Too Many Pennies!!!

Greetings from the wonderful city of Las Vegas!  I have had a wonderful experience here already and I have a fantabulous trainer!  So, on May 23^rd I woke up at 2:45 a.m, finished packing, and then went to the travel office at 3:50 a.m. We took a bus to the Front Runner, Front Runner to the Trax, and Trax to the airport.  The flight was super short but super great and then we me President and Sister Ahlander in the airport!  We went to the mission home and had breakfast, even though we had already been up for 7 hours haha.  But it was nice to have our first home cooked meal in a while!  The aaaaaalllll day was training and just sitting in chairs, listening to instructions.  We got our iPads, and finally, at 4:00 pm we received our companions!  My companion is Sister J and she is super awesome!  She’s from WV and has only been out 3 months, almost 4! Super crazy, but she’s and awesome trainer! We then went to our Casita with is a little guest home behind a member house. 

Sis. J and I are over 2 different wards.  The Peccolle Ranch Ward and the Willows Ward.  We are in Las Vegas, so the wards are named after subdivisions, not cities. But on Sunday we go to 6 hours of church and 2 different Ward Council meetings!  It’s a little confusing and is going to take a while to sort everyone out and differentiate between what ward they’re in and stuff, but it’s great.  Twice the love!

Speaking of church, when I got here on Monday Sister J was like “Oh, and Bro. B., someone in the bishopric of the Peccolle Ranch Ward, asked if my new companion and I could speak on Sunday. So we have to prepare a talk.” It was a great opportunity! I spoke on the Good Samaritan and talked about service and charity and tied it in with missionary work.  I also get the same questions over and over again, so I just answered them all in my intro.  Especially the one “Why don’t you have an accent?” That question drives me nuts! Because, I wish I did have a cute accent! But as soon as I said people ask me this, there were a lot of head nods in the congregation, like they were thinking the exact same thing.: ) But I do say y’all!

Along with speaking and giving a real talk in the ard, in Willows sacrament meeting the talks were given a little too fast, so after the rest hymn, sister J and I were immediately called up to give an impromptu testimony and I was told to introduce myself.  Good thing I gave a talk just 4 hours earlier because I already had a little introduction in mind and basically said the same thing.  Then gave a basic testimony instead of my talk.  It was a good experience and I’m glad they gave me that opportunity.

This is going to be all over the place--

On Thursday we had the opportunity to go to the temple.  We woke up super early and left the time we usually get up at, and then participated in a session with a handful of missionaries and the mission pres and his wife.  It was so nice.  We even had a little meeting before the session in a special chapel in the temple made for actual meetings and stuff, like our little group of missionaries.

The weather here has been so nice.  It’s warming up, but it’s not that bad because we go tracting when it’s cooled down and other than that, we are either in the car, a house, or some place that’s air conditioned.  So it’s really not that bad.  I say that now though. Hopefully it won’t get any worse. (Moms note; it will!)

In all the meetings we have, like Zone meeting, meeting with the STL”s and the sisters they are over, and a meeting we had with all the greenies and their trainers on Friday, someone needs to play the piano!  And no one knows how to play.  I know how to play 2 hymns.  Sis. J is already so tired of Praise to the Man and Choose the Right! Haha.  I play these hymns everywhere we go and those are the only ones we sing lol.  Either I need to learn some new hymns or more elders and sisters need to be called to this area who can play the piano!

One thing I learned this week that Sis J taught me; if you know me, you know that I love detail.  I mean, just look at any of email or blog posts! Or, if you’ve ever had a conversation with me, I tend to say a lot more than needed.  Sister J noticed that pretty fast; especially in some of the lessons that we’ve had.  So she taught me something that I absolutely love and that I will always remember! Hopefully always thinking about it might jam the concept eventually into my head so I can actually do it.  When you give information to someone, or teach them a lesson, it’s like giving them change.  One lesson or point or concept or whatever, is $.25 cents.  There are many ways you can give that $.25. In pennies, nickels or dimes, or a quarter.  In what way would you like your change? Most people prefer one quarter, because 25 pennies is just too much change! When I teach and give detail, I speak in too many pennies.  I tend to give them the details and every point that I know and love about it, but most people just want a quarter.  It’s easy to handle and comprehend and having a lot of pennies is confusing and not fun to carry around.  Also, you are more likely to lose pennies than quarters in my opinion.  So I’m really working on, in all my conversations, to hand people quarters and not pennies!  It’ll be hard, but as long as I catch myself when I am about to give pennies, maybe I’ll at least give them nickels and dimes instead.  : )

Well, I love you all and miss you tons! Your prayers and thoughts and mail are all really appreciated and I love them more than you know.

I hope everything’s great back home!

Remember that God loves you, and that He’s in the details of your lives.  And I love you too!

I hope you enjoy all my pennies!
Sister Brown :)