More News from Elder Brown!

Here is another letter from Collin! Yeah!

First, my companion is named
Elder Greg Barkley. He is
from Florence Oregon. he is
a pretty good guy. he works
hard. and as for the
pictures i am taking pictures,
so dont worry. Next, here are
the names from my district.
10 are going to Dallas and 2
are going to Tuscon. Elder
Alley and Elder Marble
are going to Tuscon and they
are in the room with us.
Elder Alley is from Logan, Utah and Elder Marble is from South Jordan. Elder Thurgood is the funny one. He is from Richfield, Ut. His companion is Elder Krammer and is from Greeley, Co.
Elder Lewis and Elder Walker are both from Pocatello, ID. But they didnt know each other. Elder Lewis actually lived in Wyview last year, not far away from where i lived. Elder Peay is from Las Vegas and Elder Hatch is from Gilbert, AZ. He says he loves Pete's Fish and Chips. Elder Hatfield is from Payson, and he is the oldest at 22. His companion is Elder Stevens from Hyde Park, UT. He likes to dirtbike like me. Thats everyone in the district.

Just to reanswer some other questions, i am leaving September 1st. Thanks for the package. i needed the soap box thing. We heard about the dork dots thing too. 1 guys in our group saved his and went messing around. Thats good that spencer got to go to Legoland with nick and Aunt Mercedes, cause he didnt get to go with me and i know he really wanted to.

i will be out in the field on monday. its only in 5 days. its nuts. We have to be at the travel center by 5:00 in the morning, so my call might be kind of early. As for my ankle. it is doing pretty good. i got an ankle brace and i got to ride around outside the MTC, cause i went to the health center to get Xrays. just in case. Then we had to pick up someone from the UTah regional medical center, so we got to ride down there and got to see the outside world for a bit. Still havent found my retainer, still checking the lost and found. it was the same day i was getting sick and the same day i rolled my ankle, so there was a lot on my mind. we got to go to the Temple today, and that was really cool. We had this huge discussion one day about the fall and whether or not a transgression and a sin were the same thing. we eventually figured it out. We talk about this stuff when we are in the RC and are waiting for people to call in from the numbers off the calling cards. Its pretty fun when you do get them. i actually got one from Texas that i sent the missionaries too. I am pretty excited to get out there, but there is a lot more i need to learn. oh, and i met a sister here that is going to Finland and i told here about Alec and how it is in Finland. she knew where Espoo was, so that was pretty cool. And i met someone from Kari's hometown that knew her and i have met so many people from my BYU ward. I met 2 people in the bookstore that were working there. that was pretty cool.
Well, i love you guys all very much, and i hope that all of you do well in school.
Love you all.
Elder Collin Brown

News from Elder Brown!

I was just checking my emails and there was one from Collin at the MTC! YEAH! Here are some excerpts from his letter:

hey Family,
It is really great to hear from you guys. i love getting
letters.
       Yesterday was a big day. We went to the referral
center in the morning, and we really like that. We call
a lot of people and every once in a while we get an
answer. it is really cool. After that we had class and
an appointment at the TRC. We got to teach our first
lesson, and i think it went really well. i am soaking
up the lesson material pretty well. we have gone back
to the Referral center a couple times because we all
like it a lot. Then we had a devotional yesterday
kinda like we had at BYU. they are always on tuesdays.
We had Elder Dallin H. Oaks come and speak to us on
the spirit. it was wonderful. he is truly called of god.
And something Spencer might like, i always think of
Elder Oaks as one of those old super wise Jedi guys.
He seems like he could fit in that role just perfectly.
Oh and we went to the temple this morning. that was
very cool. Class is pretty cool. We have a lot of
study time. The food isnt too bad.
Gym is very cool, but it doesnt last very long.
Well, i guess i will finish here.

Love,
Elder Collin Brown

Not a whole lot but it's something!

Girls Camp, the details.

