Email from Kendall. eh

Amada familia mia. wuddup.

-hmmmm i cant really remember what happened last week. lets see. On tuesday night, the ward showed 17 Miracles in the chapel. it was in english with Spanish subtitles so i enjoyed it. it was cool, i noticed for the first time that the beef jerkey angel is shown multiple times standing among the pioneers watching how things are going. yup.

-oh! yeah. so on tuesday i had one of the coolest lessons of my life. that morning, i based my district training off of the letter president sent out about the importance of the book of mormon. we practiced answering doubts and questions with the book of mormon. so in the afternoon we had a lesson with one of our less active guys. he had some of his buddies over, whom he wanted us to share the gospel with. one of them had some questions. Ask away! he laid out the typical anti-church stuff about joseph smith, the book of mormon, the bible being the only word of god, and all that stuff. so after giving him a nice summary of the restoration, he wasnt satisfied. he insisted with the bible. so we gave him the bible. DOUBLE KILL. then he still kept trying to shut down what we said. then we dropped the ultimate bomb. the book of mormon. the spirit was soooooo strong in that lesson. and if i, someone whose had plenty of chances to feel it, felt it strong enough to make my hands sweat and my heart beat, i can only imagine how he felt. at one point his leg cramped up, he was bouncing his legs, rubbing his hands nervously, and the spirit even confounded him, he told us he had more questions but they couldnt come to hid mind or out of his mouth. the next day he was at his friends house again and he sat down with us and actually read from the book of mormon with us. so sick.

- i did a visit on another elder in my ward. his area is nuts. its allll sand. not even nice hard earth. i felt like i was working on the moon. this kids a goob. hes from the jungle and his spanish is nuts haha it was fun. 

.it all came down to an awesome day yesterday. our awesome family Familia riscos all came to church with us. after sacrament the dad was asking me hat days we hold baptismal services.we also have another family with a single mom and two kids that live with the bishops family who are going to be baptized the week after conference. another family, Rafael, our ex-jehovahs witness is getting married this coming week and will be in the water as soon as possible. im so grateful to be here to see families enter into the only path that can take them to the presence of their heavenly father. the mission is awesome. im learning new things from the scriptures, people, and life like never before. its been the shortest longest year of my life and the best rollercoaster ive ever ridden. thanks for the love, prayers,and support. keep praying for the missionaries, we need it!

welp. conference. YES. mom. mail me down some crepes. thanks. SEE YA

elder brownnnn

sent from my iPhone.

ha. sike.

1 yr left. Dont cry Mom.

Que onda cuates?? ... thats for uncle Doug.

SUP.

what a week. so imma lay this down chronologically.

-last monday, we got back to my room after playing games with the zone. elder schagel and i ate cereal and watched the district while our comps took a nap. Hermano Rojas comes out of nowhere, throws the door open, yells ¨RATAAA¨ and threw a freaking cat into the our bedroom and closes the door. we got on our cat hunting game. elder schagel tried to catch it with a broom and it hissed at him. my comp gets up, reaches under the dresser, grabs the cat, and takes it out the window. #ecuador. cats have great landing capabilities.

-On tuesday night, we had correlation in the Laboratory. the Laboratory? yes. that is the name of my mission leader´s room. we had a strobe light, black light, and twirling disco light as we talked about upcoming mission activities in the ward and set goals for the ward. his sisters brought us rice chicken potatoes and soda. just throwin out idea for how to run meetings Mark. except our leader is a single 27 yr old rm who devotes too much time to playstation. we love Efrain.

-i did interview for one of the other areas in my district. one of the little girls they baptized has some pets. the names of her cat and two birds are Pedro Jorge Chumbe Estrada, Raquel Chumbe Estrada, and, Moises Chumbe Estrada, respectively. the other girl ui baptized, well we had a fun interview. elder morales told me to give her a hard time. so. after starting  out, i asked her the date Moroni appeared to Joseph Smith, she actually got the year and month correct haha. time to kick it up a notch. ¨what are the names of the 8 witnesses?¨she gave me a nervous look. i told her to go out and ask elder morales. she went out and said ¨hey, you never told me about the witnesses!!¨¨ he played along and said ¨sorry, we forgot!¨she came back in with the cook of mormon and sneakily peaked into the front of the book as she listed the names. hahaha it was awesome. we told her it was a joke afterwards, no worries. 

