The Last... Melon...

I'm not sure any of us thought this day would ever come. haha. No promises about emailing next week... If I have extra time it'll probably be spent working on transfers.

So! I'm trying to go out with a bang. Unfortunately there have been really good and really bad bangs this week... I'll start with the good.

We started teaching a couple more people this past week! Cameron has a friend name Steffan that is very interested and has a lot of questions. He was sincere and honest and wants to find truth, not just some church that seems decent to him. We gave him a Book of Mormon but by the time we were leaving he wanted a triple so that he could have references to the revelations from Joseph Smith. He lives in Hemet though, so he really should go to church down there.

We also started teaching a gril named Delicia. She's lived a super rough life but really wants to change her life around. She has been to other churches but feels like they all are missing something or wrong in some way. She talked about how she wants the happiness that she sees in us. She has a lot of addictions to overcome, but the journey of a thousand miles begins with the first step.

The other good thing is I'm trying to do every little thing right. There are so many little rules that missionaries have that I just have not been consistent about keeping. The big ones are easy but even murming about a leader or other missionary is so easy to start doing. So I'm trying to have these last two weeks be as obedient as possible.

So. The ugly. Or bad. Or whatever. I'm not sure how to say it besides being blunt... Elder Rosa went home. He's healthy, but a ton of stuff happened and President asked him if he wanted to stay or go home. After a couple days of serious thinking he decided to go home  and was on a plane Saturday morning. So it's been a hectic week. I had to help move other missionaries around on Saturday so that I would have a companion for this last week. So I'm with Elder Molesworth. He's going to be the next AP with Elder Bolingbroke since the other is going home along with me. So I'm teaching him some of the office stuff so that he has a headstart next transfer.

I had my departing interview with President. We talked for like an hour. It was pretty cool. There's so much I need to permanently apply to my life that I've learned from my mission.

Well. I have to go - it's 6 o clock. My flight number is 4456 to terminal 2 I believe. Dunno if that matters or not. haha.

I love you guys. Thanks for your support over these past 2 years! Ryan's fast for sure helped me out on Saturday. I definitely needed it. so thanks :)

In case I don't get to email next week... well. I'll see you next week anyways. :)

Love,

Elder Nelson S. Browning

2 Weeks

Holy wow! I cannot believe I'm down to 2 weeks. That is utterly insane! I'm joining the group that says missions go by super fast. At least once you're at the end of it. It was super slow during everything but SO FAST in hindsight.

Anyways! It's a new year. It feels like I left in 2011 and now it's 2014! Time's a churning. I was talking with some other missionaries and their new years resolutions were to work harder and be more obedient, since for a lot of them, this will be the full year that they're on their mission. I said "I want to serve a mission this year! Oh. wait." And made one of my faces. It was pretty funny.

So I finnaly met and had dinner with Bennie Lombardi. She's a funny one. Slightly off the wall and definitely not much for rules but a good woman with a caring heart. I'm sure grandma told you that Bennie called her while I was there. That was kind of weird. Anyways! I think she's feeding us breakfast tomorrow. She really took a liking to elder Rosa. They seemed to connect really well.

 

Most of the rest of the time has still been spent in the office. It's not as stressful as it has been but it's still plenty busy. Actually, I found out that Elder Houser got several of the newer cars confused and put plates that belong to one car on a different one and got the registration confused and swapped and now we're missing a set of plates. Great. I'm going to contact all the zone leaders today and have them check with all the missionaries in their zones if anyone has any plates lying around, especially in any of the new chevy cruzes. We had more lessons lined up this week but they fell through as we were on our way to them. Oh well. What can you do. We're going to try and work more on fellowshipping the many less actives in the ward and having more splits with the members so that we can get more done in the evenings. It might not happen until after I leave but Elder Rosa is determined to build up this area by the time he'll probably get transfered in March.

 

There weather here has been great. In the 70s every day for weeks now. I really am going to freeze when I come home. haha. I kind of hope it'll drop to the 50s so that It's not a huge shock being in sub freezing and even sub zero temperatures again.

 

I sent another package home. More boring stuff - books and binders, stuff that's dense and heavy. Feel free to just dump it with the other one in my room. As I've been getting closer to going home there is more stuff I want to keep than I'd originally thought so space is almost as much of an issue as weight. I might send a 3rd package of additional heavy/dense stuff depending on how much my luggage weighs. I won't really know before the 18th though.

 

Anywho. I have to go to take Rosa to his appointment. Wish him luck! I'll be catching up on my journal and on scripture reading while I wait. haha.

 

Peace, love (but not war),

Elder Nelson Browning