Sacrifices and Pizza

Kia Ora Whanau and Friends!

And a nice big welcome to my little Nephew Oliver! So I know a lot of you want to hear all about my week and all the great things that are happening out here in New Zealand, but to be honest I cant really remember most of it because of the great exciting news I received today that I am now an uncle!!!! Congrats Linds and Skyler on having my first nephew!

Well I guess I will try to think of something from this week, but like my best friend Elder Huxford said in his group email once your in front of the computer you don't really remember... haha

Wednesday night we were trying to find something to do and so we decided to go visit our miracle family, who hasn't been so miracle like lately... we new that we needed to just go and talk with them not try to teach a lesson or anything but just let them know we are their friends and we care about them, so that is what we did, and the visit went amazingly! We ended up talking about patriarchal blessing and general conference!  and then when we walked out of the lesson one of the members was standing outside and handed us a huge pizza haha and that was just amazing because we had to skip dinner, so the lesson here is when you make sacrifices the lord does bless you! and sometimes it is a pizza :)

Also I had my first real New Zealand rain and it rained all day long, and then it rained some more! it was crazy! oh and I feel that I should debunk the myth of New Zealand always having perfect weather just want you all to know in the summer it is hot and in the winter boy is it cold!

Also I would like to thank everybody who put a note in my easter package, it was quit a surprise opening up that box and just seeing all these eggs... I didn't realize I had that many friends or let alone that many people liked me haha. I feel so blessed to have so much love and support back home thank you all very much!

I hope everyone has a great week!

"They call it the 40 pound mission for a reason, #membersrule."

General Conference

Kia Ora

Well what a great week! on Wednesday we got to go to the temple and do some baptisms and a session! and that was amazing spiritually drained after though haha!

So after the temple we had a lesson with one of our new investigators, we taught them The Restoration and it went amazing they were so interested and were so into the lesson it was incredible we gave them a Book of Mormon and they were like we are reading this right now! it was so crazy!!

Then on Thursday we had a lesson with the other new investigator and pretty much the same thing! it was incredible! Heavenly Father has been blessing us so much and its so amazing!

And then General Conference how incredible was that! 

I think there may be a slight problem with people using their mobiles in sacrament... hope its not any of you guys... haha.

But on a more serious note it is so wonderful to have living Prophets and Apostles on the earth today, so many people get excited when you tell them that I hope that everyone is doing there part in sharing this wonderful gospel, it is to amazing for us to just keep to ourselves!

I hope everyone has a great week!

Jared Barrett! congrats on the call your going to be a great missionary my friend!

Mitchy can't wait for you to open your travel papers haha wherever you go will be your mission!

Easter package

His first soccer jersey

Ice Cream Truck

Kia Ora Whanau and Friends!

Well I thought maybe I will start off the email with a funny story, so Tuesday, we had just got done eating at a members house and went to go to an appointment, when we got there they told us that it wasn't a good time so we walked back to the car and decided to just go back to the flat because, the dinner wasn't sitting too well... if yah know what I mean... so I'm in the bathroom and I started to hear some music outside our flat, so I listened a little closer and it was some cheesy kid music, so it clicked right away... ICE CREAM TRUCK! so I pulled up my pants... kinda and ran out and screamed at my comp do you hear that! Finished doing up my pants ran out side grabbed the money and had probably the worst ice cream cone I have ever had in my life haha but it was fun haha.

So this week was pretty slow, but on Wednesday we had a great experience we went to go visit a less active we found when on an exchange with one of the Zone Leader, but she was asleep, so we were walking back to our car and I looked over at this house and the spirit just told me Go knock on that door, so I said to Elder Landis lets go knock that door, and he didn't really want to cause he wasn't feeling well but I made him anyways  haha but it was a young couple and we were talking to them and then they invited us in and asked us to tell them about the church what we believe and all that good stuff, long story short we had a good conversation and got a return appointment! it was way awesome!

We also got to attend a Tangi(funeral) it was a really cool, but it was sad at the same time the Maori people are very spiritual in all the things they do so it is super cool!!!

I hope everyone is having a great Easter mine was very good! I had the opportunity to speak in sacrament meeting on the atonement! I hope that we can all remember the true meaning of Easter! I hope everyone has a mean week!

OH Congrats Lexi and Tayzha on your mission Calls! you are going to be wonderful missionaries!

Zac Millet heard you got your tonsils out! rough stuff ah well your a strong kid! haha miss teaching yah in primary man hope your keeping that class in line!

Elder Holmes says: "Not even mission related just a real hot pic."

Enjoying the beach

Goofy boys

Prayer

Kia Ora Everyone

I hope everyone back home is doing well! Matt it is great to hear you got home safely!

Well honestly there was no real excitement this week... just really a normal week. had a few lessons attended church all that good stuff!

One amazing thing though one of our investigators who has a really hard time understanding things and well remembering what we teach in general, is finally started to remember things and its all because me and elder landis decided to start praying before every lesson and after that we start seeing all these great things happen with the people we are teaching.

prayer is such a powerful thing, I can say that Heavenly Father has been answering my prayers Because he does answer prayers!  He always answers! We may just have to wait a little bit for some answers though. One example that was pretty funny from this week we were having a meeting with the ward mission leader and we were outside on his deck and there was a guy across the street that was trimming his lawn, and it was really loud and annoying, so bro Reynolds(ward mission leader) goes "should I pray for that to stop". then all of the sudden a guy walks out from the house and starts talking to the dude trimming so he stops the trimmer.  Then after they are done talking the guys tries to start his trimmer and it wont start! haha it was really funny finally after about 15 minutes he got it started, whoever said that Heavenly Father doesn't have a sense of humour does not know what they are talking about haha.

But I guess I will share another story from the week that everybody might enjoy... during personal studies the other day I saw this little white thing on my shoe, so I looked at it a little closer and honestly my first thought was yuck there is a booger on my shoe I look closer and pick it up and it turns out to be a maggot... I turn around to throw it out the door and there are heaps of them all over the floor! probably about fifty ish! it was crazy! Elder Landis was freaking out! and I'm just like chill bro get the vacuum and we will take care of this mess haha.

Well that's it for this week I hope everyone has a great week!

Ka Kite 

Elder Holmes and Elder Landis