The BEST Week. 3-2-14

Family, Hello!

This was perhaps the best week of my entire mission!  a) found out I'm into BYU b) we had a mission tour and c) work work work and loving it!

So right, I got into BYU Provo and I'm super excited about that.  Luckily we have more and more drive to work harder and harder so we're able to keep ourselves sane and focused on being missionaries.  We had a mission tour this week with Elder Ian S. Ardern of the Seventy.  He's the 1st counselor in the Philippines Area Presidency.  He was here for three days.  Tuesday, he arrived and met with us then had MLC, Wednesday we had conference with half the mission in Sorsogon, and Thursday we had a conference with the other half in Legaspi.  This was the best!  I learned so much.  It was like he took anything I thought I understood, and truly opened my mind to what's around me.  I feel so much more aware.  Mostly, I feel so much more aware that there is so so so much more for me to learn and master before I go home.  All of us were inspired.  After the conferences, we had exchanges with a companionship on Friday.  Elder Ardern had talked to us about becoming an example for those around us and so we did.  In one day we taught 17 lessons and found 18 new investigators! 

The best part, for me, was on Tuesday when Elder Ardern arrived.  We got to have a half hour meeting with just him and President Guanzon to talk about the mission.  He shared a few precious things that I hope you can cherish as much as I.  Well, first, he said that he's a former mission president with a million stories.  And that he is.  I'm glad I've been collecting and keeping track of my stories this whole time.  Then he talked to us about well, us - asked how we're doing and a bit like that.  AND GUESS WHAT MOM, he said that I'm supposed to tell you that I'm the missionary you think I am.  So Mother, I'm the missionary you think I am.  Certainly, not everyone is exactly what their parents would want to believe, but Elder Ardern is passing that message to you (:  ...I'm doing my best, and it feels good!

One of my take-aways from the whole week was that I want to go home absolutely and completely exhausted.  Just tired.  I want to go home looking horrible.  But feeling so good.  I want to give every last ounce of my strength here.  Sometimes we have to run these crazy assignments and it's extremely late and I think, what a great excuse to sleep in past 6:30.  Or, we worked hard all night and we're definitely going to have to get extra sleep in the morning so I just won't set an alarm and we'll get up when we get up.  BUT, I've come to understand so much more the power of the Atonement.  We do all these exhausting things and I know that if I wake up on time even if it's just a few hours of sleep, we'll be given the strength we need.  The grace of God is a lot more powerful than an extra hour of sleep.  

Love it!  Love love love it all! (:  Have a wonderful week.  

Elder Shane Scully Brown

Pictures - 

1.  Us with Elder and Sister Ardern

2.  Elder Moncur and !

3.  Exchanges

4.  Pretty much means, "Come unto Lord, not to the druglord".  They have tons of these little motivational anti-drug sayings here.  They're pretty funny when in English - it's usually a bit off or an awkward sentence.  Anyways, we started taking pictures of all of them. 

Valentine's Day and the Office - On the Lord's Errand 2-16-14

Family!  Happy Valentine's day again!

Okay.  This week.  Transfer week.  Got lots done- did transfers, said goodbye to the people going home, met all the new missionaries, did some trainings, drove money to hospitals, went to meetings, and drove to the bottom of Luzon (this main island we're on) and looked out the ocean at the Tacloban Mission (the one ravaged by the big storm Haiyan, or Yolanda).  We know office work is good, and there's lots we're going to do to improve here, but that's not the most important thing.  I'll get back to that later. 

So Valentine's Day, right?  You'd think that missionaries would spend this alone with their companion and it'd be very unromantic, but guess what, we went on a double date!  It was totally awesome!     ......okay it was a "double date" persay.  A newly wed couple came with us Friday night to teach, thus, the double date - the couple, and my companion and I.  Still, not very romantic, but, we did talk quite a bit about love.  There's this family we teach that was less-active for the longest time (years) then this 1st Sunday of January they just decided that this 2014 year, they're going to come to church every Sunday and they're preparing for the temple trip at the end of this year.  We went to their house and talked all about the love of God.  Seeing the joy in the faces of others and feeling that you were an instrument to remind them of what they once knew....  love it.

