Monday March 13, 2017

Mean week!!!

We had a very eventful week this week!  The weather has been absolutely terrible though.  That is the only negative thing we have going for us right now.  It's funny because we are getting into the time when our weather is pretty similar for a short period of time.  You are just finishing up the bad days and we are starting to head into the terrible weather.  Hopefully it won't get too cold too fast.  This past week it has been raining heaps though.  It seems like we haven't had a day without rain in ages.  This week was Elder Timu's 21st birthday which was pretty exciting!  21st birthdays are a huge thing in New Zealand, but he probably had a pretty normal day.  I'm a terrible companion to be with when it’s your birthday because I don't do anything flash.  I did shout Elder Timu’s dinner.  We had a really mean feed from a place called Burger Fuel.  It was the closest thing I have had to an American Burger since being in New Zealand.  I also had the best Kumara Chips (fries) of my life!!!  Kumara chips are the greatest thing that New Zealand has haha.  They are apparently like sweet potato fries, but I honestly couldn't tell you.  I feel like I have had sweet potato fries and I didn't like them, but who knows.  Another highlight from the week was going on an exchange with Elder Hadfield!!  Elder Hadfield is a 25 year old Maori fella.  He is one of the funniest people ever.  The best part of the whole exchange was that his laugh is almost identical to Uncle Chadd's laugh.  It made me feel like I was kickin’ it with Uncle Chadd for a day, so shout out to Uncle Chadd haha.  This week was also really cool because we had interviews with President Cummings.  I love President Cummings so much!  He has changed our mission so much, and it will be amazing to hear about all the things he is able to accomplish in 3 years.  Well in my interview President asked me the basic questions making sure I was doing alright, and asking about how our zone is doing, and then at the end he asked if Elder Timu and I had some time that he could come out with us that night.  I of course said that we would love him to come out with us.  Well we went and visited a few people until 6:30 rolled around when we were planning to meet up with President.  Elder Timu and I had actually made some really solid plans for our night so we must have been inspired during our planning in the morning because we had already planned to see our investigators who are really progressing.  Well we met President at Charlotte and Levi's house who was our first plan of the night and they were not home.  Then we decided we would go to the Buenviaje's family home and see if they were home.  This was the Filipino family that we found a week after their 15 year old son had passed away.  We have had a pretty hard time connecting with their family, even though our message is so powerful.  Josan the father ended up being home and we had a really awesome discussion with him.  Elder Timu and I were pretty nervous to have President there, but it went pretty good.  We ended up spending quite a bit of time talking with him, but it didn't seem like anything overly powerful happened.  Well, we decided that we would go try another couple named Nikki and Kori.  Well we had to walk past Levi and Charlotte’s house again to get to Nikki and Kori's and guess who was home!  Levi and Charlotte!  So we went and had a really awesome talk with them!  President is so on to it, and it was cool to see him be a missionary!  We invited them to stake conference and they said they would come!  I don't remember if I said this, but Levi came to church for the first time this past week!  I will have to tell you about their family next week, but I don't have much time.  They have two boys though and I'm going to name one of my boys after him.  Are you ready..... Fin!!!!!  Is Fin not the best name that you have ever heard?  Well we had to get leaving and it was absolutely pouring rain!!!!  It was 8 o'clock so we had time for one more visit.  President told us that he had to get going though, and he left us to go out into the pouring rain haha.  Well we finished off our night with the best lesson ever with Nikki and Kori!!!!!!!!!  I met Nikki and Kori when I was with Elder Fellingham.  How did we find them? Of course the only way Elder Brunson knows how to find people.  Knocking on doors haha!!  Well, we went back and only Nikki was home when I was on an exchange with Elder Fesolai.  We ended up teaching the complete restoration and she loved it!  She especially loved it because she finally understood the doctrine of the godhead.  That Heavenly Father, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Ghost are 3 distinct beings, but are one in purpose.  Well, we continued to go back, but we had no luck catching Kori, so we just kept teaching Nikki at the doorstep.  Well since I have been with Elder Timu, we finally got our first lesson with them both.  We taught the first part of the restoration, but it wasn't an overly amazing lesson with Kori.  Well a miracle happened and we ended up finishing teaching the restoration and Kori loved it!  They have been really progressing so much.  Well when we went around Friday night they shared with us some of their concerns and we were able to address them.  Nikki told us that she had been praying and felt like since she hadn't committed to the Mosaic church that she would start attending our church!!!  She said that she was going to come to stake conference!  Kori wants to come as well, but he first wants to sort things out with his current church!  Well Sunday rolled around and it was stake conference!!!  Elder Timu and I were so pumped because we were expecting a good turn out from our investigators.  Well we arrived early so we could wait for them to come!!  We were really nervous but excited at the same time!!  Guess what?!  Nikki, Levi, and Ashish and Nalini showed up!!!!!!!  We were so pumped!!!!  Guess what else crazy happened at stake conference!!!!!!!  The visiting authority and President Fitzpatrick the stake President called me up on the spot and had me come and bear my testimony!!!!  Far out there was heaps of people and I was pretty nervous haha.  I had no idea if I was supposed to try and preach a sermon or bear my testimony for 5 seconds or what.  I got up though and because the theme of the conference was Joy I explained how the thing that had brought me the most joy in my life up until that point was to come and serve a mission.  I read my favorite scripture from D&C 15:6 which talks about the thing which will be of the most worth to you will be to declare repentance.  I talked about how when I read this scripture before coming out on my mission I felt like it was Heavenly Father speaking directly to me and telling me that the most important thing I could do was to share the gospel.  I bore a brief testimony after that and then took my seat haha.  It was an awesome experience and I was thankful to be able to share my feelings about sharing the gospel.  I really do know that missionary work brings true joy.  If you are looking for more happiness in your life share the gospel with your family members, friends, and more importantly those random people you meet that you know are looking for something.  I love the gospel, it makes me so excited to share it and bring happiness into the lives of others.  I hope you all have a great week!

Love,

Elder Brunson