Doing Everything I Can

Hi mom and dad :) .  I can't believe I've lost another relative while out here.  I really hope I don't lose any others.  I didn't ever really know Great Grandpa Knuteson super well but I have a great deal of respect for him as the patriarch of my family line.  He did live a devoted life, and me, dad, and grandma Brown are evidences of that, faithful members of his posterity continuing the family's service to God in just one of his lines of his posterity, with many others doing the same as well. The Ogden temple looks fantastic--I didn't realize they'd redone it until this week.  That'll be something on the To Do list when I get home.

This week has been exceedingly interesting.  There've been a lot of things going on, and basically one of the results of some of these things is that we're not allowed to be in Darnall after 1 in the afternoon.  That's the place where we spend the vast majority of our time, so it's forced us to try and look for other places to be that have Slovaks living there.  The other Elders cover the other areas that we know of as having a large concentration of Slovaks, so we've been forced to try searching English areas again like Elder Misselwitz and I did a little bit.  It's not turned up anything at all, really, but we have plans to try Doncaster out this week, a place where I guess there're about 700 Slovaks living.  It's a ways away by travel, but we don't really have a ton of choice.  We're praying we can get something going there--it's mostly untouched thus far by Slovak-speaking missionaries.

We did have one especially remarkable miracle this week--we scheduled a lady for baptism!  She's actually an adult-age daughter of some recent converts, and recently arrived from Slovakia to live with them.  She came to church last week without us even teaching her yet, and this week we followed up on that, teaching a couple of really solid lessons.  She's really sincere, and has a great motivation to do what's right.  She'll also be a positive influence on her family, who've been struggling lately.  I think she'll bring some new strength into the branch, and we're excited.  Our week this week is going to be quite an unusual one--we won't be able to see a lot of the people we were, so we're going to have to focus on those progressing the most and in need of the most spiritual upliftment, and we'll also hopefully be opening up a new teaching pool in Doncaster.  I'm unsure of what to expect, but prayers are being sent by the bucketload (I also fasted on Sunday--I've got to do everything I can for this to work out).  I'm sure we'll be seeing some more miracles out of this here shortly, so I look forward to being able to let you know about them next week.

I love you all very much :) .  My prayers are with you every day in great strength, and I know God will be with you as He has always been.  Keep the joy, keep the faith.

Love you much,

Elder Brown