Mission-Wide Hour of Finding

Hi mom and dad, I'm sorry I can't report on your package yet, I'm obeying the orders not to open it until my birthday.  Actually it's been sitting at the post office for a while now because it's a lot harder to find time to go and get that when I don't have access to a car.  I will get that soon, though.  Yes, the Slovak translation in your email was strange ha.  Good old Google.  You're right about contact lenses, I'll be needing those fairly soon here.  I'll make them last to whenever you're able to send new ones, so I'm not super bothered about when you send them.  That's something we get from the English a lot: "I'm not bothered."  They mean to say they're not interested, but it doesn't really make very much sense.

Things this week were super tiring, but it was great anyway.  On P-day we played football (soccer in American) with a bunch of the Slovak young men, who destroyed us Americans.  One of them is a pretty epic player.  I was quite impressed.  We also have a baptism coming up this Saturday, because J passed his interview!  It's great because he's a really good guy and he's very ready to keep on the path to God.  Also this week we had our mission-wide hour of finding on Monday.  Leading up to this we've been doing a lot of praying and planning, and then fasting on Sunday to have it be effective and successful for the whole mission.  As far as I've found out it went pretty well for most of the teams--President Pilkington went finding with Elders Sindylek and Krylborne, and they ended up teaching a lesson afterwards were they found three new investigators and scheduled somebody for baptism.  I guess there were like 17 Slovaks all in one home, a home of some recent converts who told everyone they knew that the mission president would be coming to their house.  The basically had their own church meeting on a Monday ha.  President Pilkington said he would be coming to that baptism.  Elder Misselwitz and I had a lesson with R and D before we went finding, who are some recent converts who joined the church a little before I got here.  At the end of the lesson I asked if they had any family that might not mind us visiting them, and they referred us to R's cousin who happened to live in the area we were planning to go finding in.  We went up there to contact them (obviously), but they turned out to not be home.  However, right then we saw a couple of Slovak boys go to the house next door, so we talked to them and asked them if their parents were home.  They weren't, but now we know where two Slovak homes are right in the area where we had decided to go finding.  God definitely heard and answered our prayers, and I have a feeling it was the same throughout the mission.  Elders Williams and Frahm also found two new families in the Pittsmore area, teaching one of them a lesson that went really well.  So this week was a miracle one, including the part where a Muslim guy decided to set us up with early entrance to his half-price Chinese and Indian buffet this Thursday!  Woohoo!

That's my week in a very small nutshell.  I love you lots and want you to know that the sacrifices you are making and have made to let me be out here are blessing my life and the lives of many others.  Talk to you next week and have a great week yourselves!

Love,

Elder Brown