Hello St. Vincent

Oh man I am in St. Vincent now! (if you missed last weeks, read that first, below
 - sent the same day) I am so excited to be here that I would do backflips if I could. Guyana had been nice but I am so ready to be on an island. Here it's a mixture of paradise and hell. I can see the beautiful blue ocean every day that I wake up and every few days there is a new cruise ship that arrives and then white people come out. Germans came the other day and it had been so long since I have seen a white woman that it just felt nice. They all had boyfriends and stuff plus I am a missionary so it was all good. My last day in Guyana was alright. One guy told me to quit lying to people and then he saw we took his friend with us to teach and then he treated us respectful. I got some pictures with people there but for some reason the memory card went crazy and now it won't work  Those pictures may be lost forever but let's hope not. I was so excited to get on the plane and it was super tiny but they wouldn't let me get a picture of it. The plane had 2 propellers. Some rasta that was super high on something came up to Elder Galati and I (Elder Galati looks like Matt Damon) and he started to say the most random things. Elder Galati told the guy a story of how "A man was once riding an elephant and he had this bug gun to his side. There was this tiger walking next to them but the elephant shooed him away with his ear but really the man was just playing dominoes." The rasta just thought that was so deep. He then proceeded to pull out a bag of pot and Elder Galati said it was evil. He "Knew a guy that smoked 3 marijuanas and almost died." The rastas are funny and we try to get a quote of the week from them. They always say they overstand you which is better than understand. This branch is sweet though. It has such a nice building (My first building that isn't a house) and I hear it's the best in the Caribbean. There is a lady in the branch who has an amazing conversion story and her faith is so strong. She has like 4 kids and she made costumes for Pirates of the Caribbean and met the actors and all that. That movie was filmed here to by the way no biggie. Also a member said that he is good friends with Mila Julovich who plays Alice on the Resident Evil movies. So this week we are planning on getting Mila Julovich and Johnny Depp baptized. Not really but that would be cool. I love it here and I have been working hard. The hills get steep and my leg muscles have grown so much! I love this place so much and there will probably be tears when I have to leave. We already met some people from branch members that are super interested. I have got to be honest in saying I am in paradise now. They say St. Martin is the best but I love it here! The people are fantastic!

-Elder Brown

My new comp, Elder Galati

Goodbye Guyana

Here is my last week message (not received until this week): Goodbye to Guyana! Well I got some news that is pretty sweet! I am leaving Guyana! I have been here for the past 7 and a half months. I don't want to sound negative but I am excited to see more of the mission. I am going to an island called Saint Vincent. My companion served right next to where I was so he has told me a bit about it and I am excited! Pirates of the Carribean was filmed here too. But for this week I have some stories. This week we went to a stand and ate these things that were like cinnamon rolls but had meat instead and tasted more like a meaty meal. The rainy season is back in Guyana and it feels pretty good when it rains. This week we got AC and I slept like a baby the first day. Good thing my next apartment will have it too I hear. My next apartment is sweet from what I hear. I hear St. Vincent is a lot more quiet. That will be nice because I swear everytime I start teaching a lesson someone decides to play really loud music. This week the attitude someone had towards Elder Egbert and I made me pretty sad. This lady just walked up to us and said we can't teach her about God. She said we are way too young. She was really rude and I mentioned that Samuel was a prophet even younger than we were. She said we can't compare ourselves to him. We just told her we love her and didn't want to argue and she said we were too young to argue. We went and talked to another really nice family and it was nice getting to know them. It made me feel better about what had happened. As we walked back to the main road the lady kept staring at us and called us gay. It makes me sad to see how hard hearted people can be but I remember something my brother Paul sent me in an email a while back. He told me that what I am doing out here is not wrong. It is a good thing. That gave me so much comfort in knowing that people will just say whatever they want. It's her own condemnation. I would not have minded if she respectfully told us she didn't want to hear our message but she approached us and said all those things. Something I have seen that is sad too is one guy used to be a member of our church but left because he "backslid" as they all say. Which is no excuse not to repent. I asked why he stopped coming to church and he said it was boring (Sometimes it can be a little more dull) but he said he wants to go to a church that cast out demons and bad spirits that people don't even know they had. That's what saddens me. It seems that a lot of churches have become just parties. Our generation is obsessed with the movie Paranormal Activity. That's the only time they care about religion is when it has something cool like a demon leaving the body. It's sad to see that's how churches do that. It has become more of a circus than a church. Last story is it was funny that we went over to see someone and we helped cut up some vegetables and she just went in the back room and slept while we helped. Sorry this update is a little late we had a black out mid email and my companion did not want to go back to check it.

Awesome Week!

