Monday, June 26, 2017

I'm going to apologize in advance for my letter this week.  We have a shortened preparation day so I'm going to try and write this as fast as I can.  We proselyted for some of the day today so that we can go to the temple tomorrow.  We are going to attend the sealing of Alex and Sara, the converts in our ward who got baptized just over a year ago.  They are from Brazil and are cool as!  They are the couple who come and translate for us when we go to John and Lina's.  I'm pumped to go to the sealing because I have never been to a sealing before.  It will be really good to get to go to the temple again as well.

An update on John and Lina.  Lina is ready to be baptized but John is holding her back.  They are the most awesome people ever!  We were able to have a lesson with both Alex and Sara on Sunday and it went really well.  Lina told us that she has stopped drinking coffee!!!  We taught John and Lina the word of wisdom the other day and John had a big concern with giving up coffee.  Lina said that she likes coffee, but that she would be willing to give it up.  Lina told us that she was with her friends the other day and they were all drinking coffee but her.  They said to her, "What kind of Columbian doesn't drink coffee?”  She told them straight up that she didn't drink coffee and wasn't going to drink coffee anymore.  Columbia is apparently pretty famous for their coffee.  Anyway, Lina said she told them straight up and that she felt really good for her decision.  It was so amazing to see how much faith Lina has and she isn't even a member of the church yet.  She loves reading The Book of Mormon.  She reads it to John haha.  It was really good because on Sunday we were just about to start our lesson with John and Lina, but then some of their friends showed up and John left the room.  We were able to have a really good conversation with Lina.  She shared how she really wants to be baptized and she is not sure that John is going to make the commitment.  She is really stressed because John doesn't seem like he wants to change.  We were able to talk to her though and she is going to talk with John this week about wanting to be baptized.  She hasn't come out and told him that she wants to be baptized so we are hoping that it will help John to want to make that step as well.  It was funny because when John came back we ended up teaching them about the law of chastity.  We asked John if he saw any problems with keeping the law of chastity, and he was like no es facil pero coffee... Pretty much he said keeping the law of chastity is easy, but giving up coffee, that's another story haha.  I laughed and told him it was usually the other way around, but that we would work on it.

This week we also got a keen as member referral named Charles that we started working with.  He is a pretty interesting guy, but we are hoping that he might even be baptized this transfer.  He went to church on Sunday, but went to the new stake center over by the temple.  He said he feels the spirit really strong by the temple and so he really wanted to go over there.  We tried to explain to him that we meet according to where we live.  He wasn't taken that though and he ended up going to another ward in another stake haha, but he went to church so we couldn't complain haha.  We taught him the restoration and he absolutely loved it!

I'm doing awesome though so don't worry about me.  Stay safe!  I love you all!

Love,

Elder Brunson  

Monday, June 19, 2017

Looks like you are in luck momma!  You will still be getting pictures for the next 6 weeks because Elder Barcinas and I are still together.  Elder Barcinas is the man!  He is saving me getting in trouble every week for not sending pictures home haha.  We are really excited to have another 6 weeks to work together.  We have been working really hard and we have been praying heaps to be able to find someone who is prepared for baptism.  I'm sure the Lord is going to help us and answer our prayers over these next few weeks.  I know baptisms are not everything but we feel it would be a great way to end our transfer.  John and Lina are our closest investigators to being baptized!  Guess what?!! They both came to church on Sunday!!  It was Johns second time being at church and he really loved it.  We had such an awesome lesson with them this week.  We had planned to teach keeping the Sabbath day holy, but when we went in it didn't really feel right.  We ended up talking about temples instead and talked about eternal families.  We got talking and John opened up to us and shared that every time he wanted to come to church or read the scriptures something would distract him and make him feel sad and depressed.  We talked about how the adversary knows how much John and Lina can be blessed by coming to church and by being baptized so he is doing everything he can to stop them and distract them.  We talked about how much the gospel and having an eternal family would bless their lives.  We were able to give John a blessing and he was in tears. They are such an awesome family and I'm sure they will get baptized this transfer.

Guess who came to New Zealand and didn't see us…President Eyring and Elder Anderson.  We were all gutted that we didn't get to meet with them.  President Eyring came to dedicate The Mathew Cowley Church History Building in Templeview where the temple is located.  It's also where the church college was here in New Zealand, but they had to close it down.  We weren't able to go to the dedication, but we did get to go to the stake center and watch the broadcast live.  We also got to go on Friday night and watch the broadcast of the cultural night.  It was a really cool weekend.  Both Elder Anderson and Elder Eyring gave mean as talks!!!

