Serving and Riots(May 25-31)

Monday was Memorial Day! Yay! To celebrate we went to a park and went on a hike, and then after a few hours there we went to Nelson's Ice cream and got some yummy ice Cream. It only took standing in line for 40 minutes, but we finally got some... and it was worth it!  Afterwords we went home and cooked up some steak... sooo yummy! After dinner we worked on making and scheduling posts for our Facebook Page centered on Christ, and we also had a lesson about patriarchal blessings with a new member of the Church. It was so cool to see her reaction when we told her more about it!

Tuesday, we did a bunch of service, first starting out by helping an older couple the Fitch's and we helped remove a bunch of rocks and sod, so they could re sod the ground. Afterwords we borrowed there lawnmower and cut another family's yard for them. It was a big yard and the grass was at least 6-8 inches long. So we were there for a while.

Thursday morning we had the Oakdale Elders over and we did service for Grace and cleaned up her yard a lot! We are going to be back weekly.... and she wants to take the lessons! So basically go and serve, and people will really see that your a good person, and they are naturally curious why. The great thing about service is I love helping those who don't want to learn more too, because it is my way of helping them. We also had a lesson that night with a guy we met on Facebook. Interesting lesson lol... he had a filter on his background that didn't work so well, and basically his eyes would turn green and it was kinda hard to teach about Jesus with a laser eye looking dude.

Friday we did a lot of service, surprise surprise. The thing that was most unique, was that our service at President Page's house, after we got some really delicious burgers. I went for the peanut butter burger, which was good, but it basically tasted like peanut butter... so my recommendation, don't get it. It was good, but I didn't want mayo and Peanut butter, I wanted more burger taste. Oh well, I'm glad I tried anyhow.

Saturday morning we went over to Patrick's house and we continued to excavate his future pond. This time we just dug dirt for 4 hours and got a box in and leveled off walls, and placed 2 ft holes for 12 cement pillars. It was actually really fun, and I'm glad we got to do it. I kinda miss landscaping to be honest. After that we went home and we ate lunch and did all our planning for the week. That night we had a couple lessons in which we read some Scriptures with our friends.

Sunday we had a few church services in the morning, and then we had a lesson with Luke. And he wants to be baptized! YAY! I'm so happy for my friend he is 12 and will be entering the waters of baptism on July 16th. That was the day he prayed about so, I'm really happy for him! We also had a really great lesson with Kat, about the temple and how we can grow in our inner peace even though we can't go in the temple during Covid.

P.S. I am perfectly safe from the riots in Minneapolis. We are given protective measures to stay inside at a very strict curfew of 6 PM. All the missionaries in the Zones in the cities have been pulled out to other areas.

Memorial Hike

Good ole Wisconsin Country side

Peanut butter burger

 Digging for 4 hours

Nelson's Ice Cream

Serving Wisconsinites (May 11-17)

Tuesday we had a service project for an older couple and we finished building his wall and reinforced it with gravel and dirt. We worked for about 3 hours digging and pouring and then, we got treated to Nelson's ice Cream! It was so freaking delicious! They give you soooooo much! I only ate half and I felt sick, so I saved the rest of it, and then it was till Friday that I finished it all. 

Wednesday we had a pretty chill morning, we had a Council with some of the other missionaries, and then we went to the dealership to get our car checked up. Turns up the check service light was on for no reason... and it only took em almost 2 hours to let us know that... *sigh. We were just doing boring missionary paperwork while we were waiting so whatever. After all that though we had lessons all night! 3 of the lessons were with families I hadn't met, and one of them was nice enough to offer food. She baked us fresh bread and we picked it up the next day! 

Thursday we worked hard all day! We went and cut down a big old oak tree, for the Donohoe's as well as move a bunch of other stuff. We tried to get a bonfire going for him, but it ended up just smoldering. After a few hours there, we left and had a Zoom lesson in our car on the side of the road with the Bishop's family. Definitely felt strange. Mobile Missionaries I guess. Then we went straight over to the Burton's and went and did service for them. Turns out they love Kalispell, Montana! They have done the Bob Marshall as well as some mountain Biking competitions in Missoula. We ended up cutting down a bunch of young trees out of their yard and having a big old bonfire! We got it all cut down pretty quickly, and burned. It took about an hour with the 3 of us. After service, we went home and had two scripture studies with a few members. It's nice to have service projects fill in the gaps.

