Elder Zachary Brandon Brown
England Leeds Mission
Lister House, Lister Hill
Horsforth
Leeds
England LS18 5AZ

Monday, March 23, 2015

Healthy, Tired and Teaching

Hi mom and dad, it's good to hear from you.  Ha.  Thanks for writing me every week, though, really.  

I'm healthy and everything, no worries there.  Sometimes I get really tired, though...but that's mission life, so I can't complain.  I don't really have a car; I live with the zone leaders, who do, but I never use it.  All that work for my license, and I only drove for a single transfer, and even that not every day.  Oh well, I guess there's a reason for everything.  I was able to get a lot done thanks to having that license.  The best thing about this day for me...well, I would have to say it's emailing, because so far I've just cleaned the flat and done some shopping.  Who knows what'll happen later?  Maybe some great miracle :) .  I got an email from the mission office today containing what are commonly known as the "trunky papers" to verify my home information.  Yikes.  I attached a funny picture of the little boy of one of the investigators we teach.  He fell asleep during one of our lessons on top of my Gospel Art Book turned to a picture of Jesus.  He's a funny boy; very smart, 4 years old, capable of saying great prayers, and absolutely loves Christ.

I had the opportunity to do a couple baptismal interviews this weekend for Elders Frahm and Pohorelicky, and they went very well.  One of them is a woman who I found and taught first and then passed on to them because she lived in their area.  She had come to church with our 2nd counselor in the branch presidency and his wife (who is her sister), and really enjoyed it.  None of the other missionaries talked to her (who knows why), but I did and made quick friends.  I invited her after church into a classroom to learn where our church came from, and the lesson went great.  She lives in an area called Tinsley, which is not far from Rotherham, and it's an area that Elder Williams in the past tried to work in with Elder Misselwitz and didn't have any success.  After I passed V on to Elders Frahm and Pohorelicky, it resulted in a lot of people becoming interested from Tinsley and starting to come to church and progress as well.  One of those also had his interview this weekend, and I was really impressed by his understanding of what had been taught.  I'm just really glad to see that I was able to play a part in making that happen.  It's always worth it to talk to everyone, even if you think they're an investigator from a different companionship.  You just never know.  A, from Elder Bowen and I, didn't pass her interview at all...nope, she's definitely going to need a lot more time to prepare for baptism.

Stake conference was super good this week as well, not necessarily because I found the talks revolutionary, but rather because we had great attendance from the branch, and everyone really enjoyed it.  O was asked to talk about his conversion for 3 minutes at the Saturday night session, and he did a fantastic job.  I translated for him, and his humor had some good laughs from the congregation, then bore a really solid testimony of how he found this church and came to know it was true.  What a great man.  Elder Pohorelicky and I alternated translating into a microphone linked to headsets for the Sunday session, trying to keep up a simultaneous translation.  That got pretty hard sometimes when we couldn't hear what was being said (we were clear in the back so as not to disturb anyone), but we managed to do it and everybody liked the conference.  F especially enjoyed it, and was very pleased by the music sung by the choir.  It really was some fantastic work from them, and brought the Spirit right to my heart, too.  It's strange to think that this stake conference is my last one on my mission.

O and D have been doing some great member missionary work this week as well, extending even beyond my area of Darnall into Elder Williams' area of Firth Park.  Elder Williams was knocking during some finding time, and happened upon a couple who let them in upon opening the door.  They informed them that they had just had Jehovah's Witnesses over just a couple hours before and hadn't been impressed whatsoever, nor felt anything.  Halfway through the lesson, they asked Elder Williams and White if they were Mormons, and proceeded to explain that O and D had been over the day before and talked about the church with them.  By the end of the lesson, they declared that everything the missionaries had just taught them confirmed what O and D had said, and they expressed the desire to be baptized.  They also forewarned E. Williams that they weren't yet married, but that they already had in the plans to go to Slovakia at the end of April to be married.  They are now scheduled for baptism in May.

Miracles are happening as our members continue to fearlessly open their mouths and share what they hold dear to their hearts and know to be true.  Look for opportunities yourselves; you never know the results that may come.

Love you much!
Elder Brown


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