Week 8

Talofa! 

This week has been pretty fast! We started off with a day of service at the Auckland City Mission again and this time my group got to hand out food to the poor and the needy. It was a great experience it helped me realize how blessed we are to know about the gospel of Jesus Christ and how our Heavenly Father loves each and everyone of us no matter what has happened in our life. Serving others is a big part of the church and I've really come to enjoy it! If you look at it as helping children of God and not just work you will see all the blessings that come from it! Not only the blessing we receive but the blessings the other people get. In this case it was a meal and the smile they have on their faces makes it so much better! 

On Tuesday we had district council to set our goals for this next month and that was fun! I'm still getting a little confused on the numbers part but I'll get there. Since Elder Baasansuren is the district leader we participate in the goals for the zone as well so we help combine all the district goals and put them into the whole zone. That gets a little bit more confusing and since we did it over a conference call it made it a tad bit harder but we got it all figure out and we feel great with where we are as a zone and a district! 

We also went over to a members house to celebrate his birthday and we made brownies from scratch it was way fun! I love spending time with the members but we have to make sure we dont spend too much time there because some times we get caught up in the conversation and spend too much time there and then have to catch up with the rest of the work haha. But it's been way fun to get to know the members.

On Thursday we went and visited a less active member and he talked to us about his mission and a little bit on why he's a less active now but let me tell ya the spirit was so strong when we talked to him. We told him that no matter what happens in our lives our Heavenly Father loves us and wants us to be happy and to return to him some day and that the Atonement can and will help with everything in our lives! We told him that we care about him and love him and that Jesus Christ knows his trials and pains he just needs to go to Him. We invited him to church and sadly he didnt show up but we know he felt the spirit and that God does love him. It was a great discussion!

Friday was kind of a let down we had 2 appointments get dropped but we kept on doing the work we went tracting for most the day. But on Saturday we had a service at the elementary school in Massey. It was way fun to work with the other elders and sisters in this stake. I love all of them and the examples they are to me. We than went on a district blitz. Which is when all the missionaries in the district go to one area and door knock. It was awesome we got two new potentials and they have heaps of good questions about the church! I'm excited to get to go and talk to them! 

Sunday is always fun! I love going to church and getting to listen to the members talks. The members here are so amazing and loving! And the most important part is the sacrament. It's such an amazing opportunity we have to partake of the sacrament and I hope you all know how blessed we are to have it.

That's all I have for this week and this next week on Wednesday is the start of my 2nd transfer so that is pretty exciting. Elder Baasansuren and I dont expect to go anywhere but you never know! I hope you all have a great week and look for opportunities to serve Gods children!

Alofa atu!

Love,

Elder Wilding 

Week 7

Kia ora again!

This week flew by and it was pretty fun! We did heaps of tracting again Tuesday and Wednesday so nothing really went on those days.  Thursday though we had Zone conference and man was that great! I got to see just about all my MTC intake elders! We had some training from Elder and Sister Nattress from the 70 and he is awesome! the Training was like 4 hours but was so worth it! i loved being there and didnt really want to leave haha. Meeting up with all my friends was  so great. hearing how they have been doing was such a boost for me and got me excited to see what we all can do! 

We have been trying to meet with some people to teach but becuase of them working or us getting too busy and having to change our plans we havent been able to meet with them.  The people here are always so busy and we never know when we will be able to catch them when they are home.  We stopped at Renada's house about 4 or 5 times, who is the lady that saw us while we were walking the streets and told us about her daughter needing to be baptized, she was never home when we stopped by and we dont know when we will ever get to talk to her again.

So since we have phones now we have to move all the area book stuff onto an app on the phone so we have spent many hours a day transferring names of people that were taught for the last 10 years. It has been a huge blessing to have these phones but it really sucks having to do all this area book stuff cause it takes heaps of time! when this is all done I'll be so happy cause man its so boring haha.

Friday and Saturday was busy with tracting again and we went to small island that is in our area. it was pretty cool (sorry no pictures haha i'll have to get some next time we go) But heaps of tracting and talking to people. We handed out our first Book of Mormon in a few weeks so maybe we will have another person to teach! im pretty excited to see if that person actually was interested!

Today was Zone P-day and we played capture the flag and touch (rugby). It was way fun to meet more people in my Zone. I love my zone it was way fun! we ate heaps of food too haha. 

sorry this was a pretty short email but nothing else really happened this week haha. and sorry i suck at taking pictures so there isnt that many this week and i forgot to take some during zone Pday haha. 

Have a great week everyone and I love you all!

Love, 

Elder Wilding

Week 6

Kia ora everyone!

