Guinea Pig....Oh...Cuy!

Did another week just fly by or what? So much happened this week without her. We sold her favorite car.....I am pretty sure she is super upset about it....haha! We went to Mapleton days without her to watch the fireworks....which by the way were pretty amazing!!!  Aushlynn tells us that her mission is not going to be long enough....she feels she needs more time out there. Geez whiz girl....you haven't even hit hump day yet! Anyways she is doing good....here is her letter!

Hey guys! 

Welp....this week in Paita was just like any other week. Just a lot of work work and more work! There isn’t anything I’d rather be doing than this work right now. Honestly in these few short months I have been able to learn a totally different language, adjust to a whole different culture and gain a never shaking testimony of my savior Jesus Christ. I am forever grateful for this opportunity I have to serve my lord and savior Jesus Christ. I feel highly privileged to be able to wear my name tag and say that I am a representative of Jesus Christ. 

This week we didn’t see a wedding or a baptism. Our couple that was supposed to get married can’t get married until they settle something with the court so there wedding is currently pending. Also we have plans for Hermana Milagros to be baptized this upcoming Saturday. We are praying a lot for her because she is a little unsure about having a living prophet. Also we were able to take an investigator to another baptism that was happening and it was awesome! It changed her whole look on the church and now she is super excited to be baptized. We are shooting for the 14th! Also.... this wasn’t even my baptism and they just announce over the pulpit that I am leading the music ha ha I guess apparently they think cause I am Caucasian I can lead the music ha ha!

Also this week we have been practicing a musical number for a multi zone conference that we are having. I am super excited and it is sounding so good! We are going to be singing Be still my soul! It’s just 6 of us gringos. Also there is this Elder from Montana Elder Abbott that sings so goood! He is like David Archuleta like seriously. 

This week was kind of crazy as well. We didn’t have water for like 3 days... yanno... I’ve come to realize without water we would all die. Ha ha no but really It has been very rough. We also got invited to eat with a member on Saturday and we have RICE AND CUY!!!! ( GUINEA PIG) I about threw up... it was like a fried guinea pig... the whole thing... like they killed it and just fried it. I was trying so hard to get a picture but they were all watching ha ha oh my gosh... Also we are still getting up at 5:30 and playing soccer in the mornings! It’s fun to get out and play but also one Elder broke his foot so yikes.... I don’t know what’s going to happen with him.

Well... that’s all for this week! Thanks for all your love and support and I would love to hear from all of you!

Hermana Brown

Aushlynn and her companion and two little angels......she says they might look like angels but don't be fooled they really know how to turn it on.

Hermana Ramos is not a fan of 5:30 a.m. soccer games. Gotta get your exercise in some how!

Does this picture surprise anyone???

Since Aushlynn was not able to get a picture of her dinner....I took to the internet. I imagine her Guinea Pig dinner looked something like this. Apparently it is a delicacy in Peru and only brought out on special occasions. She must be pretty special to whom ever served it to her....even if it was a little hard to swallow. I might have died....

The end of an Era....

Yesterday was a sad day at our house....we sold a family member yesterday. I had some tears well up in my eyes as she drove away from the curb for the last time. I did not think I would get emotional but when I think of the memories our kids made in this car it was just a little to much raw emotion to keep the tear ducts from filling up.

Purchased nearly six years ago...I thought maybe she was a mistake from the beginning. When we came to the realization one of kids would be driving we quickly agreed that one we did not want teenagers driving our cars, two we needed something that would be affordable for insurance and three something that would enhance the beauty of our curb in the front yard.

I let Kendall take the reins on looking for a car and he told me he found one up in Pocatello and that his Pops checked it out and gave us the thumbs up. We drove up there and one look at it and I was not completely sold. It was missing the glove box, an arm rest and some molding around the windows. Was this the best we could do for our $2000 bucks. Kendall was excited for the purchase. I was a little more hesitant and quickly talked them down to $1600. We were pretty big spenders back in 2010. 

I bought a nice glove box and arm rest off of ebay, but I was never able to find the molding.... confession after a month of two I stopped trying. The car is what it is and they just needed to get used to it.

