Fun P-Day in Boston

April 7, 2014

These past two days we listened to the prophet and other leaders of the church in the General Conference. They have given us council of how we can better live the Gospel of Jesus Christ. 

Here are a few things that really stuck out to me during the conference.

 * Be patient, submissive and valiant... it will come

 * Faith is manifested in many ways, seek for more ways to exercise your faith

 *The Atonement of Jesus Christ is real. He knows us and we just have to trust Him.

Heavenly Father has entrusted us with so much. Within our families, communities and church callings. There is so much that we can do and so many people that we can help. He sends us prophets not only in the times of the Bible, but also now, so that we can know how to best lead and serve those around us. Looking out at the city of Boston and thinking about the responsibility that I have to teach others is intimidating some times, but I know that Heavenly Father is preparing people and that angels are around me lifting me up. 

little Daniella in Karee's coat

Daniella watching conference with her marshmellows playing conference bingo

mom note:I love this picture!

This is Copley Library

Karee with a fellow

City of Boston

Karee and Sis Garcia at the harbor

Karee with another fellow, this one is much taller

Sharing the Gospel Blesses Lives

March 31, 2014

Sis Garcia and Karee (happened to be matching in skirts that day)

If there is anything I have learned it is that sharing the Gospel blesses lives.

It is so amazing how Heavenly Father blesses us sometimes. There is a sister who is a widow of a stake president in Santa Domingo. She doesn't have a car so she often asks for a ride to church. A week or so ago, Sister Garcia and I went to her house early Sunday morning to ride to church with her on the train. I have often heard of missionaries going to pick up their investigators or less active members for church and never thought I would be able to do it. That day I felt like a missionary. This Sunday she did not come to church because it was raining but she called us and asked us to come to her house after church. We decided to stop by on the way to an appointment. While we were there I had a strong impression that I should ask her to come out with us to the appointments. So I did. She was so excited to come. We were going to teach an eight year old who speaks mostly English, and she only speaks Spanish, but she didn't care. The lesson went well, but she wasn't able to participate as much as I would have hoped. But it became clear why she had come when we stopped by a less active family after. She was straight forward with them and told them that she missed them. She told them that there are two empty chairs waiting for them at church, (which I thought was funny because she doesn't always go). Then she bore pure testimony about how we need to be ready because we don't know when we are going to leave this life. It all tied together really nicely. Then she went on to bare testimony about her baptismal covenants. At this point the lass active sister was crying. What our lovely sister didn't know was that the less active brother has an addiction that he is struggling with. Her testimony included a story about how she had been addicted to pills after the death of her brother. She had to have them with her all the time because she had such bad anxiety. She said that when she was baptized she didn't expect to stop taking the pills, but that is just happened. Such a wonderful testimony that the Gospel truly changes us. On the car ride home I couldn't help but ask the sister how she felt. She said she couldn't be happier.  She committed to come out with us whenever we need her. I know that this experience not only helped the less active family who is struggling, but it also helped her. This experience as well as the many other experiences such as when the young women's president went out with us on splits with one of her laurels because she knew that missionary work can solve any problem that you have. She noted afterwards that even though they weren't together physically, they were both working together to do the work of the Lord and He blessed them for that. Sharing the Gospel really does change lives.

Love always,

Sister K. Brown

Karee in a Peruvian hat

Karee, Sis Garcia(the Cambridge sister missionaries), Sister Sorensen and Sister Caceres(the Boston sister missionaries

Who is Martica?

March 26, 2014

Martica is the proud mother of Ashley, Julio and Yofrangi. They moved here a little over a year ago from the Dominican Republic. They were introduced to the church by their family who are members in the Boston area. Hermana Hildenbrand took me to see Martica and her family in the first few weeks of my mission. I remember the first lesson that we had with her. Hermana Hildenbrand was talking and then Martica would talk... and I didn't want to say anything. I could understand most of what I was hearing until one of them asked me a question.. At that point I would forget all that I knew about Spanish and would just smile. I remember listening to Hermana Hildenbrand lead up to the baptismal invitation and then she turned to me. I asked Martica if she would want to be baptized and she said yes. Later I asked her again and she wasn't sure. She needed her time and she needed to know for herself the truthfulness of the restored gospel.

Martica is the proud mother of Ashley, Julio and Yofrangi

The day after my birthday, October 27, Martica was baptized. Now she and her family are enjoying the blessings that come from being a member of the Church. She has her own apartment and a job. Her children are adjusting to living here and are learning English!

It was so good to see them all together enjoying a family home evening.We talked about families and why they are important and ordained of God.  There is something different about them. There is hope, there is peace and there is confidence that comes when one puts their trust fully in the Savior. Life isn't easier for them, they still have their struggles, but they are happy with where they are because they know that something better will come and that their faith can sustain them until it does get better.