Friday was pretty boring we did lots of calls and tried contacting a bunch of people. One cool thing happened though! We decided to post on all of the local community pages and asked them if they needed any yard work done or mowing, because we wanted to help those in the community, especially the elderly who need stuff done in their yard. And we got a lot of responses! Like a lot! So this next week should be full of even more yard work and service than this week! I'm basically landscaping again

Saturday we did lots of service again. We did service for a guy we met over Facebook in Oakdale, Minnesota with some other missionaries, and we shoveled a bunch of rock for three hours, and he gave us dominoes pizza. That was super nice of him! At about 1:30 we headed back and we had a few interviews with some missionaries over video chat, and it was nice to be able to have some real talk, some one on one with them! I'm truly blessed to lead over some of the best diligent missionaries! It's hard to be out here right now, not very many people are expressing a lot of interest, but I know I'm being blessed with many service opportunities for the moment! Speaking of which we did more service for another person we talked to the day before on Facebook. And... she also needed rocks moved. So Elder Hart and I went over and got it all done in about 45 minutes, which was nice. We then went home and had "virtual dinner" we the Sister missionaries in the Woodbury area. They are weird. But I guess we all are. Then we had lessons with Ashley, Linnie, and Maria. We typically have lessons with them 2-3 times a week.

Sunday, was a great day! We had our church meetings in the morning and then we had a wonderful lesson with Linnie right after.  We had Lunch and then a lesson with and 11 year old we are teaching with his mom, and talked about personal conversion and agency. Afterwords we headed over to the church and my companion and a Sister missionary recorded a song of guitar and violin, for a video. It was like an old Irish song, they got it down like the second try... then Sunday evening we didn't have a ton, which was nice to kinda rest a little, because this week was really busy and it was nice for me to remember what is important to me... so overall this week was great, busy, but I'm tired now and I'm glad I have Monday

BONFIRE

 roggy friend.

Service projects

Nelson's Ice Cream

Big Moves (May 4-10)

Mountain Biking,

Monday we went mountain Biking, and it was soooo fun! They actually have a semi decent trick section of the trails. I'll put it this way, its pretty decent for not having a mountain to build it off of. It was super confusing what direction we were supposed to go... but we had a great time anyways. We also met a member and her son Shamus. He is highly functioning with autism and he kept telling us about his Fortnite name "DJGangstaBeast". We ended up just befriending him and spending an hour with him as we were doing laundry. It was honestly so awesome to be able to serve the mother during that time. She said that she has been searching for a way for her son to socialize again. So now we will be teaching and talking to him over messenger.

Us and Shamus (DJGanstaBeast)

That night we had a couple lessons! One was with Opap, the guy I was teaching in West Saint Paul. He was super happy to talk with me! He wants to be baptized in June, and loves the Book of Mormon! So excited for him!

Tuesday was a great day. We had a great balance between personal time, helping an elderly lady with her yard work, lessons, and contacting people who had met with missionaries before. The service was a great time we got two solid hours of sun, and they gave us some really delicious cookies after! We had a lesson with Star (lady in West Saint Paul as well) because we are trying to get the new missionaries to contact and teach everyone that I have been working with. And too make the day great we exercised in the morning as well as at night. 

Wednesday was a long day, because we had Zone Conference... that means I sat in a chair from 10 am to 3:30 PM listening in a Zoom meeting... ugh. Worst part of quarantine is the unnecessary Conference calls. Afterwords we had a service project with some members of the Congregation, and they had a lady with them that was interested in a message of hope! It was a nice way to brighten the day after the long meeting.


We worked for 3 hours planting a lot of trees and cleaning up the yard. Afterwords we rushed home so we could have our lesson at 8, and then another lesson right after.

Planting trees

Planting trees, and the view.

Thursday we became the full-time movers again, and went to all the apartments once again.... lots of time in the car... and my back loved moving everything up and down 4 floors in Eau Claire... but... at least I got a good story out of it all! Elder Johnson the old timer that is in charge of the housing came along and drove the UHaul truck. Well he decided to buy us all lunch, but we were driving a truck and trailer, and he was driving a U-haul, so logically he decides to walk through the drive thru of Cluver's. He ended up getting in trouble because its unsafe... but they took it any way and then walked it out to us. I don't know why I thought it was so funny. I just do!

On Friday we had a lot of calls with other missionaries. We were checking up on them and seeing how they were doing. Turns out all of the missionaries here are doing well! We also called a lot of local congregational members, and asked them if we could meet them. I just got here to Hudson, so I am looking to meet them all! I also had an amazing time reading the scriptures! I learned so much about Abinadi the prophet! He faced all opposition and testified simply of Jesus Christ. There was a moment where he actually turned the heart of the evil King. But because King Noah surrounded himself with so much hate, he wasn't able to make a clear decision. Sometimes who we choose to surround ourselves with will be a deciding factor in our lives. Be smart.

