time flies

hello family!! well, first off it was great to hear from all of you
again. Sounds like everyone is doing well and that life is just movin
along! oh man that was very funny to hear about joe. you tell him that
i think he is just so funny. oh man, what does he think sometimes!
thats just too funny. glad yall had fun at the cabin! sounds like a
blast! oh and i wish i could have seen that delish russian flag cake
yall made, sounds like fun. Well, thank you so very much for all of
the wonderful birthday wishes!! And no ange i don't feel much older,
its weird to bein sayin that im 21....im almost a full grown
man!!!!!(haha, that was a shout out to you rhen, hope you enjoyed!)
But yes, the birthday went well. Not like a normal birthday you would
have at home, but it was still very good. Had church and meetings and
such, studied, went to the sunday night fireside, watched the
testaments movie that night during sunday movie time, and then went
back to the residence hall and had chips and salsa and those little
cake things you sent with the sisters in my room. We took just a
couple pics so i will have to print those out and send those soon. Oh,
and dad you wondered where i got them printed off so fast? They just
have a little photo printer thing down in the bookstore and you can
just stick in your mem card and print out the pics you want. so there
ya go! Oh that is fun to hear that you met anne pearson at valerie's
talk. How fun!! tell her i am doin well and hope that everything is
going good for her also. And yes i will keep an eye out for sure for
sister jones, and also another one of my roomates named sister jones
comes in tomorrow I believe! im very excited to see them!! Ok, well
lets see. It's so hard to remember all that went on in the past week.
But yea, toward the beginning of the week it was just a little harder
to adjust to everything, but things are going pretty well now. I have
started to wake up at 6 and go to the early morning gym workouts that
they provide jsut for the sisters. So even though it is super hard to
get up that early, i have really enjoyed it because it helps me tohave
just a little more energy throughout the day, adn then i also attend
our zone gym time during the day and that helps out even more. So that
has beeen alot of fun. um lets see, russian is comin along slowly but
surely. Alot of memorizing and stuff, but we have been tryin to make
it funner to learn, so it has been better. Um...lets see, our district
is doing well and it is alot of fun. I don't know if i told you
already but there are 11 of us now, and 7 of us are leaving together
to the moscow west mission, and then the other 4 are goin to
napopistrosck(that is no where near the right spelling, but you get
the picture, ha) ukraine. So that is fun to know that alot of us will
be in the same mission together out in the good ol' russia. Lets see.
Last wed. we went to the trc again and had to knock on 4 different
doors and talk to each of them for 10 min. in russian just tryin to
get to know them. I think it went pretty well! it was hard to
understand what they were sayin back to us though because they are so
good at the language and talk so fast! Last night me and sis kelly
taught for a second time to our investigator (our teacher) and it went
better the second time. He is having a hard time keeping his
commintements, so we are really working on getting to the bottom of
his concerns and really trying to understand where he is coming from
on everything. Wed. night we go to the trc again and are going to try
to do the entire first lesson in russian!!!!! scary right? haha. I
don't know how long it will last, it might be a short one becuase I
don't know a ton of full gospel sentences in russian, but i will for
sure let you know how it all goes! Oh and im excited because tonight
is the devotional and word going aroudn the mtc is that someone really
cool is gonna speak tongith. haha. and we are singing come thou fount
in the chior so im really excited about that. i love that song!! Lets
see! i can't think much else what to right about. I know there is more
stuff but it is all just so much i can't even remember. It is crazy
though that i am entering my 4th week in the mtc!!!! man, time really
does fly! even though it is long and tired days here, I'm gonna try to
live it up as best i can so that I can be prepared to the fullest when
i fly out to russia. cause i know it will just come so fast i won't
evem know what to think. Ok, so spiritual thought for the week....I
was reading the talk by Elder Holland called "the best is yet to be"
love that talk! and i love the quote when he says "Faith is always
pointed toward the future." As we have faith in our Heavenly Father,
faith in our Savior, faith in ourselves, we look toward the future. We
don't look back at past mistakes, past decisions, past weaknesses,
etc. We look forward believeing and hoping that as we do the will of
the Lord and follow is commandments, that we will be blessed and
eventually win the prize. He talks about Lot's wife too. Let us learn
from this story, and not look back, whether it be worrying about the
past, or whether it be looking back just wanting to return. We are
where we are know, because this is where the Lord's needs us to be. We
learn from the past, but we don't look back, not for one second. We
look forward and have faith. Read Philippians 3:13-14. Welp, there you
go! umm...im tryin to thik oof anything funny that happened this week.
honestly i can't thnk of one right now. nothing to crazy is goin down.
just the same old same old. classes sleep and eat. but it is a good
same old same old!! cause we are getting ready to teach those awesome
peeople waiting for us in Russia!!! yahoo!!!!!!! im excited!!!!! ok,
welp enough from me for this week. Remember that I love you and pray
for you. As dad always says, "Be good, do well, have fun!" and don't
be stupid and be safe! haha. Love you all and thank you so much for
your loving support. I wouldn't be here if i were not for you
encouraging me every step of the way. All my love!!!! have a great
week!!! until next week!! Sister Brown (Ya Lubeat Nac! thats i love
you in english phonetics! haha)