HELLO!!

Dear Fam!!!

First off i loved those pictures!! I was happy to see a picture of mom and dad finally! haven't seen ya in like 5 months...looking good!!! but as always, you do the fun stuff without me huh? wait until acacia's gone and then we will party! Im glad yall had a great week together. And ange, what the heck, I thought you said you were gonna wait for me and we would go horseback riding when i got back...man you little stinker. The pics were very enjoyable to look at and yes, that one of joe is my fav! And ange, your sooo lucky that i didn't send my email just yet, because your email just came in!! Weird, your on the computer at the same time as me, but halfway across the world. and there its 11 at night (what are you thinking!!) And here it is 9 in the morning. just thought you would enjoy those interesting facts. But thank you for all the wonderful details of your fun and extravagant life, and i am glad the date was fun! even though that is so weird for me. Never go on a date again please. haha

So, off to work. The baptism saturday that the elders had for ludmilla was wonderful. I very much enjoyed it, and there we quite a few members there to support her. so that was good. And then afterwards we had a ward picnic, which was pretty fun. We all took a bus out somewhere and had a good ol' russian picnic. It was pretty fun, and the weather was nice and sunny. Everyone was pretty hungry though when the food got there about 3 hours later. i guess that is not very surprising for the picnics around here. and since we couldn't swim in the little pond thing us missionaries tried to keep busy with playin soccer and throwin some footballs. It was nice though to have people there to support ludmilla though, and many again were there on sunday when she was able to be confirmed in sacrament. Oh, at the baptism I got to play the piano and sister lowry and sister gorgavenka played the flute with me for a musical number at the baptism. i enjoyed it. Lets see, monday we had one of the ap's come down and work with me and sis gorgavenka. So that was good to get some help and ideas on how to be a better missionary. hmm...other than that, nothing too eventful...well i mean just nothing really out of the ordinary of missionary work. Oh, yea, the sister from lipitcks came down with the sis. from kazakstan. And yes dad, with an air mattress we were able to get enough beds in the apt.

Nastia is still doing really well. She has had a lot of school lately and a lot of exams and things so she has been very busy, but still doing well. Her baptismal date is still set for the 3rd of July. So i am very happy for her. We are still meeting with Kaceyna too, but things are not moving along as we would hope that they would. We continue to pray for her, and hope that as she relies on the Lord things can work out for her and her family. With the new sisters in the area now, the zone leader said that the new sisters might take Kacenya in as an investigator and be the ones to work with her. I would be sad to not be working with her anymore, but we will see what happens. I guess whoever continues to teach her, that she will still continue to progress.

This week has been a difficult one for me as far as the language of russian goes. Man, why can't we all just speak english or something. no, i love russian. But it's hard, but that makes it all the more worth it. Just a little progress is very exciting and a big deal. I continue to stop people on the streets and they continue to tell me that they have no idea what i am saying, even though my native companion tells me i say everything correctly. they just have a hard time wanting to pay attention and really listen to people that have a strong accent. I wonder what kind of accent an american trying to speak russian has? I wonder what it sounds like to them? WEIRD! huh?

Oh dad, you asked about our church building. Yea, the church does actually own it. I think it is the first and only building in russia right now that the church owns. or maybe just in our mission, i don't remember. But I know it was just recently renovated and dedicated and was a big deal just right as we were coming into the mission field. I remember going on the lds website before my mission and looking up stuff about russia, and that was a big thing on the news there too. But yes, it is very pretty and we really try to keep it up nice and have some wonderful people in the ward who help out. We get a few investigators too, that are just people walking outside and see the beautiful building and want to know what it is so they come on inside. Not many buildings here in voronezh are that nice or clean. Oh, and yes i would really LOVE to read the conference talks from april, but we still have not gotten them yet here. I have asked the office, but i don't know. The members have not gotten them in russian yet, and it might take quite a while too for us missionaries to get them here in english. But, we shall see. Hopefully by next year we will have them. In the mean time i am still reading the conference talks from last october.

