Temple Week

So! Another thing I love about this mission is how good they are about giving us a heads up. Like asking us to fast Saturday night as we're going to sleep. Or telling us on Sunday that tomorrow isn't pday and that we'll be going to the temple on Wednesday. If they get any more behind nothings going to get accomplished.

I wish I'd gotten enough of a heads up to let you know. This was my last time to possibly see grandma and grandpa. oh well. I only have 8 months left anyways.

 

Well we had a good time at the temple this morning. This was my 5th time as a missionary. It's also dumb because some missionaries have been over a dozen times and others (like me) get jipped. Oh well. Anyways. This past week was the first week of my third transfer with Elder Whiting. We worked a little harder and are planning on continuing to slowly increase our efforts. We went tracting Saturday morning and after tracting both sides of a street for an hour we only had one contact. Haha. Most of the time here it's like that. As long as no one gets mad at me I enjoy it though. That's probably the hardest thing with missionary work for me: I hate when people are upset at me or if I'm the cause or source of their discomfort. I'd tract 8 hours a day if every door was at least semi polite. Too bad there are so many rude people in the world today.

 

Lets see... had some more moves this past week. There were 4 or 5 but we just helped with 2 of them. Usually we help when there aren't many others that can. Like if someone is moving during the day, most people work or have school. But usually there is plenty of help if they move on the weekend. Theres one family that has asked us for help 3 times. We helped them move all their tvs and some other things... and the next time we moved a bunch of stuff with the elders quorum... and then they asked for help again to basically pack up and haul out everything else. If that wasn't bad enough, they just asked us for yet more help with unpacking/organizing some of their stuff. Kind of that awkward "dude, you've asked for WAY too much help" point. They're less active and old though so they actually need the help. They're slightly crazy too. yikes.

 

Mom, I don't think you spoil my younger siblings. I know you do :) HA! it's obvious how you feel about me when you give me a suitcase for graduation. Why don't you just tell me to "get packing" while you're at it. sniff sniff. hahaha :) actually you gave me the suitcase for my birthday (along with some white shirts and other things). So. I don't remember what I got for graduation. oh well. It's in the past anyways. c'est la vie :)

 

What else is going on... there are a bunch of greenies in the zone now. 5. One is brand new, 3 have been out 3 months and one is almost not a greenie; he's been out almost 5 months.

Being two thirds of the way done and telling people (when they ask which is WAY too often) that I've been out 16 months is starting to make me feel old. 8 months really isn't a lot of time. It's still a long time, but I realized that since I haven't trained a new missionary OR been a zone leader, I won't have the opportunity to do both with only 5 more transfers. Pretty much all zone leaders in the mission are a zone leader for at least 4 transfers if not longer. That's not a big deal to me since zone leaders have a ton of stuff on their plate and I HATE mission leader drama. It just makes me realize I don't have a ton of time left. I think President dubbed me as a "clean up" missionary anyways - he always puts me with companions that are struggling with something. But that's alright with me.

 

Our mission has a goal to try and reach before the mission splits and this is basically the last week to find people that can get baptized before the split so we're going to be focusing on contacting for the rest of the week.

 

The church is true. The gospel changes lives. We have modern day liahonas in our lives that work according to our faith. Its up to us to exercise that faith and use the many tools to keep us on the path to eternal life that our Father in Heaven has given us.

I love you guys!

Elder Nelson Browning

Post Mother's Day

Hi everyone

 

Just wanted to write a short email this morning. It was good skyping with you yesterday! I think it's interesting you mentioned that I seemed "chill." I felt pretty relaxed and actually hoped I didn't seem too chill. So much stuff happens to you as a missionary that I just don't really care anymore. The mission is going through a lot of stupid drama and I think that's added to it. The leaders in the mission are pushing and pressing other missionaries harder and further than ever before and many are pushing back. I'm trying to just stay out of it. It's gotten bad enough that if I was offered a change in mission assignment I might take it. So I'm trying to just ignore all the chaos and just be a missionary. I'm not going to become a nazi aspiring missionary with a stick up my rear, which is what they seem to want, but I'm definitely not going to become a lazy no-good apostate missionary either. There's a balance in all things, and I try to avoid extremes. It's important to work hard and be obedient, but you also need to be able to enjoy your mission. I've been doing a lot of up and down over the past year: working really hard, then getting discouraged... then working really hard, and then getting discouraged. So I try to just... work. I'm not perfect, but at least I'm not fake. Anyways. I might not make much sense and don't want to try to explain further so I'll just move on. haha :)

 

So! Since Elder Whiting and I are together for yet another transfer, we're going to try to make this last one count. We've had a lot of just "stuff" going on and should be able to focus more on finding. There were 2 less active families at church yesterday that we've worked with which we were really happy to see. One of them has a 12 year old son who isn't baptized and wants to be. There's also the man that's been going to another ward but lives in our boundaries that we visited last week who is probably going to get baptized in a few weeks. So things should hopefully start picking up.

