Always a Lesson to be Learned

Kia Ora Everyone!

Well sorry that I didn't get a group message sent last week it was easily the craziest week of my entire life and you all can ask me about it when I get home and I might tell.

I hope everyone is doing well though! and hope you all had a great week!  Heard the CV basketball team did really good in state! so Shout Out to my bro's who play on the team Abe and Job Hux!!!

Well last week we had to take all the missionaries that were finishing to the airport and then pick up the new missionaries it seemed like just a few days ago we were doing the first pick up but amazingly it has already been six week!  Now we have this transfer which is a bit different because it is going to be eight weeks long! But it is going to go by way fast because we have a lot of things planned for this transfer so I am super excited for this transfer.  

Besides all the craziness that happened last week we had a really good lesson last night with the LA dad and his kids that we have been teaching and last night we set them for baptism!!!! and they will all be preparing to be baptised on the 19th and then the dad is preparing to baptise them that day! so we are super excited the spirit was so strong in the lesson and the kids were so excited they both have been wanting to get baptised for a long time so they are really excited!

Also we were able to see last night a few of our investigators that we haven't been able to see in a while and they hadn't been answering our texts and we finally saw them last night and it turns out he put his phone on top of his car and now he cant find it so that was a relief also!

But that is really all for this week and some of you might be thinking really? but i'm being totally honest when I say we didn't get to do any missionary work the whole week until Sunday,  but it is okay because we had great visits with those who we did get to see and Heavenly Father was for sure guiding us throughout the whole day yesterday!

The thing I learned the most this week is to just always remember to never ever let your circumstances get you down their is always a lesson to be learned in everything and we will always learn and grow more when times are tough or we feel weighed down, my challenge to everyone is to always remember how good life is and remember that our Heavenly Father has given us all these things for our benefit and for our good, I have learned the best way to handle all situations is to ask myself what does Heavenly Father want me to learn here and instead of having a bad attitude have a learning attitude and everything works out!

I love you all hope you everyone has a wonderful week!

Arohanui 

Make Miracles

Kia Ora Everyone!

Well hope everyone has had a wonderful week!

My week was pretty full on.  We had nothing but exchanges this week and that was crazy it was a whole lot of driving and whole lot of sleeping on floors.

We went from one coast to the other this week we started the week on Tuesday in New Plymouth down in Taranaki and then drove to my favourite area Wairoa had an exchange with the elders there and then up to Gisborne to have an exchange with the Zone Leaders and then to Rotorua to have exchange with the Zone Leaders there also.

The great thing about all of this is it is all such a wonderful learning experience getting to be with other missionaries and also getting to know all the missionaries in the mission.

This is really really short dont have any time left but hope everyone has a wonderful week.  One thing i learned this week from exchanges was so many times in life we think that we just need to constatnly be seeing these amazing miracles in our lives, but what i learned this week is we dont learn anything from miracles that just come to us, we need to learn to go out and make miracles that is something Heavenly Father has been teaching me that if we want miracles to occur in our life go out and work for them and make them.  Love you all hope you all go out and make miracles in your lives this week!

Best Mission in the World

Kia Ora Everyone!

Well what a really good week we had down here in New Zealand and more specifically in the New Zealand Hamilton Mission the best Mission in the World!

Hope everyone had a good week also and that everyone is doing well!

First off for this week was we had our three days of Zone Conference and those ended up going great I felt pretty good about my training and after doing it nine time i had it pretty much down and knew it like the back of my hand, and yet I kept changing it a little bit each time, it was interesting to see the way the spirit guided the conversations and each one was really really good I thought so hopefully everyone else thought they were good also.

We did a total of three days and each of the days we broke up all the missionaries in to three groups so we all gave our training three times which was really fun and all the missionaries were really good and everyone participated really well and it felt like everyone walked away with something they had learned!  Me and Elder Tibbitts got to rid to all the conferences with President and Sister Rudd which made it even more fun they told us heaps of stories and we told them some stories also and we all just kinda got to know each other a little bit better which was really cool!

