Changes

Hello!

Well. Wow. Maybe I should have given more of an opinion to President after all. Haha.

So! Here's the news. I'm leaving the Samoan ward :( it was hard to say goodbye to so many people yesterday. The Samoan people have very big hearts and they all love the missionaries a lot. This whole weekend was hard because I found out Saturday morning. Actually, I found out everything that was going on with transfers. I realized why president had me come into the office to work on transfers. I'm going to be one of the new office elders! And on top of that, I'll be a Zone Leader too. The APs and President have too much to handle on their own so they have two office elders to assist and take some of the load off. So I'll be working closely with the Assistants. Zone conferences (I'll go to every zone), vehicles, bikes, housing, finances, transfers, arriving and departing missionaries... I'm going to have a lot on my plate. Oh and Zone leader duties too. Freak! Good thing the Samoans taught me how to eat a lot! Haha... anyways, that's whats happening to me. Didn't I say something about having as much learning as possible crammed into the end of my mission? Yeah... sticking my foot in my mouth now... haha. Going out with a bang! Hoorah!

But! I'm going to the Crafton Hills YSA ward in Redlands. Didn't Grandma and Grandpa serve there at the beginning of their mission?? President Van Cott didn't know that until someone brought it up the other day. Crazy huh?

Please pray for me. ha... I'm going to need a lot of help. President warned me that my companion is really prideful. Time to be submissive, meek, and humble. haha

 

So poor elder Judd might have it worse than me. I recommended him to train to President, and President is having him do that. But! He's also being made a zone leader. By himself! Poor guy. He's still green and has only been junior companion. Haha... He will do awesome though. He'll rise up to the calling and rely on the Lord. I'm almost positive that he will be an AP. He doesn't want leadership, but he's a great leader. The best missionary leaders don't aspire to those positions; they just try to be their best self. And that's Elder Judd.

 

This week was full of a lot of "chaffing" as Langi and I have come to term it. Especially for him since he's on bike. They're days when you try to see a lot of people but practically no one is home or available. Most of our appointments fell through too. We had splits with Brother Moleli (the new WML) and the elder quorum president on Saturday. We basically just blitzkrieged through the whole Less Active list and were able to catch a couple people at home. For the most part they werent available though. We saw a few active members as well and were able to end it on a good note. Elder Judd visited with Sabrinna and I visisted with some relatives of a sister in the ward. That visit was very powerful. I talked about the story of Nephi building a boat. The spirit was strong and all 4 of the sisters were tearful and bore their testimonies too. It was mostly in Samoan so I didn't understand everything but I got the gist of it and I could tell they were very sincere and grateful for our visit. They gave us banana bread and cocoa Samoa. Glad I got to have the Samoan cocoa one more time.

 

We saw Sai twice. The first time we read a few chapters of the Book of Mormon with him. He's starting to do better. He's been doing rehab since our visit with him over a week ago. We had family home evening and dinner with him last night too. We showed him the Mormon Channel for his phone and he was pretty stoked about that. I'm gonna miss that guy. Hopefully he comes back to church. He wants to start coming out with the missionaries for some of the visits. Turns out he knows the Uiagalaleis (a part member family we started visited a week ago) and grew up with the non member husband. Lots of good stuff is going on that will keep Elder Judd and his greenie busy.

 

Brother Moleli made a push with the ward mission plan and process and in only one week it's up and running. The ward council went over a list of all the less actives, part member families and other investigators. I love inspired callings! I'm jealous that now that the work is going so well I have to leave. Funny how that usually happens haha. Happened in Wrightwood, Barstow, and now here.

 

Anyways, I gotta leave soon to go pack and what not. I have to be at the office at 7 tomorrow morning and will be driving people around all day. Moli and Sabrinna need a goodbye visit as well as the Julanders and the Molelis.

 

Birthdays? You mean Dad's and Jeren's right? ;) haha. I didn't want food since the Samoans overfed us but now that I'm going to a YSA ward I'll probably be feeding myself a little more often. There are a lot of restaurants in Redlands. I haven't spent a lot of time there though. They have pretty much everything. The common as well as the slightly less common like Chick-fil-A, Five Guys, Ono's Hawaiian Bbq, Cafe Rio, etc. If you're getting gift cards I'll eat just about anywhere. haha. I do shopping at the cheapest places - Walmart, Food for Less and Stater Bros for the most part. I wish there was more I wanted or needed but there really isn't. Just save it for January :) haha.

 

Well hopefully I don't die this week. Haha :) just kidding.

I love you all! Thanks for all your constant support :)

Love,

Elder Nelson Browning