I watched the video about President Monson's life (On the Lord's Errand.. http://www.mormonchannel.org/films?v=2253189596001) and I was so hit by all of the examples in his life of following the Spirit exactly.  Every time he felt to do something, he did it.  He wanted the Lord to know that if He ever needs anything done, He can "always call on Tom Monson". Saturday night we walked into the office after attending a baptism at the chapel right next to us.  We sat down and were going to do some random things and I thought of this.  We're on the Lord's errand.  This other stuff can wait.  I felt to go out.  And I wanted the Lord to know that now he can always count on me.....  In a burst of emotion the words flew out of me before I knew I was shouting it, "WE'RE NOT OFFICE ELDERS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!".  Madsen and Iooked at each other, both a bit amazed and taken aback, and within a minute, we were out the door and driving.  Just driving, ready to park in the middle of our area and go for it!  It wasn't until we were halfway there that we realized all we had were three Book of Mormons and a Bible, but we were still determined.  A few minutes later, an emergency came up and we had to race back to the office.      SO..... it didn't go like we thought, but our steam wasn't put out despite all that excitement only to be brought back.  But even now, I'm so much more motivated to get out and do work.  Missionary work. And work, work, work.  Trabaho, trabaho, trabaho. ... Love it. 

And I love you!  Bests, Elder Shane Brown

Pictures - 

1.  Some Elders got approved to have bikes.  Obviously someone had to test them!

2-3.  "You are now leaving the island of Luzon"

4-5.  Elders and a birthday for a primary kid (they fed us after we went to that baptism)  

Mexican Food and Hard Work 2-24-14

Family!

This week..... we worked!  As in, we really, really worked.  Do you remember that thing called "down time"?  - I don't.  We really rocked it this week.  And there were so many rewards.

So here's the interesting things of the week:  Remember Mayon?  The most perfectly formed volcano in the world, and the 2nd most active (I think, at least it's the most active in the Philippines)?  We got home the other night and the office elders who live right next to us were on their balcony and shouted at us to come up ASAP.  We get up there and scanned the area.  It was no secret what they were looking at..... Lava! Literally, there was lava coming out of Mayon!  What?!  It was coming out of the the side though not the top of the cone.  Elder Madsen and I actually went there on Pday last week to go to a touristy place half way up the volcano so we were glad we went when we did.  Anyways, nothing too crazy happened, the world will be okay.  We did here though (and it's I'm sure mostly rumors) that this is the year Mayon is supposed to be more active than usual.  I'll just let you know if it ever blows (slash you'll watch in on international television).  Right, so the other great thing of the week was Sunday.  After church, the Nelsons (senior couple) invited us to eat dinner with them.  We got to there house at the end of a long day of work and guess what was on the Menu... Mexican food!  The best!  It was just like Cafe Rio (but better).  The whole deal.  Kumpleto.  We sure love the senior couples here.  Couldn't say enough.

To return to what I started this with... we gave our all this week.  All of it.  We almost taught the most lessons for our whole mission despite all the planning and things we had to do (we have mission tour next week - General Authority comes and trains the mission)!  Granted... most of those lessons were in other areas on exchanges so it doesn't technically count, but, we sure worked hard.  On Tuesday, President announced that we had to go to Masbate (an island) the next morning at 1am.  We got there and went on exhanges with some elders.  Before we started, President talked to us and taught about faith.  Really, he told us things we already know and could just nod our heads in agreement to, but with his conviction, he made us actually want to do it.  That is, work in faith.  So we go out for pretty much an entire day of tracting and I sure loved every minute (and rejection, and crazy person that opened the doors, and getting laughed at, and being called random things, etc.) of it.  First of all, tracting isn't the most effective way to find people to teach, but if there isn't any help from the ward, any obedient, diligent missionary will still go out and make things happen.  Right so I'm with this Elder and we went to a house that they talked to before and they weren't home but there was someone across the street just sitting down.  Hah somehow we were both a little not-so willing to talk to them, but as I thought about faith somehow the words "If we have faith, we'll go talk to that person" came out of my mouth.  20 minutes later, new investigator, super interested.  Then we walked down a street and there was a guy working on his motor.  Since he was obviously busy, I was a little hesitant.  This time, my companion was the fired up one and he said we had to talk to him.  We did.  Then he let us in.  Then we talked to his wife.  And met his kids.  And taught them.  And they made the decision to be baptized.  And we were happy.  As we walked out, the elder said to me that he had walked passed that house several times and felt he should stop, but it wasn't until now that he actually did.  And what good came of it!

