Ubon-Feb-16-2010

Dear World-


This week was hard, really hard. There is no way I can describe the things that I have been put through this week...
The last few days I have been studying about the Atonement and I stumbled upon some interesting insight. Sorry I don’t have time to list any scriptural references. I promise it is all scripturally accurate, maybe next week I will provide you with my references that have brought me to my conclusion.



What is with all the pain and suffering? Why? This world is jam-packed full of hurt, sorrow, and pain. Furthermore, the greatest event to ever happen on this Earth, the Atonement, is yet another example of pain and suffering. Why? Is God’s plan set up to cause us all to be in torment?

I also started to think about the logistics of the Atonement. Justice… justice is an eternal law that must be satisfied. All living creatures have an internal sense of justice. If someone breaks a law, that person must be held accountable; he must be sent to prison. Suppose that person has a loving friend that is willing to go to prison for him. So what? That is not justice, it never was. That person—and no other person—must be held fully accountable for their actions.

So what’s the magic? What is the missing link? Why can Jesus come to this Earth suffer all pains and afflictions in order to free the human race from having to face justice themselves?

I don’t mean to sound like an apostate, but the traditional ways of explaining the Atonement are simply wrong. They are too simplistic. The parable of the debtor, it frankly does not fit.

To say that Heavenly Father represents justice and Jesus Christ represents mercy is simply incorrect; both beings possess an infinite amount of both characteristics. Heavenly Father is the supreme source of mercy, he created the plan, he gave Jesus his calling—Heavenly Father invented mercy. To say that Jesus is some merciful being void of all sense of justice is simply a fallacy.

Where is the missing link? How can this plan be explained? How can we, His children, go back to heaven dirty and stained? No matter how much Heavenly Father loves us, He Himself is POWERLESS to save us. He let go of His power to watch-over us when we left His presence and gained a fullness of agency. If He tried to break the covenant of agency He would fall, He would cease to be God. The inhabitants of Heaven would cease to obey Him, the angels and other Gods would denounce His power. His Honor, His Trust, and His Power would be naught if He lacked His perfect obedience to His perfect ability to keep His Supreme Celestial Law.

So God looks down on this world with loving eyes, loving tear-filled eyes. He wants to help us, but according to His rules, He can do nothing. He came up with this plan. He sent us here so that we could learn ourselves, that we could make mistakes and to grow in accordance to the laws that He would send. There was another part of this plan, He would send the One, the Only, Jesus—Jesus or Jehovah, the eldest. He was the most respected. He was the smartest, the toughest, simply the best of the brightest. Everyone loved Him. He was so good that Heavenly Father chose His intelligence to physically inhabit His own seed in the flesh.

This man, if we can even call Him that, was so good that He never thought a bad thought, He was incredible—absolutely perfect. He lived the Celestial Law since the beginning. He is the only person who was born on this Earth that has the privilege, the worthiness to go to the Celestial Kingdom on their own merits.

More than that, He loves us all. He has told all the worlds, all the universes, all the Gods, all of the angels that He will not go to Heaven without us. He will not leave us behind. Sure we are screw-ups, but He is our older brother, He will not leave us on this Earth to die, to rot away. So He did what He had to. He took us upon Himself; He stitched us to the palms of His hands. He chained us to His feet. He experienced everything that we experienced, all the pains, the sin, the sufferings, the shortcomings. We were lassoed to His waist. We were all molded into one body, the body of Christ. This surgery that He performed is called the Atonement. Get it? At-one-ment: the state of being one; one with Jesus Christ; one with His merits, His accomplishments, His perfection, His glory.

The pain, the pain is the justification. He had to show all of the hosts of Heaven since the beginning of eternity how bad He wanted them to grant His request. The plan was never about justice. No one wants justice. We don’t want justice, Heavenly Father doesn’t want justice, nor does Jesus want justice. They are forced by the Laws of Heaven, by all the inhabitants of the universe to request that justice; they must request that price.

There is one thing that all of those inhabitants can understand. There is one thing that all the angels, all the Gods, all the beings in the universe can feel. That is compassion, they can feel mercy.

When all the inhabitants of all of the worlds saw the act of the Atonement that Jesus Christ performed, willingly, for us, for his younger siblings, they wept. The angels wept. The Gods wept. They knew the law, but the gall of justice was overcome by the bowels of mercy. They could not exercise their hammer of justice. They allowed Jesus Christ to drag us back to Heaven with Him, because of the respect and admiration that they had for Jesus. That is the Atonement. We are made one with Christ, but we must choose.

