Letter home September 1st

Hello to all those who are back home! 

This week was full of running around in the car and on our bikes! Winter is still here in New Zealand. Instead of snow we get rain, upon rain, upon rain, poured down on us.

To start off the week we had one of our members come out with us this week, his name is Brother McClougage. He is a convert to the church, was baptized about a year ago and now is our ward clerk. Brother McClougage is very smart, plays rugby, and is not Maori, but is English.  We were able to take him out with us to go visit one of our investigators named Lisa. Lisa is a single mom, her partner just left her to go to Australia and she is now currently taking care of three little kids. Brother McClougage was a big help because he and Lisa clicked. They are similar and both are not Maori. Lisa is the type of person that has a lot of questions, which is good for us missionaries but sometimes we have to  be careful with her and not loose her by giving her too much information. Lisa told us, "I know a lot about other religions but I don't know much about the Mormons." Having the impression to teach her briefly about the restoration, brother McClougage, Elder Long and I took turns explaining the restoration. Having brother McClougage there with us was very helpful. He was able to share his conversion information with us and to share his experience. It was good to have a member with us to show Lisa that not only us missionaries know this gospel is true but also someone close to her background found out for himself.

 Elder Long and I later on this week decided to do a service project for one of the less actives. Her name is Katalina. She is a single mom with an eleven month old baby. We didn't tell Katalina that we would mow her lawn for her, we decided to surprise her and show up on her front door with a  lawn mower. My companion and I knew that if we asked her ahead of time, she would just give us the reply that everyone tends to give us which is "no Elders, there is nothing you can do, you are doing enough by visiting us, " true, but hey Elder Long and I were cleaver enough to just show up ready to do service. This time her reply was different, it was more of a shocked response that she couldn't say no. In her own words "Elders you don't have to do this, but thank you." Just hearing her say thank you was enough for Elder Long and Me. We saw she needed help and without any hesitation we acted together to help one of our sisters. Doing that service for her started our day off nicely. 

On Saturday Elder Long and I attended a members baptism. It was a wonderful to see how happy this eight year old girl was to be baptized! She had the biggest grin on her face and was happy to be a member of the church. She couldn't baptized earlier because she was going through some stuff and the member that was supposed to baptize her got sick and didn't show up. Back up plan was for elder Long to baptize her, good thing we heard about all this ahead of time because we were already at the chapel at five thirty in the morning filling up the font for the baptism which was later on in the afternoon. We were able to go get Elder Longs whites and return in time before the baptism started which was at nine. We didn't get any tickets for speeding, thank goodness. After that baptism was over we went to another baptism that another Elders in our district were holding in Dougaville, which was about an hour away from were we were. This is the part in our weekend that we did a lot of running around. Showing up to Elder Anderson and Elder Fermaus baptism was interesting. The investigator that was being baptized was in his fifties and didn't want a lot of the members to be there, just the bishopric. It totally it was just Elder Fermaus, Elder Anderson, Elder Long, and me at the baptism with the two zone leaders and bishopric. Out of all of us there, we were able to see one of our brothers join the church.

After all that was done we had to drive another hour back into our own area. Mind that we have been awake since five thirty in the morning and our eyes, while in the car, were getting a little sleepy, but it's a good thing we rolled down our windows to keep us awake. We were able to go see other person later on that evening around six. Her name was Marama Anderson, she lives right next door to our ward mission leader who apparently called us one day telling us that his neighbor wanted to blessing for her baby.  She couldn't meet with us last Tuesday because of a death in her family. We felt the impression to go see her late on Saturday. While walking up to her house Elder Long and Thought that because she knew our ward mission leader and she wanted a blessing for her baby a week ago, we thought that she was a member. We found out that Marama is not a member, but because she has known our ward mission leader her whole life, he took care of her. Marama's family are all members of the church just not her. She never was too interested at that time to be baptized. Her story is that because she is a single mom, has four children, ages 20, 17, 16, 14, and a partner. She is getting to that point in life were she wants to make sure that her kids grown up in something that will help them to better kids. She has seen a lot of deaths in her family and she doesn't want to die without knowing that she could have been part of something her whole life. She also didn't want her kids not knowing about the Mormon church. Then later on, in the middle of our conversation said "I want to be baptized in the Mormon church." Marama also said she wants to pursue this goal but knows that she would have to give up playing sports on Sundays. She is so inspired to change her life it was an amazing experience. 

Sunday rolled around, we had four investigators come to church. One of them named Tom, is really excited to be baptized this month on the 22nd. Tom has a crazy, one of the "ahh" moment stories. We found him because of our two zone leaders. Elder Tibbits and Elder Larsen were hungry and wanted to go get some food. While getting some food, in the process they saw Tom just leaning against the wall. Elder Tibbits before that had an impression to go get an Ensign in the back of their car. They talked to Tom, invited him to go eat with them and they opened the Ensign on the page with all the Apostle and the Prophets. They started teaching Tom about the restoration and Priesthood authority. Elder Tibbits and Elder Larsen took Tom back to the chapel to a baptism that the sisters were having. The sisters also talked to Tom about the restoration and Jesus Christ making such a wonderful sacrifice for us. Tom was asked to be baptized by the zone leaders and he accepted, putting his fist in the air!! They asked to go see him later that night. Elder Long and I were in a teaching appointment with Qunisha, the eight year old girl, the phone rang and Elder Larsen and Elder Tibbits told us we needed to meet up with them to go teach a lesson with Tom. That very night we were able to meet Tom, and found out that his parents died. Tom is a little slower than most people but has the heart to change and to learn more about Jesus Christ. 

What a week!!! Full of surprises and amazing moments to always remember. This all happened because as a zone we fasted about three weeks ago to find the elect souls! On top of all the that, eight year old girl Qunisha, that I talked about in my last e-mail is having her baptism this weekend!! She has asked me to be the person to baptize her!! Even though I have only known Qunisha for about five weeks, she wanted me to do it for her. What a privilege it is for me to be able to do my very, VERY! first baptism her in New Zealand. This will be a member baptism but I will take this as an honor for her to be my first. She even showed up this Sunday and sat with us in sacrament. What a blessing it is to see this little girl and her determination! Wow, wow, wow, wow is all I can say. The lord will prepare us in his time. 

Thank you for all the prayers and e-mails, hope you enjoy your week and remember to always SMILE!!  Have a fantastic week!

Elder Thorpe