One after the Other

Talofa family!

 

So, just to get the bad news out of the way, it's been one sickness after the other for me it seems. I was feeling better at the beginning of this last week but since thursday have had stomach issues. I was hoping today would be better but when we were playing sports this morning I started getting really dizzy and was losing my vision so I stopped. I've been light headed since. Hopefully it's just a bug that's running its course. I'm going to buy some healthier foods today - fruits and veggies mostly. Get some good natural fibers to help clean me out. My body might just not be used to as much protein as I've been eating recently. haha. I hate that when I'm sick, it's usually for a while. And, it's not bad enough to cancel everything but always just annoying enough to make life uncomfortable.

 

Well, anyways, I had an interesting day on Wednesday. I was on splits with a greenie and his 2 week missionary in the spanish ward. Luckily, they both spoke fluent spanish and english haha. I thought I would do okay, but my spanish is pretty bad. I could understand a fair amount of what the missionary was saying since his enunciation was clearer but the members and investigators we visited spoke too quickly for me to understand the conversation. It was fun though. The few spanish people I've worked with on my mission just... get it. They catch on to the doctrine we teach. Like the fact that the book of mormon is a 2nd witness of christ and adds to the testimony of the bible. We were talking about the Book of Mormon to one woman and she said (in spanish) "oh so it's basically a 2nd witness. Like the bible, but from america." She was a pretty cool lady. Strong spirit. She'd already read all the way to Alma 42. She bore her testimony to us about the things the missionaries have been teaching her. pretty cool. Shes getting baptized in a week or two.

 

Brother Hawkins asked to move his baptism to September. We were talking about prophets with him and he said he can't say that he believes Joseph smith was a prophet and doesn't have a testimony of thomas s monson. He said he wants to believe that before he gets baptized. Which is good! Too many people get baptized before they're ready. He's going to read joseph smith's history and watch/listen to some of general conference. I have the joseph smith movie so we're going to watch that with him too.

 

Pauga had a lesson with Moli and her family while I was in the spanish ward but I taught them in gospel principles on Sunday. We had 2 less active families in church as well and they came to our class. We talked about sacrifice and its huge importance as members of the church (or just plain followers of christ). Many of the people there shared stories from the scriptures about sacrifice that were especially meaningful to them.

I gave the analogy that each of us have our own little "altar" of things we sacrifice. It could be reading our scriptures, going to church, our calling, etc. However, there is a large table of things behind us that we don't give or aren't willing to give. It could be something as simple as saying prayers twice a day. I talked about how God is grateful for all that we sacrifice... but, he wants us to, step by step, clear off that table behind us.

 

One thing that's interesting about all the Browning missionaries that have served here is that we've all worked with separate groups. Jeren spent a lot of time working with the spanish, I'm working with the Samoans, and grandma and grandpa dealt with a lot of problematic individuals. haha. I wonder if we have family here? I've ran into several brownings on my mission but haven't had the time to find out if we're related or not.

 

Anyhoo, transfers are next week. President is doing them differently. The downside is we go straight there and the ride situation is going to be tricky. However, we're going to know where we're going and who we'll be with by Sunday night. I'm probably not going anywhere, but you never know. President is also apparently opening up 16 or 17 new areas.

 

And with that... I'm out!

Peace!

Love,

Elder Nelson Browning