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| Elder Holmes, Lambert, Brunson, Christiansen, Gajuitos, Wood, Hadfield, Hirschi, and Fellingham |
Sunday, January 29, 2017
Monday,
January 30, 2017
Summer!!!!!
Well, it finally has been warm for a whole
week! This summer has been nothing like my first summer here in New
Zealand. My first summer was real hot all summer, but this year it hasn't
been that warm. This week finally felt like summer though. This week
we went and tried to knock on some of the really flash houses that are really
close to the beach. We had pretty much no luck, but it was mean to see
all the massive houses haha. We did find a pretty cool guy from Germany,
so hopefully he will be keen. Nothing overly exciting happened this
week. Sadly this is going to be my last week with Elder Fellingham
:( Elder Fellingham will leave on Monday and I will have to
stay with some other Elders until transfers on Thursday. I'm not
looking forward to having him leave. Elder Fellingham is the man!
He is probably the most on to it companion that I have had. We have had
some good success being together, and it is really fun to teach with him.
He has a great understanding of the scriptures and works really hard.
This week we met a guy that has been to Washington State and loves it. He
even knows where Kennewick is! He was describing a lot of the places that
he has been to in Washington and he made it sound so cool that Elder Fellingham
decided that he wants to come and visit Washington. I told him I will
give him a tour of Washington if he comes. The guy even made me want to
go and explore more of Washington.
Well we got heaps of exciting news this
week. The missionary schedule will be adjusted and we will be having Dale
G. Renlund come to our mission in the middle of February and some other members
of the seventy. I'm so pumped because the apostles are seriously the
coolest people ever! When Elder Christofferson came that was one of the
coolest experiences of my mission. I'm sure Elder Renlund will be just as
exciting! We had a really awesome District meeting this week on
Tuesday. It was Elder Holmes last District meeting and he gave the
training. It was really good and he got a lot of input from
everybody. One of the things I talked about was the importance of
controlling our thoughts, and the importance of having good attitudes.
This is something that I have learned a lot about over my mission. One of
my favorite quotes is from Elder M. Russell Ballard and he says "Be
positive! Your actions, attitude, mission, and life will be directed by your
thoughts." I remember one time when I was in a slump in
Baseball. I kept telling my mom that I couldn't hit the ball anymore.
She would always tell me that if I said I couldn't hit the ball I would never
ever hit the ball, but if I told myself I was going to hit the ball, I would
hit the ball. I told her that was a stupid idea and that it didn't work
that way. It definitely took me coming on a mission to finally develop a
belief in this principle. I can honestly say no matter how tough the
mission gets, if you try and be positive and see the tender mercies of the Lord
the mission is the best! I'm so thankful for my mission! There are
countless lessons that I have learned. I wish I could put it all into
words, but it's not possible. I especially loved President Hinckley’s
article in the January Ensign. He was such a good example of the
principle of optimism. I would encourage all of you who have not read the
article yet to read it. One of my favorite quotes from the article was
"Keep trying. Be believing. Be happy. Don't get discouraged. Things will
work out." I still have fears, and challenges that lay ahead, but I
know that with the right attitude and with the Lord on our side all things are
possible to them that believe. I love you all and hope you have a great
week.
Love,
Elder Brunson
Sunday, January 22, 2017
Monday, January 23, 2017
Sardines!
We had a jam packed week this week! We had so much
going on it wasn't even funny haha. We had MLC on Tuesday, Wednesday we
had Zone Conference with a visiting area 70, and Friday we had a
baptism plus some other crazy things! Also I went on an exchange with my
father! I will try and talk a little bit about some of our events this
week. Well Mom to answer your question, no I have not been exploring on
preparation day. Tauranga is probably the best zone in the mission
to go exploring, but I haven't done any haha. Every Monday we
go and play basketball and volley at the chapel. Heaps of
the YSA and youth turn up, so it is a lot of fun. I'm getting better
at volley, but the islanders are super good! I have got my
serve down though. I most likely won’t do much exploring while
I'm here, but Elder Fellingham and I want to run up the Mount
for morning exercise before he finishes his mission.
