November 18, 2013

Hey everybody!

85 degrees..... I can assure you that it is not 85 degrees here haha. I can imagine that that is nice though. It's getting pretty dang cold over here. Getting closer and closer to the 0 mark on the thermometer (Celsius of course, but still...) Probably won't be too much longer before we start to see some snow. We'll see though.

We did get to go to the temple on Saturday, which was awesome. We actually went up pretty early in the morning and did confirmations for a baptism session. It was a ward temple trip so it was just us and members of the ward. So that was sweet. Two Americans doing confirmations in German of people with French names... it was beautiful. But then we were also able to do an endowment session with all the adult ward members officiated by our branch president and his wife.. so that was pretty cool. 

I did receive the first birthday package and it was wonderful. The Take-5's are already gone. 

That's sweet that Stake Conference had a lot to do with Hastening the Work... ours here in Heidelberg did as well. It's pretty nice to be a missionary now and have that as a resource in our interactions with members. It'll be interesting to look back down the road and see how these changes take shape. Pretty exciting. 

Well, it was good to have some good news about BYU sports... I'm glad the basketball team is looking good. I miss BYU basketball probably more than football. Crazy that the season is already starting up again. That's too bad about Todd Christensen... dang. 

But yeah, this week was good. The temple was a highlight, but we had fun. This is the last week of the transfer... which is insane. Time goes so fast. But we have the opportunity tomorrow to meet with President Osguthorpe, the General Sunday School President, tomorrow for a missionary meeting. It's just Frankfurt Zone, Langen, and Darmstadt districts so that will be pretty sweet. We're excited for that. 

But other than that, I hope everything is going well, and that everyone has a great week. 

Tschüß!

Elder Brown

November 11, 2013

Hey everybody!

Pretty quiet week here in Langen as well, so we're in the same boat there. But it was still good and had some good stuff happen. Just keeping it going haha. 

We had a pretty solid dinner appointment last night. We went over to a couple in the ward who are way cool. He is American, retired from the Air Force, and she is from here, maybe Austria... I don't know, she speaks German though. But they made us the biggest steaks I have ever seen in my life. I ate a LOT of steak and I still had like a fourth of it left. So we'll be eating those for lunch when we get back to the apartment. But she made some delicious potatoes and salad too so it was pretty solid. And he had gotten A&W Root Beer, either from a base here or from America, but anyways, we had it and it was wonderful. And he gave us a couple to take home so those are also waiting for me. They are way cool though, so yesterday was a good day.

Stonebriar... it's going to be crazy going there and NorthPark again because Germany does not have that kind of mall. They have little malls every now and then, but nothing like those places. Most shopping here is done on the Fuß, which is kind of like a big outdoor pedestrian plaza, kind of like the Southlake Town Centre.

Germany doesn't do anything really around Thanksgiving that I know of. Except our Elder's Quorum is having a Turkey dinner on the 29th for a Voradventfeier... Advent is the beginning of December as far as I know. I'll get my holiday knowledge straightened out here sooner or later. But as you read in that article you sent me... Germany takes Weihnachten seriously. I'm pretty excited. 

I haven't seen anything too historical or crazy since I've gotten here, but one little sobering but kinda cool thing they do here (Germany that is) as a memorial for the Holocaust, is in front of houses where Jewish people lived during the war, they have little tiles on the sidewalk for every person that say if they escaped or were killed and when they were taken from their homes and stuff. So that's a pretty eye-opening thing to see when we come across them. 

Too bad about the BYU game... I'm pretty sure I've given up expecting the football team to come through so I'm not as devastated as I would be before. My mind has shifted to basketball now haha. March Madness is coming up again! In like 4 months but whatever!

The work is going well. Pretty slow, and kinda frustrating at times, but it goes forward anyways. The branch is really cool and I love the members.  We'll keep going haha. I'm having fun, and time is flying. I can't believe it's already the middle of November. 

The language is going good, by the way.

But... anyways, that's about it from my side. Hope everyone has a great week, and know that I love you all!

Tschüß!

Elder Brown

November 4, 2013

Hey everybody, 

My November has also gone great so far. Halloween wasn't anything too special here... we taught English class to an older member in the ward, so that was fun, and then we watched On the Lord's Errand auf Deutsch for language study... pretty exciting stuff.

Thanks for the email addresses! I'll have to ask Landon if he's met an Elder Cottle (my friend Hayden) because they're in the same mission. He said (Hayden) that he thinks he's met Carina but he can't remember for sure. Cool connections though.

