hello again

hello family!!!

so first off i guess it was kinda shock to hear about grandpa brown, but i do pray that he is doing well, and he is definitly in my prayers, as well as all of you are. So guess what?!!!!! 4 more weeks baby! and then i am out of here and on my way to big bad Russia!! wooohoooo!! pretty sweet. um...so if this email seems somewhat spasctic i am sorry, haha, i am extrmely tired because some native russian sisters arrived really late last night and moved into our room and no one told us, so it was quite unexcepted. it like really scared be at first cause me and my companion were sleeping and then all of a sudden someone was messing with the door knob and then two people bust in turning on the light and speaking a strange language(russian, haha). and then another one arrived at 1 and started unpacking, haha. so for some reason they were in and out of the room all night long and talking and stuff, haha, so it was weird and i woke up probably every half hour or hour and so, so needless to say im runnin on little energy (as always) haha. but its all good. im excited to get to know them, and i really admire them for their strength and faith. most of them are only members and their parents are not always pleased to have them serve a mission. what strengh! they are amazing!

well lets see! um so friday a latvian general authority came to just our district on friday to see the mtc cause he has never seen one before. he brough his wife and five kids. He talked to us for just a few minutes, but it was touching. He told us basically who cares if you speak the language good or not. He was converted by the missionaries when he lived in moscow, and he said he doesn't remember who spoke good or who spoke bad, all he reemmbered was the spirit that they brought. So i really loved that, because the language was quite frustrating this week. it is good to know and be reminded that the spirit is a language that all can understand. He bore his tesitmony to us and sad he would see the missionaries and wondered "why are they so happy? they can't drink, they can't smoke...why are they so happy? and then he relized it was because of the spirit and the restored gospel that they had in their lives. it was touching, and we are all so very blessed to konw these truths.

Oh, wed. was the start of our new district and teachers. it has been a little bit of an adjustment but i have really enjoyed it. I have already learned so much fromt he new elders and teachers. they are great. needless to say, wed. and the following days were extremely long! haha. it felt like the first week in the mtc and it was soooo weird. oh, i saw john fry for like a second on wed when he came in. He looked happy, but i didn't get a chance to talk to him.

So general conference and easter are coming up!!!!!! and i am totally excited! im really looking forward to it! except i won't be sitting on a nice comfy couch haha. oh well. it is pretty sweet cause we don't have classes sat then either becuase we go to the sessions, so that is definitly a plus!!!!!!! haha. (it's always nice to have a little tiny break). oh, happy easter too! i heard about the little party at monty's and im glad everyone had fun!

oh man, what else to say? i don't even know. well i was reading a scripture the other day about becmoing as a little child. And i thought about how important that is. children have such great faith, hope, happiness, trust, obedience, they listen, etc. they seem to be so strong in their convictions, and i need to be more like that. I thought about the topic of obedience, and how kinda like children(well, i mean eventually they do this), is that alot of times they just do becuase they know that they should. We should all be more like this, me especially. Who cares why we are asked to do something. if it is right, then just do it! If your leaders ask you to do something, do it! if the Lord asks you to do something, do it! Whether you know the reason, or whether there is a real reason or not. You do it because the Lord asked you too, no question about it. And if the spirit impresses upon you mind to do smoething, do it! No questions asked. Why, cuase we are told to. I realize this takes humilitly, and i know i need a lot more of it. We dont always need to know the outcome of things we are asked to do, we just need to do them. We just need to take the light of fiath with us, and take a small step into the dark. The Lord will continue to light the way for us. It is scary, but through these processes we grow. I am learning this each and everyday on the mission. Everyday it's like taking another little step into the dark, and the Lord is there with you and He helps you along. It is so humbling to know that we cannot do everything on our own. We must call upon the Lord daily, all the time, to help us along. Without them, we are nothing. And we them, we can do anything!! This is my testimony. I know that this gospel contains the fullness of the doctrines of Christ. I know that as we call upon the Lord our testimonies will be strengtheneed little by little, day by day. We don't need to be perfect now, we just need to try better each and everyday. The Lord is patient, and we need to be so too. Well time is out! i love you all and miss you!! never forget it! keep writing!! Love sister Brown

hello family!!

