Monday, October 24, 2016

I'm sitting here in this email shop and it is absolutely blazing hot!  Usually there are only a few people emailing on Mondays, but today is a public holiday so the library is closed so I'm sure that's why there are so many people here.  With all the computers going and all the people, this place very warm.   

I will make an attempt to recount this last week and try to share everything that I felt was important during the week.  Let me just say that this past week has been one of the hardest, but one of the best weeks!  Each week as leaders we get a commitment from the Assistants, at the end of the week they follow up on the commitment that they left for us and see how it went. This week’s commitment was to hit the standards of excellence.  The standards of excellence are simply goals that the mission president feels we can achieve each week that are achievable, but that will make us stretch.  For example the standard for investigators attending church each Sunday is two.  That is probably a really poor explanation of what they are, but hopefully you kind of get it.  Anyway, for some reason when they gave us the commitment I knew I really wanted to do everything possible to achieve it.  It had been a really long time since I had hit the standards of excellence since we have been struggling to have people to teach.  This week we worked really hard and it was such a rewarding week!  I will focus on telling you about Sunday because it was seriously the best day ever!  We have been focusing on working with Daniel and Alofa and Jay and Mary.  You may be wondering what happened to Jay and Mary and if we were still teaching them.  Well for the past few weeks Elder Saurey and I had a really hard time trying to work with Jay and Mary.  At first they were doing so good.  They came to church two Sundays in a row and then all of a sudden they stopped coming to church and stopped progressing.  Then Mary got a job which made things even worse.  She started working on Sundays and therefore couldn't come to church.  Well at the beginning of the week we set some pretty bold expectations with Jay and Mary.  It was amazing because I had been thinking about why they weren't progressing and then it hit me, they had stopped reading The Book of Mormon.  When they were progressing heaps they were reading The Book of Mormon heaps.  The Book of Mormon is really the key to getting investigators, your children, you, or a friend to progress in the gospel.  The more you read The Book of Mormon the more converted you will become.  So we decided to explain this to Jay and help him realize that the reason they had stopped progressing was because they stopped reading The Book of Mormon.  We challenged them to read The Book of Mormon every day for this week and then to see where they were at, at the end of the week.  Well guess what happened?!  Miracles!  This past week Jay and Mary have really been able to get back on track.  Unfortunately, Mary still had to work on Sunday so she couldn't come to church, but this next week she is asking her boss for Sundays off, and she is telling her that she is willing to work all 6 other days if she can just have Sundays off.  Guess who came to church though?!!!! Jay and Mary's little sister Serina!!  It was so awesome that they came.  What is even better is that Jay talked to Bishop about wanting to get the Aaronic Priesthood.  Bishop told him what he needed to do and so Jay is really excited about preparing himself to baptize Mary.  He is going on Tuesday to apply for their marriage certificate, and then we are going to work the whole wedding out!  They still need to quit smoking which is their major concern, but I know if they take the step of faith to get married that the Lord will make sure they can overcome the word of wisdom.  So things are again rolling with Jay and Mary so we are super happy.  Well if that wasn't a good enough miracle let’s go for round two.  Alofa and Daniel!  Alofa and Daniel are doing amazing!  We taught them several times this week and had some amazing lessons.  Daniel is still not committing to get baptized yet, but he is really coming along.  Daniel and Alofa have been reading The Book of Mormon together!  Daniel is so sweet.  He was chapter 17 and he started all the way over so he could read together with Alofa.  Daniel really loves The Book of Mormon and just like Jay and Mary it is really helping him to progress.  Well, they committed to coming to church on Sunday and so we were super pumped.  It came time for church on Sunday and guess what?!  It was 2:00 and they weren't there.  (By the way church starts at 2:00.)  Elder Taito and I were so sad!  I couldn't believe that they didn't come.  Well we were saying the opening prayer and as the lady was saying the opening prayer I was praying that Daniel and Alofa would come to church.  When I opened my eyes after the prayer was finished I looked over to Elder Taito and immediately my eyes were on Daniel and Alofa.  At first my brain didn't realize that it was them.  However, after my moment of shock I realized that they were at church!!!! I was so happy!  The spirit was so strong!  It was literally the best feeling ever.  I can't think of too many times where I was so happy.  Guess what made it even better?!  They stayed for all three hours of church.  The third hour was the best though.  During opening exercises of priesthood they had all of the visitors introduce themselves.  Well it came time for Daniels turn and he stood up.  Just a background on Daniel, he is pretty shy and really doesn't like talking in front of new people.  Daniel stood up and he frantically looked around and looked to us with a panicked expression on his face.  We looked to Daniel and just told him to say his name.  Well Daniel eventually said his name and much more!  Daniel explained that he had been meeting with us for the past few weeks and that we had been sharing messages with him to help him in his life.  He told them that we had invited him to read the Book of Mormon and that he had been reading it and it was really helping him.  He said that he knew he needed to just keep reading the Book of Mormon because it would give him more understanding and that it would help him keep coming to church. I can't remember everything he said, but it was so sincere!  He pretty much bore testimony of the Book of Mormon and the church without even realizing it.  It was definitely one of the coolest experiences on my mission.  Not because of what we had done, because we hadn't done anything.  But because the Lord, through The Book of Mormon and His missionaries, can change the hearts of His children.  It truly is an amazing work that we each can be part of.  Be a missionary!  No matter who you are or how capable you think you are, be a missionary.  I can promise that you will feel the most joy in sharing the gospel.  I love you all and thank you for your great examples.

Love,

Elder Brunson