Things are really picking up!

Kia Ora family!

Wonderful to hear from you all again! Sounds like you all had a wonderful week spending time with one another! Must be great to be all together!

As for myself this past week was pretty good! We are starting to find some great success! We had some great things happen this past week!

Tuesday we has an amazing zone conference where elder hamula from the area presidency came and spoke with us. I'll just say that it was really incredible and has affected me so much as a missionary. I feel ever since that day my missionary efforts have been greatly improved. He mainly just spoke about how we really really need to believe in the Lord and trust Him and really believe miracles will occur. There was so much i can't even tell you everything haha. But a huge thing i learned was that I just need to overcome any fears i have and just put my faith in the lord and believe everything will work out.

We are working with some great people right now. We have been teaching this one woman named Jen who is awesome! On thursday we actually set her for baptism on the 2 of june! She accepted! She has really been doing her part in reading and praying, and just really loves the Book of Mormon. She prays before she reads and also after she reads. She tells us that she really feels that its true. On Sunday she came to church with us and it was actually a stake conference, a broadcast from Church headquarters specifically for all the stakes in New Zealan. Elder Bednar spoke and it was fantastic. She really loved it. Its so great because afterwards she had all these people keep coming up to her and talking with her. Turns out she knows heaps of members! She knows more of the members than we do haha! Its great though she is coming along great!

Tia and Likresha are two other investigators we have been working with as well. Tia is one of those investigators who has just been so prepared and we dont really have to do anything haha because she is so ready. She already believes the book of mormon and church is true, the only thing holding her back from being baptized asap is chuch attendench. She only needs to come one more time and she qualifies! She's been coming so far and really loves it, she always says that after church she just feels so uplifted. She is golden! She's actually set for the 2 of june as well! Likresha is her stepdaughter and we've recently started teaching her along with tia. She is a really nice girl. Has no religious background whatsover so we've really had to take things slow with her and help her understand everything. We got her to pray for the first time after one of our lessons and it was so awesome. The spirit was so strong as she said such a humble prayer to heavnly father, it was a marvelous experience. She's looking good for the 2 of june as well!

We even have one more investigator who is awesome as welll! Her name is amy, and she has been coming to church with her boyfriend, who is LA member returning, for the past 2 months! When i found this out, i asked myself why hasnt she been baptized yet? We finally had a chance to catch her and have a lesson with her to find out whats going on. We asked her how she felt about baptism, and she just told us that she doesnt feel ready yet. In my mind i was really really puzzled, asking how is this possible after she's been coming to church for like 2 months now. So we asked more and more questions but we just couldnt get anywhere with her, then the prompting came to my mind to ask her if she believes joseph smith was a prophet. I asked her and she paused and answered well not really, then i asked her about reading the book of mormon, and it turns out she hasnt really read any of it nor prayed about it yet. Boom, concern found! I was so happy when we finally found out the concern, and it was as simple as her not finding out if the bofm is true yet. So we committed her to start reading it and praying about it. I was baffled that the last elders teaching her somehow skipped this or just didnt emphasize it. I am totally confident that she will recieve and answer and feel ready for baptism!

So things are really picking up here in swanson, we have some great people coming out of the wood work and are just chugging along. I love what you were saying mom about how we really are going to have to rely on the spirit. That truly has been the case. I've been praying so much more and really looking for promptings on where the lord wants me to be, and it has led to some great people. I really love how the holy ghost works. whenever we receive a prompting, we never really know 100% if its a promping from the holy ghost. Its only when we act upon the promptings and we see the end result to we realize that it was the holy ghost that prompted us to do a certain something. In the moment of the prompting we never will be 100% sure if its from the holy ghost, but thats where faith comes in and we go along with what we feel inspired to do and find out that it was from God.

On Friday my companion and i were greatly blessed! We were blessed with a car!!! Yes we have a car! I'm still not to this day sure why we were given a car, but believe me i'm just gonna go along with it and not question why but enjoy it while it lasts. I must say it really has helped a whole lot though. We still use our bikes some days though whenver we dont have any appointments, that way we can talk to more people on the street. Its a great blessing though because its actually getting pretty cold here. At night it gets cold, and its wonderful to have a car to keep us warm.

So even though the first week and a half were pretty rough, things are really picking up and looking good. Our next objective is, like you were saying mom, to get the members involved! We are going to be visting them this week and find out where their stance is on missionary work, becaue right now it looks like its not the highest prority in their lives. I'm excited to see what happens!

Yesterday, we had stake conference, and it was really good like i was saying. Elder Bednar had an amazing talk about not only having a testimony of the gospel but being converted. He said something very interesting and powerful, he said with what lies ahead a testimony of the gospel will not be enough for us to rely on. He spoke about how we must be converted if we truly are going to make it. Conversion is really what we need to be aiming for. And conversion does not come all at once, but line upon line, precept upon precept. When we are converted, it is to have a deep devotion to the savior, and really live they way he wants us to live an be the way he wants us to be. We can't be going through the motions, but really need to be living the way a disciple of christ would live.

Well I love you all so much! Thanks for the pics, i loved them! I hope you all have a great week, and i will talk to you in a weeks time!!!!

Love,
Elder Rawlinson


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