Girls Camp was held this year during a different week than our Stake was used to. Somehow it was changed from the week we've had for 30 years or so. We were not informed of the change until February. This was bad because a LOT of girls and their families had already scheduled their vacations and such. We thought the numbers would be really low but they weren't so bad. Anyway, we had a great group of YCL's that really did a great job. This year the stake leaders stayed in the cabins with the YCL's. That turned out to be really fun. We learned a lot about the girls and they probably learned a few weird things about us. We had a couple of trips to the hospital with sick leaders and those turned out okay. The YCL's added a trip to the lake this year which was a smashing success! They also did a hike which was much better than last years. It was well marked and well traveled. There were some geocaches on the trail and since we were bringing up the rear anyway Susan Finch and I did some caching. It was a fun hike. The best part of camp was the bear! He showed up on Monday, Thursday and Friday nights. Some girls actually saw the bear at the trash cans and a ward testimony meeting. They thought it was exciting as did we! I stayed up and saw the bear with Susan Finch on Friday night. It was great! We actually got more sleep this year than others because of the sleeping arrangements. The awards were changed from Saturday morning to another date so that we could clean up and leave as soon as possible. That was nice. We arrived home around noon. Great! A note about the picture. I somehow ended up taking it and the timer wasn't working so I cloned myself in later. Here it is.

To Lake Powell We Went

About the Lake Powell youth activity. In some meeting previous to going Rich said that one of us would go. He preferring that I go since he needed to work. I agreed. When we returned from our grand adventure I found out that I was going. This was the plan. Emily, Madelyn and I would go to the activity and on Wednesday Rich, Collin, Spencer and Melissa would head up to Page, rent a boat, drive up to see rainbow bridge and if they could, find our youth camp and visit us there then return to page. That's pretty much what happened except that when they found our camp the Bishop asked if he would stay and drive one of the houseboats back. He agreed. So they all stayed overnight with all of the youth. It was fun having them all there but a little weird. The activity was good and I think some of the youth really blossomed. We played some fun games, had great devotionals and scripture reading time. Had interesting conversations. It was good. Here's a picture of the whole group at Rainbow Bridge that I pulled off of The Greens Blog. Thanks. :)

Collin is in the MTC!

Sorry for the long hiatus from the blog but I've been real busy. I'll blog about each week individually later and give a quick update here. After we returned home from our trip it was a week of rest and then off to chaperon the youth activity at Lake Powell. It was great and an adventure as Lake Powell always is. Beautiful too! We didn't return home but went straight to Cedar City to drop off Emily and Madelyn at SUU for EFY. Spencer and Melissa went to Brian Head to stay with Aunt Ronda and crew and Collin and I headed to Provo to do some missionary shopping. We stayed with my good friend Sheila and had a blast. After all our shopping was finished we headed back to Brian Head and played around then went back to Cedar City to pick up the girls and head home. We had a day to wash our clothes and then we headed back to the mountains for girls camp! The most exciting news there was the regular appearance of a bear! The "no food in the A frames" rule was at an all time high for compliance. Yea! The stake YW president and I stayed up late on the last night just so we could see the bear and we were not disappointed! I thought he was rather big and no small puppy. I wasn't sure I wanted to get out of the car after I got a good look at him. After girls camp I had a week to rest, sort of. Spencer was off to scout camp and they needed another adult leader so Collin decided to go. He also needed to go through the temple before he left. Hmmmm...what to do? Here's what happened. Collin and Spencer went down to Fiesta Island which is located on Mission bay in San Diego. On Tuesday afternoon Collin left the camp and met Rich and I at the San Diego Temple and took out his endowments. We went to dinner afterwards then he went back to camp and us home. The next day he woke up and went back to the temple with all the scouts to do baptisms. How cool is that for he and Spencer? He came home late Wednesday night and we continued to prepare for his entry into the MTC. So now he is in the MTC and I'll post all the details later. It was GREAT and I loved it!