October 19th, 2014

Hello family and Friends!!!

Monday on p-day we went hiking as a district. Yes, even the sisters came with us

hiking and surprisingly they kept up with us. We went hiking at Mount Minia. This was a two hour hike that we went on. The height of this hike was astonishing! The view was great and you could see the whole area of Wharagire. It was also a nice day, we all hung out at the top of the mountain and just glanced at how far we came. It is a good thing we took some pictures and I will be able to up load them soon. 

This week went by way too fast! We are still in a three pair companionship, only until Thursday though. On Thursday we have transfer day where we get to find out if we are staying or moving to a different place and that is also the day where Elder Christensen will be getting his new companion..FINALLY! He has been waiting for awhile. We have been bouncing from one area to another covering both our areas and meeting all the members from both different wards. We had a rescue night at the chapel on Wednesday and we were able to go on a trade off with one of our members who is the Ward mission leader. Rescue nights are nights were members and missionaries of that ward get together and go out to bring back recent converts, less activities and to also strengthen the members more. It was a fun night, Elder Hall went with our ward mission leader, brother Hurakie and I went with Elder Christensen to his area. We were able to split and go visiting members in both areas. Elder Christensen and I saw his ward members playing touch at the fields. Knowing us Americans love to play sports, we decided to park the car and go join them in a game of touch with the rugby ball. We joined up with the adults and played against the youth. The adults that played with us the first game were kind of not coordinated but I'm guessing they did that on purpose because the next game we played against the other youth group and using rugby language, we SMASHED them. I was surprised at how well the adults on our team were able to keep up with the youngsters. They may be old but they had old school rugby style of game and were a little bit wiser at making the moves. It was a great night to bond with the members and the youth. At the end, the adults, which would be our team, won both games! woot woot!! 

The next day which was a Thursday, Elder Hall and I were able to finally work in our area as just us two because Elder Christensen went on a trade off with the zone leaders in their area. It was quiet without a third person but also nice because we were able to work a whole day in our area. While going through our list of former investigators Elder Hall and I stopped at one of our former's house that used to be taught by past missionaries. We knocked on the door and a dad about in his thirty's came out at the door. We talked to him for awhile and he expressed, "its been almost a year since you boys have been around." Elder Hall and I just looked at each other, smiled and said "sorry for the hold up." He laughed and asked us what we could do for him, we were looking for his flatmate that lived with him, he told us that she moved to a different area. She was good friends with him and his partner. We were able to talk to him and find out that he has been to jail six times in his life and right now there are some trials he was going through. We expressed how God is our loving Heavenly Father and that he cares about every one of us. Then an impression came to my companion and I to share a scripture, he invited us in and also invited his partner to come listen to us. We expressed the importance of the Book of Mormon and how the Book of Mormon can help their family. Their names are Taylor and Trinity. Trinity, the girl told us that her dad was going through heart surgery and has cancer. Listening to her we could tell that they needed that moment with us to help them out how and to get on the right path. We gave them a commitment to read and pray about the Book of Mormon. Taylor said "You know, I like the way you two talk. It's comforting and uplifting". We were able to get a return appointment with them on Wednesday and we will be able to have the opportunity to teach them. Elder Hall and I got back into our car and said a prayer of thanks and gratitude of the miracle that we were able to experience and be there at the right time and moment. 

On Friday we were able to go see our progressing investigator named Sterling who is 18 years of age. Well, I have been teaching Sterling since September but this time with Elder Hall. We had an appointment with Sterling that afternoon with me, Elder hall and Elder Christensen, all three of us. All of us showed up to his house and were able to catch up with him, a little bit of recap is that Sterling has been going through an addiction of smoking and has been working on it ever since. He has been going to his addiction recovery classes that we showed him and he has been getting involved with the members and church a lot. On this particular visit Sterling expressed to us that he read 1 Nephi, chapter eight the last time we were at his house and he had read it right after we left. We were able to go over the chapter, and explain to him about the tree of life and how the tree of life represents Heavenly Father and his goodness. We also explained the importance of the iron rod and how by following his teachings we can overcome the mist of darkness and temptation that is around us. Sterling, with a little help, was able to understand the passage of scriptures and really apply it to himself. Elder Christensen then had an impression to share another scripture which talked about the anti-nephi-lehis digging up their weapons of war. He asked "sterling what is your weapons of war", sterling replied "my cigs" and he asked him boldly "sterling will you bury your weapons of war!?" Sterling nodded and was up and ready to go outside with us to his back yard and dig a hole and put his box of smokes in the ground for good. We were able to go out exactly as the story said and Sterling started digging his hole and dropped his cut up smokes and put the dirt on top!!!!! Afterwards he was shocked and told us that his heart was pounding the whole time he was digging the hole. At that moment with the inspiration of the Book of Mormon, Sterling was able to make a commitment to stop smoking and hasn't smoked since then!!! WHAT A MIRACLE AND A CHANGE HE MADE!!!! 

        On Sunday night at a fireside Sterling came up to us and said "I wanna get baptized on the 15th of November at nine o'clock in the morning". He grandmother was there to hear it come out of his mouth and we were all excited that he said that!!! 

It was a fast, fun and moments to always cherish week! I love this area and hope I don't get transferred  because I can stay a couple of more months before I'm ready to go. So hopefully I stay and I have a good feeling I will! The people are wonderful, the members are great and helpful! A lot of Elder's and Sisters are leaving this transfer to go back home! It is weird to think that they are already finishing up. Shows that the work still moves on no matter what! Lesson that I learned this week is just like in the Bible, "love the Lord with all thy heart, might, mind and strength" the same as to your neighbor. If we have that mentality to love our Heavenly Father with all we have then he will be there to help us up from our burden's and our trails to show us his blessings. Always remember to look for help that you can do for someone, you never know what impression you might leave when you help them.