Ok, so i have to tell you the weekly funny story. On monday night we had FHE for the young single adults at the branch. As missionaries we come support and bring our investigators. So after the lesson we played a few games. And we were playing some game that is kinda like musical chairs, but it is some russian version or something and there is no music. Anyways, so we were all running around trying to get in our seats, and i sat in an empty seat in the back. No one was around me. And it's not like i was fighting anyone for the seat. So i sat down, and then all of the sudden the next thing i know is that my feet fly up in the air and I am on the ground.(it was even worse cause i was in my awesome sister missionary skirt!!) I don't think anyone would have noticed, but i was laughing so hard they all turned around and then we just all started laughing. But thats not really even the funny part. That was kinda funny, but at the time this happened Elder Lowry had come up and was taking video footage of our game, and he got there just in time to get me falling on camera. During district meeting on tues. we all had some good laughs watching it together. Everyone is just playin, and then all the sudden in the background you see sister brown's feet fly up in the air. You have to see the video to understand. It's funny, trust me. I can just see dallin getting a really good laugh out of this! Speaking of dallin, again, where is my email!!!! (ps...i sent you something special in the mail. hopefully it gets there)

Well, time is out! It was great to hear from you all, and as always, thank you for the love and the support. Your GREAT!! Have a wonderful week. Until next week!

Love, Sister Brown

Pictures from Sister Brown 24 June 2010

Me by often seen apartment mailboxes &
us tracting!

Just a fun pic that I took while at the picnic

More Pictures 24 June 2010

Me & Sister G at the picnic, then us at a
War Tank Memorial

Singing hymns in the park

Me with a babushka from our ward

"Happy Birthday to Nastia!" Me, Nastia and Sister Zhumazonava

Happy Father's Day!!!

Hello Family!!

Well, to start off the email this week i need to say... Happy Fathers Day dad!!!!!!!! i love you!!! i had to say that first or i would forget and be mad at myself for a week, but happy fathers day and i hope you and the family have a wonderful one. I wish that i could call you on father's day like they let us on mother's day and tell you all hello, oh well. Sounds like everyone has had a pretty eventful week...you definitely keep yourselves busy!! Noelle! Thank you for the email! It was great and Im glad you had fun at that party! I love you! You and Joe be nice to each other ok...remember, he is your best bud!!! Yeah Janae!!!!! I am so excited to hear about where she is going!!! let me know please. I never hear about anything out here unless you tell me. I think Kate sullivan was thinking about putting in her papers too, so if you can get a hold of her to see if she has gotten a call yet and let me know. Wow, i cannot believe that jordan and skyler and joshua had graduation!!! that is so crazy. every one there just seems to be growing all up and time seems to be really flying!, because time here right now seems to be going kinda slow. Man everyone growin up makes me feel so old. crazy crazy. well, onto the most important business of the week! ANGE!!!! Your going on a what?! a date?!!! ahhhhh....i won't let you go. Your not old enough to date in my book. (maybe its a good thing im serving a mission). wow, thats crazy. it seems like just yesterday i was 16, and i can't believe your 16 too. Weird. way weird.

So, onto missionary work. We are still working with Nastia. She seems to be moving along well, but she is going to school and studying alot, so it is hard to meet with her as often as i would like. But she seems to be moving along great and is very excited for her baptism which will now be for July 3rd. This sat. the elders have a baptism for one of their investigators, a sweet middle aged woman. I am very excited for her and excited for the elders too. Kacenya will not be baptized on the 19th either, we have to push back her date because she is having a hard time coming to church. She keeps all the other commitments we give her, but church is something that is quite difficult for her and her young child. I would love to say that she is ready to be baptized, but if you don't attend church before baptism, it is very unlikely that you will all the sudden start to attend and know the importance of the sabbath day after your baptism. So we are still working with her though, and tryin to get her to church and have people in the branch fellowship her. But it's hard, cause you don't want to push to hard, but you want to push hard enough. You know what i mean? I pray that the spirit can whisper to her the importance of what baptism is. It is not just something you do. A lifestyle of keeping covenants follows baptism. I wish that i could remember better my baptism. I was reading the other day about the covenants we make at baptism, and I believe that too often i do not remember them. But they are important, and we should live our lives by them.

oh, so after all the craziness that has been going on here i thought that it might settle down a little bit. But now we have some more changes coming. man they just never end!! President is having a sister from lipitscks (sis. zhumazonova, i was a comp. with her for a bit) come to voronezh and train a girl from kazakstan who would like to be a mini missionary. So they will get here on monday and will be living in our apt. with us for the whole transfer. Hopefully we can fit 4 girls and all of 4 girls "stuff" into our little apt. We are gonna make it work though. It should be fun! I just hope we don't get to distracted because with 4 sister missionaries in one apt. we might just want to party all the time. haha. We are gonna do our best to work hard though and stay focused!!

