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