Cache's First Full Week in New Zealand

Hello correspondents! 

There has not been too much happening. Just kidding. There had been quite a bit of stuff happening. We had another Baptism on Saturday. Her name was Caroline. She is a 60 or 70 something year old Maori lady. She is a little hard of hearing, and I don't recall if I wrote about her last week. Anywho, I'll just tell about her. She lives with a recent convert, Rosalie. Rosalie was baptized a year ago last Monday. She has been a huge support for Caroline. Rosalie and Caroline work at the NGA (Ngaruawahia) High School. 

Which is actually not called a High School. I think it's called Course or College or something. That's another thing. College and University are not the same thing here. So, I have to tell people that I went to Uni or University before my mission so they know what I am talking about. College for them is like Junior and Senior year of High School for us. 

Anyways, back on the subject. They are basically the Janitorial staff there. Rosalie ran into the missionaries, and wasn't interested. But then something changed, and she actually went looking for the missionaries. They hadn't been in contact for a while because she had moved. So now, she was super keen on the gospel. She was baptized shortly after. 

Caroline wasn't interested either. She belonged to a belief called Ratena. Or something like that. They believe in God and Jesus Christ, but they believe in a great man named Ratena who helped bring NZ to a greater standing or something like that. He inspired a lot of people and gained a lot of followers. 

Most people here do not go to a church. They are just good people. Our calling as missionaries is to find those who will receive the gospel, and who might've already accepted it, expect they knew not where to find it. Anyways, a lot of people are willing to hear our message, but don't really want to change. 

Caroline was in the hospital for a while, and actually "died" for a little bit until the machines and doctors brought her back. She believes that the people of Ratena brought her back. When Caroline finally became interested in the gospel long before I got here, she agreed to be baptized, but she said that she was going to have to thank the people of Ratena on a special day, January 25. It's special because it is a big day for the followers of Ratena (I don't know why), and because it's her birthday. Anyways, the missionaries kept trying to get her to be baptized.

Shortly before I came, she went to the VC (Visitor Center for the Hamilton temple) and really felt the spirit, and set herself for baptism. During Taylor's baptism, she again felt the witness that she needed to be baptized, and again committed herself to baptism. She had a few problems though. She has been a smoker for a very long time, and she drinks coffee. So, after a long time, the Wednesday before last Saturday (the day she was baptized), she gave us her cigarettes and her coffee she traded us for Milo (Milo is a New Zealand style of Hot Chocolate that is about a bajillion times better that American Hot Cocoa.) that we gave her. So, she gave up smoking and coffee cold turkey, and was baptized.

Oh. If you have sent me a letter, I have not yet received it. I am speaking Specifically to my family and to Bethany. I only have a few opportunities to get mail from the Zone Leaders, who get it from the Mission office in Auckland. So, it might be 2 weeks or so before I get mail from you guys, primarily because it takes forever to get to NZ in the first place, and because it takes forever to get to Ngaruawahia from Auckland. So don't despair. I will write everyone back that sends me a letter. Unless it's family. Then I'll just email you. Because that's so much easier, and my hand won't cramp up. ;-)

Every morning, with our Ward Mission leader, Bro. Waters, and others, we do an hour work out. Today it was boxing stuff. That's the only time I can punch my companion and not get sent home for it. ;-) Another day, it's ab workouts, and other days it's other things. It's pretty good.

I've attached some pictures, and I will explain the pictures that I sent last week and this week.

Last week:

1. Picture with other guys in suits: my district as we stepped out of the terminal into NZ Airport. From left to Right: E. Reese (my MTC comp), E. Niederer (Needer, the more Er's that a person had on their name, the poorer they were in the town that his ancestors lived in), E. Hirsche (went on his mission to NZ, but got sent home because of a very serious sickness, almost cancerous. But now he's back out, which is all that matters.), E. Smith (from Canada, eh?), E. Loffhagen (from the U.K. We like to immitate his accent and get him to immitate ours.), and myself.

2. Pink colored computer screens looking like NASA's Houston or something: The TV screens on the backs of all the seats on the flight to NZ. We couldn't watch TV! Lol... It was difficult.

