He made it to Peru!!!

where to even begin....

this has been the craziest freaking week of my life. so the night we got in, we were taken the offices and slept there that night. we got into bed at like 2 30. then we were woken up three hours later to get ready and go the stake center where we met all the other incoming missonaries. i got to see elder Cole Cody which was awesome. i also met Hermana Skousen who is from Dad´s ward back home. oh and i saw elder Chris Ludlow las week and got a picture with him.

my companion´s name is elder Fallas. (no mom it doesnt soun like Dallas. have Jeff help ya say it). he is from Costa rica and much to my surprise, the kid speaks perfect english. in the place where i live, there are two american elders, Elder Crosier, and Elder Paredes (who just happened to go to highland and lives at Harris and brown. like five minuted from our house). these kids are awesome!

so the food. for breakfast we eat bread. every day. we had a jar of nutella from the elder i replaced but it is gone now. the Elder´s name was elder aubrey. Jackson aubrey´s cousin. i met him on the first day and we made the connection that our cousins are dating. fun stuff. anyways, at luch and dinner, we eat rice, some kind of meat, and sometimes potatoes. yesterday for breakfast, our pentionista (definitely dont know how to spell that) made us "pancakes". they were dang good. we put nutella and condensed milk on them. and no mom i havent been sick once. keep up the prayers, they´re working. oh and on my first night here, for dinner i had what we had at the peruvian restaurant. except it wasnt normal beef. it was heart. it was really good though! im kinda bummer she hasnt made it more. it tastes kinda like beef jerky. we definitely cant dring from the tap, but we have our filter bottles from the mtc for brushing out teeth and we get these big water bottles for super cheap for drinking water.

there´s a lady here who makes shoes and so the four of us are getting custom soccer shoes made. they´re sickkk. but my feet are so big that they are gonna have to make a new sized mold for me and any other future bug-footed gringos.

so the bathroom? we dont have a toilet seat. but i mean who needs that anyways. we do have water heaters though so thats a plus. the hot water only lasts like five minutes but its ok, im just glad we get hot water.

so i live in a place called Zapallal. its by ventenilla and puente piedra. look em up. my area is right by the panamericano highway and its hills. and hills. and hills. my calfs are killing me.

mom you would LOVE it here. everything is so simple and everyone is just happy to have a roof over their heads. they give us so much. my first night, we sat on someones doorstep, with the girl we were teaching sat om a little stool and we just read the book of mormon with her. she lives where you can see our whole area and its freakin aweome to go up on the hills and look down at everything. i´ll have to take a picture soon.

oh and Elder Arnett is in my zone so ive seen him a couple times already.

so there are three things i´ve learned to watch out for...

1.Dogs. there are more dogs here than i´ve ever seen in my life. they all bark out you and they all want to kill you. im convinced they´re all satans pets. the Dazer has come in handy many times but i kinda want one to attck me so i can kick it. then he´ll go tell all his buddies to look our for the American with the big feet.

2. Snakes. not real snakes. its a term used for the girls here who try to flirt with and or seduce americans. all the girls here scare the crap out of me.

3. Mothers with kids between ages 0-5. i´ll take on a whole army of angry diseased dogs over being in the presence of someone nursing their child. it is THE most uncomfortable thing ive ever experienced. pray for me to not be akward as heck and to get used to this because i am dying. like i am literally afraid to leave the house every day because i am so scared of having another panic attack. welp. cool.

all in all i honestly love this place. its absolutely awesome. ive never appreciated the things i had before the mission more. ive also never realized how much useless garbage we spend way too much time focusing on. in the eternal scheme of things all that really matters is baptism, keeping the commandments, and being sealed to our families. the gospel is sooooooooooooo simple. we overcomplicate everything though. tranquilo. bakaan. welp. imma try to send some pictures, hopefully it works, these internet places are crazy. welp, i love you all, keep the missionaries in your prayers because i have no idea what i am doing out here haha the mission is insane. BUT. God gives us our weaknesses so that we can remember where we can turn for strength. Jesus Christ overcame everything for us. everything. our doubts, fears, insecurities, pains, weaknesses. what a guy. pray with gratitude for your weakness because it is through them we come closest to our hevenly father. im crazy weak out here. hence, im praying (pleading actually) more than ever before for strength just to make it through the day. well thats just about everything i think. love you all!

elder kendall brown

Bears and Corbin got their Visa!

