, since there were a bunch of kids running around the church, we just figured we'd leave them out for the kids/parents to have, right? Wrong. We left the tin on a chair holding the door to the room open, and when a kid came by, the parent said, "No, those probably aren't for us, ignore them." We happily called out that they were, in fact, for anyone. To which the mother replied (in a rather passive-aggressive tone) "We won't have any. We're here for a Healthy Changes Support Group, so if you could just take those away, that would be nice." Seriously? What are the odds?? And who deprives their children of beautiful, delicious sugar??😢 But oh well. After district council we did a lot of tracting (read: three hours) then we went to Mutual to help one of the young men of the ward with his Eagle Scout Project. His project was to make little felt-bottomed boxes to roll dice in, since apparently there is a large club at the local library that play frequently. Also, after helping, we were playing around with a volleyball with some of the 12-year-olds, and I may or may not have accidentally kicked the volleyball into one of the kids' faces. Oops. They all laughed it off though, so it was chill..😯 Thursday: Thursday was fun. We made little felt stockings for future dinner messages with members, then we went to the church to try to call some people to set up appointments. After, we had lunch and companionship study, which was reading a conference talk by Elder Holland. I'm trying to read/listen to/watch all of his talks since his very first one. By the way, if any of you want a good talk about fatherhood and how difficult it can be, listen to his very first talk. We should've known he was going to be a fire speaker from that talk. Anyway, we went to go finding afterwards, which was more tracting. We had dinner with the Payne family which was some good taco soup. Afterwards while we were talking, they told us that a pretty big snowstorm coming in the next day in the evening. So they told us to be careful, and we said we (probably) would be. Friday: Friday, we went to the church and did our weekly planning. When we got there, it was overcast, but not a single snowflake fell. We went to go have lunch back at the apartment, then came back to the church to finish. As we went in, a few flakes were falling, but not really anything serious. (As a joke, I texted in a GIF to our district, the one from LOTR where Theoden is like "So it begins" before the Battle of Helm's Deep. Ended up being accurate.) After we finished, we went to go send out the ward council email, and by then there were a few more flakes, and things were starting to stick. As we typed up the email and did a few things there, we watched as probably three inches accumulated within the hour. That was the only warning this storm gave, and we should've listened. We met with Brother Wade at the church still, and by the time we finished, there was at least 5". We drove back to our apartment to have dinner, then during dinner we received a message that, per mission president's request, cars were not to be driven. So we were stuck. We called a few people to check in on them, then tried to set up a few appointments. But without a car, we weren't really able to go out and do much, especially since we didn't want to make members drive us around. As I wrote in my journal Friday night around 9pm, it was still snowing, and it was nearly at 8". Saturday: You'd think that a snowstorm like that would have run out by this point, but that's what you get for thinking, because it was only starting at this point. When we got up, it was still snowing. As we did our morning studies, it was still snowing. And as we planned for what to do, it was still snowing. And accumulating. So we basically planned that we were going to shovel people's driveways all day. But we didn't have snow shovels. We knew the Church always has some we could borrow, but the cars weren't able to drive at this point, since President Bateman hadn't dropped his order yet. But then he said that if the roads were plowed, we could drive, but be careful about it. So, once we saw that the roads were clear, we cleared off the car to go get some snow shovels. Looking at the car, there was a six-inch wall of snow behind it preventing us from getting out. We had two options - clear it away with our hands/feet, or just try to drive over it and see what happens. You all know me well enough to know that I chose option #2. But it worked out well, because when I got in the car to back it up, I remembered - our car has all-wheel drive. So I backed the car out of the spot and over the wall with no trouble at all. It was like the car wasn't even trying. As we went throughout the day, the car acted like there wasn't even snow for the most part. We went and got the shovels, but to get to the church, we had to park in a nearby neighborhood and walk over there. Mind you, during all of today's adventures, it was still snowing. We tried to clear some of the sidewalks of the church, but it was still coming down, so we gave up and had lunch. After lunch we went to go check on a few members to see if they needed help to clear their snow. Most people already had it done, but they gave us some recommendations on who to go see. One of them was our Elders Quorum president who had pneumonia. We tried to park in their driveway to help, but it wasn't cleared enough, so we had to go park in their neighbor's driveway. We walked up to ask if that was alright, and we talked for a bit about why we were there, that we were only going to be 20 minutes while we cleared a spot for our car, etc.. Well, as it turned out, the neighbor owned a snowplow for his truck, and he was just about to go and clear a bunch of other places. So, he drove over and cleared it for us! It turned what was surely going to be a 2-hour project into less than 4 minutes for him. We thanked him a ton, then went to go clear more driveways. Some were in nicely plowed neighborhoods, others not so much. But our intrepid Fusion got us where we needed to go, every time! Our dinner appointment came and picked us up from our apartment, which was nice of him. As we drove back to our apartment, the storm had mostly subsided to just a light flurry. It took this storm roughly 24 hours to get out all of its big stuff, but it wasn't quite done. Sunday: Sunday morning, it was still snowing, albeit lightly. We got some texts from missionaries asking about who had canceled church and who was still having it. Our ward decided to stick it out since we were so close to the building, but a few other wards canceled. So we ended up having 3 set of missionaries in the ward for the day! After church, we went to go check on a few people that we had thought about to make sure they were okay. The snowstorm finally subsided by this point, and there was little to no precipitation coming down. We had dinner with a fun family, the Thomas'. Then after dinner, we were able to watch the Yough Adult devotional with Elder & Sister Renlund. It was super awesome, and I recommend that everyone watch it, if only for the great parable they used. Monday: Monday was our first vaguely normal day since the storm. We went out in the morning to try to see if we could get a hold of Ron, someone previous elders had taught but who we were never able to get a hold of. Well, turns out that he was home, with his mother, who is an active member. We were able to teach him the Restoration, and also put him on date for baptism! We were super excited about it, and we are really excited to keep teaching him. He has a hard time learning and understanding sometimes, but he's a sweet guy and he's really trying his best. After that, we had lunch, and I made banana bread. We dropped off a loaf at the kind stranger's house, the guy who plowed the driveway for us. We also left him with a copy of the Book of Mormon and our number, just in case. We had dinner on our own, then we tried calling people in the evening. Also, it was transfer call day. I didn't really mention it earlier, but it's all good because only one Elder in the zone is leaving, and it's not me or Elder Jones. This does make him the first companion I've had since Elder Cardiff to stay more than one transfer, so that's neat! And that's the week! It was absolutely crazy fun and awesome, and I'm so happy with all the snow we got. I love snow. And I now also love the Ford Fusion, as that car does not stop for anything. I hope you all have a wonderful week! Love, Elder Brown

[Image description: A group text with a picture of Elder Brown standing in his apartment bundled up in a trenchcoat, a beanie, and sunglasses with a scarf wrapped around his face. His gloved hands are giving two thumbs up. The caption is: “Ready for service tracting!”]

Week 62! It’s a New Year!

