Monday, April 24, 2017

Zone Conference

It was a pretty normal week for us here in New Zealand.  It's one of those weeks where you struggle with what to write home about haha.  Hopefully I'm not the only one who experiences this.  I read one of Elder Taylor Cannon’s emails from the other week and it sounded like he was riding the same struggle as me.  Elder Miller and I got shouted out at zone conference because out of the 3 zones in attendance we were the only companionship that got an excellent on our car inspection.  I would like to say I'm a veteran in the field of cleaning and preparing for zone conference so being at a more elderly age of my mission, I knew our cars would be inspected so our car was ataahua as!!  (Ataahua means beautiful by the way.)   It's one of my favorite Maori words.  I would use more Maori words with you guys, but I don't know how to spell most of them!  Elder Bowcutt also shouted me out for my "tremendous" work of getting flats in Manurewa.  He calls me his hero.  It’s quite hilarious because I really didn't do anything that special.  I just went to a few open houses and we ended up getting a home.  I think I already told you the story though…when a landlord said missionaries have no standards then I whipped out my missionary handbook and corrected him!  He wasn't even going to tell the owners that we were interested in renting because of the bad experience that he had with missionaries in the past.  Well long story short when I showed him the missionary handbook he calmed down.  Elder Bowcutt told the story at zone conference so it was pretty crack up.

We are still in the process of building up our area so we are not having too much success at the moment.  We do have a really cool part member couple we are working with.  Their names are Kyle and Shyana they are in their mid 20's and are super awesome.  When we first met them they said that they had met with missionaries in the past.  We asked them what they remembered from the things the missionaries had taught and they said that the missionaries didn't really teach, just came over and talked about random things haha.  Well, Elder Milller and I have actually started teaching them and it has been really awesome!  Kyle is the member and Shyana his fiancé is not a member.  They are the nicest couple ever!  Kyle's family is pretty much all active in the church.  Last week we had an awesome lesson with them and afterwards they gave us a mean feed.  The best part was that we got the opportunity to give Shyana a blessing.  It was the first blessing that she’s ever received.  Shyana was pregnant and her baby was due on Monday so we asked her if she would like a blessing.  She asked me if I would like to give the blessing.  It was a really great experience!  After we gave her the blessing she had tears in her eyes and she said that she didn't know why she was crying.  She said she just felt really good. Macey said, “That is the spirit Shyana.” I forgot to mention Macey.  Macey is Kyle's 19 year old sister who lives with them and is also less active.  She is super cool!  The best part was that we came to church this past Sunday and we were pretty gutted because we knew we were most likely not going to have any investigators at church.  Well, the Lord gave us a tender mercy and right when we walked into church guess who was sitting in the chapel?!! Macey was!!!!!!!  Heavenly Father is so awesome!!!!  Whenever you’re down he is always right there to pick you up.  I have seen this principle so much throughout my mission.  Heavenly Father never abandons us, we just need to learn to recognize His hand in our lives.  I love the gospel and love being a missionary.  Thanks for keeping me in your prayers.  Have an Ataahua as week!!!!

Love,

Elder Brunson