Monday, February 20, 2017

We had a mean week!!  However, I am more excited for this week because we get to see an Apostle!!  Elder Renlund is going to be coming to our mission on Thursday.  We will get to drive up to Hamilton on Thursday so I'm pumped for that.  Well my mom was questioning me about my cleanliness on my mission.  I would think that she would know better than to do that because I am the son of one of the cleanest people on the planet haha.  So yes I keep my flat clean!!!  My mom questioned me when the last time I washed my sheets was.  Answer:  I just washed my sheets this last week!!!  I try and wash them every other week.  I think we probably have one of the cleanest flats in the mission.  I even did one of the nastiest jobs in the mission this morning.  I cleaned out our vacuum cleaner!  It was probably one of the grossest things ever.  It is probably one of the worst issues in the mission.  Nobody ever cleans out the vacuum filters.  I spent probably 20 minutes cleaning out the filter this morning.  It was definitely worth it though because our vacuum is now on steroids.  I didn't realize how bad our vacuum was until this morning after I cleaned it out.  The vacuum actually started preforming its duty.

We have had several really cool miracles this week and I'm going to try and write about them.  I might only get to one of the miracles depending on how fast I can type.  I will talk about the best one first.  I finally wrote in my personal journal this week because the miracle was so cool I wanted to write about it while it was fresh on my mind.  My plan was I was going to bring the journal so I could just type exactly what I had written down.  Unfortunately I forgot it at home haha.  Yes, sadly I have been really bad at keeping a journal.  Probably because anything that is journal worthy I just send home in my weekly email.  So pretty much I am giving all of you access to my personal journal.  I don't have much to hide so I can just tell you all about my experiences haha.  I'm going to try my best to tell you this miracle.  So a few weeks ago we met this really cool Maori kid named Kayne.  When we knocked on Kayne’s door his grandma answered who was not keen AT ALL!!!  Well Kayne heard us mention Jesus Christ, so he popped out of the back room and started talking with us.  He didn't have much time though so we left him with a restoration pamphlet and went our way.  Well we tried him several times and we were not able to catch him at home.  Finally, when I was on an exchange with one of the zone leaders in Gisborne named elder Egbert we were able to catch him.  We had a really cool lesson, but I don't have much time to talk about it.  Well several weeks went by and we were not able to catch up with Kayne.  This week though we had MLC so I was able to see Elder Egbert on Wednesday.  He asked me about how Kayne was doing.  We had tried him so many times and were not able to catch him that I had pretty much given up one the idea of teaching him.  When Elder Egbert said Kayne’s name I actually forgot who he was talking about.  It took me a second, but then I remembered.  Well I told him that we had tried, but hadn't had much luck.  Well we got back from MLC on Wednesday evening and went to try one of our investigators named Kayne(?).  Kayne(?) told us he was high so we decided it probably wouldn't be a good time to see him haha.  Well we had planned to have dinner at 5:30 and it was currently 5:20.  I was trying to think of how we should spend our last 10 minutes.  A name came into my mind of a potential investigator that we had in the area.  It was a 15 year old boy named Josiah.  When we tried him his parents were not home, but he said we could try anytime during the evening.  He didn't seem overly keen though, and I had never even met his family.  I then thought that we could try another older couple by our flat.  I thought that would be a better idea so we started driving towards their house.  Well, we got a little ways down the street and I rethought my decision.  We flipped the car around and decided we might as well try Josiah.  We got to Josiah's house and we were immediately invited in by Josiah's dad named Jayson.  Jayson was really nice and we started getting his background.  He told us that he had 3 boys and he started talking about each one.  He finally got to his oldest boy and guess what his name was... Kayne.  I was like oh true... does he live here? He said no he lives on Dunton.  My mind was blown!!!I I was like no way we know your son!  Then guess who walks through the front door right as I am saying this.... Kayne!!!  It was so mean!!!! We ended up teaching the restoration to Kayne and his dad and they loved it!!!! They were really keen to pray about our message!  Kayne’s mom even came in at the very end of the lesson and was super nice!  We are really excited to work with their family though!

As I was pondering about the chances of us meeting both of these families my mind was blown!! We have so many houses in our area that the chance of even meeting Kayne was slim because we just randomly knocked on his door.  Then the fact that we randomly knocked on his parents’ door was even slimmer!!!!  Like the likelihood of that happening is literally so small!!  The only way it would happen is if Heavenly Father led us to each of their homes.  I can promise you that Heavenly Father did send us.  I know Heavenly Father sees all the pieces to a puzzle and he knows how to make a perfect picture with the pieces every time.  Sometimes we don't see the picture at first, but I know God loves each of us and has a perfect plan for each of us.  I'm so thankful to have been part of this miracle.

Another really cool thing happened this week!  I got to see Elder Fellingham!!!! He came back and visited with his brother which was really cool!!  They came to church on Sunday and it was really awesome to be able to catch up with him.  

HAPPY BIRTHDAY PAPI AND KEVIN!!!!!!!!  If you don't know these two handsome men you really should.  They are probably two of the funniest people on this planet!!!!!!  I'm so thankful to have both of you in my life and thankful for your great example!!!!!!  Hope you have a great week and an awesome Birthday!!!!!!!!!!!  Love you heaps!!!

Elder Brunson