Subject: ULTIMO SEMANA AQUI!
Date: Thursday, November 27, 2008 8:05:52 AM

Yep so it is the last week and last email from the CCM but its been great here. I got the calling card all written down but we still havent found out if we can call. Some say we can others say we cant so not sure yet and definately dont know at what time. We leave here for the airport at 8:30 in the morning on tuesday and thats all i know. Sounds like the talk went well and yah dad i know what you mean with the car. Had that happen a few times to me. Well Im excited to get out in the field. Everyone is i think the CCM is getting pretty boring but had some good experiences this week. Went prosolyting with the Latinos and man the area was tough. Talked to a guy about 20 or so for like 1.5 hours and it was tough. He just believed all churches were true that they all just want you to be happy and worship God in your own way. Told us we were happy, the catholics are happy, he was happy not going to church and i didnt know what to tell him in english let alone in spanish. He agreed with everything we said and had read parts of Book of Mormon already and had loved it. He really loved what we talked about baptism in our church because he got baptized at 1 and said it was pointless because he hadnt done anything. But yah we gave him like all 3 lessons along with our testimonies and a book of mormon and who knows what will come of it.

Also got our first door lesson. Older couple let us come in and teach them. Actually the guy wanted us too and when he got his wife she came out yelling she was a devout catholic so i just said i loved the pictures of Christ she had up EVERYWHERE and i mean everywhere it was like one wall was all Christ and crosses, after i said this we just started talking and they invited us to sit down and have some Maté which we arent allowed to but it was nice for the invitation. taught them the full first lesson exactly as if we had made an appointment with them. was awesome. corrected some things they had thought about mormons like she thought that we worship joseph smith and thought he was a bearded man and also thought that we thought Jesus was just a prophet. I dont know if that made sense but.. yah. it was fun to teach them. They were so sweet. The wife kept having to explain what we were saying to the husband because i dont think he could hear us. They were pretty old but so nice and
cute together. When we started talking about families together forever they were dead quiet and just kept looking at each other. We are gonna go see them again this saturday if they are home. I never expected to get this full on lesson to them especially since it all started with just the husband getting his mail without a shirt and i just complimented his garden and asked if we could share a message with him and he invited us in.

Also had a few other experiences such as got yelled at by a man when we knocked on his door during siesta time. He told us to stop molesting and bothering him. we just laughed and went on. Also got offered alcohol and illegal drugs by some people in a park which was kinda a funny story. Short version is didnt see what they were doing and went up to them to teach and when we got up to them i could
smell it on them but we went on to try and teach. I ended up talking to 2 guys and my comp was with another so we were kinda separated. I told them i was from vegas and they started offering me stuff and i said no so they started talking about me and about vegas to each other and i only understood parts of it. So i looked at my comp and a guy tells him they have nice”natural herbs” here and if my comp had had any of it. My comp thought he said they have nice nature so he agreed and then the guy said marijuana and Elder Wagners face turned pink, i just started laughing but he was so embarrassed. It was hilarious and we just left. So yah it was an interesting prosolytElder brown

sorry that word was prosolyting. i looked up and my time was at 5 secs and it shuts off and you lose everthing so i just typed that quick. But yah gotta go Love you all. and we heard from elder aidukaitis this week which was cool he talked in first session of general conference. thats another story though.

CON AMOR,
Elder Brown.

Subject: HOLA!
Date: Thursday, November 20, 2008 6:33:52 AM

HOLA FAMILIA! it has been awesome here and been nice to see all of your letters. start off. Yes i got your package with the iPod. THANKS SO MUCH! been very uplifting. we havent had music for awhile. Really thanks a ton. Everyone thought it was crazy Elder Bowens relative was in our ward and just happened to be the one to send me an ipod. Really tell him thanks its been great. We leave a week from this coming tuesday and i dont know how the calling works. Everyone said calling cards and i dont know how to use them so give me info and someone will help me i hope. I hope that answers everything. Seems everything is going good there.

