Monday, April 24, 2017

Zone Conference

It was a pretty normal week for us here in New Zealand.  It's one of those weeks where you struggle with what to write home about haha.  Hopefully I'm not the only one who experiences this.  I read one of Elder Taylor Cannon’s emails from the other week and it sounded like he was riding the same struggle as me.  Elder Miller and I got shouted out at zone conference because out of the 3 zones in attendance we were the only companionship that got an excellent on our car inspection.  I would like to say I'm a veteran in the field of cleaning and preparing for zone conference so being at a more elderly age of my mission, I knew our cars would be inspected so our car was ataahua as!!  (Ataahua means beautiful by the way.)   It's one of my favorite Maori words.  I would use more Maori words with you guys, but I don't know how to spell most of them!  Elder Bowcutt also shouted me out for my "tremendous" work of getting flats in Manurewa.  He calls me his hero.  It’s quite hilarious because I really didn't do anything that special.  I just went to a few open houses and we ended up getting a home.  I think I already told you the story though…when a landlord said missionaries have no standards then I whipped out my missionary handbook and corrected him!  He wasn't even going to tell the owners that we were interested in renting because of the bad experience that he had with missionaries in the past.  Well long story short when I showed him the missionary handbook he calmed down.  Elder Bowcutt told the story at zone conference so it was pretty crack up.

We are still in the process of building up our area so we are not having too much success at the moment.  We do have a really cool part member couple we are working with.  Their names are Kyle and Shyana they are in their mid 20's and are super awesome.  When we first met them they said that they had met with missionaries in the past.  We asked them what they remembered from the things the missionaries had taught and they said that the missionaries didn't really teach, just came over and talked about random things haha.  Well, Elder Milller and I have actually started teaching them and it has been really awesome!  Kyle is the member and Shyana his fiancé is not a member.  They are the nicest couple ever!  Kyle's family is pretty much all active in the church.  Last week we had an awesome lesson with them and afterwards they gave us a mean feed.  The best part was that we got the opportunity to give Shyana a blessing.  It was the first blessing that she’s ever received.  Shyana was pregnant and her baby was due on Monday so we asked her if she would like a blessing.  She asked me if I would like to give the blessing.  It was a really great experience!  After we gave her the blessing she had tears in her eyes and she said that she didn't know why she was crying.  She said she just felt really good. Macey said, “That is the spirit Shyana.” I forgot to mention Macey.  Macey is Kyle's 19 year old sister who lives with them and is also less active.  She is super cool!  The best part was that we came to church this past Sunday and we were pretty gutted because we knew we were most likely not going to have any investigators at church.  Well, the Lord gave us a tender mercy and right when we walked into church guess who was sitting in the chapel?!! Macey was!!!!!!!  Heavenly Father is so awesome!!!!  Whenever you’re down he is always right there to pick you up.  I have seen this principle so much throughout my mission.  Heavenly Father never abandons us, we just need to learn to recognize His hand in our lives.  I love the gospel and love being a missionary.  Thanks for keeping me in your prayers.  Have an Ataahua as week!!!!

Love,

Elder Brunson

Monday, April 17, 2017

Cyclone!!!!!!!!!! 

We almost died!!!!  Jokes.  We did get hit by a cyclone, but it was the most pathetic thing ever!!!  Elder Miller and I were absolutely gutted!  We wanted to see something crazy.  To be honest, I had no idea what a cyclone was haha.  I just read an email from Papi and learned that a cyclone is a hurricane.  I think I would have been a wee bit more scared if I knew it was a hurricane that was coming towards us.  Although we did want to see a mean hurricane it was an answer to our prayers and fasting that it didn't hit us very hard.  Last Sunday we had a stake wide fast to pray and ask Heavenly Father to help the effects of the storm not be too bad.  We had been hit by a smaller cyclone the week before and it had destroyed a small town in the stake called Edgecome.  We were especially praying that those people wouldn't be affected again.  It was crazy the few days leading up to the cyclone this week.  Everyone was freaking out about it.  We kept telling everyone that we would just keep working like normal.  They thought we were insane haha.  We figured that President Cummings would give us a call if he heard that anything really serious was going to happen.  Well, Thursday morning came around and a few of the missionaries were a little worried about the weather.  We called President Cummings and he instructed us to keep working up until the cyclone was about to hit and then to go into our flats.  Well we worked up until 5 when we took our dinner break, which was an hour before the cyclone was supposed to hit.  It got pretty windy and rainy but it didn't last very long.  We ended up staying in our flat until 8 and by the end of the night the rain had completely stopped.  Our flat wasn't affected at all besides some water that got through the front door.  We used a mop to mop up the water though so it wasn't a big deal.

Another exciting note for the day!  Elder Miller and I got to golf today for pday!!!!!  Brother Fourie from our ward took us out with his father who is not a member of the church!!! He had told his dad that I was a golfer and he said he wanted to take us out golfing!  It was so much fun!!! The best part was we got to do missionary work while we golfed!  Also another bonus was that it was a fourie (excuse the pun haha ;).  I got to ride in a cart with John, who is Brother Fourie's dad.  Brother Fourie and his father are originally from South Africa.  John rented me some really nice Nike Vapors from the club house so that was also a bonus. I didn't play very well, but it was still heaps of fun!!  Also I didn't get mad so you would have been impressed mom haha.  The funniest part was that my short game was actually pretty good which I'm usually terrible at but my driving was pretty rubbish.  I finally figured it out on the last hole though!  I want to go agian! Good news is John talked to the pro after we were done and he said he would give us a deal of $15 so I'm pretty pumped about that.  So we might try and play again!  Well, enough about golf, I'm sure you don't want the play by plays from my round.  Great news though, John told us to come around so we are going to do our best to share the gospel with Brother Fourie’s parents!  He really wants us to be able to help them make the step to be baptized.  Based off the things we talked to him about I think he just has some misunderstandings, but we are going to get him reading and praying about The Book of Mormon.