Kendall and Corbin got their Visa and they are on their way to Peru! We got to talk to Kendall from the airport today and he just kept saying... "I am so stoked!" to get to Lima. We are so proud of him. He also said what a blessing it has been for him and his friend Corbin to be going through this journey together. A tender mercy from the Lord. We are so excited to hear from our missionary when he get to Peru.

Below is a beautiful quote my dear friend sent to me that her missionary son loved throughout his mission. I am sending it to Kendall to remind him of why he is on his mission:

Obedience Is the Price

Faith is the Power

Love Is the motive

The Spirit Is the Key

Christ Is the Reason

Last week of the MTC!

(*Kendall just called me!! He just got his Visa in and is heading to Lima Peru from the Provo MTC on Monday, May 20th.!! Wahoo!!! Go Elder Brown and Elder McCallister!!!)

alright so i just kinda wrote down random stuff throughout the week to mention in the email so hopefully you can keep up.

so first off. thanks to everyone for the packages and letters on my birthday! i think i gained like five pounds with all the cookies and stuff. and thanks for the shirt mom, its freakin sweet! it was a pretty rough day and its been a pretty rough week for me so i appreciate everything! satan decided its time to kick the crap out of me. dont worry, i've never given up a fight. hahaha mom, go ask jeff the spanish term for satan and you'll understand my feelings about him right about now. its kinda along the lines of what you tell me to tell him when he's botherinng me. but mom your motto "moving forwward" is gonna help me alot. thanks!

oh so last week i got a hair cut for the first time by someone other than momma suzie or when i used to buzz it myself. im not gonna complain but im gonna be glad to be back in tantrum or in our bathroom downtairs in a couple years.

so some cool stuff, apparently my branch president (president Swenson) was brad mortenson's mission president. he mentioned him last night and i was like wait. i (kinda) know him ha. andd apparently my teacher Hermano welch (who is moving to phoenix later in the summer) trained the missionary who trained Steve Frost in argentina.another cool thing. in the Arise and Shine forth (youth 2012 theme) theme song video, the main hawaiian kid lives on my floor. we watched it the other day and i was like "what the heck?? i just gave that kid a bunch of food last week. oh. andddddd one of my other teachers new drew. his name is Hermano Levi Williams. he's solid.

last night we heard from yet another apostle: Elder Russel M. Nelson.

some quotes from the talk, im pretty sure i didnt remember half of them correctly but here:

"you're baptizing them so they can qualify for that blessing of eternal life."

"this isn't a place for rest. this is a place for progress" and then something like "if you just want to rest, maybe mortality isnt for you" or somethin like that haha

"in order to put jesus first, you may need to lose yourself"

"having character is better than being one"

"you're their link to the Lord Jesus Christ, who CAN help them"

"the four words you need to use: We. Follow. Jesus. Christ."

we were soooo blessed to be able to hear from two apostles while being here in the mtc. it was awesome. oh yeah and in the choir last night i sang next to elder Harrison Jones. his brother was bummed to not be up there with us.

so hayden is crawling huh?? and she started on my birthday?? thats awesome! make sure she doesnt follow jeff's example and try crawling down stairs.

as for my reassignment. not today. which means we'll probably be here another week. pray for us! as awesome as the MTC is.. i think its about time i left.

that is weird to think grandma and grandpa flitton's house has been sold, and the pool table is leaving the basement. never thought i'd see the day. haha and mom thanks for the "p.s." in your last dear elder. and im glad mason and TJ got their letters. thanks!

Jeff- whats you email?? better yet, just email me. thanks for dear eldering me this past week, it meant alot. thanks! and i hear you officially started at brown evans. be sure to tell Aron, Anthony, Willie and everyone else hi for me. and watch out, they like giving nick names there. some of mine were "skinny jeans", "long back jr.", and "special K." good luck! oh and make sure you admire the shelving units in the warehouse that i helped build, take down, re arrange, then reconstruct. fun stuff. oh and whats this i hear about you dating someone?? dattta kid

Aunt Liz-thanks so much for the cookies! the guys on my floor loved em

maci-thanks for the birthday dear elder! im stoked for you finishing your first year at stapley. and it sounds like you have a busy summer. good luck and have fun!

on a general note, i was sad to get the news about grandpa wayne. he was an awesome guy who did sooo much for his family and everyone he worked with. i'm glad he was able to go easily as dad said.

well i hope everyone's doing well! when in doubt, pray like never before. i have to amp up my prayers seriously every day. the adversary is never going to rest and he is  doing anything and everything to stop this work. keep the missionaries in mind in your prayers. we need it.