Hey everyone! It's the start of a new year for everyone, and I hope that the start of it has been good so far! I've been having a wonderful time out here in Missouri, except for one thing - it's been an average of 60° this week. What is that?! It's January!! Oh well. I hope home has been colder. Anyway, what did I do this week? Tuesday: We spent Tuesday morning running some errands that Elder Jones needed, since we figured very few people would be able to converse on New Year's morning. So we drove around to various places to pick some things up, including a new screencasting device for meetings and such. After lunch, we went out tracting to try to find people to talk to. We got to talk to a few people but not many of them said they were interested. We had dinner with the Larson family, not to be confused with the Larsens. The Larsons are younger by quite a bit, with a few kids at home. They fed us Chicago style hotdogs, which were pretty good. (don't tell them this, but I think I still prefer my hotdogs plain). In the evening we got to be with a member and hang out with him, since our mission president told us to be with members in the evening. Wednesday: Wednesday we had a great district meeting, with lots of great discussions. I got to lead a discussion on diligence and obedience, which was a blessing to me. I'm always looking for ways to improve that, and preparing for trainings helps me to learn, I think even more than participating does. One of the great quotes that came out of the meeting was from a sister in the district: "Plan exactly, execute flexibly." I really love that quote! Half of what we do out here on a mission (and I'm told later in life) is by the Spirit, but that doesn't mean that planning should be thrown out the window. The Spirit expects us to be able to plan out our days on our own, with some of his help, then once we're out and about doing our plans, that's when the Lord can guide us to what He needs done. Later in the day we had dinner with the Larks, which was great. We also gave Brother Lark a blessing, since he was going into surgery on his leg the next day. Giving blessings is such a neat experience. Thursday: We had exchanges on Thursday! Elder Blood and Elder Jensen from the Missouri River ward came over around 9:30 in the morning and then I planned for our day with Elder Blood. I've known Elder Blood since the beginning of my mission, and I love serving around him. He's just such a genuinely nice guy. So we spent our morning trying to see if there was appointments we could set up. Around lunch, the 4 of us all went to BWW, then we went to the church to do our companionship studies. Elder Blood and I talked about the area and what works and what doesn't work for finding out here. After studies, we went out to go tracting in a few different neighborhoods. We first went to the southeast corner of the area to track out a suburban neighborhood. We had a few people who seemed interested, and then a few people who opened the door, said rude remarks, and then slammed the door. I'm not sure how, but the longer I'm out here, the funnier those moments are to me. Yeah, it's sad that so many could reject this gospel when they know nothing about it, but at the same time some of their reactions when they see us or the Book of Mormon are hilarious. You'd think they saw a demon! Elder Blood and I had dinner on our own, then we went back out to go tracting just north of the lake. On our first door, we found a guy named Josh (go figure) who said we could come back the next day, so that was good! We also found a Chrismas light setup with a chair to watch it all from. That was about all the stuff that happened in the evening so after we came back to the church to exchange back. Friday: Friday was a decent day. I got a bit of a headache in the morning that kept getting worse throughout the day, so Elder Jones kind of had to take over. So when we did our weekly planning, Elder Jones planned everything out on a church chalkboard while I took a nap, because I just couldn't focus. After lunch and the second session of weekly planning, we went out to try to follow up on some of those people we met earlier in the week and the previous day on exchanges. Not many of them answered, and neither did Josh. So we're still trying to get a hold of them again. We met with Brother Wade to read scriptures with him, and then we had dinner on our own. Afterwards I was feeling bad enough that we just called it a night. Saturday: Saturday I was feeling much better, so we actually got to go out and work hard. We tried calling lots of people at the church again, then after lunch we just hit the streets. We tried to get a hold of the Schellman family, who are less-active and have an unbaptized daughter. The previous elders were apparently working with her, and so we stopped by to see if they were available, but they were just getting over some stuff, so they told us to come back later. We also tried stopping by Jenessa, a woman that Elder Jones and Elder Jensen found on exchanges. Unfortunately she wasn't home, so we'll have to try by later. We took dinner, then after dinner we had time to try a few more people. We went to this weirdly placed apartment complex to try to tract it out and talk with a few of the people the other elders met on exchanges. The apartment complex was behind a strip mall, and the only way to get to it was to go behind the stores on a service road that is usually reserved for semi-trucks. By the time we finished, it was time to go home. Sunday: Sunday was a good day. We attended ward council, then they told us that they would only like us to attend on fast Sundays, so looks like we won't be going next week. Oh well! After ward council we met with a family for a bit in the chapel. We wanted to get to get to know more of the ward, so they offered to meet with us right before sacrament meeting. After that and sacrament meeting we got to go to the first of the new block's meeting, Sunday School! We had a great lesson about how learning by faith requires acting on faith, and how we must be willing to act on the knowledge we receive to get more of it. It's like the whole "ask with real intent" from Moroni 10:4-5. If we're not willing to do anything with the information we get, why would we get it? After church we met briefly with Brother Carey, our ward mission leader. Then we went back to our apartment to have lunch and companionship study. Once our studies were done, we went out to try to contact a few more people. Our dinner was with the Bowman family, who are super awesome. Sister Bowman is what the missionaries call the "ward mom". She's always willing to help us out with stuff and her family feeds us all the time. So our dinner with them was great, then after we shared with them a message on how to share the gospel in normal and natural ways. After dinner we were going to make calls at the church, but apparently the other two wards were both having events that night, so we just made calls at the apartment. Monday: Monday was a good day. We got up, did our morning routine, then we went to go to the church to take care of a few things. After lunch and companionship study going over some of the Come Follow Me stuff for this week, we went to go tracting. We went to someone who we met on exchanges then if they didn't answer, we went to tract nearby their house. That took us all the way up until dinner with the Johnson family. They are a wonderful young family, and the first thing I noticed when we came into their house was the beautiful, stunning, shiny baby grand piano. I mentioned it to them before dinner, and then after dinner they let me play a few songs on it. One of their kids is a really big fan of Minecraft, so I got to play a tune from the game that he loved. Then I played some other stuff I had gotten sheet music from years ago and memorized. After dinner we went to see if we could knock a few more doors. That was my week! I hope your week was just as good, and I'll talk to you next week! Love, Elder Brown

Week 61!

Hey everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas with your family and friends. I certainly had a great week this week. Lots of good things happened this week, and I am once again grateful to be out here serving a mission. What exactly did I do this week? Tuesday: Tuesday was Christmas!! I got up in the morning and went over to a member's house in another ward to play games with him and some other elders, then around noon I went to the Bowman's, a family in our ward. They let us use their computers to Skype my family! It was such a great call, and I loved being able to talk with them. This was the 3rd call I've been able to make, and so that means I've got one more Skype call with family before I'm done. After we finished the call, I watched a few movies with the members as well. I got to see The Incredibles 2, and also The Greatest Showman. I thought that movie was going to be alright, but nope. It was awesome. So good. I know I'm way behind on that one, but go watch it again. It was great. Most of the day after the call was just playing games and watching movies with the Bowmans. Wednesday: Wednesday was district council, and our first one with the new district. We got moved out of our old district a few weeks ago, but nothing really changed until this week. We got to go to a church building a little bit closer because of the change. We talked a lot about following up and ways to find people to teach. Oh, but on top of everything, I had a sore throat and runny nose like all day. Didn't do much to me on Wednesday though, so that was nice. We spent our afternoon and evening calling members of the ward council and other members to try to set up some appointments. Thursday: Thursday is when things kinda slammed me. I felt horrible when I woke up, and it really didn't get better until late in the day. So it was making more calls in the morning, and then I had to lay down in the afternoon after lunch. I did not feel good. In the evening I was feeling a little better, so I worked up the strength to go tracting for a bit. We went out and knocked out 2 streets nearby the church, and we found a few neat people. One of them, Dan, was outside with his daughter while she tried to learn how to ride a Ripstick. So we talked with him for a while about the Church, and then left him with a copy of the Book of Mormon. So we made the most we could out of a rough day. Friday: Friday I felt great, so that was a blessing. It really only turned into a single day kind of thing, so that was great. Anyway, we did our weekly planning on Friday, or at least as much of it as we could. We really just set up some times to go see members and other people, and then we tried calling other people for appointments. We also helped out with a blessing that one of the sister missionaries in the district needed, and that was great. I haven't been a part of a blessing in a while, so it felt great to be a part of one again. I honestly love the feeling of giving priesthood blessings, and the feeling of being a voice for the Lord. It's one of my favorite parts of being out here, is that I get to give so many blessings. After we finished planning, we went to go tracting again, and ran into a guy named Dan, who took a copy of the Book of Mormon for him and an extra one for his daughter. We had dinner with the ward mission leader and his wife, then spent our evening making calls. Saturday: We originally had some plans to go on exchanges with the zone leaders on Saturday, but they ended up canceling on us for some reason. So we were on our own for the whole day. Since we had nothing else to do, we hit the streets and went tracting. Going outside and tracting isn't the worst right now, since it's not really getting that cold around here. We've barely had any snow! (As I'm typing this email, it's pouring buckets outside. I'm upset. It should be snow.) We had our lunch, and for our companionship study we listened to conference talks while organizing our supplies closet. After lunch, we got an email from the Elder's Quorum President about some recent move-ins that they wanted us to check in on, so we went and took care of that for him. We only got in contact with one of them, and another one said that no one by that name lived there, so that was fun. We had dinner on our own, then we met with the Larks, the recent converts in the ward, to go over one of the recent convert lessons. Since we weren't sure where the last elders left off, we had to ask where they were. Once we got it squared away which lesson they were on, we were able to have a great lesson with them. Sunday: We had to get up early on Sunday to be ready before we had our 7:30 am ward council meeting. But I was happy for it, because with the start of the new year and the new block schedule, we will be moving it to 9:00 am, which is more reasonable. Church was really good, Sister Lark (the recent convert I mentioned) gave a really good talk about new beginnings in Christ, and how the Gospel of Jesus Christ can give us a new start to our lives. I can attest to that one as well. I'm sure plenty of you who have known me when I was younger/in highschool compared to what I'm like now know that I've changed a lot. I attribute that one wholly to the Gospel of Jesus Christ, which has given me the guidance and direction I have needed to make myself into a better person. Give it a try! You'll be surprised at how much He can help. After church, we spent time making more phone calls and tracting, then we had dinner with a member. Right after dinner we went to go meet with another family, the Carpenters, and it was awesome. They are such a fun family, and it was great having a lesson with them on sharing the gospel. Then we went to the church for a few things, and that finished our night! It was an awesome week, and I hope that you all had a great week as well! Have a Happy New Year, and make sure to start it right! But if you don't, and you get a bad start, don't worry - that's why the sun rises again, to give us a new chance each day. Love,