Me and Elder Wagner have had quite a nice little success prosolyting again this week. Handed out a single Book of Mormon which sounds worse than most weeks but was best experience ever. We went looking for Miguel specifically this week and when we got to his station…. He wasn´t there, so we just kept on going a little discouraged especially since the new guard was kinda mean to us so went on. We noticed in the next booth though Marco, Miguel´s friend, so went up to talk to him see if he knew where miguel was. He was excited to see us. He told us miguel was with his family who flew in from Peru but hed tell him hi. Then we just started talking to him about his life. We already taught him first lesson briefly and he wasnt interested. Told us he has worked here in argentina for 4 years and has a wife and 2 kids in Peru who he only sees at end of year because he has to work here because jobs are rare in Peru. We saw his love for them and he truely missed them so much. We knew we had to teach him again. I mean we had been joking around with him bout sports and Stories of him and Miguel but as soon as his family came up he was just so serious and then we started in with the lesson about families kinda mixing lessons 1 and 2 but he loved it. He was just so excited about it and we read in Moroni 10:4-5 and he just kept reading verse 5 over and over and then continued on by himself and just said it was amazing. It really got to me. I struggled just getting through giving him the first vision. Was so hard. But he was great and he just came out and said he really wanted to read the book and was reading it then and that he knew what we were saying was true. He said he wanted to be baptized even after awhile! i mean it struck us like a wall we werent even asking him that and he brought it up so we taught some of lesson 3 to him for baptism and it was just amazing. We talked to him for 2.5 hours, our whole time before lunch, then went to lunch. It was just truely incredible to see his love for a church. He had been searching all his life and said that all churches seamed same to him and were just all focused on Christ and thats when we started talking to him bout the Book of Mormon. He really loved it.

During lunch we had our first experience of people hating us haha. A guy drove by and yelled ”GO HOME YANKEES!” at us haha. we just yelled back ”LE AMO”. after lunch went and saw omar who has been reading BoM and waitin for the other missionaries to come visit him so thats exciting. Then we just started walking around and got lost. Out of nowhere i see a hand waving at me and it was Marco again haha. We were so confused how we got to that spot again without realizing it. He was reading the Joseph Smith pamphlet told us he was reading it as soon as he could so he could get to the Book of Mormon. He then told us of how he wanted to serve a mission like us because so many of his friends had problems and he just wanted to help them so we told him to just find out for himself about the gospel and then teach his friends about it. He loved that but was hesitant because he had tatoos and we had to teach him about those. He said churches wouldnt let him worship because that and was scared we wouldnt either. It was tough to teach about cuz i didnt know what to say in english let alone spanish. But it worked out and Marco is just a real capo. It was our last week in that area we go out with the latinos to a different area this saturday and im really gonna miss our area. I realized what many missionaries say about how hard it is to leave and i just got a little taste of that.

Sorry this email wasnt much bout my week but thats pretty much all that happened. Got new sports equipment which is nice cuz got a real volleyball now and they got us soccer goals to play in the grass but besides that not much. They replaced our cruddy volleyball net with a worse one too haha. But yah love you all running out of time. stay in soccer Alexa its fun i realized here. Love YA ALEXA and MIss ya. Love seeing your pictures for me.

Con Amor,
elder Brown

Subject: esta mi!
Date: Thursday, November 13, 2008 6:43:37 AM

hola familia! yo les extreño mucho pero es muy bueno aqui. im loving it here and its just been amazing. It really has been an amazing week and its crazy that i got your email about elder Bowen. Elder Bowen is the area president here. and its really funny that you bring that up because he talked to us this week haha. hes one of the best speakers i have ever heard. He talks so clear and with just amazing authority and he told me he had relatives in vegas! when i went to greet him i said i was from vegas and he says ohhh i got relatives there but presidente then gave me the look so i had to just say oh cool. and move on. but thats insane. Thanks for the ipod too really tell him thanks it has been such a bummer without one especially lately because the other missionaries left on tuesday along with their music so its been very lonely without any music. THANKS! i hope you put my playlist on it

