Week 11: March 21

Hey family! 

What's up!!? How is life back home? How is everyone? I am doing pretty good. My Infection is pretty much gone I have a couple more pills to take but am almost 100% better. I couldn't really walk for a week. I also got sick Friday night from these tacos that we had which was nasty. But I am doing good right now haha. Almost back to normal. 

Other than being sick we taught 12 lessons this week and it's increasing really fast so I am excited. We are teaching this old couple named Jeffery and Shanea. Jeffery is really interested and he already believes in the godhead. How Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ and the Holy Ghost are separate beings but one in person. Super cool! We are teaching also a small family the mom is inactive but the daughter isn't a member. So we have been teaching all of them there names are Eileen which is the mom and crystal the daughter and we are also teaching Chris her brother and crystals daughters autumn and August. Guess what!? We asked them if they wanted to be baptized and they said yes! So we have 2 baptisms set. For the 27th of June. Which is awesome! We are teaching Charlie and well he is doing okay. He kinda went off the radar for 2 weeks. He finally showed up and church today we were able to talk with him about general conference and get him ready for it. 

Varsity's baptism was on Friday it was really good I talked on the Holy Ghost and it went really well I hope haha. She had to be dunked twice, which was okay haha. We also found 2 new investigators her name is Markie she is really cool she grew up in LA downtown she is super ghetto I love it haha. She is funny. We barely have been teaching her he just started she loves to pray and I think she is ready. We also found a new investigator name Cassandra and Adrian her son there are super cool. She loves family and we taught her that we can be together forever with our families she loved it, her and her son said they will come to church next week for Easter! 

It's already Easter ! It's weird. Time is so weird over here, we wake up and I feel like I am going to bed right after. It's crazy how time flies when your working your hardest. We are teaching a lot of less actives trying to bring them back. And finding people of course. Lots of people up in the mountains haha, which is awesome !! My favorite person in the ward? Is probably Isaac he is our ward mission leader and he is awesome!! He loves the missionaries and he is just a really good guy. He buys us dinner a lot. Which is awesome. We need to eat.  

I am pretty excited for Easter. We will watch general conference at the stake center and try to invite a lot of people. So I have a challenge for you guys. I want you to prepare for general conference and and pray for a question that you need answered. A question deep inside that you either really want answered or that you want off your shoulders. But I want you to pray about it and also to read it " it works wonderfully" by president Dieter F. Uchtdorf. Any other questions for me?? I love you guys, and I hope that everything is well at home. 

How are things going with your companion? 

Elder Warnick and I are doing pretty good, we butt heads sometimes but we are doing good over all. :) 

How big is the area you usually cover? Do you drive quite a few miles in a day/week? Do you share your car with anyone? 

We cover a pretty big area, sometimes we drive a half hour to get to a house. So a lot of driving. We have our own car. Which is nice haha. We could drive between 20 miles to 100 a day it really depends haha. 

Do the Spanish elders also have a car? Is anyone on bikes in your mission? Who is the designated driver? 

Yes the Spanish elders have a car also I don't know if anyone is on bikes. They probably will use them in the summer. We both drive so that's pretty cool haha. 

With love, 

Elder Brown 

Week 10: March 14

Elder Brown could use a few extra prayers this week. On top of a difficult week, he spent the day today in the ER. He had an ultrasound, a shot in the rear end, and lots of testing. It looks like an infection and he has medication for a week to clear it up. Thank you for your love and support!

Shauna

Hey family! 

How are you guys doing ? How is the weather over there? Is it getting warmer? Cause it's been raining non stop for the past 2 weeks everything is soaked and cold haha. It's super annoying.

My comp is good he is super awesome. Last night he thanked me for working so hard and adjusting from a crazy lazy comp to a hard working missionary. He is coolio. We get along pretty well.

Our investigators are good. We are teaching a couple new families and we are finding tons of less actives last week we saw about 120 of them. Crazy!.

The transfer is longer this transfer its 7 weeks. So it will be over the beginning if April. And Varsity’s baptism is still on for next Friday. So that's awesome.

Yesterday was really cool. I had to say the prayer in sacrament and pass the sacrament and then last night there was a  priesthood meeting up in Lakeport about an hour away. It was about how to treat our wife/ future wife. It was good and super funny.

Today is pie day ? Haha that's cool.

This week has really tried my faith haha. It was a hard week but it was good too. I need to call the doctor today. But this week was really good the days are slow and the weeks fly by haha. I am making friends for life out here so that's pretty awesome!!

That's so awesome that Taylor’s going  back out (Mom Insert: Devin’s friend Taylor has been home from his mission for several months and was just cleared to go out again next week)! Finally. I am happy for him.

We are teaching this less active member she is super crazy! Her name is Kylee and she loves to vent to us. She is a mess. That's all I can say haha.

On the way Lakeport we almost hit a turkey! This turkey was the biggest turkey I have ever seen. It was funny haha.

There is a short holiday video that came out for the church. Go to lds.org or YouTube or Mormon.org. It's called #hallelujah it's pretty good. 

How are the kids doing? I am going to try to write them this week. Anyways. I love you guys. Go see superman vs, batman and tell me how it is!!! :) if it's out haha. 

Love,

Elder Brown

brown.devin@myldsmail.net

Elder Devin Brown

875 South Oak Street #8

Ukiah, CA 95482

Pics:

The first pic is with my companion, Elder Warnick. The second was a service that we did we had to cut down the tree cause it fell over in a storm and fell between a tree. So we decided to make a teeter tauter out of it very awesome!!! It was legendary! I will send more pics. Best service ever. We got to milk goats and play with baby goats. This is up in kelseyville. That's elder young on the top, ( the so smart one) ;)

Week 9: March 7

Dear family!