Saturday we had 5 lessons. We stacked up with a lot today, because of Mothers day. We didn't want to have lessons that day so that people could spend time with their mothers or kids. We also did 3 and half hours of yardwork for the Donohoe family. We cut down trees, raked leaves, and trimmed young trees. We got a lot done! Nice thing was another family bought us some Papa Murphy's pizza to pick up after! 

Sunday we had church service with two families and then because it was Mother's day, we didn't have any other lessons, other than with Linnie. I had a really amazing spiritual experience from that lesson. Email me if you wanna hear the full story. That night we made videos for one of the people we are teaching. We decided to kinda teach a little what goes on in our church buildings. So we made some goofy corny videos about what goes on.

Elder Johnson buying us Culver's in the drVideo call with Elder Larsenive thru

Video call with Elder Larsen

"The Promised Land"

Hey everyone... I've been slacking on my weekly emails but hey consider your self lucky, because I'm writing them now!

Wednesday was my last day in West Saint Paul. We ended up just packing all day and we had a few lessons that night.

On Thursday was transfers! I am now in Hudson, Wisconsin! I have been fortunate enough to serve in a leadership capacity... because it will help me stay busy during this Covid-19 crisis. Right away on Thursday we did some yard work, and then we overviews the two zone pages and made game plans to accomplish that social media marketing. Then we also had 3 lessons, and one in particular that was powerful. A man, has really been struggling with some issues, has made the commitment to be baptized! We promised that he would recieve the help from the holy spirit as he committed his life more to God. I feel that he is about to discover the same truths I have come to know️

Friday was a long day. We had Mission Leadership Council, and it was all done via the zoom app and it was sooooo long... it lasted from 10:30 till 3:30. Thank goodness we were sitting on the couch, otherwise we would have been so uncomfortable. Then after our Council conference, we went and dug out a trench for a member. He apparently wanted it for his garden? I don't know, but we did what he asked, and it was good to be outside working again! Then we headed home, and we were so tired... mentally stimulated from the meeting and physically from digging. We ended off the night with weekly planning and planned out most of our activities and events this upcoming week. Needless to say... I slept like a rock.

On Saturday we helped everyone in the Zone move in some new furniture! Elder Johnson (the mission housing coordinator) has recently decided to purchase a bulk amount of new beds and frames, tables desks, drawers, and pretty much everything an apartment needs... which is amazing, because we need new stuff desperately in the Hudson apartment! It's not livable, so it was nice to receive new stuff. So Saturday we drove hours and helped move in all the new stuff in the apartments. We started off helping out in Eagan, and then worked our way all the way out to Barron...We finally got home at about 5... yeah we were out moving stuff for 8 hours... I hope it was worth it. That night we had a lesson with a cute little family and I did a magic trick for them! The little girl accidentally told me their card tho. We also filmed Elder Hart singing and posted it on the Facebook page, and then we had another lesson to end the day with Joe. He's hilarious .

Sunday we had church with Joe, and is so great to talk with, because he is really good at retaining information. He remembers like everything we saw which is about the opposite for most people . After church we just had a lot of meetings with local leaders... and the told other people what we learned in the meetings. Basically a bunch of boring meeting information stuff. Someone has to do it I guess... the best thing we did was take a walk outside! It was soooooo nice outside.

Anyways love y'all 

-Elder Brown

Pics: New Companion Elder Hart, Trench, countryside road picture, us and the sisters

We did a service by digging a trench

Countryside road picture

 Elder Hart and Elder Brown

My new Companion Elder Hart and the sister missionary's

Corona Virus, Oofda! (March 9-15)

So this week got a little tipsy turvy! We are now limited to appointment only mode as missionaries! So no tracting, no contacting, no stop by's of any sort. The only thing that we can do is service projects that don't exceed the group number of 8-10 people, and home visits as long as we follow the no contact rules, and wash our hands frequently. So effectively we are going to have a lot more time on our hands. We just referred 3 of the people we were teaching, because two of them moved and one was referred to us even though it wasn't our area. So our teaching pool isn't that big right now, with no hopes of it growing now. The question now isn't how to stay sane, but rather, what is our purpose right now? All the work we are doing right now is stuff that can and needs to be done by members. So right now we are in this awkward position, and we will need to kinda just wait it out, till the virus takes its course. Hopefully we can really improve the wards ministering efforts right now. 