Dad, you had asked what we do with the members. We meet with them and we teach them a lesson like we would teach any other investigator, and we give them commitments to strengthen their faith and their families. We also do a lot of service for the members too. And yea, when we sing we just go to a park by a bench, bring our russian hymnbooks, and just start singing. it's pretty fun. We did a few songs in english too because a lot of the young people here study english and think english and americans are cool. i don't know why. But yea, it was actually kinda weird singing in english, cause for the past like 5 months i have done nothing really but sing in russian all the time. kinda fun. And yes, my new comp sis. gorgavenka is wonderful and i just love her. She is very sweet and caring. She will be 23 in september, and was baptized when she was 10 with her older sis. and mother. Her mother i believe had the missionaries come into their home and teach them, and so the 3 of them have been members since then. And yes, she does know a little bit of english. She studied some when she was in school. So she wants to learn english a lot better, so i help her a lot with her english, and she helps me with my russian. It's pretty fun i guess...however fun learning a difficult langauage can be!

Gma! So you had said that you feel like the Russian mission was made for me. I thought it was kinda funny that you said that, because the other day i was just kinda thinking about that. As slow as the adjusting seems to come here, every week i feel just a little bit more that this mission is a good thing for me. One because I think Heavenly Father knows that I will really grow to love this wonderful place, and two, because i think He knows that it will also push me in ways that i never thought i would be pushed. Some things i really love here, but other things here are very difficult i often question what the Lord was thinking. But i know that He knew it would push me in those ways. And i know that there are things here in Russia that i need to learn that I honestly don't think I could have learned anywhere else, doing anything else. So yes, I have a great testimony that Heavenly Father really really knows us. That He knows our strengths and our weaknesses. And that He knows how to make those weaknesses become strengths, whether we asked for it or not. Sometimes I find it very hard to admit my own weaknesses and admit that i am human and not "perfect". I think i grew up my whole life somewhat recognizing my weaknesses, but trying to push them away to the back corner, thinking that if I ignored them and left them alone that i wouldn't have to worry about them and that they would get better. I don't know why i ever thought that. Cause now I realize that the only way to become a stronger person and to become the person who the Lord needs you to be, is by recognizing your weaknesses, desiring to change them, and then facing them. You can't overcome your weaknesses until you face them. And you can't become stronger until, with the Lord's help, you are pulled and tugged and stretched in ways that you never thought possible. But, i promise that with the Lord on your side, this is possible. And like in Ether 12:27...we can overcome our weaknesses. And not only can we overcome them, but eventually they can become strengths to us. And this happens as we are humble, and seek the Lord in all we do. I think the Lord knows that I am somewhat lazy in this aspect, and that I needed a little push, or maybe a really big one, ( a mission), to get going in the right direction. Cause if it were up to me, I would always love to choose the "easiest" way. And sometimes the best way is not always the easiest or the fastest way.

ok, so i just have one quick funny story for the week. It just happened last night and i was just thinking about it so i thought i would write it real quick. I don't know if it is too funny, but I had quite a laugh inside myself. So last night we had a little party a members home for their birthday, and every one was playing charades. And i had to take a little visit to the bathroom. So the bathrooms here, the shower and the sink are always in a little room about the size of a closet, and then the toilet is in another closet size room just right next to it. And for some reason the lights to the bathroom are always outside in the hallway right before you go in. I don't know why, it never really made sense to me. but anyways, so i was in the bathroom, and then all of the sudden the woman whose apt it was came by and turned off the light thinking no one was in there. So here i am in this tiny little unfamiliar bathroom, and i don't know how to say in russian "hey! im in here, turn the light back on!" So I just chill there in the pitch black, and try to fill around for the toilet paper. It could have been anywhere because like no one here has toilet paper holders. But eventually i found it, tryin my best to stay clear of the kitty litter box that i knew was in there somewhere, and safely made my way out of the bathroom. haha. yea i know, not very funny. but i told my companion and we had a good laugh. Oh!! and i forgot to tell you that a few weeks ago i finally used my first public bathroom that just had the holes in the floor and no stalls and you just squat. It was a fun experience and I had to tell you!! Before you walk in the door there is a roll of toilet paper and you just grab a few squares and walk into the bathroom. Oh my gosh it smelt so bad i honestly thought i would have died. it smelt like cows were living in there. But none the less it was fun and a great thing to experience.