Elder Brown

Week 59!

Hey everyone! So some stuff happened this week that I'm sure you're all going to be surprised at. But I'm not gonna put it here, just so that you all have to read the rest of my email! Ha! Tuesday: Tuesday was a slow day. We didn't really have much going on in the morning, but by the afternoon we got rolling a bit more. We had a lot of old uncontacted referrals to try by, so we went and stopped by them. The reason we had so many was because the mission secretary went through our area book records and sent back to us anyone with "member" as reason we found them and changed their type to uncontacted referral. So we had a few people to find. Then in the evening we made some invitations for the special Christ-centered sacrament meeting on the 23rd of December. Then the elders in the Wentzville area came over so we could start our exchanges the next day. Wednesday: This is where things get a little crazy. We got a call from President Bateman at about 8:00 in the morning, and he asked how comfortable I was in the area. Didn't matter, because he was moving Elder Gent to a new area. We had 2 hours to get him packed and get him to the mission office 30min away. So we rushed a bit. We got there on time, then waited for my new companion to show up. My new companion is Elder Jones! He's from California, and he's been out for about 18 months now. However, we weren't even going to be able to spend the day getting to know each other, since we had already planned exchanges. I went with Elder Boyter, our district leader, for the day. Our main thing we did was we went to St. Charles, which wasn't even in our zone, to help with a big service project that the zone leaders asked us to help out with. There was a member over there who was filling a 26' semi trailer full of secondhand clothing to go to Africa. So we spent about 3 hours filling it, throwing 5 and 10lb bags of clothes forever. My back hurt a lot the next day, let me tell you. Then he took all the missionaries that helped (about 10 of us) out to eat at a local BBQ place. We got back to our area in time to make a few calls and then to go to a dinner appointment with a member family. After dinner we went to go run a short errand, then went about our normal missionary work for the night. All in all, it was a crazy night and I was glad for it to be over. Thursday: Thursday was a wild ride as well, but it wasn't nearly as bad. We spent the morning getting Elder Jones situated in his new apartment. We went to Walmart to get him some food and stuff to get set up, then came and did a few computer things to organize some more referrals we had received. After that, we had lunch, a study session together, then we went out to a zone meeting with President and Sister Bateman, which was basically our president interviews this transfer. We talked about all the usual stuff, but with a new look on things that I really enjoyed. We had dinner with a member family, then after dinner we were scheduled to go out with a member and contact some people. But, I didn't know what he looked like. And neither did Elder Jones. So we got to the church at the appointed time, but kinda awkwardly walked around the building until the member approached us and asked if we were in his ward. We laughed and apologized and told him what was going on, then we went out to contact those people. Friday: Friday was weekly planning, but it's a bit difficult to do when neither of you know the area or who was being previously taught. We went to the church to do our planning, and mostly it was looking through who had been taught most recently and setting up a ton of appointments with people, or trying to at least. We went out to eat with some other elders, then came back and did the usual device auditing and stuff. After weekly planning, we met with a returning less-active member to read some scriptures with him. Then we had the ward Christmas party, which was hilarious and awesome. We did a 12 days of Christmas song with a bunch of random stuff. The 2nd day was "two missionaries knocking" so we just knocked on our table when it was our turn. We did record it all, but it might be a bit big. I'll probably just send it to my mom and you can check her Facebook or something for it. Saturday: Saturday was a pretty fun day. Elder and Sister Erickson, a senior couple in the mission office, stopped by to drop off some copies of the Book of Mormon, since we had basically none. I also got a package from the amazing Tim! Thank you Timmy! After they left we went out to try to find some people to contact, but didn't have much success before lunch. After we had lunch and companionship study, we went and texted a bunch of people who had sent in names as referrals to our zone leaders. Between texting all of them and setting up appointments, that took us all the way to dinner. We had dinner on our own, then had an appointment with the Payne family. They had some people they wanted to give out a copy of the Book of Mormon to, so we stopped by to deliver them plus a short spiritual message. Sunday: Sunday we woke up and got ready for ward council, but we were a little bit late, because we didn't know what room it was in. So we just walked around the building until we saw someone who might know, asked them, and they directed us to the right room. That was good. Then we had our usual church services. In all of the craziness that has been the last few weeks, I totally forgot that church is gonna be two hours long next year. Weird. But exciting! Anyway, after church we met with our ward mission leader for a bit, then went out to try a few more potentials in the area. Dinner was brought to us by a member with sick kids, then after dinner we kept trying to contact potentials, and we did manage to set up an appointment with a part member family, so that will be fun! That was my week! It's been a crazy one for sure. Maybe someday after my mission I'll look back and try to see which one of my weeks was the craziest. I'm sure this one will be top 3. I hope you all are going to have a wonderful Christmas, and that you're all trying to stay warm! Love you all! Love,Elder Brown

Week 58!

Hey everyone! So I'm sure you're all itching to find out where I was transferred to, so I'll just go ahead and start the email with the news! I've been transferred to the city of Lake St. Louis! It's west of St. Louis itself, set on the similarly named lake. It's a beautiful area and the ward members are super friendly. As for a day-by-day leading up to today, here you go! Wednesday: Wednesday was transfer day! I got up in Champaign, then left the apartment by 7:30 so we could get to transfers on time. We drove down, making one or two stops along the way for food. When we got to St. Louis, we talked to a few people before President Bateman brought out the transfer sheets. I read on the paper that I was going to Lake St. Louis with an Elder Gent! I said my goodbyes to Elder Holmes, then drove off to my new area. Thankfully I'm a lot closer to St. Louis now, so it was only like a 30 minute drive. When we got back, I unpacked my stuff, then we went out to go shopping and get me some food. Then we went and had dinner with the bishop and his family, which was convenient for me since it was my first day. To end the night, we had a zone video chat to welcome all the new people. Thursday: Thursday was my first district Council with the new district! I got to meet my new district leader, Elder Boyter, and his new companion, who is Elder Kay! He followed me from his old area! We had a pretty great meeting, then went out to go eat at a buffet nearby. After district council, we went to go run some errands before making a bunch of calls to set up times to meet with people. We ended the night with dinner from a member who brought us pizza, then we went out to visit people. Friday: Friday was supposed to be our weekly planning, but instead we ended up running around trying to meet with people all morning. We had errands, then appointments, then more stuff. We were busy all the day up until dinner. After dinner we were able to set up a few appointments and plan for some of the people I'm going to start teaching. Over all it was a super busy day! I'm really enjoying this area. Saturday: Saturday was another busy day. So we spent the morning catching up on our weekly planning, then went to go see if we could get Elder Gent's glasses fixed. Unfortunately we weren't able to find a solution today, but we did get some stuff worked out for some new frames for him. Then after lunch and companionship study, we contacted a few people. We took dinner at 4 when a member dropped off some money for us, then went to the adult session of stake conference. Turns out, this week was the stake conference for Lake St. Louis stake, so I got two in a row! The visiting 70, Elder Stacy, gave a really good talk that I loved. Sunday: Sunday was more stake conference! We ended up going to a different building to watch it broadcast to us, even though our building was the stake center. I guess we wouldn't have all fit. So we watched the broadcast with more amazing talks, then after we helped put up some chairs. A member of our ward also came up to Elder Gent came up to him and offered to help him with his glasses issue. He told us to come by on Monday and he'd get it taken care of. So that was nice of him. Dinner that night was with a recent convert couples, the Lark's. They fed us some enchilada bake or something, it was really good. That was about it for our evening, so we called some more people to try to set up appointments. That's how my week was! It's been pretty good. We're coming up on the Christmas season, and I know you all love me a bunch, so if you need my new address, just email me and I can get it to you as quick as I can. Alternatively, you can send it to the mission office at:

1850 Craigshire Rd Suite 205, St. Louis MO, 63146-4013.

Love, Elder Brown

Week 57 Update!