We must willfully accept (since that is the basis of the whole plan in the first place) to grab on to Jesus Christ’s glorious garments. We must hold on and refuse to let go. As we stay in His shadow, He will drag us back to the Father. He will drag us on the right path, and with him leading the pack we will know where to go. He is the only one who has the map back to Heaven, back to Celestial rest with our Father. We will know what to do only when we follow the example of the Anointed One, the Great Redeemer, the Holy-One of Israel. In and through this journey we will be perfected in Christ. We can and will make it to eternal rest because of the great mercy, compassion, and leadership of our eldest brother, Jesus Christ.

That is the Atonement.


Love,

Elder Brown
เอ็ลเดอร์ บราวน์

Ubon-Feb-09-2010

Hi All,
As most of you know I am a Chemistry major. I love understanding science, it is fascinating to me. So I guess I am applying science concepts to my missionary view of life...

Today I want to talk about happiness. As a missionary I see lots of people trying to find ways to be happy. They can get caught up in some pretty bad things. Last night I woke up rather late in the night and I had an interesting thought enter my mind. What is happiness? Even though I haven’t opened a text book in over nine months, my brain still thinks in terms of science. Happiness is a stimulus. Happiness is an inherit reaction to ones actions that produces a desired feeling. Why was our body wired this way? What in particular is our body responding to?

I came up with something. The cause of this stimulus, that chemical release, can be categorized into two sections. First, inherit reactions and second, learned reactions.

#1 Inherit reaction “true happiness”-

I decided that almost all natural stimulation in the form of “happiness” is the result of some sort of gratification or fulfillment. A toddler pleases their father, they feel happy. A teenager receives an “A” on a hard project, they feel happy. A college student graduates with high marks, they feel happy. These are things that are forms of natural happiness. All people regardless of background will most likely react in that same positive way. We are inherently wired to have a desire to progress, to learn, and to grow.

#2 Learned reactions “pleasure” –

These stimulations are reactions that are not the same for everyone. They are not in our DNA, they are not in our spirit. They are taught to us by the culture that we live in. One person might like to watch violent movies; that will give them a form of happiness. Another person might like to drive really fast, that is also a learned response reaction. The important thing is, this form of happiness is a temporary happiness and is not inherit; it is not the same for everyone. This happiness would be better classified as pleasure.

God created us. We are his kids. He put us in this controlled environment that we call the earth. We are here to progress, to learn.
God is a master scientist.
Of course he has implanted each one of us with an inherent positive reaction for his desired result. Any time we progress, any movement forward; any time we learn or progress to be more like God, we have true happiness.

Let us not confuse happiness with Satan’s counterfeit of pleasure. Not all pleasure is damaging or destructive. We must watch ourselves. Pleasure is not lasting; often times it is destructive.

True happiness is the measuring stick of our gratification to God. The true way to have everlasting happiness is to do the things that will help us to progress to be like God. Let us always choose to gratify and please our loving father.

I bear testimony to you that Heavenly Father wants us to find true, lasting happiness. His plan for our salvation is often called "the great plan of happiness". His Son was sent to die for us, to atone for us, so we can be happy in this life and receive a fullness of joy in the eternities.

I feel I can't write anymore… I have lost all my English skills, please forgive me.
immersed in the work,

Love,
เอ็ลเดอร์ บราวน์ (Elder Brown)

Ubon -Thurs 2-04-10

Today I want to talk a little bit about commandments of God. This is a lesson that I have learned time and time again on my mission. I will use a story from this week to illustrate that lesson.

Right now we have an investigator whose name means "chicken" in Thai. He is getting interviewed for baptism this week. He is an eternal investigator. He has learned with the Elders for over a year. He understands everything perfectly. He understands all the doctrine. He is keeping the commandments. Yet there was something that was always missing. I think I figured out what that something is.

He doesn’t know why we have commandments. Why has God given us rules to follow? I asked him that question last week and his answer was, “Commandments are things that God forces us to do and if we don’t do them we will be kicked out of the church and not accepted by members.” I was obviously more than disappointed with his answer.

If you look in the Elder Brown dictionary under the word “commandment” you will find the definition as follows: a way to receive a blessing. God gives us commandments to bless us. Without a rule, without a measuring stick, we could not be entitled to a reward. Even if we could, the reward would be meaningless and without value.

God has never forced us to do anything. He never will. He will only invite us to be happy. He has had enough mercy to specifically outline the ways that we can receive blessings. We don’t even have to guess!

Often times the natural man views these rules and commandments as a cage; holding us in, taking away our freedom, not giving us the ability to be free. This is a terrible comparison. Something that is caged does not have the freedom to leave; however, someone who is keeping the commandments always has the ability to stop, they have the ability to sin.

