Christmas?!?

My dear family,

I'm soooo grateful for this chance I have to be here in the Concourse ward! I love everything about where I am serving! The people, the area, my companion (don’t get me started about my companion... Love that guy to death!), just everything! I hope as I explain the things that we do in my area you feel the strong love I have for everything!

It's been a real good week! A little slow to start things off this new transfer, but really, really solid week! We are really focused on getting new people and retaining them! Here in the projects it is so easy to find new investigators and teach lessons, but then we will go back to teach them again and they just won't be there. Well, this is kind of hard because we have a really crazy good lesson with someone and then we never really see them again. So, me and Elder Frei are making a push to really help these people engage in the Spirit so that we aren't forcing them to be baptized, but so they really have a strong desire to follow Jesus Christ and do what He does. Pray for them that they will have this desire! Your prayers are needed and appreciated! :) love you!

Well, I guess you could say that it's starting to look a lot like Christmas! One day we are outside in short sleeve shirts and the next day we wake up and all we see is white! It was a pretty big blizzard and it was soooo awesome! There were some really good opportunities for some quality service. As a mission we got to do a lot of shoveling for the city and Elder Frei and I spent the whole day helping cars get out of the snow! It was actually really fun and we got to meet a lot of cool people. Gotta love service! Oh, and we got into a really fun snowball fight with some little kids on the street. To say the least Elder Frei and I definitely lost!

I really don't have much time once again. We are at a zone activity and it's pretty busy, but of course I want to tell about a miracle! The other day we were tracting and we knocked this door. An investigator that I had like the first week I was here on the mission opened up the door. He ended up getting dropped because he had a stroke and wasn't interested after that for some reason. It was actually pretty weird. But then we knocked on his door, he gladly let us in and we taught him the restoration. He had actually been reading the Book of Mormon and had some questions. Experiences like this are really small, but I am so grateful for these little tender mercies. People are constantly being prepared. And people are ready, whether it is right now or 60 years from when they first met the missionaries. Planting seeds baby!! Love it to death!

I'm so grateful for “cada uno de ustedes. Y les doy gracias por todo que han hecho para mí!” (grateful for each one of you. And I give thanks for all you have done for me) Have the best week ever and remember to share the gospel with those who are prepared for it!!!

Much love, Elder Brown

Transfer day last week (from the President's wife's blog)

Moving Elders on transfer day

Winter finally reaches New York (with Elder Frei)

With Elder Grant from Orem High School

New York winters can be nasty!

Transfers!!!

Mi familia maravillosa

Well, it was transfer week everybody! A lot of different changes going on here in the Concourse ward! It's kind of weird for things to be so different, but it's definitely a good type of difference. There is a lot of hype in the area and we are super excited for this new cycle and a new start!!

Y'all ready to hear who my new comp is going to be? Drum roll please............Elder Jacob Frei!!!! I'm pretty stoked about it! He is really young in the mission and we are really similar. He is from Santa Clara, Utah and I actually played him in basketball every year at Dixie State tournament, because he played for Snow Canyon. He is a cowboy-farmer type of kid, and we will get along real well! He is really hard working and we’ve got some pretty awesome things planned for this transfer! I am excited to see how it goes! We also received Elder Smith in our district, who happens to be my grandfather, my trainer’s trainer, and he is super-duper cool! Also here is Elder Grant, who actually went to Orem High school and I also played him in basketball! We have the youngest district in the mission, and President says he has got some super high hope for the work in this district this cycle!

Let me tell you... This past week has been hard on the stomach. Due to the leaving of Elder Hinckley, EVERYONE wanted to feed us. I would take an estimate and say in the span of the 4 days before Elder Hinckley left we had 20 dinners! I was about to lose my mind I was so full. In fact, I am still full from all the food we ate! The members are so nice here and I am so grateful for them! I've got like 10 moms away from home. So I am definitely taken care of.

I just want to share a little something from my studies. Something that has had a huge impact on my mission work, and definitely me as a person, and it's the Spirit. I know I have talked about the importance of the Spirit so many times, but wow, I can't stress it enough! Sometimes I think we get too caught up in what we are doing, time, friends and things of the world that we don't take time to actually LISTEN to the promptings of the Spirit. I have definitely seen a difference while I have been out in my ability to follow the promptings of the Spirit as I just take a few minutes to pay attention and listen. After I pray I love to stay on my knees, clear my mind and just listen, and through the thoughts and feelings that have come to me I have received so many answers to my prayers. I know that it can do the same for every single one of you. God WANTS to hear from us and I am so grateful for that!

I love my mission more than anything! You all know that, but I like to say it! Hahaha, love you guys and I am grateful for your examples! Keep being awesome servants of the Lord!

Mucho Amor, Elder Brown

Caiden and his new companion, Elder Frei

A cool panoramic shot. I think this says Greetings from China Town

I think this must be a shot of the district before transfers

Elder Holland, my man!!

Fam bam,

How's the good old family doing? I hope all is well at home! Sounds like you are all really busy and just having the funnest time! I'm sorry, but I'm having a more fun time :) This week not too much really exciting happened besides the really awesome meeting with Elder Holland, which I will mention later!

