It shrunk

Best follow through

Monday, August 29, 2016

Oh boy oberta! 

It sure has been a crazy last week.  This last week went by really fast and really slow at the same time.  So many different things happened that I can't even remember what happened this week and what was last week.  First off, you are probably wondering who my new companion is.  All the way from Idaho......Elder Saurey!!!!!  Yes, Elder Saurey and I are still companions!!!  This will be our third transfer together and we are really pumped to smash it!  We are hoping to be able to have a baptism by the end of the transfer.  We are hoping to be able to baptize Mary, Serina, Chris, and Christina!  Sadly they didn't come to church this Sunday, but we are going to keep working with them.  Transfer week is always pretty crazy though, so we had lots of stuff we had to sort out that took away from our proselyting time.  I will give a little run through of the week, and see what I can remember.  This last week we met up with the Assistants, Elder Holmes (my papi) and Elder Ith and spent p-day with them.  We went and got lunch from a place called Empress of India.  It is a mean Indian restaurant which makes the best butter chicken in all of New Zealand.  Butter Chicken is one of my favorite foods that I have eaten in New Zealand, even though it’s not really a New Zealand food.  After lunch we drove with the Assistants and got poconos ice-cream.  Poconos has the best ice-cream in all of New Zealand, so I was very lucky this week.  I got a scoop of caramel swirl and a scoop of something else that I don't remember.  Tuesday we were with the Assistants again and guess what we had for lunch?  Butter Chicken from Empress of India again!!!!!!  The assistants love it so much so they always go and get it when they are in South Auckland.  After lunch we started our exchange with them and went and visited some people.  I was with Elder Holmes this time which was heaps of fun.  It was weird to be back with him again.  He has come a long way since we were companions haha.  He is a really good teacher, and I really enjoyed learning from him.  We saw some people Elder Holmes taught when he served in Manurewa.  It's funny because Elder Holmes and I have served in two of the same areas.  Tuesday night we surprised Elder Holmes with a birthday cake because Wednesday was Elder Holmes 21st birthday!!!  We had a mean celebration for him!!!  21st birthdays are a big deal in New Zealand, so if the members find out when you turn 21, they will get you heaps haha.  Thursday was Transfer day so we were busy at the bus stop.  Only two missionaries left our zone so that wasn't too bad, and 3 missionaries came in.  Elder Ellsworth from Oregon, Elder Latu from Tonga, and Elder Rogers from Utah.  They are all greenies so are just starting their journey.  It makes me think of when I was a brand new missionary.  I was so lost and stressed out haha.  I'm so glad you only have to start your mission once lol.  I definitely have learned a lot from that point.  I still feel like I have so much to learn.  I hope I continue to understand and study the gospel the rest of my life.  I hope that I can make it a priority to study the scriptures!  I think my parents are great examples of continuing to study the gospel.  I can picture my papi reading his scriptures and eating his cereal, and I think of my mom diligently preparing her lessons for relief society.  I'm thankful for such wonderful parents who love the gospel. Friday we went and met the assistants and Elder and Sister Mcgregor at Poconos.  We had to meet up with another set of zone leaders to swap some stuff so we all met up at poconos which is about a 45 minute drive from our flat.  However, because of traffic it was more like an hour and a half.  The traffic in South Auckland is insane sometimes!  So yes this week I had poconos twice!  It was a pretty great week!  Elder Mcgregor and sister Mcgregor shouted our poconos.  They both work in the office and are the nicest people ever!!!  They are so cool!  Elder Mcgregor works with the cars and the bikes, so we talk to him on the phone quite often.  Especially because we have had a set of Elders get 4 bikes stolen this last transfer!  One time they didn't lock their bikes and the second time the kids broke the bike lock.  Nothing is safe in Manurewa haha even if it has a lock on it.  Friday night we had sports night!  Unfortunately we didn't get a very good turn out from our investigators, but we did have Lucky turn up.  Something crazy happened at sports night.  I drunk fella came into the gym and started playing basketball.  He had only been in the game for like 5 minutes when out of nowhere he started throwing hay makers at a nonmember named AJ.  We found out after the brawl that AJ didn't even know him. A big Samoan fella ended up pulling the drunk guy off of AJ and took him out into the parking lot.  It was super crazy!!! You never know what to expect in this area haha.  Sunday we had a cool miracle.  Sunday night before our dinner appointment we were out knocking on a couple of doors and we knocked on this house and a Filipino fella answered the door.  His English wasn't the greatest, but he told us that we could come in.  When we went in to the house, there was heaps of Filipino guys.  They are probably around 30 years old, and they all work in New Zealand and send money back to their families in the Philippines.  We shared a little bit of the restoration with them and gave them restoration pamphlets.  Their English wasn't the best so it was pretty hard to teach, but it was still really cool to be able to teach them.  Hopefully, they at least felt the spirit haha.  They said they would be keen to get baptized if they knew our message was true.  We are going to go back with Lars, a YSA in our ward who got back from his mission in the Philippines 2 years ago.  We are just going to have him translate everything.  It’s going to be mean haha.  The highlight of the week was going over to Jay and Mary's with brother Maasi our ward mission leader on Wednesday.  We have been struggling to get fellowship into Jay and Mary's for several reasons, but we finally were able to get brother Maasi there.  Jay wasn't there so that was a bummer, but we were able to teach Mary, Serina (Mary's sister she is 15), Chirstina, and Christ (Marys twin brother and sister they are 10).  We had a mean lesson!!!!!  We reviewed the restoration, and we had such an awesome lesson.  Mary said that she believes the church is true and wants to become a member of the church!  It was a great lesson and brother Maasi was really good to have there as fellowship.  He just got back from his mission not that long ago, so he has a really good understanding of the gospel.  Overall it was an awesome week!