Dyllon was such a trooper...he was just super grateful to have a car at his disposal. Funny when it is your only option how cool it can become.  He added a few dings to the outside and thus began the poor cars era of being a teenagers mode of transportation.

 When it came time to turn the keys over to Avery he needed to make some upgrades. First thing he did was take the Honda symbol off the front and put a sweet Eagle emblem on instead. He gave the eagle a professional installation with excess glue on the front of the car. A sweet upgrade for sure.

When it came time for Aushlynn to take over the keys she was less than excited. She begged for a better option, but at this point driving the car became a Brown's rite of passage. One time the car was making a funny noise and a piece of metal fell off the bottom of the car. It was a heat shield and Kendall assured her she did not need it and threw it in the trash. The car sounded much better without the rattle and I guess the car really did not need it....still drove just fine. Aushlynn was hard on her. She had never had so many dents in the exterior. I don't want to know what happened....I hope she is forgiven for her transgression with the car in the next life. 

This little lady has been thru three radios. My kids would forget the importance of locking her up at night. Such a hassle to push down a lock because no power locks were around in the age of the dinosaurs when the car was manufactured. This car was left unlocked and rifled thru by many strangers and all of them agreeing the only thing worth anything was the Walmart special radio in the car.

Madison refuses to drive the car. I was like...well then I guess you can walk.....Kendall being on the same wave length as the baby told her we would get her a different car. The other kids are a little upset and are questioning there place as favorite child. We love them all the same of course.....but we are getting tired and the last child is wearing us down. 

I wrote up a sweet obituary...I mean ad for the car. I had an interested buyer within 5 minutes of posting the car and four others lined up to look at it if it fell thru. 

 

Needless to say...my sweet ad worked and the car is now in the hands of a new family. I hope the Honey Wagon knows how much we appreciated her. She never gave us any problems. Well except the time she was a little loud and we had to get a new muffler. She saved us so much money on insurance. I am sad to drop her today. I am sure my insurance rates will go up once the boys are no longer rated on liability only on a 1992 Honda Civic...

Good bye my friend. I will miss seeing you out on the curb....I am sure Madison is a little sad to see you go! Here is a little video she made as you drove off for the last time.

A confession......Oops....My bad!

We are in preparation for a major milestone here....Aushlynn is going to hit her Hump Day on August 3rd.  I know....I can't believe it either.  On Saturday, I bought hump day milk......some of you might ask what hump day milk is....well it is milk that has the expiration date of her hump day....get it....Hump Day Milk. (its a missionary mom thing...don't judge) This time it was a Vitamin D Whole milk.....Dyllon's favorite but I buy it for those in my daycare that are one but not yet two....so basically for Ezzie........but Dyllon drinks more than she does. Quit taking her milk Dyllon!!  Anyways, super exciting stuff...right????

It was good to hear from Hermana Brown...she is in great spirits! Well... except she is mad that we are selling the Honda....you see the kids call it the honey wagon......I don't know why??? Maybe because they keep it stinky!! Haha! Well, the reason she is mad is because Madi won't have to drive it and she thinks it so unfair!  It has a lot of problems and is not worth it to fix...she really did a number on it haha. She says it is a Brown's rite of passage to drive that car! Poor poor Aush....life is not fair....but at least you won't have to drive it when you get home! Blessing!!

Anyway, Life in Peru is going well. The bugs are not bugging her and hardly bite her and her fingernails are....well she says she is trying. Here is what she has to say:

Familia!!!!

Well many of you may already know that exactly one year ago today (yesterday) I opened my mission call. It’s so weird to think that it was a year ago... honestly time in the mission flies faster than normal life. I remember that day like it was yesterday. Okay spoiler alert..... I’m am a super impatient person and as soon as my call arrived in the mail I opened it up with my family and then resealed it so we could have an opening party with friends! Haha.... oops....My bad!