On tuesday after the Zone Conference we got to Hamilton at about 5 o'clock and texted one of our investigators to see if we could come over and usually when we text they are like yeah sure come over at seven thirty, but this time they were like yes please!!!!! so we went over and we had been talking about what we wanted to share with them as we were driving over and when we got their on of the partners came out and she started telling us what a stressful week it has been since she just started school and all this stuff and so we went inside she was telling us a little more and then she said when she was driving home she had this thought come into her mind and it was "the missionaries" she said when she thought that she just felt this relief come over her and she felt like a weight was lifted off her, so we asked her what she thought that was and she said well I assume it is the spirit cause that is what you guys always talk about, and we were like yeah that is the spirit haha.  But then the other partner started telling us he had a really stressful week and so we started sharing some scriptures with them and helped them to see how they can find Comfort in The Book of Mormon and other scriptures and then before we left we gave them both blessings and they were both just blown away by that they thought it was amazing!  it was just a really cool visit though because they learned to recognize the spirit for themselves it wasnt us explaining everything to them but we were just guiding them and they were answering their own questions it was really really awesome!

We have also been having some great visits with a part member family it a dad and his two kids that are 9 and 7 we are helping the dad come back to church and he is making leaps and bounds it is awesome he has stopped smoking and is starting to come back to church! He should be able to baptize his son here soon and then his daughter also.  We went over Monday night and gave both of the kids blessings for the start of the school year and after he said he hopes that he can do that next year and we said we will make sure you do it next year!  he is such a great guy and his kids are awesome too!  

One thing that I focused on in my training for Zone Conference was having charity when we teach, we can ask all the right questions and teach really really well but if we do not have charity it doesnt matter(1 corinthians 13:1) And so that is something that I have tried to start applying in my missionary work and i'm starting to see it slowly work its way into my teaching and it is really cool to see and to feel the love that Heavenly Father has for everyone.

Charity is important in so many aspects of our life.  I feel it is the sum of all the Christ-Like Attributes and with it we can accomplish many wonderful things, when we have charity it will cast out the fear to share the gospel and we will be driven by a love for the people more than anything else.  I hope everyone will study more about charity this week and apply it into your individual lives and use it for the purpose of sharing the Gospel, the Gospel is to precious of a message for us to keep to ourselves so I encourage everyone to "Pray unto the Father with all energy of heart that ye may receive this Love"(Moroni7:48).  I love you all have a good week everyone! 

Kia Kaha!

Hump Day!!

Kia Ora Everyone!

Well hope everyone’s week was great! Our week down here was very crazy!

So on Tuesday we were at President Rudd’s house planning for our Zone Conferences we are having this week, and then he starts to tell us that he got a call from the Area President who told him that D. Todd Christofferson is coming to New Zealand and wanted to have a missionary conference now this was on Tuesday that we found this out and the conference was on Saturday so we had to hurry and organize how to get 200 missionaries up to Auckland and then figure out seating and all sorts of stuff but it all worked out really well and the conference was amazing!  I can now say that I have shook Elder Christofferson’s hand twice!  The whole time he was cracking jokes and answering questions.  It is really cool to see how great of a knowledge they have of the scriptures and just how they can flip to scripture after scripture and answer all the questions so well it was so cool!  There were lots of other really good talks also but don't really enough time to write everything!

Anyway after that we came back to Hamilton and we went and visited one of our investigators and we were going in planning on teaching him about the Doctrine of Christ or the Gospel of Jesus Christ and we had this nice plan set out and we went in and we just started talking about the Book of Mormon ended up answering most of his questions and literally everything he said you can just tell that he has really been prepared to receive the gospel and so then in the lesson we invited him to come to church and he said yeah i was actually thinking about asking you where it was so i could come and me and elder Tibbitts were just like ok this guy is awesome! haha anyway he came to church and loved it literally the whole meeting seemed like it was tailored around his needs and the best part was he recognized it and was like wow that was just for me!

We also had another family come to church the Dad is a member just hasn't been active for a while we have been helping him quit smoking and he is doing really good! he has a 9 year old son who is not baptised and a 7 year old daughter who is turning 8 in a few weeks and they both want their Dad to baptise them so we are working really hard to help the dad to come back to church and be able to quit smoking so he can do that for his kids.   And yesterday a little after sacrament started we looked out the doors and saw them walk in and that was just the best thing ever it was so good to see them! That probably made my whole week!

But this week was great we had so many wonderful lessons and just all around good visits all week.  

