My Buddy

YO! Conference though! Where did the time go? It flew by so fast. I loved every bit of it. Before conference we left the commitment with almost every member in our branch to think of questions for conference. I did the same and it was so amazing how they were answered. Just a greater testimony to me that they are truly inspired on what they need to talk about. So many that stuck out to me, but Brook P. Hales, David P. Homer, David A. Bednar, Jeffrey R. Holland, & President Nelson’s talks were just killer good.

And…… Richard Elliott is a total BEAST on the organ. Eish munah. The power in How Firm A Foundation just killed me. And the hymn “I know that my Savior loves me” is my favorite song that needs to be in the new hymn book. Also, “Jesus Once of Humble Birth” just totally got to me. Super powerful to see all them young students singing about Christ. The gospel is just awesome.

But transfers have happened! Elder Spence is getting moved back to ZL. We had a good run together, but I’m staying put in Polokwane, which I am happy with. Elder Blue is the new guy coming in, and we’re already being called the color companionship.

But other than that… I have a hard time looking back on my week. We had some good busy days full of good old fashion missionary work.

A funny moment I forgot to mention last week was I played in sacrament meeting and I played #172 for the sacrament hymn, and nobody new it, so nobody sang, but Sister Khetiwe, who was leading and has the loudest voice I’ve ever heard, had no idea, so she made up her own tune of the song. It was horrible and Elder Spence wanted to get up and leave so much because of the cringe, but couldn’t because I was playing. Lol. His face was just bright red. I don’t know how I held it together.

But I would continue to reflect back on Conference and to make sure we take in everything we can from it!

Much love from South AFRIKA!

 

-Elder Browning

 

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Elder Chadambuka!

I don’t have much else time, but I hope the rest of everyone is doing super awesome. I hope each person will be able to not just move on from Conference, but continue to reflect on what was taught and continue to look back at the talks. It should never be a one and done.

My Mission President was called as an area 70! What a beast! That guy tried tricking us, and then boom. He’s in SLC without any of us knowing!

But AGHKSJ! General Conference happened and I don’t know what happened! Except, on Saturday night, I was just so anxious because I knew it was gonna start in like 10 minutes, so we called Elder and Sister Milham to see if we could go over some stuff  them. Haha! And then they said, we’re just about to watch conference, wanna join us? So we went there and watched Saturday’s morning session live. It was so awesome and I just wanna know more of what is happening. I noticed that the session was all about families and Elder Eyring’s talk was so good.

Then as for the rest of this week, it was very good! Suzan was at church yesterday! Her and her daughter and she is progressing so well. Thank you to everyone who has been praying for her. Answers to our prayers have already been answered.

The rest of this week was good too. And it’s already the end of the transfer. CRAZY. Time keeps going by.

I don’t have much else time, but I hope the rest of everyone is doing super awesome. I hope each person will be able to not just move on from Conference, but continue to reflect on what was taught and continue to look back at the talks. It should never be a one and done.

But I love everyone and the work continues! Hurrah for Israel!

-Elder Browning

 

No Subject

March 25, 2019

 

The area is growing ever so slowly, but we’re teaching some good people for sure! One of the people is named Suzan who we just put on date! She stays an hour out of Polokwane in this place called Turfloop that we go out once a week, and she’s a very poor woman who is a total beast though! We started teaching and she reads and reads the Book of Mormon, but she doesn’t speak English too well, and reading is very difficult for her, so she rereads chapters over and over and she really loves it. But the problem is that she doesn’t have a lot of money for transport to church on Sunday, so if you want something to pray for, that would be awesome!
~~~~This week I also ate the part of a cow that holds the poop. Lol. But it actually wasn’t bad at all. It was actually pretty nice. Smelled like death though.
~~~~Also… An Indian family is gonna feed us next week. And you people have no idea how pumped I am for this. She’s really serious on how curry should be made and so I think I might go into a coma of excitement.
~~~~But one issue we’re having in this mission is visa problems. Both Botswana and Namibia are not really allowing visas. And that is a big issue. You get three months in the countries and then are kicked out and then you can’t go back for a year. And with only 50 missionaries in the whole mission, almost all of us will be out of our time there. So they would have to close down Namibia and Botswana. And then our mission would be dissolved and we’d be put into different mission. Probably throughout SA, or Zim, Zam, or Angola. So if you could just include in your prayers a little bit, all of the missionaries and members and people who need the gospel would really appreciate it!
~~~~Much love for all of you though! Thank you for all your emails and I’m sorry I didn’t get back to a lot of you, I love all of them and read each one!
~~~~Hurrah For Israel!
~~~~-Elder Browning