Monday night the Zone Leaders from Gisborne stayed the
night. One of the Elders served in Wairoa so it was fun catching up
with him and hearing about how Wairoa is doing! I got a letter from
Tenika Rore the other day which was awesome! She is still active in
the church! I have received a couple of letters from her. She got
to go and do baptisms for the dead the other day and loved it! I haven't
heard when she is going to go through and get her endowment though. I
really want to find out so I can go! Matiu Rukuwai is also still very
active in the church! He has sent me a few letters and it makes my week
every time I get one! It's so hard to keep in contact with them though since
neither of them have email.
Tuesday we drove up to Hamilton for MLC. Elder
Cardon, the visiting area 70, gave us a training. It was really good and
I learned heaps! Wednesday was even better though! We had
a Zone Conference with half of the mission so that was really exciting! I
got to see Elder Suriben, Elder Saurey, and Elder Holmes! I was so
excited to see all of them. Elder Saurey and Elder
Holmes finish their missions this week! I can't believe
how fast the time has gone. I remember when I first got with Elder Saurey
he still had like 9 months left of his mission haha. Elder Holmes and
Elder Saurey still say they are going to come to Kennewick when I get home.
The conference itself was really good though. Elder Cardon is
super bold and he really helped me to answer some of the questions
that I had. Wednesday after the zone conference I got to
go on an exchange with Elder Holmes! It was heaps
of fun. I stayed in our area since I will have to lead the
area in a few weeks. I'm pretty stressed about that because it is such
a big area! I feel like I still have to learn heaps of the
member’s names and still figure out how to get around. I know Heavenly
Father will help me to figure it out though. I have definitely gained a
testimony that everything will work out, it always does! It was
really fun being with Elder Holmes again. It felt like we were going
to be companions again. Elder Holmes still hates knocking on doors
so I made him knock heaps. Guess what?! We found the most keen
guy ever haha. His name is Thorne, he is 20 years old and met with
missionaries up in Manurewa. Thorne has read the entire Book of
Mormon, and knows heaps about the gospel. We set him with a date on our
first visit as well! He didn't come to church this week, but is
planning on coming this next week. Hopefully we can help him get
baptized.
Friday we had a super awesome baptism!
Three little girls that Elder Fellingham had been teaching before I arrived
got baptized. They are from a big Maori family named the
Totos. The Totos had been less active, but Elder Fellingham started
teaching them and they started coming back to church. The girls are
super funny and were really excited to be baptized. Lots of the ward
members turned up to the baptism which was awesome. The bishop of
the ward is Bishop Arthur and he is the man! He
is a younger fella and is super funny. After the
baptism he was giving his wife a play by play of his surfing,
and how he made it to the baptism right as it was starting. He was
expecting his wife to be proud of him for being on time haha.
Sunday was one of those really long days! We go
to 6 hours of church which can be a struggle haha. I get really tired and have
to fight myself to stay awake sometimes. Also I was super
hungry because we have church from 9-12 and then from 1-4 so we don't get any
lunch. My mom knows that a hungry/tired Elder Brunson is not a good
combination. After church our dinner wasn't until 6 instead of 5 so I
knew I was going to have to work really hard to stay positive.
Well I did really good for the first hour and a half, but by 5:45 I
was getting pretty drained! We were
about to get in our car when I saw this guy across the street. Elder
Fellingham was already about to get into the car and I knew we could
easily just head to our dinner appointment now since it would take 10 minutes
to get there. Well I decided to push a little more and I
started talking to the guy from across the street. He was
really friendly and ended up crossing the street to come and talk to us.
He told us his name and it turned out to be a less active that we had been
trying to contact for ages!!! We ended up having a really good talk with
him and set up a return appointment. I was really thankful that I hadn't
given up. I have a testimony that when we serve others, when we are
tired, hungry, grumpy, or all of the above and we do it with a willing heart we
are immensely blessed. I have had many opportunities to do this in my
life because most of the time I'm either tired, hungry, or grumpy haha. I
know each time I have changed my attitude and served I have seen great
blessings come into my life. I love you all and hope you have a warmer
week haha.
