Monday, April 30, 2017

Transfers again!! :(  Man I can't believe this transfer is over on Thursday.  I really don't know what is going to happen.  We had interviews this week with President Cummings.  I thought we were going to have them two weeks ago, but we didn't end up having them.  I was really nervous because President usually hints as to what will happen to you at transfers.  Well, President said something that made it seem like I might get transferred.  I'm not really sure what will go down haha.  I will do whatever the Lord wants me to do though.  I love it here in Tauranga.  There is lots of work that needs to be done.  It has been a struggle to get our investigators to progress, but Elder Miller and I have been doing our best to help them.  We are also really trying to gain the trust of the members so we can help them to do missionary work.  We had lots of opportunities to do that on Sunday.  Sunday was the busiest Sunday of my mission.  We spoke in sacrament meeting, put together a mock MTC in the 3rd hour of church for the youth, and coordinated a stake “Come and See Fireside!”  I spoke in sacrament meeting on the story of the Samaritan woman at the well.  There are many things we can learn from our Savior’s example of how he did missionary work.  I don't have time to write up everything I talked about, but you should read the story this week and see if you can find ways to improve your missionary efforts.  The story is found in John 4.  One of my favorite things though is the fact that Jesus Christ and the Samaritan woman had just met for the first time.  The Samaritan woman didn't even recognize who Jesus Christ was.  Sometimes we think that we should only share the gospel with our best friends and family members.  Most of the time we are too scared to share the gospel with them so we sit around thinking about wanting to do missionary work, but never get out and do it.  The Savior taught us that we don't need to be best friends to be able to invite someone to come unto Christ.  We should invite everyone regardless.  There is no correlation between the depth of a relationship and the probability that someone will accept the gospel.  So go share the gospel with random homies on the streets haha.  Let me know how it goes!!  The 3rd hour mock MTC went really well too.  Elder Miller and I were the mission President of the youth haha!  It was really cool.  We ran a station and taught them the restoration.  Most of them knew a lot more than me when I was their age.  The stake fireside on Sunday almost went really bad, but thankfully the Lord was on our side.  One of the people didn't end up showing up so I had to cover for her.  I spoke on finding peace through prayer.  It was actually a really easy subject to speak on.  I read a scripture from Doctrine and Covenants section 6 and told the story of us coming home from a trip to Utah and Dad telling us to get ready for priesthood session.  I was really grumpy and didn't want to go.  I threw a fit and went down into my room.  I remembered that it was going to be my last priesthood session before my mission so I wanted to make the most of it.   I realized I needed to pray and ask Heavenly Father for help to want to go.  I asked for help and specifically asked Heavenly Father to help me learn something that would help me prepare for my mission.  When we arrived to the priesthood session the very first talk was on how to prepare for a mission.  It was an immediate answer to my prayer and I was filled with the spirit and with peace.  I was thankful for Heavenly Father prompting me to have a change of heart.  Overall everything we were stressed about this week worked out.  So I was very thankful to Heavenly Father for all of the help.  Another highlight of the week was knocking on a couple’s door from Argentina.  They let us in and we were able to teach them about the plan of salvation.  They seem like they have a lot of potential so we are looking forward to working with them.  I also got to go on an exchange with Elder Timu, so it was really cool to be back with him.  We worked in my area so it was really good.  Elder Timu said the Mount is really struggling so that has been really hard to see.  They got dropped by Nikki and Kori, the couple that I thought for sure would get baptized after I left.  It was so sad when I found out they dropped them.  Well, I'm sure you will be really nervous to find out if I get transferred or not mom haha.  It will be all goods though.  I will let you know next week what went down haha!  Love you all heaps.  

Love,

Elder Brunson