8 March Great Things are Happening!

What great week Elder Hann and I had. Jodie did have her wedding! but I will get the bad news out of the way in a hurry because I didn't get any pictures. It was a bit of an interesting situation. They had the marriage at the chapel, however the reception was else where in Auckland and Elder Hann and I could not go because it was way out of the area. Still though the wedding was on Saturday, and it was at 10am in the morning. We arrived early for the wedding. We watched and greeted alot of Jodie's family as they walked into the chapel. On Jodie's side of the family, many of them are Catholic, so it was likely their first time in a LDS building. Some of them probably had not been in a church for over 10 years, but it was funny none the less to watch them slowly walk into the building looking a bit hesitant. I don't think that I have ever seen so many non-members in a chapel before! Lorenzo was there early, and he was nervous as. Jodie came about half hour late which fits with the standard time for brides to arrive from what I have been told. The ceremony was conducted by the Bishop, it was simple, and according to Elder Hann, the words that are used in the temple are exactly the same except for the exchange of "mortality" and "immortality". I am not sure my self because I have never been to a sealing. Anyways after the ceremony, they walked out of the chapel into the forier (bear with) and then began to take pictures with all the family. Before I new it they where out the door and into the Limos and we just got a "Hello" and "Congratulations" in there before they left. It doesn't bug me or anything it is understandable.  Someting interesting to understand about islander weddings is that they make them a huge deal. Often times families will go into debt to pay for weddings/funerals. Family expects big celebrations with lots of Kia (Tongan for food). With funerals they will last several days or a week or more at times. Jodie's side of the family being Tongan and holding to their culture strongly expected alot for the wedding. It was unfortunate to see Jodie go through all that planning and stress but they are happy that it is simply done now!

Now we are in the week before her baptism. They came to church and then had to leave soon after words because they still had family to attend to however. This week we will likely be teaching all the lessons again. THe Baptism should be a lot less stressful for her and be a blessed experience. 

Toru this week unfortunately did not make it to church, nor was he there for the lesson that we had scheduled with him. He knows what is right, we are just going to need to work with him slowly but surely. He has a lot of commitments on his plate at the moment.

The Edmonds family is doing ok. We had a few good visits with him this week. New Zealand has socialized health care so medical bills fromm what I understand are not to big of a worry for the family. The family does have a lot of support form the ward. They are familiar with a few of the members. The local school has been helping them as well when it comes to food, they often will bring surplus they have from the cafeteria and donate it to them. For the most part the family is having difficultly understanding what is really going on. Well at least the other siblings are. Jeremy is beginning to get a grasp on the situation and he has actually made a greater commitment for himself to keep the house clean for her health. With 8 kids the house is often a disaster. I have shared a bit about what we have gone through. I have given him a long story about what has happened to me and my family but I have let him know that for myself cancer has had an effect on our family. I am sure there will be more appropriate times to share more as time progresses. Their daughter is just beginning the Chemo treatments. Her hair will be falling out. I will ponder and pray what I can do to help him. It is always important to follow the spirit to know when the right time and place is.

Well there is simply to much happening this week! But I have let you know about the big events for sure!

Take Love you all,
Elder Ward :)

1 March Jodie's wedding is coming up!

So some great news! Toru is still on board with us! He came to church this week, and is now part of the YSA here! Boy are they great! Toru really enjoyed church and is looking forwards to his baptism. We are looking for maybe the end of March. We are going to be teaching him about the Priesthood, because we had a good discussion about it as Elder Hann and I taught the Elders Quorum. 

Jodie has been flat out busy with preparing well for the wedding. Haven't really been able to teach all that much lately. Elder Hann and I have been keeping in touch with them and sharing spiritual thoughts at the end of their day. Next week should then be the baptism. That is going to be an important week for making sure that she is ready for baptism.

This week overall has been a really great week. Through out the week there have been many of our investigators or people that we keep in touch with who we are trying to help become investigators that have expressed gratitude for our visits. Something that I really tend to over look kand not give myself as much Credit as I should for. There is one family in particular that we call the Edmonds Family. They are a family of 8 and they are struggling you could say. One of there youngest little ones has brain cancer. The Father Jeremy has been difficult in the past to connect to but just recently, thanked for the visits that we give him and his family. Often times these visits are just visits where we sit on the porch and just talk a bit with him. Sometimes he is to busy with taking care of the family. Sometimes I fell like he isn't really listening to us and just seems to stare off into space. But this week we visited him and he thanked us for all that we have shared with him. He mentioned that sometimes he doesn't really seem to respond, but he does think about and it does sink in for him. Now that I look back on it, I can see how it is success, simply because we have made a small change in him. There where many others as well, but there is simply not enough time in the world.

Things are going real well. I really love my companion he is a great Elder!

Stuart is looking good. He sent me a pick. Had a hard time believing it was him to be honest. Daisy seems the usual. Looking for comfort in the least obvious places.

Love you all,

Love, 
Elder Ward

22 Feb 2015 Well my little siblings....

Thanks so much for the e-mails this week, I did enjoy them very much. 

I will quickly go over our investigators, Jodie is still preparing well for baptism. The marriage is just around the corner now. I am a bit excited but the stress is high for her! Still preparing for baptism the week after. Our relief society President Sister Langi is a great fellowship for her.

Sadly Toru is no longer set for baptism. He doesn't have his priorities straight at the moment. He signed up for going to college, and college is actually a pretty big deal for islanders. It considered to be a great honor to have a college level education. So that has become his focus for now. He said "Maybe in a few months". That's certainly not my expectation, but we will keep working with him having the members around so he can feel the spirit. We will continue to fellowship him with members. 

I don't think that I have explained what fellow-shipping is, but it is the most effective way to help an investigator progress. usually what we do is set up an appointment with someone in advanced. We then consider the members that we could ask to come out with us and then ask one to be there with us for the appointment. It is always great to have them there because they often share experiences that are priceless or mean so much to the investigator themselves. The member is then there also to be friends with the investigator. This is usually how we try and get it to work as missionaries. 

There is maybe one other investigator that we have at the moment. Her name is Sharny. I don't think that I have mentioned her before. But we originally contacted her when we approaching a group of flats and we saw her and she invited us over to talk with her. She has been through a very difficult and abusive relationship. It has been quite traumatizing for her. As missionaries there was not much we could do for her, but we have one faithful sister in the Ward who is working hard to be a friend and support her in anyway possible. There has been a bit of a change in Sharny, but still a long way to go. She came to church yesterday and seemed to like it. We taught her a little bit about the gospel of Jesus Christ. After church she came up to us a thanked us sincerely for the day which was a bit of a surprise. She hasn't liked us teaching all that much to be honest. She can be a bit rude at times, and even act like a child to a certain extent. Still amazing to see the progress that she has made though! 

For now that is about it for our investigators. Brother Semati is still the same, waiting of the marriage papers...

Elder Hann and I get along real well. He is quite a sensible person and has lot's mission experience. He has had some tough experiences, but they have made him stronger.

Thanks for the e-mails, love you guys lots!

Love,
Elder Ward

Love the pictures! The clouds where amazing during lunch time so I took a picture!

That other one is borther Naeata or ward mission leader!

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!