Flame of Faith

Hello Everyone!!!

SO in case you are unaware, I am no longer in Bandung but have moved to SOLO to serve here for my last three weeks in Indonesia!

SO Elder Fradella and I are whitewashing again in Solo! We've been here this whole last week and it has been really good! We actually started the week stuck in the house but luckily we were able to go out on Wednesday and start lighting up SOlO. It's been difficult because we have literally started from null. And the people in Solo are a lot different from the people in Jakarta haha

But it has been an adventure and we have seen miracles! It's been hard to keep the flame of faith burning, but as we have done our best, the Lord has shown His hand. It is always very humbling. We've been singing a lot with people. We've decided that if people reject us, we will ask them if we can sing a song for them first. We want to leave a good spirit with them.

So Elder Fradella and I are happy and working hard and I really enjoy working with him. He is always positive and really funny!!

Anyways, we met this man and he is really cool and he wants to be baptized!! Please pray that he will have the faith to come to church and that he will understand the things we are teaching him!

I love you all!!

I do know that this is the Lord's work and I am so grateful that I had this chance to be part of it!!

One more time, I love you all!!

Elder Brown

Have I Done Any Good

Hey Everyone! Sorry this won;t be too long!

But I hope everyone knows that Bandung rocks and so does Elder Fradella!!!

We've had so many wonderful experiences. Whitewashing is hard, but a great experience! We have seen many miracles! 

One great experience - 

We went down to this area that was a little far to look for some addresses that we had and we ended up in this hue neighborhood where we were pretty lost and it was hot and dusty and I said to Elder Fradella that there had to be a reason we had gone down there. We ended up finding a former investigator that we weren't looking for, but afterwards I still didn't feel like that was the reason we had gone down there. So we decided to check one more street to find if that was the address we were looking for. And it was! But right as we came up to the house of the investigator, we saw a 89-year old lady walking or trying to walk down the street with a cane in one hand and the other trying to hold a wall. So we offered to help. I held her hand and helped her along. And then, because we live in Indonesia, it just started pouring out of nowhere. Like torrential rain haha and so we took her under a random porch. and the person inside was yelling at us through the window to take her to a different house, but they wouldn't even open the door. SO we just kind of ignored that haha. But then we realized that our investigator had a car, so we decided to go ask him for help (though we hadn't actually met this man before). So we knocked and we asked and he just didn't want to help. He walked back inside and his family member invited us in, and he was just on the phone and everything was just super weird and awkward. Eventually he got off the phone and we asked for help again and this time he grudgingly agreed. So we got her in the car and took her home. The miracle was that after that the Investigator was much happier and much more open with us. We sang "Have I done any good?" with him.

And after that we realized why we had gone down there and why the Lord needed us there at that specific time.

We've seen so many miracles like that!

Another great thing was we had the opportunity to go see the BYU Singers when they came and performed in Bandung. They sang two songs in Slovenian which was a real treat!!!

Zone conference this coming week. That will be fun!!!

Love you all so much! I do know that God lives and this is His work.

Elder Brown

Old Sewing Machine

Halo selamat siang semuanya!!

Apa kabar??

We had a wonderful (and very busy week) this week. We had some very long days in the office as it seemed every time we almost finished with something we were given something else to do haha... man, but it is such a privilege to be able to help out where we can. And we still were able to go out and see the Lord working miracles. So no complaints here, just grateful I get to be here!

We saw a lot of miracles this week. One that I want to share is about a family. We were finally able to meet with them. I really feel like the Lord guided us as we figured out what we needed to teach. Eventually we read 1 Nephi Chapter 8 together about Lehi's dream and how we need to hold to the iron rod "berpegang erat" if we want to make it safely to the tree and eternal life. After we taught we invited them to be baptized and they accepted! Hebat! The real miracle to me is that I met the father of this family on the bus just about 10 months ago when I first moved to Jakarta (the first time). At that time we let the assistants teach him and now I have the opportunity to teach him again. It's really amazing how the Lord works with and builds people little by little. Please pray for them.

Well this is the week! I am moving! I am headed out to serve in the city of Bandung for my last couple months!! Wahoooo!!! I will be training a new missionary which is really awesome!! I am excited! I actually won't leave until next Monday. It will be a blast!

