October 31, 2011

Maadwo! Hope all is well in Tejas, things are pretty cool in Sunyani. We have had a pretty quiet P-Day today. I am really happy for quiet P-Days because those were non-existent in Kumasi! It’s nice to just have a day to rest and not worry about anything, just get ready for the week ahead. We were going to go to Kumasi today, we get to go for P-Day once every three months to have an activity with everybody there, but me and Elder Mapanje just wanted to stay back, rest, and get ready for the week ahead. As always it was a crazy week so we needed a rest! And going to Kumasi is the opposite of rest. That place... it is something! So today was spent cleaning, washing, and sleeping a little bit. It’s weird how relaxing cleaning can be now.... and to see everything looking nice and organized makes me really happy... guess I am growing up. As for last week, it was cool. A few moments where I wished that my calling to help the church grow was to just pull a handcart a few hundred miles into the desert and then have lots of kids, but as always, by Sunday night, everything was A-OK. Still not a lot of people to teach, so days are a wee bit long, but we are trying our best. We are getting better at teaching together, and members are really excited about the work, so things are sure to pick up quick. Plus, we do have a few solid people like Femi, who came to church on Sunday and is getting really involved. Whenever I feel a little down about not having tons of people to teach, I think back to my first few months in Kwamo, when we had no one! Not one!! Haha, so my faith is definitely strong in the aspect of that when you do everything you can do, the Lord helps you find people like Andrew and Cosmos and Eric and Anarfi and Mensah and the rest. So, we shall continue pressing forward! Tuesday night we had a good lesson with Femi. We are into the Plan of Salvation now, he started loving it from the start. Started with the Pre-Mortal existence and he was asking really good questions and was understanding really well. We had another good lesson with him Friday, he had really good questions about life after death, so we spent a while talking about that. I am definitely enjoying myself here, all of the new opportunities and experiences are teaching me so much. The places and people I have been around on my mission have been exactly what I need to become what I need to become, and Sunyani definitely isn't any different. Moree was hard, but you could find people to teach and there was a lot of members. Kwamo was a whole new ball game, really hard to find people to teach. Now Sunyani is a whole new thing. I thought it would be a lot like Kwamo, but it is proving to be a whole nother animal. Our branch president has been a member for 8 months! And our first counselor for 3! We get asked questions every day about how to run the branch... and um... I am 20 years old and have had callings such as Deacon's quorum president and Sacrament pianist. But… luckily I have seen a lot of things growing up, so I can offer a little bit of help. Elder Mapanje was the ward clerk in his branch in Zimbabwe before coming, so he gives a lot better input than me. I just try my best! We taught the 3rd hour of church yesterday. Trying to help our little branch understand a branch mission plan. We tried to help them see how we could get the number goal into names so we can find people to accomplish the goal. We explained a little bit about the auxilliaries working to find referrals from specific members. Hopefully understanding how prayer will help them, will let them think of future leaders and families that will help the church to continue the strong foundation that is being built here! Prayer is definitely the key in anything! Well guys, life is great here. Never easy, but it is great. You guys help me so much, when it’s been a tough week, everything is fine after emailing, thanks so much for everything. I got an email from Elder Nathan's parents, pretty sweet to hear from them. Elder Nathan seems to be doing really well in Kwamo. So... keep doing the great things you are doing and I will do my best too! As I always say, my testimony is growing every day and I am learning so much day by day, little by little. Having to figure things out for myself is letting me become a lot better in solving problems and becoming more effective in general. I am very very thankful for the experiences I have been given, since I was just a small small boy, that have made me who I am today and allowing me to become a little better. Even when the experience seem absolutely terrible when you are growing through them! It’s always hard to keep the eternal perspective, but I think I am getting better at that too :) I love you guys!!! Love, Elder Brown