Hey everyone! What a fun week it has been out here in the Missouri St. Louis mission! We worked hard and we have had a great week! I've also got some news for everyone at the end of the email, so read ahead to hear it! Wednesday: Wednesday was, again, District Council. It was a good meeting, and we talked a lot about what our efforts have been over this last transfer, and what we wanted to do to make them better next transfer. After District Council, we got ice cream together as a district. We had dinner with the Kang family again, and that was fun. They are a recently married couple, and they generally make some really good food. Tonight was no exception! Then we met with a less-active in our ward, and she had gotten new kittens. They were so cute. And the final stop of the day was to meet with Jessica and her mom from Texas. We taught Jessica about the Restoration and invited her to baptized! She accepted a baptismal date for January 19th, which is going to be awesome. Thursday: Thursday was exchanges with the Tuscola elders, and I got to go with Elder Sawyer, the district leader. We spent the morning out in a local park looking for people to talk to, then we went into a neighborhood. There were a few people who didn't speak English, and luckily enough, Elder Sawyer was originally called to serve in a Spanish area! So he got to have a few conversations in Spanish with them. Then we went out to lunch with Gregg at a marketplace store that also had good food. Had dinner with some members, then visited some less-actives in the evening. Overall it was a great day, and I was super happy to be able to work with him for the day. Friday: Got up with Elder Sawyer, then Elder Jones came back to me about 9am. We did our daily planning then we went out to do our weekly planning. We did the first half, then went to lunch with the Mahomet elders for a break. Came back, finished planning, then had a lesson with Jessica again, this time on the Plan of Salvation. Elder Holmes pulled out these really need laser-engraved wood pieces that helped explain the plan super well, and she really enjoyed the lesson. We also had dinner with the Diaz family, who are amazing. During dinner, we noticed a bottle of hot sauce on the table that neither Elder Holmes or I recognized. So, naturally, Elder Holmes puts a drop or two on a chip and eats it. He said he was fine, but then he started coughing a bit, so I didn't try it. Then their son wanted to try it, so he did a drop more than Elder Holmes did. Before I knew it, the two of them were trying to one-up each other by eating more hot sauce! It was hilarious! It was like watching two people taze themselves over and over. Great dinner. Saturday: Saturday we went to the church early in the morning to help set up chairs and such for stake conference that night and tomorrow. Once that was done, we went on the hunt for some service projects. You see, Saturday was the Worldwide Day of Service for the #LightTheWorld campaign, and so we went out to see what we could do. We tried signing up for one, but it got canceled, so we asked around. We did odd jobs all day then in the evening we set up for a dinner our stake president was hosting for people the missionaries were teaching. We left and got dinner on our own because we didn't have anyone coming, then we attended the adult session of Stake conference. It was awesome, and the visiting member of the Quorum of the Seventy, Elder Hathaway, was really good. His addresses we really focused on how to share the gospel in normal & natural ways. Sunday: Sunday we had the general session of stake conference, with more addresses from Elder Hathaway and others. They were all really good, and I took plenty of notes. Then afterwards, the Mahomet elders came over to bake cookies at our place for some of the people they were teaching. We left before they were done, and went to go have dinner with the Broadbent family again. They are such an awesome couple, and it was a great dinner. They fed us some pineapple upside down cake afterwards, which was delicious. Later in the evening we watched the First Presidency's Christmas Devotional, and if any of you haven't watched it yet, I'd encourage everyone to. It's was a wonderful devotional and I learned a lot from it. Monday: Monday was another exchange, this time with the zone leaders. I went with Elder Rosier for the day, a new zone leader here. Our first stop was a meeting with the zone over a video call, then we went out to go finding on the University of Illinois campus. We had lunch at my apartment with Elder Holmes and Elder Bertoch, then had comp study at the Institute with Aurelia, a member of the YSA. She's going on a mission to Germany soon, and we were also going to teach one of her friends later that day, so we did a bit of our study with her. Then we finished our study on our own, placed a few calls that the zone leader's had to make, then hit the streets of campus again for more finding. We came back in, had a lesson with another YSA member, then had dinner. Right after dinner was the lesson with Aurelia's friend, then we stuck around for the branch's FHE activities. During that time, we got calls from the assistants to President Bateman about transfers. We wrote it down then went back to my apartment to end the exchange. And if you haven't already guessed it already, my big news is that I'm going to be transferred! After 4 1/2 months and three transfers in the Champaign 2nd Ward area, I am going to go somewhere else. It's been a blast, and I really love the people here, but it's time for me to move on. I'll let you all know next week when I write my email where I'm going! Until then, I hope you all have a fantastic Christmas season, and don't forget to check out the #LightTheWorld website for some awesome videos and ideas on how to make our world a better place. Love, Elder Brown

Week 56!

Hey everyone! So this week I won't be able to send very many emails out, because I'm going to the temple today! Yup! Every six months of our mission we get to go to the temple in St Louis, and since I passed my year mark earlier this month, I'm going to be spending my P-day driving there and back. So, I'll be sending out this email and a few others to some of you in the morning, then if anyone replies, I'll get back to you later in the evening. Anyway, on to the week! Tuesday: Tuesday was our usual service at the soup kitchen with the zone leaders. They were on exchanges though, so I got to work with Elder Sawyer, our district leader, in the back of the kitchen, while Elder Holmes and Elder Rosier were serving drinks. Afterwards, we went back to our apartment to have companionship study, which was watching all of the upcoming #LightTheWorld videos for this year's campaign. They're all really good, and you all should go watch them. The rest of our day was spent visiting with some less-active members and other people. Wednesday: Wednesday, we had a really good district meeting about inviting people to be baptized and how it pertains to our purpose. Then afterwards we went to go get lunch together. While we were in the church getting supplies ordered, we got a call from a member who needed their lawn raked, so we took care of that for them. We then had dinner and got to visit with Sister Weber afterwards to see how she is doing. Thursday: Thursday was Thanksgiving! And it was great! We got to go to a Turkey Bowl in the morning and play football with a bunch of members and missionaries in the area. It was super fun. Then we had a big lunch with the Relief Society president's family which was awesome. They had a ton of good food, including some stuff that I haven't usually had at Thanksgiving, but it was awesome. Then we went to another family's place for another dinner plus games with a family. Overall, it was an awesome day. Friday: We got up, did our stuff and went and did our weekly planning! We had to make some plans to help our people that we are working with. We spent pretty much all of the morning and day planning for these people. Then we went to send our email to our ward council, and then when we got home I found a package from home! Thanks Mom! The rest of the day was pretty great, and I spent all night making some drink that I got in the package. So good. Saturday: We spent the morning at the church, working on some spreadsheets to track the progress and various other work of our district. We really appreciate having a graph and something to look at to track it, so they asked me to work on it. Then after lunch, we got a call from our ward mission leader who needed help to clear away some leaves from his lawn. That took up pretty much the rest of the day, so by the time we got dinner and got home, the day was over. Sunday: We got a text late last night from a member in the area visiting her daughter who wanted us to stop by. The daughter wasn't a member, and the mom wanted her to go to church with us, so we visited and talked with her about church. The daughter, Jessica, said she wanted to be baptized, so we're going to work with her to go through the lessons and prepare her to be baptized! Church was good, they came and had a great time. After church we were going to go visit with some people but they ended up canceling. So we ended up doing some splits with the zone leaders to end the night. That was my week! I hope you all had a wonderful Thanksgiving and I hope that this week is even better! Love, Elder Brown

Week 55 Update!