A better comparison is commandments are like a wall, a fence. We are restricted to a confined area, but that is because we are inside the umbrella of protection that the wall is providing. We have the ability to climb the fence and leave at any time; however, once we leave… it will be difficult to return and we have no guarantee that we will have safety outside of the protection of the loving arms of God’s grace.

It is important to keep the commandments. But it is more important that we keep the commandments because we recognize that that is what will make us happy. That is what will make God happy. Blind obedience never benefited anyone; God does not want blind obedience from us.

I hope that our investigator will be able to understand this message and be able to be ready for baptism in two weeks.

Gotta go.

Love,
Elder Brown

Ubon-Jan 24-2010

Hi All,
I am not going to write much today, I am spending my time uploading a few pictures so my Mom will be happy. (thank you Danny, please review the old posts for new pictures!) I am also going to send some audio files, including me reading the last chapter of the Book of Mormon in Thai. Yah! I finished reading the Book of Mormon in Thai again this week. I also am including me singing a few hymns in Thai, and me singing and playing on my ukulele (thanks parents for letting me buy it!) (The ukulele was his Christmas present from us, it was expensive, surprisingly) I really enjoy playing and it is great learning a new instrument! Yes a ukulele is an instrument! I am getting better, wish I had more time to practice, I am also sending you 2 primary songs that I have learned on the ukulele, and a few other things. (It was great to hear Danny's voice, the language makes me laugh it sounds so strange!)

Out of time.
Love you all.

เอ็ลเดอร์ บราวน์ ( Elder Brown )

Jan-18-2010-Ubon

Hi!
Yay, I have some time to write today. Hopefully I can give an update and write something interesting.

Time just keeps speeding up. The moves is over this next week! I shouldn't be moving or anything though, also I don't think Elder Panom will be moving either. If I had to guess, I would say that Elder Crowley and Sister Livingston are out, but I'm not sure. I'll probably get to go down to Bangkok anyways though, I think I have to renew my visa next week.

In terms of fun. Last week was Zone Thiaw (thiaw is the word for hangout/vaction/go out) We went up to the tiger farm up in northern Ubon in an area called Dragaan. It was pretty fun. They had lots of dangerous animals and a lot of strange animals too. Many tigers, lions, panthers, bears, etc.. They also had monkies, alligators, weird birds, 3-legged tigers, 5-legged cows. The best part about it was that their was very few safety precautions at all. The cages did not have locks on them. The cages were thin chain-linked fences. And you could go all the way up and touch them. So pretty much, if there was a crazy person they could just open up all the cages and tigers would run loose everywhere. Cool. Good news though I got to pet a tiger and a lepard. It was kinda scary to stick my hand in the cage and pet it. Oh well. All is well, right?


Ok, I want to take a little bit of time and explain my comment I made last week about scripture studying. Ok. So in the English lanuage, we have very few pronouns. Everyone uses the word I for themselves, regardless of who they are or who they are talking to. Everyone refers to other people as you, he, or she. This makes reading the scriptures in English difficult sometimes. Often times in English in the scriptures it is difficult to tell who is talking, what he is talking about, and who he is talking to. Example:

1 Nephi 20: 14 - All ye, assemble yourselves, and hear; who among them hath declared these things unto them? The Lord hath loved him; yea, and he will fulfil his word which he hath declared by them; and he will do his pleasure on Babylon, and his arm shall come upon the Chaldeans.

Ok, confusing right? Who is talking? Who is listening? Who is him?

If we read it in Thai, we learn that the pronoun him/he/his changes who it is referring to part-way through the verse. It actually refers to three different people in this verse.

It is great! I can compare the English and the Thai Book of Mormon to gain new insight. Whenever God talks or is talked to, the 1st and 3rd person pronoun is different. Whenever the Prophet talks or is being talked to, the 1st and 3rd person pronoun changes as well.

This has really enhanced my scripture study and is going to be a great tool throughout my life. I have really been able to understand the scriptures a lot better.

Another thing that Thai brings a better insight is with age. In thai there is no word for brother or sister. There is only a word for older brother, younger brother, older sister, and younger sister. Example:

The brother of Jared in the Book of Ether. Is he Jareds younger brother or older brother? If you look in the English edition, it does not tell you. In the Thai it does. Mohanrimoriancomer is actually Jareds little brother. Cool insight, changes the signifcance. Jared sent his little brother to ask of the Lord. Cool, yes?

Hope all that made sense!