alright well awesome week again prosolyting. we have been praying to find our previous investigators and none were ever around. always new guards at the stations so we end up getting more investigators but never can follow up. again this week new guards in same booths. One was amazing though, Miguel. he was a 24 year old kid from peru that got baptized when he was about 15 but when him and his family moved here they went completely inactive. he didnt even have a book of mormon and never read more than the few chapters he was asked to. He hadnt even read 3nephi 11. we sat there and read it with him and he just had such a strong testimony of the book of mormon. i know he will come back he was just amazing and then he gave us his address and told us to go talk to his brother, Tomás, also. amazing 2 contacts from one kid and so we went and his brother was just as excited and committed to reading the book of mormon with his brother now that they each had one. then he gave us the name of his friend Marcos and we taught him but hes catholic but very interested. Miguel was actually with Marcos when we talked to him and Miguel was just bearing his testimony of the Book of Mormon and it was amazing. Truely amazing. so got 3 contacts and investigators from one awesome kid. It helps so much for members to bear testimony and i really suggest you help the missionaries out. its incredible how much members testimonies get to the souls of their investigator friends. it really makes it real to them to see the thing that is missing in their lives. Well like i said, we been prayin to find our investigators. I met a kid the first week in this area, Omar, at a store while elder wagner was buying sunscreen and he was very interested. I just went to talk to him bout the day and stuff to practice spanish because we were out of books of mormon and such and he had brought up the subject of missionaries. He had been taught in peru (alot of ppl are from peru here) by missionaries but it hadnt gone anywhere. I just bore my testimony of the church and got his name and number. Gave them to the missionaries but i just kept getting his name in my head. It was weird because no other investigators names i would remember but his just stuck in my head always. Well i was specifically praying for him that he could find the church cuz i didnt know if wed go back to that area and the 2nd week we couldnt find the store. Well this week i decided to look hard for it so on way to lunch i searched and searched and didnt find it. we had no amazing success after lunch because miguel and his bro and friend were before lunch, and we gave out books of mormon but nothing seemed amazing. Well had one book left and we decided to head back. Elder wagner out of nowhere goes, ”i gotta go to the bathroom, now.” we stop and turn and we are in front of the exact store. couldnt find him in there but a clerk took us to the bathroom and i see a kid sittin in the distance. i yell hola and he goes HEYYYYY. asked his name and he goes OMAR! i couldnt believe it. taught him whole first lesson and the book of mormon we had was meant for him. He sat there reading it as we taught him and continued as we left. I know he will be baptized. We are goin to same spot this week and hes first person im goin to find along with Miguel and his family. It was just an amazing experience this week and i cant wait for 2 more days to go again.

I love you all sooo much.
Les Amo.
Mucho gracias por so apoya y amor.

con mucho amor,
elder brown.

Subject: HOLA!
Date: Thursday, November 6, 2008 11:36:05 AM

HEY FAMILY!!
To answer some questions first:
1. Compañero from colorado AWESOME ELDER work awesome together details coming in letter. Hes D.L. now too.
2. got letters yesterday of all the dearelders. like 5 from family and 1 from zach and 1 from borowchowitz or w/e thanks for those all.
3. 4 elders from when we got here leave on this coming tuesday. we leave 3 weeks later you do math haha. i dont know the date
4. cant send pictures we take cameras out to take pictures when ppl leave and then they put them back into our storage bags. sorry.
5. Yah sorry dad forgot to talk bout that message in spanish last week ran out of time. THanks for that i struggled through it then realized it was in english below it. Nice lil story. didnt know yiou knew any spanish.
6. Mom sending my testimony in a letter so dont worry love ya.

