The picture I have attached is of the 3 young men that we found and are teaching. Two of them are 17 and one is 15. They are great kids. So the story behind them is that Carlos, the one next to me in the picture is the brother of a less active member. We saw his sister's name on some teaching records in the house. So we went to find her. We found her and she wants to come back to church. She is the only member in their family, (her mom and her brother(the dad disappeared)) and she made some mistakes but now is repentant and wants to come back. So we were going by to visit her one day and we found Viktor (friend of Carlos(next to Carlos in the picture)) We had a 5 minute lesson with him and his cousin William (not in the picture) and then joked around for another 5 minutes while they waited for Carlos and we waited for Sara (less active member) the next day we sat down with Carlos and we were talking with him and Jesus (the third kid in the picture) was hiding from us. Later we taught Carlos with Sara and gave him a Book of Mormon. He loved it. The next time we went over he had invited Viktor and Jesus to come and listen to us without us prompting him to do so. Now the three are loving it and are anxious to share more with us. They are great kids and I'm sure they will be baptized. So that's them.

So yeah everything is going well. We have a few baptisms planned ....... finally. this ward hasn't seen a baptism in about a year. We don't have a single recent convert (someone who was baptized at most a year ago) so yeah finally we are gonna get it solved. So that's that.

But yeah I don't like to talk about time very much. It scares me that I have so little time left. I still have so much work I need to do but now there's so little time to do it. I just want to stay until I get it all done but I know that I can't. I really want to help these people. I was studying this morning in the last chapter of the gospel of John about the experience when Jesus asked Peter "lovest thou me more than these?" and I was thinking about that question. There is really so much behind it. I always thought that he was talking about the other apostles that Peter was with but when you put it in context it makes me think some thing else. I think he really was asking Peter do you love me more than your boat, more than your fish, more than your nets, and more than your work? Basically do you love me more than what you do? and of course everyone will say that yes I love you more than anything, but then his reply is "feed my sheep" I thought about that too. I thought a lot about it. Then I connected it in my mind with James where he teaches "faith without works is dead" and I said to myself changing it "love without works is dead." Christ's reply could be rewritten as "show me, you say you love me, you say you would give me all that you are and all that you hope to be. So do it. Take part in my work" in short "show me." I don't know why this struck me so strongly but it did. It made me ask myself "do I really love him enough?" do I love him enough to do what he asks me? do I love him enough to give away everything to know him?

So that's what I learned this morning. I have to go but I love ya and I look forward to your letter next week and for your support.

Love Elder Brown