Conoce los frijoles?

It has been such a rollercoaster with the Torres family this week. They came to the baptism the Gutierrez twins this week!!!! Here's the catch. One of them has autism so he got really nervous and afraid to be completely submerged in the water, so he put up quite a fit and was screaming like a lot. That was kind of awkward having our friends their BUT I think it helped them to see that we arent perfect in our church haha we are still humans. Also it was really sweet because we all said a prayer together for him that he would be able to calm down. There was just a sweet feeling there which was cool. 

We finished our week long no sugar/word of wisdom challenge which was so fun. But unfortunately didnt quite inspire much change because the following day there was a big case of beer on their counter. Oh well, not everyone has an night to day conversion like Alma (Alma 36). We are going to keep working with them to strengthen their faith and desire to follow all the commandments of God!
Funny story.
Noemi was asking Sister Allen "Hermana conoce los frijoles?" Which in English would mean like "Have you had/tried beans before?" So after she asked in Spanish, she repeated it in English but she translated it directly so she said "Sister do you know the beans?" haha we were all laughing. I love that family so much!!!

This week there were so many times that we were in just the right place at just the right time. I gained such a testimony that God leads and guides us to touch the lives of those that need him most! 

People would say to us  "I was just praying right now before yall got here" "This morning we were just talking about how we need to baptize our kids." or "It's funny that yall came tonight"
 I felt like Alma in Mosiah 23 when he says "Nevertheless, after much tribulation, the Lord did hear my cries, and did answer my prayers, and has made me an instrument in his hands in bringing so many of you to a knowledge of his truth."
I have been so humbled by the impact a short visit and a few uplifting words can have in someone's life.

Les quiero. Cuidense mucho!!!

Hermana Brown

El sacrificio trae las bendiciones del cielo

OH MY GOODNESS I TOTALLY FORGOT TO SEND THIS LAST WEEK!! I had it all typed out and just didn't click send. Disculpenme por favor. 

Buenos dias amigos!!

Tengo algunas cosas que reportar. 

1. Estoy triste porque Yarah moved back to Los Angeles. Her work in the Melon factory ya acabo (finished) so I will never be seeing her again. Jokes, I'm totally gonna call her after the mission. But for now the ASL Sisters there will find her and help her. Super cool ASL miracle anyway. The Lindsay Sisters (aka the one and only Sister Connor and her beautiful companion) found BRIAN again!!! So I got to video call for just a few minutes and sign with him. So fun. 

2. We are trying to help the Torres family understand that the Word of Wisdom is a commandment from God. Sooooooo we have a nice little deal with them. Seven days of them living the Word of Wisdom while we go seven days sin azucar!!! (without sugar). Let's just say if that doesn't show them how much of a testimony we have of Joseph Smith and this gospel I don't know what will ;)

3. Marcelino is the most precious member missionary. We visited him this (last) week and video called his family to help them download the Gospel Library app on their phones and after I gave the phone back to him he just goes on and on to his son about all the good stuff on there. "Tu mama no puede leer entonces puedes leer por ella o pueden escucharlo juntos. Hay videos y las escrituras. Muchas cosas muy buenas"

4. WOW THE COOLEST MIRACLE EVER.  (Last) Friday afternoon we are doing weekly planning at the house and all of a sudden we get this call. It's from one of the Temple workers, Brother Brown (no relation). He told us a woman and her son went to the temple to receive a blessing. They didn't know where the local church building was, and they we told by the woman's Sister (who is a member in Mexico) to call the temple and ask. Well the temple was closed because it was being cleaned, meaning no one would be there to answer the phone. They decided to just drive to Fresno to find out! They arrived and some people helped them, and gave Carmen a blessing. She said that she had a headache when they got to the temple, but as soon as one of the men put his hands on her head, the pain went away! What a cool miracle in itself! Well they live in Dos Palos so we drove on over a few hours after they had gotten back and got to meet them and talk with them a little more about priesthood blessings. They are so amazing! It gets even better because (last) Saturday morning we get a call from an "unavailable" or "unknown" number. And it was the Sister in Mexico!!!!! She was so so so grateful that we were able to visit them, it brought her to tears. Shes been a member for about 10 years and she said shes been waiting for something like this so they could hear the gospel. God's timing is perfect! Carmen and her son, Saul, came to Church yesterday (last Sunday) and we are planning to visit them this week. I am so excited. The gospel is all about eternal families so what better way to share that than bring the family together through the gospel!

This was one day of water bottles given to us. 

No more Count Chocula for us this (last) week. 

Los Banos Tomato Festival!!! 

 

 

Something in the water

Here's part 2. So much has happened so I'll try and be as concise as possible with these hilarious stories.
As Sister Allen would say "there must be something in the water" here in Los Banos because everyone has either been yelling at us or creepin on us. Not literally yelling, but definitely some hardcore bashing in Spanish. And to make things worse, their arguments are horrible. For example. 

*Man trying to prove that the Book of Mormon is false because it contains the story of in Ether of the Jaredites going to the Americas after God confounds their language at the Tower of Babel.* "That's impossible. You know why? Because after the Lord confounded their language and when the flood came, Noah's family was the only lineage on the Earth and their names are recorded here". We calmly opened to Genesis and helped him see that he should reevaluate his argument hahaha. The flood (Genesis 7-8) happened before the Tower of Babel (Genesis 11). Aka the had plenty of time to multiply and replenish the earth before their language was confounded. He had a bunch more nonsensical arguments but there was no point in trying to help this man because he didn't want to understand.
Another lady told us "if you're going to go around and preach you really should know more of what you're talking about." As she tells us that the Jehovah Witnesses made the King James Version of the Bible. (In case yall didnt know, that's not true.)