ok. well now we did some more prosolyting for 6 hours last week. Was amazing. to make it short we committed 3 ppl to reading book of mormon and made appointments with them. more info in letter coming. my favorite part of the prosolyting though was this old guy at the very last door we knocked. we had no Books of Mormon left and were way tired and this guy was our 1st real contact from knocking (clapping) doors. He comes out and he knows parts of english so im all over it. he asks us to share it in part english and spanish cuz he didnt know very good english but it was a relief compared to others we had. He didnt want to come with us to church and said he didnt need to change his life b/c what he did for 88 years has been good enuf for him. but the cool thing is we showed him a joseph smith pamphlet and he loved it like more than anything. he just clung to it and said that 10 years ago 2 missionaries talked to him and about the church. He specifically remembered joseph smith. he said that noone around his house talks to anyone so he was pretty lonely but these 2 young men wanted to just talk to him. I realized then that what we were doing is changing lives. it was just an amazing experience. youll see when you get my letter more what im talking about but i know that through the day the spirit lead us to this man and i think we planted a seed with him. he loved us. we talked to him forever about everything. he knew like 5 different languages or at least somewhat new them. he may not except it here but i think he will eventually he was just an amazing man. i hope he realizes that something is missing in his life and thats the gospel of jesucristo and that it will bless him. I cant wait to go back this weekend. goin to same spot and hoping to follow up and teach some lesson 1’s to the investigators we had this last week. ahhhhh im stoked.

ive been reading and i think its alma 18: 34-35 and it just struck me that we are out where we need to be. That we are directed to where we need to go on our missions. its now my favorite scripture. I really know now that the gospel changes lives. its truly changed mine immensely. Well been playin lots of soccer here. How is alexa doin in hers? we can be soccer buddies when i get back. i got a latino here now whos like the coolest kid ever. Hes mi capo. hes teaching me soccer like indepth so i can be pro. Hes just way chill and he dont know any english so it helps me allllooootttt. hes also teaching me to do handstands better and every night we work out. every other night i show him workouts from wrestling/volleyball, then the nights inbetween he teaches me soccer workouts. So workin everything out haha. today i asked him to come play volleyball and he says in english ( im teaching him some english but his right now is very broken) ”NO, i do not do volleybol, but i lika da watch da girls play in me home place” i was busting up. hes an awesome guy. He tells me everyday hes comin to visit the city of sin when hes done with mission haha.

well i dont got much time so ill just leave you a little somethin.
yo se que el libro de mormon es verdadero y jose smith fue un profeta de Dios. Este libro trae bendiciones en nuestras vidas y tambien paz y felicidad. yo amo mi familia y amigos. yo les extreño mucho. en el nombre de Jesucristo. Amen.

Love you all soooo much
Con mucho amor.
Elder brown

also i want nerds, skittles, nerdrope, snickers. Especially nerds i craving them soooo much. chocolate is all they have here i swear. thanks

HAPPY HALLOWEEN SORTA!
Date: Thursday, October 30, 2008 12:37:01 PM

Hola familia y amigos!
Its Bueno here! not much has gone on. Its been a long relaxing day which p-days normally arent but the temple is closed so we had all day to ourselves. 3 hours of fútbol is pretty intense with the latins. The are yelling at me what to do in spanish and i just end up running in circles but its fun. Gettin better! Its fun to go play volleyball with some that will too because they are like me in fútbol at volleyball. Its just a big mess but everyone is great. Also tried wrestling a kid who was state in heavyweights in middleschool or something. He had less of knowledge than me in wrestling and it was all fun and i got him down cradled in a pin if that makes any sense and he just picked me up off of him and turned me over. thats the second person to do that to me here but its fun cuz its challenging.

