Laurel President for Erika

Erika was sustained and set apart today to be the new Laurel President in our ward.  There are only 2 Laurel's, so her friend, Heather McGriff, is the 1st Counselor, 2nd Counselor and Secretary for the Laurel class.  They both are also part of the Stake YCL's (Youth Camp Leaders).  The stake camp director asked Erika to be the Head Stake YCL.  She is a great example to all the younger young women and will be a great president and YCL leader.  We are so proud of her and all she does for our family and her friends.  We love you Erika!

Riley H.O.P.E. Squad

Riley was nominated by his peers to be in the Dixon H.O.P.E. Squad. HOPE stands for Hold On. Persuade. Empower. It is a suicide prevention and awareness organization set up in the Provo School District in Provo, Utah. Utah is ranked in the top 10 in the United States for youth suicides, so one of the main purposes of the HOPE Task Force is to raise suicide awareness and provide support through numerous resources to students who may be struggling.  The HOPE Squad is a group of students trained how to act if a student is suicidal and the resources available for extra support. The advisers train students and have them participate in activities that promote suicide awareness. Riley was so proud to have this shirt and he had to wear it to school today to have their pictures taken.  Great job Riley.

Elder Brown update

Well, this past week has been a wonderful week. I have been able to visit quite a few people and teach them the gospel. This family that I found around Halloween, we are still teaching to this day. They have some really great and hard questions about the gospel. They are so much fun to teach, because they ask questions and they don't "Bible Bash" with us. They really want to know what we believe and are very interested in listening to our message. The mom is a inactive member of the church and the husband and 2 kids are not members at all. The mom wanted us to come over and teach the rest of her family about what we believe because she was once a active member of the church and wants her family to know of the background she is from. I love teaching them. They invited us over for lunch one day because they really want to feed us some food, but I think it is mostly for us to teach them. I think they feel the spirit we have and they want us to keep coming back because they like the feeling we bring into their home.

Well, guess what? Today is my last P-Day in the Arlington 2nd Ward. I will be transferred to a new area on March 3rd. I will find out Saturday evening where I am going to and what the address of the new place I am going that evening. I will be e-mailing you of the change on March 4rth and the address of my new place. I am so excited to get to see more of Texas, but I am also sad because I will be leaving this area and the ward members that I have become friends with. Elder Young is still waiting to hear if he is leaving or not.
Well, I decided that I will be sending you pictures next transfer sometime. I keep taking more pictures and then I want to keep it for myself as well. I want to send that picture home, but keep a copy for myself too. So I have to copy it over to my other card. I just have to draw a line somewhere and send it home to you.
Well, I believe that is all for this week. I hope Nancy is getting better and all is well with Grandma Bette. The pictures you sent me of her arm look bad. I did not realize how bad it was until you sent those to me. WOW!
Well, that is all for this week.
Love you tons and tons!
-Elder Brown

Erika's Child Care Advanced Class Projects

Erika has been taking Child Care Advanced class at Provo High this year.  She took the Child Development class last year and loved it.  She has had to do many projects for this class, from file folder games, to flip stories to the 10 little piggies gloves.  Her teacher, Miss Williams, loves Erika and enjoys her in the class so much.  Erika is very talented in her creativity with these projects and puts alot of hard work and time into them so they are perfect.  She is currently teaching the Pre school class at PHS, called Baby Bulldogs.  Next year so wants to be Miss Williams T/A and then also do an internship at the elementary schools helping teaching the 1st and 2nd graders.  That is what she wants to be when she grows up, an elementary teacher.  We will see what happens in the next couple of years, so also has expressed interest in training dolphins, but we don't live by an ocean, so that might be the back up to the back up.  What's the difference anyways, kids or dolphins?

Riley's last Basketball game

Today was Riley's last Jr. Jazz basketball game for the season.  They played hard and at one point were tied with the other team, but then the other team made 16 points before they were able to score again.  He has had alot of fun playing with the other boys and his two coaches.  Riley has learnd alot and has grown to be a pretty good player, except for his height.  Hopefully some day he will catch up with the rest of the 7th grade boys.  Another year of basketball gone by and now he is looking forward to Spring time when he can start golfing with his dad again.

Riley and his friend Nate

Riley had his friend, Nate over for a sleep over tonight.  For some reason, Riley decided to grab a bunch a bag ties from the grocery store.  He always has something up his sleeve that his brain is engineering with that kind of stuff.  So, this is what they came up with to do with them.  They were being so silly, that I had to take a picture. What's next?  I don't think I want to even guess.  Just wait Riley, these pictures will come back to haunt to when you start dating.

More Snow!!!

We thought we were done with Snow in Provo, Utah. but on Friday at noon, this is what it looked like outside again.  Hope to have Spring come soon.  Tired of the cold and snowy days.