This week has been pretty good! On Monday you already know we went to another beach but when Pday ended we went tracting at 6 and while we were trying to decide where to go to knock doors we were walking on the sidewalk and a car drove by us but quickly stopped and backed up to us. The lady intoduced herself and said she has been looking for us for a long time! She is part of a less active family and her brother served a mission and convinced her to find missionaries to start teaching them. She has a daughter that is 14 that hasnt been baptized and the mother wants us to talk to her and teach her about the church.  It was the best thing that could have happened to us! we have been pretty discouraged with door knocking after not finding people. So we will be talking to that family soon this week! I'm so excited for that! But our amazing blessings from Our Father doesnt end there!

I cant remember if I mentioned this but we got a referal from one of the mission home elders and we went to go visit her on saturday. Her name is Meriana. She has had missionary discussions before and has wanted to get baptized but doesnt know which church to join becasue she has been to many different churches. But we talked to her and she is super excited to talk to us and to learn more. She has family members that are members of the church so hopefully that will help her find out that this is the church for her and it will bless her so much! We invited her to come watch conference with us and she quickly accepted but sadly she sent us a text sunday morning and said that something came up that made her have to miss out.. I was pretty diappointed but its okay we will get her to come to church some other time when she is comfortable with us. 

On wednesday we had exchanges with the Zone leaders and that was really fun and i learned so much from Elder Salmon. Those of you that are friends with me on facebook probably saw the post with him and I knocking doors and talking about conference. He taught me so much about talking to people on the street and giving me the confidence that i needed. talking to people on the streets and while door knocking has been much easier since then! I'm so greatful for him and his Knowledge. We even found new people of interest that the Chinese missionaries in this zone can teach! You guys dont know but finding people to teach for the Chinese missionaries is super rare and one missionary can have an average of 1 or 2 baptisms for their whole mission and they will be excited for having someone new to teach!

Thursday we had meetings with our Mission president. President Walker is one of the best talkers I know! her can motivate anyuone to do whatever they desire. it was so great to talk to him and talk about what has been going on and if we needed any help. Im convinced that Pres. Walker will be in the 70s someday and I hope to see him talking in conference someday!

Friday was pretty long. It rained just about all day so we couldnt do much tracting. so we went driving to visit some less actives and some old referals that popped up on our phones when we got the area book on them. they didnt turn into anything exciting mustly empty houses and sometimes there wasnt even a house at the given address... but we kept on trying and we know we will be blessed for our efforts. 

Saturday and Sunday was AMAZING! We spent must of both days at the stake center watching conference! The talks were so great! I hope all of you guys enjoyed them as much as I did. They are definitely trying to prepare us for the 2nd coming and i hope all of you are doing the best you can to do so! it is coming a lot faster than i think some of us expect! This can either be super exciting to you or a wake up call haha. As i mentioned last week everybody already knows about the temple coming to Auckland and I got to experience first hand the excitement that all the people here have. with the closure of the Hamilton temple the members here have been pretty sad and now have to fly to Australia to go to the temple. This announcement has added comfort to all their hearts and I'm so happy for them! Now i have two temples to come back and go through! I'm so excited!

Well that is all for this week. I hope all of you loved conference and will continue to study the talks given so you can continue to learn and prepare fo rthe 2nd coming! i love you all and love hearing from you guys so dont be afraid to send a quick email my way! have an amazing week and stay safe!

Love, 

Elder Wilding

Week 5

Hello everyone! This week has been super crazy! We started of with doing service at the Auckland City Mission which is a project to help the poor and the homeless.  most of the missionaries there handed out food. My companion and I priced some donated clothes and hung them up so people can go in there and buy them. It was pretty fun we spent just about all day there helping them move stuff and set up to sell and give out stuff to the poor it was great! Its been awesome to get to know more of the missionaries in the area.  i met a missionary from Malad that goes home this December and he knows Austin and asked how he was doing. we also talked heaps about idaho and life back home.

Wednesday was a pretty sad day... one of the sister missionaries has a stomach disease and had to go home because of fighting illnesses and depression from being sick all the time so we through her a little surprise gathering and gave her some gifts to help her out with her hard times... Sister Ericson lives in Utah and absolutely loved being here it just wasnt what our Heavenly Father had in store for her and she knows that she needs to be home for a reason. Other than that we spent heaps of time trying to find new people to teach. Its been really slow with finding people but I know we will find someone to teach if we keep trusting and having faith!

Thursday was pretty fun, since Elder Baasansuren is the district leader they had a big meeting so i spent the day with Elder Faatoatoa who is serving in the Samoan ward and he talked to everyone in Samoan and I didnt understand anything haha. But he had a huge miracle!! He recieved a referal from 3 years ago and we went to their home and they talked for about 10-15 minutes and he committed a family of 10 (all non-members) to go to church yesterday and that was a huge accomplishment for him and his companion. Even though i had no clue what they were talking about the Spirit was so strong and was an awesome experience!

