That's a Wrap!

Dear family,

First, a video!

Well I'm the most shocked of anyone that 18 months has come and gone this fast. Serving a mission has been the best decision I have ever made. People keep asking me, "how have you seen yourself change from the beginning of your mission till now?" And that's really caused me to reflect. Im still me, but I have changed a lot. I know and love my Savior on a personal level that I hadn't experienced before. I understand not just how blessed I am to have the gospel in my life, but how rare that is, and I understand the urgency to bring the gospel to a fallen and searching world. I've learned how to love people. I've learned how to work hard and be happy. I've learned how to repent. The things that I want and my highest priorities in life are different now than they were before my mission. I know that I wouldn't be prepared to be the wife and mother I need to be someday without my mission. It was definitely a necessary part of the plan for me, and such a blessing!

There are three things we can take with us after we die, and that's our knowledge, our character, and our relationships. The relationships I've been able to form on my mission are the most precious things to me. I love everyone I have met and served with here and especially the people I was able to teach. I have seen people change through the atonement of Christ and find true lasting joy, and I know now that all they have to do to start on that path is to read the book. The Book of Mormon is true and I have had an unmistakeable witness of that. Joseph Smith was a prophet. Christ's church was restored through him and is on the earth today. I know God loves us, and I know the Savior is our everlasting friend. The whole purpose of the gospel is to help us live forever with our families. I'm excited to be a member missionary and apply all the things I've learned in a new adventure!

Love you all, and see you soon!
Sister Megan Browning

Bowling

President and sister snow took us after our Monday meeting :) and then we went to lunch. It was like my "last hurrah field trip" he called it. I've never laughed so hard while bowling (you'd be surprised how well missionary humor and bowling go together). Felt like President threw me a surprise birthday party! It was what we all needed because this is gonna be one stressful week with Christmas conferences!

It's December!

Dear Family,

It sounds like you're doing great! It's so crazy that the pool is basically done! Ryan looks so good at his dance competition!

Right now my life kind of sounds like this:

"I'm dreaming tonight of a place..." SKIP

"I'll be home for...." SKIP

"All I want for Christmas is..." SKIP

Haha. So, yes Mom, tug-of-war is right! It's exciting and also heartbreaking to think about coming home. So I'm just soaking up every last minute I can.

Here's our week in a minute and 45! Thanks for continuing to pray for me and for your emails :) This next week and a half is going to be the best! I plan to just go out with guns blazing! I love my mission so much and I'm grateful for every second I get to spend here.

D&C 123:17 "Therefore, dearly beloved brethren, let us cheerfully do all things that lie in our power; and then may we stand still, with the utmost assurance, to see the salvation of God, and for his arm to be revealed." 

Love you all two times around the world, and then some :) 

Love, Sister Browning 

Blown fuses and Tongan food

Dear family that I love,

This week was crazy! We had 3 exchanges back to back to back. It was exhausting but great. It's such a privilege to serve with such hardworking obedient sisters and get to know them and learn from them.

Heavenly Father has been doing some really cool and crazy stuff in our area this week, and the amazing part is he is using our blunders to His advantage. No, Alex's family hasn't kept their initial commitment, but he's led us to other families who are ready for the gospel as we've done silly things like knock on the wrong door! And break ovens! And take wrong turns! Heavenly Father works in mysterious (and sometimes downright weird) ways! We don't have to be perfect, we just have to be trying!

So in honor of all crazy miracles we saw this week my ponderize scripture for the week is Jacob 4:7. "Nevertheless, the Lord God showeth us our weakness that we may know that it is by his grace, and his great condescensions unto the children of men, that we have power to do these things."

Exchanges in Whitney ranch with Sister Redford!

 Exchanges in east with sister Palanite! It's been a week full of learning about Tonga! :) 

Hooray for Lisiate! He's the coolest person ever! 

Happy thanksgiving! Tell the extended family hello and give them hugs from me! This year I'm so grateful for the Atonement of Christ and everything I've learned about it for the past 18 months. Life would be nothing without it!

 Love you all, 

Sister Megan Browning 

It's a Jungle out there!

Hi family!

We survived week 1! In most of the pictures we took this week, I look
like the living dead. So I will not be sending them home. Haha :) But
here is sister Walton and I when we took the departing missionaries to
the temple!

I love having a curly haired companion. She understands!