Elder Brown update

Hello from Texas again!


Well, I can't believe I'm saying this, but it is very warm outside! Last P-Day we had a record snowfall of 1 ft here in Arlington. It knocked out power to most of the city, although we were lucky enough to not lose power, lots of ward members were without power for up to 5 days! Also, lots of trees feel down and the city is slowly cleaning them up. Now it is warm and around 60 degrees?? AH! It changes so quickly.
Well, I am so happy that y'all got to spend some time for your anniversary at the Hotel. It sounds like you had fun. I am so happy for you. I can't believe that you've been married now for 22 years! I've almost been alive that long! I still can't believe that I will be 20 soon. That is weird to think about.
Well, in missionary work, we found this part member family who has not been to church in over 8 years! They want us to come reteach them the gospel and they want to come back to church. The wife is not a member, so if they come back, she might get baptized. That is so cool. We also have been going out on exchanges with the High Priests and trying to reactivate people who are not coming to church. We have not had much success there, but we will keep trying. We have not been having much teaching appointment success in the past week either. All our appointments have fallen through. That is tough on us, but we don't give up on them. Well, the ward this year has decided to reactivate about 4-5 people in each quorum, which is a huge undertaking for this ward, as it is very hard. We have been asked to help, and we said yes.
Well, Transfers are coming up on March 3, 2010. WOW! Another transfer gone by. I am so excited to learn where I am headed to next. I am actually getting a bit tired of the area, and want to see new things and new stuff. I will be giving a talk in Sacrament Meeting on February the 28th as a good-bye to the ward. The ward really likes me and Elder Young.
Well, to answer a few of your questions, the church provides all the materials for us. As long as you pay Tithing, the church provides the materials for us to pass out, including the Book of Mormon's. So, no worries there. Yes I did receive your Valentine's Package on Friday last week. Thank you so much for it. I really enjoyed the treats and goodies. I ate the Jerky first! Surprised? I don't think you are.
Well, that is all for this week. Love y'all tons and tons, and I always look forward to the next P-Day when I can e-mail you again.
Love you and talk to you next week!

-Elder Brown

BYU Orchestra Concert for Erika

Erika and her friends, Caitie, Heather and Sara all went to the BYU Symphony Orchestra Concert at the Harris Fine Arts Center at BYU.  They all have to go to a concert for their Orchestra classes and write a report about them for each term.  The concert was from 7:30 pm to 9:15 pm.  The Orchestra played Ballet Russe Suite that had 4 pieces, Capitol Suite which had 5 pieces and the Symphony No. 5 that also had 5 pieces.  Erika said the Symphony No. 5 lasted 47 minutes.  How does any composer write a 47 minute music piece.  After we meet Caitie's mom, then we all went to McDonald's for strawberry and shamrock shakes.  They all seemed to have a good time together.  Next will be Erika's Solo Ensemble at PHS.

The last baby tooth EVER!!

Today was the last baby tooth to come out for Riley.  He had to go to the dentist to have it removed, because the permnant one was coming in over the top and not pushing the baby tooth out.  The dentist told us that we will never have any baby teeth in our family that needs to come out.  We are all done.  YIPEE!!  Now Riley gets to look forward to braces.  He is the 3rd one to have them in the family.  Look forward to April when we go and see the Orthodontist.

HAPPY VALENTINES DAY!!! 

These are the gift bags that Erika and Riley received.  Lots and Lots of red stuff and candy hearts.  Also, we sent a valentine's goodie package to Cameron with all his favorite treats, a heart pen, a red tie and his favorite skittles.

Last day at the Grand America

Well, Brian and I slept in again this morning and then went down to have breakfast again in the Garden Cafe in the Hotel.  This time, we decided that we would just order off the menu and not do the buffet.  Brian had french toast and fruit and I had eggs, bacon, hash browns, toast and orange juice.  It was so good.  I found a deck of cards that had the Grand America logo on them.  I couldn't resist, I had to have them even if they were $10.  We collect cards for our Nertz games.  We can never have enough decks of cards.  After breakfast we decided to walk around the hotel and see the outdoor pool.  It was raining this morning, so we couldn't go out and see it, but we saw it from the windows.  We packed up all our stuff and put it in the car and then went and checked out.  As we were checking out they told us that there was a gift for us before we left.  It was a bottle of sparkling Pink Lemonade.  Thanks for Brian's compainion, Stephen Holding, for getting us the room for a discounted price and for giving us some gifts.  They are so nice to us, that we feel so blessed to have them as great friends.  We stopped on our way home to see Brian's mom, who just had surgery on her wrist that she fell and broke last tuesday and then arrived back home at 1:30 pm.  Erika had worked hard to get the house all cleaned up for us.  She is so sweet.  She took care of her little brother while we were gone and the house was still standing and clean when we arrived home.  We were glad to be home again.  It was fun to get away and be together for our anniversary, but we were also tired and ready to come home.  Thanks Brian, mom & dad, Tamra and Scott and Stephen Holding and family for a great couple days for our anniversary celebration.

