Week 39: October 3

Hey family! 

I hope that this week was good for you guys back in beautiful Utah, I hope the kids are well. This week was pretty good time flies haha.

Monday we had pday and we played some basketball with everyone, I got to meet he crescent city elders and be able to play with them their cool guys I twisted my ankle pretty bad haha, that hurt.  But after we had dinner with the jones family, they are cool but idk if he likes us that much, pretty normal out here haha.

But Tuesday was good we had zone meeting and we had the APs up for it I had to teach for 20 minutes on repentance and baptizing converts. It was good I hope, we went to Taco Bell after that and that wasn't a good choice at all! I ate 5 burritos 😳 after that we went finding, we had a lesson with a woman named Annette, she is having a really hard time right now but she wants to do some history work for her family, we taught her about the restoration she got emotional, we left her with a promise that this gospel really brings in the joy of life and it can really help her out. After we went more finding for a couple more hours we had dinner with the seits family but they forgot and so we waited for 40 minutes at a pizza place haha it was funny, but she came after we called her and we shared a scripture with her and said a prayer right in then middle of the pizza place it was great ! We had a lesson after that with a less active names sister tooker she just got engaged so that's cool. But we shared a video about the Book of Mormon and there was a nonmember friend there and she was super cool. We got sister tooker to give her a Book of Mormon after, thats really cool. Then we went to glorious bed. I love my bed so much sometimes haha. 💤💤

Wednesday was a crazy day of service we had a member from Utah call us and asked us if we could movie her sister from eureka to keelland about 15 minutes to the east of eureka in the middle of mountains, we started at 8 am and moved a lot of her stuff to the storage unit she had ( her name is jazmine ) then went back to her house and packed the rest up and moved her to keeland it was a crazy long day but we had the other missionaries helping out. We got done with that about 3pm and she was so grateful for us, so hopefully we can swing by and see how she is doing, we then went to another service for a woman who's house burned down and we made a another fire to burn all the extra wood that's was fun, but I got tripped and bruised my tailbone and gashed open my left butt cheek it really hurt haha. we had dinner with a member after, well we think she is a member but we can't find her records anywhere not even nationally so we think she got baptized but not confirmed. She wants to learn more about the church we had tacos 🌮. She is super super cool, she said we could go over and shoot bows with her. Awesome!

Thursday morning we went on exchanges with eureka second elders I went with elder horspool I served with him in Ukiah for awhile and we went and did service for a old woman she is a hoarder so that was fun tons of spiders 🕷. But after that we went to a steak sandwich place it was super good. After we went finding and that didn't go anywhere haha. But we went to help the Fortuna elders to pack there apartment cause they got kicked out of there apartment, so the church for them a brand new one it's so nice. But that was good we didn't have a dinner so we just raided the other elders fridge and ate a bunch of random stuff.

Friday we exchanged back and had some finding in blue lake and then service after that it was fun we cleaned a house that members moved out from, they are moving to Utah.  Everyone is moving to Utah haha. Glad we already live there!!! Don't move family. Anyways we went and planned for the next week all night so that was so much fun!! 😜

Saturday was good general conference!!! This might sound bad but I was actually excited to watch it!! I have finally grown to love listening to the prophets. Cause it helps so much with life and getting through life, I loved elder utchdorfs about the plan of salvation, I think that helps a lot of people really understand what this life is about and where we are going and why we are here. Then priesthood session was good as well, ( your home teaching better be good now father 😜) I thought it was cool that prophet Monson talked about the word of wisdom. After that we went and had dinner and did 12 week.

Sunday was amazing, I loved the talk from elder Ballard it was my favorite, everything he said spoke to my heart. And I loved Eyrings and Rasbands. It was super good. We went to dinner after and then went finding for the whole night wahoo. Taught one lesson to a guy named Eric we just read the Book of Mormon, it was good though. But that's about it, I love you guys. 

Elder Devin Brown 

brown.devin@myldsmail.net

3503 LK Wood Blvd.

Apartment B

Arcata, CA 95521

Week 38: September 26

Hello family, I hope you are all doing well I miss you guys so much. I hope you had a good week doing all the crazy things back home. 

This week was transfers, but I will start on Monday of course we went to the larsons and played pool and ping pong and a lot of missionaries came and we signed journals for the people that are going to different places. It was fun I am getting pretty dang good and pingpong ! It was fun. That night we had the fords for dinner and that was good I said goodbye to them and took a pic with them there a cool family. Went to the apartment after that and finished packing, I have a lot of stuff haha, I carry a lot of bedding. 