Technically we are not quarantined, so we can still be out and about, as long as we avoid big groups, and don't stop people to talk to them. So we have started biking a lot around town, to just be seen, and hopefully someone will stop us and ask us questions. On Sunday we went for a nature walk and just enjoyed Gods creation! We actually had a few really positive contacts with people, and then we stopped at a Lake. I pondered on the thought of Josephs experience. What would it feel like to hear the words from the Savior of the world? I presume it would truly be anything beyond description! It is very important that we still ponder and Study out the first vision, as we grow closer to General Conference, and to not let this virus distract us. This is a great opportunity to study it more than before, now that many of us have more time available to us.

If you have time this week, I would love to hear your experiences with Studying the first vision!

Love y'all 

-Elder Brown

The Spirit Journey (February 25- March 1)

This time in my life has been a time of great reflection. I have been truly seeking to find what motivates me, and what my heavenly father requires of me. What does he want me to focus on? I invite you all to seek on these things. If you feel you already know, ponder again, and see if your heavenly father has anything else he would like you to accomplish.

Tuesday we had a lesson with a nonmember couple and the husband really liked the Plan of Salvation and the idea of eternal families. I really hope we can help them understand and reach that point someday. After we had FMSC (Feed My Starving Children), and we drove the West Saint Paul sisters to our dinner afterwards. We had dinner with the Bishop and he always has Sisters over so we drove them over. We had a great time with them, and had a great lesson about personal revelation afterwards. Then that night we had a lesson with a guy, but it didn't go so well. He is a 7th day Adventist and he thinks his theories are bulletproof. He used to be an atheist but changed because of a video he watched on YouTube. He said the only thing that converted him was logic. He told me that if I could prove his theories wrong he would convert. Unfortunately what he doesn't realize, is that I'm not going to try to prove  him wrong. I refuse to tear anyone's faith down regardless if it is wrong or not. Instead I am going to help him understand through the spirit and Chapters in the bible that to connect with God, and to truly follow his precepts, we need to build a spiritual conversion in him. If he remains 7th day Adventists I don't mind. I truly just want him to build that spiritual connection with our Loving Heavenly Father. I was saddened to learn that previous missionaries tried to prove him wrong. He will only be converted at some point in his life, if he first seeks to build a true, pure, and real connection with his creator and his Spirit father. 

Wednesday morning we had a lesson with an inactive member, and it was kinda sad. He has a testimony, but he is disabled and has to take a Mobile Mobility limit to go to church. Only problem is that he doesn't really have the funds to do that, but he refuses to accept any money or help... so sad, but hopefully his heart will soften some day. Then we had service at Neighbors Inc. with the Saint Paul Spanish Sisters, Sister Hillam, and Sister Watson. After service, since we all had dinner together that night we went to a Spanish neighborhood and did some tracting. Basically if it was English we would do the door approach and if it was Spanish they would. Unfortunately still no success, but we got to go to a cool bridge after. It wasn't so bad. We had dinner with Patty, and she made French Toast for dinner, so yummy! After dinner we contacted a lot of members and asked if we could have lessons with them.

Thursday we had district Council and we ate at Costco again. Then we all traveled over to FMSC (Feed my Starving Children) and I had a pretty good time. I talked to Sister Hillam, and we just talked about Star Wars, and just funny stories that we had. Oh and we talked about food, but that's no surprise, because all missionaries love food. After FMSC, we did some finding in a trailer park, and actually had a sit down lesson with a lady! We talked about the restoration, and she said that she has wanted to reconnect with God for a while, but never knew how she could! Hopefully more comes out of it! We then had dinner at the apartment, and went to Joey's afterward. He was building a TV stand so we helped him out with that.

Friday, we had some more service at Neighbors Inc. and that was pretty fun, as usual. We then went to Taco bell and got some lunch, and then did our weekly planning. We did some finding at a trailer park, and we had some decent conversations, but unfortunately none are too interested right now. And then our dinner canceled, so we called up Yanni, and asked him if we could have dinner with him and Greg, and they said yes! Greg actually wanted Yanni to invite us so it worked perfectly. We had dinner at Applebees and they have these new delicious bowls that they serve. I got the Tex-Mex Chicken Mac and Cheese! It was soooooo good! 

