Monday, October 10, 2016 

Surprise!!!

Transfers brought a surprise.  I have a third son!  My first son was Elder Barbosa who was Brazilian, my second son Elder Suriben was Filipino, and now my third son Elder Taito is Samoan.  Elder Taito was born in American Samoa, but he has spent his entire life growing up in the United States.  Both of his parents are full Samoan, but he never learned Samoan growing up.  He has been called to the Samoan program, but he is going to be in the English program with me for at least the first two transfers.  Well I'm not even positive that we will stay together two transfers, but that is my guess haha.  So now I get the difficult task of balancing training and being a solo zone leader.  To be 100% honest, this week has been really stressful.  I still get really stressed about new things and this week was definitely something that took me out of my comfort zone.  I'm sure you can just picture me freaking out mom haha.  We got the call from President Cummings on Tuesday that Elder Saurey would be leaving.  He told Elder Saurey that he would be getting released as a zone leader and asked to open a new area and train.  I was then expecting to hear who my new companion would be.  However, President Cummings took us all by surprise and asked me to train and be a solo zone leader.  I of course said I would fulfill the assignment, but didn't really think about what that would entail.  However, after the call the more I thought about it the more worried I became.  I'm such a bad decision maker as everyone knows, and I knew that I was going to be responsible for making all of the decisions on my own.  I have definitely learned to rely on the Lord this week.  I'm thankful that we never have to be alone in the work!  The Lord will always be there to comfort us and to help us get through each and every day.

Wednesday and Thursday were definitely the most stressful days of the week.  Wednesday night I had to coordinate all of the transfer plans for the next day.  I had to make sure everyone knew when they were getting on the bus, I had to make sure everyone would have companions when their companions got on buses, I had to schedule rides for the sisters to be able to get to the bus stop.  Let me tell you a lot goes in to making sure everyone gets where they are supposed to be when they are supposed to be there.  Other than that, Wednesday was a really good day!  We mostly just said goodbye to people for Elder Saurey.  We had a massive feed at Alofa and Daniel’s house.  I can't remember if I have talked about Alofa and Daniel.  I'm pretty sure I did though.  Alofa is a less active member and her partner Daniel is not a member of the church.  We had a mean feed with them and a good lesson!  We are really hoping to get Alofa back to church and Daniel baptized.  They have a lot of things to work on though, but they are definitely starting to progress.  Elder Taito and I went and taught them later on in the week and had an awesome lesson.  In the lesson, Alofa told us that her and Daniel had been talking and that they want to give up smoking and drinking.  She also said that they want to meet with the bishop so they can make the necessary steps to come back into the gospel.  We are so excited for them and their desire to progress.  We have a Family Home Evening planned with them tonight!

Thursday was absolutely crazy!  However, with that being said nobody missed their bus and everyone got to the areas where they are supposed to be.  The most stressful part of it all is that two new Tongan Elders got double shifted into the zone and I have to figure out how to split their area up with the other Tongan Elders, and make sure that they have some people within their area to see.  I do have a sad, crazy, funny story to tell about transfers haha.  So it was Thursday morning at 9:00 and heaps of missionaries were waiting to get on the bus from three different zones.  Well it was a really hard day for me because I didn't want to say goodbye to Elder Saurey.  Elder Saurey and I have really gotten along and I knew it was going to suck to say goodbye.  Well the bus rolled in and it was finally time to say goodbye.  All the other missionaries had gotten on the bus besides Elder Saurey.  I really didn't want him to leave, but I had to say goodbye.  Before I knew it, tears were coming down my face as I was saying my last goodbye to Elder Saurey.  It was super embarrassing because there were other missionaries around.  Well he got on the bus and I turned to all the other missionaries with tears in my eyes and said, " I think someone misprinted my badge, it should say sister Brunson."  We all had a good laugh as the bus started to pull away.  Well as the bus started pulling away a panicked zone leader, Elder Van Thiel, ran after the bus and started banging on the side of it.  However, the bus did not stop and motored away.  He gave up running after it and just stopped.  I was quickly trying to figure out why he was running after it.  Then I turned and saw Elder Fesolia.  Elder Fesolia was from my zone and was supposed to be on the bus!!!  Next thing I knew, I was sucking in my tears and sprinting after the bus that by now was way ahead of me.  I kept sprinting after the bus anyway, but was quickly losing hope.  My only chance was if the light ahead of the bus stayed red.  I could feel the burn in my legs and knew I didn't have much time to catch it.  Luckily, the Lord was on my side and I was able to finally catch the bus.  I banged on the driver’s window and saw Elder Saurey standing up in the bus.  Elder Fesolia ran to the bus and hopped on.  Well I waved goodbye and jogged on back to the bus stop.  All the missionaries were super pumped that I was able to catch the bus haha.  They were asking me if I ran track.  I told them I didn't even think I was running that fast, since I had lost hope that I could even catch it.  But it all worked out.

