Everybody's Baptist down here.

Sorry this email's a little late. Nobody warned us that the library would be closed for Easter Monday.

We ate Easter dinner at two places: lunch time-ish at an investigator's house (she's almost ready to be baptized) and again at a members. I've never eaten so much ham in my life. Good stuff, though.

I haven't seen an armadillo here, but there is a groundhog who lives under the house that we've seen a couple times. Fat little thing.

Tony, Bobby, Michaela, TJ, Moriah, and Jesse (all the family except 6-year-old Olivia) are being baptized on 28 May 2011, If they ever stop being sick long enough to come to church three times.  Tony went to the ER Saturday morning and still isn't doing too good.

your prayers on his behalf would be appreciated.

Our other baptismal date is for a week and a half from now and is still trying to quit smoking. she sent us a text saying that she's done with it and isn't ever buying any more cigs, and we're praying hard for her to continue faithful to that promise.

Everybody's Baptist down here. Everybody. Except a handful of Methodists, a Buddhist or two, and that Evolutionist we met last week.  It's kind of funny how so many of them try to convert us to the 'true' Bible.  But they mean well.

Love you guys!

Elder Joshua Brown

Yup, still alive

Yup still alive. we got called crazy for being out in it [thunderstorm/tornado watch] but we're all in one piece still.

 

We taught a big black guy this week and he and his daughter are committed to baptism. The only reason his wife isn't is because she was sound asleep during the lesson when we invited them. The previous lesson was pretty much her teaching us the plan of salvation and us trying to keep up with her. Tony, the husband, is a funny guy. He's about 6'3" and keeps a garden. We were teaching him on his porch when his kids came through and damaged some of his garden. Then he said my favorite quote from him: "I may be a big guy, but I like my flowers!" It was even funnier because he said it so indignantly. :D His daughter's name is Michaela, and his wife is Bobby.

 

Second favorite moment of the week. We went to teach a PMLA family (part member less active) and we met their 3 year old twins. The twins went to their chicken coop and I GOT TO HOLD A BABY DUCK!!! But that wasn't the best part. They mom started to tell us about the black snake that got in and ate two of the chicks. The little girl told us that "He couldn't even move, he was so full" in the thickest country accent I've ever heard. I almost died laughing. 

 

Good times, good times.

love yall!

Watch out for Naomi. She's going to take over the world before too long.

love ya!

Elder Brown

Biked around in a severe thunderstorm and tornado warning

I've had an awesome week and learned a lot. We baptized an investigator, Sandy H. on Saturday, for the Sparta Branch, which we also cover. Most of our other investigators have stopped progressing but we're going to dig about and prune the vineyard and hopefully they'll start growing again.

After Sandy's baptism, her cousin Melvile (there really ARE people named Melvile!!) offered to give us the complete tour of the Andy Griffeth stuff. We're figuring out when we can go still but no worries, we will be getting plenty of pictures when it happens.

This area is a tri-share, where we have two cars between three companionships. This last week we spent on bikes, which was fun, as we biked around during a severe thunderstorm and a tornado warning. I had a blast.

I love you guys!

Love,

Elder Brown

The Andy Griffeth Show was filmed in our district. :D

We watched all the sessions of conference, except the Sunday afternoon one, at the church. I saw a lot of friends in the Saturday afternoon session when the BYU-I choir sang. Sunday afternoon we watched at the Goodson's home in Mount Airy. 

 

Speaking of, the new area I'm in is the Dobson Branch area. It's not a ward but we're hoping we can make it one by the end of the year. The Andy Griffeth show was filmed in our district. :D

 

My companions are Elder Child (English-speaking trainee) and Elder Jackson, who's going home in five weeks from tomorrow. I love them both to pieces already. We're a lot alike and building on our similarities. None of us are really sure why we're in a threesome, as we all speak English and none of us are waiting for a visa, but president said so, and we're having a whole bunch of fun, so no complaints. We are one. :D

 

We have a CD player and we use it a bunch. Usually music is provided by other parties, though. :D I've acutally developed a taste for talks on CD, so I think I'd request talks before music now.

 

Love you guys! Thanks for praying for me! 

 

Love,

Elder Joshua Brown

Transfer this week

Elder Bringhurst and I are getting along just fine. Plenty of sparks but at the end of the day we're still glad to be companions.  Kinda how it's been the whole transfer, really.

 

I'm being transferred this week. I don't know where or with who I'll be serving. but I do know I'm going to have fun. I'll miss the folks here in Carmel but new friends ahead.