-so i tried something new this week.. squid. the first day i had it, it was good. it was called Pota. which is a big squid. then yesterday after church i walked into the pension and looked at my soup to find a baby octopus-looking thing floating in there. and there were alottt more in there. oof. it was nappy. was the lady was in the kitchen, every time we looked away, we tossed a baby squid into the other´s bowl. the grandson was there too and was struggggling to get out of eating it. squid- not too great. i was craving just a pb and j sandwich sooooooooooooooooooooooooooo bad. 

-about a month ago, elder laiche and i were teaching the brother of one of the members in our ward. they moved to another ward in our stake. i got a call from the elders the other day telling me that Jon Francis wanted me to baptize him. it was awesome! well his first choice was elder laiche.. but     he´s in Mexico... so i was the alternative choice.

so right now we have some solid families! we have been praying as a mission to find more families and its paying off. we have four families with baptisms. yes. si o si a mom and her two kids on the 12th. the rest (familia riscos, parents and an 8 yr old... familia astete, less active mom, with husband and 11 yr old son listening to us, and Rafael and his family. he is an ex jehovah witness who knows its true and is doing everything he can to get married as soon as he can to get baptized) all depends on them getting to church! its not a matter of if, but when,. they all want to but have surprise-work schedules. we are going to see some sweet baptisms the weekend after conference. AH. CONFERENCE. YES. mission superbowl.

we had a cool experience with an investigator last night. he asked us what drove us to look for the truth join this church. he wanted to know what gave us the desire and to find what we had. we shared our testimonies.

elder rivera told how is dad was worse than atheist and didnt want his family to have anything with the church. after having pulled him out of seminary, church, and kicked out the missionaries. the time came where elder rivera was instructed by missionaries to fast. he did so and as he closed his fast, he felt strongly that his dad would say yes. he KNEW it. the next day he talked to his dad, who gave him permission to be baptized. since then his dad has allowed him and his brother to go on missions, and their fourteen year old sister to get baptized. as for me, i told him how my family had been in the church for generations. but, my time came where i began to worry about my own testimony. i searched and searched and realized i had never received a solid answer so i could say I KNOW. but i told him how i remembered talking to my mom about that worry about not ¨knowing¨ and how she helped me realize that the spirit had always been telling me it was true every time i read. it wasnt till i got on my mission that i received a strong recognizable answer, but i know these things are true. when i was praying last night, i thanked God for my testimony, its MINE,.and i will have it forever. it took years of searching and really wanting it, but ive received the same witness multiple times. the same witness i received just after sharing my testimony with alexander, which testified to me that the things i had spoken are true. this gospel IS true. joseph smith WAS a prophet. the book of mormon IS true. 

love you all, thanks for everything!

elder brown

Ecuadorrrrrrrrrr

hey.

so yep i got a new comp and im still here in 200 Millas as dl. his name is elder rivera and he is awesooooooooooooome. he´s got six months in the mish. take josh stewart. paint him brown. k my companion. solidddd.

sooo eh, the weather is still kinda hot. it´ll start going down soon but i definitely still sleep with my fan on full blast. the people here think thats a death sentence. allong with drinking anything cold, or walking around the house barefoot. eh. im still alive.

so we´ve had some interesting moments this past week. the two funniest happened yesterday. first, after church we went to an appointment. we turned the corner and saw an old dude just walkin around. completely naked, talking jibberish to people that didnt exist. we walked very quickly past him and went to the house where we had the appointment. dude starts coming towards us at high speed. OPEN THE DOOR OPEN THE DOOR. he got too close and we had to bail, dodged around a stack of bricks, and went back over to the house and slipped insde. the grandpa informed us his son and daughter in law werent there. so we left. the crazy streaker was lke right outside the door. we bailed. ahhh, peru. later we went and had a nice chat with our friend pedro fiestas. hes a bipolar guy who loves talking to us. he told us he was depressed so we went to a park with him and sat down in the grass. i told him to sing a song. he did. i picked up some sticks and started directing him while my companion sat there and laughed haha.. then pedro had us pray for him and we were on our way.fine day sunday. 