This week we have our Zone Conferences and so we will be preparing for those today because the first one is tomorrow and then the other two are on Wednesday and Thursday and i will have to give my training three times each day so if we do our math 3 X 3 = 9 so i will be giving my training nine times and that will just be crazy so i could really use those prayers haha.

But that is all for this week it was a really good week and it was so fun to be able to hear another Apostle my testimony was strengthened so much by his Witness it was incredible how powerful the spirit was when he bore witness you couldn't deny it the spirit hit me like a rock or something harder than that it was more like a train but that doesn't really describe it good enough the spirit hit me really hard and I know that he is an Apostle of Jesus Christ without a doubt.  I love you all and am so grateful for all of you and the ways that you all have blessed my life.  I hope everyone has a wonderful week! Love you all!

Baptism- Nina (10) Toka (9) Caterine (8)

Enjoying NZ weather

Happy Hump Day!!

Jan. 24

Kia Ora Everyone!

Well I hope you everyone has had a wonderful week, my week was pretty good and pretty busy!

I'm pretty short on time today and so i will be sure to share those really cool experiences that we had this week

First one we were at the Visitors Center on Monday having a lesson with some less actives and some member families and what not and after we had gotten done with a few of them and we were about to leave to go visit with President Rudd Elder Tibbitts grabbed me and handed something to me and it was a receipt and on it someone had written "I'm not a member teach me something" and then he had written some other things on the back and it basically said don’t ask me questions... so we go into one of the teaching rooms and we started to try to get to know the guy and see what he wanted us to teach him, we started talking about the basics and well let’s just say he knew a lot more than just the basics and then he was like teach me something I don’t know.  So Elder Tibbitts was talking to him and the whole time I was just thinking man what can we teach this guy I hope he doesn't ask me a question because my mind was totally blank, then all of the sudden some of the sister missionaries come in and take elder Tibbitts because a member family had showed up who we had set up a lesson with so i was left there with this guy and I'm supposed to teach him something he doesn't know, now this guy’s wife is a member he has two sons on a mission and a daughter who is leaving on a mission shortly.  So I said a quick prayer and just started talking I can’t really remember everything that I said but he started asking me questions and telling me how he thinks it’s stupid that his sons are on missions and how his daughter is going on a mission and then he said to me do you really believe this (meaning the church, book of mormon etc..) and I looked him in the eye and I said "No, I don’t believe it.... I know it" I wish you all could have seen his face when i said that but his attitude totally changed and he said "That's something I've never heard before" he sat there for a little while and thought and then he said "You have given me some things to think about, thank you, you have answered my questions"  That was easily one of the craziest experiences I have had on my mission and it was incredible I think I know how Ammon felt when he was with king Lamoni and he asked him a question and he didn’t answer and so the spirit gave him a question to ask and he was able to discern his thoughts because the Lord put thoughts into my mind that were not my thoughts and I was able to say exactly what he needed to hear.  It was 100% by the spirit!

Next story I was on an exchange with one of my old companions Elder Stephens and we were in their area and he told me there is a house that has an American flag outside and so I said we better go knock it, as we were walking to the house he pointed to another house and said a Member family lives there we can visit them after we knock on the other house, after we passed the driveway we both were just like you know what let’s just go right now, so we knocked on the door they let us in and we were talking to them and the sister in the house said "so as missionaries are you just constantly impressed to knock on doors" and we were like yeah sometimes but more often than not no and then she was like it seems like every time missionaries knock on our door it’s just at the right time and then she paused and was like "I think this is one of those times" her and her husband began to tell us how they just ended a fast because their youngest sons family is going through some struggles, they then asked us what more can we do and we just explained to them that prayer and fasting are very powerful so trust in those things, we then shared the story of when Elijah met the widow and had her make him some bread even though that would mean she wouldn’t have enough for her and her son but then Elijah promised her that if she made it for him first that the barrel of mill would not go empty.  we promised them that if they put heavenly father first trusted in him that everything will work out.  We then went and knocked on the American flag door had a talk with those people, then we back to the member home for dinner and when we went in the dad was on the phone and when he got off they said that he was on the phone with their oldest son who just got off the phone with their youngest son, then they said that was the answer to our prayers we didn’t think it would come this quickly, then they said thank you to us...

Really awesome experiences this week that have really helped my testimony grow even stronger! I love you all hope you all have a good week!

Temple View

Kia Ora Everyone!

