Look for the Blessings and the Miracles

Selamat pagi semuanya!! Apa kabar??

How is everyone this week?? I hope are all happy and healthy! I hope everyone had a really great week. We had a pretty good week over here in Manado Indonesia! Lots of great times this week! Two big highlights - Sepeda (bicycls) and Es kreme (ice cream)! Now you may ask - what is important about bicycles and icSelamat pagi semuanya!! Apa kabar?? Well I'll tell you.

First things first (because Ice Cream should always be first #shoutouttoStephanieBrown), Elder McWhorter and I were looking at getting some ice cream on Pday, but Indonesia doesn't really have the best of Ice Cream and he was about to get the .75 liter one and I was like "Woah Elder Slow down. That .75 liter one is like 33000 Rupiah per liter, but if we got this 8 liter one, it's only 20000 Rupiah per liter." And the rest is history :) I have definitely eaten more ice cream this week, but then again, you can never have too much Ice Cream!

SO now  Bicycles! The once foot-borne Manado Elders now ride on wheels! Oh ya!!!!! That is what I am talking about! It has been so awesome and riding around mountainous Manado has felt so great! When you conquer the hill, you just feel like a boss #shoutouttoDrewBrown... So anyway that has been really fun.

I will try my best to send out pictures of both these wonderful occurences :)

But in reality, while those things were both fun, they were nowhere close to the best or most important parts of the week.

This week started off with a great DTM (District Training Meeting) or at least I thought it was great and i left feeling a greater urgency to share the wonderful truths of the gospel with the wonderful people of Manado. Then on Wednesday, I went on splits with Elder Wibowo who is a stud of a missionary and I leaned a lot from him and we were able to visit some inactive members and find some new investigators to teach. That was a really fun day and then after that Elder McWhorter and I just found so many people to teach who are just so great! It's really awesome, because we made some new Zone Goals and our Zone Leaders taught us that if we want to Baptize in November, we have to find those people now! so we are excited - although no one has yet accepted our challenge to be baptized by someone who truly holds the Priesthood authority of God, we know they felt the power of our message and we know it will bless their lives so greatly.

We even had a cool experience at church on Sunday where we had gone out to help our friend who didn't want to come in because he didn't feel his pants were nice and it was great as we were able to testify to him that the Savior Jesus Christ didn't care about his pants but the Savior cares about HIM. and as we did so another man walked past and we invited him to come to church and eventually they both came in!! It was awesome :) Also another friend that came ended up knowing one of the members, so she felt very comfortable at church and that was great! Anyways good week. We had a lot of fun!

This week President Rowley also asked us to focus on The Book of Mormon and how important it is to our message and how it can truly bring people closer to Christ. We had an awesome experience teaching a really great friend of ours that The Book of Mormon contains the fullness of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I was able to testify that the book was true and that it would open the doors to personal revelation through the Holy Spirit so that he could overcome his problems. As I did, i felt the Spirit testifying to me that it was true! I know that the Book of Mormon is a book from God. And that takes nothing away from the Bible - I also know the Bible is the word of God. But at this time I want to testify that the Book of Mormon is of God and anyone who reads it WILL come closer to God. It testifies that Jesus Christ is the Savior and Redeemer of the world. I KNOW that is true. I love sharing it with the people of Indonesia and I love sharing it with you all who I love so much.

And I do love you. SO much!

I hope everyone has an amazing week. Look for the blessings and the miracles!

Love

Elder Trevor Brown

HURRAH FOR ISRAEL!!

Good Morning/Afternoon/Evening/Night everyone - depending on where you are in the world!! :)

I hope everyone had a fantastic week. WE certainly had a good week here in Manado! The week started off really fun last P-day. We got to go play Futsal(small field indoor Soccer) with a lot of members. Then on the way back we were riding an angkot(onhe of those small van things for public transportation) and it was just pouring rain and flooding in the street some. And the traffic was really bad haha and as many of you know, on Mondays we are supposed to return to regular missionary activities at 6:00 in the evening and we were going to be late because of the traffic. So we had to jump out of the angkot in the torrential downpour and start running toward our house. We were already a little tired from Futsal and we became totally soaked within minutes as the rain came down and the floods came up. Needless to say, it was awesome!! WE felt like soldiers because we had backpacks on as we ran and everyone was looking at us like "Who are these two crazy white people??" Haha such fun. My only regret was that Drew and Kyle weren't there to run with me. And to top it all off, we make it back and ALL the electricity on our street is out. So we have like 5 minutes to change and get back out the door... without any lights! It was an adventure :)

So that was a good start to the week. We had some great experiences with the Lord guiding our paths. We were headed up to an area on day and we got a text from an investigator asking if we could meet in the place we had just left. We felt that we should go back, so we jumped out of the angkot and within 5 seconds we met some people on a motorbike who wanted to meet. Then when we met them that night, one of our friends who we have been trying to help walked by and the guy we were meeting with said "Oh this is my daughter." so we were able to meet with her parents. It was a miracle to us that the Lord is putting us where we need to be so we can help who he needs us to.

We had another situation like that, we were headed home and we took just one last opportunity to talk to someone and then we met with him and he came to church this Sunday and we feel like he has truly been prepared to receive the truths of the restored gospel. So we are excited to teach him more.

