A Great Week

Kia Ora Family,

Things have been awesome this week. We've seen a lot of ups and downs for sure. I was in a three-some for a while, but now it's just me and Elder Sharkey from Orderville Utah. We were able to set two baptismal dates with a couple of our investigators that have been to church 2 weeks in a row, so I'm stoked on that. There's this lady were teaching that had a baptismal date for the 5th, she seemed to have been doing so good and progressing so well, then we show up to her house to make sure church was all good, then she says that things are going to fast, that she doesn't feel like going to church, and that she wants to slow down. It was a huge let down. I jumped back on my bike thinking in my head, why can't I just baptize a cool family, why do all these people keep bailing out? How come all the missionaries in south america just baptized whole familys? Then my companion and I kicked ourselves in the butt and started thinking positive again as we rode to another investigators house named Hinemoa. She was progressing really good but she missed church 2 weeks in a row, then we invited her again, and we didn't think that she would really show up. But we rode our bikes to her house anyways just to see if she'd be up for it and keep the commitment. She answered the door all ready for church and said that she was just about to head over. ME AND MY COMPANION WERE SOOOO STOKED! Our attitude completely changed and we we're so happy. We got back on our bikes and started to ride to church, when we were only a block down the road we see Hinemoa's boyfriend named Hoehepa that we had taught once. He had on a white shirt and everything and he runs out to the street and say's, kia ora bro!! i'm comin to churchhh!! Man me and my companion were so excited. I had to give a talk so I was on the stand, as I was looking out over the congregation I realized that we had 9 new investigators there, including one that we had never met before, that just showed up on her own. She has been reading the book of mormon everyday for a long time, she has her own that's all highlighted. She had been meeting with missionaries in the Auckland mission but moved down here and we never heard anything. She tried contacting the church trying to get our contact details but couldn't, so she found out the time of church by the internet and just came!

It was interesting to me to see how the Lord tried my faith before he gave me such a huge blessing. It was such an uplifting experience for me to see so many people the congregation smiling and loving the gospel.

Things are awesome though, I'm happy as. The weather is still hot, but it's been pretty cool lately. We moved our beds into the main room of our apartment where it has a cooler on the wall, so our room turns into a fridge at night, i love it. I've been riding my bike EVERYWHERE so I can lose enough weight to look similair to what I did before my mission. Love you all! See you in 6 months!