News from Collin plus pictures!

We had a funny experience. On thursday mornings we have been volunteering at a Food pantry,

and they got 85 boxes of frozen cookies dough donated. They are 2 feet by 18" by 1 foot boxes,

so pretty big. They were giving out as much as they could, and stored as much in the freezers

as possible. when it was time to go, they asked if we wanted one. So we somehow straped the

box on my bike rack and rode it home. Now it takes up the whole freezer.

A makeover.

After a few days of trying to figure it out and fretting over it I finally gave my blog a makeover. New background that is. When you do this you lose all the little widgets that you put on your blog unless you are proficient at html, which I am not. But I tried like heck to figure it out and was successful with one widget but not all. Oh well. Hope you enjoy the new background. I like it. :)

Everyone else.

Rich did this driving thing this past weekend and loved it. It's called hooked on driving and they do events. He drove this guy's corvette and had a coach and really improved his driving. He loved it a ton and would love to have these same events here. We're continually looking at granite slabs. We found one that we like. Our deal is that it has to be 75" high. Those are hard to find. But we found one that we like so now to find a fabricator that we like. Young women's is an interesting change for me. I really miss seminary and even have one of the scripture mastery cd's playing in my car all the time so we can memorize them. The new teacher is doing scripture mastery differently and that is taking some getting used to for me. The Young Women are having a giant planning meeting at my house on Saturday morning. We're aiming at planning the whole year! It should be fun. We're having crepes for breakfast with nutella and strawberries! YUM! I really like working with the Laurels in our ward. I think they're great leaders! I really turn most stuff over to them to plan, solve, whatever and they do a great job. Madelyn is busy at school and loving it. She has a couple of classes with older students that she thinks is fun and not so boring. Spencer auditioned for a play at school and got a part. He gets to die. That's fun. Should be interesting. Melissa is tall and growing taller. She's 2 inches taller than Emily was 2 months later in the 5th grade. I'm hoping she's 5'9". Yea! One daughter taller than me! Who knows though. Growth spurts are weird at best.

More

More of the same from Collin. Everyone else is doing pretty good. Life just moves on whether we're ready or not.

So my new companion is Elder Landon Palmer and he is from Castlerock, Colorado. He has been out a little over 18 months. He went to BYU Idaho for a bit. He likes motorcycles and he really likes music. He took 13 semesters of choir in high school. He is a great missionary, and i am excited to be with him. We have a couple of people that are ready for baptism. Actually, the funny thing was that Elder Palmer prayed his whole mission that he wouldnt get sent to Plano, and then he got sent here. he had heard a bunch of bad things about the place, and had bad experiences in rich parts of Allen. But once he got here, he saw it was really good, and now he is really excited. i think all the horror stories are about west plano. We have the east side and it is more humble.

We had a couple of cool things happen this week. We had a cool experience on thursday. We had a referral we were contacting and we missed the turn as we went there. we had to take a 15 min detour to get back. When we got there, the girl we were supposed to teach was just pulling up. There was a guy there too, and we taught both of them the 1st lesson. He had actually read the Book of Mormon in jail and it changed his life. We wouldnt have met them if we hadnt missed the turn.

Another Cool experience. Remember we got to hear Elder M. Russell Ballard last week. WELL.........

This week apparently President Uchtdorf was in town, so the whole mission got to hear him yesterday and we all got to shake his hand and his wife's hand. It was sweet.

How are things going at home. i had a couple missionaries ask me about my sisters and how old they were. Emily is being hunted in RMville.

i now need to send my notes of both Elder Ballards and Pres Uchtdorfs talks. This week was stake conference though, so i didnt get to the copier. oh and this week we had our Zone leaders living with us while they found the sisters housing. that was a bit interesting and a bit cramped. they are funny guys though.

That is all for now.

i love you very much. i think i will try and send the picutres today. i need to do some shuffling around on the cards though. a CD doesnt hold enough.

Love,

Elder Collin Brown

Waiting at Piano lessons

While I'm here waiting at piano lessons I thought I'd post an excerpt from one of Collin's letters. I think you'll enjoy it.

Hey Mom, Thanks. It has been 13 months. It is pretty weird. it goes by so fast and i am trying to not let it pass me by. I really wasn't that sick. I had a fever, but i felt worse when i got sick in quitman. I think its allergies or something. i think i am allergic to something. My eyes are incredibly itchy, and my nose is too. i don't know what is up. I am doing better than when i was. We had something really awesome today. We had the privilege to hear from Elder Costa of the Presidency of the Seventy and Elder M. Russell Ballard of the quorum of the 12. We were sitting on the front row. It was sweet. He was in the area training the mission presidents. He is truly an apostle of the Lord Jesus Christ and i could tell by the influence of the Holy Ghost. it was really amazing. Our investigators are doing well. We picked up a few new ones this week. Elder Ballard told us to be bold and really commit people. Either our message is true or it is not, and you have to find out. Oh, and by the way, transfers are this week and i am staying in Plano 5th and 7th. Elder Ruby, my companion is leaving. So i will be getting a new companion tomorrow. I haven't heard much about football, but i am sure i will. this is Texas after all. Pretty crazy stuff. i love you very much. Get excited for general conference. it will be awesome. Love, Elder Collin Brown

Some new pics at the end.

Ok. So Emily requested that I post and put up new pictures because she's not here and wants to see what's going on. So here are some new pictures at the end of the slideshow. Life is busy.

Ack!

Nobody knows what the Browns are doing anymore because they never write a new post!

Obviously, I can't tell you what's going on with any degree of accuracy, since I am not a primary source.

Post!

What's happening.

A lot is happening. One reason it's been difficult to blog recently is because our PC's have been crashing and getting infected with malicious viruses. Not fun. This is why we love having a Mac. No problems ever. YAY! Dropping off Emily at BYU was fun and exciting. She is having a great time and you should check out her blog. The tile in the new house is complete and getting grouted tomorrow. The cabinets are arriving on Tuesday. Things are coming together. It will be fun to move. All the dejunking that has to come will be interesting. Not looking forward to saying, "What's this and do we need to keep it?" Anyway, all is well on the home front. Oh yes. I was released as a seminary teacher and called to be YW President. YIKES! Rich was released as 2nd Counselor and called as 1st. Big change. Collin is well and serving in Plano. Right next to the area he just served in. We await more pictures.