Went prosolyting for 6 hours this Saturday and usually we only go for 2. Went to the city and it was insane. Its like straight city and right behind the buildings literally are houses. Its the rich part of this area. People had no time for us but we started just talking to security guards that have stations throughout the streets. Talked to one for a good 45 mins and was the first guy we talked to all day. Gave him a book of mormon and he comitted to read it and set up an appointment with him. He was amazing and sooooo humble. I just said sí through most of what he said i was so confused. Next guy we ran into was a 7th day advenist. We were at a door and i turned around and just threwout my hand for a handshake and he took it. i was talking about the Book of Mormon and my comp was still at the door not knowing i was talking to a guy. He finally came over but without him i tried to comunicate and it got pretty crazy. I was just throwing stuff out there as i thought and i guess it made sense because he wanted a Book of Mormon and was reading it while we talked to him. It was great but when we set up an appointment with him he asked if we were going to bring someone who spoke spanish with us next time. So yah we had a pretty successful morning and this was all just before lunch we still had 4 hours left. We were out of Books of Mormon though so we asked another companionship for a book of mormon at lunch so we could at least talk about it. Gave out 4 more Joseph Smith pamphlets after lunch so was pretty fun. Cant wait till Saturday to go back and followup on the security guards because 4/6 of our contacts were guards and we go to same area this weekend. If your wondering from my last email, no we didnt get to go teach the 2 people from last time because they werent in our area but I´m waiting to hear back from the regular missionaries about it.

Well been trying to learn the second lesson in spanish and its crazy to do. I love it though. So many things I didn´t know. I never fully understood the spirit world and whenever we teach it i always for some reason think of Grandma up there teaching there because she always loved teaching. Also i didn’t know zach was thinking of a mission. If he wants tell him to watch the talk by Elder Holland in the MTC in 2006. Its great for those wanting to serve missions and especially for those with non member families. Dont know if you can get it but yah its an amazing talk.

Con Mucho Amor,
Elder Brown

read alma 7. ITS MY FAVORITE!

Subject: HOLA!
Date: Thu, 23 Oct 2008 19:30:56 +0000

Well another crazy week at the MTC. The latinos we got here with left on Tuesday for their Missions. was pretty crazy. Miss them already. With them went my ipod apparently too haha. Oh well though guess someone needed it more than me. Thanks for the letters and all we get them all only on Wednesday now so its pretty crazy having to read them all in one day. I just got the ones from Oct. 2 yall sent so yah takes awhile to get them. Got your packages though Mom. Thanks my district loved the
goodies in it. Kinda made fun of me for the cute lil scriptures you put in and the random toys that im
sorry but dont have room for anywhere. Mission president actually got mad because i got too many letters and packages at one, but he gets mad at everything so oh well. maybe not so many packages and just letters though, i dont have room anyways. Well my suitcases are getting lighter. The Latino, Elder Fernandez, thats been helping me with spanish i found out was sent here with a weeks notice so he had very little and thats besides the fact he had very little to start with anyways. Gave him a couple ties and my roomate latinos gave me a beanie from Cuzco, Peru. Another Elder, Elder Herrara, Gave me his favorite beanie too and had this nickname ”Chicken Little” for me. One of my favorite latinos and so i gave him my ctr ring cuz hes never had one and liked it. Sorry Zach no more ring buddies!

The new Latinos got here yesterday and man are the a group. We taught them the first and second discussions in spanish and yahhhh…. We did better than ever and they tore us apart. One of them told us to stop thinking in english and talking in spanish because its boring waiting for us to think, rather just think and speak in spanish. Me and elder Wagner just laughed. I wish we could do that in 3 weeks. Oh yah Elder wagner is my compañero. Hes great at spanish when i need something translated i go to him and he helps me. I mostly put the lesson plans together and he helps with the greeting alot and getting to know people with the spanish. Hes very shy though. When we prosolyte i do most of the talking and i just ramble spanglish to everyone and they look at me weird. Then after elder Wagner is like…. you know what you just said?… i never do but oh well. Its getting better. The prosolyting is amazing. This last week we didnt get any Libros de Mormon out but we practiced alot of spanish. We wennt to the straight ghetto. Was kinda scary but way fun. the first guy we ran into had tooth and was trying to speak english and spanish to us but together it made no sense. talked to him for forever and almost got him to take book but he said maybe another time. OH WELL. next house we came to had a little boy outside who just let us in the gate (which was chain locked like 12 times with a deadbolt) and let us in the house to meet the family. We were so excited, started teaching the lesson and finally figure out after awhile that they were members….. they gave us soda and talked to us so helped with our español so that was fun. Then we ran into a lady who was we asked if we could share our message and she was first ever in our whole district in fact that wanted to hear it. We gave her the whole first lesson perfectly. I dont know how we did it cuz we had no notes but it worked and she said she would read her bible but not book of mormon. We gonna try to go talk to her again. Her son came home while we were talking to her and talked to us for long time in spanish but told us he was learning english in school so he would throw in random english words into sentences which would make it make no sense to us and really hard to understand but was an awesome kid. Cant wait to go out again this weekend.