This week was good here in Langen. Still a little slow, but starting to pick up. We have started teaching the wife of one of the members in the branch, and that's been fun. She's from the Philippines, and she's way cool. We're excited about that. And then we met with a lot of members and had some great appointments. One of the sisters in the ward is from France and we made crepes and they were wonderful. I told her about Flip Happy Crepes and it made me want to go to Austin haha. But we also had some cool experiences talking to people on the street. We printed off a big QR code to a Mormon Message and just went around asking people to scan it, and one guy did. He then watched the whole video and we gave him a Book of Mormon. It was pretty cool. We'll see where that goes. Then on the way back from District Meeting, we were walking back to the apartment and two girls told us to come and tell them happy birthday... so we did haha. Then we talked about what we do and the Church for a couple hours. So we'll also see where that goes. Lots of potential... now we just wait and see what they do. So is life. 

Oh yeah, fun fact. President Uchtdorf used to be the Stake President here. Kinda cool. A member couple showed us a picture of them with him a while back and he looked way young. It was kinda funny.

I loved Dad's mission stories, I've definitely had many similar ones here. I need to start being more detailed in my journal, I've been pretty basic so far. New goal for the week. 

But yeah, that's about it right now. Things are going well. Have a great week everyone, and I love ya,

Elder Brown 

October 28, 2013

Hey everybody!

Happy Halloween! Good ole Trunk or Treat... Yeah, I definitely want to do a trunk or treat next year wherever I am. I know that they're having one in Darmstadt (bigger city right below us, also the biggest ward in the mission) and we're way jealous. It would be way cool. I'm sure Olivia will have fun with that though.

But yeah, things are going great after getting settled down here in Langen, I'm excited to be here. 

The week was pretty good. One of the slower weeks I've had on the mission as far as teaching goes (the area's kind of a work in progress) but we actually were pretty busy. We helped a couple times with moves, which is always nice to do some good manual labor haha. We helped one family move within the ward boundaries, and then helped a new family move in, so that was cool.

But then I also went on a split to Darmstadt, and that was fun. Fun fact for the day: The piano that President Uchtdorf tells the story about in the "Lift Where You Stand" talk is the piano in the Darmstadt church building... so yeah, saw it, it was sweet. I also stayed in Langen on a split and that was interesting finding my way around. Luckily the area's pretty small. 

The weather has actually been surprisingly nice, but it's starting to get colder and rainier. It'll soon be time to break out the big guns as far as clothes go haha.

But yeah, that's about it at the moment….love you guys, have a great week!

Elder Brown

October 21, 2013

Hey everybody!

Hello from Langen! Transfers went about as smoothly as you can hope for, so that was nice. Just packed up all my stuff, and then jumped on a train from Düsseldorf to Frankfurt early Thursday morning. That takes about 2 hours. Once we got to Frankfurt Hbf, we just kind of hung around there for a little bit talking and getting lunch with the other missionaries getting transferred. It was a cool opportunity to see some people that got transferred away from Düsseldorf  while I was there, as well as some people from my MTC group. So that was fun. 

The branch here is actually larger (as far as attendance) than Solingen was, which is kind of interesting. It could possibly become a ward pretty soon. And they are so cool. I'm way excited to work here. They are just way excited to help us out and they're just overall pretty tight. I like it here already. I'll probably end up doing less at church (sacrament, lessons, etc.) here than in Solingen. Did I tell you guys that I taught Elders Quorum the first Sunday of last transfer in Solingen? That was pretty fun. Just me by myself haha. Chapter 17 in the Teachings of Lorenzo Snow.

Yeah, leaving Solingen was pretty sad. There are some people there that I will definitely never forget. And serving with Elder Anderson will definitely be one of the highlights of my mission. That kid was so cool. 

The first week was pretty solid. My first day here we had a great appointment with a young member couple and ate some delicious waffles. They eat their waffles/pancakes with applesauce a lot in Germany. It's delicious. Then we had our English class at the Church and I talked about corporate citizenship with a Ukrainian guy for like 30 minutes and helped him out with some pronunciation (sp?) so that was pretty tight haha. Then we had a coordination meeting with our Ward mission leader, who is way cool. 

Friday we had Zone Training in Heidelberg, which is a way pretty city. My MTC comp, Elder Renn, is in this zone, so that was great to see him again. Then that night we had our Bibelkreis, or Bible circle, at the Church, and it was way good. One of the members taught about Genesis 3, and it was way interesting. Saturday we helped with a move for a family. Elder Squires and I had a good time constructing an Ikea double bed thing. We kinda hit a road bump at the end and it was us and 3 members debating what was wrong with it and then we just said "We'll get it next time" and went home haha. It was fun. 