I will miss Jakarta as it has been my home for quite a while now and I will miss Elder Nordwald but he and Elder Smith (my replacement ) will do wonderful things!

 

In other news, within the hour my beloved ex-comp Elder Johnson will be here with his whole group. They are going home. Gila! :0 So crazy. But President Subandriyo is bringing all of them to Taman Safari and Elder Nordwald and I are invited. SO that will be way fun!!! We are excited!!

In other news....

Oh I stole... or borrowed... Sister Rowley's old sewing machine and I used to fix my tan pants, so now I have a whole three wearable pairs - woohoo.

We also rode bikes again and that was super fun!

Life is great and I am so grateful to be here!! I love the Lord Jesus Christ. I know that I have been called here to Indonesia by Him and that this is His work.

I hope everyone takes a little time this week to ponder the Savior and what He truly did for us and to think about how you can share His love with others this week.

I really love you all!

Shout out to my adorable niece Emma!! One year old! Happy Birthday!

Elder Brown

The Joy of Missionary Work

Hello everyone!!

We had a great week this week. Lots of fun. One highlight of the week - we rode bikes!!!! So much fun. So on Sundays there is something called "Car Free Day". Pretty self explanatory, but one of the main roads is closed off to motor vehicles. So we decided to take the extra bikes we have and it was awesome. Then we rode the whole day. It is a whole different experience biking in jakarta!! We think we may be the first missionaries to ride bikes in Jakarta haha. All the members were quite impressed. We were riding right alongside motorcycles and cars and trucks. We felt like we owned this city (which we basically do). I'll put pictures in the drive!!

Other highlights...

There was a family from Vancouver Canada, the Sala family. They are a family of singers and they came to Indonesia to do a series of firesides. We went to that with some investigators, which was really fun! Turns out the know Paul and Amy Jensen really well. So that was really cool to meet someone who is friends with my friends haha such a small world. IT was really fun to watch them sing though. They invited everyone that new the EFY theme song "Come Unto Christ" to come up and help them sing, and no one was getting up, so just like you taught me Mom, I jumped up and ran to the front. In the end, I was the only male singing except for Brother Sala haha. Fun day though and then three of those investigators that went to that showed up for church on Sunday too.

We've been working really hard on transfers this week because there are quite a few going home (including my beloved ex-comp Elder Johnson) and we have 15 new missionaries. FIFTEEN!!! Really excited about that. But we've been putting some serious thought and prayer into that because we know how greatly it affects God's children here in INdonesia. It's been difficult to balance everything, but one wonderful thing I was reminded of was the joy of missionary work. It is such a wonderful experience to be a missionary and to help bring God's children closer to him. We were talking to President Subandriyo about how we as missionaries should all be happy and joyful. Sometimes we get stuck on how hard missionary work is, and yes we do work hard, but we sometimes forget to see the joy in the work. It's so important to remember. As I've tried to focus on the joy, it has helped me through some times that could have been quite rough. But the Savior always carries us through.

Anyway really good stuff this week. We have been blessed with so many wonderful investigators that it has been pretty difficult to find the time to teach them. But we are trying our best and I have seen over and over and over again how the Lord blesses, supports and helps them beyond the abilities of just Elder Nordwald and I. It is pretty amazing.

Hope everyone just had a wonderful day. I testify that God is a real being. He does live and we are His children. Never forget why we are here on this earth. God does love us in ways we don't even understand.

Life is great!!

Hello Everyone! Salam dari Indonesia!

We had a really great week this week!! Really busy as usual haha seems like I say that every single week.

We had kind of an interesting experience this week where we totally forgot that there were four local missionaries who were coming in to be set apart by President Subandriyo... oops. So we were a little surprised but luckily we were reminded just in time it all turned out okay. Though because of helping them and a fireside with them, we didn't actually leave Senopati (the mission home) that day which is always slightly depressing haha buuuttt it was also a huge tender mercy! Because two of those Elders were from Malang where I used to serve and one used to go on splits with us and the other was inactive when I was there and then since I left, he became active and is now on a mission. And that is just such an incredible thing to see. Really lifted my spirits and helped me remember how true the Gospel really is. Amazing!!

