May 1

Kia Ora Everyone!


Well I hope everyone has had a fantastic week! Our week was pretty busy we had our mission tour with Elder O. Vincent Haleck of the Seventy which was a great experience, we started at the top of the mission on tuesday up in south Auckland and had five of the Zones their for the meeting, The meeting was great but it could have gone a lot smoother, but it was ok cause Wednesday went so much better all of the videos worked and the sound in the building was awesome, where on tuesday it wasnt really working at all! Then on thursday we had our Mission Leadership Council with Elder Haleck and that was really good, all the Zone Leaders went through and gave a report on their zones, and then Elder Haleck and President Rudd just answered questions that anyone had, we came up with some good ideas that we as leaders need to meet with the stake leaders more often and plan some stake activities for members to bring their nonmember friends to.


We had some pretty good lessons for the amount of time that we were in our area though this week, and we are starting to see some of our investigators that havent really been progressing start to move just a little bit forward, but we have also seen some of our investigators who were progressing really well start to move backwards sadly, but we will keep working with them and keep praying for them. One thing that I have really learned this week is how we need to help people act, it's nice to teach a really good lesson, but if they wont act then they cannot really feel the Holy Ghost, so we have decided that now we are going to base all of our lessons off the commitment we want to extend to those we are teaching and we know that we will begin to see success from that.


Once again I appologize for the short email and also the lack of pictures my camera is being really dumb and it wont show any of the pictures on the computer so we are going to sort that little technical difficulty out and I will get heaps of pictures sent to you all!


I love you all and am so grateful for the love and support and all the prayers I can feel them. I hope everyone has a good week! Remember God is our Heavenly Father he loves us all and he knows what is best for us, if we put complete trust in him, he will strengthen us and help us I encourage everyone to remember always to trust our Loving Heavenly Father an you wont go wrong.

Apr. 24

Kia Ora Everyone!


Well lets just say this is going to be a short email because I have some other stuff I need to get to for this week. Transfers went great and nothing went wrong which was good and we werent too stressed!


So cool expierence last week on Monday we got a text that one of our investigators was in the hospital and she wanted a blessing, so we go to the hospital and we find her room and there is like this sign on the door that say to the affect: DANGER: Airborn disease see nurse before entering... so I saw that and was like oh wow haha, so we see the nurse and we have to get all this gear on to go in the room I felt like i was walking into some sort of radioactive explosion haha it was cool. But we go in give her a blessing and she was telling us how they thought she was going to be in there for a week or so well we had a lesson with her on saturday she got released the day after we gave her the blessing, her rashes had all gone the day after the blessing so she was able to be released it was pretty crazy they said she had the measles and i didnt think that was that bad but guess she caught a bad strain or something... The priesthood is real folks so there yah go!


I know this is super short but I do just want to end my email with my testimony again that Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ are real this is there church! the Book of Mormon is true and it always will be, Thomas S. Monson is a prophet just like Moses, Noah and Abraham and all the prophets of old! I love you all and hope everyone has a wonderful week!

Apr. 17

Kia Ora Everyone!!!


Once again another week has come and gone! It is so crazy to think but this week is transfers! that is so crazy this eight week transfer is over and now we will be back on our six week cycle!


So all last week we were helping President Rudd do transfer planning and that is always exciting! But last week we had to make several trips up to the airport so we were out of our are for a while but we still managed to have an incredible week and with the short amount of time that we had we saw some great miracles!


So last week on Monday we had an appointment at six and that fell through so I texted our investigator who was set for baptism on the 14th of may to see if we could come over, and he texted back and said sorry i'm not interested in being baptized anymore.... so that was one nice shot to the gut so that had me pretty down on Monday. But we recieved a refferal from the visitors centre for some people in Temple View and to be honest I didnt have a very good attitude about it, i was just like its in temple view they are probably just some less active members we go and visit them turns out there are four people there who have not been baptized and they want to be baptized! So we have had two lessons with them this week and they have been really good! what is even more crazy is that one of the girls her grandpa is the bishop down in Wairoa(my second are)! and that is also where Elder Tibbitts started his mission so we both know her grandpa really well so we were freaking out when she told us that and we were like man what a small country haha.


Then on saturday we were going to visit one of the part member families that lives in temple view and we got out of the van and there was this girl walking down the sidewalk and we recognized her cause she lives at the same house as the kid who dropped us on Monday so we started talking to her and she started telling us how her and her friend talk about the church sometimes, and then she said we talked about the three kingdoms last time and so we were like oh yeah you know it talks about the three kingdoms in the bible and she was like really and so we showed her and she was like wow my mind has been blown haha, so she said we could come visit with her sometime.


