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.