Elder Caiden Brown New York New York North Mission: A loving Heavenly Father!

Hey family!

Another great week here in the Bronx! It has been so awesome being able to serve here in this wonderful place for a second time! It truly has been a tender mercy for me to be able to start and finish in the place I love!

This week was full of a lot of meetings!! We had the "what's next" meeting on Thursday, which was a lot of talking about the future and setting goals for things to accomplish in my life! I have been able to set some awesome goals for the last little bit of the Lord's mission, as well as some goals for the life after my service. In all the things I do after this sacred time I have had to serve the Lord, I just hope to reflect the life of the Savior and be a disciple of Him. That's my true goal for the rest of my life, all the others things are just ways to accomplish that. I love my Savior.

We also had a meeting with all the leadership in the mission (there were two meetings, one for all the city leadership and then one for all the upstate leadership), but I just felt the strongest spirit testify to me of how much God loves every single person, no matter who they are, what they have done, if their from the church or not, in jail or a saint, but that God's love is equal. It's something we teach in every first lesson, but this week as I walked down the streets of the Bronx and saw all the "crazy people" that we pass every day my heart was changed and I realized how much they really matter to our Heavenly Father. He doesn't see them as crazy people, but he sees them as his children that have potential. We too should see them as our real brothers and sisters. We are helping a lot of people that are just having struggles in life, whether it be with smoking, family relationships or just struggling to come to know if this is true, but we have begun to see those people the way our Heavenly Father sees them and it has changed the way we are doing missionary work completely!

Everybody is doing really well! Modesto is giving me the biggest headache though!!! 😂😂He has sooo much potential! He could be like one of the coolest leaders in the church! He has a way with people and he knows so much about the gospel, but he is just struggling so much to come to church! Every week we go over and he gives us this huge glass of carrot juice and some cake and we just have the coolest conversations with him! I just have the strongest relationship with that guy. Probably because I've been going by there every week for almost 10 months and I just feel so strongly about how much he can help the church!

I think I told y'all about Jonathan. Well, he was the one who called us out of the blue and was like "elders I want to serve a mission"! He has been super less active and so we were stoked about the call! Well, since then (that was like 3 weeks ago I think) he has been progressing sooo much! This past Sunday was his first week at church in a long long time!! It was hard for him before because he works nights and so when he finishes work Sunday morning he just wants to go to bed, but he has been making little sacrifices and we can just see his testimony growing! I love that guy!

We have really seen a difference in the ward and it's just becoming stronger and stronger! We are so blessed to be able to be here! Francisco also got the priesthood this past Sunday and it was great! He is doing so well!!

Love y'all loads!!

Con amor,
Elder Brown