Baptism!

Me and the district Elders

This week was pretty good! We had a fitness activity on Friday, that went pretty well. We only had one non-member there, but because it is going to be a weekly thing, we are hoping to get more and more as the weeks continue!
Faith's baptism on Sunday went very well, her parents were there, as well as her sister. Her mom was crying a little and kept saying how proud she was of her. Faith's family is planning on coming to church next week to see her conformation, and we are hoping that they will be our next baptismal dates. They have already expressed interest in it so it should be good. None of our investigators made it to sacrament meeting, one of them, M__, was ill, but was planning on coming. We are hoping to extend a baptismal date to him as well. He is probably the most committed of all of our investigators at the moment.
I am doing well, we had a great exchange with the Zone Leaders on Saturday, and it was really nice to work with Elder Mannucci again, and see how we have improved since last time. Elder Lamb and I are hoping to have a great week this week! We have set some really good goals for working more effectively and in better unity, and we are both excited from the exchanges we had. I always have interesting door-knocking experiences, but none of them seem funny or crazy anymore, because I have done it so much! We met this African guy, who had probably the coolest name I have ever heard! His name is Chill!
Our family history being in England I would love to come back and visit England with you guys after I get back, it would be really cool!

 

Transfers are on the 5th.

 

Last blogs pictures of the Knife was Brother Hammonds he

 

 got the knife from the Philippians. His wife is Pilipino, so he bought it when they were down there at some point. It is pretty cool innit!

  

I love you all!!!!!!!!! Love hearing from you guys too! I attached a few photos. Unfortunately I don't have one with faith in her baptismal clothes, because we were doing last minute prep, and elder George baptized her, so he has a photo, but I'm not in it. I will send it to you when I get it though.

 

 Picture of a diagram of a street with a LA on it, needless to say it was more confusing than the following statement: when the lots of just you give their is a dogs don't know!

 

 

 The pictures are of faith in the armor of God that we made for her! They are a bit creepy, because her eyes turned out red, but that just makes it better!

 

 

Can't Believe it's been 6 months!

One of the scriptures I like is 2 Nephi 31:13

13 Wherefore, my beloved brethren, I know that if ye shall follow the Son, with full purpose of heart, acting no hypocrisy and no deception before God, but with real intent, repenting of your sins, witnessing unto the Father that ye are willing to take upon you the name of Christ, by baptism—yea, by following your Lord and your Savior down into the water, according to his word, behold, then shall ye receive the Holy Ghost; yea, then cometh the baptism of fire and of the Holy Ghost; and then can ye speak with the tongue of angels, and shout praises unto the Holy One of Israel.

compared with Moroni 10:3-5  they both talk about spiritual witnesses, and receiving the Holy Ghost, or the "baptism by fire."

3 Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

 4 And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

 5 And by the power of the Holy Ghost ye may know the truth of all things. 
 

If we don't receive the holy ghost, we can't speak with the tongue of angels meaning the spirit, for angels speak by the holy ghost (see 2 Nephi 32:2-4).

 

F__ is going to be baptized next week, so that more of her friends can be there, she wants more of them to come and a lot of them couldn't come this week! I haven't been able to get in contact with anyone in the tower yet, but we are hoping to go there and stop by soon. Here are a couple more of my favorite scriptures:

  Leviticus 2:5-7 (not exactly Spiritual but I like it) lol

 5 ¶And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in a pan, it shall be of fine flour unleavened, mingled with oil.

 6 Thou shalt part it in pieces, and pour oil thereon: it is a meat offering.

 7 ¶And if thy oblation be a meat offering baken in the frying pan, it shall be made of fine flour with oil.

 

Doctrine and covenants 19

 15 Therefore I command you to repent—repent, lest I smite you by the rod of my mouth, and by my wrath, and by my anger, and your sufferings be sore—how sore you know not, how exquisite you know not, yea, how hard to bear you know not.

 16 For behold, I, God, have suffered these things for all, that they might not suffer if they would repent;

 17 But if they would not repent they must suffer even as I;

 18 Which suffering caused myself, even God, the greatest of all, to tremble because of pain, and to bleed at every pore, and to suffer both body and spirit—and would that I might not drink the bitter cup, and shrink—

 19 Nevertheless, glory be to the Father, and I partook and finished my preparations unto the children of men.

 20 Wherefore, I command you again to repent, lest I humble you with my almighty power; and that you confess your sins, lest you suffer these punishments of which I have spoken, of which in the smallest, yea, even in the least degree you have tasted at the time I withdrew my Spirit.

 

28 And again, I command thee that thou shalt pray vocally as well as in thy heart; yea, before the world as well as in secret, in public as well as in private.