2nd Day at the Grand America

We slept in this morning and then went to breakfast in the Garden Cafe in the hotel.  They had a breakfast buffet that was $15 for everything, including a chef that would make you a omelet to your order.  We had fruit, hash browns, quiche, bacon, and orange juice.  Brian decided to go back and have the chef make him an omelet.  It was the size of a 8" pizza folded in half with all the ingredients and about 2" high.  It was huge and I don't think Brian was expecting it to be so big.  To say the least, he didn't finish it.  We then walked over the the UTA Trax and rode it to the Clark Planetarium.  Brian has never been there, so we walked around with about 100 school kids that were there and bought some souveniers for the kids.  Oh, by the way, we left Erika and Riley at home for the entire time.  They went to a movie with their friends and played with some other friends in Salem.  Anyway, we rode the trax back to the hotel, but we got on the wrong one that heads up the U of U.  We got off as soon as we realized it and walked back to the hotel for about a block.  Good thing the blocks are not too big.  We took a nap for a couple of hours and then walked back to trax at 2:30 pm and went to the 3:10 movie of Sherlock Holmes with Tamra & Scott.  It was their anniversary the day before ours, so we called them and planned a movie and dinner them.  After the movie we went the Thaifoon Restaurant there at the Gateway Mall.  It was Thai food, but really it was a really nice Chinese food place.  We finished eating at around 9:00 pm and Scott & Tamra drove us back to the Grand America, since the last time we took the wrong trax back.  They gave us some homemade valentines cookies.  They are so sweet and we were glad to spend some time with them while we were in Salt Lake.

Brian & Sharri 22nd Anniversary

Today was the 22nd Anniversary of Brian and Sharri marriage. Brian had reserved a room at the Grand America for 2 nights. We left home at 5:30 pm and meet Sharri's parents at the Outback Steakhouse for dinner. We had a great time with them and as always great food. We left at 7:30 pm and headed for Salt Lake to the Grand America Hotel. We were on the 17th floor in room 1790. There were 20 floors in the hotel, so we think we were in one of the executive suites. We walked in to a plate with white chocolate doves and the biggest raspberries and blackberries we have ever seen. The room was nice with a large King bed and large sitting area. The whole room was exquiste and fine, including gold door handles and faucets in the bathroom.

Elder Brown update

Hello from Elder Brown in 3 to 5 inches of snow! It is crazy out here. There is snow much snow that it feels like home again. I cannot believe it. Power has gone out for some of the city and it is just so cold! Elder Young says he is going to make a snowman in Texas. I just can't believe it. Well, the work is going well. We got a referral from the Mansfield Elders about a couple who want to get baptized and they live in our area, but then they moved out and now, no baptism. Oh, well...at least they are getting baptized in that ward. Well, other than that, nothing new has happened this week in missionary work. We just taught a couple of people and committed them to read the Book of Mormon and Pray. Well, yesterday I had the privilege of sitting down one on one with President and talking about the work. He told me that next transfer I will be getting transferred to a new area. Elder Young is staying. Although that isn't 100% guaranteed, that is what he indicated to me. So I am excited to try a new area and do the work. This ward has asked me to give a talk my last Sunday here, because they like me so much, and I have been here so long. I will be talking about the Book of Mormon. Transfers are on March 3, 2010. I will know the Saturday before that day if I'm getting transferred or not.
Well, that is all the time I have for this week. Love you so much and be safe!

-Elder Brown

Blue & Gold Scout Banquet

Tonight was the annual Blue & Gold Banquet for our ward.  They had all the scouts, leaders and family come for a dinner and awards evening.  They served potato bar and cake for the 100th anniversary of Boy Scouts.  A few scouts received awards that night.  Riley was part of the flag ceremony, but did not receive any awards.  His friends, Bryan and Nate were there and and always are willing to share a great pose for the camera.  Thanks for a great evening.

Riley Job Shadow with Dad

Riley had the opportunity to go and do his Job Shadow today with his Dad at DTI.  He had the day off from school to go with Brian, but he did have to fill out some paper and answer questions about his dad's job and what he learned and did.  One of the highlights was going to lunch together.  Riley picked the Art City Trolley in Springville to have lunch at.  He was so excited to go and eat with his dad.  Apparently, Riley was hungary for some Ribs.  Riley loves to have Ribs when they are available.  He ordered a half rack of Ribs, french friens and onion rings.  His eyes were bigger than his stomach.  He ended up taking home two boxes with the left over ribs, french fries and onion rings.  He had a fun day with his dad and was able to have a day off from school too.