Well what a week this week was transfers and boy was it crazy! The missionary department put out a new rule that we are no longer allowed to do transfer meetings so everyone has to get to their new area by using a the buses and man that was a little crazy especially since this is the first time that we have ever had to do this in the mission so it was a learning experience for us all, the good thing was that I got to the office after all the major stuff had been done so now we are just trying to figure out how to get everyone their bikes... we will let you know how that goes!

But enough about that boring stuff!  I am loving my new area Temple view is great there are so many members in temple view it is useless to go tracting because everyone is a member! I feel like I am back in Utah again!

But this week on Tuesday we took all the missionaries who were returning home to the airport, and then on Wednesday went to the MTC and picked up all the new missionaries and drove them down to Hamilton to the Mission Office and then had the new missionary orientation at the mission office then at president rudds house then on Thursday we shipped them all off to their new areas and boy was that just a mess!  but we have learned so now next time we know exactly what not to do haha.

But everything is going great we have alot of really good progressing investigators in this area and i a have already gotten real close to a lot of them! their is so much that can happen here in this area and so Me and Elder Tibbitts(my comp) are planning on working really hard.  And we need to because President Rudd wants us to be the examples so if we do well then we can hold the rest of the mission accountable but if we are not then they wont really want to listen to us, so it puts a little pressure on the shoulders but it is good.

This week we have heaps of lessons planned at the visitors center it is so nice to have the temple so close and to be able to take people to the visitors center, we had dinner with a member family and some of their friends that are not members and after dinner we took them to the visitors center showed them a video and had a great lesson with them, and when we saw the member family yesterday at church they said that after it got that family thinking so that is good!

Well that is really it for this week, this week is going to be really busy so i will try to remember it all for next week so i can give everyone all the details!  Love you all thanks for all the love and support that you all give me i can feel all of your prayers they help so much!  Have a good week everyone!

Goal Setting

Kia Ora Everyone!

I hope everyone had a really good New Years cant believe that it is now 2016!  where did 2015 go!!!

I hope everyone has set some good goals for this New Year and i hope that you also haven't already broken the resolutions you made haha.  Goal setting is so important M. Russell Ballard says the if we do not master the art of goal setting we can live our life to a ripe old age and find out that we lived under our potential!  I would encourage everyone to study Goals in chapter 8 of Preach My Gospel!

Well we will get right in to it this was a really wonderful week and really crazy also!  New Years was insane!  the best experience of  this week we were visiting with one of our Less active members who has three daughters that haven't been baptized yet, and me and elder noa had been teaching them and me and elder gutke still go over and visit, elder noa and i had them set for baptism for the 28th of November but because of some stuff with their family not being members and not believing in the church the mom wouldn't let them get baptized, but we went this week for a visit and the dad told us that he wants them to get baptized now and the mom gave permission and so they will be getting baptized on this coming Saturday!  it was a really cool miracle and it was really awesome it made my whole week!!!

Another really really cool thing about this week was yesterday we had 13 investigators at church!!! 13! it was amazing we were so happy especially because so many of the people who came we have been trying to get to come for ages! and they finally came and they had a good time!! The Lord does bless us when we keep enduring and keep going.  Just because the blessing doesn't come on our time doesn't mean it is not going to come.  Remember to hold fast to the iron rod and "press forward with a steadfastness in Christ and a perfect brightness of hope" - 2 Nephi 31:20

We also had a really good lesson with a Part member family, we taught the dad who is not a member about the Restoration of the Gospel and the spirit was really strong, we then started really focusing on The Book of Mormon and because that is the "fruit" that Joseph Smith brought forth if you want to know he is a prophet read The Book of Mormon and pray and ask God if it is true, the spirit was really strong and we are really eager to have another lesson with him this week!

Now I know I know this is short again and I did promise a big email last week but these miracles are really all i think i need to share this week and remember "by small and simple means are great things brought to pass" - Alma 37:6

I love you all and I hope everyone has a really great week and that you all begin this new year of 2016 off strong,  make good goals and plan how you will accomplish those goals and you will be able to have a wonderful year!  Love you all!!!!

Christmas All Year Long

Kia Ora Everyone!

I hope you all had a wonderful Christmas mine was really great!  the best part was for sure getting to call home and see my wonderful family!

I wish i could have been able to see each and every single one of you but what do yah do.