So today we went to the temple and had to do everything in all spanish. No translators at all. It was crazy but the most ive probly ever felt the spirit. It stinks though because for 3 weeks we cant go back because of cleaning. Guess we will appreciate it that much more when we can go back. Well lemme know whats up back home. Curious bout the election. Tried doin my ballot but confused

bye elder brown

Subject: week 2
Date: Thursday, October 16, 2008 1:31:44 PM

well its me again. HOLA!

been an amazing week. Time is just flying sorta. days feel like weeks but weeks feel like days. But im loving it! So i dont know if i told you guys but had some cow tongue this past week. The old kids here said it was cold steak but uhhh… no it isnt. It has no taste and served cold. But Everything else is amazing food.

So we got haircuts last weekend and i had to get one even with my short hair. Hermana Wilson made me. So i get mine done first in my group and ask the guy how many years he had cut hair. He tells us 1 week….. was great to hear that halfway through my haircut.

Also went prosolyting on saturday to like the neighborhoods. IT WAS CRAZY! You stand outside house gates and clap till someone answers the door and like yell them your message. Alot were not interested. We were really confused at first and werent sure if we were doing it right and if the oldies just told us this for fun. But finally I got someone to answer while my comp was talkin to another companion group. I like froze up and just yelled HOLA! and he shooed me off. I laughed but yah… we went on forever with no success and we only got 2 hours to be out there. With like 30 mins before we had to start back i told my compañero that we were just gonna start talkin straight about the Book of Mormon next person we found. The next guy we found was a worker but i walked up to him and just started talking to him. He told us he was a worker and didnt live around here but was very interested in the book. So we talked to him for like 10 mins and gave him a book. Then walked off. I realized we didnt even get his name or anything so i grapped my comp and headed back and we got his name and then he gave us his number and wanted us to return. I know the spirit told me to go back there. But yah he loved us and was way nice. Then we ran into a guy and asked him if he wanted help carrying his bags and he just started yelling ¨NO ME GUSTA¨ and ran off. He was like a 70 year old man and he booked it. it was pretty funny. So then we keep goin and my comp sees a lady and after our last experience i didnt wanna do the same thing cuz she had bags too but my comp bein inspired or somethin went up and did it and she didnt want help but wanted to talk to us. she was talkin bout the weather and it took us like 10 mins just to figure out she was talking about weather. We talked to her for awhile and ended up gettin her a Book of Mormon also and she wanted us to return. Then she tried to give me her number and it took me like 10 tries to finally get it right. But yah awesome experience. We were actually the only 1st week missionaries to give out a Book of Mormon. The teachers were confused cuz they didnt expect it and told us we are going to be doing the 1st lesson to them. That means we could do it as soon as Saturday. We are to call them tonight. The funny thing is that we only know half of the first lesson in spanish right now so our teacher promised we will be ready by saturday…. we will see i guess hahaha.

