Monday April 3, 2017

As you might remember, I have a love for Tongans and Samoans.  Well this week I have some exciting news!  I finally got my Tongan name haha.  I'm now known as Elder Brunsonie to all of the Tongans haha.  Sister Ofa and Sister Mavae are two of the sisters serving in our Zone and they gave me the name haha.  I was pretty pumped because I'm now in with the Tongans haha.  It's a pretty sweet name!

Nothing overly exciting happened this week.  Elder Miller and I are still working really hard to try and find new investigators.  We talked with heaps of people, but nobody was overly keen.  We did have a pretty cool miracle with a Tongan/Maori family.  Two weeks ago Elder Timu and I found this really cool fella named Sione (John).  How did we find him? Of course the only way Elder Brunson can find people to teach.  Tracting haha!  It was actually really cool how we found him.  I often get the feeling we should knock on a door.  The problem is I know everyone needs the gospel so I sometimes just feel like knocking on everyone's door haha.  So sometimes it can be hard to tell whether or not it’s the spirit or just me.  Well, this time I had a very subtle feeling, but I knew that it was the spirit.  I saw a long driveway with some people standing at the top of the driveway and I really felt like we needed to talk to them.  We stated talking with Sione and he was very friendly!  He told us that his daughter was a member of our church and that he had lots of family in our church.  He was pretty busy, but he told us that we could come back.  Well Elder Miller and I went around for the return appointment this week and we showed up and his partner Dallas answered the door.  We started talking with her and got her religious background from her.  She also has heaps of family members in the church and her boss is the second councilor in our mission presidency.  Sione wasn't home so we weren't able to go in, but we just kept talking to Dallas at the front door.  She was really shocked by our visit because she said that before we knocked on her door she had been sitting on the couch and "thinking" (praying) about how she could solve some of the challenges in her life and how she really wanted God's help in her life.  She even had the feeling that she might be willing to try going to church.  Sione had told us that his partner believed in God, but didn't really want to go to church.  Anyway, as Dallas was thinking about these things and asking God for help we came and knocked on the door.  She recognized it as an answer to her silent prayer and she was really keen on learning more about the message we share.  We committed her to read the restoration pamphlet and when we followed up with her on Friday to see if she had read it she said that she did!  She was even able to discuss some of the things from the pamphlet and she said she wanted The Book of Mormon.  We were pumped!  You wouldn't believe how many people we give pamphlets to who say they will read through the pamphlet and they never do it!  Hopefully their family really commits to learning more about the gospel.  Craziest thing is that Dallas said she had been to prison and that's where she started her belief in God.  If you saw her you would never believe that she had been to prison haha.  They are a cool as family though!  We have an appointment with them on Wednesday so hopefully that goes well.

Funny story.  Saturday night I realized at 8:50 that I needed cash so that I could pay my fast offering the next day at church.  Well, we have a group of shops next to our house so we thought we would see if there was an ATM that we could get cash from.  Well, there wasn't an ATM, but Elder Miller had the brilliant idea of going into one of the shops and asking them if they would give us cash back from our card.  Guess what shop he decides to go into haha?  A liquor store haha.  He didn't realize it was a liquor store so he just strolls on in.  I was a little hesitant so I hung back as he walks on in.  The lady who was working immediately came up to him and was like, "This doesn't look like a place you boys should be haha."  I can’t imagine how bad it looked to have two Mormon missionaries rollin up to a liquor shop haha.  Well, Elder Miller responded that we were just trying to get some cash back.  The lady was super nice about it and said that we could definitely get some cash back.  Well, I again hesitated but went into the liquor shop.  She was about to swipe my mission card, but right before she did I realized oh no this is going to show up on my transactions haha.  I told her never mind and we left.  It was probably the funniest thing to watch, but hopefully nobody thought anything of it haha.  Well, that’s all I got for the week! Hope you all have a great week!

  

Love,

Elder Brunson