So, transfers will be a week from now. Hinckley will probably get transferred, and it is most likely that I will stay in this area at least one more transfer. It's exciting to see where everyone is going to go, but it is also really sad to see like the whole district leave. Elder Hinckley, Elder Nielsen, Elder Matheson, and Sister

Cookson will all probably be leaving the ward, which means we are no longer the district that stays! Haha, it's so sad but I'm excited to kind of get a new fresh start in the ward! :) So, next week my p-day will be on Thursday due to transfers, so I will email then!

There really isn't loads to report on this week, so I will just get right into the Elder Holland experience. Wow, it was seriously such an amazing experience. I really can't explain how cool it was and the feeling that was in that chapel. We all had the opportunity to shake his hand and tell him our name and where we were from before we started. This was his time to "interview" us as he looked at us in the eyes. Me and Elder Holland made some good eye contact and he said I have a really good smile, so that was pretty cool! :)

He said so many things that I love and that I will hold dear to my heart forever, but the thing that stuck with me, and I feel as if I should share, is something that really only applies to missionaries, but I love it. From the beginning of the meeting he was cracking jokes and making us all laugh pretty hard, but then he got really serious. He began to talk about the image of missionaries. He said missionaries are like super heroes to the members of the church. Although they know missionaries aren't perfect, they look up to them so much. I can
definitely attest to that. Before my mission I thought missionaries and especially returned missionaries were the coolest people. I wanted to be that! Now I am and I still feel inadequate as ever, but I know with the help of my Savior and His atonement I can be a great missionary! But anyways, then he got quiet for a second... got down really close to one of the elders and kind of screamed "YOU DONT HAVE THE RIGHT!! You don't have the right to ruin the image that these people have of you! You always have to be that super hero! Be that example that the deacon back home looks up to!" I REALLY loved this! The mission is hard, that is for dang sure. But I know why I am here and I will not ruin that image, I promise! :) I am so glad I have the
chance to be a missionary and to serve my Lord and Savior in this work. What an opportunity! Thank you all for the support and the help!

Love you all sooooo much! More than you can imagine.

Love Elder Brown

Elder Hinckley and Elder Brown (The wheel chair is just something they have there in the apartment, it's not something that Elder Hinckley needs)

Caiden's caption to this picture was "Look, I'm bald!" That is the least amount of hair he has had in many years!

Cool Things!!

Familia!

Wow! What an amazing week it was! So many cool things happened this week and I wish I could tell all of them, but there were just too many amazing things that happened! So I will just get right into it.

So, guess what is happening this Saturday? Elder Holland is coming to our mission!! It's going to be soooo amazing and I am so stoked! The whole mission actually only found out like a couple days ago, but me and Elder Hinckley got the early notice because he will be playing the piano! I’m super excited to get the opportunity to learn from one of my favorite apostles in person! Elder Holland is so powerful and just cool! Haha, to say the least we are excited!

Justin and Bishop have set a date for him to go to the temple, and it's going to be Jan. 1 of next year, so I really hoping that I will have the opportunity, wherever I am at on my mission, to come down and watch him go through the temple. What a great guy! I am so grateful for the chance I had to get to know him!

So, you know how I used to talk about Jose... He had read the Book of Mormon all the way through, was supposed to get baptized like 3 weeks ago and was super solid. Well, like a month ago he dropped us and told us to stop going by. It was sad and I cried, but hey that's life. Well, the other day as we were heading to an appointment. I had a distinct prompting that we should knock on his door again and see how he was doing. So we did and he answered and let us in. We had an amazing lesson and now he is back in! I'm super excited to see how he does!

The other day at Rigoberto's I had an emotion experience. So let me tell y'all a little something about Rigo. He comes to church every week, reads the BOM every day and does everything, but he is just so hesitant on actually getting baptized. He is really nervous. We don't want to force him to get baptized but we were really pushing a date for the end of this month. He said he would pray about it... So we come back and we are just talking and he begins to cry and starts to explain how he wants us to be here so bad when he get baptized, but he just doesn't think he will be ready. He wants to be baptized when he comes back from Puerto Rico in April. He was crying which then got me crying and then before you know it we are holding on to each other just crying... Hahaha, it was so sad but also such a tender experience for me. I love him so much and I know without a doubt in my mind he will be baptized someday. And if I am not here for it that's okay! I'll come back to New York when he goes through the temple! ;) Love Rigo!

One more cool experience... the other day I was on a split with one of our ZL’s and we were in my area. He is an English missionary and English missionaries get like 10 media referrals a day and we have to
contact media referrals within 24 hours. We had a little bit of time before our next appointment so we decided to look up some of his media referrals. We knock on this door looking for a man named Tyrone, and a little Mexican lady answers the door. We asked for Tyrone, but he didn't live there and so we started talking to this lady. She had just moved to New York from Mexico 3 days earlier and was kind of stressed with stuff. We helped her out a little bit and then ended up teaching the family the restoration. They were super excited about it and we are super excited about them! God is preparing people every day to receive our message! We just have to find them!

The mission is soooo cool! I hope you all make this next coming year the best year ever and that you all made some goals to accomplish! Let's make this the best year of our lives! Who's with me!? Hahaha.

Elder brown
P.S. Thanks again for everyone who has sent me stuff! You all rock!!

Looks like another picture of the district...only one we got this week.