 29 And thou shalt declare glad tidings, yea, publish it upon the mountains, and upon every high place, and among every people that thou shalt be permitted to see.

 30 And thou shalt do it with all humility, trusting in me, reviling not against revilers.
 

It is crazy that I have been here for 6 months already, I still don't even know what it feels like to move! LOL I will probably be out of here on the 5th of February! I know nearly everyone, and I have knocked most of the streets! Hahaha, just kidding, there are plenty of streets that I haven't touched!
 

I uploaded a few photos for you! The first few are me and elder lamb holding an exact replica (same size, shape, and materials) of Sir Edwards sword. One of our investigators, B__, showed it to us.

Elder Lamb



 

Elder Brown

 

 

 

The last two are of me and elder lamb holding a Pilipino knife that one of the members here showed us. It is specifically designed to go into the side of a person easily, and come out with all of the insides, including a few ribs, not quite as easily! Hope that leaves a nice mental image in your minds! LOL

Elder Brown

Elder Lamb

 

I love you all so very much and miss the Wasabi crew as well. I can't wait to see you guys again!
Elder Brown

Investigators coming to church!

This week was good, but could have been quite a bit better. We did some service for a lady in our ward, which was really good, because she is one of the ones we knew hardly anything about, but it turns out she went on a mission when she was younger!
We are hoping to get to know more people, and organize some activities, because this ward doesn't have very many at the moment, and we would like to have more things to introduce people in a different way.
We had three investigators at church on Sunday, M_, B__, and F__, which was great! It has been a struggle to get people to church recently. We are finally getting a few people to progress, and we have had some really good teaches with some people that we have struggled to work with! F__ is all lined up for her baptism this week, and we are hoping it will help her family to keep the commitments we have given them!

I love you all so much, and I hope you guys have a good week! Don't really have any pics or videos to send this week sorry!

Elder Brown

Feeling lots better!

Feeling lots better, but it is still there, especially in the mornings! Thanks for all the prayers, there helping! I didn't even realize it was new years eve until about 6:00 while we were out knocking I just didn't even notice it!  We didn't really have much training when it came to family history, but there is some stuff online, that I have seen! Haven't met with any of the people in the tower yet, but we are hoping to this week! 

          This week was pretty good, We didn't get any new investigators unfortunately, but we got a lot of new potentials, who seem to be pretty promising! J__, one of our investigators, is finally starting to progress a little, he wants to come to church, and he asked if he could start paying tithing! I thought that was pretty cool. We taught him about tithing and fast offerings, and we are trying to get someone who is available to give him a lift to church as he can't drive. B__, another one of our investigators, who has been quite busy lately, was finally able to meet with us, as well. He has finally started to give time to the Book of Mormon, and he has proposed to come to church every other week for now. He admitted that he isn't too happy with his church, and he can't hear the sermons very well, so he has just been reading the BofM during the service! We recommitted him to pray about the Book of Mormon and he has accepted. So hopefully he will start to progress soon. F__, our baptismal date, wasn't at church, because she didn't have a ride. We haven't been in contact for a while, and they haven't responded to our texts recently, so we are hoping they are doing ok, but we are going to really try and get the rest of the family to come to church, so that F__
can be at church even if the members are unavailable to give her a lift.
I have been doing well. studies have been going well lately, and I have been learning a lot more which is great! My illness, has finally started to die down. I have just been taking stuff for sore throats, and it has been helping.

 

I have been taking it slow with the chocolate! Out of the 60,000 calories, I would say we have about 30,000 left or so! Not too bad for one week right!

 

We had a fun obstacle course we did at the church for P-Day but I didn't do it because I was sick. I knew that if  I brought p-day clothes I would over do it and make myself even more sick! I was feeling really awful that day. I didn't dress because I was just eliminating the temptation, plus we are supposed to wear pros always unless the activity requires something different, so there was no point in changing for me, the others just changed at the chapel!

 

There have been some crazy storms over here lately, we actually got an evacuation suggestion on our phone, because of an upcoming flood! We stayed with the missionaries in Hedge End just in case, but we are on the second floor, so nothing happened!

 

 I Love you all lots, and I can't wait to hear from you guys again, I attached a few photos! Elder Lamb was pretty happy, he was interviewing M__ for baptism (M__ is the Southampton elders investigator), and he asked him to baptize him. It was Elder Lamb's first time actually performing the ordinance, so that was cool!

Elder Lamb ready for his first time baptizing.

 

Elder Lamb and Southampton elders  

 

 

 Me in front of a cool statue in my area.

 

 Presents that ward members gave us.

 

My first attempt at a balloon animal.

 

 

 

Illness and Chocolate!