Love you all!

Elder Kendall Brown

one of the elder's on my floor made me a balloon animal for my birthday. feelin the love haha

One month down! Happy 19th Birthday Bears!!

hola errbody!!!!

first off happy almost mothers day mom! and all the other moms out there!! i just watched the new mormon mesage about mothers. so sweet. i encourage you all to watch it. one of my favorite quotes "life didn't  come with a manual. it came with mothers" or somethin like that.

what a week. i cant already believe its p day again. its flyin! so ive had a little stomach problem this week but im gettin over it. all sorts of fun stuff! we have officially been here for four weeks and its seriously unbelievable. and my birthday is tomorrow! wudduuuppppp!! haha i got the package today mom and mark, and yes, ill save it for tomorrow. maybe. we'll see.

so on sunday we heard from Chad Lewis. he played for BYU and the eagles. it was sooooooo sick. we got to watch clips of football games. best talk ever. ha so he talked to us about the mission and how it relates to/affects the rest of our lives. such a solid talk.

last night, our district ushered for the meeting. the speaker was Elder Eduardo gavarret of the Seventy. he and his wife are from uruguay and he served in the paraguay/uruguay mission or somethin like that and apparenty he was a mission president in paraguay. his talk was awesome too. he started off by saying tonight we are going to talk about miracles. he didnt say a single thing about miracles. he spoke about the plan of salvation and how it plays into our lives as missionaries. and he talked about being clean and pure as missionaries. and how the battle that started in heaven is stil going on today. i got to meet him and his wife after and told him about dad, grandpa, and jeff. apparently his wife was baptized by an elder brown but it turned out it wasnt dad.

in other news.. yeah i freaking saw kalie on sunday! so good to see her! it was definitely hard though, we had just heard that morning, on two separate occasions, to not meet up with family or friends. it was fine because i didnt plan it or anything, but yeah i basically had to say love you but gotta go, gave her a hug, snapped a pic, and bailed. love you kalie!!

i got a SOLID dear elder from sister burrell. a quote she gave me from elder bednar's wife hit me: "you always need to be the kind of missionary your mom thinks you are." thanks sister burrell!

hahaha oh yeah so i opened my dear elder baout elder mcallisters dad before he opened his. so yes, i accidently broke the news about his dad being bishop haha whoops!! elder mcallister is a zone leader now and im pretty sure he and his dad officially became zone leader/bishop on the same day. pretty cool! and my comp is district leader now, he's a goob haha but he'll do a solid job.

Jeff- so you are workin with brown evans eh? buena suerte! its so much fun. especially since you'll probably be spending all day with Aron. i planted a few seeds when i worked there (at least i hope so). definitely try to keep them growing. and its sick that you can do it in spanish! love ya. oh and we got the light saber thing, just in time for star wars day (may 4th (may the fourth be with you)).

Maci-so you're gonna do jr. guard start?? thats tight. hahaha you'll be the one they send to clean up leftovers from the kids in the kitty pool (ask mom about your story with that at stapley pool. lawlz.) ha but thanks for writing me back. you're solid. treat my phone well haha word on the street is that you got it. enjoy! love ya bugga. make sure you play "biggest fan" for mom for me on sunday. got it??

greg arnett(mom find a way to get him this message haha) way to rep the cave in the bishopric! do work!

mackenzie- whats up gurl!! securityyy!!!

mom-i'll write you your own email hah but hey!

grandma connie-thanks for the dear elder! love you! everything is going well, the language is coming along decently but yeah we'll find out when i get down there haha. oh and i hope everything goes well with grandma and grandpa's house. best of luck! love you both

katie-Cheeseburger! get better soon alright!! love ya

well sorry my emails are slowly gettin shorter. i seriously can barely keep track of what goes on during the week. i have to write stuff down just to remember to send it home haha everything is such a blurr.

love you all!! the book of mormon is true. it testifies of christ. dont be afraid to share it! i recently realized how stupid ive been lately for having hesitations about sharing my testimony with people and then i realized. wait. if its the truth, why be embarrassed by it. why be ashamed of what you know. keep the elders in your prayers, we're fightin a big battle out here and its rough. im still only in the mtc but the adversary is still knockin right at our doors here. love you all!

