Where do I start for the week? 16 February 2015

Ok, so I have no idea really to start for the week to be honest. I had some really great experiences that I simply won't be able to send back in this e-mail. I will do my best.

Well for this week we had something unfortunate happen. Toru didn't come to church. we went to go pick him up in the morning however though he was not home nor answering his phone! That was a bit of a disappointment, however we are going to try and contact him today. 

Oh! yes so to my surprise, I have stayed in the area and Elder Schetzel moved up to a Northern part of NZ. My new companion is Elder Hann is form Scotland! He is such a cool Elder. The sad thing is that he will be going home this transfer. So in missionary language I will be "killing him". He has had a bit of a tough mission. But he is experienced and has great wisdom indeed. We get along well and we can talk for ages about things.

Jodie and Brother Semati are doing well, it is so great to see them! The wedding is coming up soon and everyone is getting excited! They are coming to church, and progressing well. Hopefully the marriage papers come for brother Semati real soon. We are not to sure when though unfortunately. keep praying though!

Toru we had some great lessons this week with Elder Hann. just not to sure about what happened with church that is all. So we will be praying for toru for sure.

So p-day is on Tuesday this week because we had a wonderful training this week with a member of the Quorum of the 70. Elder Nielson! It was a wonderful training that gave me a lot of insight. These training's are pretty intense for sure. We start at 9am and they go till 4pm. We focused a lot on teaching people and how we can invite the spirit to be with us We have lunch at 12 and those are always fun especially when it comes to talking with old companions and seeing that Elders that are currently serving in your old areas, Like Onehunga. I have been trying to get in touch with Rob, a fella that Elder De Kock and I baptized at the beginning of my mission to see how he is doing. I haven't had any luck though unfortunately. I will keep trying for sure. 

Something I have learned is that we must "love ourselves" before we can "Love our neighbor" It is an interesting scripture when you look at it that way for sure.

Needless to say our mission is also being spoiled with a visit from President Bednar! So exciting, Elder Bednar is one of my favorite Apostles. What a treat within 2 weeks having 2 General Authorities come. We will be combining with the Hamilton mission as well for that visit. Anyways lots of things to look forwards to!



Love you all!

Love,
Elder Ward

Miracles Indeed 8 Feb 2015

Great things have been happening this week. 

Investigators wise we now have another set! I did not mention him to you guys last week. But this week we really started working with him and we he is doing awesome now! Toru is his name, he is 19 years old and is from the Cook Islands. (He speaks perfect English and they dress normal like us, many of the islands such as Tonga, Samoa, Cooks and so on are well developed and learn to speak English. Every so often we will bump into someone from the islands that can barely speak English) We met him when we where contacting a less active family to invite them to a ward activity. For Toru he had not been in NZ for even a day and we spoke with him and invited him to learn more about the church. It was a miracle. Later that week we met with Toru again and we had a RM (Tom) with us to be a fellowship for him. He made Toru feel very comfortable and and invited him to church. Boy was it great! I wasn't there at that time because we where on trade-offs and I was Elder Lene,(he is Samoan but he grew up in South Auckland). He was a bit sick at the time so we could really go out to find and teach people. Still though that Sunday our fellowship picked up Toru and took him to church. He was eating it up! He was asking us questions during sacrament meeting and we where explaining and answering the questions that he had for us. He stayed for the rest of the meeting as well and attended Sunday school. He loved Sunday school and according to Tom Lavalua (our fellowshipper who just so happened to be the teacher in the class) he would often share scriptures that he felt really applied to the lesson. He is very familiar with the Bible, and has many of the scriptures memorized. His grandmother had him memorize scriptures when he was young, and about the age of 13 he really began to gain a love for the word of God. After church the members where quite excited to see such a keen investigator church. We had a lesson with him at Tom's home after church that day and Elder Schetzel and I planned to set him for the 28th of Nov. Elder Schetzel extended the invitation after we taught the Restoration, and Toru gladly excepted and is so excited to be baptized! The spirit is working so strongly with Toru and we are very excited for him! Probably the most amazing finds on my mission!

Jodie is doing well, Elder Schetzel and our District leader Elder Brown visited her this week and taught about prophets and shared with her about President Thomas S. Monson. Giving her a better understanding of our living day prophet great, and certainly built her faith in progressing towards baptism. We have a good fellowship organised with Jodie and the relief society President. We are excited for when she is able to get married and baptized.

Brother Semati is doing well we had a lesson with him this week on the Atonement. He didn't make it to church though, they had a few sick children unfortunately. Still waiting on the papers though. Just going to keep them strong until the day finally comes! 

Abraham we haven't made any progress with because we have simply have had a lack of contact with him. This week we are really going to try and help him progress.

Michael and Kristen we haven't seen this week either. It is kin of up to them now. We have shared the message with them so now they need to put the effort into seeking to see if it is true. We will be seeing them this week however though.

Zane is doing well also. We shared with him the message of the Restoration, and he has been building within himself a desire to come back to church. We love visiting with him and reading the BoM with him. We taught him about the Restoration this week to really give him the big "WHY?" behind the Book of Mormon, and why it is important to have a testimony of it.

Some sad news though... I don't know if I will be around to see them get baptized. Transfers is this week. There is a good chance that I may be transferred this week because I have been here for a total of 3 all ready. We will see. It will be tough to leave Elder Schetzel and such a wonderful area.

I am excited about today though because today the zone has received permission to go watch a movie! haha not just any movie, it is Meet the Mormons. We are to have an investigator come along with us and we currently have Toru coming with us so it should be great to have him see that film. It should be great and I look forwards to seeing it as well!

Elder Schetzel and I where able to get the Root Beer form the international section of a super market store called "Count Down" Kinda like a food 4 less maybe. It was a bit expensive, like $3 but totally worth it!

