Monday December 28, 2015
Christmas week was mean!

Monday-  The week started off great with a fun preparation day.  For preparation day we went and golfed at a golf course about 10 minutes from our flat.  First let me tell you about "golf courses" in New Zealand...they are not in the most prime condition to say the least.  Pretty much the courses are Columbia Park on steroids.  So instead of Columbia Park being a par 3 course it is turned into a normal par 72 course.  With that being said, we still had heaps of fun golfing!  The highlight of the round came on the second hole when I drove a par 4, which was about 290 yards.  Unfortunately, I did not make the eagle putt haha, but I did manage to find the birdie.  I have now gotten my companion to fall in love with golf so that is pretty cool as well.  The funniest part about these golf courses is that there is no sand anywhere on the course.  I wasn't a big fan of bunkers back home anyway so it's all good with me haha.

Tuesday-  Road trip!!!!!!!!!!! Hamilton!!!!! Tuesday we spent all day in the car driving to Hamilton!  It was fun to be with the Elders from Nuhaka and to just relax and talk.  I was also mean and made the Nuhaka Elders drive their car to Hamilton so I could chill in the backseat haha.  Tuesday night we arrived in Hamilton and went and dropped off our stuff at our motel.  After we went to the motel we got to go to the Christmas lights at the temple!  I love the temple so much!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Although it was very beautiful on the outside and there were people singing beautiful Christmas Hymns all I wanted to do was go inside.  I love the temple.  It is literally the best place on earth.  Please don't take for granted how close the Columbia River Temple is to Kennewick!  I don't think I would be able to live in Hamilton haha.  I think I would be too tempted to sneak away and go to the temple!  The lights were beautiful and we also got to go into the visitor center which is next to the temple.  We watched a really good Christmas video and it was a way good experience.

Wednesday- Christmas conference!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The Christmas conference was way fun!  It was way cool having all the missionaries together at the same time.  I love singing hymns with all of the missionaries; it definitely brings a special spirit.  The highlight of the conference was performing the mission haka.  Over the past few months we have been memorizing the words to our mission haka.  Then at the Christmas conference we learned the actions to the haka.  Unfortunately I learned the actions at the beginning of the day so by the time we performed it I forgot all of the moves haha.  Now when I say perform, you are probably wondering exactly what that means.  Well let me tell you it was pretty legit.  There was a huge camera crew!  They even had an aerial drone that had a camera on it.  So while we performed the haka we were being recorded.  I'm not sure if we will get the recording or what, but regardless it was way cool.  Pretty much the entire time I just did random actions, stuck my tongue out, and made funny noises.  Uncle Brett if you are reading this you probably know what I'm talking about haha.

Thursday-  Christmas Eve was not too exciting haha.  We just drove back all day long.  We did get to eat a Christmas Eve dinner with Matiu and Geraldine at the park so that was way good.

Friday- Christmas!!!!!!!!!!! Christmas was a miracle!  So it's Christmas morning and I'm sitting trying to do my mom’s Christmas activity with my presents.  For those of you who don't know, for Christmas my mom gave me and my sister (Katie, also on a mission in Italy) heaps of little packages labeled with scriptures that we had to read for hints to figure out what was in each package.  As I was opening the gifts the phone rang.  I looked at the number and it was long as!  I was like, that is a funny looking number.  So I answered the phone and guess who it was?!!!!!!!!!!!  Kathryn Brunson!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I was like, “what the heck how did you get my our number?!!”  She was like, “your mission president gave it to me.”  I was so surprised to be talking to my sister, it was kind of hard to take it all in.  It was hard to hold back my emotions because of how surprised I was.  We had a great time catching up with each other and I'm so thankful to Heavenly Father for him helping us to be able to talk with each other.  It definitely made my Christmas!  Shout out to my older sister for being the best older sister a guy could ask for.  Kathryn Brunson is the peacemaker of the family.  I definitely would not be where I am at today without her great example.  I really look up to her and she always knows how to help me with whatever I'm going through.  I have no doubt that she is the best sister missionary in the whole world.  I'm so thankful for my older sister!

Saturday- Guess what day it is???! Skype day!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Skyping the family was so awesome!!  It was so good to see the familiar faces that I truly love.  It's amazing how much more you appreciate your family when you cannot see them every day.  My advice is to treat your family like it’s the last time you will see them.  Always appreciate your family!!!  Love them and serve them!!  If you do those two things you will have a successful and happy family!  The skype call was way good, sadly it went by way too fast!  To be quite honest, it only felt like I was talking for 10 minutes.  The other part that is bad about skyping Elder Brunson is that he tells the longest stories.  So I spent way too much time talking haha.  It was way awesome though and I'm so thankful for the technology that we have to be able to stay connected with our families.

Sunday-  Well I spoke for the bejillionth time in church haha.  I talked about member missionary work!  I told them that nobody can say they are afraid to do missionary work if a 9 year old little girl can do missionary work.  Then I talked about Emma and told them of the great missionary work that she does and how I really look up to her for that.  If you want to know how to do effective member missionary work talk to my little sister!  Member missionary work is so important!  The members should be the full time finders and the missionaries are the full time teachers.  I wish I would have done more to help out the missionaries when I was home.  So if you are home than help out the missionaries in your ward.  They need people to teach in your home!  So find someone you're friends with and invite them to take the missionary discussions in your home.

Well if you're wondering what we are doing today we are golfing again haha!!!!  My companion is now in love with golf, that is all he wants to do.  I told him that when we get off our missions I will teach him how to golf and he can teach me to surf.  Well I better run.  We are in a hurry.  I love you all so much!  Thanks for reading my emails!  And thanks for all of your prayers and support!

Love,
Elder Brunson