Missionary Children Sang as they Walked... And Walked...

August 20, 2012

Hola familia!

Guess what? We finally got our car back on Saturday! So we had another enjoyable water-guzzling, blister-inducing week. Haha. I love walking!  Because of that, it was another slow week. And I've lost a couple pounds from it! I'm at about 162. Elder Bagley really struggled physically so we ended up doing less than the week before. We'd get rides from members occasionally, especially home from dinner, but just going out between 10 in the morning and noon wiped Bagley out for the rest of the day. He wants to hike mount Baden Powell on the 3rd though... and it's 8 miles round trip. We'll see how that goes. haha.

Our good old Jewish friend Vic came to our Thursday night class again. It was a pretty cool experience. If he had come to church yesterday, we would have counted him as progressing. We're starting to talk about Christlike attributes and talked about faith in Christ. That's been his biggest hold up, and he said, quote, "you know, I really do hope that it's true. I hope that he is my savior and that god does exist. I really do like that concept." I grinned really big and said "Vic, do you realize what that means? The definition of faith is 'to hope for things that are not seen which are true.' Vic, you're starting to have faith!" He smiled back and said "I suppose I am!" So that was way cool. The other members that were there and have watched Vic struggle to progress talked to us about it afterwards and thought it was really cool too. I felt impressed to read the title page of the Book of Mormon with Vic, where it talks about convincing both the Jew and the Gentile that Jesus is the Christ. We bore out testimony that if he regularly reads and studies and prays about the Book of Mormon that he will gain that witness. We can answer questions and read individual passages or chapters with him, but reading straight through will help him gain his own testimony better than anything else. His desire is definitely there, just like Mark Brook's; it's just the following through that is sometimes difficult. haha.

It sounds like everyone had a good time at the coast! And it's good that Lauren seems to fit right in. Mom I have to agree with you; I think I'm still a little in denial myself! Not necessarily about the fact that Jeren is getting married, but more just the fact that I can't flippin be there! Bah. I guess I'll just have to cry a river, build a bridge and get over it. haha

Well this might just end up being a very short email. I'm staring at the screen trying to think of more to say. What a bummer! There is a missionary from here that is serving in Wyoming and I guess some of his emails lately have been ridiculously short. We regularly visit the family and they said his email 2 weeks ago simply said "what's up my peeps??" When the family replied, he never responded. So, I guess there's worse out there than me. haha

We did a good amount of service this week too. One woman had an issue with her printer not working and I fixed that. There's an older guy in the ward that's moving soon so we did some yardwork and moved some heavy stuff for him. There's another family that hosted a stake singles activity at their ranch and we spent some time helping clean up their property. We cleared some bushes and weeds, one of which was so big that we used a pully to lift it up into the truck! Two of us could barely hold it up; it had to have been at least 300 pounds. So. That was fun. haha

The next time I email, Jeren will be married. haha. Well. Congrats for sure! Eat some cake for me!

Love,

Elder Browning