It's really sad that it has taken me this long, but I feel that this last few weeks I have finally found out how to be super effective.  My whole mission I have loved knocking on doors.  I love going out and doing the work.  I have never been a fan of trying to work with the members because they take too long to get moving…no offense haha.  This past week though we have been using the Bishop’s action list and it has been helping heaps!!!  Papi make sure your missionaries have that list.  Last night we contacted the list of new move ins and guess what.  We pretty much found our next baptism.  There is heaps of low lying fruit that come from contacting the ward list and Bishop action list!  Man we have been finding lots of potential part member families to work with.  It is so awesome!  The best part is that if you go to contact someone from the list you can still knock on doors if they are not home.  Usually what I have done throughout my mission is knock on heaps of doors and build up heaps of potential investigators and then I would just try and visit heaps of potentials throughout the day and if the potentials weren't home we would just knock on doors around their home.  It has been a lot more effective though to go through the list first.  Sorry this is probably a really boring letter for you all, and it probably doesn't make too much sense.  Elder Barcinas and I are going really hard for this next 6 weeks though and we know there is going to be some great miracles.  I love being a missionary!

Man there are heaps of stories that I haven't been able to tell.  I don't have enough time.  I had a mean miracle with prayer the other day, and we also taught a mean as part member family from Kiribati.  There are heaps of Kiribati people in New Zealand and especially in Hamilton.  We found them knocking on doors and the mom Temwane is a convert to the church and has the coolest conversion story ever.  Her husband is Methodist and his name in Ritati and he is such a humble man.  We had our first lesson this week and we taught the restoration and he loved it!!!  He is such a humble man and he loves Joseph Smith’s experience.  The spirit was so strong in the lesson!  Hopefully they will come to church this Sunday.  Man I could go on for ages, this past week was mean as!

I love you all and hope you have a great week!  Happy Father’s day Papi, you are the man!!!!!!!!!!  I seriously have the best Papi in the whole world.  Thanks for your great example.  I know I wouldn't be on a mission without you.  I have always looked up to you and I'm thankful for the lessons that I have learned from you.

  

Love,

Elder Brunson 

District meeting

Lina and Melanie.  Melanie is soooo cute!!!!!

A Tim Tam slam!!!!

My companion has a nice camera
and good photography skills.

Monday, June 12, 2017

It's that time again!  Transfers week!!  Where does the time go?  I reckon it was just transfers like a week ago.  This was a really good past transfer.  We are still trying to build our teaching pool, but we have had some great opportunities to teach the gospel.  I feel that we are really making an impact on people's lives, but it will be a long process for them to accept the gospel.  John and Linda, our investigators from Columbia, are our investigators with the most potential.  Lina wants to be baptized, but John isn't quite ready to make the change.  Lina has been to church many times, but we have only got John to come once.  They are such an awesome family.  They don't speak very good English so we take a Brazilian couple who was baptized a year ago named Sara and Alex to translate for us.  We taught them the word of wisdom this week, and Lina has no problem with it, but John loves his coffee.  Hopefully he will come around though.  He has been able to cut back on the amount of coffee he drinks which is good.  We had stake conference this week and Linda came by herself!  The conference was really awesome!  Guess what haha.  I didn't have to speak on spot this time, but I did get asked to give the closing prayer.  I have never said a prayer in front of that many people.  I remember when Katie had to give the prayer at a devotional at the MTC though.  So it really wasn't too big of a deal.  After the conference I had a really sweet experience.  We were out in the parking lot after the meeting and I was talking with one of the senior couples, Elder Bowcutt.  Elder Bowcutt is in charge of the housing.  We were talking about how well the mission is doing.  He said that for the month of June we have 58 baptisms scheduled.  I immediately thought of how we don't have anyone set for baptism at the moment.  It of course didn't make me feel too good that while everyone in the mission seems to be having lots of success we are struggling to get our investigators to make that step.  However, the Lord knew how I was feeling and he sent someone to come and tell me that Heavenly Father loves me. This lady (probably in her 40's) I met one time randomly knocking on doors pulled her car up next to us.  She is in our ward, but only comes occasionally.  When we knocked on her door she seemed like such a great lady, who has had a really hard life.  She was just leaving the parking lot, but she stopped when she saw me and called me over to the car.  She said, “Elder, I don't know why I needed to stop, but I just feel like I really need to tell you that you have a really great spirit about you.”  She paused for a second and then said, "Thank you for serving a mission!" I immediately felt the spirit and it was just as if Heavenly Father himself said, "Elder Brunson thank you for serving a mission!" It was such a sweet experience that I will never forget.  We need more people in the word who can reach out and extend the pure love of Christ to others.  So the challenge of the week for you all is to look for an opportunity to stop and thank someone for the efforts they are making to serve.  I know that as you do so you will be able to help someone else feel of the love that our Heavenly Father has for them through you.  I love you all and hope you have a great week.

