Elder Cornish and The Wise Man

Hello all!!

This week was so great! So Elder Cornish of the 70 gave an amazing talk in General Conference a couple weeks ago and he used to be (or still is, I don't really know) the 70 over where I lived in Georgia!
He like spoke at my trek and in my stake and Ward and everything and he's pretty much the best ever. And he came to the mission! He spoke to us missionaries on Thursday and it was wonderful. At lunch, the sisters of my zone sat and talked with him on a personal level and asked him questions and we learned a lot just from that little thing! He is really amazing and a man called of God and I feel so privileged to have had the opportunity to receive personal counsel from him :)

So there's not really much to say about this week, so I'll tell a story that Elder Cornish told and it has changed my perspective of my trials:
So once upon a time there was this Widow and her son who lived in a cottage on a hill with one cow. When it was a year of good rain, the cow ate well and gave good milk and they had a successful year selling the milk. When it didn't rain too good, the cow didn't eat very well because nothing grew, therefore it didn't give good milk and they had a horrible year because they didn't make any money with the milk. So they were really struggling, because their profits were dependent on the rainfall of the year. One day, a wise man came into town and the son went to town to get advise from him. The wise man felt like he could help them, so he followed the son back to the cottage on the hill. Looking at the cottage, he said "I see your problem" and then he went to the cow and grabbed him by the horns and led him away. The son followed and watched to see what he would do. He took the cow all the way to the end of the land to the edge of a cliff. He then led the cow to the very edge, and then pushed him off. The son looked down at the very dead cow way down there, speechless. (The son, not the cow. Well, the cow too, because he was dead 😊) The wise man looked at the
wide-mouthed son and then said, "You're welcome. I'll come back in 10 years to see how you're doing."
So sure enough, the Wise man came back 10 years later and the town had flourished dramatically. There was a beautiful courtyard with a huge, beautiful house in the middle of town.  He went to the nearest villager and asked who lived in the big house in the center of town. The villager said that it was a Widow and her son that used to live in a cottage on the hill. The wise man simply said, "I thought so" and left.
At this point, Elder Cornish asked all us missionaries what happened? He killed their only source of income! How did it help? Elder Cornish then closed his story with explaining that sometimes you can be stuck
with what you are doing at the moment. Kill the cow and look for new possibilities and prosper to a new potential.
So that story has changed my perspective entirely! So when you are stuck in a trial and don't know what to do, check to see if you are stuck doing something that is to prohibiting you from progressing.

So, basically Elder Cornish is amazing and changed my life once again :) this week we met with The Cohen's again and taught the restoration lesson to Maceo! Sister LeDoux was feeling sick that night, so I went on splits with sister Savea and we had dinner with them and taught the lesson. It was pretty great! Maceo aid he was going to pray about it because it was a lot to take in, but hopefully he will recognize the spirit and know that God called Joseph Smith to be a prophetic these latter days.

Well that's about it for this week! I love you all and I hope you liked the story from Elder Cornish. Because I loved it. Thanks for writing me and reading my long emails. I'm trying to make them shorter
and less painful to read :)

Sister Brown :)

Sacrifices, even forced ones, bring forth blessings

Hello everyone! So this week has been a roller coaster of good and bad.  But I have come to realize that everything is from God, even the not-so-happy things.

Well it started off with exchanges, and Hermana McAffe came to my area for the day. We talked about dropping some of the investigators we had who aren't really committed I order to make time to find the ones who really were. It was sad thinking about it, but I knew I had to drop some people that I loved seeing because they just weren't progressing.

One investigator, Vanessa, was one that was progressing and we weren't going to drop because she had a baptismal date! Hermana McAffe and I visited her and talked to her about some questions she had and things
that she learned by looking us up on the Internet. We suggested that she just use Mormon.org for her research and set up a Book of Mormon reading appointment with her for the next day.

Well the next day, Thursday, is planning day, where we spend most morning hours after studies to plan for the next week. In the middle of planning, Vanessa texted us saying that she wanted to stay with her beliefs and basically said goodbye. We were shocked! Sister LeDoux and I didn't know what to do, so right then and there we prayed for guidance and then we both immediately felt like we needed to pack up everything and drive to her house. So that's what we did, but she ended up "not being home." We were both devastated. We didn't know what to do, so we just picked a street and tracted because we wanted to show Satan that this wouldn't get us down, even though it really had.

A couple appointments we had planned after that also fell through, and then Vanessa texted us to let us know she didn't want to see us any more. So right now the roller coaster is all downhill. But it starts picking back up when we had a lesson with the Cohen's! So Tamir and Cade are the ones with baptism dates on the 22nd and their mom is Claudia, a returning less-active member. So those three were there, along with Maceo, Claudia's boyfriend, and Brooklyn (15) and Nathan (12), Maceo's kids. They all listened as we taught about the
importance of the Book of Mormon and they all committed to go to church on Sunday! They are all amazing and so fun! We had a great time and they asked so many good questions. That night Maceo, Brooklyn, and
Nathan all became new investigators!

So even though it was sad to see Vanessa go on unhappy terms, the day ended good with the Cohen's. And we weren't planning on dropping Vanessa, so it was God just letting us know that she wasn't ready and
we shouldn't waste are time with her either, even though I love her and miss her tons already. But if she wasn't ready, she wasn't ready, and there was nothing sister LeDoux and I could've done. But the same day we dropped Vanessa, we got 3 more new ones, so I guess it's God telling us that it was worth it and that He's got it covered.

