Elder Caiden Brown New York New York North Mission: Power of the Spirit!‏

Dear family!!

This week legit felt like 1 day! Last week for p-day we were playing basketball with President and it feels like that was seriously yesterday! It really is true that time flies by when you are having fun! That’s something that I really love about this area… it’s just Fun! We work really really hard, but we have a lot of fun while we are doing it. First off a shout out the coolest brother in the world for being the oldest looking 24-year-old I have ever seen! Happy birthday Bro! I love you so much and I am so incredibly grateful for the example you have set for me of what a good missionary is! You rock! Hope your day was great!

Well, this week was filled with just little miracles here and there. Something really cool that happened was that I was on a split with an elder from the English program, and we had just gotten out of an appointment. We were walking down the road when we hear, “ HEY ELDERS STOP!” So we turn around and these two thug looking guys get out of their car and we are over there thinking ...oh boy what’s going to happen now? As we approach these guys we find out that they are from Brazil and just moved here like 3 months earlier. So it was a little hard to communicate with them. (Here in our area there are a ton of Portuguese people and so we have kind of learned a little Portuguese… enough to defend ourselves, haha!) Well, one of them starts telling us his life story and how he was baptized when he was 8, that he was going to go on a mission, but then life just got a hold of him and he kind of fell off the path. This guy was seriously so cool! He was naming all the prophets, he was quoting scriptures from the Book of Mormon, and bearing his testimony to us. So this guy was super LEGIT! After we had talked to him for a while we turned to his friend and asked if he was a member and he was like, “no… but I want to be!” WELL, ISN’T THAT JUST THE COOLEST THING TO HEAR AS A MISSIONARY! We were pretty stoked!

Something that kind of just touched me this week was something that happened after we taught English class yesterday. When we teach English class we always sing a hymn first and say a prayer and then we teach English. At the end we always share a spiritual thought. By the way, none of these people are members. So we decided that we were going to share a scripture from the Book of Mormon. We shared Ether 12:27 and everyone thought it was a nice scripture. When we were all leaving a lady (who is actually from Osorno, shout out to Tanner) walked up to us and asked for a Book of Mormon in English. Well, this lady doesn’t really speak a lick of English, so we were wondering why she wanted one in English? She told us that she has a friend that is going through a lot of hard times and she thought that the Book of Mormon would be a perfect way to try and help her friend out! That kind of hit me hard… this non-member lady… who doesn’t know much about the church, let alone the Book of Mormon, was able to recognize the power the Book of Mormon could have in changing lives from one verse. The power that the Book of Mormon has, combined with the Holy Ghost, is something that is undeniable!

A quote that stuck out to me in my personal studies this week was this, “The spirit of the Lord makes up the difference between the man who teaches, and the man who is being taught”. How grateful I am for that. We are far from being perfect missionaries… Elder Hinckley maybe a little closer than me, but I can say without a doubt in my heart that we are giving our best, that we try with everything we’ve got. We aren’t the best teachers… I would say that we are both men of few words, but the Spirit and the way he teaches in flawless. Like Jesus Christ said to his apostles before he was about to leave them, “I will not leave you comfortless, I will come to you.” And he hasn’t left his missionaries either. Thanks to the spirit of the Lord missionary work is possible and successful!

I love you all so much! I love this work and I know it’s the work of the Lord!

Love, Elder Brown