Yah Elder Civic, first counselor in this area 70 came to talk to us on monday. What an amazing man he did it in all spanish but spirit was sooooo strong. I guess i should let this out although its embarassing. So we were to greet him and his wife at the start and i of course am the first american selected to go up there. i had everything planned out that i would say in my head cuz we had to do it in spanish. I get up there grab his hand and completely forgot my own NAME! i had to look at my name tag! yah was pretty pathetic. I get so nervous in front of big groups i guess. Then Elder Nelson Came on Tuesday. What an amazing man. He only got to talk to us for like 20 mins and half of time was the translator to spanish talking but he left us a blessing for our mission and on you guys, Our families. He told us we would be successful and saw us as President Faust missionaries. Felt so nice. We also sang ¡El Cristo Es! to him which is a song written by President Faust. I love Elder Nelson though such a
spiritual man of God.

Before i forget i havent received stamps yet and i need them and send mail to this address

missionary´s name
Argentina MTC
Bonpland 2349/55
(C1425 FWE) Buenos Aires
Argentina

packages gotta be express mail.

LOVE YOU ALL AND MISS YOU
Elder Brown

Subject: quick note
Date: Fri, 10 Oct 2008 15:16:08 +0000

We get to send a quick message because packages have been coming and getting confiscated and we cant go get them. A little town that the packages come through open them, find the value and make you pay to get the package and the place is like 30 mins away so the president wont let us get them. It costs more to get them than just buy new stuff here. Send money if you send stuff and if you want to send a package send a small envelope. also forgot to tell yall that Russell M. Nelson is coming on Tuesday so pretty stoked bout that. well gotta
go.

LOVE,
ELDER BROWN

Subject: FIRST WEEK DONE!
Date: Thu, 09 Oct 2008 20:31:07 +0000

HOLA! its been great here. First off. We email on Thursdays and get 30 mins so i dont get much time cuz i read all of the emails. Sorry I cant email everyone i promise i will write letters but i need to be sent US stamps first. Cant buy them anywhere here and not only that but they forgot to let us trade money at airport and so we have no pesos to buy anything until the exchanger comes and they dont know when that is. also thanks for all the emails and letters. MOM i only got your one with trevor’s mission card thingy and alexas dog money. i laughed. tell David B. im waitin for his picture. he knows what I mean. Its gotten really hard to write and speak spanish and with that im forgeting english stuff too. Its coming good though just gotta put faith in the Lord’s hands. MY compañero is great. Hes quiet but really good at remembering stuff and helps me with the spanish. I help him get good at teaching the lessons, i picked that up pretty well here for some reason. I did terrible in mission prep at them but just clicked here. i think its because of my compañeros shyness. The Latinos are hilarious and help a ton! One knows a lil english in our room and the other just knows phrases. He walks around saying ”HEY SEXY BABIIEE” and the other night while we were laying down to sleep he started just singing the FULL HOUSE theme song to himself, it was hilarious. Another one only learned from movies so he walks around asking ”DO YOU WANNA BLEED?” its really funny and the presidante dont mind. Presidante is kinda stricted but hes a great guy and hermana Wilson his wife is the kindest person ever. The cook knows little english but we talk to him all the time and is way tight. He makes amazing food. well both of them do. theres 2. The meat is amazing. We had steak the other night and probly best ive had ever even compared to expensive places.

Also had cow tongue without knowin it. The 2 missionaries that were here the 3 weeks before us told me it was steak so i piled it up. Its like cold steak with no taste. its served cold and at the salad bar. alot of the latinos love it….not my style though. i miss american food too though. Sweets are hard to get here and all american made stuff is expensive. a snickers bar is almost 3.50 american money. and the cake is pretty bland that they make. we had a sister missionaries birthday today and it was weird bland cake. also went to temple for first time here today. so confusing to get what we needed to there cuz noone came with us to help but some guy we finally found that worked there helped us and was talkin to us. it was a great experience. please tell people to use dearelder.com its much easier i hear. it is much too hard to read the emails and i dont get much time. LOVE YOU MOM AND DAD AND FAMILY AND FRIENDS AND EVERYONE. GOOD LUCK!

