Colds, Blessings, and Being Bold (August 26, 2013)

Hello everyone!

This week is what I like to call "The Roller-coaster of Ohio". My companion and I have been through many ups and downs this week, but we truly have grown and have enjoyed every second of being out here and being able to help and serve others.

The missionaries on our side of the mission, the very far west edge, have been struggling with very bad colds. The bug has been spreading around, and almost every missionary has had it. Elder Schmidt, an Elder in our apartment, caught it and we were all worried that we would get it as well. Sadly Elder Steele and I weren't too far behind him.  We caught it soon after.  We called Sister Vellinga and she told us to stay inside for three days! We couldn't believe it! Apparently it is really contagious and can spread easily, so she wanted us to stay inside until it was gone. Let me just tell you that being sick on a mission is the absolute worst thing that can ever happen to you! We had to cancel all of our appointments and just had to lie around and sleep. There is no TV to watch, no mother to spoil you, and no dogs to sleep on your lap. The members, however, were very concerned and stopped by every night to drop off dinner for us, so that was very nice and loving of them.

Once we were finally better, Elder Steele and I were able to go and have a lesson with one of our progressing investigators, Dani. Our lesson with her was amazing and the Spirit was very strong and touching. We were able to share a powerful testimony to her about the restoration of the gospel.  Tears filled the eyes of everyone in the room. Brother Scheibmeir, a member who came with us, also bore his amazing testimony and we were all very touched by it. At the end of the lesson we were able to invite her to be baptized! She accepted and we are now preparing her for her baptism on September 21, two days before my amazing mother’s birthday! We are both so excited for her. I love being able to teach her and I am so grateful to the Lord for allowing me to teach and to help one of his beloved daughters.

Sadly after our amazing day and lesson we returned to the Roller-coaster of Ohio. The next morning I was woken up early to the sound of our phone ringing. In worry and anxiousness, I dived out of my bunk bed and happened to hit the ground rather hard (no worries I am fine now). When I answered the phone it was Elder Cross (one of the other elders serving in the Perrysburg ward). He told me that Elder Williams, another one of the elders, had had a seizure and that the ambulance was coming to pick him up. This scared me so much. We all ended up spending the day worrying about him and trying to help take care of things at his apartment while he and his companion, Elder Langlois, were in the hospital. After they were in the hospital for a day and a night, Elder Williams was finally released and is now doing well. This was very scary and crazy, but the Lord was with us all and was truly watching over and protecting us through this difficult and scary challenge.

Once the end of the week came rolling by, we were able to return to the upward portion of the roller coaster again. We had an amazing stake conference and were truly edified by that. There are over fifty missionaries serving in the Toledo stake, so we were all able to see each other and to gather at conference. The messages were amazing and President Vellinga's talk was incredibly inspiring. He mentioned that there are now over 75,000 missionaries for the church and over 250 missionaries in our mission. We are so blessed to be able to serve during this amazing time and to be able to proclaim the gospel to all the world. To make our weekend even better, a member donated a washer a dryer to us, so we now have a set of them in our apartment!

My missionary tip of the week comes from a hymn. During this crazy week I started to feel overwhelmed and worried by everything that was going on, so I decided to read from the hymnbook for comfort. I ended up reading one of my favorite hymns: "Count Your Many Blessings." One line particularly hit me, and it reads: "Count your many blessings, name them one by one, and it will surprise you what the Lord hath done." The Lord truly has given us so much! He loves us all and He is always near us and by our side. In the August Ensign there is a message by Elder Bednar entitled "Give Thanks." I challenge all of you to read it, and to apply its teachings to your life. As you do this, I promise that you will be surprised by all that our loving Heavenly Father has done for you. I know He loves us all, and for this I am truly grateful.

I love you all so very much! Continue to be strong, to have faith, and to recognize the hand of the Lord in your life. Till next week,

Elder Brown

"...they were brought down, yea, even upon their sick-beds" (1 Nephi 18:17).

(It's an old family joke).




Examples (August 20, 2013)

Hello family and friends!

Sorry that you had to wait an extra day to hear from me. This week is transfers, and as such we all have P-day on Tuesday instead. I was not transferred, thank goodness! Next week all will be back to normal and you will again hear from me on Monday until the next transfers roll around, which is about every six weeks.

This week truly has been amazing and I have learned and grown so much. We have been teaching our investigator, Balinda, now for a while and all has been going really well. She is progressing and is really loving the gospel and all that we are teaching her. We challenged her to baptism and she accepted! We are planning on having that service on September 14. It is so great to be able to help her and to see the gospel bless someones life. I am so excited for her and I look forward to being able to help her come closer to our Savior Jesus Christ.

