Tuesday, July 21, 2015

My Last words as a full time Missionary!

My Last words as a missionary are to go serve a mission. They are the best experiences you could ever have!

For those who are not members of the church, get baptized, don't wait. There is no greater decision you could ever make in this life than that. Become a member of the church, and begin to enjoy the blessings of being part of God's Kingdom. No more excuses, no more doubts, no more procrastination, just do it.

I sure love you all. See you soon.
Elder Brown

Monday, July 13, 2015

The Lord is Pleased with what we have accomplished!

We had a great week, but I can't remember most of it because it went by so fast. 

Wimbledon tennis, and all of the tube strikes, etc has been crazy, but it hasn't affected us too much, we just had to adjust our routes and things in advance. 

This week is going to be a busy in regards to zone leader responsibilities. We have two district meetings and two exchanges, a training meeting for the ward mission leaders and bishops in the stake, as well as interviews for all the missionaries in the zone with president Gubler.

President Gubler is really cool. He will do great things for this mission, in fact he already has. Our mission leadership council was epic, and our zone leadership council was really good as well because we followed the same pattern.

During accounting last night, Elder Bos (one of the AP's) asked us how we felt, and that moment was one of the few where I had the distinct feeling that the Lord was pleased with what had been accomplished, not just by us in our area, but by the zone as well. It was just one of those moments where you really just have to stop for a second and listen, and it just felt so good. To think it has taken me this long
to get that feeling, it was really nice.


Here are some pictures of a lady in Peckham who finally got baptized after myself and a bunch of other missionaries tried to get her there. Missionaries have been teaching her for a long time, and she has been coming to church, but refused to be baptized, because she had already been
baptised four times in other churches. This picture is literally the result of ceaseless prayers and much fasting, by missionaries and her family for a number of years. I was there for the invitation to her baptismal date, and was lucky enough to attend part of her baptism as well!






I arrive at the glacier international airport in Kalispell at 10:10 on July 22nd, as that is pretty late, I don't think I will be able to walk home, I will be too tired, is there anyway you can arrange a ride for me? Lol

Love you all,
Elder Brown

Faithful unto Life Eternal

Monday, July 6, 2015

New Mission President Gubler!

This week was pretty good, we dropped 4 of our dates, but we got 3 more as well, so hopefully they will be a bit more solid. We are really working hard to get these people to come to church, but no success thus far. We had a baptism in the zone, one of the guys I knew in Peckham, he is really cool. Great guy from Jamaica. 

We met our new mission president, and he is really cool. He is revolutionizing the mission when it comes to technology. He gave the AP's smartphones, and is most likely going to
get them for zone leaders within a few transfers. He already ordered a new projector. This guy likes his gadgets. He was an electrical engineer. He is super motivating, and a lot of fun.

President Millar will be missed for sure, but the mantle has definitely passed, and president Gubler is definitely the right guy for the job now.

We had a fun zone preparation day today.  We went to an African restaurant with the whole zone and the AP's, the same one we went to after exchange with the AP's when I was with elder Harris. 


I love you all, have a great week.
Faithful unto Life Eternal
 



Monday, June 29, 2015

People asking to be baptized!

My week was pretty good.The zone is at 22 baptismal dates right now, we have 8 in our own area. We have seen a lot of success as we have increased our faith.

We had a few really cool miracles as well. One guy approached us on the street and said that he wanted to learn, because he had a friend that taught him a bit in the past. We didn't have time to meet with him then, but we set an appointment, and then we extended a baptismal date
a few days later, and he was all for it. 


We have seen similar miracles throughout the zone. Missionaries have received referrals of those who literally ask to be baptized. We met a lady outside the chapel who
after we said hello, immediately asked us what time the church starts. When we said 10 on Sundays, she said "I am thinking of joining this church." Needless to say, things are going great.

Faithful unto Life Eternal

Monday, June 22, 2015

5 Baptisms scheduled!

Everything is going great. Our new area isn't as African, but there is still a decent number of them.

We had a mission conference with elder Holland which was super good! And so was his visit to our ward on Sunday. Elder Holland and Elder cook were companions for a while as the assistants to the president. They served right here in central London. 

We Received some proper revelation on how to hasten the work in the zone.  Elder Holland just invited us to be more astonishing and bold with people, and the revelation for our zone goals is already bringing amazing fruit! Every single key indicator except other lessons went up this week! We are super excited for this transfer, needles to say. 

Our new flat is soooooooo nice! We have heated floors! And
our new area is going pretty well. The hardest thing is getting members to be present. We are working on it though. 

We have five baptismal dates already! We extended one last night to a Jehovah Witness and he accepted!

The new mission president takes over on June 30th.


I love you all, have a great week!
Elder Brown

Faithful unto Life Eternal

Monday, June 15, 2015

We are here to help others! 5/25/2015

The reason we are really here isn't just to learn and grown ourselves, but to help others to do so. Our efforts simply result in a side effect of our own growth. 

This week was really good. I don't know what did it, but I was just sooooooo happy after accounting on Sunday. Recently I have been relatively stressed, not too much, but I just wasn't as happy as I had been before, it was like I was just going on, not struggling, but not excited or really joyful. But I am, so happy to have that feeling back. 

This work really is the best thing anyone could ever do. We changed our way of accounting for other lessons back to the way it was when I first came out. We now count 2 principles, a commitment, and a prayer as a lesson again. We really felt as leaders that this needs to come back. We learned a lot as a mission from the changes we made 9 months ago, and we feel now that the missionaries are ready to go back to the old way which will become much more effective, because we all have learned not to worry about the numbers, but about the people, but many of us still need the push to get out more and be more diligent in speaking with everyone. 

We gave a really good presentation on sacred street lessons in our zone conference, and we have seen great miracles already from the change back. Missionaries in our zone are more excited for the work, I think all of this may have helped result in my happiness, because a lot of my joy is based upon the success I hear and see from those I have been able to help. 

We got a new baptismal date. He was referred online by his brother, and is agnostic, but he said that he feels like now is the time for him to find God, and when we spoke about baptism as a new start, he said that is exactly what I need, so he is preparing for baptism for the 21st of June! He is proper prepared!

Elder Holland came to our ward!

This week was hectic, but it went by fast, and was still enjoyable. We had a lot of planning and a small amount
of finding in an area we don't know anything about (I never even came on exchange here) but we had a lot of success, and we are building a decent teaching pool so far. 
Lots of miracles are happening.

Elder Holland is a beast, we had the mission conference on Friday which was epic, and then we saw him again on Sunday as he attended our new ward. I got to shake his hand for the second time on Friday which was cool. Very brief getting to speak to him though. 

He said over the pulpit that he shook our hands so that he could have a personal interview with us by looking into our eyes. I am sure he can discover a lot that way. He is
a spiritual guy. He is extremely humorous as well. He told loads of old stories. He served his mission here so of course he had the memories coming back.


 It has been pretty warm around here as well, but not near as hot as over there.  So the area that closed is Peckham Zone (my area), but obviously the zone leaders still exist, so we now just work the Wandsworth area. So now it is Wandsworth Zone area. We are in the Wandsworth ward, and Peckham no longer has 6 missionaries. They only have four. It's a bit hard to describe without making it confusing

I love you all, and hope you have a great week. 

Here is a picture of my new companion.  He is a machine, beast worker, and good teacher. We are hoping to baptize more than one person this transfer, but who knows.

Companion watches for £5 each, pretty cool.