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

September 30, 2013

Hey!!

Well that was a better way to start off the email than last week... hopefully the Rangers can pull it off. We did get to go down to the temple on Saturday, and that was awesome! I really like the Frankfurt temple. It's in this little town outside of Frankfurt called Friedrichsdorf, and it actually looks a lot like the Dallas temple, both on the outside and inside. So that was cool. Our new member was there to do baptisms, along  with another Young Adult member and her brother, who just turned 12. So that was a really good day. 

Oktoberfest hasn't started yet, but it's definitely big here. I think it's the biggest down in Bayern, in Nürnberg Zone, but I'm sure we'll still have plenty of celebration here. 

You guys better go to the State Fair and eat a bunch of fried stuff! Haha I miss grungy American junk food so much... All we've got is McDonalds... So sacrifice for me. 

This week was pretty good. Things are pretty slow at the moment, but Elder Anderson and I are just trying to keep going forward and try to make things work. It's been really hard getting appointments to go through, so that's been frustrating, but we're still having a good time, and we're building a good relationship with a lot of the ward, which is good. We've got a lot of people that are right under the surface, so to say, and we just gotta bring them out haha. I think this week will be good though. We're excited. 

I can't think of too much that I need at the moment, I trust your judgement with whatever you feel like sending haha. And yeah I know, but sometimes you just need a break from the Haribo!

But that's about it from my side, hope you all have a great week!!

Tschußßß

Elder Brown

September 23, 2013

Heyyy everybody!

Death, taxes, and BYU football crushing the souls of their loyal fans: the three certainties in life. 

That's all I'll say about that haha... but I'm glad that everything else seemed to go well this week! I still think it's so cool that you guys are working at the temple, I hope that's still the case when I get home, that'd be sweet. Elder Anderson and I are hoping to get down to the temple this Saturday with some people from the ward, but we'll see. 

Oh man.. Mr. Chopsticks. I miss that place. It has been far too long since I've had some good sushi. 

That's cool that you had a missionary work sacrament meeting, we're having one this week hopefully where we will all speak for a short time about our missions and then our ward mission leader (coolest guy ever, professional drummer, knows Eminem and Madonna and Phil Collins and stuff) will speak about member missionary work. So that'll be good. 

Glad to know that it isn't just BYU blowing it, and that the Rangers are also doing their best to let everyone down. Haha, man I miss being a part of the ups and downs of sports season. 

But this week was pretty solid. Elder Hawker (new DL in Wuppertal, super cool dude) and I were able to meet with our recent convert's friend on a split, and that was way good. Taught about the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. It went well. Visited an old investigator at the request of his member friend and he might have some interest in starting again, so we'll see where that goes. We had a pretty solid adventure on Saturday. A member of our bishopric gave us a list of names to go by in a city in our area called Wipperfürth. So we did. It took two hours by bus to get to Wipperfürth, and then we walked for an hour to get to the first name. She didn't live there anymore. And we were in the middle of nowhere. Like literally we had no idea. So then we just waited for an hour or so for a bus, took some sweet pics, and then took the bus all the way back. That was our whole day haha. And there's still some names on the list so we might do it again. We'll see. 

But we're excited for this week, we've got a lot of good appointments set up so we think it'll be successful. Things are still going really well with Elder Anderson. His parents are from New Zealand and they've got a condo down there so we're gonna go chill there after the mish. Hope that's cool! :) 

Don't need anything at the moment... Just candy I guess haha. Things are good. 

Love you guys!!

Elder Brown

September 16, 2013

Hey Everybody!!

The week was great here in Solingen! Kind of slow as far as the work goes... tons of cancelled appointments and stuff, so that was kinda frustrating, but Elder Anderson and I have fun anyways. We did get a lot of appointments in with less actives though, so that was good. We're also really trying to do better work with the members, so we've been meeting with them more and talking about missionary work a lot. That's been good.

One of our investigators was sick this week, so we weren't able to meet, but it was still pretty awesome. We were at a dinner appointment with a family in the ward, a really cool younger couple in the ward, and I was telling her about how the week was pretty frustrating because we didn't have much contact with investigators. Then like ten minutes later, our investigator texted me and said that while he was sick he had read the whole Book of Mormon and that he wants to be baptized.... Pretty cool haha. So that made the whole week a lot better. 

Other than that, things are slowly picking up. We're going to start meeting with one of our new member's friends tomorrow, so we're excited about that. Other than that, we've got a good amount of member appointments for the week, so we're excited. 

Yeah this transfer was pretty crazy... there were only about 14 or 15 companionships that stayed the same out of 120ish... so yeah haha. Still haven't been a part of it though.  <The mission had a very large transfer this past week, highlighted in a Church blog – over 150 missionaries at the train station at one time>

Welp, that's about all I got. Things are going well here, I'm loving it. I bought some sweaters and a coat so hopefully I won't freeze to death.

Have a great week everybody! 

Tschußß!

Elder Brown

Elder Brown and his new companion, Elder Anderson