Love,
Elder Brunson
Sunday, January 15, 2017
Monday, January 15, 2017
Time needs to slow down! This transfer
is going by way too fast. I really love being companions with Elder
Fellingham. We work really hard, but we have heaps of fun while we are
doing it haha. We are really similar people and we get along great.
It stinks to know that we will definitely have no chance of being companions
for another transfer since he is finishing his mission. Elder Fellingham
is the man though! He is really smart so I'm learning a lot from
him. He is especially good at understanding the Bible, which I am
terrible at. I have been trying to read the New Testament though and I'm
really enjoying that. Elder Fellingham is from New Zealand, but most
people think he is from America. It's really funny because nobody
believes him when he says he is from New Zealand. To me he sounds like he
is from New Zealand, but he has had heaps of American companions so he has
picked up a slight American accent.
We had an awesome week. We went on two
exchanges, one in Opotoki, and one in Karikari. We had an awesome miracle
while I was down in Opotoki with Elder Wood. Elder Wood is also from
Washington State! Guess where he is from?! Moses Lake haha.
He even worked at the Moses Lake waterpark. So who knows, maybe I even
met him before the mission. It was a really awesome exchange. At
the beginning of the exchange we were talking about what we wanted to work
on. I told him that one thing that was helping Elder Fellingham and I was
to find our purpose in every area that we went to. A lot of times we make
plans and we go to the specific area and nobody is home. Well, we always
put backups for each plan in case it falls through and a lot of the time
we just immediately go to the backups before seeing if there are any
doors, or anyone else we could share the gospel with. We
decided that with each plan we wanted to find our purpose for being
there. Right at the beginning of our exchange we saw the
blessings of finding our purpose. The first house we tried
to visit nobody was home. We decided that we would knock a few
houses in the area. Well nobody was home at those homes
either. Well we kept walking down the road until a less active
member pulled over and started talking to us. She was really busy so we
couldn't teach her at the time, but we asked if she knew anyone in
the area. She said that one or two streets over there was a grey
house with a blue van that we could try. She wasn't exactly
sure where it was, but we decided to try the streets anyway. We walked down the first street and couldn't
find the house. We were nearing the end of the street when we saw a
younger girl in her 20's outside her house. We started talking to her and
she was super nice! However, she wasn't super interested in our
message. However, we again asked if there was anyone she knew in the area
that we could see. At first she said no, and she told us that
everyone on the street was family and probably not
interested. Just before we were about to leave though she pointed
across the street down a longer driveway and said that we could try that
house. Guess what house it was?! It was the grey house with the
blue van! Both Elder Wood and I had missed the house because it was
kind of tucked away. We were pumped and we thanked the girl and went
to try the grey house. We knocked on the door and a lady
answered the door. We asked her how her day was going and she said
that she was really stressed because she had lost a stone that she was
planning on using to make a necklace for her sister. She looked panicked,
but two seconds later her husband came into the room and had found the
stone! They were both super excited and invited us in! It
turns out the lady is a less active member of the church and her partner
is a nonmember. We ended up having a super awesome lesson with them!!!!
They are the coolest couple ever, and they have some really cute kids.
Her twin sister is actually an active member in the welcome bay
ward. The experience was really cool because the timing of everything was
so perfect. It was also really cool how the Lord was able
to lead us to their home. It was even the ladies only day
off, so we couldn't have had any better timing. It was a testimony to me
that Heavenly Father knows how to put the pieces of the puzzle together.
He knows how to lead us where we need to be. Sometimes in life we
experience things that we don't understand why they need to happen. I
have a testimony that God has a perfect plan for each of us,
and that everything we face in this life is for our benefit. I'm
thankful to be a missionary and I'm thankful for the plan of salvation which
enables each of us to return to live back with our Heavenly Father.