Thursday at 11:00 Elder Taito arrived.  We pretty much spent the rest of the day picking up and dropping off missionaries.  There is so much that I would love to write about, but I don't have very much time.  In summary, Elder Taito is a really awesome Elder.  I can already tell that he wants to work hard, and use every minute to share the gospel.  He seems really shy, but he is definitely starting to open up.  He is a really humble person and I'm sure we are going to get along great.  I was reading Elder Cannon’s email home and I can add my testimony to his that the Lord has truly blessed me with amazing companions.  I have been able to get along great with all of my companions!  I'm so thankful that I have been able to have companions that want to work hard.

We had a really awesome lesson this week with a 17 year old named Diamond.  Diamond is a Samoan boy whose mom joined the church when she was 8 when she was living in Samoa with her Auntie.  Diamond is a really cool kid and he let us teach him the restoration.  Elder Taito invited him to be baptized and he said he would!!!  We were pumped!  The new missionaries are always given the goal to invite someone to be baptized their first week!  Elder Taito even invited Daniel to be baptized as well so he is smashing it!  We went and followed up on Sunday with Diamond to see if he had the chance to pray about our message.  He was so happy and said that he has been praying a lot!  He says that he just feels so good when he prays!  He said he didn't know if his prayer has been answered, but he assured us that he would keep praying!  He was so happy though to talk to us and we invited him to a family home evening at the Pritchard’s house tonight!  We are really hoping that he comes!

Conference was so good!!!!!  I wish I had time to talk about it in depth.  I loved so many talks, but my favorite session had to be the priesthood session!  It was so good!  I wish I could have gone with RT and Big Rog.  They came one year and I'm sure they would have enjoyed the talks.  I always miss going to priesthood session with the guys, and then going out to dinner afterwards!  Sunday afternoon session was really good as well because our investigators Zavier and Amy showed up!!  They came with their two boys Tyson and Genesis!  They said they really enjoyed it!  My favorite talk from that session was K Brett Nattrass when he told the story about his mom reading The Book of Mormon to him.  It made me think of my faithful mom who would continue to show faith and read the scriptures to her son Brett (Elder Brunson) even though he would always complain about scripture study!  I want everyone to know that I have the best mom in the whole world!  I love you mom!  It was such an amazing weekend.  I can't remember who was saying this, I think it might have been Grandpa Ottley.  Anyway, someone was saying that they loved conference because they get to hear from the Apostles who are like really good friends that you haven't heard from in a long time.  I definitely felt that spirit as I watched General Conference.  I love the Prophet and the Apostles so much!  They really have become my close friends!  Their voices soothe my heart and their messages help me receive revelation for my life.  I can't wait to go back and study their talks!  They are amazing men who are truly called of God.  I know that they represent our savior Jesus Christ.  I have a testimony that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints is the Lord’s church here upon the earth.  It is the only organization you will find that is identical to the church Christ established when he came to the earth.  I love the gospel so much.  I'm so thankful for living prophets and Apostles. 

Love,

Elder Brunson