buhbuhbuhbuhbuhbaptized.

querido seres queridos, personas desconocidas, y los demas.

HOLA.

this week was a good one!

soooo we had changes last week. elder wheatley, sister agle, and elder paredes (NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!) GOT TRANSFERED. but to replace elder wheatley and sister agle, we got elder Holley and sister jones. elder holley is from SLC and actually served the first part of his mission in the citrus heights stake as he waited for his visa. ht has ridden by mountain view in 120 degree weather and told me how he bailed on a frustrating day and ate at the dairy queen on mcdowell. solid. sister jones was with me my first two changes in el olivar. her sister is married to matt gulbrandsens older brother. even more mesa connections. 

thursday and friday was all sorts of fun as we ran around making sure the interviews got donwe for Ines, Arlet, and Gabriela. then on saturday we took a trip up to Paramonga to pick up ssome baptismal clothes. (look up from here to paramonga. fields. green. not sand and buildings. FIRST TIME IVE SEEN THAT. on saturday the relief society had their weekly sewing activity at three in the afternoon, where they were also cooking papa rellena (fried stuffed potatoes), which we ate after the baptism. it was perfect t have everyone already there to be present at the baptism. andddd finally it started. everything went awesome. after the baptism zome of the relief society ladies got up and did a nice rendition of I Am a Child of God. A for Effort. Ines and Arlet gave their testimonies after and they were awesome. we had other investigators their and its just what they needed to get the ball rollin.

were workin with three main groups who cant get baptized yet because they arent married yet. usually we drop em when they arent married but they come to church about every week and are working towards getting married. we hope to see them all wedded and in the water this month. the mom of one of the younger families surprisingly showed up to the baptism and afterwards approached my comp and told him how she wants her son and daughter in law to follow this path and how she is going to be pushing them to keep up with everything to be able to do so. word.

after the interviews the other day, we were walking down the street with one of the presidents counselors, he asked us "how are you?" we replied "eh, we´re good" "well could you be better?" "mmmm probably" "WELL DO IT!" It was a biggg reminder for me. BE HAPPY. CHOOSE to be happy. theres no point in going about life unhappy just because. trouble has no necessary connection with discouragement. cool stuff.

so the other day i was thinking about faith and trust in god and then i started thinking about hayden in the pool learning to swim. and i thought of this.. when we are learning to swim, our parents take us into the water and have us hold onto the side. we go in, usually thrilled to be in the water. all untill our parents say alright kick off the wall! our immediate thought was probably "my dad is going to kill me". i could picture then, drew standing two feet behind hayden with his arms extended, his hands literally two inches from her. all shes gotta do is let go and he´ll catch her. now he could easily gab her and just drag her through the water and call it good. but what would she learn. how could she learn. in life we often face things where we think its all going fine and dandy just when god says alright i need you to learn something. so he takes us to the edge and says let go. TRUST ME, i need you to let go so i can catch you. im right here. you´re my child. i love you. but i need you to learn and grow. if you dont let go, you´ll never learn to swim. its like Peter. he called to jesus to allow him to come our ro him. come on out. he saw the son of god walking towards him, who had told him to come out. obviously he wouldnt let him fall. but what happens. peter notices where hes at. hes standing on water. theres wind and waves. he becomes afraid and doubts and begins to sink. Christ at this point was little a few feet from him. close enough to catch him immediately as he began to fall. Trusting in something we cant se is a scary thing. but its how we learn. and well. IM LEARNIN ALOT haha.

thanks for the love, prayers, support. glad to hear marcus is keeping his dancing going, romney fam is back to health, and maci is gettin her girls camp game on.

love 

elder brown

heres some pics of my room. note that our food is hung up because of the mice. oh yeah. i killed another one with a broom. kinda broke alot of stuff in my suit case on the process. why? it was in my suitcase. thats why.