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