October 25, 2011

Don't worry, I am ok! Haha, sorry for the late email. Yesterday we had a conference down in Kumasi, so today is our P-Day. The conference yesterday was pretty cool. Another Uruguayan General Authority came to visit us, Elder Eduardo Gaverret of the Seventy. It was an interesting meeting... he gave good instructions. The main thing we talked about was goals. Elder Gavarret made it clear that we need to have goals for our companionships, districts, zones, and the whole mission. The main thing I learned this past week is communication... getting used to a new companion. Elder Mapanje mentioned to Femi after our lesson that he had completed university before coming on mission, which I thought was pretty cool. Later that night I asked him about it and he said yep, he had finished Uni before coming with degrees in History and Philosophy. Pretty legit. Then I asked him what he wants to do after and he said he wants to get a Masters in International Relations! So of course that started some good conversation, which lasted the rest of the evening. He has great goals in life. It will be cool to see where he goes, he wants to be a diplomat or work at the UN. As for teaching, last week was very successful. Elder Mapanje and I have very different teaching styles but we are blending them into quite the harmony of abilities and skills. Our lessons with Femi, with Barnabas and Felicia, with the recent converts, and with some new people we contacted were really good. We still need more sweet investigators, but of course those come as you work hard and the Lord prepares people for you. Looking back at my first few weeks in Kwamo.... man I had NO hope!!! Haha, but things turned out, well, amazingly. So I have great faith the same will be true here. We will be doing a lot more contacting. So, I love you guys a ton. I am learning so much out here. I feel like every day is the first day of my mission. In Abraham 2 verse something it says that 'eternity was our rock and our salvation while we traveled in the wilderness'. That’s what I feel like out here, just traveling in the wilderness, things are happening every second that are teaching me about every little thing I need to know. Time is just such a weird concept on mission, it’s weird to think anything else is going on throughout the world! Just focusing on yourself, your companion, your missionaries, and your investigators causes you to understand things a lot better. So anyway, you guys are awesome, thanks for everything, and stay strong! The Church is true, God loves us, and Jesus is most definitely in charge. Love you guys!!!!! Elder Brown

October 10, 2011

Morning morning, fine morning. How is life?! Good? Good. Life is pretty good in... Kwamo. I mean Sunyani. Man it’s still weird I am not there! But in all honesty, it’s not. Haha, if that makes sense. Anyway, the week was cool. Transfer weeks seem like the absolute longest weeks of human existence, but it was cool. Wednesday, Eric came to pick me up to take me to the metro mass station, pretty cool to have your recent convert drive you to the bus station when you are transferred. Sammy tagged along too, I love that kid. He wanted to learn how to play the keyboard, but obviously he has no one to teach him now. I found him a book that you can teach yourself with, and I gave that to him the day before I left. He started crying when I gave it to him... it was tough! Leaving Kwamo was tough. Basically spent Sunday to Tuesday visiting people, saying good bye, and was still able to teach some good lessons. Then woke up early Wednesday, caught the earliest bus to Sunyani, and was there by 11. Elder Mapanje was there to pick me up at the station. He is a sweet guy, he is from Zimbabwe and has been in Sunyani for like 10 months now. I am replacing Elder Russell (Seattle), they had been companions for 10 months. Wowzers. It is weird having a companion that is not new. For 7 months I have been training. I just want to do everything I want to do... but they have been doing things a certain way, and I just can't come in and change things. SO it’s cool learning new things. We ride bikes. A LOT. Which I have never done on mission before. I like walking. Sunyani (pronounced "soon" as in the very near future - "yani" as in one of the greatest musicians of our time) is a sweeeeeeeeeeeeeeeet town. MUCH different from Kumasi. It is very quiet, very relaxed. Still a lot of people. Just not very congested. There are no trotros, only taxis. It is the cleanest city in Ghana! Our area is called Nkwabeng. We live in Penkwase, and have to ride bikes every day to our area. Last week, Pres Shulz came up here and organized all of the groups into branches, so that is nice. Almost everyone has been baptized since last year September. And we had 46 people at church on Sunday. Elder Russell and Elder Mapanje have done some great work, I am excited to keep it up. Man there is just so much to write about! Our teaching pool isn't as big as it should be right now, so we have got some work to do. But we at least have one sweet investigator, Femi. He is from NIgeria, here on business. He is a referral from Hassan, and came to church on Sunday. We have taught him about half of lesson 1, and we are going to teach him again tonight. Also two families. The recent converts here are pretty good about giving referrals, it’s just that there aren't many members!! Haha. So I will probably have a lot of contacting ahead of me again. The church is so young in Sunyani it’s crazy. So it’s pretty cool to be in a new place again, see how it grows. One of their recent converts is named Al-Sadat. He is half Egyptian, half Ghanaian. Well, like I said, there are a billion things I could write about, but as always... time is short. Long story short, transfers are tough, but things are cool. The missionaries are awesome up here, very obedient, very hard working. I get to go to Cape Coast tomorrow for zone leader council. I will be on a bus ALL DAY tomorrow. Oh well.. haha. Go Rangers! And congrats again to Hayden! Love you guys, -Elder Brown Send my regards to everybody in D-Town!!!!