The next day we tracted and we found Daisy, a mom who was watching her kids play outside. We talked to her about what we do as missionaries. She asked us a lot of good questions, which eventually led to a mini
restoration lesson! She said she'd pray about Joseph Smith and said we could come back, so we are so excited to see her again! We set up a return appointment and got another new investigator :)

On Saturday, the Peccole Ranch community was having a community wide garage sale and Sister LeDoux and I went around from garage to garage passing out donation flyers for Deseret Industries. It was good because so many people were outside who normally aren't and they were able to see us and know that we are in the area. No return appointments came from it, but a lot of missionary talk and invitations to church :)

Sunday, all the Cohen's came to church!! It was a little hectic because the. Butch was PACKED because there was a senior missionary farewell, a baby blessing, and three baptisms occurred the day before, but we managed to shift around and move chairs in the middle of the meeting and all of us were able to sit in the same row in the back eventually. It was fantastic! Tamir and Cade got permission to come to church, even though they are supposed to be with their dad for the weekend, and Maceo and his kids came! They all said they enjoyed it and Brooklyn even said that she wants to come next week!!! EEEP!! We are so excited for them! We are going to have dinner and a lesson with them this week, so look for an update on them next week!

In my studies this week I have been diving into 1 Nephi in depth and I love it! I'm learning so much that otherwise I wouldn't have thought of. I'm learning to appreciate God's work more and how he works so
much through other people, especially His prophets. The Book of Mormon at first just seems like a bunch of stories, but when you dive into it, you see all the way deeper meanings and how there is spiritual
meaning to every verse! I encourage you all to read the Book of Mormon and don't keep track of how many verses or chapters you read. Just read for 20 minutes and write down the impressions and thought you
have about each verse, even if it's as simple as "and my father dwelt in a tent." You might get through 4, maybe one day 15. But you get way more out of it and you see more clearly how they relate to you and
your life now.

I love you all and I thank you for all your prayers and support! I hope everyone's okay with the hurricane. I don't know anything about it, I just know it exists, so just be safe, k? :) Love you!!

Sister Brown :)

Conference

So we had an exciting week! I'm getting to know Sister LeDoux better every day and she is absolutely a fantastic missionary! She is so ready to work and love the people of Las Vegas and I feel humbled to know that God has trusted me to help her become the missionary that He wants her to be. But honestly, I'm just struggling trying to be a missionary like her right now! She's really amazing and is training me how to be a better missionary. I feel so privileged to be able to work with her and to get to know her more!

This week was really great on Monday after picking up Sister LeDoux, Sister Campos was allowed to join us for her last lesson of her mission and we went to the Cohen's, Tamir and Kade's house, and watched Meet the Mormons! Claudia, Tamir and Kade's mom. had her boyfriend. Maceo, over and we really brought it to watch it with him :) but I had never seen if before, so it was really neat! If you haven't seen Meet the Mormons, go watch it. It's really cool and shows inspiring stories of regular people who have been successful in their lives, and just happen to be Mormon as well :) It was a wonderful lesson and I think they all enjoyed it! then I had to say good bye to Sister Campos and that was really hard for me. She was an amazing missionary and I have been so sincerely blessed and loved to have her in my life and I am grateful that I had the opportunity to serve with her. Saying goodbye was hard, but hopefully she'll follow my advice and transfer to Idaho because it is the best school, and that way we can see each other again! ;)

The rest of the week we had some orientation and training meetings to attend so those were fun, and it made me grateful to be a trainer so I can learn everything over again :) 

Ok well funny story! So on Friday we went and did some moving and cleaning service for the relief society president, but then we had to leave because we had a training meeting to go to. But we just brought clothes to change into and stuff so we drove to the church and then when we pulled into the parking lot, all of the other missionaries who were going to the training were all just standing out there! So we really didn't want to awkwardly be the only ones not in missionary clothes and walk up to the church, so we put our Grand Caravan to use! we drove to the other side of the building, hopped out of the front seat, and just changed in our very spacious van. It worked great! haha so you might not have thought that was funny, but we had a good laugh about it and were proud of ourselves for finding a solution to not walking up to missionaries awkwardly in jeans and a t shirt haha :)

Also, that night was the Peccole Ranch Ward Talent show and Youth camp fundraiser! It was really awesome to go to a ward activity and see the weird talents of ward members that you didn't know had talents and now we look at them in a new light haha :) but it was really great! and someone invited their non member friend, so it was nice to talk with her and see how she was enjoying it. 

Conference this weekend was so wonderful!!! I realized that I really need to work on having a positive attitude through my trials and not to be disappointed in myself when I don't do everything right the first, second, or even third time. President Dieter F. Uchtdorf said something that really touched my heart, and it was something along the lines of : "Yes, there will be sorrow, regrets, and anger that will cause us to miss opportunities, but in the end we will be astonished by the love that God has for us." He loves you no matter what. He understands that you will make mistakes, and actually he expects us to. Also, throughout the entire conference, I think the most quoted scripture was Alma 7:11-13. This scripture is one of my absolute favorites because it explains sand illustrates how much God loves us that he gave his only son, Jesus Christ, and what the atonement was and what it does for us now. Linda S. Reeves of the Relief Society explained that the greatest miracle wasn't the parting of the red sea or the raising of the dead, but the greatest miracle is the fact that Jesus Christ made it possible to be cleansed of all our sins and to be able to return to God again. THAT was and still is today the greatest miracle. I am so happy that Jesus atoned for my sins and gave me the chance to repent, because he KNOWS I am not perfect and that I will make mistakes that will prevent me from returning to my Heavenly Father. I love conference and I love hearing what our leaders today have been inspired by God to speak to us about, and I am so privileged to have the opportunity to hear it here in Las Vegas and in homes on Investigators and members! If you didn't get a chance to see it, please go to LDS.org and watch What our inspired leaders have to say about our day. Their words are truly scripture :)

I hope you all had a great week and I hope you have an even better one this week! 

I love you all!

Sister Brown :)