Monday, March 20, 2017

Transfers!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Believe it or not it's another transfer week!  I have basically no time to write so this could very well be my worst email home haha.  Well, to be honest Elder Timu and I have no idea what is going to happen for transfers.  When we went with President on exchanges last week and he saw the investigators from the Mount ward show-up to stake conference, he asked us if we could bring in two missionaries to just cover the mount.  Right now Elder Timu and I cover both the Mount Maunganui ward and also the Welcome Bay ward.  However, President thinks that since we have some solid people in the Mount that it might be a good time to have more missionaries come in.  The mount hasn't had a baptism in over a year so it has been really cool for Elder Timu and I to see it get pumping!!  We both told President that we would be willing to get released as a Zone leader so one of us could be in the Mount and keep the work moving there.  We have no idea what President will end up doing, but it could be an interesting transfer, whether he keeps it the way it is, releases one of us as a zone leader and puts us in that area, or whether we both stay together and two new missionaries come in.  I don't really know what I want to have happen haha.  I love the people that we are working with in both areas so it would be really hard to not be able to work with some of the people anymore.  For example we had an awesome couple attend church with us in the Welcome Bay ward this week!!  Their names are Michelle and Zeke and they have 5 kids that are under the age of 6!!!!  They brought 4 of the 5 kids to church, including their two twin babies.  The ward loved them!!!!!!  We had ward council before church started and we told the bishop that they would be coming.  I'm sure he is used to the missionaries saying their investigators will be at church, but then they don't show up.  One of Bishop Arthur’s counselors, Brother Anderson made a comment to have the investigators sit up front so that the bishopric could fellowship them right after the meeting.  Well guess what?!!!! They showed up!!!!  Guess where we sat?!!!  Right on the second row!!!!  You could see that the Bishopric was pumped about the family, and so was the rest of the ward.  Right when the meeting ended the whole bishopric came up to them and greeted them, and heaps of the members fellowshipped them too!  It was so awesome!!!!  Zeke and Michelle's kids are normally really crazy too, but we were praying that they would stay quiet and they did!!! Miracles!!!  They had such a good experience though, and right away Zeke was like, “We will be back next week!”  Nikki is also doing so well, but she is in the Mount ward.  Nikki loved church!!!!!  She came for her second week in a row and stayed for all 3 hours of church.  She also texted us this morning asking us how she could pay tithing to the church haha.  She is so awesome!!  Guess what?!  I also got to speak for the second week in a row haha.  I talked about how my mission has helped me to increase my faith in the Atonement of Jesus Christ.  I focused my talk on Grace "the enabling power" that comes because of the atonement.  I talked about 3 ways I have felt grace in my life and how that has strengthened my faith in the atonement!

I love you all!  Have a great week!

Elder Brunson