Monday, September 19, 2016

I'm in love I'm in love and I don't care who knows it!

Yes, it's true.... I'm in love with the gospel of Jesus Christ!  As for Katie I think she has a little different kind of love story going on.  Shout out to Katie and Tanner for getting engaged this week!  That is such exciting news!  I'm very glad that I don't have to worry about that kind of stuff yet haha.  So good luck Katie!  I can't believe you will have a husband when I get home haha.  I was telling Katie last week that I felt like we would never grow up.  We would always be brother and sister who stay with their mom and dad at 3207 W. Canyon Lakes Dr.  It is strange that we have to grow up.  I just want everyone to know that I have the best family in the whole world and that we are very lucky to have Katie as our oldest sibling.  Katie is the best example ever!  I remember my last week of seminary, bishop Moses asked us "who is someone that you have really looked up to?" or something along those lines.  Anyway, heaps of people chose, not Tyler Brunson, but Katie Brunson.  Katie is always choosing the right, she doesn't change her standards for any reason.  I have loved growing up with Katie as my big sister.  I'm excited for her to start a new chapter in her life, and I will always be here in full support of you.  Thanks for being the best.  

This week has definitely been one of the best weeks!  We saw so many miracles this week it wasn't even funny.  I don't even know where to start though.  But I recon I will start with the spiritual experiences so I can make sure to talk about them.  I think I will talk about three awesome experiences we had this week.  

1.  Angelina is a miracle!  Several weeks ago, maybe even several months ago, we met a lady named Angelina.  We were walking down the street and Angelina was walking with her 3 kids.  We stopped her and started having a chat, she immediately said that she was in a big hurry though!  She said that she had met with lots of missionaries in the past, and that she was at a really busy point in her life.  We were able to work her address out of her though.  She said that she couldn't give us a time to come around and that we would just have to try our luck.  Well for the past two months we have tried our luck... and guess what?  Apparently we have no luck!  The best thing we got out of it was a brief 10 minute conversation with her at her front porch.  It seemed like we would soon have to move on from Angelina as we were not having any luck with catching her at home.  Angelina told us that she would just text us when a good time would be.  This is code for I'm going to tell you this just so I can get rid of you.  Apparently our code interpreters were not functioning properly because about two weeks after she said this we got a text.  This text came to us on Thursday morning.  Angelina asked if there was a good time for us to be able to come around.  The only available time we had in the morning was 10 o'clock and this was also a miracle.  This was also a miracle because Elder Meek a missionary who was finishing his mission stayed with us Tuesday night and Wednesday night.  He needed to be at the airport at 11 to check in for his plane back to Tennessee.  It was a miracle because Elder Meek had one more hour of proselyting left in his mission and we were able to make an appointment.  I definitely know that it was a tender mercy from the Lord.  However, we did have a slight problem because Angelina's partner Dylan wouldn't be home so we couldn't go in her home.  We called Brother Pilling and asked him if he would be available.  He said he was really busy and wasn't sure if he would be able to come.  However, he changed his mind before we hung up and decided that he had an hour to spare.  So to this point everything has come together.  So we met brother Pilling at Angelina's house at 10 o'clock.  We got in the home and had one of the best lessons on my mission.  Angelina pretty much asked us if she could be baptized and we set her with a baptismal date of October 15th.  She accepted the date and was so excited!  She is pretty much the most prepared investigator ever!  She has been taught by lots of missionaries so she recognizes the spirit in her life.  She just kept saying how good it felt to have missionaries back in her home.  It was such a cool experience for all of us!  It was especially cool to have such a great last lesson for Elder Meek before he went home.  We got a return appointment with Angelina for Sunday morning.  So Sunday morning we went over again with Brother Pilling.  The first time we met with Angelina the kids were not there.  However, this time the kids were there and they were really loud.  We still had a good lesson though, and we did an object lesson that went along with the gospel of Jesus Christ for the kids.  Guess what?!  Angelina even came to all three hours of church!  We were so excited that she came.  She brought her son Lushen as well, who is 8 years old.  We also set him for baptism so we were pumped about that!  They had a really good time at church and Angelina was so happy.  She originally told us that she could only stay for sacrament, but she ended up staying for all three hours.  Elder Saurey and I taught the gospel principles lesson as well so it was really good to have her stay.  We taught the restoration to several of our investigators and one of the sisters’ investigators.  It was a really awesome lesson!  And guess what we brought for dessert???!!!  Momma Brunson's chocolate cookies that we made!  Guess what Mom we did you proud this week.  Elder Saurey and I made your chocolate chip cookies and they turned out really well! They weren't as good as yours, but they were still really good!  We took them to church and everyone from our class was saying they were the best cookies they had ever had!  We were both really pumped that we made the cookies haha.  We decided we are going to have to start making heaps of cookies, so we can hasten the work with our cookies haha.  Also shout out to Momma Brunson for sending me her cookies in a package.  That was seriously the best package ever!  I was so pumped to see the cookies!  Thanks for being the best momma.  The bad part is that I have ate heaps of cookie dough and cookies this past week.  I'm sure I have gained about 100 pounds.  When you don't have your mom at home to yell at you for sneaking into the cookie dough it is easy to get carried away haha.  

2.  Well some of you have probably fallen asleep to this point in the letter so I will apologize haha.  Hopefully you were able to take a power nap and you can finish the rest of the email.  The second miracle of the week was an awesome lesson we had with the Herewini Family!!! They are the coolest family ever!  It was such a good spiritual experience!  So I don't know if you all remember a couple of weeks ago when I told a story about meeting a lady named Whiti.  Well I met a lady named Whiti several weeks ago when I was on an exchange with Elder Osborn.  It was the super nice lady that we biked past that waved to us and we waved back, but kept on biking.  Then I said to Elder Osborn "this might be really weird, but I think we should go back and talk to her."  So we ended up going back and she was a super nice lady.  She even told us that her husband was a member.  Well it turns out the husband isn't a member, his parents are, but he was never baptized.   Anyway, so we have also been trying to see Whiti over these past few weeks, but we haven't had any luck.  Well Saturday our luck came around!  We were able to get in the home.  Whiti is the mom and she is in her 30's and she is married to Kay who is in his 30's as well.  They have been together for ages, but just got married a couple of weeks ago.  They have two boys name Elijah (14) and Bo (11).  Whiti's little sister also stays with them and her name is Hariata and her partner Ray.  Well we got into their house on Saturday afternoon.  We had absolutely no idea what to teach, and it was pretty awkward at first.  However, we were praying in our hearts that we would be able to be directed by the spirit.  It went from being really awkward in the beginning to being one of the best lessons of my mission.  We started with a Mormon message and then everything just flowed after that.  It was such a cool lesson and they were so excited to learn.  They asked heaps of questions which really helped us to teach them the things they needed.  When we finished the lesson we walked out and had the biggest smiles on our face!  We were so happy!  They told us that they were going to come to church though so we were also pumped for that.  Sadly they didn't come to church :(  But next week!

3.  We went to an awesome baptism for the Mountfort Elders.  They baptized a family of 6 and it was such a cool baptism.  We were able to do their baptismal interviews so we felt like we really knew them as well.  The baptism was really cool because it was a whole family.  I really hope we can find a whole family to baptize as well!  Sorry I kind of ran out of steam so the 3rd miracle is just going to be really brief haha.  

I love you all heaps though!  Thanks for your prayers!

Love,

Elder Brunson