1 week down
LOVE,
ELDER BROWN

You’ve seen Elder Brown’s comments on the trip and the MTC in Buenos Aires. It wasn’t real descriptive but he seems to be doing ok. Well, Mary (Elder Brown’s mother or mom) found some comments from some other missionaries that arrived with him in his group. They are both sister missionaries, but their comments added some insight into what they found there. I’m going to share their comments but not their names or other email information:

From Sister Missionary Uno:

Hola Family,
They let me e-mail you finally because the internet was now in the computer lab. After a long flight, we rode a bus to the MTC which is really close to the airport. We had some sort of orientation that I think went over my head because I was so tired. I really like my companions, Hermana —– and Hermana ++++. They had Hermana ++++ come early so we are a threesome. There are only 3 american sisters in the whole place with a max of 16 total sisters so we are definitely the minority. The food is okay, they do not believe sugar and so I am really glad for the treats you gave me. They served a rice stew for lunch which was a lot better than the fish we had for dinner. I filled on up veggies and rolls dipped in vinegar and oil. We only have 45 minutes to get ready and 30 minutes at bed time all to ourselves and that is the only time I can go to my room. It seems really hard and I am pretty scared, I am really grateful for the letters and the support you gave me at the airport. I love you very much and miss you. This is going to be my e-mail address. My p-days are Thursdays. The temple is so gorgeous. I will not able to send pictures soon because we are only allowed to take pictures one sunday the entire time we are here. I love you again. Thanks again for everything. I will write you next Thursday.
I LOVE YOU!!!! GIVE MY LOVE TO EVERYONE!

From Sister Missionary Dos:

Hola family!! I was late to breakfast and there was no where to sit so we hermanas got to come in and write I guess being late is good….I made it here safe and sound. It was a super long flight and within my first 36 hours I was living off of about 6 hrs of sleep. I dont know how you do that stuff dad, youre one amazing man to me! there is one other hermana with me so we are a trio. we are the only north american hermanas here. there is absolutely no english spoken here so im pretty lost. luckily hermana ++++ (++++) lived in mexico for about 4 wks so she can kind of pick up on what they are telling us. i have about twenty mins to write you but it took me about 5 to set up my account. we three hermanas are living in the smallest bedroom and it only has one bathroom. three girls getting ready in one bathroom in 45 mins and 630 in the morning…yeah not going to great for us, the boys have like an actual dorm room so it has plenty of bathrooms and showers, i dont get why they do and we dont but oh well. there are only about 30 to 40 missionaries here and there are 17 north americans. kind of nice that quite a bit of us are speaking english and not espanol at least for now. i cant wait to hear from everyone. this is my adress so feel free to email me at it. mom you can post it on my blog along with this email so others can write me. my Pdays are thursday so by next thursday i better have some letters because i could really use them! it was a rough night i cried a lot i shoudnt have pulled my book out that ooooo made me. but hermana /////// was crying with me too so it kind of helped and the mission presidente wife came in and hugged and comforted us too, hermana wilson is her name, she is a very sweet and nice lady. presedente wilson read us a few scriptures that also helped. many on which stated over and over again that our families are in the lords hands while we are serving him and that he will do with them what he can. so…i know you are all safe (and that scripture stands for extended family and friends to) which is very comforting to me because i worry so much about you guys and i miss you all so much!!! so please write soon although i wont check till next thursday it will be comforting to know your writing, oh one more thing…my first meal for dinner was fish! oh it was so nasty looking and smelling but dont worry all of you i did not eat it i couldnt make my self. i know im an awful person. okay i have to go now i love you all tons an miss you greatly you are all in my prayers and thoughts!love hermana —–.

So, for what it’s worth, it sounds like they may or may not be speaking spanish, they eat fish, they can’t take a lot of pictures, there’s not much free time, they are close to the temple, the “presedente” and his esposa are nice and they don’t get much sleep.

Hopefully we’ll get a little more insight from Elder Brown in a few days (Thursday).

Love you Elder Brown – Return with honor

Dad