Right so that's my ramble for the week.  Sister Guanzon gave us a bunch of pictures she's taken of the mission stuff over the last few months so I'll attach a few for you.  Love you!

Elder Shane Brown

Pictures - 

1-2.  When we visited Mayon. ...Before it had lava coming out!

Really can't see it in the picture, but I promise the lava was real!

4.  Construction.  No safety ropes what so ever.  Just a guy, his paint, and some bamboo.

5.  Elder Madsen and I simultaneously became George of the Jungle as we swung across this bridge

New week, new transfer, new season 2-10-14

Hello Family!  -Happy advanced Valentine's Day!

Well it's a new week!  It's a new transfer (tomorrow).  And it's a new season!  This passed week was awesome.  I learned so much.  I love leaning.  And this week marks the start of a new transfer.  We transfer planned all week and got everything ready.  We're most excited for our new calendar.  We're really going to try and keep ourselves as busy as possible.  By the way.. it's still Elder Madsen and I together as a companionship.  And of course, we're transitioning into a new season of things.  And I mean that quite literally - It's no longer wet season!  The constant rain has finally stopped.  After just a few days of heat though, I already miss that.  It's not bad in the air con (A/C) office, but it's pretty brutal trying to sleep.  The choice to be able to fall asleep at night are either shower or go find a second electric fan, otherwise you're not going to sleep for a while.

...One of the distinguishing things of a missionary's last week in the field is the "Career Workshop" which basically prepares people for becoming self-reliant as they make the adjustment back into normal life and society.  We don't usually attend this, but we had to drop some things off there and wait a little so we got to see the first and last half hour of it... Sure makes you think about your mission as you sit with these missionaries getting prepared to have it end.  It's always fun though being with the couple missionaries and the departing (going home) missionaries.  We went to their last little dinner at the mission home and had to take people home to their areas since there's no transportation even at just 8:30pm.  ...didn't get home until midnight (late for a missionary) but fortunately we survived.  There was a bunch of road construction at one part.  Rather than put up lights or reflective signs, they just laid torches all the way down the road for a kilometer or so.  This, coupled with the awesome view of the nighttime jungle, made us feel like we were about to enter Jurassic Park or something.  Good thing the dinosaurs don't live here anymore!

So this coming week, we take the departing missionaries to the airport and pick up the new ones.  Should be fun!  Love you!

Love, Elder Shane Brown

Pictures

1.  Celebrating President's birthday

2.  The Nelsons (couple missionaries) brought us REAL milk from an area in the Naga Mission!  Chocolate milk and mango milk - super good.  (real milk doesn't really exist here)

Another Week! 2-3-14

Hello Family!  Sorry I'm late, we went to a zone activity (go to a cool place with 20 other missionaries).  

First offs, New Chinese New Year!  Apparently in the Philippines the Chinese new year is a big enough deal to get a national holiday.  So that was fun (as in, a normal day of missionary life just combined with a little parade and some fireworks).  Who'd of thought though.  I guess we use Cinco de Mayo as an excuse for a holiday and that's not ours either is it?

This week was great!  ...busy!  We went to Catanduanes again!  Island travel sure was more of an adventure the first few times...  As soon as we got back from Cats, we had two days of leadership training which went very well!  I love the opportunities we get to help with all that.  Mostly I like being able to learn so much from President.  The next two weeks are going to be busy, busy!  We have transfer planning (figuring out which area will everyone go to next) this week and the actual transfer week the following week.

Does it get old if I just tell you all about the spiritual things I'm experiencing right now?  Before, I would always try and include something adventurous or a funny story or something in these letters to make them more interesting but after being in the office, I'm slowly running out of those stories!  I can't begin to describe though how often we have powerful spiritual moments.  Golden investigators, soooooo many people coming to church and just always feeling happy and motivated is how I would truly describe this week.  Wish I could tell you every story!  Pictures will have to do.  Love you!

Love, Elder Shane Brown

Pictures - 

1.  Cool view of the church and Mayon covered with clouds in the background.

2.  Suuuuuper vivid rainbow.  If you look closely, you can see the double rainbow above it.  That was really bright as well but started to fade before we could picture it.  Darn.

3-5.  Cool bread!

6-9.  Bits of the parade

10-  Missionaries

"Just one more" 1-27-14

Family,

And so life just keeps getting better and better.  As in, however happy and joyful I thought everything was last week, and the weeks before, it's even better now, and I've no doubt it'll continue to get better.  That's life!  

