November 22, 2010

What's up! Very glad to be able to hear from you guys again, as always! Hearing some updates from home always gets me ready to go for the week! I've gotten the first half of the Thanksgiving package (chicken, gravy, soup, potatoes), hopefully the rest of it will come this week! I got a package from Grandma Brown this week too, had some sweet candy and stuff! Anyway besides that, the week was really sweet. We played basketball on a court down by the beach last week, it was fun to be able to ball again. There are some guys that are pretty good in the zone, so it was really fun. I kind of hurt my shoulder playing though, haven't played a sport that involves the use of the arms in a while! That interrupted my morning work-out routine a little, but it wasn't too bad. I've been getting up a little early every day for the past few weeks and working out with the stuff we've got in the apartment. I'm getting totally ripped...haha. Fufu won't do that for ya I think. But I've actually enjoyed getting up at 5:30 and working out for a little while, it's hard, but it gets me ready for the day!

The week of proselyting went really well too. On Tuesday we held our first "Baptism Prep and New Member Class." Elder Adams had the idea to do it last week, so we decided to go ahead and try it. Basically we just want to have another opportunity each week for our investigators and recent converts to get together every week to be able to gain a solid foundation of knowledge concerning what we are teaching them, and then also to be able to become friends with each other and get more comfortable in the church setting. It went really really well. Elder Adams and I taught from 3 Nephi 11 about baptism in general, and it was really good for all who were present. We had a few investigators come, several recent converts, and a few members, so it was a very good mix to have. There is a new teaching curriculum that the missionary department has implemented, and basically our focus in all teaching is supposed to be baptism. We are supposed to talk about baptism in the first lesson with anyone we meet. So every investigator we have, we invite them to come to the baptism prep class, whether they have committed to baptism or not. I think it's going to be a really good way for them to learn better about baptism and about membership in the church in general. We're going to take each missionary lesson and teach at the class, but we're going to make everything stem from baptism. So for this week we are going to teach the Restoration, but we are going to focus on what that means about baptism, and why we need to be baptized into this church. We'll focus on the apostasy and the Restoration and let the Spirit take it from there! It should be sweet, last week's class was awwwwwesome.

Wednesday we had Zone Conference, it was sweet as always. Thursday through Saturday we stayed busy preparing the people who will be baptized this week for baptism. Belinda, Bernard and Kobina are all doing really well, and are just awesome!

We also had some fun messing with tro-tro mates on Thursday. They call the guys who you pay on a tro-tro "mates" and we just had some fun messing around with them while we were driving. I love riding on tro-tros, it's so fun. It's like a mini roller coaster ride everyday.

Jacob, our recent convert, is a barber, so we always go to his place to get our hair cut. He cuts the African way, we're the only oborufo who's hair he has ever cut, so he just does it the way he knows! So yep, my hair looks like P-diddy's or fitty's. No big deal.

We helped Andrew finish his basic family history stuff on Friday. We got all the info into Familysearch for his grandparents who have passed away, and he'll be able to go to the temple next week to do their work, pretty sweet! He got the Melchezidek Priesthood on Sunday at stake conference. He was so excited. So awesome to be able to see that for him. 2 and a half months ago, we didn't even know who he was...Ye da nyame ase. SO AWESOME!!!!!

Saturday I went on splits with Elder Katoa in Moree. It was sweet, we taught a bunch of lessons, and had a lot of fun cruising around Moree all day. Elder Katoa loved Moree. He is so tight too. He's a powerful guy. In physical and spiritual strength! He's one of the reasons I've started working out for an hour every day! Haha.

Sunday was Stake Conference. It was one of those big regional conferences broadcast from Salt Lake, so we got to see Elder Oaks, President Packer, Sister Dibb, and Elder Cristoffel Golden (area presidency, from South Africa) speak. We went to the Abura stake center to watch it. The Stake center was PACKED. Honestly it was pretty ridiculous. They will be splitting the stake here by the end of next year I'm sure. It was sweet to see so many members there together. Elder Oaks spoke a lot about putting off old traditions that aren't in line with the Gospel.

Well that's it for the week. I love you guys, thanks for everything!

Alright well thanks again for everything, I'll be looking forward to the packages :) LOVE YOU!!!!!!!!!!!! and everybody else that reads this too!!!!

Yebehyia,
Elder Brown