We also had a chance to go with President Novan, the president of the branch in Manado, to go visit a man who's leg was just amputated. Even though physical and worldly pursuits aren't our main focus as missionaries, I had the opportunity to share with him the things that Dad had taught me about how knowledge is very powerful and how gaining knowledge is so important. I told him that through this recovery process, he could read and search and practice to learn and gain new skills (like programming or writing) and could begin his new life with a good start. (Thank you Dad!) and we talked about 2 Nephi 2:27 - one of my favorite verses, and how even in the hard times we can choose the Savior. We can choose to get up when we fall. We can choose who we will become. And for anyone who is having a hard time, I know that God will help you make those choices that bring happiness in this life and the life to come.

A lot of our investigators didn't make it to church this week which is so sad, because the Spirit is always there and we learn so much and when they don't come, they are missing out on so much. I wish everyone would just take the step of faith to come and they would see how all the things we share with them are so true and can truly bless their lives. Please pray for all of them to have greater faith. I'm learning this week about my own faith and the power of prayer and the necessity of prayer. I know that this is truly the Lord's work not mine and that I need to focus more on what HE wants, not what I want.

Sorry if that was a little jumbled! My thoughts can be pretty crazy. I am loving Manado and excited for this next week. I love you all and I really hope and pray that you are all doing well and loving life. If you are not - change!! Ask God how you can and need to change. He will help you!! Because He loves you and He wants you to be happy. That is my testimony. :)

I love you all!

Elder Brown

President Julian's Promise

Hello!!!

How is everyone this week?? I hope you just had a wonderful weeek with low stress and high productivity, happiness and laughter levels!

This week was honestly pretty normal for us. We didn't have that much unique happen. We started teaching a homeless boy. He is pretty cool and wants to prepare for baptism, but he has a lot of other needs that we just aren't quite sure how or if we can help. Pray for him. Also pray for R and family, because they are really awesome but they just need the strength to act and put in the effort to truly come unto Christ.

I got pretty sick this week - nothing bad, just made working harder. Just pushed through it and I'm on the mend. So grateful for President Julian's promise at the beginning of my mission that I would have the health to serve with all my might on my mission.

I also gave a talk in church about Matthew  7:24-27 about how we can be wise and build our foundation on Christ or to be more correct bagaimana kita bisa membangun landasan kita di atas Kristus :)

Then S (the other Elder's investigator) was baptized!!! I'll try to send pictures later.

Other than that, everything is just swell!! I am really loving my time here in Manado!! It is great!! Time is flying but I am loving it!!!! This truly is the Lord's work!! I still miss you all so much, but I am so grateful I can be here serving God's children in Indonesia!

I know that Jesus Christ truly is the and He invites ALL to come unto Him. He loves you all!

And I love you all! :)

Elder Brown

Wow- can you send me another like family picture if the Jensens? They are getter really big. Tell them all that I LOVE them!!

We visited a Confucian/Buddhist temple! Pretty cool. It was the Festival of the Mooncakes (I'm sure Drew knows about that!).  We want to see if there is a braille Book of Mormon! 

Not much vault training going on, but we do a little here and there. No bikes yet (which would help us get to a place that we could swing). The rings were in Surabaya! 

Man I Love Conference!

Hello my wonderful family and friends!!

Just checking in from Manado Indonesia! I actually am here and I sent pictures so those doubters(cough Spencer Jensen cough) can see that I did in fact move. I haven't gotten a really good picture of the beach at Sunset yet, but we'll snag one sometime. Also a lot of pictures from Zone Conference in Surabaya. We had a great week in Manado this week!

It ended great with General Conference! Although its always a little bit of a bummer to watch conference in Indonesian (not that I love Indonesian but I miss hearing the Prophet and Apostles' actual voices!). We had 7 friends come to conference which was really exciting - I hope they all felt the Spirit! I loved all the talks but especially President Nelsons about the Book of Mormon - it was just perfect for one of our investigators. Man I love conference.

Elder McWhorter(who is a stud) and I experienced many small miracles this week, most of them the Lord putting us just in the right place at just the right time. I will relate a few few your benefit.

1. Being a tad late to meet a member and seeing one of old investigators walk by at the precise moment.

2. Walking down one side of the street and seeing a man on the other side and Elder McWhorter going to talk to him because Elder McWhorter rocks. He doesn't have eyes at all. He was waiting for his wife and we invited him to wait at the church instead because we were going there for English Class. We ended leaving him there because we didn't want his wife to not find him. Then in the middle of English Class, he walks right in haha! Then the next day guess who walks in right in the middles of conference. He and his wife-we are going to go visit them this week.

3. Walking down the street just to see some people we had met previously to invite them to conference.

4. Our investigator calling over some random girls who wanted a photo with the bules(white guys). Ended up figuring out one was related t our investigator #bringingpeopletogether and they were interested and came to conference the next day.

5. My investigator in Jakarta was baptized!

So anyway lots of miracles. I really enjoy working with Elder McWhorter. We might get bikes this week which would be legit.

I just want to say how much I loved General Conference (if you don't know what general conference is, check it out!). I have a testimony that those men truly are prophets in a very literal sense called of God. I love hearing their words and their messages from God. Their testimonies of Jesus Christ are just so powerful. I add my testimony to theirs that he truly lives and as President Eyring says He truly did Atone for your sins. I love you all! I hope everything is going swell and that this next week will be the best one yet!

Love,

Elder Brown