 

Good news, I will be staying in Cambridge for another 6 weeks, I am not getting transferred. Which is such good news because this area is really starting to pick up. I feel like I saw so many miracles and tender mercies that I don't know where to even start. 

I feel so blessed to have been given the opportunity to go back to Boston. We were able to have a family home evening with a wonderful family and then a day full of visits. That area has really grown since I was there. It felt like I was home again.

Martica and her family now

Saturday we went to visit the Gomez family. We have been wanting to take their daughter out with us for some time now and we finally decided that the best way to get a hold of her would be to simply catch her at her house. It took a little while to get her ready to go. She had some seminary homework to do and had to finish getting ready for the day, but she was more that happy to go out with us. We decided to go visit some less active young women. At first the visit was a little awkward. The two girls were not very excited to see us, but told us that they were planning on coming to church the next day. It really helped to have Jennifer with us. She was open with the girls and helped them to realize that they really need to come to church. You don't know how happy I was to see those girls at church the next day. We met with their grandma just Monday and she started to tell us how happy she was and how much it meant to her that we would try to help her grandchildren. 

We have been visiting with Graciela, a recent convert, pretty consistently through out the week since we have gotten to the area. Her daughter Patricia is not a member of the church yet and we have been trying to think of ways to help her. She was the one that we made cookies with.I think that the faithful prayers of her mother have been answered and that her heart has been softened. Monday we went over to the house to watch the Testaments with the family. At first she was not in the room with us, but I kept praying that she would come. Not too far into the movie she came! She had a few questions about when and where they were but she was really excited to see Jesus come to the American continent. She left the room at one point to finish her homework but told us to tell her when Jesus was resurrected. A few minutes later she came running back in. After the movie she was full of questions about what we believe. We gave her a few reading assignments and then she asked, "when will I see you again?" I could not believe it! We went back the next day and she came to us with what she had read. She has really opened up to us and is interested about learning more.

We have found a few less active families that are really wanting to come back and have a few non-members that they want to start working with. It is crazy how much work we have to do. Heavenly Father is blessing the people of this area.

 

Learning How to Dance and Cook

March 17, 2014

 We had family home evening at the home of a recent convert. We were trying to show them how to have family night. It was short and sweet ending with some delicious brownies :) Something that the Packards do is have a talent portion. So I decided to let this family start that tradition and we invited Daniella the 7 year old to show us a dance. She ended up picking a whole album to dance to so we tried to mix it up by having her teach us. Daniella was teaching me how to dance :)

 We have a potential from a part-member family that we want to start teaching, but we feel like we need to get a relationship with her first. She likes to bake so we made an appointment to make cookies with her. Daniella of course wanted to help and found herself playing a little more than baking. It reminded me of home when we make all that Christmas candy and sweets together.

 We were able to go to the temple on Wednesday to walk around outside after Return and report (for the trainers and the trainees)

Me making cookies with Daniella

Sister Garcia(Karee's companion) and Daniella

Sister Jimenez is our Relief Society President. We were just at her house last night interviewing her to get a better idea of how we can help her with the sisters in the branch. This lady never  stops. She made sure we had some food... even though we had just come from a dinner appointment, and then later showed us how she makes juice. Basically she just puts any kind of vegetable and fruit through her juicer and then mixes it together. She says that it is what keeps her going. I was feeling really tired before... I actually almost fell asleep when her daughter started to play with my hair, but I drank some of that and was wide awake! YUM!

Now We Know I Can't Play the Organ!

March 10, 2014

Elder Rivera still has a weak/sensitive ankle from the soccer accident a couple of weeks ago. We found some crutches in our house (honestly you can find anything in these apartments! and we let him use them. They both ended up using them... It was pretty funny

Sis Gomez and Karee

 I was finally companions with Sister Gomez!!! I love her so much! She is from Argentina and was called to serve here in Portuguese (the first one actually!) She found me in he MTC and we have been friends since. This woman is amazing!

So we went on exchanges so that her companion Sister Mello could go to the temple to do baptisms with one of her converts. We did some service with the Portuguese branch and then we went to an appointment that we had. The woman that we went to go see has been going through some really hard times. The plan was to talk to her about some of the missionary experiences that she has had lately. She had one that she shared but then told us that the friend is no longer interested because of the problems that the member is currently having in her marriage. Which made things a little awkward for me. But Sister Gomez just took it and ran with it. She shared a few scriptures and then something cool happened. I saw her, this woman, differently. I started to cry because it hurt me that she was hurting. I didn't have much to say when she asked me why I was sad. I just bore a simple testimony that I knew that Heavenly Father loves her, that Jesus knows what she is going through and that she has so much potential. This sister didn't come to church on Sunday and I was really concerned about her. We called to see if she would come out with us (thinking that she just needed to get out of the house). We ended up stopping by to sing a few hymns for her. She is a really strong woman and she is going to make it through. It is really hard to watch but at the same time I just feel so much love for her.

