Happy Halloween

Hello family ! 

How are you ? It sounds like yalls week was really fun but also busy ! I am sad to hear that the Utes lost :( but I am excited for Sarah and Jordan, so exciting for their cute baby girl. Can you believe this week is Halloween. Sad to be missing some delicious scones and chicken noodles soup, but I guess I will just have to wait til next year! 

This week was a great week but I am semi having a hard time remembering everything that happened. But I will do my best to inform y'all !!

So first off great news ! Wednesday night we were driving home and I got a call from the Hermanas in Columbia.  I am not sure if you remember me talking about our investigator Angie or not when I was serving in Columbia, but she is awesome. She has such a strong testimony of the gospel and of the priesthood but wasn't able to get baptized because she wasn't married to her husband , and he was a little anti getting married as well, so it was just hard, but Angie still came to church, and she just loved it. Well the Hermanas in Columbia have been working really hard with them for like the past year and they called to tell me that they were getting married Saturday and Angie was getting baptized Sunday!! I was sooooo excited !! My heart just filled with joy :) I am amazed at how the lord truly does bless and love his children. So it was awesome I got to skype into her baptism yesterday and talk with her. I am so happy and feel so blessed that I was able to know Angie and now, I am so happy that she was able to get baptized. It was also really cool because we were able watch the baptism with our investigator Lupe at our branch presidents house. So that was awesome. 

 Friday night we also had a branch activity and it was so much fun ! A ton of members, less actives, and investigators came ! We had a ton of games for the kids, candy, and of course, delicious food. I feel bad for being so grossed out that time josh put mayo and hot sauce on his corn on the cob, because it is seriously delicious !!! I love it. As well as some chicharrones with valentina sauce, delicious. What was awesome was that our investigator Ozmara came too, that was a miracle and she brought her two kids, Isabella and Joel. It was a blast :) I love this little ramita here :) 

This week was kind of a weird week. We did a lot of finding and saw a lot of less active members. So that's always good :) we did have one super weird day finding. We were driving and we got lost and so we just decided to park and do some tracking. So like literally every house we knocked we met someone really interesting. First we met this very very flamboyant man and it was just weird, then we knocked into this atheist family , then a lesbian couple, and then a really crazy / passionate church of Christ lady. It was one of the most interesting neighborhoods I have ever knocked before. 

Oh I need to tell you about what happened last night. So it was awesome because we had a great lesson with Aida and Carmen and we got home at 9, and then we start our nightly planning and we pull out our phone to text some members , and guess what ? Yup.... I left our phone at Aida's and she lives like super far away, like 25 minutes.... We thought we would just go today to get the phone so that we wouldn't have to call president since we would get back after 9:30, but then we realized that it was Sunday night and we needed to call and give our numbers and we thought that maybe people would get freaked out of concerned or something if we didn't answer our phone. So then we left and got to Aida's and luckily they were all still awake, so that was good. We got the phone and came home. It was a crazy night. I have problems leaving our stuff places. This last week i also left our keys at either our investigators house, or members house and by the time we got to the car we had to go back in and get them. My mind is all over the place! 

I can't really remember much of what happened the rest of this week, but it was a good week ! Our investigators are still doing good! Thanks for praying for Mario he is getting there step by step. November is his month, I know it :) 

I hope y'all have a very happy Halloween ! I know I will because our friend Santos from our English class is getting baptized ! So that's awesome and president said we can go ! But we also have to be in at 6 on Halloween.... Who knows what we will do... But it should be fun :) thanks for all y'all do for me. I hope you have a great week ! I love y'all ! 

XO 

Hermana Brown :)

Go Utes !‏

Hola mi familia ! 

THANK YOU SO MUCH FOR THE AMAZING PACKAGE !!! It was like the best surprise in the world !!!!! I almost started crying eating the snicker doodles, they were just so delicious. Thank you. And that skirt, I LOVE IT! I have the best family. 

Well this week went by like super fast ! Last week of the transfer and boy did we see a ton of miracles ! It was awesome. First off, transfer info !! Are you ready for this ? I am staying here in Buena Vista for another transfer , with Hermana Dansie !!! I am SO happy and SO excited !! I just know we are about to do big things here and see huge miracles :) 

First off I have to brag about how awesome the branch members are here. Like seriously they are so amazing ! And what is even more amazing is that our branch is a pretty small branch. It's like bigger than a group but not super huge. Probably more like a stick... Haha but what is so awesome is that literally everyday this week, a different member came out with us to teach our investigators and less actives. Seriously these people have like the strongest testimonies ever and literally the gospel is their life. I feel so blessed to work with these amazing people ! They truly do want to share the gospel with everyone they know! Their righteous examples have really helped me want to be better and truly have the gospel of Jesus Christ engraved onto my heart. 