Shout out to Amanda!!!!!!!!!!!!!  The big 17!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  I can't believe she is going to be 17 years old!  I hope you have an awesome birthday!!!!!!  No kissing any boys haha!!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Elder Brunson

Monday, August 22, 2016

Transfers :(  

It's another week of transfers, and I'm sad to say that Elder Saurey will most likely be leaving.  Elder Saurey and I have been together for 2 transfers already!  The time has flown by!  I definitely can say that we will continue to be friends after the mission.  We get along really well and I have really enjoyed getting to learn from Elder Saurey.  He is a very talented missionary, and is a really good teacher.  I have learned a lot of things from him, and I'm thankful for the opportunity that I had to be companions with him.  I'm crossing my fingers though, because he hasn't got a call yet.  I'm hoping he stays for one more transfer!  That would be mean!

The weather this week has been absolutely beautiful!!!!!!!!!  The spring is arriving and the sun has been shining!  We have had such nice weather, and it really makes missionary work a lot easier.  We haven't even had to wear our coats all day.  Usually I just have it on in the morning before lunch and after dinner.  This week has been full of lots of things haha.  I will see what I can remember though, and I will do my best to tell you about the week.  The week started off with a mean preparation day!  Guess what we did?!!!!  Went golfing!!!!!!!!!!  It was heaps of fun, but I felt like I have never played golf in my life haha.  I think I have forgotten how to swing a golf club, it felt foreign.  So you can imagine how well I played haha.  With that being said we still had a really good time!  It was just a blessing to be able to have beautiful weather, and get the chance to play a sport I love.  You would have been really impressed mom with how good my attitude was lol.  The golf course was pretty nice for New Zealand.  We got to use the Mountfort Elder's bishop's clubs.  They were Taylor mades and were really nice!  We went with Elder Osborne and Elder Tune who are the Mountfort Elders.  Elder Osborne is in my intake, so it has been fun to serve around him.  Elder Osborne and Elder Tune had never golfed in their lives though!  Elder Tune was surprisingly good though haha.  As for my companion, he has golfed a little bit, but not heaps!  He really loved golfing, and wants to golf more when he gets home.  I always find a way to convert people to golf haha.