Saturday we had a couple of our lessons fall through so we ended up doing a lot of stop bys and didn't have to much success... but we did have lunch with Gene, and that was pretty awesome. Gene is a recent convert of about a year, and he is a pretty smart elderly man. He is fun to talk to because he has a lot of little quirks about him. We lucked out because, not only where we taken out to lunch, but we also got dinner at Panera Bread! The Bishop wanted to meet with us, and talk about the missionary work, so we went to Panera Bread and was there for pretty long. After our meeting we went and taught Opap again, and he is really embracing the church! We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ to him, and he understood most of the concepts already, which is pretty awesome. He has a lot of bible knowledge, and he applies it to what we teach! And he is coming to church again tomorrow!

Sunday we had church way later than usual, it started at 2:30 PM. We had beautiful day as well. We walked around a park, and talked to all the dog Walkers with no coats. It was honestly so amazing to remember what the sun feels like! After we went to church and Opap came again! Our Bishop pulled us off to the side with Opap after sacrament and personally met with him and welcomed him! Very cool, something I will definitely keep in mind if I ever have that opportunity to serve the lord in that capacity. After church we had a linger longer, and there was some good food there. After dinner we had a little get together with a less active guy, and he was super chill actually! He wants to meet on Wednesday and admitted he wanted to do better.

God is never going to give up on a soul. Remember this, as you see those precious to you fall away. Continue to pray for them, and be that loving example for someone else. We can't expect some miracle to happen to those we love, if we are not willing to be the lords servant and the key to helping someone elses loved ones. We are all in this together, let us build up the kingdom of Zion too.

Thanks for all the love and support everyone! Love y'all!

-Elder Brown

Opap, Bishop, my companion and I

Another Tunnel picture

Wild in West Saint Paul(February 17-24)

Tuesday, my last day in Crystal I actually went on exchanges with Elder Larsen and spent the day in Medicine Lake. We taught some good lessons with some members. I was also able to pack up everything, and clean the apartment a little, to leave it nice before I left. We had dinner at the Gauthier's, which was nice. It was great to at least have a goodbye for them.

Wednesday was my first full day in West Saint Paul, and it went great. We started with a Missionary Coordination meeting, and he took us to Chick-fil-A for breakfast! Then I was able to unpack, and we signed me up and had an orientation for a service called Neighbors Inc. We had dinner that night with some members that own an Audi, and he picked us up and showed off his ride to us. It had some power to it! After dinner we had a lesson with Joey (member) and we read from the Book of Mormon with him. Turns out he is actually the brother of a member from Brainerd that I knew. Small world!

Thursday, we started off the day with District Council, and then all squaded up at Costco to get some grub. After lunch we headed over to FMSC (Feed My Starving Children) and did that for a few hours. For dinner we went to an elderly member couples house, who where both from small towns, so it was nice to talk with some country folk. 

Friday, we worked at Neighbors Inc. in the morning, and we assisted in the Thrift Store. We were able to weekly plan, and then in the middle of planning we reached out to a guy named Opap, that me met earlier that week at Walmart, and he gave us his number. Well when we texted him to see if he wanted to meet, he said he wanted to meet right then! So we drove over and gave him a bible and Book of Mormon and taught briefly what the Book of Mormon was, and set up a time to see him the next week. We headed over and were a little late to dinner, and we had a tasty meal. Pizza and salad, can't go wrong. 

Saturday we taught this guy named Jacob, who is a lot of fun to talk with. He is a cowboy, and is a salesman at Bootbarn at the Mall of America. He was actually a self referral from months ago, but told us that he was thinking more seriously about being a member of the church! Then we did some stop by's but with no success... but we were able to call a less active member and we went by. He had us over, and decided to cook us some shrimp while we were there. We actually had a pretty cool spiritual experience while we were there. He was able to say a prayer for his friend who's father had recently passed away, and it really inspired the member to try harder to live all the commandments. After that we went over to Opap's and taught the restoration to him and he loved it! And he promised to come to church!

Sunday morning we had church and we had Opap with us! He participated and enjoyed sacrament and class! Really excited for this guy! After church we had lunch and studies, and did some stop by's. For dinner we went to the Owings, they are a great family who feeds missionaries a lot. They have 2 daughters and two sons, (one of which is serving a mission right now). After dinner we packed and went to Yanni's house and met Greg. I will tell you more about them later. Then that night we went to the Crystal apartment so we could have our adventure the next day.

Monday, we explored some tunnels under Minneapolis, hence why we stayed in Crystal the night before. We hiked in to find the tunnels, and then looked at and explored the tunnels to find some graffiti. We also went shopping at a couple of record stores in the area and checked out some thrift stores. Didn't buy anything, but it was fun to look around.

 Tunnel pic with Elder Galbraith, (my new companion)