We did our last exchange of the transfer this week and it was really fun. I stayed in the area and sister Hammond came here with me. She is darling and just now finished her second transfer. She truly wants to baptize nations and wants to be the best missionary ever. She is also hilarious so you can guarantee we had some greats laughs together. 

We switched back from exchanges on Thursday morning, which happened to be Hna Dansie's birthday, so before we switched back sister Hammond and I made a "¡Feliz Cumpleaños!" For Hna Dansie and wrapped her presents. Which we didn't have anything to wrap them in, so I used a Walmart bag haha BUT it actually didn't look that bad, so that was good :) anyway it was a great day and we had some great lessons! We taught our awesome investigator, Gloria, who loves reading the Book of Mormon, loves everything in the gospel, but won't come to church.... Soooooooooo annoying ! But we had a great lesson with her about the spirit. We noticed as teach her every time the spirit is strong in the lesson she will purposefully get up to do something or something to like make the spirit go away. But we had a great lesson with her about the importance of the spirit, and the spirit was soooooo strong ! Yay happy day :) please pray that she will come to church soon ! She is amazing. 

Oh also Thursday night we had our English class too, and it was a lot of fun ! Something cool is that this guy in our class, Santos and he is so cool ! He actually doesn't live in our area, he lives in Madison which is like 30-45 minutes away but he decided to come to our English class and he loves it ! We asked him if the missionaries in Madison could go visit him and he said yes ! Well like two transfers ago we kept bugging and bugging and BUGGING the elders in Madison to go and visit and teach him and they never did.... so then we just decided well we might as well teach him when he comes to English class, so we did and then we started coming to church on Sunday's too ! (Btw santos literally lives like 5 minutes away from the Madison church building...) well remember how last transfer we had the multicultural fair ? Well it was at the Madison building , and so santos finally met the elders and now they are teaching him and he had a baptismal date for Halloween !! Sooooo awesome. Santos is just so cool and I am so excited for him ! English class brings miracles and people unto the gospel. It's a real thing ! 

We are still working with Mario Cardiel... I love this guy but he also makes me so frustrated.... Like he gets so close to baptism and then he just gets like cold feet .... I have faith that this transfer is his transfer. I will not give up on him !! Tonight we are having a noche de hogar with them and the last few weeks we have been focusing on the principles and ordinances of the gospel, and tonight we are teaching baptism. We told him we are going to do a live visual and just bring the font to his house... Haha pray for him ! 

I think that might be it for this week. It was a great week ! Lately my studies have been super focused on putting and giving all our trust in the Lord. I love the scripture in Mormon 9:21 "Behold, I say unto you that whoso believeth in Christ, doubting nothing, whatsoever he shall ask the Father in the name of Christ it shall be granted him; and this promise is unto all, even unto the ends of the earth."  I feel like I have learned so much and still am learning so much about the importance of putting all of our faith Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father. I feel like a lot of times we have the faith to start building ourselves upon the rock of Christ,  but then we don't have the trust to finish building, but I know that as we trust in the lord we won't fall! It made me think of dad's favorite hymn, How Firm a Foundation. We truly are held up by God's righteous, omnipotent hand. I know that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ keep their promises, they will never let us down !

Longest email ever, but I hope y'all have a great week ! I am verrrrrry happy to hear about my Utes doing awesome and I hope they keep winning ! Thanks for all y'all do for me. I am so blessed! I love y'all so much !! 

XO 

Hermana Brown 

Ps I ate cow stomach this week 

menudo cow stomach soup. It's pretty good

found these creepy dolls that look like us...

Roadkill‏

Hello my cute familia !! How are y'all ? Your week sounded great and I am just so stoke to hear that the Utes are ranked #4 in the nation !!!! That's so cool that makes me really so happy :) blessings from serving a mission. Haha well this week was very adventurous and fun so y'all are in for a treat.

