Monday, July 10, 2017

Mean week!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!  Miracles for days!!!!!!!!

I don't even know where to start because there were so many miracles.  I wish I had time to write about everything that happened.  I have been absolutely useless at writing in a journal so I need to try and get down as much information as I can so I don't forget everything.  The miracles started on Monday evening.  We started our evening off by having a mean as Family Home Evening with the YSA.  We watched a video from LDS.org.  Guess who is in the video haha?!  Chase Fairchild! I was so pumped when I saw him in it haha.  Anyway, the video is about helping members “find” by using Facebook.  So we watched the video with the YSA in our ward and then we put them to the test.  We had each of them open up their friends list on Facebook and we committed them to right there invite someone to our Ward Cultural activity on Friday night.  They were really awesome about it.  One girl even face-timed her friend right there and invited him in front of everyone.  Guess what?! He actually came on Friday night.  He is an Indian fella and his name is Rohan.  After the FHE we had planned to see a few other people, but we felt like we should go and see Tamwane and Ritati.  Best choice ever!!  We finished teaching them the plan of salvation and then we felt like we should bring up baptism again.  The spirit in the lesson was so strong and then guess what?!!!  We set him for baptism on July 24th!!!  Ritati was really excited and even wanted to schedule a specific time with us.  We told him that he would need to come to church for the next 3 weeks if he was going to be baptized on that day.  He agreed and said he would do everything he could to prepare.  Thursday night we went back and had dinner with their family and Ritati was still pumped to be baptized. Then on Friday night guess who came to the ward cultural night?!!!  Tamwane, Ritati and their two children Rebekah and Jilio.  It was awesome.  Then it was time for the real test!  Sunday came around and I was nervous as!!  But guess what?!!  They came through and showed up to church!  I was so pumped!  I really can't explain all of this very well, but missionary work is so much fun!

  

The next best miracle is Fayne!  If you read my email last week you will know that Fayne was the 21 year old that we found tracting right before we closed our fast on Sunday.  Well, he continues to be an even greater miracle.  So we went around on Thursday for our return appointment, but Fayne was just heading out the door.  He was walking across town to meet his girlfriend.  It was 8pm and we told him we would walk with him.  We pretty much begin teaching while we walked and asked him heaps of questions.  He told us that he had an antichrist tattoo on his chest, and that ever since he had met us he has been thinking about getting it removed.  We had a great chat with him and we invited him to the cultural night.  He said he was keen to come if we could get him a ride.  So we coordinated a ride for him with a YSA that lives right down the street from him named Campbelle.  It came to Friday night though and Fayne got stuck working in Auckland and wasn't able to make it back in time for the cultural night.  He felt really bad and said that he still really wanted to come to church on Sunday.  It was funny because on Thursday night he told us that his girlfriend said there was no way that Fayne would go to church on Sunday.  But guess what?!!!  Fayne came to church on Sunday and he stayed for all 3 hours!  He had never been to church in his life, but he really loved it!  He said he just loved the atmosphere and how positive everyone was.  It doesn't end there though.  Sunday night there was a fireside at the Visitor’s center next to the temple and he came to that as well!!!!  He loved it!!  The spirit was so strong at the fireside.  I wish I could explain how cool the environment is in the VC.  A lady named Aotea from Auckland came to sing.  She sings brown hymn book songs and she is good as!!  She is seriously the best singer I have ever heard in person.  Plus we were super close so it was cool as.  Fayne loved the fireside and he is really keen to keep coming to church!!!  It was so awesome though because Friday night at the culture night we had 6 investigators attend: John and Lina, Ritati, Aaron, Greg, and Charles.  At church on Sunday we had 5 investigators attend: Charles, Ritati, John and Lina, and Fayne.  Then at the fireside we had 5 investigators attend: John and Lina, Fayne, Kailash, and Shalvin.  We also had a mean lesson with Kailash and Shalvin this week.  I don't think I talked about them this last week.  They are cool as though.  They are both from Fiji and they are both cooks.  We had a really awesome lesson with them this week and Shalvin told us how much he wanted to change.  He said he has made a lot of mistakes in his life, and that he really wants to have the burden of those mistakes lifted off of him.  They are super busy with work though so coming to church is hard.

We had another mean miracle on Sunday afternoon.  A set of sisters in our zone called us to see if we could come and give one of their investigators a blessing.  She has been taught by missionaries for 6 years, but hasn't committed to be baptized.  She has kidney failure and it is affecting her eyesight the doctors pretty much told her that her eyesight would only get worse.  I had the opportunity to give her the blessing and the spirit was so strong!  I blessed her that her eyes would be able to heal and that she would more importantly be able to see with her spiritual eyes.  There was such a strong spirit after we finished the blessing and it was really awesome.  As Elder Barcinas and I headed back to our area the sisters called us up and were so thankful and excited.  They said that after we left she explained that she had never felt anything like what she was feeling.  The sisters invited her to be baptized sometime in August and she told them that it was too far away.  They told her the soonest she could be baptized was July 29th.  She happily agreed!  The sisters thanked us for being worthy of the priesthood and for our service.  I know it wasn't anything that we said that made her feel the spirit, but it was the power of the priesthood that brought an increase of the holy spirit into her life.  It was such a great experience!!!  Well, I love you all heaps and hope you have a great week!!!!

Love,

Elder Brunson