 

The Carmel Ward of the Charlotte South Stake doesn't exist anymore. Yesterday they changed the name of the ward to Providence Ward and changed the boundaries quite a bit from what they were. Good thing I'm leaving; I don't have to deal with that. :D Poor Elder Bringhurst. He's also training a high-functioning autist, and the result of the next three months will determine whether or not the kid can stay on a mission. so he's pretty stressed, too.

 

We were able to help Bonnie again. It was raining and she was pretty impressed that we still came and helped her on our bikes. So we had a huge positive impact on her.

 

Yes, the Catawba Indians are in our mission. That's all I really know.

 

Good solid counsel for a missionary: stay positive and know that success does not equal baptisms.  

 

Love you guys,

Elder Fruitcake

(for thus I have been christened by Elder Bringhurst).

She called us angels

Our investigators are mostly doing well. We lost contact with Liz, but we're going to try and get reconnected soon. John and Melinda are just as ready as they're going to get but we still don't have the clearance to re-baptize John. It's a little frustrating.

We found two new investigators this week. One we found while tracting a road where nobody liked us. (Brad, age 20, unemployed, Anime fan). The other we found Saturday when we went to go see a do-not-contact (who, by the way, wasn't home). We knocked a couple of doors and then saw a lady trying to move some rocks for her garden. We offered to help and she said "Oh, you're too clean". Well of course we did it anyway. She called us angels. I guess she'd dislocated her shoulder during the last year or so and she was mighty grateful for our help.

Also, Saturday, we got five more hours of service when we helped Mike stain his deck. We had a lot of fun with them while we did that.

Nice weather up there, huh? Here it's green and windy, and the pollen -oh, the pollen!- is everywhere. Including in my nose. I've never had allergies before. It's miserable. I heard that eating local honey is supposed to help with that. I've got some local honey, and I'm eating it. so... I guess we'll find out.


Love, Elder Brown

Saturday was a good, good day

Probably the coolest thing this week was Saturday.  Saturday morning we went to a specialized training with Elder Dallin H. Oaks of the quorum of the Twelve Apostles.  I got to meet him and shake his hand.  Then we had a two hour meeting where President and Sister Thomas both spoke and gave us instruction.  Elder Gay of the Seventy talked about member involvement in missionary work, and Elder Oaks spoke to us at length about personal revelation.  Something that really stuck out to me was that the scriptures are a personal Urim and Thummim.  I'd never really thought of the scriptures in that way before.

Then at four o'clock that evening we watched the baptism of Bill Grey, our district's most recent convert and one of the purest souls I've ever met.  John and Melinda Bennet came to the baptismal service and the sisters in that area had a pleasant surprise when one of their own investigators came unexpectedly.  It was a good experience for all concerned.

Finally, to top it off, we had an awesome lesson with a single member in a restaurant (Firehouse Subs, good food). I won't go into too much detail but I will say that it was among the best lessons we've had recently.  Saturday was a good, good day.

Sunday was good, too.  We were blessed to have three investigators come to church.  One of them was LIz, who I've told y'all about before.  She came at the invitation of her member friends, the Berrys.  From a missionary perspective, there is just nothing cooler than an investigator coming because members asked her to.

All told, this was one of the best weeks we've had yet.  Another cool thing that happened Sunday was that a part-member-sort-of-active family came to church and brought the non-member-sort-of-active part of the family with them.  To make it even better, the non-member-sort-of-active-part invited us to come over again.  We'd been there once before and didn't think we'd had too much of an impact, but hey, we can be wrong.  We can take it.  We can cope.  Especially when it comes to a new investigator. :)

Something that's been of immense benefit to me is a talk that Elder Bringhurst and I had during a rainstorm on Monday.  Thanks to Elder Bringhurst and his exceeding great stubbornness I've discovered that being happy is a choice, and moreover, it's a choice you only have to make once.  I made that choice.  It made a difference.  I'm happier, I can take more crap from people (Elder Bringhurst), and I don't have to struggle with it.  It used to be a battle for me every morning. I used to let the little things weigh me down.  Now I don't have to.  It wasn't a magic cure; I still feel sad for people.  But I'm not sad for me much anymore.  Which is good, because I don't have time for that.

Elder Fronk gave me a tie that matches my fedora. :D  It is a pretty sweet tie.

Well, I gotta got now.  Elder Bringhurst wants to throw a frisbee around.  I love y'all, though, don't forget.

Love, Elder Brown