And how about that General Conference huh?? Way good! I loved all of the messages from President Nelson. I know he is truly called of God and the things he is changing truly are inspired of God. I especially loved Elder Durrant's talk and Elder Causse's talk. Really wonderful messages. From Elder Durrant, I just know that those decisions to have family prayer and scripture and family home evening will bless families everywhere undescribably. I am so grateful for my experiences as I grew up in a wonderful family with parents who actively applied those principles (thanks Mom and Dad!! You rock!). I also loved the simple testimonies of the Savior and the divinity of His Atoning sacrifice. The things that Elder Causse spoke about. How the Gospel is all about the People. I love that - helps put into perspective what it means to truly be a servant of Christ.

The rest of this week was great. We had the privilege of going on splits with the Surabaya Zone Leaders. I split with Elder Darby a new Zone Leader reminded me of myself a year ago when I was in his shoes. Crazy - but he is SO much more prepared than I was haha. Really good to see how awesome the younger missionaries are. I learned a lot from him. We had a cool experience. We wanted to eat dinner and he wanted Ayam Goreng (Fried Chicken) and I was like "Well we can eat this normal Ayam Goreng... or we can walk over that way and eat Ayam Gepuk (the most delicious kind of Ayam Goreng)" so of course we chose the latter because Elder Darby's not a scrub. Then when we went there, in addition to the delicious food, there were three boys who were very interested as we taught them about the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ. Kind of cool to see how the Lord uses my favorite foods to help us meet His children who are searching for the truth.

 

We also had MLC this week!! That was great! President Subandriyo made some changes for last time and we all learned a lot from President Suabndriyo. IT was sa lot of fun. This time, we bought Carl's Jr. Burgers, which was wonderful. On Fridays, it's buy one, get one free. So we each got two burgers - it's fun when you are the one in charge of ordering the food haha :)

Anyway life is great!! We had quite a few investigators come to General Conference and that was a great. Some of the girls from our English class came as well and after that were asking us about the Book of Mormon and Joseph Smith. That was a miracle for us for sure! Everything is going great!!


I do know that God lives and He loves us. I know that the messages we received at General Conference truly are from God.

I love you all!!
Elder Brown

Time on our Hands

Hello selamat pagi semuanya!!

Apa kabar?? Semoga semua kabarnya luar biasa!! Semoga anda semua sehat dan bahagia!

I hope everyone had a really good week! I hope you all had the chance to feel the Lord's love in your life and had the chance to share that love with others as well!

I had a great week serving with Elder Nordwald. Man he is such a good guy. Definitely a change from Elder Johnson, because he's just about as good a missionary that you could find anywhere and i sure do miss him. That being said, Elder Nordwald is a stud!! We had a lot of fun this week.

It was a good week though we all-of-sudden weren't nearly as busy as we have been the last three weeks with no zone conferences, no transfers and no traveling and to be completely honest, I was way confused what to do with all our time. The last three weeks we only had time to go visit our progressing investigators and no one else haha So that was a nice change. Turned out really well and we saw a lot of miracles!!

One miracle - Sunday after church we went to our friend's  house and finally found him at home. So that was wonderful to see him. We tried to remind him of the feelings of joy he had when he had been active at church before. Please pray for him.

Other things that happened.... let's see

Cuci motor gratis - we did this at the church where we washed people's motorcycles and cars for free!

This is a family and we have been helping to pray together and we met the father and invited him to make a reminder and he sent us a picture of a wonderful sign that he had made and it made us so happy. I feel that our efforts are actually making a difference which is a wonderful feeling!

Lemper celebration - It was the 176th anniversary of the Relief Society which in Indonesia "Lembaga Pertolongan" or :"Lemper" so after church we had a celebration and we all ate really well :) That was fun! and all of our investigators stayed and enjoyed it - that was wonderful!!

This morning, we also got up and played basketball as a district - super fun!!!

I love you all!!

Elder Brown

This week was...TRANSFERS!!

Hello family and friends!!!

How is everyone?? I hope you are all had a wonderful week! We sure have :) Though once again crazy again!!

This week is ... TRANSFERS!!! And no, I am not moving, but my beloved companion Elder Johnson is :( Which makes me really sad - I will miss him to no end. But the thing is, Elder Johnson is such an amazing person and missionary, I dont really have to do anything and we know that "there is no growth in the comfort zone". And I think the Lord knows that I need a whole lot of growing!