Elder Brown

Elder Brown, Sister Taylor, Elder McCallister

                                                        This one's for Kalie...Shrek face

 


                                              Elder Brown, Elder Mennenga, Elder McCallister

3 Weeks and a new P-day!! 5/1/13

mamaaaaaaaaaaaaa ooooohooooooooooo (bohemian rhapsody)

hahaha hey errrbody whats crackin! this is elder brown comin at ya live from the mtc with some big news. my p days are now on wednesdays and our entire schedule is all messed up. yayayyy.

hahaha so fun stuff this week. in service on monday mine and elder schagels job was to restock toilet paper and paper towels. we got to a stall and he was like are you kidding? i looked in. someone had thrown a whole toilet paper roll in the toilet and it absorbed all the water. he proceeded to climb up on the back of the toilet with a plunger. i stood in front with the trash can while he shoveled it into the trash can wit the plunger. team effort!

today we went to the temple and did inititories (yeah i totally spelled that wrond). we got celestial breakfast aand it was awesome.

so thanks mama for ordering me another inhaler. im still concerned about having to take my machine with me bacause it takes up quite a bit of space. oh well i'll figure it out. so last night our devotional was from elder packer (president packer's son). honestly? i could barely pay attention becaus his voiice kinda sounded like the Shane Company commercial guy. but he talked even slower. i learned the most when we had our district discussion after. president swensen, our branch president, and his wife joined us. the fireside was about families and how we as missionaries help bring families together. elder mcallister brought up the quote "a missionary is someone who leaves his fmaily for two years so that others can be with their families for eternity." that was a good reminder to me that even thouugh i miss you all, i will come back in a very short time. president swenson brought up the movie back to the future and how one little event affected the lives of the entire family. i thought about nanny and gaga. had they not decided to become active in the church, i literally wouldnt exist. that one decision they made changed thousands of lives.

our devotional on sunday was from the director of the missionary department. he talked about how satan knows our buttons and exactly how to push them. his main goal is to get us to quit. sadly, one of the kids of the new district went home literally two hours before this fireside because he was so stressed with everything. im thoroughly convinced that if he had stayed till the fireside, it wouldve changed his life.

oh yeah so i saw sister cloward, that was a nice surprise and she said you said hi. hey mom. i also see tanner mennenga, dallin larsen, ryan couch, and hayden and harrison jones like all the time.

hahaha and zoey got an even worse hair cut??? filthy. i feel so bad for her. its not like she can just wear a hat or like try to do a different hair-do. good luck pumba!

all in all, things are goin alright. the language is coming slowly but surely. it is sooooooo hard to focus when im literally in a classroom for nine hours a day. i have the worstr attention span and what makes it worse is that im district leader and im like the first to get distracted. haha help!

so yeah any other questions or whatever just #hmu (to the older scene, that is a hash tag and an abbreviated form of hit me up)

jeff- i need you to dear elder me like ASAP to tell me how to do the light saber picture with a pen. please and thank you.

mark-thanks for the jjunk food! haha i can feel myself gettin nice and hefty from the food here already but i figure, eh, i'll probably lose it all from living off of rice. or i'll get a tapeworm. haha thanks. oh yeah, so i see missionaries going to denmark quite a bit. this past week i walked past a big group of them and after passing by them i was like "alright. i havent heard any danish in a few weeks. can you say something for me??" i then mentioned to a teacher how all i knew was (written in my pronunciation-friendly way) "vuhlowadoo". he said it back to me and it sounded nothing like i said. but yeah there are volunteers that come here for "home teaching" from the missionaries to help them pracitce their language. you should stop by haha

elder krueger(if you can somehow pass this message to him)-i wore your tie and everyone kept commenting on how awesome it looked. turns out one of the elders living nextdoor to me has one of your aunt's ties too. his brother bought one when he was in hawaii and now he has it. coincidence? no. destiny? absolutely. haha ahhh yeah. (MOM-can you snag me his email?? k thanks)

mom/fam-watch the mormon messages "my brother hyrum" and "earthly father heavenly father". amazing messages!!!

maci-i have an assignment for you. i want you to find the lyrics to the "Arthur" theme song, copy and paste them, and mail them to me. i know arthur was before your time but jessalyn is in town so she can help ya. also any other bomb disney songs. we live off singing that stuff haha

baby chunker face- enjoy my room!

i gotta go check my laundrey. i'll get back on and send some pictures. love you!!!! the church is true. spread it

ELDER BEARS WAYNE BROWN