Friday we spent just about the whole day talking to less active members and trying to walk the streets to find new people to teach. Nothing else really interesting went on that day haha

Saturday was pretty long haha we went and helped the sisters with a service and i cut down a 5 inch tree with a shovel haha... Im sure you can guess how that went... it took about 10 minutes or more. and then i used a little hand saw to cut down even more trees in there yard that they no longer wanted. My arms were so tired after cutting down their forest haha. i probably couldnt have lifted my hand to hand out any Books of Mormon even if i tried! To talk to people we tried using a survey method but apperently people here dont like to take surveys so that didnt really work haha

Sunday was awesome! Since we dont watch conference until next Saturday and Sunday we had fast sunday this week and the members in this ward have  the strongest testimonies! Testimony meeting was so great and I didnt want it to end! The members are so nice and will do anything for us its great!  

I hope everyone had a great conference week end and loved hearing all the new and exciting changes to church but SSSHHHHHHHHH dont spoil them for me!! I'm a week behind but ive been Told about two changes.... 2 hour church and a TEMPLE IN AUCKLAND!!! thats so exciting and i cant wait to come back here and go through both of the temples here! 

 

Love 

 

Elder Wilding

 

oh and ... 

 

Today we went to the Piha Beach for our District P-day and man is it so beautiful here and the water is so clear! The sand is black in some areas because of the volcano eruptins from years and years ago and it just adds to the beauty of the beach! The two other elders with us are the Zone leaders and they are so awesome and kind of just invited themselves to come with us because they knew how awesome the beaches are haha. Our district is really small with a now trio for the sisters and then Elder Baasansuren and I are the only elders but we have a lot of fun so thats great! Zone P-day is coming up this next week or the week after and that should be super fun! i hope you all like the pics of the beach and the big rock we climb I know I sure Loved it and hope you guys arent too jealous;)

 

Week 4

Hello Everyone! It has been one CRAZY week! we went to the Muriwai Beach and let me tell ya it was beautiful! They have black sand beaches here and they look amazing! My companion and I spent a few hours there it was great! New Zealand is as beautiful and green as you would expect.  We went to a families house Monday night and had dinner and family home evening with them. they were a great family. the oldest boy is less active now and the parents want us to help him out. He is 22 and didn't serve a mission and because of that a lot of the members kept asking him why he didn't go and he got tired of people bugging him and judging him for not going so he stopped coming to church.. kinda a sad deal but he is a great guy!

We had District Council on Tuesday and spent most the time figuring out how all of this paper work and setting goals for the month stuff works haha. Since our mission has allowed us to use phones we have been spending a lot of time trying to get all of the phones set up along with facebook.  We did some door knocking and you gotta love it when you get door after door slammed in your face haha

Wednesday we spent all day driving and having a zone meeting to go through rules and guidelines for the phones.  Auckland traffic is NOWHERE near the traffic you see in Idaho so that has been pretty crazy to drive in all that.  But I'm definitly blessed by not having to walk or bike everywhere until i get transferred that is haha. 

Thursday was pretty crazy. Even though it was my birthday (thank you to all that wished me happy birthday by the way I love you guys!) we spent most of the day walking around the bus stops trying to find people that were interested in our lessons. we didn't have any luck but that's okay we will find someone eventually. I know that Heavenly Father will bless us with all that we are doing. Thursday night we had a dinner with an amazing family! the dad is a body builder so you know he fed us very well! haha.  I wasn't going to tell them about my birthday but then one of the boys who is 10 asked me how old I was so I had to tell them i turned 19 that day haha. but they were awesome they gave us icecream and sang happy birthday to me. It was the best thing I've ever experienced out here so far haha I love the ward here. the members are so nice and will do anything for us. 

Friday was pretty fun. we spent the day talking to members and less actives trying to invite them to come to the ward fiesta Friday night.  Mexican food in New Zealand is a little different but still good if anyone was wondering haha. but the fiesta was really fun and we talked to the Bishops Daughters friend who had a lot of questions about the old testament and a few about the Book of Mormon. she is trying to learn everything way too fast and just needs to focus on the basics for now and that's what we told her and she seems to be doing a lot better now.

Saturday was awesome! we went to another ward and did missionary exchanges with the youth and the YSA ward. it was so cool to go out and door knock with the kid I got.  he is 14 years old and wasnt scared at all to knock on some random persons door and sometimes he was even better than I was at talking to the people. he reminded me how excited I was to come over here and serve the Lord and how fun it can be to go door knocking even if you aren't successful at all. He reminded me about staying in a good mood even when nothing good is happening that day. Ever since then I've been in a lot better mood and look forward to when we go talking to random people. The ward even fed us and man am I blessed with some amazing food! 

That was pretty much what we did all week nothing too crazy but I've learned heeps about staying in a good mood and being positive! I'm starting to get in a groove and feeling comfortable.  Its been going kinda fast if I'm being honest haha But thanks again for all the people that wished me a happy birthday and all those praying for me I can feel the love even when I'm so far away! I hope everyone is doing great and i pray for you all! I love you guys and have an amazing week!

Love, 

Elder Wilding