Monday, September 26, 2016

I can't believe another week has gone by.  I had a cold so that hasn't been heaps of fun.  My ears got plugged!!!  One of my least favorite things in the entire world is when my ears get plugged.  It drives me absolutely insane!  My ears are finally starting to unplug today though.  Having a cold and working isn't too bad until it starts raining.  The first part of the week was nice weather so my cold didn't really affect me.  However, the second half of the week rained nonstop which made working with a cold not fun!  But we pressed forward and had a really awesome week.  Sunday was insane in the rain.  Before church started it was pouring rain and nobody was home!  We tried heaps of people, but nobody would answer their doors.  We were in our suites because we had meetings in the morning so we got our suites absolutely drenched.  Then we went to church and we were soaking wet.  I sat in church and I was freezing cold.  After sacrament I went into the bathroom and tried to dry off/ warm up under the hand dryer.  It worked alright haha.  Anyway, I will give you a rundown of the highlight days of the week.  

Monday-  Monday was a good day.  For preparation day we went and played basketball with Brother Pilling and two of the Bishop’s daughters.  It was heaps of fun!  We also got haircuts from Elder Vaea so that was good!  Monday night we had an awesome miracle.  Monday night we went to try and see a lady named Angie.  Angie stays down a long driveway and she says if her car isn't there she isn't home.  There are several other houses that line this long driveway.  Well we pulled up to the long driveway and looked toward her house at the end of the driveway and guess what... her car was gone.  So we were a little bummed.  We sat there for a minute and decided what we should do.  Elder Saurey asked me if we should go and try.  We decided that we might as well and said who knows maybe we will find someone else down the driveway.  So we parked the car, said a prayer, and headed back to try and see if Angie was home.  On the way back we saw a man outside of a less active ladies house named Alofa.  Alofa is a Samoan lady in her 20's that we met two weeks ago.  She was really nice and she told us that her partner was not a member and that he had met missionaries is the past.  She said we could come back anytime!  Anyway so we saw this man outside of Alofa's house and we were guessing it was her partner.  We started talking to him and found out that he was in deed Alofa's partner and his name is Daniel.  We had a really good conversation with him, and got to know him and asked him what he thought about meeting with the missionaries.  He didn't seem overly keen, but he was super nice and said we could come by anytime.  We were about to leave, and we asked him if he would be keen to take a pamphlet.  Normally I give out restoration pamphlets, but for some reason I felt like we should give him a plan of salvation pamphlet.  Well we were just about to leave and give him the pamphlet when all of a sudden he asked us if we wanted to come in and meet their two kids.  We said sure and so we came in.  Alofa was so happy to see us!  Alofa immediately asked us if we could review the plan of salvation with her.  We agreed and so we sat down and taught the plan of salvation to Alofa and Daniel.  Alofa told us that her mom had just passed away a week ago and that she wanted to know what she needed to do to be with her again.  We had a really awesome lesson, and the spirit was definitely present.  There were some distractions with their kids, but I know our message helped her.  It was so cool that we had planned to leave him with the plan of salvation pamphlet and then that's exactly what they needed!  I'm so thankful for the spirit which can lead and guide us.  It was also amazing that the spirit prompted us to get out of the car and try Angie.  Alofa said she really wanted us to stop by, and I'm thankful that the timing worked out.  I know the Lord sent us there because he loves Alofa and knew she needed our message at that time.  

Tuesday-  Tuesday we had a Zone conference.  There were two other zones at the conference and about 50 missionaries in attendance.  President Cummings gave a really good training on teaching repentance and baptizing converts.  President Cummings is a really awesome mission President and I have already learned so much from him.  The conference went from 10:00-2:30 but Elder Saurey and I had to be there early to set everything up with the Assistants.  It's always good to see Elder Holmes.  I love Elder Holmes. He is the man, I wish me and that fella could be companions again haha.  We would definitely smash it haha.  Elder Saurey and I also had to stay after the zone conference to help clean everything up, so pretty much our whole Tuesday was gone.  

Wednesday-  Wednesday we went on an exchange with the Mountfort Elders, Elder Osborn (Utah), and Elder Ellsworth (Oregon).  We had a really solid exchange!  The highlight of the exchange was finding a new lady to teach named Adrianne.  Addrianne was a cool experience as well.  So we went to try and see a potential investigator named Joseph.  Elder Ellsworth and I were on the bikes because it was a beautiful morning.  Well we tried to see Joseph, but he wasn't home.  As we were biking from his house I pulled a classic Elder Brunson.  A certain house caught my eyes attention and we rode a little past it and I didn't stop.  I felt like we should go back so we wheeled around and went back to try the house.  So Elder Ellsworth and I got off our bikes and knocked on the door.  A lady answered the door that obviously had a cold and didn't really want to talk because of her cold.  She told us we could come back another time though.  Somehow, and I can’t even remember how, we ended up getting into a longer conversation with her than we originally thought we would be able to.  We briefly talked to her about the restoration and then we got into talking about prayer.  She said she had prayed a little bit in her life, but wasn't too sure how to pray.  We taught her how to pray and invited her to read the restoration pamphlet and pray to know if the things inside of it were true.  She was really excited and committed to reading it and we have a return appointment with her tomorrow.  The exchange went really well.  Elder Ellsworth is a new missionary, but he is a hard worker and very intelligent.  It was awesome to be on an exchange with him.  He was even able to convince me to eat at Carl’s Junior twice haha so that was good.  

Sunday- Unfortunately Angelina who is set for baptism didn't come to church on Sunday :(  and neither did some of the other people that we were hoping would come.  However, Harmony was there.  Harmony is the 8 year old girl that we have been teaching whose parents are both nonmembers and she comes to church with brother and sister Kalonihea who are active members of our ward.  She is going to be baptized this Saturday so we are excited about that!  She is getting baptized with her cousin Selina who also just turned 8.  It should be a really awesome baptism.  Our real goal is to get the parents baptized!  We are slowly working on them though.  Harmony's mom even prayed this last week. Sunday night we had a mean feed at the Bishops house.  They have lots of family in town so they cooked a mean feed.  There was heaps of Samoan food so I was in heaven!  I love Taro!!!  I ate heaps!  I also had some mean shrimp!  I love Island food so much!  Well we had a huge feed at the bishop’s house and then guess what happened?

Well, after we ate at the Bishop’s we went to Whiti and K's house.  Guess what happened there?  They fed us again!!!!  Man I almost died!!!  I was so full!  They fed us dessert as well!  After dinner we had another awesome lesson with them!  We taught them about prayer and had a mean lesson.  The best part was at the end of the lesson K offered to say the closing prayer!  He gave a really awesome prayer.  They really want to come to church this week though!  I definitely think they are going to come!  We got some really sad news though :(  They told us they would be moving in a couple of weeks :(  They are moving like one street out of our boundary.  It will still be in our zone, but not our area!  We are so sad :(  They are literally the coolest family ever!  They are Maori and are so awesome.  I don't know what I'm going to do when they move.  

Overall it was another mean week!  I love serving the Lord!  Hope you all have a mean week!  Eat some Islander food if you are cool!  

Love,

Elder Brunson