On Wednesday we got the opportunity to go on an exchange with missionaries from the MTC.  Our zone is the closest zone to the MTC, so the MTC asks us to take them out for half a day.  We started the exchange after studies on Wednesday and went until 3:00.  It is really fun to be with the missionaries from the MTC because they are so excited to work.  Also they are really nervous and have no idea what they are doing so it's awesome to get to help them.  Because they had lots of missionaries we get to double cover our area.  We don't have heaps of investigators to see, so that makes our job really difficult.  However, we had a really successful exchange so that was awesome.  I was with a missionary from the South Island who will be serving in Australia.  He was a really nice fella, he didn't know heaps about the gospel, but he was really excited to work.  After our exchange with the MTC missionaries Elder Saurey and I went on an exchange with Elder Mathews and Elder Fesolia.  I went with Elder Fesolia in his area and Elder Mathews went with Elder Saurey in our area.  We had a mean exchange!  The highlight of an exchange was meeting a fella named Buster.  Buster was a good lookin man, who was about in his 40's.  Buster was out painting a brick wall in front of his house.  We started talking to him, and he was super nice.  He said he wasn't too interested in our message though.  We kept talking to him though and he started to open up.  He ended up telling us that his wife had just passed away 2 weeks ago.  He told us how hard it had been for him, and how his kids were handling it.  It was so sad I'm not even sure how to explain it.  We felt a great amount of love for him, and taught and testified of the plan of salvation.  I wanted so much for him to have the gospel in his live.  I can't even explain the kind of feeling you get for these people, but I just wanted him to know and understand Heavenly Fathers plan.  He ended up saying that we could come back around.  I was so sad that I wasn't in their area so I can't go back and teach him :(  I felt such a love for him and wish that I could really help him accept the gospel.  I hope that I could have at least planted a seed with in his heart to help him accept the gospel.  What I love about the gospel is that everyone needs it.  It doesn't matter which country you are in, what church you go to, how old you are, everyone needs the gospel of Jesus Christ in their lives.  Our Heavenly Father has given us a specific path to return to live back with him.  What a blessing it is to know that path, and to be able to share it with others.  I'm so thankful to be a missionary, and hope that I can continue to share the gospel the rest of my life, because the Church is true!!!!!!!  I love New Zealand and the gospel!!!!!!!!!!

Love,
Elder Brunson 

Monday, August 15, 2016

Miracles!!!

Really, I think every email home should be title miracles.  The mission is full of so many wonderful experiences and miracles.  This week has been full of miracles.  The first miracle was the news of hearing that Grandma Brunson's surgery went really well!  You might be wondering when or how I got the news.  Well Tuesday was the day that Grandma Brunson was scheduled to have her surgery in America so her surgery was on a Wednesday here in New Zealand.  I was anxious to know how the surgery would go.  I wasn't really sure whether or not I would get a call.  I figured I would definitely get a call if it went bad, but I didn't think I would find out until Monday if the surgery went well.  However, I was very confident that the surgery was going to go well.  I knew my dad had given grandma a blessing and I knew he felt good about it.  I felt that my mind could be at ease with that news.  Each time I prayed I felt like everything would work out.  However, Wednesday afternoon I received a call from President Cummings.  My mind immediately recognized why he was calling.  I was nervous to answer the call, and wasn't sure what to think.  I hesitantly answered the phone and President Cummings informed me of the great news!  I was so thankful to hear that the surgery had gone so well.  I really know that Heavenly Father heard and answered our prayers.  I know that our Heavenly Father loves us and is eager to hear and answer our prayers.  It’s really hard to put into words the joy I felt, but I'm just so thankful to Heavenly Father.  I do have a testimony that things happen for a reason, I know Heavenly Father has a perfect plan for each of us regardless of the outcomes of life.  I know that everything that is unfair in this life can be made right through the atonement of Jesus Christ.  We each have the same equal opportunity to return to live back with our Heavenly Father with our families.  

Another great miracle this week came on Sunday.  To be 100% honest our area has been struggling a lot.  It has been really hard to find solid people to teach.  We have been working really hard over these last two transfers but have not seen the immediate fruits of our efforts.  However, Sunday we had the great miracle of having 5 investigators at church, and two of the investigators had their less active partners with them.  Jay, Mary, and Serina came to church and stayed for all 3 hours, it was so awesome!  We had a 60 year old couple named brother and sister Faaui.  Brother Faaui is Tongan and is a less active member of the church.  Sister Faaui is his wife and she is Maori and is not a member of the church.  We sat with both of them, and I think they really enjoyed it.  The Faaui's are so kind to us.  Sister Faaui at first was not open to us at all, but she is slowly starting to warm up.  They are so kind to us as well!  They always give us heaps of biscuits.  Lucky is another investigator that we teach, he is 20 years old, and lives in a boys home.  He really wants to be baptized, but we are trying to help him want to be baptized for the right reasons.  We could have baptized him ages ago, but we really want to make sure he is prepared.  Another investigator there was Flutee.  Flutee is 24 years old and is partners with a less active girl in our ward.  We just recently started teaching him, but it has been really hard to catch him at home.  We have given him a Book of Mormon though, and we are trying to get him to read it.  He grew up a 7th day, so he says he wants to be faithful to that.  We are slowly working with him though too!  Jay, Mary, and Serina are progressing the most though.  They are such a wonderful family!  