Okay so something funny that happened this week. We have been visiting this lady named Sagradio and her family. They are super cute and actually our investigators , Aida and Jose met them one day I think at the hospital ? Or something like that. And Aida invited them over for dinner and to meet with us. Our investigators are like solid referral givers and they are always sharing the gospel. It's incredible ! But it's also time for them to become members ! Anyway, so on Tuesday we went to go see Sagradio and her family. We had a great lesson and the whole time I am just thinking like "wow. Okay she is going to make an amazing member of the church !" Because seriously. She is awesome. Well the lesson was great and to end we asked if we could close with a prayer, she said of course. We then asked if one of them, her , her son or her daughter would like to say it. The daughter said she would. So I like bow my head, close my eyes, and fold my arms. Then the daughter is just like "I am thankful for.....and I ask for help with..." Then the son goes, and says like the same thing. So then I like open my eyes and they are all just like standing up looking at each other, like they are just looking at each other. Well then Hna Sagradio goes and I am just like "ah I am next. What do I do? They don't know how to pray but I don't want to offend them... Help!" So me being such a great companion, and not having any idea what to do or say, I just turn and look at Hna Dansie... And she didn't know what to do either. So we just sat there. Like everyone looking at Hna Dansie for like a solid minute. Hahaha I felt like a terrible companion but I didn't know what to do either !! And she looks like she is just gonna do what they did, I'm thinking like no she can't pray like that. We have to teach them ! so I am just praying that I know what to say and how to teach them how to pray correctly and to have the courage to do so haha so then finally after a totally UNCOMFORTABLE silence Hna Dansie says "so when you pray do you just say like a line ?" And they were like "yeah it's like a petition." And then out of no where I just start talking , and I'm like "that's nice. I think it's cool to learn how other people pray. Would it be okay if we showed you how we pray?" And then we went in and explained how we pray, and why we pray in the way we pray.  And it all turned out great ! I know that was totally the Holy Ghost filling my mouth with the words to say because I know those were not my words. I am so grateful for the Holy Ghost and for his role in the obra del Señor! I know he is the true teacher in this work :) - I also learned how to have courage in those uncomfortable situation, which was good for me because as a missionary you tend to be in pretty uncomfortable/weird situations than I think most normal people encounter usually.

Something that was really fun was we went on a double exchange this week. Hna Dansie stayed here in Buena Vista and held down the fort as I packed my bags and headed down to the southern country side of Tennessee for a couple of days. 

I first went to Shelbyville, which you actually don't say it like that, you say it more like "shovel"... I think the best way to explain it is Its basically like on the Simpsons, you know those southern people , I think his name is Linus and Becky ? or something i don't know Brandon might need to correct me on that one, but it's kind of like a town full of people like that.... Hahaha but it was really fun. There is a trio down there so one sister went up with Hna Dansie and I got to stay in a trio with Sister Crandall and Sister Thomas. They are both awesome sisters. Sister Crandall and i came into the mission together and i actually go home with sister Thomas. We had a lot of fun and we walked a ton ! But it was cool to be in a trio too. Also sister Thomas has a sister who served in e's mission ! She came home last November so maybe you know her, sister Thomas ? I think she is from Spanish fork. So that was pretty cool  and fun :) 

The next day I went to Lewisberg. Lewisberg is also like a really super small town. I went and was with sister Kline for the exchange. We had fun and we met a lot of old men, like in their late 80's. They were all just like sitting outside in their war uniforms drinking coffee and listening to Elvis Presley. It was so cute ! We also met this lady with this crazy name. Her name is Chong Shae-Shaw Pepper Thompson. She was black, and super nice. But like wow that name ! One of a kind. Something cool too is that the Lewisberg sister live in a house!! Like a legit house. It was fun but I also was kind of creeped out at the same time. I slept with my Book of Mormon in my hands the next day Lewisberg was having their annual Goat Festival and the church had a booth set up. So that was really neat to have people come to us and talk about the church. But it was also really hot. Then I came home :) I felt like I hadn't seen hna Dansie in like ages and it was good to be back home ! 

Sorry this email is so long ! But I just have one more story. We have this new family we are teaching. La familia Alday. They are so awesome. So it's the mom and dad, Ana and Jorge, and they have 2 daughters, Paola (11) and Mariana (6) and they are soooooo cute ! We had our first lesson with them on Saturday and it was awesome. At first Jorge started to seem skeptical but the spirit was so strong and by the end of the lesson his heart was total changed and both him and Ana were super excited to read the Book of Mormon!! I am so excited. :) God is good and we have been blessed to find so many prepared people. I also gained a strong testimony, yet again this week, of how important it is to have the spirit with us as we are teaching ! 

