Concerning new investigators, great members, transfers, and stake conference

Kia Ora!

So, this week has been a pretty good week. I don't recall if I wrote about Dayna in last week's email. Anyways, she is a friend of the daughter of one of the member familes in the ward. She and her mom and sister were taught by previous missionaries, but these missionaries are the same missionaries that bribed that one girl I wrote about to be baptized with chocolate. So, it's no surprise that they had no success. Lol... 

Anyways, Dayna does not have a strong Christian background. She does believe in God and Jesus Christ, but doesn't really know anything about them. So, that has been good for us to learn with. She is really receptive though. She feels the spirit in our lessons, and she knows what it means for her. At the moment, she is just struggling to keep the commitments. She is still doing a good job keeping them, but a lot of times, she forgets. She means to, but puts it off until it's too late. But that's ok, because we will impress on her mind the importance of it all. :-) But, the member family, the Floods, are awesome. They are great missionaries. Both Bro and Sis Flood served missions. It was really good for both of them. Sis Flood is the man. She is so good at helping us to teach. She has many great experiences that she can share with our investigators. The spirit is present at all of our lessons. It's really good. :-) It's good to be a missionary. :-)

We also have another new investigator. Her name is Sis. Heremia. She is married to a formerly Less-Active member. Bro. Heremia is a return missionary, but just fell away for a bit. When we were given a list of some people to see, he was on the list, and we went by. He pretty much said that there was not reason for his not coming. He knows he needs to, there is no Word of Wisdom or Law of Chastity problem, they have just not been going. Sis. Heremia is willing to go. Previously in their marriage, she was not at all interested in talking about religion with her. In fact, with our lesson that we taught her, we were able to teach further into the restoration that Sis. Heremia has ever allowed Bro. Heremia to get. It's amazing what the spirit can do to soften people's hearts. She told us that she is willing to listen to all that we have to say, just not to knock ourselves out if she disagrees with any thing we teach. Well, she was actually really receptive. The only thing that she blatantly told us she doesn't accept is the fact that the priesthood was lost in the Great Apostasy. But I think she got a little bit confused with what we actually meant by that. Oh, and by the way, she is a doctor. So she is incredibly brilliant. She is very well versed in the scriptures. But she doesn't want to bible bash with us, which is great, because neither do we. :-) She and Bro. Heremia committed to pray as a family about what we taught, and to read some things out of the BoM (the Introduction to the BoM, and Moroni 10:3-5. And also to pray about those things. If she is really listening, then she is goign to receive an answer. She absolutely believes in God. She is just a baptist, I think, and believes in a staunch believer in it. But she said she is very willing to listen. Because she knows we are messengers from God, and she wants to listen to our message. So, with those two new investigators, we can have two new baptisms for sometime in March. I wrote October just now, but I don't know why... Lol... So, that is really good.

So, this ward is absolutely fantastic. I love it. The Floods are a very typical family in this ward. Quite a large number of the familes are like that in this ward. The members are so helpful to us, and it is great. :-) It's common to get a referral from a member and to go and see that family, and they are interested in the gospel. It's really cool. :-) Like I have mentioned before, missionary work is made much more effective when the members take the initiative and get involved. So, introduce your friends to the missionaries. You never know what is gonna happen.

Transfers is this week. I'm left wondering if I will be transferred. E. Peni has already been transferred (for the most part, missionaries get transferred on Thursday at the meeting, but occasionally you will have a missionary go on Monday. That is the case with E. Peni, he was transferred early this morning.) so, I am in a tripanionship until Thursday. That'll be interesting. :-) We are going to have to double cover an enormous area. So, that will hopefully be all goods. :-) I think that since my companion has left, I will most likely stay in Ngaruawahia for another transfer. I'm totally okay with that prospect. :-) I love it here.

