February 20th

My comp and I were walking one day and we heard a cat meowing. We looked around and saw this little kitten. Aw cute and then we started walking and it started following us so we picked it up and took it to Geronimo's house (as his mom likes cats) she said she would take care of it.

One important thing I've learned is that all is in the hands of Him who knows all things and it's best to leave it in His hands cause "all things have been done by the wisdom of Him that knows all." God knows what hes doing, even if from our point of view it looks like all of the plans are falling apart that's just when things are getting put right. There are days in the mission where all of your plans fall apart. For example in Villa Elisa all of our plans fell apart. It was 8 o´clock, a terrible hour to find people, and our last plan fell and we looked at each other, Elder Kartchner and I, and then something told me to go to a members house. I said it to my comp and off we went. We got there and the father of the family was sick and the whole family was worried. He had planned to go to the doctor the next day cause they didn't know what was wrong. He asked for a blessing and asked me to seal the anointing. I did so and at the end of the blessing the whole family was crying. That's when I really understood the phrase in, I think 2 Nephi that "all things have been done according to the wisdom of Him that knows all things" (I read it in spanish translating scriptures is hard.)

Even now it seems that all of our well laid plans have fallen to ruins but there is a God in heaven and that God knows all things and all things are in His hands. He knows us, He watches us and even more, He loves us. I know he loves us so much because I have felt his love. I feel it every time we pray and I feel it as I read the scriptures. He really does love us, and He wants whats best for us. "Would any of you who is a father if his son ask for bread will give him a stone or if he ask for a fish will ye give him a serpent." or in the translation of Elder Brown "would any of you who is a father if your son asks for a serpent will ye give it to him? or if he ask for a scorpion will you give it him? obviously not but ye will give him a fish or an egg." God´s in charge and I'm so glad for that. Too many times in my life I have asked for a serpent, a very very poisonous one but God knew better than to give it to me. So as Christ said "peace be still it is I." or in the translation of Elder Brown "peace be still I destroyed the plans cause I know what´s best. I will not give you this serpent."

Well that's probably more thoughts than you wanted to hear but it looks like this week you will not have written as long of a letter to me as I wrote to you. Haha I win. I don't really have much more to say and I only have 10 minutes left but everything is good here. I miss ya tons and I look forward to hearing from you next week.

Love, Elder Brown

February 13th

Everything is going great here. We are working hard and we have a lot of baptisms planned for next week, which unfortunately is also the week of changes, but what happens happens, so we will see how it goes. So yeah in the district we have a baptism planned for this week which will be great so we hope it goes through. The only thing that could go wrong is permission from the father but we are hoping that he gives it so we are praying for that but I'm sure all will work out for the best.

Yeah Nancy is awesome. She always helps us and is an amazing Paraguayan mama. Yep she really is a great person and helps us so much. I think what you said is right she trusts us and talks to us about anything.

I didn't even know how much time there was and that just sounds like mom, four months and eight days away but who's counting. I miss mom she always made me laugh and I miss dad to we always did fun stuff.

Thanks for always writing, even though the mission is busy, sometimes life is busy for you too but you always write me every week and I appreciate it so much. I love you and am grateful for all you do for me and we'll have lots of good times to come after the mission so get ready for fun times in like 4 and a half months. But yeah that's just about all I got for this week. Mba´apo (trabajar en Guaranii.) Workin hard! Love ya tons.

Love Elder Mba´apo.

Speaking of hard work paying off, it is. We had a baptism this week, a girl named Larisa. She is 15 and lives next door to the Martinez family. (Nancy) She is great and I'm sure she will be fine for the rest of her life. Now we are going to start working with her niece and nephew and her sister who she lives with. We are also getting close to seeing another baptism, Geronimo´s cousin. Her name is Camila. I'm not exactly sure how old she is but she's in Young Women's. It should be good. We have planned the 18th, but she still needs permission from her mom, but we are hoping. We also still have the Ponce family. Their papers are almost ready which means wedding and baptism, which will be great. We will see what happens. We are hoping for 5 more baptisms before I leave here, so we will see. A lot of our investigators aren't progressing as well as we would like, but we do have a few, and some others just have hidden doubts that we need to solve and they'll be ready.

I believe very strongly that we should always focus on the blessings. The first 2 points of lesson 1 are God is our loving Heavenly Father and the gospel blesses families. Most people just jump over those 2 points, deeming them unworthy of time to explain, but I believe that of the first lesson, the restoration, they are almost the most important, because why would someone change their religion or change who they are if they aren't going to get something out of it. The rest of the restoration is unimportant if they don't understand that it will bless them. It's like Elder Holland said, "teach your investigators that baptism is for the remision of sins. In the fourth article of faith Joseph Smith could have said "baptism to be member of the church," but he didn't he said "baptism for the remision of sins." We always need to focus on the blessings that come. If we don't, it is just needless information.

It's like a math class. I always hated math class because the math teacher never showed me when I could use the principle in real life. But there was one unit I liked and that was the one talking about interest because they explained to me "look you can use this when you are trying to put money in the bank and want to find out where to put it." It's the same principle. I hated math class up until they showed me how a principle would help me in my life, for that reason I hated math but absolutely loved physics (doesn't quite make sense does it), but it was just because I saw a use in my daily life for physics. The gospel is the same way. We as "math teachers"(gospel teachers) need to show our "math students"(gospel students,investigator, less active member, or even active member) how "math"(the gospel) will help them every day of their lives. I know that the gospel is applicable to every person every day of their lives and so our task is find that point and apply it. That's why listening, discerning, and applying are inseperable parts of teaching in the gospel of Jesus Christ. Well that's probably more than I meant to say about that. but it's an important principle.

Well really I don't have much more to say but I do love you tons and I look forward to hearing from you next week. I miss ya and look forward to talking with you again. I love ya and am grateful for all you do for me.

Te quiero mucho familia!

Elder Brown