3. The white circle with a red outline with 100 written in it: a speed limit sign. In km/hr.

4. Sheep: Well, pretty self explanatory. They are sheep. There are so many of them here. Oh! They have lamb burgers at McDonalds here! I have yet to try one. I wonder if they are good or not. :-)

5. Exit sign: Things are in km.

This week:

1. The elders going to Portland, Oregon in my district. 

2. The elders going to Auckland, New Zealand in my district.

3. All of the elders in my district.

I'll send more pictures, but I am limited, so I'm lazy. ;-)

Hmmm... what else... 

I had the opportunity to fix our neighbor's computer. She's been in Perth, Australia for the past few weeks. They give about a quarter of their house to us missionaries in Ngaruawahia. Anyways, She got home, and found out that something was wrong with her computer. She didn't know it was a virus, but she asked my companion and I if either of us knew computers. I replied that I did. I proceeded to work on her computer, and I shortly found out that it was a virus very much like the virus I fixed on my computer. So it was an easy fix because I had done it before. She told us that she had prayed that morning to get helped, because getting it fixed by a technician is rather expensive. 

You think it's expensive in the USA? Holy Smokes. Everything is more expensive here. Except for Kiwis. Kiwis are much cheaper here. I like Kiwis, so that ends up working out pretty well for me. :-)

We eat so much here. It's crazy. The members, especially the ones that are Polynesian, love food, and expect you to eat heaps. So, I'm getting fat.

I'll try to get some pictures of missionaries and of my investigators, but I might forget. I keep forgetting to do it. Whoops. :-)

With lots of love and stuff,

E. Staheli

P.S. Mom, send me pictures of the family. I think I might've already said that in an earlier email, but this is a safe guard or whatever. :-)

Elder Staheli Passes Through International Dateline Wormhole, Comes Out on the Other Side

Kia Ora! (greetings! in Maori)

 

It is really great here in New Zealand! It is so incredibly green it's crazy!!!

New Zealand, Visas, and the Power of Revelation

Cache called us last night from the LA airport saying that he would be making the 13-hours flight to New Zealand, so he is probably just arriving there, having crossed the International Date Line and skipped right through Tuesday. I told him that that sounded like the recent Star Trek movie, and I hoped that he made it out on the other side...

Cache's patriarchal blessing says that "you need to remember that the Lord issued your call to missionary service".  That's quite interesting in light of how it came.  He reported this neat little story to us a day or two ago:

Final E-Mail From MTC

Here's what turned out to be Cache's last e-mail from the MTC before he flew out to New Zealand.

This is my second P-day! Wow! Time goes really slow at first, but goes by fast later! Time really doesn't make sense in the MTC. It goes by slow, but super fast! Weeks turn into days, days turn into weeks, and all that good fun stuff. It doesn't make any sense until it actually happens to you. And then it begins to make sense.

So, how about that conference!! Wow!!! I already know that a lot of girls I know will be going on missions. Wow. Good luck! I wonder how the outside world reacted. I know that the MTC reacted crazy like! Be we calmed down as soon as the chairs were returned to their upright state, the people climbed down from the rafters, and the knocked out people were revived. ;-) Jk. there was just lots of shouting and lots of loud celebratory noise. :-) Still, we thought it was just about the coolest thing to ever happen, or something. :-)

What were all of your guy's favorite talks? I have a really hard time picking that. I think that E. Holland is always fantastic, and the same goes for the First Presidency, and also for E. Bednar. :-) By the way, he came and spoke to the MTC on Tuesday and talked to us about how better to study and apply the talks from Conference. He gave us this advice. We need to find and listen to the Doctrines in the Talks and the Principles that are found in the talks. Then, we need to look at the Invitations that were given to us in the talks. Finally, we need to look at the promised blessings given to us by the speakers and realize that if we take the invitation to do something, we will receive the promised blessings. So, for example, E. Bednar talked about how we need to put down our weapons of rebellion, and then we will be incredibly blessed. I can't remember exactly the blessing that E. Bednar talked about, but the thing that he mentioned in the address on Tuesday was that we need to pay attention to the spirit more so than the speaker. The spirit is the one that will teach us, not the speaker, even if he is P. Monson.

