Good-bye Elder Briggs...Hello Elder Brown

Elder Brown-new companion

Elder Briggs-old companion

My new companion Elder Brown is one of my FAVORITES!  He is funny and is really bold.  He likes giving copies of the Book of Mormon out the window.  He just doesn't really have a fear of man and it is a good example to me.  I have really enjoyed knocking doors with him and laughing at the different things we try to say during door approaches.  We have even been plotting tossing out a BOM to hit someone on the side of the road... but this technique may not prove to be the most fruitful.  Elder Brown even likes Red Lobster because we went there for his FIRST TIME.  YEP.  He had never been to Red Lobster before... & he is from Salt Lake?  I assumed he was from a different planet.  This week we learned a lot from a man in our ward.  Brother Merrell had us over for dinner and rehearsed to us many of his mission stories.  Brother Merrell prayed before every lesson asking "who should teach the lesson?"  "what exactly should we say?"  and before all of his proselyting efforts he would offer a prayer asking where they should tract and they would start driving until they felt the need to stop and knock on a house.  I have tried all my mission to become an effective planner and become better myself at knowing who to talk to and what to do.... when I should have been letting the Lord take over my mission and submitting to his will.  After we learned this MOST important principle we found a new investigator!  We said a prayer right after we left his home and felt that we should go visit Scott (whom we found a couple weeks ago while tracting).  We knocked on the door and a young lady named Nikki answered and we felt prompted to ask her if she was interested in learning about the church... & she said she was looking for a church to raise her daughter up in!  We came back a few days later and figured out she was baptized when she was 13 years old and wanted to come back again.  She came to church the very next day and all of this was because we asked the Lord what he wanted us to do instead of doing what we wanted to do.  I spoke at a funeral this week.  What an interesting thing to do for the first time because I had no idea whom the man was that passed away.  The bishop was conducting and asked that we come and speak (which is usually not what we are allowed to do) but it was approved by the mission president this time.  We walked in the building and the brother of the man who passed away, is a member of our other ward and we have been at his home to teach him before.  When we left they gave us all the leftover grub as well.  So, we shared the gospel and got lots of leftover grub.  Felt a little bad but can't COMPLAIN.