Well, this first week of the transfer just seemed to fly by... it’s like we were sitting there on Tuesday and next thing we know its Saturday night and we are thinking where did this week go.... and then I got thinking what the heck July is almost over.. my mission is just slipping away.

Just so everyone knows.....we have not had water in our appt for 4 days.... im going to die!! We have to shower at the other sisters room and it’s just so inconvenient! Oh Peru.......whats next???Haha

So this week we didn’t have anyone to baptize... but alas we have dates for the 30th and the 6th. This week we saw a lot of progress from our investigators and we are really pleased with all of them! A miracle occurred this week! I have come to realize that in the mission sometimes God puts trials in our lives so that we can demonstrate our faith and love for him. Hermana Milagros one of our investigators... we were kind of at a stand still with her.. she would read the Book of Mormon and she had every lesson and had been listening to the missionaries for 8 months. We were thinking about not visiting her anymore because... well she just wasn’t progressing. Our last visit with her she had told us that her brother got lost out at sea and that her and her mom were planning a funeral service for him. We asked her if she would pray with us and ask God what date he would have her be baptized. She broke down in tears while praying and said the most sincere prayer I have ever heard. She said that she received the answer to be baptized on the 30th but that she still wanted to pray more... well the next day we passed by to see how she was doing and she had told us that after we left that she went into her room and got on her knees as prayed and that the next day she received a call from her brother saying that he was saved by another boat and is safe and on land. She feels that this is the answer to her prayers and is so excited to be baptized on the 30th. 

On Saturday we had our zone meeting. Our district had to do a special musical number... yay!?!?.... ha ha no it went really well. We are now practicing a number for our multi zone conference on the 4th! So we talked about how in the mornings here in Peru they just aren’t productive at all... most of the time we walk around contacting for 3 hours because everyone is working at school or they are cooking. We came up with some new ideas to contact people in the mornings that I am excited to use! Also we have a new plan for the area in Piura that I think will be really effective! We are working really hard here in Paita for a stake! Hopefully by the end of this transfer that president will ask for a stake here in Paita! We have the numbers of excellence that are like 5 new people every week and 5 investigators assist to church but obviously Paita is to good for that and our zone leaders upped that... I was a little nervous at first but I know that if we work really hard that we can reach those goals!! Its been so awesome here! I love all the people here! The ward especially even though they don’t know what being on time means ha ha. (sounds like Mormon standard time and Aushlynn pre-mission time haha!)

For p-day we played soccer on the beach. Yay... soccer... ha ha no I am actually not half bad and I scored a goal on a hat trick... Dyl... that was for you! I didnt really know that I did that but everyone was really impressed so I just went with it lol. After we all ate a really good fried fish and of course it’s not a plate without a mountain of rice ha ha. You guys won’t even recognize your daughter when I get home. I am not picky at all with food anymore... 

Well that is all from Paita this week! Hope all is well in the South Jordan!

Hermana Brown



Aushlynn and her newest little friend!  She loves kids!

Hermana Brown, Hermana Ramos and an investigator.

This is a picture of us at lunch on P-day with another district.....our district was too slow getting to lunch so we ate without them! I am so impatient! My Bad!! Haha

I think that this is Zone Paita!  Unless they were all late and she took a picture with a different zone! haha

Aushlynn when she opened her mission call.

So, I had sent Aushlynn a picture of this vase because it looked like eyes were staring at me....well, this is not the actual picture....because I got in trouble.....you see I had always put the names of the boys mission areas in the blocks....but I had not done that for Aushlynn and she called me out.  She said: "Wait....why is my area Paita not in the blocks?? Okay, I see I am not cool enough to make the blocks........It did say Brown Ohana.......I realized the error of my ways......and quickly made the change for our dear daughter!  Aushlynn you are cool enough for the blocks!  Oops...My bad!!!
So Sorry!!!! Please forgive!

Fishers of Men.......and Fish!

So first of all....important things out of the way.....Someone downloaded the new Windows 10 on my computer and it is ruining my life!  I am not a fan...at all. It has been so frustrating today with this blog post!.  Okay....on to better stuff!