My new companion is Elder Nordwald, and he also is a wonderful man so I'm excited for that.

This week was awesome. Yesterday was a special Stake Conference with Elder Gary E. Stevenson of the Quorum of the 12 Apostles. That was really cool. I got to meet him briefly and quite a few of our investigators came and we're able to meet him as well. That was great! He taught us a lot of great things. One thing that made me think a little bit was when he said "our boys were like your boys". I meet so many people that one do what is right and won't make an effort to have family prayer and scripture study or to work for their families or so many other things. As I looked at Elder Stevenson, I saw that he was a successful father and husband, not because his path was easier but he was wiling to try despite the difficulties. He said "God doesn't expect us to be perfect, he just wants us to try." I see so often people who won't try because it is hard, but I know that it is in the moments of when we try that God gives us His power. Even when our efforts aren't enough, he carries us through. But, we have to try. So even this great Apostle, he has had and still has similar trials and challenges as we all do, but through reliance on the Savior and His power and grace, he makes it through. I think that's pretty incredible. We can all make it through, if we but try our best and give Him the rest.

 

Anyways, everything has been going great! Our investigators are doing well, I just wish we had more time to teach and help them. But the Lord is sure helping us, so I am grateful for that!!

I am really excited to be with Elder Nordwald. He's coming here soon!! I have a lot of respect for that man!

I really hope every one is doing well this week. I hope you are all HAPPY :D - "Men are that they might have joy"!

I love you all so much!

Elder Brown

Zero Time

Hey Mommy, I might not send a full well written email... sorry. We are working on transfers and Zone Conferences and other things today...

 

This week was good!!

We went to Solo and Surabaya for Zone Conferences!!! Lots of fun but very tiring!!

I had the opportunity to confirm S a member of the Church yesterday!

Just a lot of really great things happening nowadays!

I sent pictures to you!

We had a wonderful miracle: This last week we had about 0 time to work in our actual area... but right before we were going ot church a family of four called us and said they wanted to come to church and they DID! This was a man that I had first met and contacted last year in my first couple of weeks in Jakarta. So that was really cool!! Always many miracles!! This is truly God's work. I love seeing that!

I love you!! Have a great week!!

Loving Serving the Lord

Selamat siang semuanya! Or maybe it's malam over there. Apa Kabar??

Hopefully everyone had an awesome week :)

This week was super duper crazy awesome for us. "Why?" you may ask. 3 reasons.

1. S was baptized! Wahoo!!

2. M was confirmed!!

3. We left Jakarta!! :)

So that was all so great!! Starting from the bottom... Elder Johnson and I had the wonderful opportunity to go visit the fabulous cities of Yogyakarta and Magelang (my birth-city!! or in other words, the first place I served). It was awesome!

Tuesday night, we flew out to Jogja and spent the night with Elders McWhorter and Forston, both of whom I love. On wednesday I got to work with Elder McWhorter which was awesome because he is such a stud and it brought us back to our Manado days! We had some great experiences and taught some wonderful people. loved it.

That night we traveled on to Magelang. It was like a dream come true to go back! I was so excited banget I was pointing everything out to Elder Johnson the whole way! We stayed with Elders Schofield, Suparman, Call and Simanjuntak who are all studs. Tons of fun to see them and get to know them all better. I had the chance to work with Elder Call on Thursday. Way fun - he is a rocking missionary. I was riding Elder Simanjuntak's bike and the pedal fell off - the whole thing. (This is right after pourig rain and riding through floods - super fun!) and so I was kind of like "We should probably get this fixed..." He responds "Yeah theres a place over there... but let's contact in this area first!" So we went contacting with me riding my bike with the pedal in my pocket and using my foot to propel myself forward. Haha turns out he was in tune with Spirit because when I wanted to go fix the bika, he knew there were people in that place that we needed to meet.

Thursday night we headed back to Jogja and slept with Elder Port and Elder Gomez and then woke up in the morning to get to the airport. Our flight was two and a half hours late haha. Anyway great time, I just hope it hehlped the missionaries we worked with in some way.

