Monday, February 22, 2016

Transfers again?!!

It’s time for transfers again.  Time is flying by.  It feels like I just left home yesterday.  I have really enjoyed being companions with Elder Vaea.  We are always laughing and having a good time.  Elder Vaea is from Tonga and is 21 years old.  It’s kind of weird to think I'm practically 3 years younger than him.  He is one of the happiest people I have ever met.  He is always smiling and saying hi to people.  When we go to church on Sunday he makes sure to shake everyone's hand.  I still don’t know if we will be companions this next transfer.  He has already been in Waitara for 3 transfers so it is pretty likely that he will be leaving.  We are guessing that he will be going to the Tongan program because the Tongan program needs good missionaries.

I will tell you a little more about our branch though.  Our branch president is President Murray.  He has been the branch president for the last 4 years.  He is a really straightforward guy, and works really hard.  Brother Patu in the Ward mission leader and is a 60 year old widower.  He is also a golfer just like me, but we haven't really talked about golf.  He is a good fella but doesn't really come out with us.  Right now we are working really hard for our branch to become a ward.  We get about 70 people in attendance to Church each week.  Elder Vaea and I have been able to get quite a few people to church this transfer even though we don't have very many investigators.  The main investigators we have are Les Parish an 85 year old man that we just baptized, Matiu (yes, I seem to teach all of the Matiu's), a dad in his 40's who is set for baptism, and Tawhio.  Matiu is the man though.  He has come to church the last couple of weeks and is working really hard to be able to keep the word of wisdom.  He is really excited about his baptism!  The members in our branch are really nice, but they don’t really feed us haha.  In Wairoa we got fed almost every night, but in Waitara we get fed about twice a week.  We had a mean feed this last Sunday with the Maonga family, they are Samoan.  They gave us a huge feed and I almost died I was so full.  Guess what I got to eat?! Raw fish!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  It was mean!!!!!!!!!!!  I think I could eat that for every meal.  It is a salad dish that they have in the islands.  It has raw fish, vegetables, and coconut milk.  I'm not really sure what they call it.  We also had mutton, noodles, and an egg salad.  They are Samoan so they made us keep eating and eating.  We skipped dinner that night haha.  We get our haircut from brother Maoanga, in return we do service for him.  This last week I mowed his lawn.  It was practically a jungle!!!  It was a pretty tiring job.  The grass grows so fast here!!!  I love getting out and doing service though.  I especially love mowing lawns.  Maybe I will go work for Marshall when I get home.  Shout out to Brother Decoria for being the best teacher’s quorum leader.  He had to put up with me and Forest, and that is not an easy task haha.  I used to be a punk, so I don't know how he had the patience to work with us.  He definitely has played a big influence in my life though.  He has always reached out to the young men and made sure we felt important.  My dad would never let us go use the church gym unless we had a Melchizedek Priesthood holder there so Marshall would come short notice and play basketball with a bunch of teenagers.  I have always appreciated his great example!

A little bit about our flat.  Our flat is alright haha, to put it nicely.  I definitely miss my first flat haha.  We have no A/C and one fan, which is right next to my companion’s bed.  The weather has been so hot that it is absolutely miserable to sleep at night.  It has taken some time to adjust but I'm finally getting used to it.  This summer has been one of the hottest in New Zealand, especially in Taranaki.  This last week however, has been really rainy.  I love the rain though so I really don't mind it.  Plus we have a car so we don't have to worry about biking in the rain.  Our flat is about 2 minutes from the church and 1 minute from the main street.  The area is pretty similar to Wairoa, but there are a lot more white people, which is sad haha.  No offence to white people, but the Maori people are a lot more humble haha.  It only takes about 5-10 minutes to go from one side of Waitara to the other.  Waitara is about 10 minutes from Bell Block which is another area that we cover.  The sisters stay there though, and so they pretty much just cover Bell Block.  We have a few investigators that we go and visit there though.  We go about once or twice a week to Bell Block.  Right now Elder Vaea and I are staying with Elder Lingwall, our Zone Leader, because he killed his companion (his companion was done with his mission and went home).  This morning the zone went to the bus stop with Elder Fagaloia and sent him home.  We did a haka off!  We did the haka that we learned at the Christmas Conference haha.  I did not remember it at all!  I just yelled and threw my arms around haha.  A Moari kid lead it though, and he was way mean.  Elder Fagaloi cried so that was pretty sad.  Elder Fagaloia is from American Samoa and he is way cool!  I got to go on an exchange with him the other day.  Elder Vaea and I are staying in New Plymouth until Thursday when Elder Lingwall will get his new companion.

Touch (Rugby) on the beach was so fun last week!  I love rugby!  I just wish I was better at it.  The beach we went to was way mean though!  I don’t really even know how to explain how cool it was.  It was this part of the beach where two tides came in from separate parts.  I wish I had my camera so I could have taken pictures of it, but I forgot it in the car, and it was quite a hike down to the beach.  We will definitely go back there before I leave this area though.  Taranaki is really beautiful!!!!!!!!!!!  The other day we went up to Mount Taranaki for pday and went to a place called Dawson falls.  I'm not even sure if I ever talked about that, but it was way mean.

Shout out to my Papi and little bro Chevin, HAPPY BIRTHDAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!   I hope you guys have a mean birthday and party it up!!!  I'm sure Kevin is getting even more ladies than before without his braces, he looks like a studd.  I'm sure my papi will have to keep fending off the other woman because he is already married to my beautiful mom haha.  The mission is mean and I hope this email was a little better.  Katie I hope you are staying out of trouble.  Amanda you are beautiful.  Emma you’re funny and cute.  Mom you are the best mom in the whole world!!!!!!!!!!! 

Love,

Elder Brunson  

PS  I got stung by a bee this week through my long sleeve white shirt

Also, the world wide missionary email was not working properly last week so if you didn’t get a reply to your email, that is why.