Monday, July 31, 2016

New Zealand is cold! 

I always thought that New Zealand would be just a tropical paradise like Hawaii haha.  Turns out I was wrong, it actually gets really cold here during the winter.  The summer is the best though.  The weather is awesome in the summer, but the winter is cold and rainy.  The rain here is something everyone needs to experience.  Back home when it rains it is usually a constant drizzle for an entire day.  In New Zealand it can go from being a beautiful sunny day, to an absolute downpour of rain.  When it rains here it dumps!  It usually isn't constant.  It will rain really hard for a while, and then it will stop.  Then it will rain really hard for a while and then stop.  This cycle continues for weeks!  It has been a pretty wet week this week.  One of the days this week Elder Saurey and I were out on the bikes and we got drenched.  Funny enough I'm usually more motivated to work hard when I'm biking in the rain, then when I'm sitting in the car and then have to get out in the rain.  I love biking; it has become one of our favorite things to do.  Missionary work is so much more effective when you are either biking or when you are out walking.  It is really hard to talk to people if you are in a car.

It was another solid week of missionary work this week.  We have just been focusing on getting a teaching pool at the moment.  We have heaps of potential investigators, but not really any solid investigators.  We talk with heaps of people each week about the gospel though.  Everyone in Auckland is way more open to the gospel than any other area I have been in.  Almost everyone will stop and talk to you, and very few people get upset with us.  However, because everyone is so friendly it is really hard to find those who are actually interested in progressing in the gospel.  It's been awesome to get to share the gospel with so many people.  It's hard though because you just wish everyone would really take the time to act on our message.  We know how much it can bless their lives, but very few people are willing to act.  Faith without works is dead though!  It is definitely the hardest part of our lives acting.  We are all pretty good and saying that we have faith, but acting requires a sincere trust in Heavenly Father.

Another update on Jay and Mary: so we invited Jay and Mary to church again this Sunday, sadly they didn't come :(  However, we went over Sunday night and had an awesome lesson with them.  Mary wasn't feeling very good which is why they didn't come to church.  She also wasn't feeling too well that night so she didn't sit in on the lesson.  We were able to teach her 15 year old little sister Serina with Jay though.  We had an awesome lesson, and we taught parts of the restoration, and invited her to read The Book of Mormon.  She had a lot of really good questions and said she would be keen to read it.  We also invited her and Jay and Mary to do a 15 step stop smoking program.  I have never actually done the program, but I have read through it before, and it is way mean.  We are really excited to do the program with them and we really know it will help them accept the gospel in their lives.  We also were able to invite them to a family home evening with our new ward mission leader!!!!!!!  Elder Saurey and I are way pumped to have a new ward mission leader.  The new ward mission leader is brother Maasi.  Brother Maasi is the man!!!!!!!!! He got back from his mission within the last 5 years and is married to Bishop Leelo's daughter.  He served his mission in Salt Lake and he is Tongan.  He is way on to it though, and is going to do such a good job.  We really want to help get the members involved in missionary work and we really think that he can help us accomplish that goal.  Plus he has no kids so we think he will be able to be pretty dedicated to the calling.  We are excited to get the missionary work pumping!!!!!  Anyway, we are also really excited to have an FHE with them at Bishop Leelo's house.  We invited Jay and Mary and all of Mary's siblings to the FHE.  Mary's family is all Catholic, but we are hoping to convert the whole family.  There are heaps of them, and we have talked about the gospel with most of them!  They are the most exciting family though at the moment.  Being a missionary has really taught me patience.  I'm still far from perfect, but I feel like I have come a long way.

This morning I got a haircut from Elder Vaea which was mean.  Elder Vaea gives good haircuts, but not as good as momma Brunson's.  Also my favorite New Zealand bickie (cookie) is Ginger Nuts.  They are a hard as cookie that tastes like gingerbread haha.  My favorite New Zealand drink is Ginger Beer haha.  No it is not beer, but it tastes really nice.  Something about Ginger has got me on my mission haha.  I have even had fried ginger when I was with Elder Suriben.  I thought I would just throw in some random facts at the end of my email, because my email was really lame haha.  Lo siento!  I love you all though!  The Church is still true!

Love,

Elder Brunson