Letter home 10-5-14

Kira ora (means hello in Maori) family and friends! 

Where to start...well this week was one of those weeks were the unexpected popped up out of nowhere. We have had some things happen in the zone with a companionship that is pretty sensitive. This is a problem that our mission president and the area presidency of our mission is dealing with. Elder Christensen, a good friend of mine, is in my district and the one that I flew down here with on the plane, is now without a companion. His companion ran away, is still in New Zealand but nowhere to be found. That means my companion, me and him are in a threesome. Long story short, because elder Christensen has asked me not to share what has happened to his companion, he is now in our companionship for awhile. We are covering his area, our area and plus another area that we go down to cover usually on Sundays, so that is three areas that we are covering. We are waiting for the call from our mission president to see what the next step is. If elder Christensen is going to have a new companion or just going to stay in a threesome companionship until transfers. We just have to wait to see. It was a eye opening week for us because we were able to turn to each other for help and comfort. One of our brothers that is going through a rough time. This is something that we didn't suspect would ever happen. I have never seen someone so strong before, to have something hard like that happen to him and keep his head high and his back strong, focused on the Lords work. What an example his is being for all of us elders in the Whagarie Zone. 

That was what happened to us on Thursday. On Saturday we also had another eye opener. During the afternoon after visiting one of Elder Christensen's members we decided to go back to the flat and grab our coats because it was getting cold. All three of us are staying in one flat for right now. Just going about our normal day, I walked into our room to grab something and noticed that the blinds were blowing. Joking around as if one of the elders opened the window I decided that it would be a good idea to close it. To our surprise the window is shattered, there was glass all over on the ground on the outside and glass on my bed. There were muddy footprints on my bed and on our floor. We just looked at each other astonished, with no words. We started to call our mission President and one of our couple missionaries and told them what had just happened to our flat. They were saddened and told us to call the cops and they would talk to the landlord. After the call we looked around our flat too see if the person that broke into our flat took anything, the muddy footprints led to the room where our bikes where...well...more like were our bikes used to be. The man came in and had stolen our bikes. We were just happy that it wasn't anything too valuable but still we were shocked that someone would go through the trouble just to brake into our flat to steal missionary bikes. Looks like I will not be having a bike for the rest of my mission, same with one of the zone leaders because that was the other bike they had stolen. You have to love being in New Zealand, thought this would never happen to us but there is always a first for everything. Lesson learned....that is to..be thankful for the things you have because you never know when someone might want it and try something funny to steal it or borrow it, you never know.

Last Monday after our p-day activity as a district we were able to go to McDonalds and get some food. While leaving the parking lot I thought it would be funny to put a funny sticker on the sisters car. Well not being the smart person I am, the sister backed up and their front tire was crushing my foot! I didn't scream or anything, just looked at the sisters and said in a calm voice, "you might want to pull forward because you are on my foot". She then stopped and parked it on my foot, the whole ton of the car was directly on my left foot. They pulled forward really fast and started apologizing. To my surprise, I wasn't in any kind of excruciating pain, just smiled and said "all goods".  The sister that ran over my foot was sister Daynes, from Utah, but that is okay because her prayers helped my foot heal. I was able to play some basketball with a couple of kids while in our white shirts and ties the following day at a park. We where able to build friendship. She felt bad but the foot was protected and so was I. Thank you for the protective prayers. They sure do come in handy. All is good and my left foot is never better! I can play sports today for P-Day. 

With all that happened to all three of us, it was hard to work but we were able to keep up with all of our areas to help with the members, investigators, and less actives. We were able to tell them what our week was like and everybody that we saw told us they would keep an eye out for who stole our bikes and would tackle them if they see them riding it. Even though some aren't members they are still willing to help the missionaries, it is a good feeling to have when the culture and people love you for who you are. We were able to get some lessons in during the week. They were pretty much lessons with less actives and recent converts that have barely joined the church. We were able to play games with them, catch up and hear their stories. This was the week of just trying to listen to those who are needing help to return back to the church. As missionaries we are always happy to help others.

Elder Hall and I had an experience, it was a very quick one but we were able to see the good out of it. While driving we noticed that an old man was struggling to get up and back onto his sitting stroller. We saw him out of the corner of our eye and pulled over fast to run up to help him. He fell down twice but we were able to run to him on time to help him. He is in his 90's and at that time Elder Hall and I were in our regular cloths not our ties and white shirts. A lady that worked for the hospital was able to assist the old man too. After we helped him we asked were he was going, he said "to the gym". Elder Hall and I just smiled and laughed, the old man was still wanting to workout at his old age. That is some dedication that he has and sounds like me when I will be his age. We laughed and shook his hand but before we left the lady told us that she looked at our name badge's and noticed who we were, I had a questionable looked on my face, looked at my companion and he was wearing his badge. She smiled as we told her, "yes, we are missionaries but just not dressed as one". Even though we didn't share anything with her, the simple act of helping that old man stood out to her. As members we are always looking for something good to do for someone. 

It was a week of up and down but in all, it was GREAT!! You've got to love being a missionary. You are not a true missionary until you make your mom a little nervous. When she is, then you know you are a true missionary and that you have been out for awhile! When things come out of nowhere which we all will experience in our lifetime, we just need to not worry but to keep our heads up high and look on the good side of things. They happen for a reason and some of those reasons are to teach us a lesson, mine this week was to let things happen in the Lords hand and not be scared but to exercise that faith in Him that everything will be alright. Thank you all for the encouragement, I am really enjoying my mission! Memories to always keep and look back and laugh at.