How is life back home? How are the kids? I miss them so much. Life in Ukiah is really good. We are working our butts off haha. This whole week has been crazy. Really good week though. We have seen a ton of miracles, on Tuesday though we went on exchanges and I went down to Cloverdale with Elder Perry he is really cool. Got to go work down there. I love Cloverdale it's a small nice town its a small valley like 30 min from Ukiah down south. We did service for these none members and that sucked we had to move some really heavy stuff down 2 flights of stairs. It was good though haha. We went and had dinner at the persons house a members house down there. They were really awesome family. This week was really cool.. We have been finding less active families we have like over 300 less actives. Tons of families haha. So it's perfect. Tons of part member families. 

We don't see Rachel anymore cause she want keeping her commitments which was really sad. Yes varsity is still getting baptized. March 18th so that will be awesome. I didn't get the vitamins yet but I will look for them. I am good right now haha. Cow stomach is nasty !! Would not recommend it. Singing at the funeral was good haha. It went surprisingly well. Haha people liked it. The best spiritual experience was probably last night we were looking for people to visit ran it to some grumpy people and everyone else didn't answer the door so we said a prayer and we looked on the list of less actives and we both picked a name. The name was Jennifer Huddle. And it was a jackpot! She was really awesome she adopts disabled kids and she used to live in AF Utah. So that's a small world so that was super cool. Charlie is the same. Just needs time time we think. Oh yeah we found another family the mom is named crystal she has 2 kids. Was really awesome family so that's exciting. Awesome week.

Had a interview with president this week told him about my depression and it was a good interview, love president wright. Ukiah is awesome I am going to miss it, it's amazing. It's so pretty up here.

The lesson that I learned this week is that we need to give our all over to the lord and serve with all our heart.. And that's where true happiness comes from. You guys should watch the video " The hope of gods light" it's one of my favorite videos! Also " treasure in heaven", John tanner story. You probably already seen it but it's so amazing what he did. It's like 20 minutes. If you watch it just think of the power in the part when his leg is healed. Really think about it. It's awesome. Well I get to call home in May! May 8th I believe for Mother's Day! I love you guys!!

With love, Elder Brown 

Week 8: February 29

Dear family, 

My week was really long haha. Long and long and longer and hard. That sums it up. But good.. In some parts haha. 

1. Tell us more about Elder Warnick. Grandpa Brown knows Elder’s Warnick’s Grandpa (maybe Great Grandpa) really well—he was a dairy farmer. Small world! 

Elder Warnick is cool he likes to do out door stuff and he likes to hike and Loves to camp likes soccer and any sport. Cool guy. Kinda stubborn but cool. Dang that's crazy! I guess there is a reason I came to this mission I know a lot of missionaries before coming out here. Haha.

2.  You’re still in the same area? How’s the new apartment? How is it sharing with the Spanish elders?

In Ukiah and I like the new apartment it's bigger. Older but better. I love the Spanish elders. There my bros. 

3.  How is your finding going?

Our finding is going pretty well we find all day everyday. And then do lessons at night. 

4.  How are Rachel and Charlie doing? Are any of Rachel’s family members? How do her parents feel about her learning the gospel?

Rachel is not doing good. She hasn't come to church yet. But we are still trying. We haven't met her parents yet. Charlie is doing really good. I think he just needs time. He wants to learn more about the gospel before getting baptized so we just have to work with him. And be patient.

5. What was your best experience/most spiritual experience this week?

The best experience? / spiritual? Hmm probably when we found a less active this week. We went to knock on this potential investigators door and know one answered. So we waited a little then we both turned around and said we need to knock on the other door across the hall. As we did and we found Sophie a inactive member and a single mom. So that was really cool. 

6.  What was the craziest thing that happened this week?

The caziest thing ? Umm we ate cow stomach soup! Nasty! I will send some pics. 

This week was super busy and crazy we wake up and do our regular schedule of course then we go finding pretty much  all day. So there are 120 people coming to church every week and guess how many members are in the ward? 500. That means almost 400 inactive. That's insane. So we are super busy going through lists of the ward and visiting in actives and finding more people. 

I am singing at a funeral haha. This Saturday. We have practice on Wednesday. We have lessons set up in the evenings. With Sarah Gilbert and Sophie. And Dani. And a bunch more that I can't remember off the top of my head. 

Yeah we ate cow stomach soup. I almost puked. But I ate it all!! I think that's 2 points on the man card ;) 

Varsity is getting baptized on March 18th and she has asked us to speak at her baptism. 

Oh yeah last week elder Hamula of the seventy came and spoke really awesome. I was the first one to shake his hand! Yeah!! He taught about home teaching. And he mentioned like 3 times that the second coming is very soon. He also talked about obedience. One of the things I learned this week about service. Here is a scripture I wanted to share. Mathew 16:25 "For whosoever will save his life shall lose it, and whosoever will lose his life for my sake shall find it." What I got out of this is when we save and help other people and serve gods children we are healing the soul. We truly find ourselves when we serve others.  Cause when we are In the service of others we are serving our Heavenly Father. And when we are we find our true potential. For family night tonight you should watch a video called " Lift" and read through that scripture after. If you want haha. You can watch it on mormonchannel.org. It's awesome. 

Yeah this week was super busy. We had a bible bash that got a little heated. So we just left haha. We had a gangster come and say hi to us haha. He was super funny. We went to the beach last Monday. Super fun. Played ultimate frisbee.. Love the beach. One of the things I have come to appreciate.. Is all of gods creations. It's so pretty out here, and I love just to think about how it was made and just how thankful I am that we have all of it. 

I have had a lot of ups and downs. Some depression. But I am doing good. Haha. I hope all is well at home. Tell the kids I love them. Have a good week. :) 

With love, Elder Brown