February 3, 2014

It always takes a little while to get situated in a new area, but luckily for me, my companion was here previously so he knows what's going on for the most part. This is actually the first area that I've had where I didn't get shifted in with a new companion. It's what we call a double shift, and it makes it quite a bit harder to get going in an area, since you both start off not knowing anything about the branch or the investigators, the area, etc.. So this is quite refreshing.

We've got a bunch of investigators, and they're all pretty awesome. As of right now we have one person set for baptism, as well as a few others that are very close to qualifying, so we're probably looking at only a few more weeks and then we'll have some more. The branch is huge. Yesterday at church we had 140 people at sacrament, a bunch of which are returning less-active members. It's always so awesome to see when someone gets the fire rekindled. 

We're in a four man flat down here, so that's something new to get used to. Most of the time, they keep it to only one companionship per flat, no matter how big the flat is, but this one they made an exception. Apparently President only sends the missionaries that he trusts down here, since it's far away from the rest of the mission  He doesn't want anyone here that's going to just goof off. So I guess it's a good sign that I've ended up being the Zone Leader around here, along with my companion Elder Johnson (whom I don't have a picture of just quite, but I'll get there). 

I'm really hoping that I'll end up staying down here for a while. The town is relatively busy, but for the most part everything is really quiet. There's heaps of good people around, and the attitude seems to be pretty good. Even though most people aren't interested in what we have to say they're still usually willing to have a chat for a minute or two, which I think is far better than the usual rude brush off. As you can see in the picture, we're right on the beach, and it's awesome. I love the smell, the sound, the view, doesn't matter, it's all good stuff. If I'm ever rich I just need to get beachfront property somewhere. Who knows, maybe a summer home down here in New Plymouth. 

My birthday was pretty good, though not much happened for it since I moved into the area on Thursday. The senior missionary couple had us around for a pancake breakfast though, and that was really cool. It's actually been a surprisingly long time since I had pancakes, so I thoroughly enjoyed it. Then I have my mission birthday on the 27th, so that'll be pretty cool.

I'll look for some more cool places to get pictures of the new area.
 Love ya!