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

#Burnt

Hola mi amada famillia!

so josh and chelsea are havin a baby eh?? nuts! welp. i guess jessalyn and drew have to give me twin nephews now. no? ok.

presidents day huh?  NO SCHOOL OR WORK YEAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH LIVE IT UP MACI!!!! very nice. i expect to hear about barbeques at the herrons and swimming. oh wait, its only hot down here. welp. better luck in a few moths! the heat starts to die away in like a week or two but it wont be cold again for a few months. winter starts in june. mmm wet cold. my favorite. sike.

HAPPY TENTH ANNIVERSARY THIS FRIDAY MOM AND MARK. DOUBLE DIGITS. what started with turtle neck sweaters and leather jackets has turned into an eternal marriage. well done! 

so in peru things are goin good! its HOTTT. im just glad im not in brazil. i hear its nastyy over there. at least its nice at night time because we´re right on the beach. Corbin is on the beach too but he´s a little north of me. the difference is his area is pure sand. dude´s roasting. whenever he emails or calls me i make star wars jokes about Tattouine and sand men. i dont think he catches the references so its not really funny but eh, oh well.

the other day we did a service in the other area in our ward, elder schagel´s area. they have only sand and dirt too. we swept and repainted a soccer court and we all left fried. sunblock would´ve been good. the next day we went to a baptism and one of the sisters from the states had a few bottles of peppermint essencial oils. all of us we´re putting it on our burns. it felt nice. the redness is kinda gone now. as you know ive dealt with some baddddd burns from our san clemente trips. my skin is still on my face haha.

so this past week i got a call from my pops elder fallas, infoming me that elder laiche´s visa is ready. he´s been on a temporary mission while he waited on his visa. welp. the offices are gonna pick it up tomorrow and he could leave at any time. NO. MY SON. we went to the center of lima (which is wayyy cool. (callao- no pasa nada) to do his picture for his visa. as we were driving we saw the stadium for peru´s national team. we also saw a chicken restaurant that said "KENDALL" on it. all the shops here have the title of what it is (bodega, farmacia, panaderia, etc.) and then a random name (stacy, miguel, stefani). this one just happened to be mine! cool stuff.

we had a solid week this week! we´re setting up baptisms for this week and for march. we had a FHE with a new family last night and when we left elder laiche said "ellos son escogidos". they are chosen. they are awesome. are hard work is finally starting to show results! apparently my district has more baptismal dates than the rest of the zone and me and elder laiche are leading the way! when we prayed together last night, elder laiche reminded me why we really have all this success as he thanked god for placing every one in our paths and allowing us to teach these people and have given us the ability to work. its verrrryyyy true. just on our own efforts, its better that we dont even go out on missions. we literally cant do anything without god´s hand in the work. every person we teach and every day we get to work is a gift. its by his hand i can walk all day, speak a different language, and do it for two whole years. like it says in alma, in his strength i can do all things. and, without his strength, i cant do anything. we all are completely dependent on him in this work. he needs our hearts, might, minds, and strength,, and even when our everything isnt much, he fills in the gaps and does the rest. ive been working more on really studying deep. asking questions, thinking. finding little details in the scriptures and pondering them. the other day, i read a verse in genesis about the ark and i wrote half a page in my journal of questions. its awesome. and i started to study PMG from ground one. literally. i started by studying the front cover. i went and bought post it notes to write notes and questions all over the place. im goin BIG. i hope this lasts long haha i always start new studying techniques and can never get set in one. with planning meetings, work visits, and services, it gets a little hard to keep up. the joys of being a district leader eh? its cool though. im learning a ton and its cool to see how the missionaries and their areas are progressing.

welp- i love you all, have fun celebrating the presidents. party hard. but not too hard. squeeza hayden´s face for me. LES QUIERO!

Elder brown

MONTH 10

Mi linda familia!!

whats up. this week has flownnnnnnnn. this past month, the clock decided to tick faster. every week is flying now. im at ten months now. what the heck. i speak well, im livin in peru, but i still feel like i just started. only two months and im at my year mark. not to mention some of my friends will be home in six months. haha jeff was right, im gonna wake up the day after i get home and think it was all just some crazy dream. welp, gotta go hard while i can i guess!

i got my package this week THAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANK YOU. its awesome. ah. america. im gonna make the cookies tomorrow morning for my district.  speaking of my district. we´re starting to kick it up. we only have one baptism in the district this far, but for the rest of the month we have eleven dates..? fechas sounds better. my companion is a machine. last week in a zone meeting, the zone leaders wantewd to demonstrate the difference between strength and diligence. they had elder laiche go in front of everyone to do 100 push ups. he did it. first time in his life. haha so if we are diligent (constantly working to improve every day) we´ll get stronger (busting out 100 push ups in a shirt and tie like its nothing). thats my boy!!

 anyways, im excited to see that finally our hard work is paying off. some days we still have a few hours to go and i gotta take a break to stretch out my legs and breathe for a little bit. but its good. things are alot funnier when im tired. and then when i get reallly tired they just get frustrating. eh, its all good. 

haha ahhhhh i want to be there to see hayden. she sounds like shes a funny little girl. if shes gonna throw her food, at least have fun with it and make her a target to throw at. or just throw it back at her. haha ahhh the time our corner. jessalyn´s puttin the hammer down. i remember the time out corner in our old house. corner window by the kitchen table. classic.

