Week 7 - {Dec. 20, 2015}

I

So there was no group email this week, but he did send a ton of pictures.

Here are some excerpts from his email to me:

The work is SO hard. I now see how Gore is the hardest area in the islands. Wow. I'm grateful to have the experience though. At least I will be completely used to rejection by the time i'm transferred. Tai and Vivian are progressing though, they came to church so that was awesome. She had to pull out her fake teeth to eat at the potluck and Elder T accidentally knocked them over on to the ground and he was sooo embarrassed hahaha. 

I asked if it was hard for elder T to keep working hard since he's going home on Dec. 30  & what his plans were for Christmas & if people decorate and stuff like we do for Christmas :

Elder T has worked really hard and had no success here except for Tai and Viv. Plus this week we are hardly even allowed to go out and proselyte. Gore loves alcohol. So we will mainly just be hanging with Tai and Viv and hopefully a member or two. The senior couple Elder and Sister Beckman have told us we are welcome in their home whenever and christmas we can go eat at their house. They said they will have food out all day so we can eat, go to the flat, sleep and just go back and eat and talk whenever. So that's nice. No missionaries in Gore have ever been fed or anything for christmas by people. Crazy. People don't really decorate. At least from the houses we have been allowed into which is like 3 homes since i've been here.

I asked how/if he was using his photography as a tool on his mission and then if they had gone anywhere cool last week:

I want to start taking pictures of people I just don't want to offend. Especially if i'm in my badge. But I'm going to try and use it to find people soon. We just walked around Gore this week, we didn't go anywhere exotic. Gore is like the Detroit of the Pacific Islands. We went to an abandoned cereal mill and took pics and stuff and then I was able to go take pictures at a Sheep Shearing Shed! 

Cereal mill

Cereal mill

Shearing shed

Seriously that lamb is one of my new favorites!!

This guy is the fastest shearer in the world. He won the world championship in 2011. 

The dog is Bryson's favorite photo

Anyway, that's our report this week. He seems to be doing well, but it's hard for them to stay busy with the work because of the size of the city and the response of the people - any prayers for opportunities would be appreciated. And also, pray that his new companion will be a hard worker and they will be able to be inspired in how to spend their time. 

Love to you all!!

Week 6 Group Email - Dated Dec. 13

This week has been pretty good! We taught Tai the Plan of Love which was our only real lesson this week. Tai is cool, but he has kinda told us that he has his faith, and that he has already been saved by Christ. But we will continue to let the spirit testify to him that we are truly messengers of Christ and he needs to be baptized by the Priesthood power of God.

         

After we taught a lesson in Balclutha to a Samoan investigator, we were able to go to Chrystal Beach. It's somewhere pretty south. It's a pretty cool beach but SO windy!!! the sand and pebbles soon became airborne and started destroying my neck and ears with the piercing cold combined with gritty dirt. But other than that, very beautiful place haha.

I was also able to run in to an All Black player!! He played on the 91' to 96' teams in world championships and all that! He came up to us and said "Elders!!" which kind of threw us off because no one calls us that or knows who we are here! He said that he had a scholarship and played college rugby at Utah State! He was very nice and gave us his athlete card!

At church we had 2 members come. I had to give a 20 + minute talk to try and make our meeting last the whole hour. After sacrament we had a 20 minute sunday school lesson and then church was over! Just like that. 

        

So after the meeting, we went over to the park because there was a Christmas parade in Gore! They had a BBQ in the park so we saw an awesome opportunity to street contact! We were handing out a bunch of small Christmas cards that link to the video made by our church "A Savior is Born" and after about 30 minutes of trying to hand out these cards we came to find out it was a Baptist BBQ and just about everyone there was Baptist so that explains why so many people said they weren't interested. And they soon started to play some Baptist gospel rock music but when they began to do that, God told them that rock isn't something you do on the Sabbath and it began to pour on them haha. So we left and went to visit other people. Pretty fun week. 

I have also been able to use some of my photography to meet and get to know people! I was able to grab a bunch of my photography off of dropbox (with permission) and we made our planners more personal and more useable! We paste pictures on them and trim them up and they look very nice! 

Happy Holidays!

-- 

Elder LaMunyon

excerpts from emails to me & a few more pictures

I mentioned to Bryson that his arms looked huge, and asked if he'd been working out...

Well.. I'm glad you have noticed! As you have seen my comp is pretty big. So I have started working out with him. I'll send you a picture of our pushup routine every night. it's like 160 pushups or something like that in different positions and different types of pushups. it's harrrrd. But I'm glad it's noticeable! haha. I do feel pretty good working out hard.


on getting a car again...