M was confirmed this week!! That was especially awesome:)

AND S was baptized!! It was SO great and she was so prepared. She's been super excited all week which was really awesome. Elder Jensen was able to baptize her which was really cool! He used Indonesian even though he had to read part of it. It was just a really awesome service and the ward was so welcoming which was just great. We were so blessed to have the chance to teach her. She is amazing.

Trevor always loved taking pictures with this
 volcano when he was assigned to Magelang, so
first thing when he gets back - picture with the Volcano.

So anyway, great week! Loving serving the Lord. I do know that this is truly His work. I do know that God loves all His children.

I love you all so much!

Elder Brown

Pancakes and Pernikahan Kekal

Hello my dear family and friends!!

First off, I hope you all had a love-filled Valentine's Day (what a wonderful opportunity for us all to ponder and recognize those we love!) and also a fortune-filled Chinese New Year! Both of these were pretty hype over here in Jakarta, Indonesia!!

Also shout to the amazing one-and-only Stephanie Brown, as she has this week completed one year as a missionary in Slovenia. Also 20+ years as an amazing older sister :)

So yeah this week was great - many wonderful things to remember and ponder :)

One great thing that happened is our friend M was baptized - wahoo!! It was great. He is definitely a special son of Father in Heaven. In fact church was just all around great today, even though a couple of our investigators slept in a little too late, so they didn't make it.

Funny story: someone told one of the members that I was good at making pancakes. So last week, I told them that I would make pancakes and they said they would bring ingredients. Little did I know that they actually meant business and they brought all the ingredients. Turns out what I actually signed up for was a pancake making competition between myself and Sister Kentjana (a long-term member of the ward). She and her husband are so funny! As I was making my batter, there were like 6 or 7 sisters in the ward surrounding me and calling out directions and crying out in distress when they thought I made a fatal error. And man, Sister Kentjana's were pretty delicious but I think mine might take the (pan)cake ;) Not to be prideful haha.

Haha lots of fun! We also got to video call two investigators in Bali today. We even invited one to be baptized and he accepted :)

Honestly this week has been pretty rough in some ways, with things just not working out and not being able to meet our investigators. But it's all a lesson in humility - to remember that this is the Lord's work and not our own. He certainly did it when we weren't able. It's good to remember that as we try our best, the Lord will do the rest. He will mencukupi which is a great Indonesian work meaning "to make enough". But we do have to be really truly trying :)

Let's see - what else happened this week...?

Oh yeah - I got a smartphone ;) That's pretty cool - Elder Johnson and I are testing them (though he's already had his for a month) and let me tell you WhatsApp is like the best thing ever for contacting investigators! :)

I taught Asas-Asas Injil (Gospel Principles) at church today and I taught about Pernikahan Kekal (Eternal Marriage). And I was thinking a lot about that (not that I'm getting trunky!) and how just absolutely amazing it is that we can be with our families for FOREVER. Thats is one of the most amazing gifts that we receive from the Restoration of the Gospel. Think about it. I know how much it has  effected my life! How different would we look at our father, mother, brothers, sisters, spouses, children when we realize that we are family forever :) How much kinder could we be? How much more considerate as we see our family's eternal value and importance? I was just thinking about that and how much I love my family and how grateful I am that I CAN be with them forever because of the Savior Jesus Christ and His restored Gospel. I do testify that He loves us and desires all of us to come unto Him and return to the Father.

I love you all!! Have an amazing week and take a little more time and a little more thought to show our family how much you love them.

Love Elder Brown

Good Morning Jakarta!

Good morning Jakarta!

That's what I sing every morning when we go out. Well actually I don't haha, but now that I thought of it, I'll probably start singing it everyday :)

Well things in Jakarta are just dandy! I hope everything is super-duper swell in America with all the wonderful people I love there! I hope everyone is happy! And if you're not - I know just thing that can help you be happier. Everyday I go around Jakarta doing my best to share the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ with people because I know it is truth and joy, at its fullest.

I was thinking a lot about the joy of the Gospel this week and how I personally can take greater joy in the Gospel and better bring that joy to others. I love Christ's words "Be of good cheer; I have overcome the world"(John 16:33). When we know that because of Him, everything can be okay. Our weaknesses, pains, sins and imperfections can be swallowed up in Him. Through Him, we too can overcome the world, so why not "be of good cheer"? :) I'd like to start seeing myself more of a "penyebar sukacita" than a "penginjil" which is to say more of a "spreader of joy" than a "person who gospel-izes other people" (haha sometimes it's hard to translate the meaning of these Indonesian words).