Elders Peterson and Schmidt (the missionaries I room with) had a baptism this week for their investigator Ali. It was so cool to be able to go to her baptism and to see her enter into the Lord's church. Balinda ended up coming to the baptism and she loved it so much! It got her even more excited for when she can be baptized. I was asked to speak on enduring to the end at her baptism and that was a little scary at first, but all ended up going very well. I was so happy to be able to have that experience and to share my testimony with all the people that were there. This ward is amazing and they all were there to support and fellowship her. I love the Perrysburg ward and I admire their great love and willingness to serve those around them.

This week Elder Steele and I had exchanges with the zone leaders. I was able to go with Elder Berryessa to his area while Elder Huckstep stayed in our area with Elder Steele. I had a great time with Elder Berryessa and he truly taught me so much. He told me that he knows Dominic from when he served here, so that is cool! He wanted me to tell Dom hi for him. (So Jace please pass that on). While on exchanges I was able to truly be strengthened by the testimony of others. I loved being around different missionaries and to be able to learn from what they do. They truly are very amazing and such great and fantastic people. We were also able to give a church tour and that was very enjoyable and cool. The spirit was very strong and I became overwhelmed by it when I entered the chapel. We truly are blessed to be members of Christ's church.

This week we were able to provide tons of service at less active and investigators houses and I was so happy to be there for all of them. You truly are so much happier when you strive to serve and are helping and reaching out to others. I love serving and being able to meet and help so many amazing people.

I had a couple missionaries come up to me who have been having a hard time and have been seeking help. They were told to come to me and to get some support. I am so happy to be able to help them and offer them scriptures, words, and teachings of great comfort and strength. I never thought that I would be able to teach and help other missionaries! This week we also were able to get two new investigators: Roy and Dannielle. They are both amazing and I look forward to helping them as well.

Today's missionary thought is one of looking towards others. We are all surrounded by so many examples. Come to learn from others and to truly recognize that everyone you meet is there to leave a lesson to learn. Strive to learn that lesson and you truly will grow to be a better person. Stive to be the person that leaves a good lesson and leaves a great example. Always be loving, and strive to always be there for others.

I love you all!

Elder Brown

 Elders Brown, Steele, Peterson, and Schmidt.  

Transfers with Elder Berryessa

Sunsets (August 12, 2013)

Hello everyone!

This week has been a rather rough one, with many challenges and trials.  It has been hard to remain positive through all of our rejections and struggles, but I must maintain faith, and continue to walk in and follow the spirit and path of the Lord. We are not alone in this work. The Lord is always near and is always ready to reach out and to help all of us.  It is so amazing the amount of love He has for all of us.

Ohio has a big problem with bed bugs and everywhere you go you have to be careful where you sit. Sadly, Elder Steele just wasn't careful enough. We all woke up Wednesday morning to the sound of Elder Steele freaking out, running out of the bathroom, and tearing apart his bed. He had bed bug bites all down his side and in his bed. Lame! We had to call Sister Vellinga, who told us we had to stay inside all day so we could clean, so clean we did. We had to wash EVERYTHING in industrial washers and driers to kill the bugs. We also had to move all of the furniture, clean the walls, and spray exterminator stuff all over our apartment. Luckily, after all of our work the bugs are gone and fortunately the rest of us were never bitten. Thank goodness!

This week we had Zone Conference, which was very fun and uplifting. We were taught by President Vellinga all day and ate some really amazing that the Relief Society made. I love being taught and receiving encouragement to continue to press forward.   I learned that we need to walk in diligence, happiness, hope, and in faith.

Throughout the week Elder Steele and I have been teaching less active members about prayer, and about the love Heavenly Fathers has for them. I was also able to teach about prayer in our Gospel Principles class in church yesterday, which I really enjoyed.  I was wondering why we were teaching about prayer so much, and why we were prompted to always do that when it hit me:  My prayers need to be filled with gratitude.  Ever since that realization I have strived to do that because the blessings the Lord gives us are countless. I started to count my blessings and wrote them all down.  Before going to bed I managed to count 125 blessings!  Our Lord truly is amazing!

This week actually did have many great things about it as well that I want to share.  One of the members in our ward is the manager at a country club called Maumey Bay. Because he loves the missionaries, he has extended all club member privileges to us.  Last week we went golfing on their amazing golf course off of the bay of Lake Erie. That was so much fun, and I actually did rather well. I really enjoyed playing and had a fantastic time. We might go back again today, so who knows what we will do in that amazing resort!