What a week! The weather over here in Illinois has taken a turn towards winter, and it has snowed a bit as well! The wind is cold, there is frost on some windows, and I couldn't be happier! Winter is my favorite season, so I can't wait to fall to be over. Bring on the snow! Tuesday: Started off the day on Tuesday right by going to help out at the soup kitchen again! The assistants were doing an exchange with our zone leaders that day, so Elder McKeon got to come with. A lot of the people from the soup kitchen remembered him from his time in the Champaign area, so that was neat. We took lunch with the other elders, then went to go help the Broadbent family with some stuff with their home. They had some double-hung windows that weren't shutting quite tight enough, so we had to go outside and help them shut the windows. We had dinner on our own, then we met with Jay and Zoe again. We tried teaching a lesson, but we really didn't plan for much and we ended up getting distracted anyway. But we told them that next time we go over, we'll have a solid lesson for them. Wednesday: Wednesday was President Interviews! We got to the church at 9am to start our district Council, then President Bateman started pulling people out to interview them. In my interview, he talked a lot about why we have our key indicators. Key Indicators are basically numbers we report based on how many new people we're teaching, how many people came to church, and who is on date for baptism, plus a monthly goal for baptism. He shared with me that the key indicators are meant to give us a purpose and somewhere to focus on, and that ultimately that will bring us joy. It was something I had never thought about, and so I was surprised by that. Sure changed my opinion though! He also invited us to make better daily plans, because that's where we become happy. After interviews, our mission's housing coordinator came over to check out our apartment. He installed a new fire alarm and we talked about the future of the apartment. Apparently our mission president's wife, Sister Bateman, doesn't like our apartment because she feels it's too big for missionaries. So once the lease is up in April, the Elders in this apartment will move. Probably won't be me, but who knows? We had dinner with some members, then after we visited again with Sister Weber. Thursday: I started off the day with some great studies. I was able to get a bunch of stuff figured out for some people we were teaching, then we went out to do Weekly planning! Why plan on a Thursday? Well, it snowed that night! About 3"-4" over night had come down, and so our mission president asked us to try to drive as little as possible until the roads were better. We did about half of our weekly planning, then we couldn't focus anymore so we decided to do the rest on Friday. We went to the Broadbent's and shoveled their driveway for them, but about halfway through they came out and caught us. They let us finish and then when they were done they invited us inside for hot chocolate and some snacks. We chatted for a bit, then we left and went to go see if anyone else needed their walkway shoveled. Dinner was with the Burton family, and then we visited with Sister McClain. She's had a rough week, but shes determined to go further this week! Friday: You ever have those days where you wake up and feel like you didn't sleep at all? Yeah that was Friday. I got up, felt horrible, so I ended up sleeping in a bit (I know, I'm sorry) and then got up to get ready. We did the second half of our weekly planning in the morning, and we were able to actually get some stuff done. Once that was done, we came back to the apartment to eat and study together. We tried street contacting and tracting out some people before dinner, but didn't really find anyone. It was rather cold out. We took dinner on our own, then went back to the streets to keep on trying! We also spent some time inside at the end of the night trying to set up more appointments for later in the week. Saturday: Got up today and then went to help Sister Shepherd out. She had just come back from a two week trip and was about to leave again, so she needed some help shuffling some stuff around in her car. Once that was done we came back in and did the rest of our morning stuff. We had some time in the morning to go check out a local park as a potential place for a Turkey bowl that the other elders in Mahomet wanted to start between our wards. Before we knew it, our elders Quorum president was in contact with all the bishops in the stake! Now it's a stake Turkey Bowl. Oops. Anyway, we decided the park was good, and so we planned for 9am on Thanksgiving. After lunch we tried calling and texting a few people to set up appointments, but after that didn't seem to work, we just drove around to find people by stopping at their houses. The last stop was to our ward mission leader's house to burn a shirt for my year mark! You see, it's a tradition among missionaries that at your six month mark, you burn a tie. At 1 year, you burn a white shirt. And at 18 months, you burn a pair of pants. Since I didn't burn the tie at 6 months I burned both at Brother Bales' place. I'll see if the video can attach, but if it's too long I might just put it on Facebook. Sunday: During Sunday morning's ward council, they were discussing getting less actives to various homes for Thanksgiving meals if they couldn't provide their own. After a bit of chatting about that, one of the members of the bishopric turned to us and said, "Elders, do you have a place for Thanksgiving?" We sheepishly responded that our Thanksgiving had yet to have someone sign up. They all started freaking out and the bishop promised us he would find someone to take us in. We felt a little embarrassed by it all, but it was good because we weren't about to invite ourselves somewhere. Anyway, the classes in church were good, and we even got to see Abraham come! He was only able to stay for a little bit, then he had to leave. But it was good to see him anyway! We had dinner on our own after church, then we went to see Sister Weber again. She said she'd like to have us over for a Book of Mormon study each week, so we told her we'd be more than willing to do that. That's been my week! It's cold, it's gray, and it's the most wonderful time of the year! I hope you all have a wonderful Thanksgiving week and that you all stay safe! Love you all! Love, Elder Brown

Week 54 Update!

Hey everyone! Man this week felt slow, but it's over now. We had a couple of really great appointments this week that left us feeling super awesome. I also had an exchange this week! Details below! Tuesday: Tuesday was our exchange with the Tuscola elders. I dropped off Elder Holmes to be with Elder Sawyer, our new district leader, then I got Elder Kay again! I think this was about our 3rd or 4th exchange together, so it was nothing new. We went to the soup kitchen in the morning and helped them out with their stuff, then had a lunch and companionship study session. After our study, we went out to try to find some people to teach before dinner! We were able to run into a few people that we shared our testimonies with, and a few of them agreed to have us come over again to visit with them! Before dinner, the family feeding us wanted some help raking up their yard, so we spent about 30 minutes and got nearly all of it done! Then we had their homemade pizza which was awesome. After dinner, we spent our evening visiting with more people and talking to some people we met on the streets. Wednesday: Wednesday we had district council again. It was pretty good, and it was good to be able to reunite with Elder Holmes. After council, we went to go have a lunch with Gregg! He took us out to eat at a really good pizza place near our apartment. The food was super good, and we had a good chat with him. After our lunch we were going to visit with Dylan, but he ended up canceling. So we hit the streets looking for more people to teach! Unfortunately, no one was out and about towards the evening, and one of the people we met the day before didn't show up to an appointment, which is always rough. Thursday: Thursday was a pretty good day. Started slow, then picked up as we went along. We had to help the zone leaders run some errands in the morning because their van was in the shop, then we had a zone meeting over video conference. It was pretty neat to be able to have everyone involved and chatting about their plans for the upcoming week. After the meeting, we dropped off the zone leaders to get their car back, then took lunch. After lunch we had another lesson with Dylan, and since they just moved into a new home, we got to dedicate his home for him! It was a pretty great experience to have. Dinner was on our own, then we had a few canceled appointments that made us think we would be tracting all night again. But Abraham came through! We started talking with Abraham a while ago, but it wasn't until that night that we were able to have a good lesson with him, and man was it a good one! We chatted for about 10 minutes, then we began to teach about the Restoration. Once we finished, we invited him to be baptized, and he said that he's been through this process a lot, where missionaries will come over and set a date and it won't go through. He started crying and said this time needed to be different. We set a date with him and talked about what he needs to do. He committed to doing it and we are super excited to keep working with him. Friday: Friday was super fun! There was an extended Missionary Leadership Council where they invited the district leaders. Since I'm not a district leader and neither is Elder Holmes, we didn't really have to do anything. But Elder Morrell's companion had to go, so we got to have him for the day! I missed being around him, so it was a great day. We got to have him help us with our weekly planning and to have him with us as we went around contacting. We weren't able to have as much success with finding as we had hoped, but we tried! We also got to end the day by going to a piano concert put on by a member of our ward. He's a classically trained pianist with a doctorate in piano performance, so yeah. It was pretty great. The other elders came to get him at the end of the night. Saturday: Saturday was another slow day (I mentioned it was a slow week right?). We got up and helped a family moving out a home that was set to be demolished in a week, and afterwards they fed us donuts and milk. The pay is always pretty good on these moves 😉. Then after we had lunch at our apartment, we went to the church to type up an email for the ward council and also an agenda for a missionary meeting later in the week. We went finding for the rest of the day, so nothing too exciting after that. Sunday: Sunday was good. We had a few productive meetings in the morning, then we went home and studied and such before church actually started. Our bishop had his newborn baby blessed, and I think all of his family came, and I mean all of them. Our attendance that day just about doubled. The classes we had were good, then after church we had some time to talk and review church while we had dinner on our own. After dinner we went to go out and find, but believe it or not, not too many people are out and about when it's 22 degrees outside at 7pm. Huh. But it was a good day anyway! That was my week! I hope all of you had an even better week than I did, and I hope that this week is even better for you all! Love you! Love, Elder Brown

Week 53 Update!