I'm so jealous of your guys' white Christmas. I miss the snow a lot...... But it's actually pretty cold here right now. Lots of storms lately. But good news is we have our car back!! We have a car because our area is Giant. But we haven't had it since before I even got here. They crashed it before I came to Gore so we have been biking for a month straight. So my legs are ripped ayeee. haha. Nah, my butt has been super sore though. Just blessed to have a car now.

I asked if they get fed by any of their 6 members...

Feeding wise no. In Gore we get fed maybe once a transfer. People up more north and on the North Island get fed 3 or so different dinners every night (wondering if he meant every week) on average. So we have to fend for ourselves. We have to live off 6 dollars a day to eat and everything.

I had asked about Gore - lots of $$ or more poor people & what they do mostly as missionaries...

Let's see.. Gore is pretty middle class. A little closer to the poor side. Humble housing, many people walk around but since it's a small town there are a lot of people that just stop for a day and drive further to bigger cities. Sometimes I think it's too much service, that we need to focus on teaching people the gospel. But service keeps us busy when we run low on visits or doors to knock. We do service all the time. My favourite so far is working at the horse stables. We help disabled kids ride horses and learn how to do that and it's amazing. There are really good people here, but also very stubborn ones.

Some pictures he's sent:

Gore is the brown trout fishing capital of the world...

Bluff is known as the southern most town in New Zealand. (even though technically there are a couple that are more south?)

this is Gore:

Week 5 Group Email

So, it's been over a month since I left home. Crazy!

Not much has happened this week. A lot of traveling. We had a Zone Conference in Dunedin this last week with a General Authority, Elder Haleck. It was a long day. The night before, we had to travel to Dunedin and sleep in the Dunedin Elders flat.  No mats, no blankets, no pillows, no NOTHING. So I got a solid 4 hours of sleep. That didn't do me so well in the 6 hour conference. I about died. I kept nodding off and all the sudden, I wake up realizing I had a dream of falling or hitting a tree on my bike and I make a small, but weird noise as I wake up and then both elders next to me are quietly laughing. It got to the point where the meeting was dragging on so bad I just wanted to punch a wall and go to sleep. Some days out here on the mission are like that haha.

We also had to travel to Invercargill to pick up our car that had been ran into before I came in to the field. A car will be very nice because our area is huge and super spread out! We can finally go out and knock on those farmers doors way out in the middle of no where!

We also had some adventure time on Saturday on the way home from Balclutha. We went to this super big and dark tunnel that is famous for something about sheep being guided through it instead of going over his huge hill.. We also went to Matai Falls, and saw an amazing view of the coast! Fun views.

This week we plan on teaching Tai and Vivian the Plan of Salvation or the Plan of Love.. Me and Elder Toleafoa made this thing to help people understand what the Plan of Salvation means to us and our Heavenly Father. The Plan of Salvation actually spells the word LOVE. See.. at the top of the L we start in Premortal or Pre earth life. Then Jesus and God came down and created the earth! which is the Bottom of the L. That leads to the O which represents the earth and all that has happened on it. Such as the Fall, and the Atonement, and also us living the gospel! the V represents the two sections of the spirit world. Spirit Prison & Paradise. that takes us to the E. The left side of the E represents Resurrection and Judgement and then the 3 lines coming off the E lead us to the 3 kingdoms!! cool!!!!

Anyways. Hope everyone is good. I love all of you and I can't wait to hear from more of you.


--
Elder LaMunyon

Week 4 - Group Email

Kia ora everyone,

    This past week has been awesome!!! Sorry I've been super lazy about these group emails but I've been way busy!

So this past week me and Elder Toleafoa met Tai. He is an amputee and has been to jail a few times but a great guy. He, through all his afflictions, has endured many things. He has learned to follow and love God..

We met him because we went to visit a woman we had helped build a garden with! She is awesome. She has no teeth, and lived homeless and as a drunk for 20 or 30 years. She says she doesn't know how long haha. But we went and taught them of the Book of Mormon.

It was the first time that I've been able to sit down and pour out my testimony of Joseph Smith and the Book of Mormon. The spirit was soooo strong and now we have them bossing us around saying "you have to come back AT LEAST 2 times a week" and so I guess we have no other choice aye?

We also went to some water fall.. I don't know how to spell it so i'll try my best. - Waukipakaka falls or something like that 😅.

We also have Nerf war with a bunch of the kids from Gore. None are members but all are great kids, and hopefully we get to see them progress in interest for the gospel. Maybe if we baptize all 10 of them we will get a Mormon message hahaha. My fav kids are Nemo, Kayne, T.K., and Jaiah. I hope to teach them soon.

Also, yesterday was sunday. Our branch consisted of 3 people and I conducted the sacrament meeting. Pretty mean stuff.