Sister Garcia and I both agree that there is never a dull moment in the car with these two elders. They are so much fun. Elder Rivera is always coming up with some fun . get to know you game. They have also started to look for opportunities to hand out pass along cards to cars at stop signs.. Sharing the Gospel at every opportunity. I love it!

 Every other Monday night, the branch has a Branch family home evening. This Monday was one of those nights and we had a wonderful lesson about families. Then we played one of my favorite group games, "Do you love your neighbor?" It was so much fun to see everyone participating. The catch on being in the middle more than once was that you would have to do the duck dance.... I unfortunately found myself in the middle a few times. But now I know the duck dance. Slightly embarrassing, but fun.

This week we went visiting teaching with Sister Baker, the Branch President's wife. We visited with Berta, who is not actually a member of the church, but she and her family have been attending the Church for the past 9 years It was amazing to hear her story of how they just decided to go and then have been committed to going since. They haven't been baptized because they want to all get baptized at the same time and they never all seem to be on the same page at the same time, but they are very active and love to serve in the church. 

I will be honest, I am not very good at contacting people on the streets and on the buses. I can sit and talk with a random stranger, but then getting their information so we can stay in touch is always hard for me. I need to be so much better, but this week I did it and I had success. We were headed home and had just found the right bus. We got on and then found seats. I choose to sit next to a woman and started up a conversation with her. We talked about living away from our families. Raquel, is from the Dominican Republic and actually has a lot of family here with her, including her children. We had such a lovely conversation and right before her stop, I was able to get her information. We have been in touch since that day and hopefully we can find a day that she is not too busy to meet with us. 

Wednesday we had some really good plans... but you know what happens. Of course something happened and the really good plans we had didn't happen. We ended up stranded on a bus for 45 minutes and then we decided to get off and catch another bus going a different way...bad idea. The problem was that the bridge that either bus needed to cross over was partially closed. We made an activity to teach the Restoration with cups as we waited in the cold at the bus stop. I am sure the people at the bus stop thought we were crazy taping pictures to little plastic cups, but at least we are ready to teach the object lesson. We were supposed to go teach Pablo with the cups, but we had to cancel because the bus took so long.

There was another disaster yesterday with the organ. I just can't seem to get it right. It was on a setting that all I would have to do to play the song is press one key to the rhythm and the song was supposed to play. We were singing a song that is only in the Spanish Hymnal, so I am not very familiar with the tune to begin with. But then when I started to play, reading the notes of the music, I realized that the organ wasn't actually playing what I was playing. It was playing the tune 100 times slower than I was. I started hitting the key faster and faster, but the notes were still way too long. Sister Garcia kept looking back at me asking what I was doing. The congregation was completely lost. She stopped them and said that we would start over again. I stopped the song sped up the tempo and then we started again. I got off beat so they sang half the song acapella. It was so embarrassing. It was no surprise they didn't ask me to play the piano in Relief Society. 

We finally have someone that we are teaching! Yesterday we went over to a less-active family's house and we taught the restoration to the 8 year old son, Pablo. We had an illustrated copy of the Book of Mormon and we read through the Joseph Smith story with him. We talked about prophets and why we need them. We talked about how God has given us prophets since the beginning to guide the people. Pablo is super smart and really excited to start going to church. He was excited to have a Book of Mormon of his own because, " I don't have any books about this on my book shelf!" He was so excited to have the book that he said he would read until page 89 before we come back in a week. We talked to him a little about what a covenant is and tried to explain that it is a two-way promise. We decided to make him a deal. We said that we would bring him cookies if he actually did the reading that he said he would. Just like any boy he decided to see what else he could get out of our little deal. He made a list of his "weaknesses" or his favorite things and asked what he could get if he read more than 89 pages. He is really cute and we are excited to start working more with him.

I love you all!

a couple of the beautiful spanish speaking sisters in the Boston Mission

Learning to Work Smart

March 3, 2014

Karee and her new companion, Sis Garcia at the Boston temple

This week has been a bit abnormal. Last Monday when we were playing soccer, Elder Rivera twisted his ankle pretty bad. So we have had to make a few adjustments to our schedules to make sure he isn't walking too much. We also had zone conference on Thursday in North Brookfield, which through us off a bit (we had to get the car cleaned, plan a day earlier, and had a whole day without work).