Stake conference was yesterday. The adult session was the previous night, and I sang in it with three others, accompanied by a Cello and Piano. The Song is come Thou fount, the solo version on Reflections of Christ (look it up. It's really a wonderful song.), but we have a member in our ward that is very musically inclined. So, she basically arranged to have 3 other parts. So, it was really cool. I was hoping to have the recording that we had a member sneakily take by today to send in this email, but no luck. I will have to ask him for it when I see him next. But, it was supposedly really good. The person that spoke after we sang, the 2nd counselor in the Stake Presidency, could hardly speak, he was so choked up with tears. But I don't know what he talked about, because we left after we sang, because we only got permission to stay for our singing. That looks like a horrible sentence  I hope that made sense. :-) Anyways, with the general session yesterday, we had E. Cummings of the 70 there. He pulled me aside before the Saturday session and asked me if I had family in St. George, because he served with an E. Staheli in Canada. So Dad, do you know any of your cousins/brothers that served in the 70s in Canada with an E. Cummings? That would be pretty cool. :-) Anywho, remember those three parables that I wrote about last week, well he used the same analogy that I did. Almost exactly. I was like, woah. I thought I made that up. But it was really cool to hear that someone else got the same take on it as I did. I got my inspiration from James E. Talmage in "Jesus the Christ." But E. Cummings must have gotten it from me. ;-) Or the spirit, most likely. :-) Some things that he said that I thought were really good that I didn't really talk about were these: "In the parable of the lost sheep, why did the sheep wander? The sheep wandered because it was a sheep. That's what sheep do. They get distracted." They get distracted by anything and everything. They see the "greener" grass on the other side and gap it over there. Because they are sheep. There was a conference talk I was listening to in the car by E. Richard J. Maynes. He told this really interesting poem that I thought I would quote  by C. C. Miller titled “The Echo” it illustrates the importance and impact parents have as they influence their children:

 ’Twas a sheep not a lamb
 That strayed away in the parable Jesus told,
 A grown-up sheep that strayed away
 From the ninety and nine in the fold.
 And why for the sheep should we seek
 And earnestly hope and pray?
 Because there is danger when sheep go wrong:
 They lead the lambs astray.
 Lambs will follow the sheep, you know,
 Wherever the sheep may stray.
 When sheep go wrong,
 It won’t take long till the lambs are as wrong as they.
 And so with the sheep we earnestly plead
 For the sake of the lambs today,
 For when the sheep are lost
 What a terrible cost
 The lambs will have to pay.

 

So, it's not just these lost sheep that get lost, its all of the children. In the song, Come Thou Fount, there is a line: "Prone to wander Lord, I feel it.  Prone to leave the God I love." Look over the whole song, it's especially applicable. :-) Anyways... The coin was lost because of the careless act(s) of someone else. Lastly, the prodigal son made the conscious decision to get lost. But, the thing that we need to remember is that we are all at least one of these, if not all of them, at some point in our life. And remember 3 Ne 18:32. Christ will heal them, and we will help them to return.

E. Cummings also told of a story of a family of ducks that invaded his yard. The mother duck led, and all of the poofy balls of duck followed behind her. They ran amok in the yard, and the mother duck quacked happily. Well, suddenly, the mom issued a different quack, and the ducklings scrambled and came and hid under her wing. They waited there until the mom started to quack happily again, and then they wandered again. Well, this happened 3 times. It wasn't until then that E. Cummings noticed the hawk that was circling above. Every time it drew close, the duck called her ducklings in. Just like that, our Heavenly Father wants to protect us from the Hawks of the world. Heavenly Father "Quacks" through the prophets and the scriptures, and we should heed the quack. Or else, the hawk, Satan, will get us. Hawks can be the media, pornography, friends, etc. Satan always has a hawk circling over us. He always puts counterfeits into our lives in place of the good things of God. He lures us in, and then the hawk swoops in and gets the duckling. We need to listen to our prophets. I know that Thomas S. Monson is called of God to protect us from the Hawk. This church has been restored, and I know it. I know that Jesus Christ atoned for us. When it all boils down to it, "be wise; what can I say more?" (Jacob 6:12)

Kakite,

Arohanui,

E. Staheli