so right now we have two families we are focusing in on. one is the astete family. the mom is an awesome lady who went inactive because of a dumb comment someone made years ago in the church. we are teaching her son and husband. we are planning to do a big FHE there. the other family is the risco family. mom and dad (that are married. crazy i know.) and their two kids. we contacted them in the park a while ago. we´ve had to struggle with getting in to see them because of their work but they´re a solidddd family. we´ve got  afew other investigators but its literally jsut a waiting game for them to get married. so, we spent a good amount of time contacting this past week. i haaated contacting. thanks to my comp i actually enjoy it now. the first one to see the family in the street gives their comp the challenge. "contact them and use the word spongebob". stuff like that. the other day we saw some people nailing together a wooden fence. we stopped and said hey we are here to help you build your fence. they reacted like anyone else would. ahh no its fine. we insisted and then picked up rocks and started hammering. the lady brought out another hammer. i smashed my thumb. seeing two kids in ties offering physical labor sparks some curiosity. without having to say anything on our part, the lady started asking us about the church. pretty cool!

so yeah right now we´re working to get things rollin once again in our area. 

oh yeah, they changed up the districts so im now elder schagel´s district leader. this is gona be good. kids a goob haa.

thanks for your love, prayers, and support. love you!

elder brown

                                                            Elder Brown and Elder Rivera

Elder Peredes and Elder Brown

                                                       Elder Schagel and Elder Brown

Fo mo en da watah.

( This is actually Kendall's email from last week, February 24, 2014. I had forgot to post it. Today's post comes after this this one)


So my keyboard is not a good one. for al the spelling errors, i apologize, i don feel like going back and fixing them all, buena suerte!

this week was awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwesome!

a quick week of alottttttt of work. baptismal interviews, lessons, sweating, and doin WORK.

on friday we had a baptism. Jesus Sarmiento (the one whose family has been inactive for a while got baptized. this family is aewsome. wanna knw how we found them? a longgg time ago we had NOTHING. we were walking around and i felkt like we should go to a family that werent even going to be there that day. we went anyways. nothing. we started to walk away, then i felt "go back!". aftrer fighting it for a while, we went back the other way. we knoked another door of a member and they werent there either. right then we look up and saw a dad walking with his kid. Melvin and Jesus. i know ive told this story before but its cool how just being right where we were led to teir son´s baptismand the parents getting back into the church. 

on saturday night and sunday we had stake conference. we had an area seventy Elder Calderon from Ecuador (he literally sounded like Robin Williams speaking spanish. even acted like him too, throwing his arms around and everything haha) come speak. he burrrrned us. it was exaaactly what was needed. he covered everything from punctuality (president packer says thirty minutes early for sacrament and all other meetings) to every aspect of family life. He talked alot about Alma 5. being spiritually born again. so many people get up and say how true they know the church is, that its christs church, but show up late to meetings, think its acceptable to raise their voice with loved ones, etc. i went back and studied some of those verses this morning. after reading, writing some similar questions and posting it over verse 14, i sat and thought about how im doing and then prayed to get where i need to be. ive got a loooooonnngggggg way to go. HOMEWORK FOR EVERYONE. alma 5. its a nice spiritual checklist.

yesterday we had the baptism of Noelina and her two kids Elver and Luis. the oldest son Daniel isnt feelin it. it was awesome. i got to baptize the 12 year old elver. they had alot of support from the ward and the bishopric at their baptism. at the end of their service, they all bore their testimonies. first, 9 yr old luis. he just kind of stood up there and smiled. i got up there to help him. "how did it feel to be baptized?" "good" "do you feel happy" "yeah" "really happy?" "yeah" "ok gracias luis well done!" then he went and sat down. then elver got up, chest pumped out, lookin like a champ. he said something like "when i went back into the water, alot of water went into my ear. but when i came back up, i felt really good" haha SOLID.