first off, angela told me in her email that noelle broke her wrist!!! well, i was very sad to hear that and hope that noelle is doing well. thats kinda crazy! tell her i love her and hope everything heals up all ok. that stinks. well, thank you family for everything you do!!! you are amazing, and i could not ask for a more loving people. Thank you for all of your notes and letters and sweet emails. You are all so supportive of me and for that i am extremely grateful, words just can't even describe. I got your dear elder natalie! thank you! Ok, lets see what all happened this week. So yea, had my doctors visit and have been takin my medication since. I don't know if the medication has kicked in yet, or if it was some help i got from the counselor, but this week has gone by a lot better. And i know it is from prayers from all of you too. Thank you for everything!! but yes, i have been feeling well, and that has made the experience here a lot lot better. thanks again. and we are tryin to check in and make sure that it will be possible to get tests and checkups done in russia for my thyroid medication, cause i guess you have to adjust that every few months for the first year. so hopefully that will all work out and i will let you know. um lets see, oh so last wed. i was waiting for my friend to enter the mtc (angie hatch) and so i saw her so that was fun! and while i was waiting for her guess who else walked in!..... jenny hayes!!!! ya, i was so surpriesd! i had no idea she was serving a mission and she said that yea, not many people did. but i am very excited for her and she is serving in cananda, english speaking i believe. so she will be leaving the mtc in a few weeks i think. but that was very fun and crazy to see her. oh mom, thank you soo sooo much for the wonderful package! oh man i absolutly love the music! how did you know i would love it! i had been wonderfin if i should look into getting some music, but then i just pushed it aside and decided i wouldn't worry to much about it. but i man i love it! i opened up that package and was just so happy! I love music soo soo much and it was hardd not hearin any for a month.hahah. thank you thank you again. it is wonderful. so are district has been split. very sad. me and sis kelly and 2 other elders have been taken out of our district and put in a new one with new teachers. we will move our stuff out today. its kinda werid, and im totally gonna miss bein in class all day with those elders. they are totally so fun and i just love em. they will still be in our zone though, so we will see them. I am really sad about changing teachers too. bro bradford and bro hansen were some awesome teachers, and we were sad to leave. and they were the only ones doing that new program i told you about, where we had many opportunities to teach progressive investigators, etc. we were te4aching 4 lessons a week in russian, but now since we have been moved we will not be on that program. So we had to tell our progressive investigators that we were being "transferred" and wouldn't be able to teach them anymore. One of them had a baptismal date too, so we won't be able to see geHHuc get "baptized". even though they were "fake" investigators, it was actually quite sad, because we had been teaching them the gospel for a month. You put all that time in teaching them all about what you love and konw to be true, and then you leave and just pray that they will one day understand. So yea, we will get our new district and teachers tomorrow. it will be good thorugh and we will have new experiences and learn new things with our new district. im sad, but excited. so we will see. oh mom you asked me if i am ok with money? yea, i should be. cause the counselor doesn't cost they said, and the visit to the doctor were only like 10 each and the med. was only 5 i think. so they keep that bill here and i can pay it at the end. actually about the dr visit in slc im not sure. I don't konw where they sent that bill. didi you get it? or do they send it to the mtc for me to pay? i don't know. i guess we will have to figure all the crazy annoying stuff out. haha. So sunday i taught the district lesson on faith and hope. and i actually offered to do so and was so excited about it!!! weird i know! who would have thought that acacia would like to give lessons and district discussions???!! not me! haah, but it is fun. So this week we get new elders! yea!!! we are the older ones now! it makes us feel kinda cool. there are 7 elders, no sisters...sad. but we might get some russian sisiters next week. So russian is comin along. still slowly, but better. I know i will get out to russia and just know not alot haha, but it gonna be so fun!! oh and we got our russian language nametags! sweet! ill take a pick and send it to ya. our last name is spelled bpayH. pretty cool. so this week i have been thinking about the tender mercies of the Lord. and how the Lord watches and takes care of all his children. I try to right in my journal each night and then also write down the tender mercies from the Lord that day. It is nice to look back and see what all we have truly been given and blessed with. The Lord does not leave us comfortless, and He is always with us. He leads us along in everything we do. Each day we are shaped as we humble ourselves, and strive to become more like him. I love this gospel. I love my God and my Savior. Take care this week! lvoe you all and hope it is a great one! be safe! and be good, do well, have fun! give noelles wrist and big kiss for me k?! loves! hugs and kisses to everyone! ange ill write you a letter and im sending a few pics in it too! All my love, Sister Brown

hello family!!