Anyways, i think i am done for the week!!! i know i just keep goin on and on. sorry! I love you all! I pray for you always!! I hope everyone is doing well and getting along! Have a wonderful week and until next week!! Loves!!

ps...im sending some pics.(some are with investigators, the yellow building is our church here, the one of me is in moscow by a river, the car is a typical car you will see here...)

Sister Brown

A typical car in Russia

Where the members attend church in Voronezh

Dinner gathering

Sister Brown in Moscow

Night train in Russia

Sister Brown by chalk painting

Sister Brown and her companion with an investigator

wow what a week!

Hello again my lovely family!!

Thank you for all your emails, i really enjoyed reading them as always. I am glad that everyone is doing pretty well it sounds like and keeping busy. Ange, those pictures look very exciting. I am happy for you. And hopefully everything calms down somewhat at home and at work. Don't wear yourself out and try to fit in TOO much stuff in the day!

So yes, friday night i headed up to moscow on the night train with sis. ionina and sis. zymazhonova. We had fun talking and then tried to get as much sleep as we could, haha. that didn't work out to well. We got in moscow early sat morning and then got to see the other missionaries in our mission and in the moscow mission. That was very fun and it was good to see the elders from the mtc and sis kelly. They are all just wonderful. Then we all sat down and got to hear sis and Elder Perry speak. It was great and wonderful and there was a strong spirit there. We didn't actually get to talk to elder perry, we just shook his hand and told him our names and where we were from. But it was very cool!!!!! First apostles hand that i have every shaken! So we all enjoyed that. Afterwards we took our P-day and went up to red square again. When i have time i will try to email pics again. And i think i walked down the street that matt damon had a car chase on in the borne movie. pretty cool huh?! And then sat night we got back on a night train and came back to voronezh early sunday morning for church. There is some beautiful and peaceful countryside scenery to see when you ride those night trains though. I like it. I don't know how much sleep you get but it is always a fun experience.

So we are still meeting with kacenya and nastia. I am very excited to be working with them both and they are both wonderful. The baptismal date is set for the 19th, but i think that they both might need more time to really gain a strong testimony. So i just pray that we can teach them with the spirit and that they will be ready to be baptized, whether it be the 19th or a few weeks later. We are also still working a lot with the members and with the less active members. We have been trying to do some more contacting too, but that has been difficult. oh, yesterday we went with the elders and sang in a park some russian hymns for a while. While we sang we had a few members in the ward hand out our information, etc. I enjoyed it and the elders got a few contacts from it so that was good! I like doin creative things, so maybe we can think of some more creative ideas and put those into play eventually. We will see.

So yes, my new companion arrived last night, and I am very excited to be working with her. Yes, she is a russian. As of now in our mission we have i think 8 russian sisters (cause one just came from the mtc) and 4 american sisters. So it is very likely that as a sister you will spend much of your time speaking (or attempting to speak) a lot of russian. It will be good for me to speak russian more, but to be honest i am quite nervous too. Actually, very nervous. I'll probably spend a lot of my time and brain power just tryin to think of simple sentences to say to fill the silence. Man, I haven't really studied any other languages, but i feel like russian is like the hardest ever!! I never imagined it to be so hard! I thought that i would do pretty well at it, but honestly, I think that the language is something that is very challenging for me and something that i will struggle with for a while. But what do ya do? I can tell that I have progressed a little though. I understand better. But i don't know if that is a good thing or not. When you don't understand what people are saying you don't hear all the rude things they say. I think i liked it better that way. The other day we were contacting and then this person said something and i was just thinkin ok cool. But then when i actually thought through it for a min and realized what they said i was thought like "hey, what the heck, that was kinda rude!" And you get to hear and understand all the wonderful comments when people tell you your russian is bad and that they don't understand you because your accent is horrible. Oh well, haha. It's kinda funny, but kinda different too. People here seem to be very blunt and just say whatever they feel like saying...which is very different from what i am used too i guess. The other day we contacted into a lady who started yelling at us and asking us why are we doing such a stupid thing as being on this mission. She told us that we should be married and having children, and that we are wasting our time!

So yes, i am excited to be working with my new companion sis. gorgavenka. She has been on the mission for 6 months i think and did not have the opportunity to go to the mtc in provo because of visa problems. But she just went to the temple (finland i think) last week for the first time, so that was very exciting for her! But yes, my russian is bad and my teaching is bad too, so i hope that i can be an asset to this companionship and that we can teach so that we invite the spirit together. I think it might be difficult for a while and a lot of hard work, but that's ok, because what part of a mission isn't eh? Sis. gorgavenka told me that i am her first amercian companion, so hopefully after she serves with me she will want to serve with another american, right?!!!