But Tuesday we left to Santa Rosa about 8 am. Got there about 10:30 and talked to a lot of missionaries and saw a lot of awesome missionaries!! There is a lot of new missionaries that I don't know, tons are going home and a lot are coming in so it's crazy, I saw josh sears ( elder sears. I went to high school with him so that was super cool. He is like taller than a building. But we started the drive up to arcata. It was a long drive we made it though we almost ran out of gas on the way that was scary haha, stopped at a gas station and saw some pretty weird stuff that I won't mention, but we got up to eureka first about 5 o'clock and then picked my companion up elder cullimore and then we went on splits with the stake presidency right then and there haha, I went with president jones In his brand new stingray corvette!!! It was so beautiful 😍. We went and visited a less active and invited him to church and to remember general conference. It was good I am excited about general conference, after that we went to the apartment to unpack. And to bed. Elder Cullimore is cool interesting guy. Don't know that much about his family. He is from West Point Utah up by Syracuse and Ogden. He knows the Fuhrs which is cool. 

But yeah Wednesday was really interesting we went to the Indian reservation up in hoopa, and visited a lot of natives and had some lessons. The area is crazy its like a 3 Rd world country. But we saw some pretty cool people. It was really interesting at first I hated this area and hated it. But it's slowly warming up. The ward here hates missionaries cause the last mission president sent all the bad missionaries up here and the ward lost all trust in missionaries, yesterday in church you could totally tell. It's sad but somehow hopefully we can gain that trust back. But we had dinner with the johnstons I met them my first transfer in my mission they loved my trainer elder Taylor. But it was good to be up here with them now. We had a good dinner, something that I noticed this week about my weird self is that I love animals now, like love them, whenever I see a dog I want to pet it your hug it and just be there, I remember wanted to kill every animal I saw when I was younger but now I a, a big teddy bear, I hate killing things. And realizing that god created them they have spirits like us. But yeah that was random haha. But we drove and hour and a half all the way back to arcata, lots of driving but the area is beautiful lots of redwood trees everywhere. So Thursday we had a service with a less active member jene, a native woman that is paralyzed from neck down, she can still move her arms around but not that much so that's crazy. We helped her move all her stuff cause she is remodeling her house. After that we went and tried seeing a couple people, people up here are definitely more hateful against the church haha. But we went back after and had dinner with jene and her caretaker. We had been and rice it was pretty good. That night we had some lessons fall through. So we went finding. 

Friday we had weekly planning which was long haha. But we planned for a good week, we went finding after and had dinner at our apartment I cooked chicken and green beans. Super good ! Yeah it was good. After that we went finding again, and then did 12 week to train elder cullimore, both us are not fond of it haha. 

But Saturday was really fun, we went to a less active members house and did service helped with house stuff and cleaned out rose bushes, they fed us smoked turkey sandwiches, really good. Then after we went to a non members house and did some farm service that was fun, I used a scythe! It was tiring haha idk why she didn't just have a weed whacker but it did the job, we dug a hole and put a post in for a fence we put it and we put up a metal fence, this lady has a huge pumpkin patch it super big, but I played with her dog which was awesome. After that we went and had dinner and then had a lesson with a less active recent convert, the Noriegas single dad with 1 kid. Super cool he works 80 hours a week which is nuts but we had a good lesson with them about planting the seed in our hearts. 

Sunday was good we had church at 11 and a area of the seventy came and spoke it was really cool forgot his name, I am not very good with names out here most are names I can't even pronounce 😂 we taught gospel principles about the millennium which I am excited for! Not right before it though 😂  it we went and had lunch and went finding all the way down to dinner and dinner was crazy there house is in the middle of the woods with a view over the bay it's amazing. They had a foreign exchange student from Sweden he was super cool, the Floyd family is boss! After we went and tried having a lesson with this guy I don't remember his name right now but he canceled us which was sad, we tried seeing a couple less actives but they were busy so we went back to the apartment and did 12 week and went to amazing bed 😀

But the bishop is cool his name is bishop Bloyd. There is aton of less actives, everywhere but most up here totally are not interested in coming back, we did play pig pond with one of them and we said we could come over for dinner so that's a plus. So we work in Arcata and all the little towns around it like blue lake, mickenlyville, and freshwater and a bunch others our area is huge. It's going to take a lot of time to get it down, haven't met the ward mission leader yet he is out of town, his name is Isaac. 

I am in the struggle zone, which means I have hit the 9 to 12 month period. People say it's the hardest longest part of the mission and a lot of missionaries go home. It's really hard, I am having a hard time some doubts come into my mind. Just trying to find my faith, a keep my head up. I am glad this week was good for you guys I miss you! My goal this transfer is to send more pics haha. 

Elder Devin Brown 

brown.devin@myldsmail.net

3503 LK Wood Blvd.

Apartment B

Arcata, CA 95521