missionary plaque picture

missionary plaque picture

Monday, November 23, 2015

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 

Monday, November 16, 2015

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

Monday, November 9, 2015

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

Monday, November 2, 2015

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