Next thing. Last night I was talking to our recent baptism Brother Bahn and he told us that he has a goal to serve a mission. We were way excited; we have never even talked to him about being a missionary and he already is set on doing it. This was great news! If all goes well, he will be on his mission serving here before I even go home. That will be great to see!


Well I am out of time! Hope all is well. I send you my best.


Love,

Elder Brown

Jan 14-2010

Hello all,

Well, I spent all my time today trying to figure out how to send pictures...I am trying to send them bulk from my camera card but the computer can't handle that much info and it crashes. Needless to say it didn't work... sorry! You won't get to see my tiger farm pictures!!! I only have two minutes left so I will give some quick thoughts.

Good news! I finally had someone ask me if one of my parents are Thai! That means my Thai is good enough to pass for a half-thai person. Yay. I was successful today in sending you a voice .wav file with me speaking thai. I am reading from the Book of Mormon. Note from Mom: This was really fun to hear Danny speak Thai, it was almost musical! I will try and figure out how and if I can upload it to the blog.

Next thing. I've really been studying the scriptures a lot lately. The last zone conference the President really stressed using the Book of Mormon. Recently in my studies I have really been trying to notice the different responsibilities of the Father and Jesus and their Prophets. I found that this was hard exercise because sometimes it is hard to tell. But lucky me, in the Thai language they use different pronouns for different people. So it is easy to tell if I study Thai and English at the same time. Yay!

I have also been thinking lately of Section 132. What great potential we have! Give it a read! Such promises! but "strait is the gate and narrow the way that leadeth unto exaltation and few there be that find it.... because ye receive me not in the world neither do ye know me... But if ye shall receive me in the world, then shall ye know me, and shall receive your exaltation; that where I am ye shall be also.

Haha, I wish that that section was translated better into Thai.... it is just completely unusable in Thai.

Dad you asked about speaking in Lao. Yeah, things are typically in Lao up here. We are so close to the border that most people speak both Thai and Lao languages. Lao is much less (mouth)muscle-intensive. (much more convenient, doesn't really have any articulation) So most people opt to speak Lao when they are with their friends. The government enforces that Thai is spoken in public schools and the church also enforces that it is spoken in church meetings. Besides that, people prefer Lao.


Out of time. Love you all.


เอ็ลเดอร์ บราวน์ ( Elder Brown )

ubon - 01-05-2010

Christmas lights in Bangkok
They do enjoy celebrating Christmas here in some places, but not as a religious holiday.

Hello-

Ok, incase anyone missed the memo. My P-day has been switched to Mondays. So I'll be emailing two days earlier than usual.

Well I've got a little bit of time today. I'll give a report of the happenings over the last two weeks.

Christmas was crazy. Particularly the Christmas Program. The Branch has been practicing since August every week for the program. Let's just say, they probably should've started earlier... it was quite silly! The music was from a program called A Night in Zarahemla (I think that's what it was...), basically it was this crazy difficult medley that was way out of their league. Entertaining though!

Attendance was pretty good, there was probably around 300+ people there that night.

After that there was a dance/comedy program offered by the members while people ate dinner. It was pretty silly too, I couldn't understand most of it though because it was in Lao. My companion was forced into being Santa Claus and given the duty to distribute presents. (missionaries + hordes of small kids = mass confusion)

Anyways, it was great. It was a good opportunity for non-members to come see the new church and to learn about Jesus.

That Sunday was the primary program in church, which means that Sacrament Meeting is run by the kids under 12 years old. Pretty silly as well. There was one kid who couldn't stop laughing for about 10 minutes while he was giving a talk.

Because it was a "special day" the branch president decided to switch out the water in the sacrament for grape juice. That was also entertaining.

This week was Fast Sunday. Fast Sunday is great. I really do enjoy fasting, it has become one of my very favorite things to do. It is almost too easy to obtain the blessings that I want through fasting. All I have to do is ask, then fast. Yipee.

We also had a baptism this week!! Younger guy, just going to college this year. Just a great guy, he has a great testimony. When he gave his testimony after his baptism he did such a great job. Best one I have ever heard, actually.

I really enjoy Sundays. For the first part of my mission, I was always stressed out on Sundays because it is basically "game day/test day." All the work of the week gets produced into fruit on Sundays. But recently I've just been trying to relax on Sundays. I've noticed that my stress level does not increase the chance of investigators showing up, it also does not decrease the chances of members saying something crazy to our investigators. So chill out, right?

Thanks to all the people who sent me letters on Christmas. I heard from a lot of people in the ward. I really appreciate it! Love you all.

Love,

Elder Brown
เอ็ลเดอร์ บราวน์ ( Elder Brown )