May 17th

Kia Ora Everyone

                                       

Well this wasn't a very eventful week, except for the fact I got to see my Family which was awesome! can't wait to do that again in like seven months!

this week I came down with a bit of a cold but I didn't let it stop me! we still went to work and I had probably the best week I have had to date on my mission!

The best experience I would like to share with you all from this week was, you might remember a few weeks ago... or maybe a month or so idk, I talked about I had an impression to knock on a door and they ended up inviting us in and all this stuff, we have visited them a few times since but we went by this week and they told us the day that we first contacted them the one who answered the door was telling us how all these other people have knocked on there door and he has used some language that I can't use as a missionary to tell them to go away, he said when we knocked on their door he was trying to tell us to go away but he couldn't, and when he opened his mouth instead of go away come in came out.  We then taught them heaps of stuff they told us the reason they weren't married is because marriage ends after this life and we were like boy do we have news for you! We taught them about temple marriage and now they are very keen to get baptised!  They have a few problems that they need to work through but they should be baptised in this transfer!  We will be seeing them again today and we are going to watch Joseph Smith Prophet of the Restoration!  So pretty much its a movie night haha!

That's really all I have to tell from this week, One last thing before I finish is I want everyone to know that I know that Heavenly Father is mindful of us all especially in the hard times, Sometimes we think he is not there because maybe things are not going our way or maybe life got a little bit harder, but remember that the burdens of Alma and his people were not taken away but that the Lord said "I will also ease he burdens which are put upon your shoulders, that even you cannot feel them upon your backs", remember to be patient in afflictions because the lord does visit his people in their afflictions.

I hope everyone has a great week, I love you all and want to thank you for all the prayers and love that I feel coming from you all!

May 3rd

Kia Ora

Well I hope everyone had a great week, mine was rather crazy and hectic!

So we will start off with the exciting news on Tuesday we went and had a visit with our investigator Shane, we had the best lesson that we have ever had with him in the months that I have been here and we set him to be baptised on the 6th of June!  It has been an amazing experience with him he has made incredible progress from when we first started teaching him, he comes to church every Sunday and has even started answering questions in some of the classes which is a plus! He just needs to stop smoking and it will be all goods!

The next experience I would like to share is a very interesting one... we were visiting a less active and him and his friend were rather... drunk and possibly other things but that is usually how he is, but while talking to us him and his friend asked us if we wanted to go for a ride, I then replied "You probably shouldn't be driving haha" they then said "oh not in the car, we will take you to an alternate universe" the less active said he would take us to where we live which is not on this earth, and his friend told us he would take us to where we die... it was interesting.  Then when we were leaving his friend brought out a crucifix and said you want to hold it? then said oh you better not it will burn your hand, my comp said yah we wont hold it then, but me being me haha I put out my hand and said ill hold it, he gave me a pretty shocked look and then slowly reached out and put it in my hand and low and behold nothing happened haha.  He asked me if it was getting hot I said no, then gave it back to him and when he grabbed it he said wow that's hot its really hot, and I replied that's how strong my faith is haha! it was a very interesting experience!

But that is really all the excitement for the week, one thing I would like everyone to think about this week is there fears, yes there fears, because the quote of this week is "when you find out your fears, your find where the edge of your faith is" make sure that we are all rooted in our faith so that when we face something that is hard we have the courage to keep walking. 

I would like to thank everyone for the love and support that you all give me I'm am the most blessed missionary in the entire world I feel all of your prayers for me everyday and I thank you all for that!

have a good week everyone!

April 26th

Kia Ora Everyone!

Well to start off all I hear from my wonderful mother is how all of you want me to make my emails longer... and I hate to break it to everyone but this will not be the week that happens but I will try to make them longer in the future!

To start off this week I went on an exchange out of my area up to a small town Called Katikati it is a little tiny branch of like 15 people, there is well not a whole lot to do there... but it was good. 

So it now gets dark here at about 5:30, and that makes it really difficult to knock doors because people do not like it when you knock late... apparently 6 is late... so it made it a little difficult to find things to do when all our appointments fell through, and me and my comp were just sitting in our car wonder ok what are we going to do now...  long stories short we couldn't find anything to do.

So really there was not to much excitement this week, we were supposed to have several of our investigators at church and they didn't show up or texted us sunday morning and said they were not going to be able to make it.   but that is all part of the mission life.

But something I would like to share with everyone this week is to never lose faith!  Thank our Father in Heaven for everything, yes even the trials, if you don't understand what I mean read 1 Nephi 18, Nephi has such incredible faith and is always grateful to the Lord! It is hard being out on a mission away from family and friends but if we have faith we trust in Heavenly Father everything works out! I know that.  I hope everyone has a wonderful week sorry this week wasn't very exciting in Tauranga.

Ka kite