But another cool expierence we were visiting an older sister who stays in one of the wards and it wasnt a very effective visit we were basically just doing the home teachers job so we were just about to leave and then her Less active daughter comes up and is like oh elders stay right there ive got someone who wants to meet you, so she walked down stairs and came back up with this guy and was like this is my sons friend he wants to be taught by the missionaries, and to be honest I was just standing in this room thinking to myself what the heck is going on right now haha it was so awesome so we are going to have a lesson with him this week on saturday up at the visitors centre so I will tell you all how that goes next week!


But in total we found five new investigators this week in our area and in temple view that is un heard of because i can literally drive around temple view in five minutes and show you all 5 non member houses haha so it is so cool that we have found these people!


It goes to show once again that the Lord does answer prayers after Monday I had been praying really hard that we would be able to find people to teach and to baptize and the Lord blessed us this week with people who are prepared to receive the message of the Gospel. The Church is true, Jesus Christ is the son of God and he heads this Church of that I bear my testimony!


Arohanui!

Apr. 10

Kia Ora Everyone!






Well another week has flown by and boy oh boy was it a busy one, we didn't really have any proselyting time in our area so no real exciting things to share this week.So on Tuesday night we had the chance to visit several people in our teaching pool. We started the night off by visiting one of the LA families in one of the wards and turns out they moved but their son is still staying there and he asked if we would come over and teach him and so we had a wonderful lesson with him, we talked about the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the most emphasis on repentance, the spirit was strong and it was a good visit.

After that we went over to Mason's to visit with him and the kids we talked about Tithing and that was another awesome lesson we used some chocolate coins and gave them to the kids and said how much would you give heavenly father and they figured it out quick they are two super smart kids! At the end we invited them all to live the Law of Tithing and they accepted. Elder Tibbitts and I both shared experiences from our life when we had seen the blessings of paying tithing, the spirit was strong and it was anther great lesson!

After we went over to Taylor and Nina's and visited with them, we had a good visit we really talked about a lot of things with them they had a few more questions they wanted us to answer and they really opened up to us a lot more which was great. Then on Wednesday morning we went back and helped taylor out on the farm for a little bit which was good, it is nice to do some manual labour every once and a while haha.

Then on Wednesday we drove down to Tauranga and had an exchange with the Zone Leaders there I went with Elder bowman he is like six six so i looked super small next to him it was so funny! We had some great experiences together found them a few potential investigators and we both learned a lot from each other which was great.

I have been thinking a lot lately about the Plan of Salvation and the Gospel most likely because of General Conference, but as i have gone throughout this week I have thought to myself how grateful I am for the Atonement of Jesus Christ and the opportunity that we have to repent to start fresh to begin again to forget the past and move forward with a "perfect brightness of hope"(2 nephi 31:20) I hope everyone is constantly repenting and feeling of the renewing power of the Atonement, I hope we all also remember to let others repent don't hold things over someone's head move on forget about it forgive those who need your forgiveness so that they can forgive themselves. We all must remember that we are not a finished product we can keep progressing and keep bettering ourselves, choose the harder right as President Monson said in Conference and I know you will be blessed.

The Gospel of Jesus Christ is true that is a fact the Atonement is real it works use it, trust Heavenly Father and he will support you in all things. I love you all and hope everyone has a wonderful week.

Apr. 3

Kia Ora Everyone!


Well this email will be pretty short because this week was so busy but it was filled with adventures that i am sure you all are not very interested in haha. But the Temple was just as amazing as it always is, and it was so nice to get to go 3 days in a row! you really learn a lot when you go three times in a row that is for sure!


I learned a lot this week and grew a lot in my testimony of temple work, I know that what goes on within the temple is something sacred and special and that the ordinances done there really do bind families together forever! I am so grateful for the knowledge that i have that my family can be together forever because of what is done within the temple.


We had the opportunity this week to teach one lesson haha that is all we had time for in our busy week so we went and visited Mason and his family and had a good visit with them, we are going to start teaching him and his kids about the commandments and help them to start living all of them. We have a FHE tonight at a member of the stake presidency's house and he has invited Mason and the kids over and so it we have an exciting time planned for that tonight and it will be great to help get members more involved with Mason and the kids.