Love,
Elder
Brunson
Tuesday, January 10, 2017
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| Improving my baking skills |
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| Saying goodbye to the Pritchard family |
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| Gups is the man! He helped us so much! |
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| Zavier and Amy and their boys Genesis and Tyson |
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| Jesniel, Javish's little brother. The Chandar Family was a part member family that we taught. |
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| I'm going to miss the Reupena family! |
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| My last night in Rewa! |
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| Elder Barbosa |
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| Elder Van Theil |
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| Elder Ellsworth |
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| I'm going to miss Elder Taito heaps! We got along so well. We seriously never had one argument! |
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| Zyron a Filipino guy we taught! |
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| This is a less active named Anaru (Andrew in English) that we just started working with. His family gave us a massive feed on Sunday! I almost died haha! |
Monday,
January 9, 2017
Tauranga
is a mean place!!!!!!!!!!!!
Man
it is so beautiful here in Tauranga. It will definitely be a really cool
place to come back and visit. The people here are super nice as
well. I have been invited into more homes in one week than I
was the entire time that I served in Manurewa. Elder Fellinham and I are
having heaps of fun together! It has been really nice not having
to adjust to someone new. We spent all of our pdays
in Taranaki with Elder Fellingham and Lingwall, so I already know Elder
Fellingham really well. Also, he was my zone leader in Gisborne when
I started my mission and I went on heaps of exchanges with him because I
could drive and he couldn't. Elder Fellingham is dying this transfer
so that will be interesting. I have never had to kill a missionary.
We
saw some really awesome miracles this week. One day Elder Fellingham
and I were knocking on doors. We both enjoy knocking on doors so we knock
quite a few doors every day. Well we knocked on this door
and a Filipina lady came out and started talking to us. She
said that she was having a really hard day because her 15 year old son had
passed away this past year. At first Elder Fellingham and I thought
that she was referring to about 1 year ago that her son had passed away.
Well as we got talking to her she told us that he had just passed away 6 days
ago. Elder Fellingham and I were shocked! We kept talking to her
and then her husband showed up and invited us into their home. We shared
the plan of salvation with them and bore testimony to them that they would see
their son again. It is so amazing to see the faith they have while going
through this really hard challenge! They are a Christian family and they
have put their trust in our Savior Jesus Christ. It was very emotional
for them, but they really appreciated our message. What was so amazing to
me was that Heavenly Father sent us to their family at the right time. He
was aware of their circumstances and he knew what would help comfort
them. I know it was beyond our own power that we were sent to their
family. Their son was only 15 years old and they think that
he committed suicide. Elder Fellingham and I felt a tremendous
love for this family and it was such a great experience to be an
instrument in God’s hand to help this family. One of my favorite
scriptures in the Bible is found in John 16:33. It talks about being
of good cheer because Christ has overcome the world. Sometimes it
can be really hard to have this outlook in life. However, I know
that if we try and understand God’s will in our life our trials and our
burdens can be made light. He has a divine purpose in all things.
Everything we experience in this life is for our benefit. We found
another great family this week as well. They are from Fiji and are super
solid. We also felt like we should knock on their door.
They invited us in on the first visit and we had a super good
lesson with them. They used to live in Fiji across from the
temple! They love the temple so much! They think it is
really special because it is like no other building in Fiji. We talked to
them about temples, and then taught them part of the restoration.
Jay is Hindu, but is open to learning about Christianity. His
partner Jocelyn is Christian and grew up going to
a Catholic church. They have had a lot of contact with the
church and even went through the Fiji temple during its open
house. We are really excited to teach them, and we are hoping that we can
help them progress towards baptism.
Congratulations
Katie and Tanner! I can't believe that my sister is no longer a
Brunson. It didn't hit me that she is actually married until I got all of
the pictures this week! Craziness!!!! Thanks for all
those who supported them and our family! Especially Uncle Scott who
broke his arm for the whole thing! I think you owe him half of
your wedding gifts haha. Love you all heaps!
Love,
Elder
Brunson
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