"The Love"

Hey family and friends!

As always, this week was a stellar one! I just want to express my gratitude once again for the opportunity to be a missionary! When people say that it's the best two years of your life I think I agree! Never has there been a time in my life that I have enjoyed more than this past year! Not a lie! And the time is passing by so fast... I hate it!

Like I said, this past week was really good! We saw a lot of success and we taught LOTS of people! We had a meeting with president and the assistants on Friday for the new missionaries and it was awesome! I love meetings with President Smith! I always get taught from on high! We talked a lot of love! Love for the people, love for the mission, love for our companions, and most importantly, love for our savior Jesus Christ. The love we show for others leads to everything else. We don't always have to show our love by saying "I love you". That's something that I think I struggle with. I'm not the best at telling people how I feel about them, but I pray and hope by the way I act and treat them they can feel of that love!

A picture from the mission blog of Caiden and Elder Molina at the "new missionary" meeting he was talking about

I really do love all the people we are teaching though! We have some really AMAZING investigators. We teach these 4 brothers that are so awesome! They are all between the ages 14-18, and they love soccer. Turns out that two of them play goalie as well! I told them that I used to play goalie and they got super stoked. We now go "train" with them a couple times a week at 5:30 in the morning! They are wayyyy good too!! Basically, they are like our best friends. Haha, they love everything about the church and so now we are just praying that they feel ready to make the next step of faith to baptism! Pray for Caesar, Kevin, Fernando, and Jesus!

Something that we have been struggling with this past week is finding new crazy cool investigators. We have tons of investigators that are progressing and doing super bien, but it's just been hard this past week finding MORE of these souls. In my 9 weeks here in Newburgh I feel like I have talked to about every single soul that walks the streets and that I have knocked every single door. So, we decided that we were going to do a fast asking for help to be guided to someone who would accept the gospel in their lives. Well, that didn't happen. Something even better happened, the person sought us out! Hahaha, how cool is that?! Something we do here in the area is hand out cards with our number and the church address like candy! And the other day as we were driving to an appointment a man called us on the phone, he explained how we gave him a card during a very crucial part of his life and he wanted to start making changes. He asked if we could come to his house that very second! We pushed back our one appointment and hurried on over. We had one of the most spiritual lessons with this guy I have had in my whole life. Lots of tears were shed. His name is Roberto!! Such a cool guy! I've gained a strong, strong testimony of the power of the fast on my mission. The Lord blesses us when we sacrifice. Sacrifice brings forth the blessings of heaven! I KNOW THAT’S TRUE!

I love the people of Newburgh with my whole heart! So genuine and so humble. There will always be a special place in my heart for these people! The people are seriously the best part of the mission! I love you guys!

Love Elder Brown

Taking selfies!