Well this week was fantastic so I gotta try and send it all in one email. This might just be a long one. So it started off like this. I bought a few cans of Dr. Pepper which I get every so often because it's 1 US Dollar per can so it's expensive kinda. I poured the Dr. Pepper in a glass and smelt it and enjoyed it. The smell brought back some old memories back to me of back home. I knew it would be a great week. I went to this awesome family named the Georges. Brother George is less active till his son can drive. He had a kidney transplant and his body is rejecting it. He recently had a stroke and can't move one of his arms but he knows the gospel is true! He is an amazing inspiring man. His grandson came out in his Spider-Man costume and I just had to get a picture with him. Along with a great week you always have to get some weird things otherwise it is not complete. This one lady is a sister of one of our less actives. This lady is a 7th Day Adventist. She lives the law of Moses still. She covers her head with whatever she can when she prays for us and she always hits on my companion. She complemented his white shirt and "Strong shoulders" this last time we went. She said my shirt looks green and like ice cream. I wasn't too sad to hear she doesn't like me like that. She is a little strange. This week I have had some desires for when I get home. (I know I am not trying to get too trunky) When I get home I want to study the Bible and Book of Mormon together and get a huge white board and draw an ancestor chart for all sorts of tribes and not only the tribes of Israel. There is so much to learn and I want to do it all by myself and gain that knowledge. I can probably look it up but then that would take away all the fun. We only get 1 hour of personal study each day and that is not enough! Also it's not that I hate my companion or anything but when I get home I want to drive up to Utah alone. It would be nice to be alone finally after so long. Probably take my family dog if possible and go see Paul up there. I for some reason miss the Grand Canyon. This week I thought about something funny too. Expectations and reality out here. I think about how everyone is a child of God and that they will accept this message and then I walk outside and everyone is drunk as a skunk. This week that changed a bit. We ran into some guys drinking and they wanted to chat and we did with them for a minute. I have to admit they did buy us some drinks and Elder Egbert and I drank with them. They were so kind. Drunk people are fun to drink with. Good thing they bought us WATER ha ha. We gave them cheers with our water and then they said wine is good because Jesus changed water into wine. I told them that was true but it never said that Jesus drank that wine and that they were drinking rum right then so it was different. There is this shop near our house and the guy selling stuff always watches AMC. It is nice to hear it playing when I get a soda. I bought a Coke and an ad for Walking Dead Season 4 came on. Oh boy did that get me trunky! I can wait till I get home though. Oh boy is there a drinking problem here though. One night we walked past this party area as usual where a lot of pot is smoked and tons of beers and we always get stopped by some random drunk person (new guy each time) and this lady drives and parks in the middle of that walk way and gets out with a half drank beer bottle. Yeah drinking and driving is a good idea right? This week we were teaching a less active and this stupid kid she has drew all over my back. It felt good like my mom scratching my back till I found out what he was doing. I can't be too mad though. He needed to see if it had ink. My companion is giving up soda so he acted like he drank one when a member gave us some but he just poured it into my cup when he wasn't looking. Lucky me! We contacted this one Hindu lady who tried giving us excuses for us not to meet her. She said she didn't live there and her grand daughter right next to her said she was lying and when we left it was so funny to hear her get yelled at. "What the heck?! Why are you trying to set me up?!" I wanted to go back and say to her that she could have simply said no thanks but we didn't. Guyana people are all talk. Some kid a few years younger than me rode his bike past me and said he was going to rob me. I told him I would rob him first and he kept riding. No one will act upon what they say it's funny! The best part of this week is how many referrals we got! 15! We worked hard on them and last night we slept great after this amazing week! That's all and I gotta go!

Love you all!

Making my own cake

I found Spiderman in Guyana

Yah, I'm 20 now!

Back Art

-Elder Brown

Guyana Birthday party - The Dog loves me

Birthday Weekly Update

This week was packed full of good stuff but first off I want to publicly say Happy Birthday to my oldest brother CJ yesterday! 20 years ago he was also lucky to get a little baby brother on his birthday ha ha. This week we have met people and they would tell us that they have been baptized into our church. We would meet them in front of their house. Turns out that we would teach them and they were baptized into the church of Jesus Christ. No one is ever sure if we baptized them which is weird. You would think you would remember that you were dunked under water. Also my branch mission leader tells me the new Spider-man trailer came out. NO SPOILERS!!!! I don't even want to know the villain. I want to end my mission at the right time and just pop it into the dvd player and see what happens. So the Jeffries family was awesome. We cooked Mexican food for them on Halloween I believe it was. They don't celebrate that here. I asked them if they liked the Jalapenos and she said to me "Jalapenos? I thought it was Halloween." It made both Elder Egbert and I laugh so hard. Also I would tell people a few days before my birthday that Diwali was on my birthday. Apparently that means I am a thief man. Elder Egbert was born on Friday the 13th. These drunk guys called me Thief man for that and Elder Egbert Satan for having that birthday. Drunk people have interesting philosophies. We also contacted this lady named Roxanne and it was so funny because she said "You know like that song? Roxanne!" I asked her if she liked the Police but she didn't get it. I guess she doesn't know what the song is about either. Something that was kinda sad to think about this last week was this little boy put on his dad's shirt (which was way big on him) and saw us and said to us "Let's go to church! It's the sabbath!" This makes me always want to be a righteous father when I get older. His dad is our investigator and his mom is less active. Always be a righteous parent.

 So for my birthday last night we fasted the whole day and we got offered 7 curry which they give out at weddings and never any other time accept for Diwali or special occasions. Diwali everyone gives free food but we had to deny the 7 curry. I have never tried it and it's wrapped in a big leaf. Everyone says it's the best. People were throwing big fireworks everywhere so we went home like 2 hours early because everyone was drunk and throwing basically bombs right next to us. Today they are celebrating it still and most places are closed. I am surprised that the internet shop is open. Last little story is short. I told a lot of people my birthday was Sunday and this drunk lady said to me "It's your birthday right?" She grabbed me and put her arm around me and it was so odd. I could smell the alcohol in her breath. She was old and missing teeth. Well That's about all for this week. I will try and upload some pictures now.

-Elder Brown