I am not sure I have ever done so much planning and organizing in my life. It seems as though when you are brand new in an area you have to really take the time to get organized so that you can work smart, or you will find that nothing that you do is worth it.  So we have been going to city halls to get maps of the areas

Thursday at the Zone Conference, there was a Stake President who spoke about visions or plans for the area. He was so inspired because I have been praying for the past few days, maybe even weeks, that I could understand how better to work in the area and better receive inspiration to guide the area. But what I really needed to be doing is getting the big picture from the leaders. Mostly I was just grateful that Heavenly Father had inspired someone in answer to my prayers.

We won the prize for the cleanest car... which I am sure had something to do with our ride through the car wash. We did some work too, vacuumed the inside and cleaned the tires and rims. 

 I think that one of the things I have learned about being a missionary, is that things hardly go as planned. That you have to plan and make sure things are set up, but then expect and welcome delays or interruptions. There is nothing wrong with them, and they are usually an opportunity to meet someone new or keep us safe from something that could have happened. This week we had the opportunity to ride the train and bus systems. One night we took a bus going the wrong way and didn't find out until we made it to the end of the line. Then we were stuck in the cold at the station for 30 minutes until the next bus came. That had to be the longest bus ride of my life. Followed by a long cold walk home. We might have gotten home late that night. Saturday we got stuck in some heavy traffic and ended up being almost two hours late to an appointment. The other part  of that of course is making sure the people on the other line are aware and expecting delays as well.

There was a women's conference yesterday, and Susan Jones gave a great talk about covenant keeping. It made me think a lot about why covenants are so important and why we need to remember what we have covenanted. I am going to be studying the baptismal covenant this week. This morning we were reading together in Alma 34 about faith and repentance, when we got to the end verses 40-41 are talking about enduring to the end and remembering the covenants that we have made. It is really important to remember the covenants that we have made. Heavenly Father will always keep His end of the promise and it is up to us to keep ours.

I love you all! 

Starting from Scratch

February 25, 2014

our district in Cambridge

Even though there are elders in our branch and they are super helpful, we are having to basically start from scratch as far as teaching. They gave us a huge stack of papers in a binder called an area book. Basically it is all the records of people that have been taught in the area (if the missionaries are good at keeping records). We went through loads of papers to see if we might be able to try to teach those people and see where they are at. We found a few that we are going to try to find and get in touch with this coming week. Also in the stack of papers we found a few media referrals (the person was on church's website and requested some supplies or wanted to know more). We were able to get in contact with one of them yesterday! Raquel. We weren't able to talk long because she already had people over at her house, but we made an appointment to come back Tuesday.

The people here are so nice! The members come from all over the world yet have become family. This week there were 85 people in our small little branch. We meet in the upstairs of the Cambridge stake center. I love this chapel because it is so modern. There is underground parking! I think that it was the most expensive chapel built in the US... at least that is what I have been told.

Friday we spent most of the day in Somerville, looking for less active members. It was around eight and we were almost ready to go home, but there was one more on the list. So we went to the address and found a parking spot (sometimes it is a really big task) and walked to the apartment. We found the door and could hear people inside so we knocked. The problem was that they had the TV up so loud that they couldn't hear. We knocked and knocked. Finally after the 8th or 9th time a man answered the door. We asked for Maria, then he looked at us weird. "Oh why do you want her? She is not a good woman." then he laughed and let us in. We talked for a little while and he told us that he was so happy to have us in his house and that it has been a while since they have seen missionaries. We were so happy when we left because we had finally found one person! (most of the other people had either moved or weren't home when we stopped by). We got in the car and then headed home. We were going to stop by the elder's apartment to drop something off, but when we tried to call them....we realized that we didn't have the phone with us. It was late and we really needed to be home, but we can't do very much without a phone. We searched all over in the car and in our bags, but nothing. I said a silent prayer that we could find it and get home safe. We decided to retrace our steps and went back to our parking spot. There it was! On the ground. Wow was that a blessing! Not only to find a family, but also to be able to find the phone again. 

That same Friday evening I thought that it would be a good idea to park the car and walk to two of the houses. It was a warmer evening and I didn't know we should be expecting anything. It started to drizzle. Still we walked. It started to rain. Hmmm... Then out of no where I saw a flash. Then it started to POUR! Lightning and everything. We were a couple blocks from the car and hadn't found anyone. When we got back to the car we were soaked. I felt so bad because it had been my idea. Also, playing the piano during Sacrament meeting didn't go very well... The problem is that the congregation wants to lead the music. Which leaves me to try to keep up or slow down the pace to get to them. It is like a train wreck! But I just have to smile because when else am I going to be the pianist trying to follow? Never. I have learned that I have to smile and enjoy even the hard things or the embarrassing things. I have to learn to take what comes and enjoy it.

all the missionaries got together on P-day to play UNO