I’m tired of thinking up subject lines.

March 17, 2019

This week was kinda slow again. We did lots of good stuff and were busy a bunch. I saw a man who was super terrified of dogs. A dog came up behind him, and we thought he was having a heart attack for a solid 30 seconds.

We also had a few baptisms yesterday for another area in our district, but I don’t wanna say it was a disaster, but the water didn’t come up to a 5’4″ man’s knees. So it took this 5’10” woman like 5 times to baptize her and finally when she was fully under, the man baptizing was looking around if it was okay and she was under for like 6 seconds. But she was baptized and gave a super powerful testimony at the end so there’s a true convert!

But we’ve been meeting with a lot of members hoping to get them all more excited and pumped for missionary work! We’ve even seen some success!

As for anything else, that’s mostly it. I’m just HYPED for General Conference. So soon, but yet so far away. LET’S GO!

Love you all and have a great week!

Sharp!

-Elder Browning

This will be boring

March 11, 2019

Yeah. I don’t have very much to say, so I’ll keep this brief.

I have a new companion. Elder Spence from Shepherd Montana. Cool guy and we’re getting a lot of solid work done, trying to get this area to where we want it to be.

We met a solid guy named Aubrey. (He is a man.) We found him contacting and he is really open to talking about the gospel and has studied the bible for 3 years. But his beliefs are pretty similar to ours, so that is a bonus! We’re meeting with him again this week after we had a super long first lesson, but a great potential father led family that could be taught!

And then for anything else, lets see…. Lol. That’s mostly it. We’ve been doing a lot of contacting and visiting with members. My skin is done reacting to the sun, so I’ve gone really white again. Kinda weird. But I’m also driving on the other side of the car that the U.S. is used to. That’s also been fun.

Yep. Love everyone and have a wonderful week!

Hurrah for Israel!

-Elder Browning

Transfers

March 4, 2019

Another transfer has come and gone. This last week was super crazy. I spent probably like 40 hours in a car this week. But it was full of the spirit people!

On Wednesday, we went down to Pretoria for Mission Tour with Elder Koch. We got to a CHAPEL. A real sized chapel with an organ in it. It was so nice to be back in one of those again. There I met all the Elder’s who are serving in SA. My entire MTC group was even there and I got to see some of them for the first time since our first day. It was awesome to see them again.

Then we were instructed by Elder Koch and he told us some amazing stuff and got me all pumped up to keep up mission work. My favorite part that really hit me was how many people we should be inviting to come unto Christ each day. Us, our companions, our family, other missionaries. A lot of good instruction.

Then we drove back that next day, and drove back to Polokwane for a little bit and went around the area, and then drove up to Tzaneen that night to go to this cool game park up there. And we saw Elephants, giraffes, cheetas, monkeys, saw some hippo crossing signs, but no hippos. Shame.

Then we came back and crashed hard. Because I finished like 40 hours driving. Which also is surprisingly fun. Driving, especially in Pretoria is like playing frogger. And the taxi’s here do not give a dang about anything. They control the road with their house music PUMPING.

Fun to hear from everyone and thank you so much for the Birthday wishes. I didn’t realize it until halfway through the day when we got back to Polokwane. But it was fun!

Also, with transfers, I’m staying in Polokwane and Elder Hansen is going back up to Bots. We had a good run for 6 weeks and I’ll miss him a lot. New comp is Elder Spence!

Love you all!

 

-Elder Browning