right now we´re seeing alot of blessings. we´ve been working hard and finally results are coming in. we have a few more baptisms lined up for march. one of them is Rafael. a kinda chubby balding guy with a mustache. he is completely white and i thought he was from the states when i first saw him. he was a jehovahs witness. he and his... pareja? are getting married soon and he´ll be in the water (we´re hoping) by the 15 of march.

we dont know whats goin on with Elder Laiche yet. apparently the offices have no idea when he´s going to mexico. anyyy day now.

so Jake Sorenson´s done eh?? tell him i say hi if you see him. and chelsea cloward. i saw her in the MTC. everyones finishing up! the mancave will open back up in like 5 months. crazy. and ill be home in 13 months. this is nutttts.

my camera died here at internet so i cant get pics of the baptisms till nexttt week. which seems like a five minute gap for me, but for normal human standard time, sorry for the wait!

well i love you all and im grateful for all the prayers and support and glad everyones doing ok! 

Ya se fue mi hijo..

Wuddupppp.

Sooo Elder laiche was dropped of at the offices yesterday and flew off this morning to start his service in Mexico. i am going to be working with a kid in the ward named Lehi that is getting ready for his mission. his calling is to the Mexico City Southeast mission. Lehi will be with me till next week when we have changes. looks like imma be in my area for another transfer! 

what is with everyonehavin babies??? goodness. i didnt even know kyndall was pregnant till i saw the family picture from christmas or thanksgiving, and i though brian´s baby wasnt coming till like later this year. i haave noooooo sense of time anymore.

so sounds like the dedication for the gilbert temple was sweet. bummer i couldnt be there with my uke eh?? haha im glad we got some rain up there though. ahhh. rain. 2015. its starting to get a little cloudy in the fternoons. in a few months im going to miss the heat, because when the sun goes away, it wont come back for about four months. and it just mists all day. haha yeahhhhh humidity.

no momma dont worry, im not getting eaten alive. i mean i get a few bites every once in a while but its not like elder mcallister. he says he´s getting feasted upon. my health is doin good no worries! this is like the longest ive gone the whole mish without being injured or sick. we doin good.

so on saturday night we had another baptism. a kid named maycon. hes turing 18 this month and he lives with his sister an brother in law. this kid is awesome! he had a date for the 15 but we decided that there wasnt any point in waiting two more weeks. we taught him the commandments and got him interviewed on friday and he was in the water on saturday. him, noelina, elver, and luis all got confirmed yesterday. things are going well here! weéw are lining up baptisms for almost every week of this month and hooooooooopefully they all make it to the water. wea are teaching this girl Jarumi and her baptism is this saturday. we kinda have a feeling that shes not too into it but we´ll see how it goes. shes here visiting her dad and her mom back at home is less active. we´re hoping that this will help the mom get back into the church too.

so big news in 200 Millas. we changed pensionistas this past week. the other one just wasnt... mm she´s a great lady. haha but yeah this new one is awesome. 

oh yeah, along with everything else yesterday, remember Pedro Saavedra who we helped get back into the church and baptized his girlfriend? bueno, yesterday he got the melkizedek priesthood!and now his less active brother is slowly showng more interest again in the church. its awesoooooooooome. 

so yeah everythings going well. we´ve got some awesome families we are working with here and we´re hoping to see quite a few more baptisms this month. its cool to see how there are those who are realllly prepared and accept the gospel right away. im convinced that there are many people in the preexistance who werent really intot he plan, but just saw their friends wanting to go to earth, or just did wahat the majority was doing. here, they dont accept themessage. others, who were excitive and attentive to accept the plan, and here on earth, when its presented to them, somethng awakens in them and allows them to remember the plan and accept it (again). 

thanks to everyone for lthe love and prayers. i love yu all and am grateful for all of you. to thos who have all had kids recently- congrats! to those who havent in a while (ehhemm dessajyn and jrew) gimme some more nephews. haha nah. love you!

elder brown