We have an exciting week this week as well.  Zone Conference and interviews with President will be this week!  I never would have said this back home, but I love interviews!  They are the best, I love getting to meet with President Cummings!  He is such an awesome mission President!  Man I forgot the best news of the week!  I got to Hongi (*a traditional Maori greeting in which people press their noses together) members of the seventy!!!!!!!!!  They had a dedication for a grove where Matiu Kauri (Mathew Cowley) learned how to speak Maori.  The grove is in the Otumoetai area of our zone and the stake President asked us if we would attend.  Elder Snow, a church historian and seventy was there!  It was really cool!  Afterwards they did the traditional hongi with the Maori people and so I even got to Hongi the members of the seventy.  It was awesome!!!!!!!!  The dedication of the grove was really cool as well!  I wish I had more time to pay tribute in my email to how great a missionary Mathew Cowley was.  You should definitely look up his talks at BYU though!  They are some really awesome talks.  I also forgot to wish you a happy Easter.  I just want to finish by bearing my testimony about the love that I have for our savior Jesus Christ.  I have had such a great opportunity to develop a deeper relationship with our Savior.  I have felt the enabling power of the atonement in my life and this has brought me closer to our Savior.  I have also felt charity for people I have met here in New Zealand.  I know that kind of love does not come from myself, but comes from our Savior Jesus Christ.  I know he lives and I know he loves each of us.  The best news I can give you is that he will never abandon us.  No matter how far we stray, no matter our doubts or our fears he continues to love us and reach out for us.  I know when we in turn reach out for him we find that he was never far away.  I'm thankful to know that I can overcome all things with the help of our Savior Jesus Christ.  I love you all and hope you have a great week!              

Elder Brunson

Sunday, April 10, 2017

It's almost April 15th!!

Endure to the end!

Most of you are probably thinking this is referring to the amount of time I have left on my mission, but you are wrong haha.  April 15th is the end of tax season!!!  Every son and daughter of an accountant recognizes April 15th as a very special day.  It's the day we get our papi back haha.  You can do it papi, not too much more time to go!!!  I even have April 15th written down in my missionary planner haha.  I don't know how you balance tax season and being a bishop but I'm sure you are doing a great job.

This week was a solid week!!!  Nothing better than general conference weekend!  There were so many uplifting messages!  I think the talk I really loved was Elder Holland’s talk, Songs Sung and Unsung.  I think I related to it because I'm a terrible singer haha!  I also really enjoyed, To the Friends and Investigators of the Church by Joaquin Costa.  I liked it because he was a really entertaining speaker and he also reminded me of my son Elder Barbosa.  I wish I had time to write more about the talks and why I really enjoyed them, but unfortunately I don't have time.

One of the highlights of the week came Friday night around 8:40.  One of the hardest things on the mission is the time between 8:30 and 9:00, especially during the winter when it’s dark from 6 on.  People don't really like you knocking on their door.  Well Friday night it was 8:40 and we had no idea who to see.  We thought about it and we felt like we should stop by and invite Sione and Dallas to General Conference.  Dallas was the lady I talked about in my email last week.  She is a Maori lady whose partner is Sione and he is Tongan.  We were supposed to meet with them this week on Wednesday, but the appointment fell through.  Anyway, we started walking up the steps to their front door and standing at the door was Sione.  We started talking to Sione and Dallas immediately butted into the conversation.  We couldn't actually see Dallas because she was sitting on the couch on the inside of the house.  She was like, "Man don't you fellas know how late it is?  Shouldn't you be home right now? It's not very safe to be out this late.”  We apologized for stopping in so late and Dallas was like, “No brothers, that's alright, you’re starting to freak me out though.” She continued by explaining that every time something went wrong we would show up at the house.  Sione and her daughter Praise (who happens to be a member already) were standing there as well.  She then turned to them and said, "Guys don't you see we need the brothers in our life!”  It's impossible to reenact Maori people so this story would be 10 times cooler if you could actually meet Dallas haha.  Sione agreed with Dallas and told us how much he appreciated us continuing to stop by even though they hadn't been keeping their appointments with us.  They told us that they couldn't make it to conference, but that they really wanted to meet up with us on Wednesday, and they promised it wouldn't fall through.  We asked them if there was anything we could do for them and they said we could leave them with a prayer.  We said a prayer and there was a really sweet spirit in their home.  They must have been having a really rough day because after the prayer their daughter Praise was crying.  Lesson learned: Heavenly Father continues to work miracles at 8:40 when we are obedient.  Another cool part of the miracle was that we caught up with President Worthen, the second counselor in our mission presidency, at General Conference on Sunday and we told him how we had met one of his employees Dallas.  He said that Dallas had come up to him at work that week and was telling him all about us.  She was like…”the brothers are so awesome!”  Apparently she said it in front of a big group of employees too haha.  She just kept talking about how much she loved Mormons.  President Worthen thought it was really cool that she wasn't afraid to share with other people that she was meeting with us and enjoyed our church.  We are again excited to work with them this week, and hopefully our appointment doesn't fall through!

Also it rained heaps this week!!!!!!!  It's amazing though how much pain an umbrella can save you.  We got warnings for flooding throughout our zone.  Thankfully none of the missionaries were affected, but some of the members were affected down in Whakatane which is a little over an hour away, so we had a special stake fast for them on Sunday.  I love you all heaps and hope you have a great week!  

Love,

Elder Brunson                   

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