Kia Ora Whanau ko Ehoa!
It has been quite the week of extremes.
One of the highlights of the week was the leadership conference that I went to. I traveled up to Auckland on Tuesday night and stayed the night in the flat of some Zone leaders along with the 5 of us from Hamilton (2 Zone Leaders and 3 District Leaders). It was a tough sleep, but the meeting the next day was fantastic. :-) I learned so much about how to help my district. I learned all about my new responsibilities. While up there, I came back in contact with E. Ngalu, and my "Brother." Which reminds me, there is a weird lingo that goes about in missions. A missionary who trains and other missionary becomes the Dad, or in the case of sisters, the Mom. The trainee becomes the son or daughter. The first area you are in is where you were born, and your last area is where you died. Your brother(s) would be the fellow missionaries that your "dad" trained. Also up there, I met back up with E. Reese. So, E. Niederer was also up there, which if you remember, they were both in the MTC with me. They are both district leaders, and E. Niederer is training a new missionary. Btw, he was district leader in the MTC as well. We also took a picture, which might've been emailed out to yous already, but it has all the leaders of the NZAM (New Zealand Auckland Mission) holding a can of Lift. Lift, btw, is a lemon drink unique to NZ.
Well, something that was also great about this week is that we set 3 new people for baptism. All within the same day: Khong, and also new investigators Mel & her son DJ. Well, that was a pretty great day. It alsmost was 4 that we set this week, but not quite. Another investigator Ue (his full name is something like Ue maiterangi raiterangi, which means something to the effect of teardrops and raindrops falling on something.) said no to being set with an actually date, but said yes to being baptized when he knows it to be true. Ok. Back to Khong, since he was the first to be set. We set him for this Saturday. Well, that was on a Thursday, if I remember correctly. On Saturday, when we saw him, it was a completely different story. Wow... like night and day. He had almost, not quite, but almost gone Anti-Mormon. Well, we saw him yesterday, and he had gone Anti by the end of the lesson. He was showing us all of the Anti-Mormon literature that he had reading, and got a little annoyed with us because we were answering all of his questions with "brain-washed church sayings that you have been force-fed" (paraphrasing). He wanted our answers to "come from the heart." Well, what he failed to realize was that those were from the heart. At the end of the lesson, he said that he had no more questions, and that we didn't need to see him any more. So, he dropped us. Which is sad really. Satan saw the huge step he was taking with baptism, and really attacked Khong.
Well, I really don't want to end on a sour note, so let me tell you the wonderful miracle of Mel and DJ. Mel is a friend of April. Her daughter Georgia is friends with Tyesha. So, they go way back. Anyways, we went to go and see Wero and April to see how they were. Well, Mel was there, and to paraphase, she said that she has been thinking about being taught again and maybe even being baptized. She was taught about 6 years ago, but something happened. But now she's back, and her son is keen. We actually met the son before we really me Mel. He came to our little FHE thing that we do every monday at the restaurant of a member. He told us he wanted to be baptized. He was 9, so we thought we might have trouble getting support from the parents. Well, we met Mel, and our opinions changed completely. In our first lesson with her, we set her and DJ for baptism on the 9th. Mel would also like her two twins, Georgia and Maya to be baptized with them, so we are going to try our hardest. Her older kids might be a little bit of trouble to get baptized, since they have been in a bad environment for such a long time. She has a little girl, Diva (who likes to be called Diva cupcake, for some reason, so we call her Diva Cupcake Chicken Skin. :-D), that will most definitely follow the example of her mom when she turns 8. So, that is really good. The only thing that could stop Mel from being baptized is Smoking. She has been doing it for many years, but she sees how dumb it is, so we will be able to use God's power to help her kick the habit. They are so keen. It is great to have such wonderful investigators.
Another miracle find! I'll quote my journal, since it contains more detail than I can remember:
"First things first, we found a new investigator, Ue. We actually found him though a joking referral. We went to see [a family in the ward], just to maybe have a friendshare. We didn't [though]. We asked him [if there was anyone that he knew of anyone,] someone we could help. He looked across the street and saw his neighbor's lawn (then about 2.5ft high.), and said that "that person desperately needs their lawn mowed. So we went over. We saw Ue outside picking pears as we drove up to the [family's] house. Didn't think anything of it. Well, we went over to see him. He was curious about faith. And why we go to people to teach. We initially thougth we would set a return appointmet and teach a real lesson later. Well, we started talking, and we went to the garage (he lives in the garage) and had a great lesson. He told us he saw us while picking pears, so he gapped it inside in case we decided to come over and try to chat. Well, when we knocked, he thought 'what are the chances.'[He actually didn't want to open the door to us, but he felt almost like there was a force guiding him to opening the door, despite his thoughts of, 'Why am I walking towards the door, why am I opening the door,' and other such thoughts. :-)] He was also contemplating about God. You see, he had a near death experience with a car accident. He was T-Boned, and something told him to move to the left away from the door. His injuries were not life-threatening, but could've been. He also [told us about an experience where he] had cancer, but he fought through Chemotherapy into remission. He often thougth to himself that God could've ended his life, but He didn't so he must have a purpose in life. A reason. Well, we testified to him about God[, that He] was watching out for him. We taught him about prophets, and he made a connection to a Maori prophet that followed God and led his people to Aotearoa (the land of the long white cloud). we tried to set him for baptism, but understandably he didn't want to commit to a close date. But when he knows the truth, he said he will be baptized. He works crazy hours, so church is tough."
E. Peni and I spoke in church this past Sunday. There were 2 speakers before us who we supposed to speak for a combined total of 14 minutes or so. They spoke for about 10. So, E. Peni went first. And, so kindly, he left me with almost 20 minutes to fill. Traitor... ;-) Well, I spoke on E. Nelson's talk "Ask the missionaries! They can help you!" Never before has a talk that I've given felt so much like it wasn't me speaking. So, the spirit told the congregation to ask us missionaries for help with many things.
The Zone leaders commited us to set a family on whatever day it was. So, that was the day that we set Khong, Mel, and DJ. So, we set part of a family.
I discovered that the Hakarimata hike has something like 1363, plus or minus 50, steps. The hike was actually kind of a waste, since at the top, we were in a cloud, so you could only see white all around you as far as the eye could see.
Pictures
1. Bird in the e-mail shop.
2. Hakarimata hike - Made it to the top!
3. Hakarimata hike - View from the top on a cloudy day
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