Loving it!

Sunday, November 20, 2011 


Kiora Family!

Well another week has gone by here in NZ! I'm glad to hear everything is going good back home and i love the new/old pacifica, it looks great!! I'm glad to hear that you are all going to have an awesome Thanksgiving!! Unfortunately here in NZ they don't have anything like that so i will be missing it this year :( But its all goods, the members usually feed us pretty good here anyway! Thanks again for the updates on football! I miss it a lot but its all good, i'm doing what i need to be here! Mom, i'm glad to hear the calling is going good! As a missionary its unbelieveable how much i have learned to rely on the spirit! The biggest thing missionaries need to do is be obident to have the spirit! the spirit for me is really the key to everything, if i dont teach with the spirit than i am nothing.

This week was pretty good! Jam full of stuff! On Wednesday i got to go to the orientation for new missionaries. A new transfer of missionaries from the MTC came in and i got to meet them all. We spend the whole day with the mission president and his wife in the mission home. It was great, president lekias is an awesome president. He has a very strong testimony and is a great leader. Sister Lekias is also a great person. She is so nice, and  reminds me of you mom because she is always so happy and smiles all the time haha. But i love them both, and really got the chance to get to know them better at the orientation thing. I also met a lot of the new elders and they are awesome! It was nice to meet other new missionaries haha. I learned a lot and it just strengthened my testimony so much!!! It got me more pumped up to be a missionary!

So the next day came and i was reunited with my companion! Now i'm in normal companionship for the first time since the MTC haha! Its actually really nice to be back to normal again. My trainer is great though, he is a really humble guy and we work hard. This week i've really been working on what we call Preach By the Way here in the mission. That pretty much means we talk to as many people as we can, anyone we see at any time, about a restored truth and bear our testimony. Its been tough but i'm doing farily well now, i just put my faith in the lord and go and do it. One problem we run into a lot over here in NZ is that people just tell us they are already christian and dont need to hear our message. This happens all the time! So i've really been trying to get into people's heads that we are different, our message is unique. I'm going to work on trying to be more bold and proclaim that is is Christs one true gospel in these latter days. Boldness is a very hard attribute to aquire, but i desire it, and have prayed that the lord would help me be more bold in sharing his message.

Since being out here i've already witnessed miracles! The lord truly does soften people hearts!! This weekend we baptized these 2 teenage boys, Elazaye and Trevon. Their dad is member thats returning. Their family is massive! I really am not sure how many kids they have, because its just crazy evertime we go over there haha. But the boys got baptized, but no one else in the home was really interested. The mom, Sis Whetu is really nice but always would ask us the weirdest questions, and was always trying to trip us up, she wasnt really ever intrested. So the baptism came and went and on Sunday they got confirmed. After sacrement meeting, the mom all of the sudden pulled us aside, we thought she was mad at us because of something, but she just told us, "hey elders i want to be baptzied, and so does my other 19 year old son". We were both just astonished! I'm not sure what changed her mind, but i guess i do, because the lord somehow softented her heart and she now wnats to be apart of our church. I think she just really felt the spirit in sacrament meeting that day and saw how happy her two boys were and really felt in her heart that it was true. It was pretty cool to witness that, i'm still just amazed. Also on that same day, we were walking home and we ran into the grandma on the street who is also a nonmember and was at the baptism for her grandsons. We talked to her and she said she was really happy that both her grandsons were baptized but wasnt interested. She was nice but said she's got her on religion. So we said goodbye and moved on. Later that night we called Sis. Whetu to get some details about something, but she randomly told us that her mom, the grandma, told her that she wants to be baptized too. We both again were just like what the heck!! Somehow we were able to help that woman by running into her on the street, i dont know what we did but the lord changed her heart and she wants to join as well!

So its just amazing how the lord changes peoples hearts and softens them! Anyway, thats my weekly miracle. I better get going! I love you all so much and miss you! Keep sending the emails! Believe me there are times where its hard, but i just push through and really grow from those experiances, we truly do grow through our trials, anywho, guess i'll talk to you next week! Love you all!

Love,

Elder Rawlinson