Well it was a really crazy week and not much missionary work really got done this week on Wednesday we had a our mission Christmas conference and that was really fun we all learned the actions to the new mission Haka which was really cool even though i wasnt very good at it haha but it was still really fun!  

On Christmas eve Elder Gutke and I literally were Santa Claus we were driving around all day giving people their Christmas packages and just when we thought we were done we got a call from some other Zone Leaders telling us they had just picked up mail and there was mail for elders and sisters in our Zone so we went and met the other Zone leaders got the mail and started all over again that went until like 4 O'clock.  

then we had one of our members text us and tell us they had a ham they wanted to give to someone for Christmas and so we went and got the ham and took it to one of our families we visit and they were very grateful and it really softened the Fathers heart which was awesome, and after we set their nine year old son who we have been teaching for Baptism on the 9th of Jan and the Dad was like "yep thats you my bro" it was awesome!

Small and simple things bring to pass great things, small and simple acts of service bring about wonderful blessings.  I have learned this Christmas once again how much better it is to give than it is to receive,  that is how we feel the true spirit of Christmas by giving.  My testimony of that has grown even more this year, I hope we can all remember to have that giving attitude throughout the rest of the year, the world may think Christmas ends after the 25th but we can keep the spirit alive all year long as we all have an attitude of giving for this new year to come!  When we are in the service of our fellow beings we are only in the service of our God!  as we serve others we serve our Heavenly Father.

I am sorry this is a really really short email  not really to much to report on this week, and i really just can’t remember but next weeks will be alot longer cause we have got a great week ahead of us!  I hope everyone has a good week and a good new years finish 2015 off strong and start 2016 off strong!  Love you all!

Dec. 20

Kia Ora Everyone!!!!!

How was everyone's week? 

Mine was pretty good also!  Can’t believe it is already Christmas this week time is just flying by on the mission!

First off for today I hope everyone has watched the videos that the church has put out for Christmas and has made an effort to share them with others whether it was putting it on social media or sharing it some other way.  Remember the message of the Gospel is too precious for us to keep to ourselves.

One pretty cool experience from this week when we went to go visit one of our investigators when we knocked on her door she was busy but this guy was just leaving the house and he started talking to us turns out he is a member of the church and he has made a few mistakes in his life but he wants to get on the right path again, so we talked to him for a little bit then set up an appointment to meet with him tomorrow and help him to start coming back to church!  It was a really cool experience of being at the right place at the right time to find the One.  It is incredible how Heavenly Father leads you along and really sometimes he does it without you even knowing it!  I think that is something i have learned this week and what seems to have been a recurring theme from the Apostles is that we are actually doing better than we think we are.  Sometimes we think we are just going somewhere just because but turns out there is a greater purpose and we didn't even know we were listening to the spirit.  It is wonderful how the spirit works!

We had a super spiritual Sacrament meeting yesterday I love the Christmas programs they always have such a special spirit.  And the best part we had several investigators at church and i'm positive they felt the spirit!  Christmas time really does bring a special spirit and i'm sure it is because everyone turns their thoughts even more towards the savior at this time of year it would be really wonderful if there was this feeling all year long!

I know this is a really really short email, but i just wanna spend the last of this to say HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM!!!!!!!!!! I love you so much you are the absolute best Mom in the whole world!!!!!  I dont know what i did to deserve such a wonderful Mom, you have taught me so much and i am so very grateful for all that you have done for me and for all that you continue to do for me!  Thank you for always reminding me to stand up tall,  thank you for always being so nice to me and all of my friends and making us some really good food for lunch.  But most thank you for always staying up late when I was out with friends to make sure i got home safe and thank you for staying up even later talking to me about how the night was.  There was never a night when i came home that you didnt still have TLC on and you were awake waiting for me.  I am so grateful for those times and the awesome times we had together watching movies and just having fun you are the best mom in the whole world and you have taught me so much!  you are so caring for others and you are always worried about others that one still hasnt sunk in on me yet but hopefully it will get there soon!  You are the best Mom!  If anyone happens to see my mom in this coming week be sure to tell her happy 25th birthday, also if ya’ll wanna throw it up on facebook and what not feel free to! HAPPY BIRTHDAY JELLO!!!!!!!!!

Love you all sorry this is short but hope everyone has a wonderful Christmas, and family can’t wait to talk to you on Christmas!!!!!!!!!