Anyway, its been a great week of spreading joy with Elder Johnson and I in the beautiful city of Jakarta. We have had some wonderful experiences sharing our testimonies of Jesus Christ and His Gospel.

We had a great lesson with S as she expressed her desire to be a missionary and share the Gospel. Some of the Sisters in Relief Society told us that she bore her testimony that she knew this Church was true. That was cool. She is still planning on being baptized on the 4th of March. She rocks - she is so great.

We have tons of awesome investigators - we are just trying to help them see the joy of the Gospel. Jesus taught "the truth shall make you free" (John 8:32) and it is so true. I wish people would see how much understanding the truth about the Savior and His doctrine is so freeing and bringing such blessings of happiness in our lives, no matter who we are or where we are.

Cool experiences at church - we were watching a video in class entitled "Families Can Be Together Forever" and it shows a bunch of video clips of families doing cute things, and right there precisely at 2:27, there is my Uncle Eric, just nonchalantly picking up his bike. Haha I got so excited and it made me so happy! So shoutout to Eric Jensen and the Jensens for being a wonderful example of a happy family :) Speaking of can you send me Alice and Sam's mailing addresses, so that I can mail them letters? :)

One other cool thing at church - our simpatisan John (who was baptized about a month and a half ago - so not a simpatisan anymore) blessed the Sacrament. It was wonderful, he is such a good man! What a sweet experience to see him exercise his priesthood :)

Anyway its been a great week! Lots of fun experiences!! One of which : Elder Johnson and I often (VERY often) eat at the same place right in front of our house called Ayam Gepuk which is this delicious Fried Chicken, with super-spicy sambal (Indonesian sauce made from smashed chilis, salt, garlic and oil - amazing :) and it is so good and we are such good friends with the workers. and they gave us SHIRTS and they are literally the coolest things - we will send pictures :)

I love you all so much!!

Go find the happiness this week!!!

Love

Elder Brown

BerBahagia

Good Morning Indonesia! and also to my wonderful family and friends all around the world!!

I hope you are happy healthy and terrific (as my Mission President, President Rowley often says). Hopefully everyone's lives are just swell this week. I hope you had the chance to share a smile and a lot of love this week :)

The Instagram Account is
MormonIndonesia. 
Not Quite as exciting as
"TrevorBrownDoingThings" yet,
but give it time I guess.

Elder Johnson and I had a great week, though really busy! We were given another task to oversee some of the immigration processes for the missionaries. President almost called a set of Office Elders to oversee it, but we decided that for now, we would handle that. So that definitely put some greater demands on our time. But it's great, because it allows us opportunity to see the Lord's hand doing the work for us!

Church was great! We were bummed because at the start of the meeting, only two of the investigators we wanted to come had showed up. But as the meeting began, five more of them came in - that was a tender mercy for sure. And then two people we had contacted wanted to meet, along with all of our other appointments that Sunday - we had the opportunity to go give a blessing to one of our investigators Mom in the hospital. It is amazing to be able to use our Priesthood to help others. He was very touched by the blessing and right after it, his Mom opened her eyes more fully than he said she had in a while. So Sunday turned into a really busy, but very rewarding day! That was awesome!

Besides Sunday, everything was great! Elder Johnson and are just pressing forward (maju terus!). Two friends are doing well and still progressing! One other, we gave to the Tangerang Elders and it sounds like he is doing well! One is preparing to be baptized for this coming week. Please pray that he will feel truly prepared and understand the sanctity of the covenants he will make.

I think I forgot to tell you, but Elder Johnson got a smartphone last week. The first one in our mission! His other phone broke and President said "Okay, lets try a smartphone", so that's been pretty crazy! But really helpful. We even have an Instagram account :)

Speaking of technology, we've started teaching some people through Skype. There's one guy in Makassar that is really prepared to receive the restored gospel, so that's pretty cool! It's amazing to see how the Lord is preparing people everywhere to receive our message.

Next week will be MLC, so that will be a lot of fun! We're excited! It was supposed to be this week, but thank goodness it was pushed back, because I don't know where we would have found the time to prepare for it haha!