Tuesday and Wednesday were the craziest days. We were helping with transfers, meetings, driving departing missionaries to the airport at 4am, picking up the new ones, training them, and then staying up till 1:30 working on stuff. By Thursday we were giving trainings in our sleep. It was a blast. I loved getting to see the new missionaries come down the escalator and hold the big "welcome new missionaries sign." It was a good conversation starter and we got a couple good contacts there in the airport ;)

It was also really cool to see Heavenly Father just pour down miracles in the few hours we did have to proselyte. Even though our time was so limited it was the very best week of my mission in terms of finding and teaching. We street contacted a YSA age girl named Alex who we passed off to those missionaries. They in turn told us to go teach the whole family and invite them to be baptized! Sure enough, Alex, her parents, and her teenage brothers were all there and all accepted a baptism date of December 12. Wow!!!

Missionary work continues to be the funniest, the weirdest, and the awkward-est. This one guy we were teaching, Eric, was given a huge lizard as a pet and we showed up as he was wrestling it from the car into his apartment. Not the weirdest thing I've ever seen. Halfway through the lesson I noticed a tarantula waving it's nasty arms behind the glass of its cage. I'm happy to say that I did NOT flip out! Progress is real ;) I was really thinking about asking him if I could hold it, yknow, total immersion and all that, but he dropped us so I won't have to face that fear. Bittersweet. ;)

I love you all and I love the gospel! Jesus Christ is our everlasting friend and His church has been restored :) have a happy week!

Love, Sister Browning

Plot twist!

Angelica's baptism was awesome! Her dad got to baptize her which was
really cool to see :) at the end she said "I have an announcement" and
got up and bore her testimony. So sweet!

Last lesson with the Lopez family. I will sure miss them.

We took a huge 15 seater van to get lunch after our meeting with president today, there were so many of us! Haha it was so fun!

This week I have been thinking a lot about how the gospel is the good news of Jesus Christ. The word gospel literally means "good news!" I'm so grateful I have another transfer to share the good news of Christ as His full time representative! I invite you all to live the good news and pass it on :)

Love,
Sister B

Face-sized flan and other chum churning encounters

Happy November Y'all!

So much has happened this week I don't even know where to begin! We
found tons of new people to teach and several of them were referrals
from members. We're finally starting to feel like we know the members
and are gaining their trust. We are teaching an awesome family, victor
and Michelle, in one ward, Karen Paula and Yelenis in another, a woman
named Karen who used to be a member and is ready to come back after 30
years, and an amazing lady named Yolanda that the God just totally
placed in our path. We have a sweet 11 year old girl that we call
Jelly getting baptized on Saturday and her family has been reactivated
in the process. .It is such a blessing to be in this area. And
Heavenly Father has been so good to us. It is impossible to get
bored!!

For Halloween all the missionaries (except for out-of-valley, which is
why I didn't go last year) went to the mission office for a Halloween
party. Each zone did a "worst member present lesson ever" themes skit.
They were stupid but we were all roaring with laughter. I guess it
doesn't take much to entertain 200 missionaries! then we watched the
Cokeville miracle which is quite possibly the best thing of my life. I
heard a lot of sniffling from the roe behind me and I know there
weren't no sisters back there... Elders are softies!

Pday fun with our ward mission leader, his wife and her parents :)

This was our pumpkin!

I got to take meet my great-granddaughter at the Halloween party :) I trained the sister to the left of me, and she trained the next one, and so on. To my right is also a granddaughter :)

Egg nog is now in the stores! Oh happy day! 

So if Katherine (may her wisdom teeth rest in peace) is looking for something soft to eat, I would recommend flan. Because it literally takes no teeth. One day, as we were out street contacting, we ran into a member who invited us inside. After visiting for a minute we had to go to an appointment. The member goes "Wait!!" And serves us each the BIGGEST SLICES OF FLAN I HAVE EVER SEEN.... Well we are late so we scarf it down, and thank goodness you can basically just stab and swallow. We went straight from the appointment to a dinner of shrimp enchiladas and rice and beans and MORE DESSERT and by the end we were dying. Prayed through the rest of the evening and tried to keep down the puke. I don't think I'll ever be able to eat flan again. 

Another funny food story- We were going to a member's home for a lesson that the bishop had set up for us. When we got to the home the investigator answered the door, and we thought she was the member's wife, WRONG-O... Then as we're sitting there getting to know the investigator the member LEAVES to take his son to the movies... He leaves us there in his house with the investigator! So we stall for as long as we can. when he comes back we are late to our next appointment and have to leave, and HE pulls out food too... Soggy 3 day old sandwiches with blubbery meat I couldn't chew. I didn't know what to do with it so I thanked him graciously and asked him if I could take it with me. All I knew was I couldn't run the risk of gagging at his kitchen table. Oh boy! My heart is touched by his generosity but my stomach just couldn't do it! 

Sure love you all! The Gospel is true and brings real, lasting, inner peace! Don't forget to ponderize! 

2 Nephi 28:30 :) 

Sister Megan Browning