I think that is about it for week. This is the last week of the transfer. Crazy ! We get transfer information on Saturday. Pray I stay here, I love it ! I hope y'all have a great week. Thanks for all your love and support you send me. I am so lucky to have such an awesome family. I love y'all ! 

Go Utes ! 

XO 

Hermana Brown 

Our booth at the goat fest

Ello govnah‏

Hello my cute family ! Happy Monday ! I can't believe another week has come and gone. That's just crazy. This week was a little harder but it ended with an AWESOME General Conference. I am in awe at how inspired the leaders of the church truly are ! I am also just filled with gratitude that I get the chance to live on the earth at this time with prophets and apostles called by God. How cool ?! So awesome. also how cool about the new apostles?? I met Elder Renlund last year when he came to our mission. so that was sweet. i am excited for these 3 men. they seem awesome ! 

I truly feel so amazed at how loving Heavenly Father is. I felt like everything that was on my mind or a question I had was answered at this General Conference. I love the spirit, hope, and all spiritual experiences that are always shared at conference. they just get me so pumped up!

Something I really learned from this General Conference was the importance of being an example. I LOVED President Monson's talk on being an example in word, conversation, charity, spirit, faith, and purity. I think that if we all try a little harder, to be a little better in these things in our lives we will find so much more happiness and help those around us better themselves as well. I can't say which was my absolute favorite, I really think ALL of them. I am grateful for iPads because you know I have been listening to all the talks over again in the morning and at night. I can't get enough ! 

This week was good, but also kinda bad... I got sick it was TERRIBLE. Let's just say it was pretty close to when I last got sick before I came on my mission... Remember that mom and dad ? Terrible. Haha please don't put that on the blog. BUT luckily I held myself together pretty well. I think there was like a virus going around because like every person we talked to was sick or someone in their family was sick. I mean it was crazy because I have never gotten that sick on my mission before. Like I have felt sick but never enough to have to stay in... so that was super lame. Wednesday we went to district meeting and i looked and felt like death, and sadly everyone agreed haha but after district meeting we came home and i knocked out for about 3 1/2 hrs. But the good news is that i cowboyed up and i went out that night because we had some awesome lessons set up and i couldnt imagine having to cancel them. and it was great because they all turned out awesome !! And thankfully I am feel so much better now. ️ 

So a little update on my favorite investigator, Mario. I love this man. He is so cool. It was kind of crazy because last week he said he was ready to be baptized... Again.  I was a little skeptical because he says that a lot, but Monday night we had a great noche de hogar with them and he said we wanted us to come back on Wednesday to talk more about his baptism. Well it was crazy, and this is why I think the reason as to why I got sick too... Wednesday we were suppose to go on exchanges and I was suppose to leave the area. Well thankfully I stayed because it was seriously one of the most amazing and most spiritual lessons we have EVER had with Mario. Although I did not like being sick! I am grateful Heavenly Father made it possible for me to stay for that lesson with him. I feel so blessed that I get to be here at this time for this big step for Mario and his family. I kinda feel like I don't deserve it or something, like that someone else should be here to experience all this. But truly I am so thankful. I have been so blessed by this awesome family. God is good ! 

I love being a missionary and I love sharing the gospel ! I love watching the light in people's eyes turn on as they come to feel the spirit testify to them. I am grateful for this mission experience and I wouldn't trade it for anything in the world !! :) 

I hope y'all have a great week and enjoy the beginning of fall with all the colors changing. I do have to brag, Tennessee's fall is like the best EVER. Oh and also remember to save money every week and to ponderize a scripture this week too :) (I think the money part was for me specifically... It was said twice... By elder Hales and Devin G Durrant.. It must be pretty important ) 

I love y'all ! Thanks for all your prayers and support ! 

XO 

Hermana Brown :)

Sick selfies

Death

Cute girls in our branch. We made vision boards together. It was
also "kids day" in Guatemala so their mom, Hna Reyes gave us some ice
cream

5. Some of my favorite people !!! Hna Diana, Hna Burgos, and can you
see Talim ? Haha I love them.

I love this food. 😛😛😛

Ashley's vision board. CUTIE I love this girl