Elder Tanner Brown: General Conference (September 30- October 6)

This week has been pretty black and white, meaning I had a really great day, or I had a terrible day. Satan just like to suck the fun outta everything don't he.

On Monday I went out to Bobby Johnson's place because he wanted to take us out to eat in Brainerd. When we got there we ate at a Pizza Ranch and he invited the Brainerd Sisters to come as well. It was good to see them again. Afterwords he needed to pick up some wood for the Hayride from Fleet Farm (basically a Home Depot). He brought his brother-in-law Aaron along. He has a mental disability, but is still pretty much fully functioning. We had a good time messing around with him! We ended up not really having much of a Pday, and instead we hung out and talked to members all day, but I didn't mind too much. We taught Madyson that night but, it didn't go very well. We met at a DQ and there was loud music, and she was really tired. So the spirit wasn't really there and she said she didn't really remember anything we said. However it ended up being a good missionary moment because a lot of her friends saw her there, and asked about it the next day!

Tuesday we rid a lot of service. First thing in the morning we went over Bobby Johnson's place and collected, cut, and stacked wood for him. After a couple hours, we went inside and ate lunch and watched the Glenn Beck conversion story! It was super good food, and the conversion story was awesome! Then we went down to Mel's Mercantile, and we took down and completely dismantled a wall. It was a lot of fun, and luckily for me I didn't step on any of the rusty nails. After that we went home for dinner, and we ended the night with Ray.

Wednesday was a cold day with wind and rain, and it just so happened to be the day we had nothing to do... also we couldn't drive anywhere because we needed miles to drive to Duluth. So we walked around and tried to talk to people for way to long... but ya gotta do something.

On Thursday we started the day off with some service at Brother Simons house. We finished the project that we started last time, when we buried the augur. He made us some really good burgers too! We had another lesson with Madyson, and if I didn't know any different, I would have thought that she was a member. She shares pictures of the temple with her boyfriend every day, she is still reading the Book of Mormon everyday, she teaches her friends and family about what she is learning. She is inviting them all to come to church and to meet with us, etc. etc. The only problem right now is her dad doesn't want her to change religions. Since she is under 18 we have to have parental permission, so we will have to work with the parents, but Maddy is solid!

Friday I went down to Onamia and we taught Travis again and he is all set for his baptism next week! So excited!!! When we got there Travis didn't show up, so we walked over to his house and he was very very pale. He was really dizzy and his blood sugar had spiked randomly. We gave him a priesthood blessing and immediately he got up and walked over to the couch. He regained color in his face and he checked his blood sugar and it was perfect! It was said in the blessing that Satan would use his Travis's health problems to distract him, but as he had faith he would push through. Awesome experience! We were able to get a ride with a member and he had to get back up to his place right after work we weren't able to see anyone else down in Onamia. Bit it ended up working fine because we were able to make it to our dinner on time. We thought we might've had to delay it.

Saturday was alright. We had a great start, because Brother Point took us to get some brunch at the Roadside Cafe. They had some pretty good food. I was expecting a really great day, because of General Conference, but we couldn't stream it on our phones, the church wasn't set up, and there are no computers there. So then we frantically searched for a way to get it and we found a smart TV with access to YouTube. So we were able to stream it from that, but it cut out and flat out didn't work for the majority of it. I only got to hear President Oaks talk, and Elder Cook's talk. It honestly really made me annoyed. After Conference we did our weekly planning and we went over to Grandma Piecek's to let her know we couldn't make it that next Tuesday. She of course made us some food because she can't let us leave till she feeds us.

Sunday, we watched General Conference, and got the video to work this time, and we watched it with Travis, he said the Elder Uchtdorf's was his favorite, he loved the idea of missionary work! After the first Session we cleaned up everything and headed over to the DeCent's where Madyson was watching, because we wanted to watch at least one Session with both of the people we have been teaching. That night we traveled to Carlton so we would be in Duluth for the next couple weeks... which I guess you will have to read the next letter to see why! Love y'all