Well I'm really excited, I don’t want to get my hopes up too high though!  Guess what we might be doing for p-day?!!!  Golfing!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Man I really hope we end up getting to golf!  I haven't golfed in ages!  We will see though.  I will let you know next week. 

Love,

Elder Brunson 

Zone Meeting

Weekly planning

Left over Vietnamese food

Yummy!

Elder Saurey and Elder Brunson

Elder Lingwall and Elder Brunson

Monday, August 8, 2016

Let it snow, let is snow, let it snow

Well, it might as well snow here in South Auckland because it is freezing cold haha.  This last week has been so cold!  I don't know why it feels so cold, but it does.  It gets way colder in the states, but for some reason it feels so cold here.  I think a big problem is because the heating in houses is so bad in New Zealand, so everywhere you go you are cold. 

This week was really busy!  We had so many events packed into one week I have lost track of all of the things we have done.  This week on Tuesday we got to drive up to Hamilton for Missionary Leadership Council (MLC).  It is about an hour and a half drive from here to Hamilton.  Luckily I have Elder Saurey as a companion because he is really good at getting around New Zealand.  I, on the other hand, am very inexperienced and have no clue how to get around.  MLC was really good.  It was President Cummings first MLC, but he did a really good job.  He emphasized knowing the Missionary Hand Book.  One of the quotes that I liked from the meeting was, "If you have to ask the question whether something is right or wrong, it’s wrong." MLC is always awesome because we are spiritually uplifted and we also get to see everyone from the mission.  After MLC we had a mean meal from sister Papal.  Sister Papal is the mission chef, and she makes the best food!!!  It was so good!  I ate heaps of this really nice salad that she made!  Dessert was an apple pie that was really nice.  It did make me miss my momma’s apple pie though!  Nothing beats my mom’s baking haha.  I think she is the best baker in the whole world.  After MLC we had to go to the bike shop and get some bikes fixed so that took a while.  By the time we got back we had pretty much no time to proselyte.

Thursday was Zone Meeting.  Elder Saurey and I gave a training on how to recognize the promptings of the Holy Ghost.  We watched a video by Elder Bednar about 3 ways to receive light and compared it to receiving promptings from the Holy Ghost.  This was a talk that really helped me at the beginning of my mission, when I was struggling to follow the promptings of the spirit.  Guess who told me about the talk?!  Of course it was my awesome sister Katie, who always comes in clutch haha.  I think the training went really well.  Thursday night we had an awesome feed with Brother and Sister Papal!!  The Papals actually live in Hamilton, but they were up in Manurewa for the day and so they told me and Elder Saurey that they would take us to dinner.  We went to a really nice Vietnamese restaurant.  They bought so much food!!!  It was awesome to get to know them since I have never served in Hamilton and have only met sister Papal a couple times and haven't really got to know them.  They are such a wonderful couple!  Sister Papal looks like she is in her 60's and I think brother Papal is a little older.  They gave us all of the leftovers from the meal, which provided us with like 3 more meals each!

The spiritual highlight of the week was teaching Jay, Mary, and Serina!  I think I talked about them in a previous email, but we were able to teach them the restoration this week and also teach them the stop smoking program.  Both lessons  went so good!  The spirit was so strong in both of the lessons, and Mary said she would be baptized if she came to know The Book of Mormon was true.  They each committed to quit smoking, and we are really excited for them!  They are really progressing and we are hoping to get Jay and Mary married so that Mary can get baptized.  It has been so awesome to get to work with them!  I wish I could explain more about them, but I don't have heaps of time.

I would just like to close my letter by sending my love out to my grandma Brunson.  I found out that she will be going in for surgery on Tuesday to remove a tumor in her brain.  It's not the easiest or best news to hear when you are thousands of miles from your home and a loved one is going through a trial.  However, I am confident that Heavenly Father will hear and answer our prayers, and that everything will be okay.  My grandma is the sweetest person in the world.  I'm not sure that I have ever heard her raise her voice, or get mad at someone.  I don't know how she does it.  I think she most have learned patience having to raise 5 boys.  Not just any 5 boys either, Brunson boys. I know they are trouble haha.  She is an amazing woman and has a great love for the gospel.  One of the most amazing things is her love for the temple.  Before I came out on my mission her and my Grandpa went to the temple with me.  It was such a great experience getting to go and spend time with them in the house of the Lord.  I learned from that experience and several other experiences their great love for the temple.  I love you so much Grandma Judie!  I know our family would really appreciate it if you kept her in your prayers.  

Love,  Elder Brunson