May 26, 2014

This past week was pretty good, though not particularly extraordinary. We ended up being able to teach some 16 lessons to less active members, and each one was more awesome than the last. I ended up spending a lot of time studying the Plan of Salvation, and that was pretty much all we seemed to teach this week. I never thought about how powerful that could be. It seems as though a lot of the time we get hung up on telling them how good the Book of Mormon is, and how the Gospel has been restored, when really I reckon we ought to be focusing on the Plan just a wee bit more. I've found that I really enjoy the question "If you knew, for a fact, that you have a Father in Heaven who loves you, and wants you to come back, would you do everything that you could to get back to him?" Who's going to answer no to that? If they do, I reckon that's a situation in which we no longer need be involved. I love that. Helping people come to the realization that we have a Father, who is powerful above all, that could be doing so many other things, but instead is concerned about our salvation. It's proved to be quite a powerful way of teaching, and it's always such a sweet experience to see the realization and comprehension in their eyes. So incredible.

The other thing that I've been contemplating this week comes from my studies in Jesus the Christ. I left a commitment a couple weeks back to the zone to read Jesus the Christ, and after doing so realized that I hadn't read it in about a year. When I first came out, I read it three times through in about as many months, and then seemed to just set it aside, assuming that it had nothing left to teach me. Or maybe I was just too lazy to crack it open, either way, it hasn't been read in just under a year. So, I started reading again, and I started to remember some of the things that I discovered early on last year. One of which was the fact that we all have the capability of becoming as God, and the only thing that stops us is sin. Early on, it talks about the few sentences that we have pertaining to Christ's childhood and teenage years. It mentions that he grew from grace to grace, but that he still had to grow. He didn't just start out as the person that he was once he started ministering in the New Testament, he had to become that person. I thought of Nephi (one of the later ones) and a scripture that says he was ministered unto by angels daily. How awesome would that be. It all comes down to how clean we are willing to be, really. How much we are willing to do and how much we are willing to resist. If we could but work out the dark from our lives, then all there would be is light. Obviously none of us are perfect, and so we'll never be able to be as Christ was in this life, but we can sure try, and really the only thing stopping us is ourselves.

Aside from that, I don't have a whole lot else interesting to say. I hope everything is going sweet back home.
 Love Ya!

May 19, 2014

We've actually had some pretty crazy things happen this past week.

Elder Hopoate, who was one of the missionaries serving here in New Plymouth, is now up in Hamilton. He and his companion were riding down a hill last week and he wrecked on their way home. He ended up having an AC separation. I think that's what it's called. He basically tore the tendons that hold your collar bone to your shoulder. I think. So he got moved up to work in the Visitors Center at the temple in Hamilton, and we now have a new missionary in New Plymouth; with a pretty cool back story. He's originally from Australia, but served the last 8 months in the Ukraine. Apparently he showed up in the Ukraine at about the same time that all of the civil unrest started, so he spent most of his mission having to be really careful of where he was going and who he was talking to. They had a couple of lock downs, and some old empty missionary flats got broken into where the people were trying to kill the missionaries because they're westerners. Sounds pretty crazy. The guy even has an old gas mask from one of their investigators that took it off a special forces guy they beat up. How nuts is that? He got shifted into the mission about a week ago, and President was having a really hard time figuring out where to put him. They kept running through ideas but nothing seemed right. Then Elder Hopoate crashed and it all came together quite nicely. Not to mention the fact that President Rudd was already planning on coming down this past weekend for District Conference, so the ride worked out perfectly to get the two switched.

Needless to say, with the  stuff that happened, we ended up doing a lot of running around, and it seemed like, yet again, we weren't abel to spend enough time in our area. All good though. So long as nobody wrecks and hurts themselves this week, we should be set to just go out and get stuff done. I reckon I'm pretty satisfied though with how everything has been going. Even though we haven't been able to spend a hundred percent of our time working in our area, it seems as though when we do have a bit to get going, everything works out. People are home and we're able to teach some awesome lessons. Doors are opening and people are progressing, and that's what we're looking for.

Hopefully everything is going alright back home. It was awesome to be able to skype again. Now we just gotta wait another 8 months. And by then who cares, I'll be almost home! haha.
 Love ya!

May 5, 2014

I'm not actually sure that I have a whole lot to talk about this week.,,,

Last week we only spent a moment or two working in our area. We were in Hamilton from Sunday night to Wednesday evening. Then on Thursday one of the other missionaries in our flat got sick, so I went with his companion to do some work in their area. Then on Friday my companion got sick, and we ended up sitting at the flat almost the entire day, except for when we went and helped one of the members paint the front of his house. After which my companion was pretty much done, so we went back to the flat and he conked out. He was pretty happy that I had some NyQuil still, so that was good. Turns out this country doesn't have much stuff like that. They do, but it's not nearly as affective, so I've been treating the stuff like gold, hence, the reason I still have about half a box left. So, long story short, we got to do work in our area together Saturday and Sunday. Needless to say, we're hoping to have a choice week coming up here, if only the weather will decide to cooperate. Though, that's not too important since we have a car. I'm pretty happy I ended up with a vehicle right as we're coming into winter.

It feels weird to know that it's getting sunny and awesome over there and it's getting cold and rainy over here. Mt. Taranaki actually has a bunch of snow on it, so that looks pretty awesome. I keep having memories come back of last winter. Crazy to think that I've already been out here for over a year; the past year pretty much flew by, and apparently the second goes even faster. So I guess we'll see what happens.

I'm pretty stoked to be able to skype for Mother's Day next week! Should be awesome.

Love Ya!