first off, thank you so much for all of your sweet words and prayers, yall have been so very supportive and for that i am extremely grateful!! i love you all so very much and even though we are not together right now i hope you never forget it. welp, it have been a pretty eventful and busy week for sure! lets see what is worthy enough and what i can remember to write to ya, ha. oh, well first off yes mom i did get the dear elder from dad last night (monday), but i never got a package slip or anything in the mail...so i don't know what's up with that. when i get back from my appointment tonight i will go check it out and let you know next week if them got it. ok, lets see, oh rhen and kori!...i saw kevin gonzalez in the mtc laundry room last p day doin some byu vending, so that was fun to see him! it is alwasy somewhat weird though to see people you know at the mtc becaseu everythingn is all so different!. This week was pretty eventful bc all of the older districts were getting ready to leave. The rest of them all left this morning, and it was sad and quite weird. now me and sister kelly have a 6 bed room all to ourselves for a little bit! kinda crazy. but yea, sleep has not been much lately. as coordinating sisters me and sis kelly woke up at 4:30 yesterday to check out the girls leaving. and then this morning we woke up at 2:30 and then 4:30 to check out the rest of them. needless to say i am tired! haah. but that is not quite unusual for the mtc. haha. but it was good to be able to see them off, and they are so sweet and will be greatly missed. So now our zone is like uber small! we have our two districts, and then only like 7 are comin in next week. i hope at least one is a sistter, that would be fun. and then the week after that only about 3 russians are comin over. i think two of those may be sisters so that will be cool. neddless to say, bc there are like no districts anymore, they are spliting our districts so that the other teachers are not left without jobs. i guess it was just kinda bad planning on there part, but oh well. ill have to let you know who ends up bein in my newer smaller district. i really hope i can stay with the teachers we have now, but we will just have to see. Ill miss my district alot, i mean ill see them in the hallways and stuff, but all the elders are just so hilarious...haha. the things they say just make me want to pee my pants sometimes. there funny. sat. night i made a fun vocab game for our district to play during study time, and the elders had so much fun!! it was funny to watch how compettivie and excited they got about it all. They want me to make up a game for every sat. night study time now, haha, so that should be lots of fun. i like games, haha. On sunday someone from the gen primary presidency came and spoke in rs, and at the end we sang that new song "i know that my savior loves me" that i helped play in primary when they were practicin it and all. i love that song and i really enjoyed sinsing it. and then after the song the wife of one of our branch presidency members turned to me crying and said "sisiter brown, if you just walk into every teaching appointment and sing that song to them, you will be set! it would invite the spirit just like that." so i thought that was super sweet!!! i wish that it was that easy sometimes, just singing and song, cause thats what i love to do!! haha. speaking of singning, this sotry is for d man. I heard that in moscow they are using the missijonarys that are good at art to do side walk chalk contacting. i guess it is pretty effective in the bigger cities. They draw these big murals etc. on the sidewalk about the churhc and try to get people more interested. how cool is that that they can use their ablilitties to further the work. you could totally do something like that on your mission dallin and that would be awesome!!!!!!ps dal, thnaks for the lettter and than awesoem drawing of me and you in russia. so onto the language, its coming along!! at least i think! again slowly, but surely. its tough and a challegne, but i lke it. We are now teaching 4 lessons a week in straight russian. it is still really hard for me to understand what the investigator is sayin back, but that will some with time. And i still have to take like 5 billion notes in to look off of and stuff for russian help, but hey at least its all in russian! oh by the way our progressive investigator dennis said yesterday that he wanted to be baptized!!!! cool huh? haha. so he is gonna be baptized on "april 3" if all goes well. it is amazing how nervous i can be before going into every lesson, but then once you get into them the spirit is just so strong and somehow i am calm. I come out not really caring what i sounded like or what i said or didin't say, but i just feel really edified by the spirit and pumped to teach people in russia. So spiritual thought for the week....the power of hymns. I can't even tell you how strong the spirit is when you invite it with good music. I love it! i have always loved the spirit that they bring, and sometimes they are the biggest testimony builders to me. Pay attention to the words when you sing hymns. i know that they will brin the spirit and strengthen your testimony! welp, im out of time. I will let you know how the appt goes today. that will be super werid to leave here and go upt to salt lake, passing the home on the way. but it will be ok. so yea ill let you know. and i don't have time to write about what has all been goin on with that, so i will send you a letter, and let me knowif you get it! i love you all! you are in my prayers and thoughts all the time! (maybe even a little tooo much!) haha, jk. i love you and prayer you are doing well! be safe!

