As always it's so great to hear from you guys! Today I procrastinated writing this letter due to some berry picking we were doing up in the mountains! Haha, that's the type of fun stuff we do up here in upstate New York! Berry pickin!! Well, anyways, I don't have much time this week but I will try my best to get something written!
Something that I love about the New York New York north mission is that we focus on quality not quantity. Now I am not just talking about people getting baptized. Yes, that's part, we don't just want less actives after less actives, but it also has to do with everything else we do. We don't just knock doors to fill the time. We do it with Spirit so that we knock the doors of the prepared people or we don't just teach lessons to see how many lessons we can teach in a week, but we teach lessons to help build the faith of the people we are teaching. Quality not quantity. I've been thinking about this a lot this week. Sometimes I think we get caught up in doing our daily scripture study and daily prayers that we forget the purpose behind why we do these things. Study the scriptures instead of just reading them every day, talk with your Heavenly Father instead of just saying the same prayer over and over again. I know I'm just preaching to the choir but I've seen the difference in my life and in my mission when I've focused on doing that!
We had one of the best lessons ever this past week with Ceasar and his brother Fernando! It's been so fun being able to help those guys out! They're like my little brothers. Maybe this story will shed some light on our relationship with the brothers.. So Sunday morning we had planned to go over and pick them up for church with hermano Galo. Well, we get there and they are all dead asleep. So we go in there and blast some Mormon tabernacle choir to get them awake... (Being teenagers I guess 8:30 is like super early in the summer, who would have guessed that ;)) so we basically had to get them dressed, do their hair for them and everything! And then we finally got out the door for church. I'm going to miss those guys so much when I leave the area! And guess what? We finally got permission from their mom for them to be baptized! Their baptism is planned for the Saturday before the transfer ends. It's been seriously incredible to see the spirit work on these young men but it's been even cooler to see the spirit work on their mom so that she would soften her heart! Keep praying for them and that the baptism will happen!
We have a friend that we always see outside working on his garden. Well, the other day he challenged us to pepper eating contest. Since I have been on my mission I feel like I have built up a pretty good tolerance for spicy so we were more than willing to take up his challenge! The first pepper... Not too bad, a little spicy but tolerable. Second pepper... My mouth was burning up pretty bad and the third pepper I thought that I was going to die, pass out or have my head blow off. Haha so he happily let us in to get a drink to cool down the heat and we were able to share the restoration with him and he loved it! It was cool to see a guy that we try and share the gospel with every day finally letting the gospel into his home and into his heart.
I love you guys! Sorry for the lame letter this week! It was super rushed! Thanks for all you do! Thanks for your prayers!
Love Elder Brown
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| The pepper guy... Roberto |
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| Ceasar (on my right) and his friend. |
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