Just a side note. If your name is Bethany Anne Millet, and you have not yet received a letter from me from last Thursday, then I DO NOT have your address, and my letter did not make it to you. I will not be sending the letter I wrote today until I receive a letter from you with your address on it. DearElder messed it up, so I had to guess at the address. So write me a letter with your address, as you would write it on a letter, otherwise, I can't write you any letters. I don't know your address, so send it to me. I need it like, a week ago. Thank you for your time. :-) Write fast! The same goes for everyone that writes me a letter on Dear Elder.com. Make sure that you include your address in the letter. I know that DearElder puts a return address at the top of the letter, but it is commonly illegible and jumbled. So  put your addresses in the body of the letter. :-)

So, my companion's name is E. Reese. I know I said that already, but I'll give some more background. He is from SLC. (Holladay, Utah more specifically). Me and Him are good buddies. He has been a member all his life, just like me, and he is pretty much awesome. :-)

About my investigators:

• Arnold is a volunteer at the TRC. He likes to talk a ton. Like, a ton. He always interrupts with stories about how he was in the wild, with a spoon, and it started to rain... Or something like that. We taught him four times, with yesterday being the last time. We taught him as a group. It can be challenging to teach as a group, because not everyone has the same agenda. Anyways, yesterday, we got Arnold to commit to coming to a baptism and meeting with the missionaries more to get him to be baptized. So that should be good. :-) He is really interesting to talk to, and he has (too) many good stories to tell us. We don't have all the time in the world, but he is a good guy. :-) He worked in jails for a long time, and he can tell when people are lying to him. So he believes that what we are saying is true. His wife and a daughter were killed in a head-on collision a long time ago, and he is interested in knowing more about how he can be with them again. He is interested in the prophet, and he feels like Pres Monson (Moses, as he calls him a lot) really knows that what he is saying is true. He knows the world is in trouble, and he is genuinely concerned about the members of the church, especially with families.
• 
  
• Sara-Ruth and Alfred- We never got the chance to meet Alfred. But they are both less-active members referred by their bishop. They have gotten a little tired and too lazy to come to church (her words, not mine.) since all her kids grew up and started having their own families. They both know what is right, but they just have gotten to tired to go to their normal ward in Santaquin. they usually just go to a child's ward or stay home. We got her to start praying again with her husband and to go to church. She listened to conference and knows they need to go back to church. She is a great person, and is just an example of how Satan will trick you into giving up small things, but, like was said in conference: "Would you sell your soul for a nickel?" Both her and Alfred's former spouses were killed. Sara-Ruth's was electricuted on the job accidentally, dying painlessly, and Alfred's wife was killed in a head-on collision with a drunk driver. Sara-Ruth and Alfred met and had a lot in common. Sara-Ruth stood in as a proxy for Alfred's wife so that he could be sealed to her. Sara-Ruth was already sealed to her husband in the SLC temple. The reason she wants to become active again is so that she can go witness her son's marriage. And just to be able to have a temple recommend again.
• 
  
• Cody is an agnostic college age student. He is engaged and will be married soon to his agnostic girlfriend. He wants God more in his life, but doesn't understand why he needs to be a Mormon to be saved. We have committed him to baptism, because he knows he needs to do it, and he is reading. 
• 
  
• Richie was a Meth addict for 13 years. He has been sober for over 80 days now, and is trying to become stable again so that he can see his son again and be in good standing with his family. He understands that he really needs the atonement in his life, and he responds well to our helping him to understand that the Atonement can make him just like it never happened. Jesus Christ understands all that he has ever done and will ever do. He's possibly my favorite investigator. He has trouble reading, but understand that he can pray for help. He now knows that the spirit is not a big huge experience all the time, so he now knows that he can feel the spirit. 

Well, I'm almost confident that I used more time that 30 minutes. There are no timers on the ones in the Laundry Room, So I can't really tell...

I am basically out of stamps, so I will answer some really short letters in here.