Anyways, it's been a great week. Elder Johnson and I have tons of fun - I feel bad because I never seem to tell you about funny things that happen, but it is a lot of FUN. Who knew that 11 hour "work" days would be super totally awesome? :)

I love you all!! Have a fantastic week. And just remember the things that truly matter. In bahasa indonesia there are two words "senang" and "bahagia". they both mean happy. But "senang" is like pleased, a more temporary fleeting happiness, whereas "bahagia" is like true deeper happiness. There's a lot of things in life that make us "senang" (like for me - eating delicious food - or any food really!:) but what really is important are the things that make us "bahagia". Like serving the Lord, like serving and lifting others - making them smile and making them "bahagia" - those are the things that bring true "kebahagiaan" (happiness). Go search out those things that truly "berarti" (have meaning) and the things that really matter and will make you "berbahagia" (be happy).

I know that is what our loving father in heaven wants for us all!!

Love you all!!

Elder Brown

Luar biasa!!

Hello my wonderful family and friends!!!

Apa kabar??

I hope you all has a good of week as Elder Johnson and I did!! It was luar biasa!!

First of all - it was so crazy busy, I get tired just thinking about it. Haha but being busy is awesome because no time to be tired and just time to be happy (that was partially facetious, because I definitely am tired, but s'all goods, s'all goods).

We are changing the way we do some things in the immigration process for our missionaries which creates a lot of work and confusion for Elder Johnson and I but I am happy to say I think we came out on top!

We were also busy with Zone Conference and preparation for it. It was fantastic as always to get to meet together and learn from President Rowley and all the other wonderful missionaries. Lots of great things to learn and realizing I still have so far to go and not enough time to do it all! Just will have to work harder :)

Our week ended just GREAT! We ended up having 9 simpatisans come to church, which is more than I've ever had come in a week before. It was so great to be able to share in the Spirit with so man wonderful people that I love! I think they all really enjoyed it! Elder Jensen (our office mission couple Elder whom I dearly love) gave a great talk which one of the brothers translated for him. The Spirit was so strong. He spoke of God and Christ and Propehts, especially about Thomas S Monson. We also got to watch President Monson's funeral, so that was special.

 

Just having a great time and loving life! Just trying to become better and more like Jesus Christ.

One cool experience we had. We had some things fall through on Saturday so we started going somewhere with a kind of shaky idea of what we were doing. As we were headed there we realized that we were close to an inactive member's house and we felt we should go there instead, so we did. and the next day he and his non-member wife came to church. Definitely the Spirit guiding us to what we needed to do! Just cool for me :) 

I love this work! I feel so great as I can sincerely say to people "I'm not here to add numbers to my church or get money or for my glory, but I am here because I know God loves you and I want to help you return to Him." This is not my work - this is His work. He loves His children. I love that knowledge. I love how it changes the way I live and look at others around me.

I love you all. I hope you have an amazing week. Maju terus!

Dengan kasih,

Elder Brown

SELAMAT TAHUN BARU!!!

Hello my wonderful Family and Friends!!

HAPPY NEW YEARS!!!

SELAMAT TAHUN BARU!!!

 

I hope you all had a great time bringing in the new year at midnight last night. Elder Johnson threatened me that if i woke him up at midnight, unpleasant things would occur. But in the end, we were just too tired haha. Long week! But great week! Totally worth every second!

Highlight of the week: seeing all my family's beautiful faces (especially my wonderful niece and nephew who were much bigger than last time I laid mine eyes upon them through skype). Sorry I didn't really tell you about my life, I was just loving seeing you all and hearing you talk! And man, Oli can throw a football! Good work teaching him former East Valley Quarterback Jackson Romney. And Emma has the most beautiful I-dont-know-who-this-weird-guy-on-the-tv-is look. So thank you family for being amazing and making my Christmas so happy! I love you!!

Besides that Elder Johnson and I have had a crazy (and awesome) week. Due to various situations, we had to bring random groups into the mission home at Senopati at various times. Then do all of other assignments, then all of our missionary work. Makes for a busy week, but with the help of the Lord, we managed and loved it all the while!

 

anyway sorry out of time, I love you all so much!! Have a great week!!! Start off the new year right!!!

Love Elder Brown