ahhhh let me know how her restaurant is! inka empire eh? sounds solid! hey, cow heart is really good! chicken liver too. ill take ya there after and show ya what i ate!

oh yeah, so we dont eat dinner at our pensionistas anymore. so this past week i have become a chicken nugget, egg, and cheese taco master. gettin creative haha. last week i bought a massive chocolate cake from Tottus to eat for breakfast.. i finished it last week. it was dang good. yes mom. im staying healthy. our pensionista gives us fruit with our lunch.

os the other day i went to get my hair cut. the usual lady was busy so we went down the street. she cut my hair. but in an effort to keep my "look", she left a ton of long hair so that my hair could stay kinda how it looked. um pardon? i paid six soles, cut ALL my hair. so sunday morning, i got dressed. looked in the mirror. "this is ridiculous". got my scissors. and attempted to do what ive seen momma do for 18 years. dang im good. haha 

the other day we did "Open Doors" at the church. we stood outside with pamphlets and book of mormons to try getting people inside to show them the church. we were inside talking to people and some dude (the same guy we taught on elder laiche´s first day that showed us a bible that says the mountain of the lord in isaiah is machu pichu) came by with his garbage cart and stole all of our book of mormons. we ran out, invited him inside, then made him give our books back. haha oh victor.

welp, thanks for the love and prayers. i love you all and im glad everyones safe and doing well. thanks! 

over and out,

elder  brown   

oh yeah. we got another rat...

February- Yo

Heyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy

so ya had a trip up to provo eh?? sounds like a fun day! hah and no ive never been to cubby´s in my life. i lived on in n out and babe-choc-frosts from wendy´s at provo. Bruce eh?? i mean its no Grace but i mean if he "rides like butter[ (...??) then its gotta be a good car..and that art exhibit sounds dope! now your next assigment is for you two to actually go to denmark and find any people he taught that are still alive.. or their kids. haha.

so yes my stomach was better this week. and my back? well. im hopin jeff learns back stuff in med school. nah no worries im good! i just stretch and use my ice pack when i need it. i feel bad if im ever elders quorum president. i wont be able to help anyone move...aside from the sicknesses i am still slowly getting skinnier still. my companion makes skinny jokes and some guy in my ward grabbed my pants at my waste because they´re a little loose and made some joke or comment or something haha. eh. oh well. ill gain it all back my first week of barro´s and filiberto´s.

 i am actually drinking water now. i might as well go buy a camel pack so i can replace the water im constantly losing. we sweat alllllllll day. luckily the nights are still pretty nice. we wake u in the mornings and its like Cali. overcast. and then the sun says "just kidding.. good luck gringo!!! BOOM. i get home at night and i look like  dang lobster. hahaha remember when i came back from the beach looking like a leper because i got burnt so bad? well im not quite there yet. but the extreme farmers tan is going to confuse my body. half is burnt and half is sun deprived. im lookin reallll good. 

sooooooo no package yet. im hopin itll be here tomorrow.  no worries mama. itll get to me! and yes we use the football set. sometimes we dont really feel like starting comp study so to warm up i go to my bed and shoot the ball back and forth till i beat him haha. elder scroggins my zone leader kinda spilled all the sand from my golf thing. dont worry it came with a big bag. i still cant beat my par 5  hole in one.

so this past week, we had changes and interviews. i looooooooove talking with president. i leave soo stoked to work every time. so elder garner went up to huaraz. look it up online. im hoping to die there as a trainer. thats mah dream. but anyways to replace him, i got the one and only ELDER BRYSON FORD SCHAGEL he is working with me in the ward haha this kids nuts. love him. he was with elder cole cody for a while so im pretty sure he´s gonna spend alot of time with us in mesa, 

haha ahhhhhhhh hayden. i miss that chunker. keep sending pictures por favor.

speaking of maci.. breaststroke eh?? i mean its not what us browns do but if you wanna step outside the 50 free train and dominate im fine with that. haha nah keep it up mace! your 50 breast is gonna beat my 25 free by the time i get back. im sure sterling can give you a few pointers,he swam breaststroke. just be sure to start all your races like lightning mcqueen.. "speed... i am speed...".

the work is good. we are finding a few solid families! the other night we brought a family to the chapel and taught them about faith, repentance, chastity, and marriage. we had them pray right there in the lesson about a specific date for getting married and we all knelt down. they both prayed and when they finished, their eyes were filled with tears. god ALWAYS answers prayers. president told me that if the spirit lets me down, that i write him and he´ll print it out and peg it to his wall. 

something to try that we did Mark. its called "finding the lost sheep", to help with the sisters in the wars. we printed off a ton of little sheep, cut them out and passed them out in sacrament meeting. the members put their names, numbers, and addresses, and then put a name number and address of a friend, family member, or neighbor. BOOM. referrals.

ha the other day people gave us coffee. we drink ecco here which is like it so i had no idea. but we had one of the assistants with us and he, in english looks at me and says "coffee" no. elder laiche was pounding it. i stomped on his foot. we asked them what it was and then explained we couldnt drink it. we taught them the word of wisdom (in our first actual lesson with them, which isnt normal) and they committed right there to live the word of wisdom. so sick. 

haha well its been a great week love you all. stay safe. wait groundhogs day passed right?? what did phil say?? 

love you!

elder brown. 

oh yeah we make our own dinner now. thats me flippin quesadillas.