 

Aushlynn has been in the mission field for 253 days!  I have not thrown out a number in awhile and I thought that you might me interested. She has also been on the mission for 6 transfers! Her mission is just flying by! She is also missing out on the Pokémon Go  game.  She will love it!  She loves Geocaching and I think that this is very similar in a weird kinda way...not that I have even tried it or downloaded it. But... Dyllon is a gym leader and we are super proud of his accomplishment.  I also was invited to walk around the neighborhood with Avery and see if we could find Pokémon.

 

But anyway, back to Aushlynn....This week was pretty awesome for her...I will let her tell you why!

 

Hola Familia!!

 

Well.... transfers have come and gone. Yep.... I’m still in Paita with Hermana Ramos! We are super happy because we have so many baptisms and even a wedding this next transfer! Honestly, I couldn’t be happier in this area! The branch is awesome..... even though sometimes people don’t know how to be on time to anything! Ha Ha I think I am going to be learning patience my whole mission! 

 

Well, so another miracle occurred in our area on Saturday! Leslie was able to talk to her dad and he gave her permission to be baptized! She was able to be baptized the next day on Sunday!! We are so happy for her! She gave her testimony about how prayer, fasting and faith in Jesus Christ helped soften the heart of her dad and how she wants to be an example for her dad so one day he can come to church and get baptized. It was an awesome day! Also, Elder Wilson gave his his final talk in church and we had a big party for him Sunday night! It was really sad to see him go because he was an awesome missionary! I definitely learned a lot from him! Probably the biggest thing I learned from him is how to be a true disciple of Christ. I’m going to miss him being in our district! 

 

So on Friday night one of our investigators asked his girlfriend to marry him! In Peru I guess it’s like a huge deal and you have a huge party for it! I guess its tradition to ask in front of tons of friends and family! They will be getting married this next week and then we can baptize him! We are super happy for them! 

 

This morning for p-day we got up at 5:00 in the morning and went out fishing! Hahaha... okay dad in Peru they have the craziest way of fishing ha ha ha they go and catch crabs and hook them on a string and cast them out lol. Elder Wilson gave me his fishing pole and all this stuff to fish with so I used all of that! I caught 2 fish! It was my day ha ha! All the latinos were like what the crap Hermana Brown you can fish? Also for lunch today I had octopus. It was actually pretty good. A lot of people from the zone got transferred and so its very different now but the people are cool and we are still going to be playing soccer in the mornings so that’s cool! 

 

Well that’s pretty much all for this week! Hope all is well at home.

 

Hermana Brown



Hermana Brown and Hermana Ramos at Puerto Paita

Aushlynn and her newly acquired fishing gear! Thanks Elder Wilson for the hook up! She will put them to good use I am sure!



Coastline of Peru

Well...not sure what to say about this one.....but it is the same as above.....coastline of Peru.

Baptism of Hermana Leslie! Yay!

Shot take while she was fishing for p-day!

Hermana Ramos, Hermana Brown, Hermana Arcelly and Hermano Santos.

The Branch and Leslie. We have such great support from out members!

We had dinner with our district to say goodbye to Elder Wilson. Also in the photo are Elder Ayala from New jersey and Elder Culaca from Lima!

Happy Fourth of July from Peru!!!



So, this past Sunday Aushlynn hit her first day of the 9th month!  We are now counting down to hump day! Woot Woot!!! Now when your pregnant and you hit the 9th month you have arrived and the end could be anytime.....so, we have arrived!!! It has passed by faster than either of her brothers missions.  I am putting a hump day package together for her.

Also, Aushlynn is having a birthday in September.  Just so you know, I have not been with any of my kids when they have turned 20! They have all reached that milestone while serving a mission. Anyway her teenage days are slipping by....fast.  Here is where you can help.  I was hoping to send birthday cards to her from you!  Those who enjoy her letters.  I know!!! It is a fantastic idea....right!!!So, if you can send her a card, that would be awesome!  I won't even open them...promise....I will just stick them in her package!!