During the weekend we were down in Taranaki in a town called New Plymouth we had the opportunity to be with president Rudd and help him with the district conference down there. It was great to learn from President Rudd and see how he administrates in that environment.


But the work is progressing along down here in New Zealand we have issued a challenge to all the missionaries in the mission, In honor of the restoration of the Aaronic preisthood we have challenged every companionship to baptize on May 14th and 15th. That is the day that we have set our investigator Cooper to be baptized and so we are really going to focus on seeing him more each week to be able to really prepare him to be baptized on that day! Exciting things are happening down here and the mission just keeps getting better and better!


I love you all and thank you all for you love and prayers! Please remember that the church is true and that it always will be. I know Jesus Christ lives and that he died for our sins I know he loves us he is our older brother. Never forget this and share it with all of those you meet.


Arohanui!

Mar. 27

Kia Ora Everyone!

Well what a week it was it went by really fast but was really crazy at the same time!

So this week we went on heaps of exchanges with Zone Leaders, On tuesday after district meeting i went and was in east side of Hamilton with one of the missionaries that came out into the mission with me, we had a really good exchange taught some good lessons and worked really hard.

Then on wednesday we drove down to a place called Rotorua its about an hour and a half from hamilton we got there had some dinner and then were waiting for the elders and they were not showing up so we decided to get out of our van and we just started walking around and ended up meeting two people on the street who were interested to learn a little more haha, so finally when the Zone leaders showed up we were like hey got two new investigators for you haha.

Then on Thursday we had to take a sister missionary to the airport because she had completed her mission and then I spent thursday night and friday morning up in my old area up in Manurewa that was really fun went around and saw some of my old investigators who are all still working towards baptism and even met a few new people and taught them the restoration and the spirit was super strong and it was a really cool lesson.  then we hurry and drove back down to Hamilton to make a lesson that we had set up with Taylor and Nina and we were able to have a really good lesson we them, we taught them the plan of salvation mixed in with the gospel of Jesus Christ and it was just really awesome they had some questions and they would go right along with the lesson so we were able to answer them.  They didnt come to church yesterday sadly but that is ok we will keep working with them!

Well that was pretty much the summary of the week, this week we have some really great things planned one of which is the temple! I'm am looking forward to the temple very much!  it is going to be a great four days!

Well that is all for me this week I love you all! especially those who have been such wonderful examples to me like my Grandma and Grandpa Anderson and my Grandma Holmes thanks for all of the love and support best grandparents in the whole world!

Remember the church is true and it always will be!  Love you all

Kia Kaha, Kia Ngawari

Mar. 20

Kia Ora Everyone!!!!


Well another week has come and gone and this week was a good one!
First off on Monday we went and had a visit with one of our investigators we taught him about the Gospel of Jesus Christ and it was a really great lesson and really awesome, then at the end of the lesson we asked him if he would be baptized and he said yes!!!! and then we also invited him to say the closing prayer and he did and it was probably the first time he has ever prayed in his whole life! and it was awesome it was incredible he did such a good job! He is a really cool kid he is 18 and he just moved down from Auckland, i think i have already talked about him before. But he was super keen to work towards baptism I believe the words he said was he would put in the "Hard yards" so that he can now the truth of what we have shared. We also had a ward Party on saturday and we invited him to that and he came and we got to introduce him to a few members of the ward which was good, he even ended up meeting a member of the ward who is a relative haha it is a small world down here in New Zealand everyone is related haha.


We also had a few exchanges this week which were really good! it is so good to go around and learn from the other missionaries! there is so much to learn from others and that is what I love about getting to go on all these exchanges is learning from all the incredible missionaries we have serving here in the mission.


last night we had a really incredible lesson with one of the members of on of the wards we cover who is preparing to leave for his mission, he had a few of his cousins over from Japan and he asked us to come and visit with them they are less active and so they know a little bit about the church and the gospel and so we sat down with them and began to talk about the restoration the spirit was so strong during the lesson but it was incredibly strong when this member their cousin bore his testimony at the end and then one of the other members of the ward who actually is also a cousin of these two less actives and they were two incredibly powerful testimonies!


It is so awesome to see how much of an influence members have on the teaching I hope everyone will look for those missionary opportunities each day and help the missionaries to teach because when a member bears testimony it is incredibly powerful!


I love you all and hope everyone has a wonderful week thank you for all of the prayers i for sure can feel them! Remember the gospel is true!