Grandma Putnam: Thank you so much for the Honey Caramel things. Everyone loves them, and they are delicious. Thank you so much for the birthday gift. It took me a bit to understand how the card worked, but as soon as I figured it out, it was really cool. :-) Oh, and my roommate says send more. ;-):-D

Kiara: Yup! It's free! So I recommend you sending lots now, because it gets expensive to send them to NZ. The investigators do a really good job of playing the part, and the spirit doesn't care that it's "fake." This is the way the the Lord wanted us to learn to teach, so he makes it feel as real as possible.
Wow! He gets home today! That's crazy! Insane!! I see Jonah all the time. We take lots of pictures together. I'm sure he'll send some home.
Conference was crazy! Wow... Maybe you would've gone on a mission if that announcement had been sooner!
Thanks for the letter! :-)
BYU will be empty. :-) I think it's funny. There are lots of memes, I've heard, that describe it hilariously. :-)

Well, I am severely out of time. Bye!!! Love you all! Hope you all have a fantastic day!! Good luck with life!
Sincerely,
E. Staheli
P.S. Write me. A lot.
P.P.S. Read the first P.S.

October 4, 2012

This is my first email from the MTC. Turns out that I will only be able to send two of these before I go into New Zealand. I will be leaving on or very close to the 15th of October. So, I would advise you to send and letters through DearElder up till that point, probably even more than that. It's free to the MTC, as far as I know. But it will get more expensive to send them to New Zealand, so all of you should send letters now, and keep sending them. Like I said, it's free now, so if you can only manage to send a few letters, it would cost you nothing to send them to me now. So do it.

The MTC is kind of stressful at times. We are busy all the time. We basically learn from 8am to 9pm. We wake up, eat and get ready from 6-8. And we get ready for bed, plan, and write in our journals from 9-10:30. It is pretty much that we are on the go all day long. It's pretty intense. So, anyways, my companion is named E. Reese. There are 10 Elder's in my district, including me, and 6 of us are going to Auckland, New Zealand. The remaining 4 are going to Portland, Oregon.

We teach some "investigators" pretty much every day. By investigators, I mean that they are actually usually just people acting like someone that they know and Love. If it is our teachers acting, then it is someone that they had the opportunity to teach on their mission. There is something called the Teaching Resource Center, or TRC, that people volunteer at. These people are generally members that volunteer, but occasionally, they are actual investigators. We just never know. There are 3 types of TRC appointments: Less-Active, Investigators, and Referrals. The referrals can be by anyone. Anyways, at the present time, our district is teaching a man named Arnold. We teach him as a group. It can be tough. Also, Arnold really really really likes to talk. We can barely teach him anything before he interrupts and tells us a story about the spoon he carved, the time he was stuck in the mountains, his wife dying, his children, being in the outdoors, etc. Anywho, he is clearly someone acting, because he tries to give us huge hints about what to teach him all the time. Like, on his spoon, there were these divets that formed because a branch had to be held up. Easily could be related to bearing up  burdens, etc. Anyways, it is still pretty hard to teach him as a group, because we all want to go a certain way, and often times those ways are not the same.

Another investigator, Richie, acted out by one of our teachers, was a Meth addict, and is really receptive to the gospel, especially the Atonement. It really fits with him.

Another one: Cody, is not very receptive, but could be taught the plan of salvation because he is getting married at the end of the Month (also acted out by one of our teachers.)

We have a less-active older couple that know that the gospel is true, and they know that they should be coming to church. We meet the husband on Tuesday, and that should be fun.

We have so many awesome speakers here at the MTC. We have a devotional every Sunday and Tuesday. We also have Church, Mission conference, and other talks on Sundays. Sundays are very spiritual days for all of us. It is pretty nice, I think. Anyways, I am running out of time, because we are only supposed to spend 30 minutes on our emails and only on P-day. So I'm gonna try to stick to that rule, because we are supposed to be obedient to every mission rule, otherwise, we don't get blessed as much. Basically, it's just a better idea to follow the rules.

Anyways, Love you all! Write me lots!

In case you never knew my address, which you should, it is in a million different locations, it is:

 

Elder Cache Franklin Staheli

MTC Mailbox #145

NZE-AUC 1015

2005 N 900 E

Provo, UT, 84604-1793