Our ward had a ward party this week and we had so much fun at that. Our investigator, Balinda, came and she had a fantastic time. She is doing really well and is loving the gospel so much. The missionaries were then able to play a game of ultimate frisbee against the young men. We had a fantastic time and were really able to bond with the ward much more. We have such a great ward here, and I love all of them so much. I am really going to miss them all when we have to leave. We also got a new investigator this week named Joseph. He is an amazing guy, and was so excited when we told him about the Book of Mormon! We will see how our lessons with him go.

My missionary message this week is one of great significance to me. While driving home one night this week we saw a glorious sunset. It was shining brightly in the sky, creating many colors and streaks. While looking at this I began to cry and to be filled with peace. I remembered something that one of my seminary teachers said, "Sunsets are God's way of saying goodnight to His children".  When I saw that sunset I heard a voice come to mind saying, "My son, I love you, I am proud of you, I miss you, and I want you to be happy. Goodnight my son. Remember me, and remember my glorious Son".  Remember the Lord's love for you. He cares for us all and I know this is true!

I love you all so very much!

Elder Brown

P.S. Thank you all for the fun letters and postcards! I loved them all, and I look forward to being able to continue to hear from you all.

 Cleaning out the bugs!

God's way of saying goodnight.

Given Much (August 5, 2013)

Hello everyone!

This week has been very good and really rather amazing! I love being in Ohio and I have really grown to love all of its beauty, although nothing will ever be better than Utah. This week our toilet in our second bathroom flooded and got all over the place. We all had a little adventure cleaning that up! We had to stop the water so it wouldn't flood into our kitchen.  Good thing we have two bathrooms! Speaking of bathrooms, our shower drain was really horrible and wouldn't drain the water. So by the end of our showers we were taking baths. We didn't know what was wrong, so I decided to investigate. Inside the drain I found TONS of clogged hair and I was the only brave one to pull it out. Needless to say our drain now works perfectly fine and we now have a pet bunny made out of some random ladies hair.

This week has really been focussed on helping our ward and teaching the less active members by addressing their concerns. It was great to be able to go out and to support to their them! This week we ended up getting a call from the church headquarters referral office. We were told that a man had called the Illinois elders and had tried to get in touch with them, but was now living in Ohio. Those elders called headquarters who in turn called us. We were able visit a man named Rodger. He is a less active, and has had a great desire to be able to come back to church.We began teaching him this week and his significant other, Balinda. We invited them both to come to church and they both showed up yesterday! That was so cool to be able to see them there and to be able to help them in coming unto the Lord and following Him. I will keep you all updated on how they are doing.

There is an amazing family in the ward named the Kebkers! We are over there every day for either lunch or dinner and they spoil us like crazy. They have a daughter on a mission in Brazil, and then two teenage kids at home. They are so funny and they are like my family here. They gave us a great referral to their friend named Liz. Liz owns a big farm and grows tons of vegetables, but needs help harvesting them. So we went over there and worked on the farm for a couple of hours, and promised to go back every Friday until winter. It was such a good experience and I was so happy to serve and spend time out on a farm and to work around animals as well. She gave us tons of vegetables, so we have been having corn on the cob, zucchini, and other things everyday! We have also been having zucchini bread, thanks to Sister Kebker.

Last night I became overwhelmed with the spirit while tracting. Elder Steele and I were walking around and getting rejected over and over just as we always are. I then was reminded of a part of scripture that talks about our Savior being spat upon. I then thought "if people treated our Savior so horribly, then how can we, His servants, not expect to experience at least something similar?" I was so impressed by that and that we are able to experience just a sliver of what the Savior did.

Later in the night I was again taught by the Lord and was rebuked a little. I had been complaining in my mind about all of the things that we don't have, how it is stupid that we have to ride bikes, use library computers, and drive a car with limited miles when I have all of that at home, and much nicer ones at that. I was having these thoughts when we showed up at a less active members trailer home. She is a very humble and poor lady who works three jobs, 12 hours a day, 7 days a week just so she can pay for her food and get by. We talked to her and she said that she wants to come to church and prays everyday that she will be able to, but she can't because she has to work. She then said that she has been given so much, and even though it isn't a lot, it is enough. I burst into tears right then. I heard the Lord say; "My son, Jory, you have been given much and now too must give." How true that is! I am so happy that I am here in Ohio so that I can help and can give and provide all that I have been blessed with in my life. So that is my message this week. Be grateful for what you have been given, and rejoice in the mercies and blessings of God. Be willing to serve and recognize "Because I have been given much I too must give."

Love,

Elder Brown