Well family, i love you and never forget it!! And like i always say, keep reading those scriptures and saying your prayers and doing those regular habits. I was thinking the other day how helpful habits really are. They seem so simple, but when put into practice somehow are harder than they sound to do. But they invite a spirit into your life that you will never forget. I promise. I was thinking about virtue the other day, and how satan tries so hard to fill your mind with meaningless and not so good thoughts. Whether they be thoughts of sin, bad thoughts about others, critical thoughts, prideful thoughts, scary thoughts, sad thoughts, worrysome thoughts...satan tries so hard to get you. And he will, if you let him. I always thought that virtue meant to not think about sinful things, but now i think that having virtuous thoughts means a lot more. It means taking all of those bad thoughts, whatever they may be, and just throwing them away. It's hard, but i know that reading scriptures daily, personally and as a family, and saying individual and family prayers, and having family home evening, and attending church, and attending the temple, are little acts that add up to great great amounts. Satan is working so hard in this day and age to get us, and you need to always be on your guard...CONSTANTLY. If you are not on your guard he will just creep right on in until eventually you don't even notice when he does anymore. So keep doing those good things, and filling your day with the best things. And be grateful for temples!!! I was thinking about how lovely it was to attend the temple every week in the mtc. And now i don't think ill have an opportunity to go for the rest of my mission. Which is really sad. I think that i really took for granted the fact that at home i had a temple basically in arms reach in all directions. I was able to go every week, any time i wanted. And now, on my mission, the time that i would really like to go the most, there is a slim possibility. But the members here are getting a closer temple in Kiev in August, and this is a very exciting and wonderful thing for them. I didn't even realize what a huge thing this was until I came here and saw how important it was to them. So i say, be grateful for the temple, and attend the temple regularly, and regularly with your family and with your spouses. ok, enough of my soap box again for this week!! Again i love you all and thank you for everything.

Sending hugs and kisses your way until next week!
Sister Acacia Brown

hello again!!

Hello again my loverly family!!

Well, this weeks email is going to be a quick and spastic one because we need to write really quick. Saturday we will be in moscaw because elder perry will be there to speak to us!! yahooo!!!!!!!!!! i am very excited! I have been looking forward to this! pres woolley told me that elder perry wanted to speak to all of the missionaries there individually! pretty cool huh?! so i will have to let you know if that happens, and what he talks to us about. i am excited. We will take a night train tomorrow (friday) up to moscow and get in early sat morning. we will go to the conference and then take half our pday and do stuff up in moscow. that is why today we don't have much time and are doing more missionary work. we will take another night train back down here and get in early sunday morn before church starts. it will be a long weekend, but it will be wonderful.

So this week, as you know, has been a busy one. No i do not have a "real" companion yet. I had anya for a few days, and then we grabbed a 17 year old girl in the branch to be my companion for the next couple days. She speaks no english, and so with our little communicating ability and no experience, we had fun tryin to figure stuff out. haha. but we did well and continued to meet with our investigators. Right now i am with the 2 russian sisters from lipistcks. they came down to be with me until transfers next week. So in a week i should get a permanent companion, well at least for six weeks. President already told me that he is really excited about it, and that it won't be with any of the sisters i am with now. So we will see!!! I hope i am able to stay in voronezh for at least another transfer. I really like the people in the ward here, and would miss them. But we will just see.

Well, i am glad that the party for gma was such a blast!! man yall just know how to throw the parties without me! That is great that everyone was able to be together. and spence is home!!!!! wow, time flies! So he is doing good? hey my cuz spence...shout out to you for the week. Send me a quick email if you can and tell me all about the mish! is it weird being home? did time fly for you? wow oh wow. crazy stuff. but so fun!!

Our investigators are still doing well! We are still meeting with them regularly and tyring to get them ready for their baptism on june 19th. the elders in the district almost have a few baptismal dates too so this is very very exciting for voronezh. We are looking forward to the 19th.

Sorry that this email was kinda weird and did not have much about the mission and investigators. It was kinda a crazy one, and i hope things get back to "normal" (whatever that is! haha) soon.

I love you all and it was great to hear from you! Keep up the great work!

ps...dallin "where is my email!!!!"

Loves,

Sister Brown