спасиба. я люблю вас. сестра brown

how do i love thee?...let me count the ways!

Hello again to my dear family! Ok, here we go! first off lacee that is so exciting about your mission call!!!!!! oh my goodness you will love that place and i am totally jealous! haha. and kesley farmer! girl that is aweosme! Temple square?! how fun! to be honest with you i was a little bit jealous when i read that in the dear elder. haha. that was secretly my dream mission call. How fun will that be to dress all super cute and be tour guide barbie aroudn the visitor center! oh man so fun! Both of you, Lacee and Kelsey, will just have the time of your lives. Im so excited for you both! Let see, this week was of course the same old same old. hha. but if anything out of the ordinary happens i try to know write it in my planner so i can somewhat remember to tell you. Last wed. me and sister kelly gave our first lesson at the TRC in Russia!!!!! oh my goodness, it was crazy hard! but fun too. it was cool to see what all we could say(which is acutally very little haha) but it was awesome. One of the volunteers told me that i actually looked way russian to her. haha, don't know how, but i thought ot myself "oh why thank you, thank you very much" haha. So yes, wednesday i ran into both valerie jones and my old roomy heidi I. It was so fun to see them!! i like never seem than anymore really other than that first day, cause all the schedules are so crazy. But it was fun to see them then. And both of them leave the day after me! so that is cool. Oh, by the way, i have just seen soem confusion on my departure date on dear elder, and just so you know i leave the 26th of april as of now. wow, that seems so far away. But can you believe that I have been in this place already a month now!!! i feel like i am still totally new to everything and haven't gotten all the ropes down. oh well, i assume that is how it might feel my whole mission, haha, everything so new and different from anything ive everknown before. So exciting! but scary!!! I rememeber onw time in spencers email he said that there is no growth in the comfort zone, and there is no comfort in the growth zone. haha. oh man, that is the mtc and mission life to a t! but i love it none the less. So the older districts got there flight planes this week. so sad!!! they are all so awesome! I haven't know the mtc without them, so it will be weird when they and the natives head out next week. It will be so quite around here. There are about 40 russian learners leaving, and from what we have heard there are like only 7 new ones coming in. haha. Weird! but ill be sure to let you know. Oh man, the 4 other sisters in our room(sis wrigley, jones, meyers, and robinson) will all be leaving with them too. they are so awesome and fun and it will be sad to see them go. well, onto the language i guess. its coming along. not as fast as i would like but its coming. the natives giggle at us when we say stuff, ahah, cuase they say we soudn like little kids. man, that is totally how i feel!!! It is frustrating to teach lessons cause you feel the spirit and want so badly for the investigator to feel the spirit too, and you have this thing you want to say but you have no idea how to say it in russian! ah, kinda annoying. But it is truly humbling and hopefully in time i will have that one day when i am just like wow! i said what i wanted to say! yea!!!!! haha. the russian language is beautiful though. i love it. We are supposed to be teaching in 100% russian to all our investigators now. oh man! fun!!!!! haha. ok, well running out of time. Just wanted to add my quick testimeony at the end here of the power of preach my gospel. Never in my life ddi i understand the power in it until now. It is so strengthening, and so true!!! i love it, the words in it are so pure. Read it!!!!! i never understood before know how important it is, but it is! It is amazing what the spirit can teach to our hearts. Sorry, im running out of time, so that is my short little spiritual thought. funny story? um..we are allowed to shake hands now(cause the flu and everything) and everyone was so excited when they annoucned that! it crazy how much i took for granted those awesome family hugs. cause now i miss them so much!!!!!! well all my love! and im sending you a big hug too! loves! Sister Brown

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)