October 3, 2011

Good to hear from everybody as always. Sometimes you just get so wrapped up in everything out here, you wonder if there is anything else going on…And so the awesome emails always keep me sane :) Welp.... I am off. Wednesday I leave Kwamo. President called Saturday night, I am going up to Sunyani to be with Elder Mapanje, we wil be the zone leaders up there. I am pretty excited to go up there. Sunyani is going to be an awesome place, everybody that has served there has loved it. It’s funny though, with the transfer, all I wanted to do was serve in a ward or branch...and in Sunyani.... all of the units are groups. 4 units, all mission groups - not even branches yet. About 80 total members in all of Sunyani. The missionaries conduct Sacrament meeting, and the zone leaders, along with the couple missionaries that are there, are the ones in charge of training the future leaders of the groups. So anyway, I am excited for it. It will be tough leaving Kwamo. Yesterday was tough. But, it’s all going to be sweet! The last week in Kwamo was awesome, we saw some great success. I had been worried about leaving Elder Nathan with a little bit of a thin teaching pool, the hardest thing when you are training (.... I had 0 investigators when I started with Elder Timothy....) so we wanted to be able to fill the teaching pool with a lot of serious people so he could teach the new guy well. And you don't just wake up one morning and say "I am going to find serious investigators" and they come. Haha. But, as I have learned before, when you commit to do something the Lord has said, and you put your trust in him by doing every little thing he has asked you, he provides. Saturday we taught a guy named Kwabena. He had come to church a few times with his friend, who we have been teaching, but we had never been able to pin him down to teach him. Saturday we had an awesome lesson with him, and at the end of the first lesson, he committed to be baptized 15 October. The night before, we taught a guy for the first time who me and Elder Thompson had met in Ejisu while we were together on Wednesday. He said that he is a "seeker" - he wants to find the truth. It was sweet because we met him on Wednesday morning, and invited him to mid-week (an activity all of the wards/branches... groups ;) do here - basically like mutual for the whole ward) that night. We didn't know it actually wasn't happening bc Bro. Timothy was out of town, but he showed up at 7 for it, and no one else was there. He called us and was like "I am at your church, no one is here". So obviously he is very serious! We taught him Friday and he came to church with his girlfriend on Sunday!!!! Pretty awesome!!! I was worried that we might have a thin teaching pool, but I leave Kwamo with 9 people who came to church yesterday for Elder Nathan, a dozen progressing investigators, and 8 investigators with baptismal dates. So I guess that’s pretty deep. Well, time is finished. A lot of more awesome stuff from the week, but I gotta get going. I love you guys so much. Things are great here... sometimes I have to laugh about the struggles I have... because the people I have taught here, everything has happened has been so amazing. So I am excited to go see that happen in another place. I love you all!! -Elder Brown