Crazy Stuff!

Family and Friends,

This week has been amazing! We have been dealing with some crazy situations here on the streets of Fullerton, California.
We received a call from some Elders to go see a man by the name of Andres Ruvio who was at St. Jude's hospital. The hospital is in our area so we get lots of opportunities to go and give priesthood blessings by peoples request. We didn't know anything about him. On the way to the hospital, I had a little prayer in my heart that we would be able to use the full power of the priesthood that Elder Alshengiti and I hold. We arrived at the hospital and got screened and went and knocked on the door. It was this Hispanic man and his right leg from the knee down was cut off. He was so happy that we came and saw him. He was in tremendous pain and could only drink fluids and he was just miserable. He asks us if we could give a priesthood blessing. We said that the blessing will only work according to your faith. He was in dyer pain and said yes I have faith. I anointed the consencrated oil. Then elder Alshengiti sealed the anointing and gave a blessing by the spirit. The Holy Ghost came into that room and it was so powerful. You could feel and see the weight of the burden on Andres shoulders was lifting. After the blessing he wanted us to stay and read the Book of Mormon with him. He later told us that he is a diabetic and he doesn't know if he is going to live through the next couple days because of the pain. We asked him if he had been praying and he said no. So we asked him if he would like to offer a prayer to our loving heavenly Father before we left. He gave the most sincere prayer I have ever heard someone say. The spirit was so strong and this older man started crying. I was also touched by the spirit and was trying to hold back tears. He thanked us so much for coming and he feels a lot less pain than he did before. We gave him a commitment that every half hour to pray to Heavenly Father to get through the next half hour and take everything a half hour at a time. That was an amazing experience seeing the power of the Priesthood and the power of prayer. My testimony was really strong but now it just got stronger.
Another crazy situation is we had an appointment with Omar one of our Gangster Investigators. We go and he wasn't there and his brother said that he was at a funeral. His brother told us that one of his friends got shot a week ago in a couple of alleys over. We are like dang. We are dealing with a lot of Gadianton Robbers that are wreaking havoc on those that want to change and follow Jesus Christ. Gangs here are really bad and tagging getting worse and a lot of things are going down. I am so grateful that I am set apart from the world as a missionary and am able to walk down a dark alley. Elder Alshengiti and I made a comment walking down this alley one night. " If you were not a missionary would you walk down this alley". We both looked at each other, we were like Nope. ha ha. Crazy stuff.
On the up beat note I had some of the best ribs in the world!! ha ha. Only State side SO CAL.

Love you all

Elder Brown.