Elder Schetzel and I played a bit of pole tennis in our backyard today. Took some photos of the action!

Love,
Elder Ward

All goodtime for a great e-mail!!

So sorry about the past few weeks I think. The e-mails haven't been to great to be honest.

Last week I mentioned that we where working with a boy named Liam. He has been speaking with missionaries for quite a while. Elder Schetzel and started talking with him because he was coming to church with his older cousin every so often. He is a really nice boy and he has had a really tough life growing ufp. he has been surrounded by drugs and violence. We shared with Liam the story of Alma the younger, a really powerful story about repentance and changing. He really liked it and we where happy to teach him and help him out. We set him with a Baptismal date to work towards as he did mention that he has a WoW problem that he is trying to work out. However I was a bit nervous because I have known about Liam since I have come into the area, and according to his cousin he has some big wow issues. Unfortunately since then we haven't been able to see him and really try to help help him out. Next time we see him though, we want to go play Frisbee with him so we can get a bit closer with him. Yes I have bought a Frisbee out here:D

Jodie, is doing great! She is set to baptized on the 14th of March. Her wedding being on the 7th. I don't know if I will be in the area then, we have transfers coming up and it is up in the air at the moment. Still though all I desire is that she does get baptized on that day. :) We had a member with us during our last lesson. Well the RS president and we had a wonderful lesson with her on fasting and how important it is. Sister Langi was a convert to the church. Bringing members who are converts to the church to lessons is always the best because they bear with them really powerful testimonies! Jodie is doing great she is coming to church and doing well. 

Brother Semati and his family is doing well also. Still coming to church. Just waiting on the marriage papers. Not to sure if I will be around to see him get baptized but that's ok! We are doing our best to keep him strong until then. Jared and the little girl that Elder Fougerous and I baptized are still doing well, and it is great to see them whenever we go by!

Michael and Kristen I think that I have mentioned them in previous e-mails, are doing all right. Our last lesson was interesting. Kristen is very smart (They are white, we usually teach Islander people), and all ready being a Christian family, they posed some interesting questions to us about the Godhead and also some things concerning the Plan of Salvation. We are doing our best but ultimately what they have to do is find out for themselves if the BoM is true. We should be seeing them tonight. Elder Schetzel and I have planned to talk a bit about the great apostasy tonight to give them a better understanding of the purpose of the BOM. So that is their main concern the BoM.

Abraham is a 1 year old young man that we have been working with for a while. Here in the Waipuna ward they have a sports night every Tuesday. We invited Abraham  to come along and he really enjoyed it! He told us the people there have a real good vibe about them and he wanted to come to church. Yesterday we arranged a ride for him and he was able to make it! He said that we could set up an appointment later in the week to meet with him. We are excited to see the progress in Abraham and we are hoping for a great lesson this week! We also invited a less active young man named Eric to come along to the sports night. He really enjoyed that and has opened up to coming to church as well. Unfortunately his mum is a bit against him(she is LA going through a hard time) for some reason. But still we now have him on a challenge to read the BoM in 90 days! We are grateful for the progress that we have made with those 2 young men.

Zane is LA, and we have been working with him for a while. I have known him since I have come into the area. Elder Schetzel and I simply sat down with him and started reading the BoM with him. Boy was it great! We explain things as we read with him to help him understand and make it a bit more digestible. He has had a few friends with him that read along with us to that are not members, and they seem to really enjoy! One friend in particular really is liking the the BoM so now we are trying to teach him as well. It has been pretty cool being able to do that with the m. It is a bit of a scripture study class.

There is a lot more that I could talk about however those are the main people that we have been working with lately Elder Schetzel and I have been busy for sure lately!

Overall in the ward great things have been happening the area! Our ward is so strong in hastening the work of Salvation, and I am grateful to be helping the members of the ward with there missionary efforts. We had Stake conference recently and it was all about moving the work forwards! Every Thursday night the ward, well of the Pacific Island area have rescue nights where members of the ward come together and visit people who have not been to church in a while. This past week we had a great turn out and the Ward members where excited to be there!

Jelly is a crack up I look forwards to meeting him for sure! Love how he messes with the clock!

Sounds like thinks are going good at home!

Love,

Elder Ward

 And Madelyn I like the stickers you sent. Like the stickman I can't have them hanging on my badge but, I stuck him on the back. Missionaries do that a lot around here, putting stickers on the backs of their badges.

 We played Monopoly for P-day. Takes a long time but it is great fun with the District for sure. We had a good time. We had to play the fast version to even get close to done. I went to jail the first 3 times in a row so I ended up going out and watched for the rest of the time which was fine with me.

You have a picture taken of a intersection we stopped at. We where driving home from a meeting at the chapel. Thought I would take a picture how everything is set up being on the left side.

 I loved the little pipe cleaner me! Thanks for sending him. unfortunately I can't walk around with him in my pocket all day, however certainly have him on my desk!

 We had root beer floats. boy where those good! It has been over a year. Our flat was a bit messy, so I debated sending this. But it is clean now though! It was very nice though I would have to say. You have to buy the rootbeer form a foreign food section in the store. a bit expensive but worth it. 

 That is Octopus! yes I ate it and it was pretty good. I would have to say that it was a bit salty though. Pretty chewy, surprisingly it doesn't have a ea food taste really. Still had the little suckers on it, but I popped it in the hath and it was all good. :D

Made a beast of a sandwhich. Had avocado on hand and all the fixins. boy was it good! Subway skills are still in use!

January 26, 2015

So sorry for not sending home a big e-mail this week. :/ It is crazy what is happening back at home! Elder Schetzel and I have been preparing a young man named Liam for baptism . I am excited for him and have a lot of faith that he can do it!