Hey everyone!

So many of you may have already seen the Facebook post I made, but as of November 1st, I have officially been out for one whole year! How crazy is that? On one hand it feels like I just came out, but at the same time, I feel like I've been doing this forever. Looking back at all of the wild experiences I've had so far, I'm excited for what this new year will bring! Now for this week's play-by-play! Tuesday: On Tuesday we had our zone conference! I was grateful that it was at our building because it saved us a lot of miles! It was an awesome one, full of great ideas and thoughts to keep us pushing forward. I even got to have a chance to play a musical number again, which was neat, but also kind of difficult. For those of you who know what it's like to play an instrument, imagine playing one while your hands are shaking like crazy from nerves. That's essentially what it was like. Once zone conference was done, we spent our evening going around contacting some people who were formerly taught. Wednesday: Wednesday we didn't have district council, since we had zone conference the day before. We spent our morning walking around various parks trying to see if there was anyone we could talk to. Around lunchtime, we got a call from a sister in our ward, Sister Shepherd, who needed help packing for a trip since she isn't allowed to life more than 5lbs. That took up the early afternoon, then we had a great lesson with Dylan. I'm not sure if I mentioned Dylan yet, so I will now - Dylan and his wife Paige recently moved up here from somewhere down south. Paige is a member, he is not, but he really wants to be! We're going to be meeting with them every Wednesday for a while until we can get him to meet with our mission president. We also had a lesson with Gregg on Wednesday which went well. He gave us some peach cobbler which was pretty good but would've been better with ice cream. We had dinner with a member and then since it was Halloween and we couldn't be out, we spent the night playing pool at the Institute building with the zone leaders. Thursday: My year mark! When I came out of the shower that morning my phone was going off for a reminder on my phone. It was an all-day event I had set called "Halfway!". I got really excited, then noticed that Elder Holmes was moving kinda slow. Turns out he was sick, and so we had a slow morning. We went to the church to make that Facebook post you all saw, then went out to lunch with the Mahomet elders, Elder Bowman and Elder Dougherty. When we came back we spent the majority of our time calling people to see if there was a time we could set up appointments with them. Not too many people answered though. During our dinner appointment (who fed us some great Mexican food) she told us to put on a movie for us to watch so we watched the Prophet of the Restoration movie. Pretty good film, and I always enjoyed their rendition of Joseph Smith as someone who was a hard worker but also had fun with the kids and enjoyed family time. A great example to look up to, not unlike my Dad 😉 Friday: Friday was a slower day. We spent the morning planning for our week, which also involved calling and texting a lot of the people we usually teach. We also made plans for the upcoming missionary coordination meeting. We haven't had those in the past, so now that we're starting them up again, there's a lot of stuff we have to cover as far as what we need, what the ward expects of us/needs from us, etc.. Once we were done planning, we went to go get some ice cream with the zone leaders and then go finding for a bit. During the evening, we got to meet with Sister McClain again for her Addiction recovery program stuff. Saturday: Saturday started off with a horrible decision: to work out with the zone leaders. You see, my workouts aren't as hard as they probably should be, so I'm kind of weak. And the zone leaders are both really strong. One of them did powerlifting in highschool, and the other was the starting quarterback for his team. So the mistake was really letting them choose the weight. When I finished the workout (I did finish, no skipping), I felt like I was gonna pass out. Even today (Monday) I still feel sore from that one. We went to the soup kitchen at about 10 to make up for us missing Tuesday. There were a lot of different people there, so it was a different experience to be helping out there. Then we had pretty much the whole day to try and contact people and go finding new people to teach. We did stop by a former, Abraham, and invited him to resume the lessons. He said he would be interested and so we're going back this Wednesday! Sunday: Sunday was pretty great! Got an extra hour of sleep in the night, then we didn't have early morning ward council. Our first thing was to go to a video meeting with the zone and have a zone prayer. Then right after that, we had a regional conference for the whole North America Central area! We got to hear from other General Authorities of the Church, including Elder Holland of the Quorum of the Twelve. It was super awesome. Then we had lunch with a member right after, and had a pretty funny experience. You see, the members we ate with own a few birds, two parakeets and a larger parrot. I had been over there before, but Elder Holmes hadn't. So during dinner, we heard a flapping noise from upstairs, then the large parrot, Balo, flew about an inch over our heads and flew into the kitchen. Elder Holmes was so freaked out by it, he was ready to swat the poor bird out of the air. The rest of us just about died laughing when we saw how scared he was. In my defense, I did warn him that they have a bird. In the evening, we visited with Sister Weber who we hadn't seen in a while. She is still pretty sick, and she's got her grandson's wedding to plan for as well. Her grandson is getting married on Sunday, so she's been pretty stressed about it all. We visited with her and talked about church with her. That was about all for this week! I'm excited to see what the next year will bring. I'm sure I'll have plenty of stories to tell you all by the time I get there. Talk to you all next week! Love,

Elder Brown

Week 52!

Hey everyone!

It's been a blast this week out here in Illinois. The temperatures have dropped, the leaves are changing colors, and my year mark is coming soon! I did however forget my journal, so you'll all have to deal with my memory trying to remember this week. So me and Elder Holmes spent a lot of time this week getting appointments made and then canceled on us. Not to worry though, because we were able to find lots of new people! We've started teaching a guy named Dylan. His wife has been member since 2013, and he's been really excited to be baptized lately. We've got to work through some stuff with him first, so it'll be a while or so before we get him a baptismal date. We also had a meeting with our ward mission leader and the counselors in the Elder's Quorum and Relief Society over missionary work. We're getting a great movement in the ward going for some awesome missionary work coming soon. Hopefully all the seeds we planted a while ago will begin to sprout and we'll have a lot of teaching going on. One thing I've been able to notice in myself is how much I love teaching people. I enjoy teaching people new things and getting the opportunity to share with people new things. Watching people's eyes light up when they learn something new is incredible, and it's even more amazing to watch their lives light up as they embrace this gospel. This Church is true, and every day I find more and more evidence to support it. I'm grateful to be a missionary out here, and I can't wait to see the rest of the changes I will be able to be a part of out here. Love you all! Hope you all have an amazing Halloween and that you all are able to enjoy it with friends or family or whoever you spend it with. Have a great week! Love,

Elder Brown

Week 50 Update!

Hey everyone!