Anyways.. Love you all!

Email me if you can! I need to hear from everyone!

-- 

Elder LaMunyon

Week 3 Email - Dated 11/23/15

Kia Ora!

Aye everyone!

I have made it to my first area of the mission. It's the most southern mission, as well as most difficult. It's world famous for brown trout fishing and thats about it haha. Gore is the name of the town. Our branch has 4 elders, and a senior couple. The amount of active members is 5 to 6. Pretty exciting. Looks like me and Elder Toleafoa (my comp) have some work to do! It's summer here, and on a hot day it's about 50 degrees. It's windy and very chilly. 

I'm hoping to figure out how to send you guys more pictures but for now it's only a few. After having a service project in Balclutha we went to Nugget Point and explored.. you guys can look it up but i'll send pictures soon. It is beautiful here. I love being a missionary! i'm out of time but i'll talk to each of you soon! please email me(:

Email from Mission President's Wife, Sister Hudson

It's such a relief to hear from Sister Hudson!  And we had a small miracle before receiving this email:  John had done a bid for a lady earlier in the day who mentioned that they had just picked up her son from HIS mission, and when John asked where, she responded "Wellington, NZ"!  Literally, within the past couple of weeks, they had gotten home from there. Her son was at work at the time, but later in the evening, she sent a text to us which included where Bryson would be serving, who his companion was, and what he was like, and a little bit about the area and people there.  What a blessing to know that Bryson will be with a great polynesian elder who is a good missionary and who will teach him the ropes in his fairly isolated area in the southern part of the south island...  Tender mercies for this missionary mom and dad!!  We are so grateful that John had that encounter with just the right person!

Hello! We wanted to let you know that your son has arrived safely to our mission! He has had orientation, been interviewed by President Hudson, and has enjoyed supper and a testimony meeting at the mission home. Tomorrow he will leave for his assigned area. I have attached a picture of him with us, taken this afternoon. All is well! Love, Sister Hudson

PS his new mailing address is

3D Williams St.

Gore 9710

New Zealand:

our blog is    newzealandwellingtonmission.blogspot.com

we will post pictures each week

2nd Week Email Dated November 15

Bryson had mentioned he thought they would be going to the temple, so I asked him about it in my email to him.  Two weeks have flown by, and I'm really missing him like crazy.  It has sunk in a little bit how long 2 years really is, and that he's REALLY gone...  But I'm so glad to hear how well he is doing, and that he is so excited to be entering the field!



The temple was great! i'm glad life is good at home! you'll get a couple letters from me soon and i'll email you when i get into the field. I only have a short time here to email and tell you that i am leaving in the morning for the field! i'll be anywhere in new zealand before lunch tomorrow! crazy stuff. I love you so much. I know that these are the last days and thats why it is so important for me to share this message and share the gospel. I love you. Email you soon!

Email dated November 8

My schedule is crazy. We literally sit in classrooms for 9 hours a day. 9 HOURS. But i'm so grateful we are focusing on the gospel of Jesus Christ and other people. We dedicate all of our energy and time to Heavenly Father and his will.

 

My favorite thing so far is the NZ chocolate and probably the MTC president. He is from England and is one of the most compassionate and strong men I have ever met. He loves this gospel and loves the missioinaries here. It's hard being white.. haha, my entire district are polys and islanders. I swear the tongan language is 100% made of jokes because as soon as anyone says anything in tongan, they bust up.

 

Least favorite is how tired I get. But I know that it is good because i'm putting my energy in great things.

 

Rugby is scary and I don't like it. I kill everyone in basketball and in football though, so I have been accepted by the brown people.

 

I'm very happy. Studying is hard and teaching our "investigators" (teachers in role play). I find it hard so far putting things together out of the scriptures and from my heart.

 

Love you more.

ggrroouupp mmeessssaaggee. ii hhaavvee ttoo ggoo ttyyppee iinn wwoorrdd bbeeccaauussee tthhiiss iinntteerrnneett ddoouubblleess eevveerryy lleetttteer

Kia Ora everybody.

I arrived in Aukland 4  hours ago and it was a super long flight. I was able to talk to someone in san fransisco about the church and what I was doing with all these 20 other kids in suits and ties. That was cool. Other than that not much has happened! We drove to the MTC in a huge van and I was able to get a glimpse of what it’s like out in the city! It’s super green and it’s weird how everyone drives on the other side of the road. Birds everywhere and the rolling hills are beautiful. I’m so excited for what is in store. This gospel is perfect and I cant wait to get out and share it with everyone. We are about to go play some rugby once I unpack so I’ll email you guys next week with more details and stories. Because I have literally been sitting in a chair for 4 hours just admiring the view from the MTC. Until next time! goodbye!