Insert dancing and rejoicing

We had an LTM (leadership training meeting) this week, to which all the missionaries in Charlotte were invited and we learned a bunch about how important the spirit is in missionary work. We have a good appointment set up tonight, with Wendy, which we hope will go well. She's our best baptismal prospect right now. Oh! I found out that Beda G., from Gate City Spanish, got baptized with her daughter Miraya! YAY! I was extremely happy *insert dancing and rejoicing*.

Love, Elder Brown

So...you know how bike tires are supposed to be round?

Wendy didn't make it to church this week but we have an appointment with her tonight, and we understand she's still really excited about getting baptized.

 

So, um, you know how bike tires are supposed to be round? Well... my front one isn't round anymore... in fact, it looks more like a Pringle than a tire. :) I wrecked it trying to get on the road on Saturday. Brother Brown, the member who's helping me with the brakes, is a bike guru and said he'd take a look and see what he can do. Don't worry; no serious damage to me. Only things that broke are my front tire and my pride. :D

 

Elder Larson got his visa Monday after my email and shipped off to Argentina on Thursday. As far as we know, he got there alright.

Love, Elder Brown

"Lord, you are awesome"

We did indeed have a lot of fun adventures last week. We weren't able to get a picture of the Plan of Salvation that we drew because the police officer asked us not to. I was a bit sad but not enough to argue with the police. :D

 

We had Hap and Wendy, two of our three investigators, come to church. Yay! Wendy is a member referral and is doing well. Her life had fallen apart and now she's trying to understand her relationship with God and is searching! I am confident that she will be baptised.

 

Hap is also beginning to progress much better than he has in the past. We introduced the Doctrine and Covenants to him to help him understand the Priesthood and it worked! I was a little apprehensive about sharing the Doctrine and Covenants but it really helped him a lot.

 

Things are going a little more smoothly within our companionship. Elder Thomas still gets a little frustrated with me from time to time but we're getting along much better.

 

This week when we taught Annie, our other investigator, we asked her to pray and she just jumped right into it. during her prayer, she said "Lord, you are awesome' and it was really cool the way she said it. It made our day and we all wrote it in our journals that evening. It was funny.

Love, Elder Brown

Adventure and drama

Howdy howdy howdy!

This week has been a fun one, full of adventure and drama.  Well, honestly, it was pretty boring until we were biking home on Thursday night.  Elder Thomas broke his back tire on a cement pipe (it was either the pipe or oncoming traffic, and he chose the pipe).  He was able to ride it home, but the wheel snapped in two places so he didn't dare ride it further. Friday we got a ride to the bike shop and Elder Thomas ordered a new rear rim, then we walked around and stopped by a couple of old investigators, saw Hap, and walked home.  In order to trim off some travel time, we hopped a fence (that was fun) and I only got a little bruise from it.

Saturday brought more fun.  We had a great idea for proselyting activity that wasn't just knocking on doors; we thought it would be good to draw the Plan of Salvation on the sidewalk in the park. Only problem with that, at least that we could see, was that to get to the park we'd have to go through the greenway, which, because we were on foot, would take an extra 20 minutes.  Well, apparently Elder Thomas knew a shortcut through some woods that the greenway runs through.  So we went bushwacking.  There was, in fact, a shortcut, but it wasn't accesible because we've had a lot of rain lately and the creek was flooded.  So we went around...a lot.  Probably 1/2 mile of woods have my foot prints in them.  All kinds of thorny pricklers in those woods, too, of course.

Finally we made it to the park and we draw out the Plan of Salvation with sidewalk chalk.  It was beautiful, too.  We had a lot of fun drawing it.  Just as we were putting on the finishing touches I looked up and there was a big black man standing there watching us.  It took me a second to realize he was wearing a police uniform.  He was real nice and cool about it, but he told us we were defacing public property and we could have gotten in a lot of trouble.  He told us if we cleaned it up he'd call it off.  So we did.  Bummer.  At least we didn't get in trouble.  We also didn't bushwack back.  We took the greenway home, even though it took longer.

Sunday night, we went tracting and at this one door, an old guy with a really cool beard answered the door with a double barrel 1/2 gauge shotgun.  I thought it was a toy until we were talking about it afterward.

We aren't having tons of success but Hap did finally come to church.  Pretty decent victory there.

Tell everybody I said hi.
Love ya'all
Elder Joshua Brown

Training

I am doing well. Zone Conference was amazing; it had a bunch of messages that were timed just perfectly for me and it really helped me out a lot. President Thomas asked two of the missionaries in our mission to collaborate and write out a song for the theme of this year. They did a really good job and there's going to be a CD with that one and the mission song on it for those who attended Zone Conference. :D

 

Transfer calls came and went again, and I'm staying in Weddington for another Transfer with Elder Thomas.

 

We have  a new companion, Elder Caden Larson, a visa waiter bound for Argentina. He's a really cool kid, works hard, and he's going to be an excellent missionary. President Thomas has asked me to train him while he's here, which is expected to be for a month or so. It's a lot of responsibility and here goes!

 

We found a new investigator that dropped us. Taught some former investigators about quitting smoking- that was awesome. It was hard for the husband, but he finally committed and we know they can do it. Please pray for them; their names are Jeff and Erin.

 

A little less than eight months left. gotta work harder! Here goes...

 

Elder Joshua Brown