I cannot believe it's been 50 weeks out here on a mission. I feel like it was just yesterday that I was saying goodbye to my family at the airport to fly down to SLC. But now I'm coming up on my year mark, and things have just flown by, especially this week. This week has been super crazy, and exciting all in one! Tuesday: Tuesday was the first day in a while I was at the soup kitchen! This time our zone leaders joined us doing service for them. We had lunch after that, and then we had plans to go tracting around and find some people. Unfortunately, we were interrupted by a million little things all at once, so we had to cancel that. We spent the evening with a less-active family that's super cool. They live on the edge of town on a huge lot which has two trailers, a house, and three garages. There's about 10 or 15 people that all live there at the moment, and right now none of them are coming to church. But it sounds like they might be willing to come here soon! Wednesday: On Wednesday, we had exchanges with Tuscola, since District council was moved to Thursday. The plan was for me to go down into Tuscola with Elder Kay, but we had some things we had to take care of here in Champaign first, then we went down to Tuscola around noon to meet with one of the people they're teaching at Burger King. We did some studying together, then we went out and tried to visit some of the people around his area. None of them were home, so we had dinner on our own, and went back to visit some less-active members in Champaign in the evening. Thursday: Thursday was great! We had President Interviews that day, and there was a new schedule for this one. We didn't get to the church until 12, then we had a zone lunch together! We all ate for a bit, then had a zone study on some really interesting topics. One of them was the idea of what it means to be a man (or woman). President Bateman pointed out that in 1 Nephi chapter 2, Nephi refers to himself as "young, nevertheless being large in stature..." then later in chapter 4 he says that he is "a man, large in stature". What happened in between that made him a man? Search it out yourself! After district council, we met with someone who we're helping to quit smoking. She said that she had a rough week and did smoke a cigarette that day. We asked her where she was getting them, and she told us across the street. We believed her, but then after a little bit in the lesson Elder Tuckett told her that because we love her, we need her to get her cigarettes out of her house and bring them to us. She looked down, then went into her house to get a pack that she had hidden! It was a crazy lesson. Friday: Friday was good. We had a good weekly planning session, then we had a bunch of time in the afternoon to contact people. We got to have a few contacts with people, then we had dinner on our own. After dinner, we went to have an appointment with Brandon. Not too busy of a day, but it was good. Saturday: Saturday, we spent the morning with a neighbor going down to Arcola, which has a large Amish population. We went shopping with him and got to meet some neat people. Later in the day we went out contacting for some people we'd been trying to get a hold of. We had a dinner appointment with the Allen's in our ward and they also invited a recent convert and his dad to eat with us. It was a good dinner, and we got to have a good talk with the dad. Sunday: Sunday was good! Ward council was spent talking about the upcoming 2 hour block changes and the details with that. Church was good too, lots of great testimonies. After church, we were going to have an appointment with someone to begin teaching them, but they had to cancel because of a family emergency. Then we had a dinner with a family in the ward that was awesome. Had a few appointments in the evening that went really well! Monday: Monday, I went on another exchange with the Mahomet elders. Elder Tuckett wanted to do another exchange with everyone in the district this week, so Monday was with them. I spent the day with Elder Bowman, and it was great. In the morning, we had to get the oil in their car changed, so that took a bit. Then after we got that taken care of, we did some contacting. In the afternoon we went tracting, and found some really cool people! One of them, his name is Jeffrey. He's going through a lot, and has a debilitating illness that causes him constant pain. While we talked, we felt like we should tell him about priesthood blessings and offer him one. After the blessing finished, he said he felt "blessed" and said he felt really good! It was a great experience. Our dinner appointment doubled as a haircut for me, then we visited with the Blackwelder family in our ward. That was my week! Hope everyone had a good one too. I've got some exciting stuff to talk about next week - Elder Neil L Anderson of the Quorum of the Twelve will be coming to our mission on Saturday, then on Thursday I find out if I'm getting transferred! Should be an exciting week! I hope you all have a great week, and stay awesome! Love, Elder Brown

Week 49!

Hey everyone! What a week it's been! There were so many amazing things that happened this week, not the least of which is General Conference! So many great announcements. Tuesday: We had exchanges with the zone leaders on Tuesday. Me and Elder Johnson walked around the college campus for a few hours, because they really didn't have many appointments for the day. I got to spend a lot of time talking with him, and wearing a lot of great things about how to improve myself in the work. We ended the night at The Zone leaders apartment, just talking and laughing with each other. A former missionary in this Mission sent us a pizza at like 10 at night so that was pretty fun. Wednesday: Wednesday we had an incredible District Council. If I thought last week's was pretty good, this week's was awesome. After our amazing District Council, we had plenty of time to go out to try to find new people to teach, and to set appointments with members in the area. We met met with a less-active lady in our Ward, sister Cosgrove, and had dinner with her and her friend. We did have one more lesson that night, but they had to reschedule because of various meetings they had. Thursday: Thursday was a pretty slow start, but when we got up and go and it was pretty good. Our morning was just working on the move out records list that are ward council asked us to do. We did get sidetracked however buy a downstairs neighbor who offered to take us to a nearby Amish community next week. All of our afternoon appointments for the day cancelled throughout the day. All of them did the exact same thing, it would get about 15 minutes till the appointment, we would be ready to go, and then they would call or text and say that they had to reschedule. That left us with a lot of time for finding for the day. Friday: Friday was a pretty interesting day. We had exchanged is planned with the Mahomet elders, but we also had weekly planning to do. So we had to finish our weekly planning session and then get to the exchanges with Muhammad. I got to go with elder Tucker for the day, and that was amazing. Me and Elder Tucker got to go visit a lot of people and talk to people out on the streets. We had dinner with some of their members, then visited with another family in their Ward that we followed up with an invitation the Elder Tucker had given them previous. Saturday: Saturday was a ride! General Conference was amazing, and I loved all of the messages that they shared. I have to admit I did hear the rumor of the 2-hour Church block beforehand, but I wasn't a hundred percent sure on whether or not that was going to go through. I think personally I was skeptical about it because I felt like a two-hour Church block would be making things easier for us, but the general authorities of this church made it pretty clear that that is not what is going to happen. I love the new curriculum that they have introduced, and the fact that all of this is very home centered Church supported. In between sessions, we played pool at The Institute Building with the other Elders who were there to watch conference with us. The rest of the day was just inviting people to tomorrow's sessions of conference. Sunday: more amazing general conference talks on Sunday. We watched Sunday's sessions at our church building since we were expecting some people that we were teaching to be coming. They didn't get to make it for the morning session, but they did get to watch a little bit of the afternoon session. I was blown away by the 12 temples announcement, although I will have to say I was rather hoping that they would announce where the Russian Temple would be. After General Conference, we had dinner on our own and then visited with a member again. There was also a big scary commotion with our neighbors downstairs of us in our apartment complex, we ended up calling the police because we were worried about domestic violence, and then we decided to spend the night at another elder's apartment 20 minutes away because... Yeah. So that was my week! I hope you all, once again, have had an amazing week. Feel free to talk with me through email! I'll do my best to get back to as many as I can. I love you all! Love,

Elder Brown

Week 48!

Hey everyone!

Hope you all have had a great week! It's been fun out here. We had two exchanges with other missionaries, and got to meet a lot of new people. Tuesday: So last Tuesday we had exchanges with the Mahomet elders, and I got to go with Elder Bowman. I got to Mahomet at about 9:30 and we planned for a pretty busy day! We drove over to a town called Monticello to work for most of the day. We had lunch, then after lunch we did service for a thrift store which was fun. Not the first time I've worked at one, and I love doing that. After service at the thrift store, we went to work in another small town, then we had dinner with a great family in his ward. After we finished there, we drove back to Champaign to play volleyball to end the night. Wednesday: Wednesday was awesome. We had an incredible district Council, where a few people actually started to cry. It was so spiritual, and we didn't even start that way. Things just lined up and suddenly the Spirit was there and we all could feel it. After that, we had lots of appointments, and we only went to about half. The other half ended up canceling. We visited with Brother Harper again, the less-active member who has a lot of cool stuff. Then we had dinner with Sister Cosgrove, the less-active we ran into out of nowhere. She fed us some really good steak, plus some potatoes that reminded me of home. You wouldn't think it, but it's hard to find good potatoes out here. Thursday: Thursday was exchanges with the Tuscola elders. I went with Elder Thomas. Our first stop was to their library to visit a less-active who is always there and read scriptures with him. Walking there and back took us until lunch, so after that we had some visits to make to a lot of the people they are teaching. Our dinner appointment was fun, it was with a family of farmers on the edge of town. We had really good soup there, and got to help them out a bit around their farm too! Friday: We had a slow start on Friday. Our weekly planning this week was a little slow, but went well I think. Once that was done, we visited with Gregg, who we met about two weeks ago. He's an interesting guy, but has a lot of heart and love for people around him. We also met with our ward mission leader and helped him take a tree stump from his lawn. That took a good amount of effort, but was worth it. Our final stop was to meet with brother Lopez, who is doing a lot of work on his house. Saturday: We had a very busy Saturday! We had 2 appointments before noon, and one of them we were able to find someone new to teach! Then just after lunch, we found another new person to teach! The first one was Tanyia, the second is Diane. We visited Brother Harper again, then met a lady named Oyatta. She's very fun, she's studied the Bible a lot and loves the idea of the Book of Mormon. She is going to take the lessons from us and she said that if she found out it was true, she would be baptized! We are excited to continue to teach her. Our dinner was with the Payne family, and then our final stop was basketball with some investigators and other elders. Sunday: Sunday was good! We had ward council at 8, then came back, had breakfast and studies, then had another appointment with Brother Lopez at 11. Unfortunately he wasn't able to come to church because of his house repairs, but he was still willing to talk with us. Church was good, we had a few good talks, and one by a member of the Stake Presidency. He had a great talk. He started by saying "You know, Mother Theresa is a great woman. She's one of my idols. She did so much for other people and helped a lot. But you know what? She doesn't deserve to go to heaven. None of you deserve to go to heaven." I was shocked for a bit, not gonna lie. Then he talked about grace and how it saves us all. Seriously good talk! We had dinner with a member, then visited with another member and their family afterward. We had a lesson with Jay too, and we're going to start teaching him and his fiancee. Should be fun! That was my week! I hope you all had an equally exciting week, and I'll talk to you next week! Oh and don't forget to watch General Conference! Should be good! Love,