  

Love,

Elder Brunson  

Monday, June 5, 2017

Finally!!!!!!!!!

Man it has been ages, but I finally got to go to the temple!  I can't remember when the last time I was able to go but I’ve really missed it.  We stopped doing temple trips when President and Sister Rudd went home.  Elder Barcinas and I went to the 8:30 endowment session.  It was so nice being back in the temple.  It is so peaceful in the temple and it seems like all the worries in the world just seem to disappear.  I wish we could have stayed in the temple all day.  The temple is the best.  After the temple we went and took some pictures next to the Christus statue in the visitor center next to the temple.  I couldn't have asked for a better preparation day!

We had another solid week.  The highlight of the week was a missionary fireside that we attended at the visitor center!  We were really happy because the last fireside we went to none of our investigators turned up so we went back to work instead of staying for the fireside.  This time we made sure that one of our investigators would be there.  We got one of our investigators, Greg to confirm that he was coming at 5 and the fireside started at 6.  We had also talked to him the night before and he said he would be there.  Well it was 5:55 and Greg hadn't turned up.  We quickly called him though and it turned out that he was just at a chapel a few minutes away from the visitor center.  He arrived just in time so we were able to stay for the fireside.  The theme of the fireside was learning to recognize how the Holy Ghost communicates with us.  President Cummings gave the presentation and it was so good!  President Cummings is a really good speaker, and he used a lot of visuals which kept everybody there involved.  I was surprised how strong I felt the spirit.  It's not like I don't feel the spirit often, but it almost felt like being inside the temple today.  It is a really great environment at the visitor center.  Where we were sitting faced the temple, but there is a glass window so you can see the reflection of the Christus statue as you look at the temple.  It was a brilliant design because it allows you to see the Savior and the temple simultaneously which is awesome.  Greg really enjoyed the fireside as well.  We are hoping that it's going to open him to hear our message.  Greg kind of likes to debate and has a lot of philosophical ideas, so he is quite hard to work with.  He is a wonderful man though!

Another highlight of the week was we went on a tracting marathon.  We went on an exchange with a set of Elders and they literally had nothing planned besides tracting.  So I seriously knocked on doors 5 hours straight.  I love knocking on doors, but straight knocking on doors for 5 hours will take it out of you.  Do I find it effective?  No haha.  I think the most effective way to find people to teach is to plan to see people throughout the entire day.  Even if the names of the people you write down are just people from the ward lists that you don't know.  Then when your plans fall through, you knock the doors around that house that you tried.  It's called finding your purpose in an area.  I have a huge testimony of this.  When we try our best to find the reason we have gone to a particular part of our area the Lord blesses us with someone to teach.  We had an example of this on Saturday morning.  We tried heaps of people in this area and everyone was not keen at all!  We felt like we should keep knocking though and we knocked on this house and the front door was wide open.  We knocked several times and called out to see if anyone was home, but nobody answered.  Well obviously someone was home, but nobody wanted to come and answer the door.  We were walking away from the house and then this guy came out.  We ended up having a really good conversation with him.  He has no beliefs and we would probably classify him as agnostic.  He actually seems sincerely interested in really finding out for himself if God is there.  We gave him a pamphlet (Elder Brunson's favorite thing to do is give pamphlets out haha) and got a return appointment for next week.  Guess what his name is?!  Tyler haha.  I really hope he is keen since we have the same name lol.  Man we also talked to these drunk people on Friday and it was pretty crack up.  We taught one of them again on Sunday when he wasn't drunk and he actually seems keen lol.  Well, that’s all I have time for.  I love you all heaps!

Elder Brunson