I got to go on exchanges this week to an area that I used to go on exchanges in this time last year! There's a surreal feeling for you.  On these exchanges, we got to do a lot of tracting.  First of all, there's a better way to find people to teach, but I love tracting.  When you don't have too much support from the branch and you're out of people to teach, it's tracting time.  So on Friday, we were out tracting and met so many different people.  It's amazing the amount of different life styles you can see in just a few hours of talking to everyone you see or pass along.  At the end of the day, we were ready to go meet up with some other elders for dinner, but we thought, "just one more."  I'm now taking this out of my journal entry: "The classic 'just one more' thing happened to us.  We saw a kid in his house not doing anything so we went and tao po'd [(rather than knocking on doors here, you just go outside and yell "people!' so someone knows you're there)].  He came out and after getting to know him, we asked something about what he thinks about Christ. He took a long time to think of an answer.  Normally, you'd want to let them take all the time they need, so that's what I was going to do, but then the thought came to me that he doesn't know much about Christ so I asked if he wanted to learn more and he let us in.  Turns out, his name is Albert and he's 21 yrs. old, and last year, his dad died.  We gave him an overview of the Plan of Salvation and it was just so inspired.  Our questions, our answers and our discernment was so guided and inspired.  I love the gift of the Holy Ghost."

And other exciting news....  had a lot of people we were really really hoping to come to church come.  Much more!  It was actually somewhat cold this last week.  Especially in the mornings it was cold, it made us laugh realizing that we don't even own a single blanket, just bed sheets only.  We are really having a good time.  Sometimes I think we're having to much fun to be missionaries, but missions are meant to be happy (:  Enjoy the pictures!

Love, Elder Shane Brown

Pictures 

1.  The elders' apartment we slept at on Friday was an upgrade from our usual showering with a ladle and scooping water from a barrel.  Look at this shower head!  I mean, it's just a flow of water coming out of the wall, but it was pretty great.

 2-4.  Some sweet pictures, right?

Team,

To describe this week in one word... BIYAHE! (travel).  Biyahe, biyahe, biyahe.  Literally every day but Sunday, we traveled.  Only two of those days were planned.  We went to Masbate (island in our mission) twice. We traveled from north of the mission, to the south, to the north, to the south and to the north.  We took people to the hospital in the middle of the night.  We woke up early, went to bed late, didn't bother sleeping to get on a 2am boat ride (twice).  Etc, etc, etc.  It was pretty fun.  It was an honest prayer to be able to stay awake the whole week, and at last, we made it!

We went to Masbate twice.  Once with President on Tuesday to Wednesday, another just us.  This is a four hour ride on a roro (like a big ferry) with no air con or anything (but it was fine because it was actually quite cold this week with the fierce winds which was worse on the ocean).  It was raining hard too the whole week.  Anyways, since this leaves at 2am, it was quite the adventure.  The first time, we pulled the van onto the ferry and didn't even get out of the van, just fell asleep.  The raging waves of the ocean made you feel like you were in a hammock so that was nice.  Probably the worst experience of our travels was the second time we were going to Masbate - we just had to accompany someone there.  We showed up at the pier an hour early, but I guess this wasn't early enough.  There were no seats!  We always sit in the outside hallway where there are benches that look over the ocean, and even there outside, there were literally no empty seats!  So we stood up for an hour just waiting for the boat to leave and once it did, we just sat down on the dirty, horribly uncomfortable staircase and actually got to sleep there!  Wasn't the most ideal, but it worked.  Then we got to Masbate at 7am, ate breakfast, shopped around for an hour, then we were back on the boat to go back which didn't leave until noon.  Basically, on this day, we were on the boat for 12 hours because of all the waiting we had to do for it to leave then the long trip to/from the mainland.  Considering the roughness of the waves, we did pretty well.  

Well... lots happened this week, but it was all on the road, or the sea.  I was going to elaborately explain the whole week, but just trust that it was fun, long days getting to pretty much tour the whole mission, we are happy, and we're always ready for more.  I'll make sure to send plenty of pictures!

Love , Elder Shane Brown

Titanic Take Two - 

"Jack, look Jack, I'm flying!"

Other Pictures (equally as thrilling) - 

1.  The stairs we slept on

2-3.  Elder Madsen and I (also, with Ady, President's brother)

4-10.  Some views and things

11. California Pride