Elder Brown

Week 47 Update!

Hey everyone!

Tuesday: We had Zone Conference on Tuesday! We traveled for about 2 hours to get to the Springfield building, then when we got there I got to spend some time talking with people I'd served around, like Elder Morrell and Elder Rogers. The messages at zone conference we awesome, and gave me a lot of motivation to do better. After zone conference, we went and had dinner with the zone leaders and other elders, then by the time we got home it was pretty late, so we didn't do much else.

Wednesday: Wednesday I started my personal studies on a new topic: being valiant. I'm looking into various scriptures, stories, and talks by apostles to get some idea of how to be valiant and how to apply that into my life now. Later in the day, we met a less-active member who was a member of Special Forces in Vietnam, and is a national pool champion. Oh, and he also has a black belt. Yeah. On Wednesday we also watched a car crash, but thankfully it was pretty minor. I don't think anyone was seriously injured. I was grateful that we were close enough to watch it and help out as quick as we could. Thursday: On Thursday we had exchanges with our zone leaders! I went with Elder Bertoch, the new zone leader to the area. He's a pretty great guy, and I got to learn a lot from him throughout the day. Even though most of our appointments throughout the day canceled, we still were able to get some good work in, and we had a great companionship study together. We had dinner with a member, then visited Jay, someone who used to be taught. He and his fiancee agreed to have us come over more often now, and I'm excited to meet with them more! Friday: Friday was good! We had a weekly planning session where I felt like we planned a lot and made a good effort to change our focus of how we'd been working in this area. We're going to make more of an effort to work with the members in the area, to see if that has a better effect in this area. We also had dinner with our ward mission leader, who wanted to do a quick check in with us and see how we were doing. Our evening was spent setting up appointments with the members. Saturday: Saturday was crazy busy! We had an appointment with a couple in the morning, but as soon as we got there, they started arguing over some marital problems they were having... Awkward. So we left pretty quickly after that. 😓 We took lunch then, and after lunch we had a few appointments with people we had taught before. Unfortunately, those all fell through, leaving us with plenty of time to find people. We did run into a less-active woman near the Special Forces guy, Sister Cosgrove. She was super sweet and we got to set up a time to meet with her this upcoming week and have dinner with her! Sunday: Sunday was super good. We had good talks at church about personal revelation, something I always enjoy hearing about. We also got to teach the youth 3rd hour, which was interesting. Usually you're worried about them being too loud and rambunctious. Not these kids, it was the exact opposite. They did not want to participate. Super weird. Later on in the day, we had dinner with a member who gave us some super good advice for our missions. That was my week! It was pretty good. This upcoming week, I'm going to have the opportunity to have two exchanges with missionaries this week! I can't wait. Hope you all have a great week! Love,

Elder Brown

Week 46 Update!

Hey everyone!

This week has been hectic. Elder Rogers has left me to go on to other areas of the mission, and I have been given a new companion, Elder Tuckett! He's a great guy who loves sports and loves the gospel more. We've had good times already. Want to hear more about them? Read on! Wednesday: So Wednesday morning, I said goodbye to Elder Rogers and one of my zone leaders, Elder Sharp. They left at about 8:00. After that, Elder Johnson, the other zone leader, and I went to Denny's for breakfast. We spent the morning at a few appointments, then we did some finding in the afternoon until the new elders showed up. Elder Tuckett is my new companion, as you all heard. He showed up with a ton of stuff he had packed, but unfortunately we weren't able to unpack it until late that night. We stayed busy the rest of the day with a dinner appointment, a lesson with the Arabic family, and taking him out shopping. Unfortunately, the Arabic family asked us to stop coming by, which is sad. But I'm sure they will have more opportunities in the future to learn of the gospel! Thursday: Thursday was our first district council with the new district! Elder Tuckett is the new district leader, and our new zone leader is Elder Bertoch. They both brought quite the new spirit into the district, which is fun! After district meeting, we had some time to go out finding, then we had an appointment with Paula, but it fell through. We spent the evening with some members who we extended an invitation to last week that we followed up with, and that went well. We finished the night off with volleyball. Friday: Friday was good. We spent the morning doing some planning for the week, which was alright. We had a few disagreements on how we should plan for certain things, but we worked them out and set some goals and made some plans for success! After weekly planning, we went finding again, and we were going to have an appointment with Alandria, but she was sick and had to cancel. We set a tentative reschedule for the next day. Saturday: Saturday was great! Elder Tuckett expressed a desire to meet more members and work with them more, so we sent out a mass text to a ton of members to set up appointments with them. Most of them got back to us and we were able to set lots of appointments with them! After that, we had an appointment with a referral named Jemere! He saw something different in his friend who is a member of our church, and became interested in meeting with us! We had a great lesson with him, and we're excited to see him progress. After lunch, most of our appointments canceled, including Alandria, so we spent a lot of time finding and talking. We had dinner with a recently married couple in the ward who were super friendly. Sunday: Sunday was good! We got to ward council only to learn that it had been canceled, then we came back to the apartment and spent the morning studying and planning before church. Church itself was amazing, we had great talks and lessons, and I had a great time showing Elder Tuckett around the ward. He's used to being in branches, so him being in a large ward is totally different for him. He's not used to it, but we're working on it. We spent the evening with another member for dinner, and had an appointment with another member after that who is moving to Taiwan next week! We offered our help, but they seem to have it all figured out, so we just wished them luck on their journey! That was my week! It's been fun getting to know Elder Tuckett and learning how to work with him. The area is getting better and better with each day, and I can't wait to see what'll happen in the coming weeks. Hope you all have a wonderful day, and keep being awesome! Love, Elder Brown

Week 44 Update! (out of order)

Hey everyone!

Due to some stuff we had planned for today, and some holiday nonsense, you won't be getting your usual full email from me. So instead I'll just give you all some highlights and some of my thoughts from this week. A big highlight was exchanges this week! We got to have Elder McKeon, an assistant to President Bateman, with us all of Thursday! He had previously served in the Champaign IL area, and so he was able to show us around to a few people he had taught while he was here. He also gave us some tips on planning and working in this area. We were also blessed to find 5 new people to teach this week! We found a few of them thanks to Elder McKeon's encouragement, and a few of them through our own finding efforts. We met a lady named Alandria when we were searching for someone who had been taught in the past. She was originally kind of turned off towards the idea of meeting with us, but after a bit of talking she really opened up to us teaching. We're going back tomorrow to teach her and her family! We also got a few opportunities to serve the ward we're serving in. We helped mow a member's lawn, moved in a few new families and one who was just moving around a bit, and more. I love being able to do service for members in the area. I enjoy doing stuff like house projects and lawn care and stuff...for about an hour, then I'm done haha. It just feels good to work hard for someone else for a bit. I think that's all the excitement for this week. Next week, the regular email will be on Tuesday, because of transfer schedules. I'll also know if I'll be staying or leaving or who might be changing. I'll let you all know then! Until next week! Love, Elder Brown

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