Hermana Aushlynn Brown

Here's the catch.....I am hoping to send the package on the 15th or 22nd of this month.  So you have to hurray up and go buy the card and get it to me ASAP!  She would love to hear from you! Please Please help me out!

There was a earthquake about 45 miles away from Hermana Brown this past week.  It was 4.6 on the Richter scale.  I was freaking out....she said that she did not even feel it! She's fine...I'm fine....were all fine! This was awesome news....but I am not a fan of her being in areas where there are earthquakes!

Anyway...here is her letter for the week!

Hola family!! 

HAPPY FOURTH OF JULY!

Wow this week was sure intesresting. We definitely had really high highs and really low lows. Im sure glad that it ended with a huge miracle that made my testimony that much stronger!

This week with our investigators was kinda slow. They just arent progressing as fast as we want them too! Hermana Ramos and I have a really hard time letting people go that arent really progressing but this week we are going to drop a few so we can focus on the ones that are ultimaitly going to get baptized! No... we didnt have a baptism this week but we are shooting for one this week! Her name is Leslie! Her brother and mom are members, but her dad is not and has not given her permission to be baptized but she is ready to go with all the lessons and she assisted to a baptism this week that the elders in our district had! Im hoping that she talks to her dad this week so we can get her baptized! Also.... she wants to be baptized in the ocean so... THATS AWESOME!!!

This week was a little bit scary but im in Peru so apparently its normal.... anyways so we contacted a guy in the streets one night and he was being really creepy so I pulled the card that I don't speak spanish haha.... anyways we hurried and left and as we were walking home he drove up in a moto infront of us and got out and started running towards us so we hurried and ran away and got into a moto and drove to a different part of our area and after walking for like 3 minutes he was there running after us again and so we called our mission leader and he picked us up and took us home. Well the guy showed up at our house and was yelling at us and saying to come out of our house.... the next night he came back and almost entered into our house. We escaped our house and slept at the other sisters house. The next day we packed all of our things and changed rooms with the elders in our branch. Okay just let me tell you this... there is a big difference between elders rooms and sisters rooms... its so small but it will do haha. Yeah we havent seen this guy since but im sure glad that nothing bad happened. Our elders are so very good to us and are always watching out for us! :) Elder Wilson is now enjoying my hammock for the last week of his mission!

Okay so there is this guy named Hermano Santos! We like to call him our eternal investigator. He was married before but ended in a legal case and now he is living with Hermana Arecelly our old pensionista! So they are living together and have 2 kids... one is on a mission and one is 5 years old. So since they are living together the Hermana cant take the sacrament because well she is breaking the commandments. They are waiting for him to get out of this case so they can get married and he can be baptized. Well it was looking like they wouldnt be able to get married for 2 years because this legal case was looking nasty. They had talked about seperating for awhile but hey have a little 5 year old so that would have been really hard. Anyways this sunday was fast sunday and we fasted specifcally for this family! The hermna went u and bore her testimony about her situation and said she was so greatful for these trails in her life and that she has never felt the love of her savior more in this most dificult time in her life! Well today we saw them in the market in paita baja and THE DIVORCE WAS MADE FINAL! They can get married and Hermano Santos can get baptized!!!! Seriousl,y such a tender mercy and my testimony is so much stronger! MIRACLES DO EXIST!! 

Today for the fourth of july we went to the beach with all of our zone and played football and had a bbq! Yannno.... american stuff haha. We grilled hamburgers and hotdogs! We sang the star spangled banner about 50 times and had a good time! Lets just say I am proud to be an american haha! :) 

Well thats all from peru this week!

Hermana brown

This girl loves the beach....kinda like her momma! (Go Broncos!)

Just look at all this beauty!

Lunch with a group of missionaries on P-day!

Hermana Brown and Hermana Ramos and well....I'm not sure who the others are...haha

Aushlynn and her beloved hammock.....which is now enjoyed by the Elders since switching apartments with them for safety.

Happy 4th of July from Peru!

Happy 23 months Elder Wilson....looks like her received another egg and flour treatment. I hear its good for your hair.

P-day at the Beach.

Te amo familia! (it means I love you family!)