Got a few men hitting on us too. Remember good old George who calls me his "Queen"? Here's just a snippet of the conversation we had with him the other day.
Brown: "How have you been?"
George: "Still single. Waiting for you."
Brown *ignores comment*: "George how do you like Fresno?"
George: "I like it but not the violence."
Brown: "Oh yea that's understandable"
George: "I cant do the violence. I wouldn't want to be walking down the street with our kids. You and me walking with our kids down the street. It's not safe."
Brown: "George we are not going to have kids together."
George: "I know we aren't going to be together. I would have to change my life around to be with you. But if we were I would be so lucky. To have a woman right with God."

Poor George just needs a little more of God's love in his life. 

Then we have Aaron who we met at a stop light and asked for our number. We said "we're missionaries so if you want to talk about God, of course!" He responded "perfect I'm Christian!" 1 minute later we get a call. "Que hermosas. So cute. I'm 28, how old are you two? Wow you're young. Also just so you know I'm married and have a kid. Yea if you could pray for my wife and our relationship, were going through some stuff. She gets so jealous. Honestly she's just insecure." We told him that of course we would pray for them and then informed him that if he would like to learn more, there are super cool Elders that would love to talk with him!
We realized that with every bash and every other weird situation that happened, God placed a nice little miracle in our path.
- Our favorite taco truck guy hooked us up with free tacos.
- Noemi and Dana came to the women's session on conference and loved it!!! Noemi said that Russell M. Nelson spoke with all his heart and that everything he said is true!
- We finally had another lesson with Tiffane. We found out that she has been working insane hours. At least 5 out of her 7 workdays is 5am to 3am THE NEXT DAY. That should not even be legal. But shes still super interested and is as sweet as ever! 

I seriously love being a missionary. There are hard moments, but there is always a lesson to be learned or a memory to be made within them. 

Love yall. Thanks for putting up with my super long emails this week. 

Have a great week.

Hermana Brown

Lengua de senas mexicana

These past two weeks have been absolutely loooooccccooooo. I didn't get a chance to send this one last week so I updated it a bit and then there is another on it's way right after. Sorry I know it's a lot, but I just want to share a bunch with ya'll.

First to keep you updated. The Elders in Honduras found Marcelino's family!!! He called us last week and was so so so excited. And then, they went to the Sunday morning session of General Conference this weekend. I'm just so grateful to Heavenly Father for helping the Missionaries find this family who lives in some 4 street town on the outskirts of another small town in Honduras. Marcelino was so happy. 

Yarah
We had a lesson with Yarah, our deaf friend, and wow it was honestly one of my favorites. It was so hard!! Pretty quick into the lesson we realize a few things.
A. Yarah doesn't actually know American Sign Language, just Mexican Sign Language.
B. She just read lips till she was a teenager. She didn't learn anything till she moved to LA. Aka this woman was not given the resources she needed and deserves.
C. There's even a lot of Spanish that she doesn't understand because she was never helped!!
D. She is so eager to learn.
This is what happened. We sat down and said a prayer (Sister Allen did it in Sign Language. So proud). I started talking about who God is and asked her a question but her response was super off topic. And that kept happening. So I tried to simplify everything and then that's when it became more clear that there were a lot of words that she didn't understand. So when there was a word she didn't understand I would type it out on the phone in Spanish and about half the time she would get it. Sometimes I had to explain through other signs and it would make more sense.
Example: make
I signed make, talking about how God made the Earth. She didn't quite understand so I typed "hacer o crear" in the phone. (Which means "to make or to create") neither of which helped her.
What was so cool about this lesson is that we taught her the Plan of Salvation. We told her that God loves her and the light that came across her face was such a a sweet joy. Also telling her that she will be able to hear when Christ comes again, when she receives her resurrected body, she got so excited and said "I'll be like you?"
Of course there were a lot of things that still went completely over her head. Not only because she doesn't know ASL but also because mine is a lot less than perfect. But it is perfect in that sense because we are both trying to help each other and that makes it so much easier to communicate.

My good man Salvador invited me to Mexico.
We walk up to him right as he's getting out of his car from work. He's just a sweet middle aged Mexican man. We talk for a bit about this and that, about what we do as missionaries, how we learned Spanish, we share a scripture with him and then gets this phone call. This is how the conversation went from there.
Salvador: "That was just a woman in Mexico who wants to get married, sabes que es casarse? (Do you know what to get married means?) We are going there for the wedding."
Hermana B: "yea! *puts fake ring on ring finger to show that I know what casarse means* what part of Mexico are you from?"
S: "Michoacan."
Hna B: "No way! I have a mental list of all the places I want to visit in Mexico and Michoacan is number 1"
S: "really? We invite you to come with us."
Hna B: *thinking it's a kind of empty invitation* okay sweet!
S: "we're going in December. Do you have a phone number so we can call you?"
Hna B: *slightly stunned.* "Oh hermano we cant go! We do this all day everyday for 18 months, we don't have time to go on vacations! And I don't get off my mission till January"
S: "that's okay I stay for 3 or 4 months. You can come after you get off your mission. What's your phone number? My wife will call you."
So that ladies and gentlemen was the sweetest human being ever and I now will be going to Michoacan January 2020. Looking for a travel buddy. 

Anyway moral of all these stories is God is good and being a missionary is always an adventure.