Sounds like you guys had an average EPIC christmas with the family and friends! Meanwhile I was here dying of illness, and eating chocolate which probably didn't help. I am not even close to finishing off the chocolate. People keep giving us more!
Did nothing this entire week, because of the illness, so no good stories or pics, sorry about that. Elder Lamb and I both loved our stockings, they are really cool, I was hoping you would do them, and you did!

 

Send me some of those pictures of the frost and snow, we don't get anything but wind, rain, and illness! I would love to see some of them.
Sorry about the skimpy email this week, but there isn't much to say really! Hope you guys have a great week, and I love you all so much! You would not believe how much i really love you guys, I didn't realize how great of a family I had, until I left them for a while, and saw other people's families! Have a good one, and don't gain too much weight!

Love Elder Brown

Sick but going strong

This week was pretty good, I don't have any really cool stories this week, but on Friday Elder Green and I were on exchange. It was pretty funny people thought that we had some sort of class system or something because both our names are colors.
It was raining pretty hard, so we decided to knock this huge flat complex building. It was 24 floors, 144 doors. Out of those doors we taught 14 people! It was pretty epic!

I got over 60,000 calories of chocolate for Christmas. The chocolate over here is soooooo good!

I have been pretty sick. I have been trying to treat it, but it just fluctuates a lot. Sorry, not much time to talk. I will Skype on Christmas.

Elder Brown

 

Elder George, Elder Lamb Elder Manucci, Elder Brown at the Perez family home.



 

 

 

Elder Brown, Elder Manucci, Elder Lamb Elder George

 

Elder Brown, Elder Manucci, Elder Lamb, Elder George

 

Elder Lamb and Elder Brown doing a service project.

 

 

 

 

A reminder of our family!

 We are teaching two free masons. J_____, the 65+, wheelchair bound mason man, is doing well. Teaching him is slow, because he talks a lot, which is pretty funny, because he always says the same things. I think he might have a slight case of amnesia, which might cause a problem. We have decided that the best way to teach him is to either read to him, or watch videos, so it will be pretty different, but I think it will be great! He would love to come to church, but he can't drive and he can only use a specific vehicle for his wheelchair anyway, so we offered to find someone who would give him a lift to church in his own car. He was like super stoked for it. Anyway we found a member who said he would love to help, but J_____ won't be available in the mornings on Sundays until January.  At least he is interested and we have it figured out. The other Mason is M____. He is the Partner(not married but living together) of a La woman. Their family is so great, and they are really ready to be reactivated. We taught him the restoration and the plan of salvation, and he loved the lessons. We committed him to baptism, and he said that if he gets an answer that the BofM is true, he will hunt us down until we baptize him! He won't commit to a date yet, but he will when he gets an answer!
We gave F____ a Baptismal date for Jan 18th, and she accepted! We are hoping to give the same date to her parents soon.
Our ward Christmas party was Saturday, and it was great. We went through our phone and sent the same text to every Less Active, and every investigator in the phone. A lot of them we don't even know, because they have been in the phone since before I ever got here. We had like six people show up and a bunch send us texts back saying thanks, but they are busy. It was awesome. Elder Mannucci was surprised to see some of them, and he was like how did you ever get them to come!

 

We will be at a members home for most of Christmas day.  I get an hour at whatever time would be best for you to Skype. Not too late in the day, or too early in the morning for me though. Remember you guys are seven hours different.

 

My companion, Elder Lamb is also taking driving lessons right now. It is a lot harder to pass a test in England. The test is like way long and the roads here are crazy!

 

This week was non-existent! It went so fast, I don't even know what to do! Got to go to the temple, and man was it epic!! Learned quite a bit.

 

Glad to know that you guys are still living life the way I remember it! You guys all make me laugh so hard!

 

A rice bag, sounds like a wonderful thing to have right now! I have been getting Hardcore sick again, and last night we were out in the most rubbish weather! I was soaked to the core! YSA sounds like it is still a blast! As always! Give my regards to those who know me!

  

I have to tell you guys, We had a Dinner Appointment yesterday with the Compton Family! They are a huge family, like ten kids! Anyway, they reminded me so much of our family, and all of our crazy experiences that we have day to day! It was Great! I miss you guys, and I love you all! This week went by so fast that I didn't get any pictures at all! 

Guernsey is an Island that is really far away from the rest of the mission, it isn't in our zone. It is like the outcast area! LOL! It is closer to France than it is to England. President Millar was talking to us at one point, and he told Elder Lamb about a new sister that came in not too long ago. He said she was way too attractive to be a missionary, so he sent her as far from the rest of the elders as possible. He sent her to Guernsey!

Have a great week,

Elder Brown