Sunday was great, Church was really good, like I said, the gemeinde [ward/congregation] is great and were super welcoming. We had a lunch appointment with a couple which was good. Talked about Elder Nielsen and Elder Ballard's talks. Then we went to the birthday party of our ward mission leader's son and that was fun. 

But other than that, things are just going great. Elder Squires is really cool. Love you guys, have a great week! 

Elder Brown

October 14, 2013

Hey guys!

First off I guess. Transfer calls were this week... and after almost 6 months in Solingen... I'm gone. Kinda sad, but at the same time I'm excited. I'll be serving in a town called Langen, in Heidelberg Zone. It's about a 20 minute S-Bahn (the slowest type of train) ride from downtown Frankfurt... so that's pretty cool. The town is super small though (like 30,000 people) and it's just a branch there. My companion's name is Elder Squires, who was actually in Solingen for 3 transfers before me. So that's cool. He is District Leader. Really weird to be leaving Solingen though. Haven't really wrapped my head around it yet. 

But other than that, the week was pretty quiet. We had a really unexpected death in the ward, so we helped a lot with the funeral preparation and stuff. That was pretty sad. I had a pretty good relationship with a lot of the family, and it was pretty rough on them, so yeah... pretty sad. But the funeral service was really nice. 

But as far as Halloween here... I think they do it, but it's nowhere near as popular. The only time I ever talked to a German about Halloween, they weren't very big fans and just saw it as a money-maker. I think that's probably the view of a lot of people here. We'll see though. 

That's good that BYU had a good game. Hopefully they can settle into a good rythym and finish the season strong. When does basketball season start? I've actually missed BYU basketball way more than football... Kinda surprising. I loved going to those games. How's the team looking this year?

Stanford.... come on. I'll have to talk to Conner about that one. Haha, that's crazy. And I heard Texas beat OU pretty bad... that means BYU is better than OU right??

But yep, biggest thing on my mind is transfers right now. Just crazy that I'm leaving this place. I have loved it, there's been the fair share of ups and downs but it really has become like a home to me. Elder Anderson has really become one of my best friends, and I hope we see each other again sometime in the next 18 months. I'm excited for something new though, and to serve kind of in the middle of everything. I think that will be cool. We've got a lot of appointments with some of the members lined up for the next few days, so I'm excited for that. It's been a good time here. 

Keep being awesome, I don't really need anything right now. Life is good. I'll let you know how transfers go!!

Tschüss!!

Elder Brown

October 7, 2013

Things are going really well here. The weather's nice today, and has been fairly nice for the past week. We had a nice busy week and, in spite of one day spent trying to beat a pretty bad cold, we had a lot of fun. Transfer calls are on Saturday and I'm really just focusing on making it a good, fun week here just in case. I really have loved it here.

That's cool that they broadcast Priesthood session this time, I bet that was nice. Did you still get ice cream though??? That's what's most important. But I did get to see the majority of General Conference. Saturday morning session is on Saturday night here, and we watched that in Köln, but got there late because we had a Zone street display in Aachen that went a little late. We watched that one in German because of some technical difficulties, but I still understood most of it. And then Priesthood was on Sunday morning, back in Düsseldorf. That was good, I really liked President Uchtdorf's talk in that. Then we watched Saturday afternoon session, which I thought was awesome. Elder Nielsen, Elder Holland, and Elder Ballard's talks were awesome. Exclamation point. Then Sunday morning on Sunday night haha. Still haven't watched Sunday afternoon. Really liked Elder Oaks' and President Monson's talks. Those were all in English, btw. 

That was also really cool because one of our Young Single Adult’s roommates came for the Sunday morning (aka night in Germany) session and was like taking notes and everything. Pretty cool. During Elder Oaks' talk she leaned over and said "he's good" or something like that haha. Pretty cool. And she was watching it on an iPhone in Russian. Technology is pretty cool these days. 

The temple a couple weeks ago was indeed in German. It was really cool though, understood basically everything and didn't really have any problems. 

Gosh dang it Rangers..... Oh well. Maybe next year. Good about BYU though. 

That's awesome about Olivia. Man, I can't wait to see that crazy kid again. 

This week was good though. We met with some cool people and just had a good time. I've really grown to love the people here in Solingen, members, less actives, investigators, crazies, the whole bunch. It'll be interesting to see what happens this weekend.

But that's about it. Love you guys!!! Hope everything goes well this week That's about it! Bis nächstes mal!!

Elder Brown