 

I talked about everything else I can think of yesterday when we skyped. Haha. Well, happy mothers day again mom :) I hope you get my card today!

 

Love you guys!

Elder Nelson Browning

Busy Bodies

Hola familia!

 

So we've had a busy last couple days. Thursday and Friday was HOT. I'm not used to the mid 90s. It was hot but we worked through it. Friday we helped a lady move a bunch of furniture up and down stairs and we helped another family move on Saturday. Friday and Saturday night we had an RoC program (remember our culture). It's a group from BYU that goes around performing dances from various cultures (polynesian, native american, african, spanish, etc.). We tried to really get the word out and distributed a bunch of tickets to both members and nonmembers, expecting a turn out of 600+ people, but only about 200 or so showed up. We set up and took down the 700 or so chairs and ushered/took tickets for both performances.

 

We almost didn't get dinner yesterday, which would have been rough. We were pretty much out of food so I don't know what I would have eaten. Our ward mission leader asked if we had dinner though and was able to help us out. We didn't eat until 7 though which is probably the longest I've gone on a fast sunday. Too many families eat right after church. Maybe all wards should have to meet at 1 o clock on fast sunday. Haha.

 

Anyways. So we've felt pretty busy these past couple days even if it didn't seem like we accomplished a whole lot. This is the last week of the transfer so hopefully we'll make it count. It's up in the air as to what's going to happen at transfers so we'll have to wait and see.

 

We still haven't found a place to skype... but even if we can't find a place by sunday, we at least have a place to call. It won't be before 3 my time, probably around 4 or so, so don't worry about coming home early from church.

 

I bore my testimony in church yesterday. I was the last person to get up. Lots of people had gotten up and talked about trials so I decided to get up and talk about how salvation was never easy, but because of Jesus Christ, it's possible.

So I read the account of the sons of Mosiah the other day, and I thought of an analogy from the story of the anti nephi lehis in chapter 24 of Alma (especially verse 16). They talk about burying their weapons of war so that they may remain bright and stand as a testimony of their righteousness at the last day. I think that applies to all of us. All of us have sins that we have buried or need to bury, and if we think about really burying them, it may make it easier to completely leave them behind. Burying also implies putting other things on top of it - filling our time with better things and really immersing ourselves in the scriptures. So that was one thing I thought of that was pretty cool that I wanted to share with you.

 

That's the chicken fajita wrap up. Hopefully I'll see you sunday! :)

 

Love,

Elder Nelson Browning

Sick of Being Sick

Why hello! Fancy finding me here on a Wednesday? We found out on Thursday last week that we were going to have a mission conference on Monday and that pday would be changed to Wednesday. So even if I'd gotten a snail mail letter out asap you wouldn't have gotten it before Tuesday.

Anyways, as the title suggests... we had another stinkin sick week! Tuesday was okay but Wednesday Whiting started coming down with a bad sore throat and stayed sick through the Weekend. I started coming down with similar symptoms on Friday but tried to fight it with the methods at my disposal and it never progressed as bad as my companions. Mostly just congestion and a sinus headache/drippy nose but I'm fighting through it. The change in diet has been hard. I think I just don't eat as much. I've been offered ice cream 3 nights in a row at dinner. And when I pass on that, they offer cookies and milk. I shoved a bunch of those enzyme supplements in my backpack so that I don't have to say no so often.

Not a whole lot more to talk about unfortunately. We're sick of being sick haha so hopefully nothing else goes wrong and we get a lot done in the last 2 weeks of this transfer. Letty has been really busy but she's trying to read the Book of Mormon and pray about it.

The song on Sunday went really well for us never really being able to practice all together. We didn't have one practice with everybody there before we sang it in Sacrament meeting so I was never able to get a recording. I'll make it up to you mom; I'm already working on something (sort of). Hold me to it! I won't be able to finish it on my mission but don't let me forget when I come home!

As far as skyping goes, it'll probably have to be in the afternoon. We haven't found a place yet so I'm not entirely sure; hopefully we'll know specifics by Monday. We might find a place to do it in the evening. We'll have to see.

Until next week,
Elder Nelson Browning