Week 17

Kia ora!

This week was pretty fun and crazy haha Monday was pretty good we went Christmas shopping sort of haha the malls were packed with last minute shoppers. We went with intentions to go buy ourselves stuff for Christmas but than basically decided that we will just save our money for better things later haha. Man the last minute shopping here is absolutely crazy though. They dont do black friday shopping like back home so the prices on stuff never really changes besides on boxing day. Boxing day is the day after Christmas and they have heaps of sales going on it's pretty dumb to have all the sales after Christmas. But as you would expect the traffic heading towards the malls was crazy packed haha. 

Tuesday was awesome! I loved being able to talk to the family. Its weird though haha. We spent the day visiting members and we went to the Prasads house for a bit until the Semu family called us and asked when we were coming cause apparently we were supposed to go to their house for lunch and dinner haha so we went there at 1 and had lunch than called the family it was great. After all that we just sat in the living room and talked with the family. We gave a short Christmas lesson before we left and than sang Silent Night in Maori it was pretty cool!

Wednesday we had a combined district council with the district next to ours because one of the sister companionships had a different meeting to go to at the office. So yea being the new district leader they made me do the training part of the meeting and man was I stressed out about it haha. I mean why should a bunch of missionaries that have been out for over a year be listening to someone who has been out for 4 months haha pretty crazy. But it turned out pretty good I guess I cant complain haha we than had calls with the rest of the leaders in the zone that night to set goals for the month of January that was pretty fun.

Thursday we did heaps of tracting and got invited to a baptism in the sisters ward for an 8 year old. The bishop wanted us to be the witnesses for the baptism and that was pretty fun. I love seeing people take that step in their life and see the joy on their face when they come out it's so amazing. We than had to drive 45 minutes to a dinner appointment and that was pretty good. We talked to them about a potential person we can teach and visit. If things all turn out good we will be having lessons with people soon. It's pretty exciting.

Friday we had weekly planning and did some family history. Its pretty fun when you get into it and start learning about your past. We did heaps of tracting and visiting less actives. Pretty average day haha.

Saturday we had companionship exchanges with the zone leaders and that was pretty good! I was with the newest zone leader Elder Cannone. He's only 1 transfer ahead of me and already a zone leader. He's the man. He taught me so much and has really shown me how I can improve. There is so much that I need to work on and he has helped me get started. We found some potential people for them and it was pretty fun. We were talking to people on the street and this Chinese 20 year old had two suit cases and I stopped him and asked him how he was doing and he replied quickly that he was lost and needed help finding a house. Long story short we got out our phones for a map and ended up walking this guy almost 2 kilometers to the house he was looking for and he was walking in the wrong direction. If we wouldn't have stopped him he wouldn't have found that house. The poor guy flew here alone and is still trying to learn English. It was so awesome that we were placed in that spot to help him. God really does care for all of his children.

Sunday was good we went to church and the Sorenson's were asked to bear their testimonies and than they told us how Brother Sorenson was called to be the 2nd councilor for the new MTC president at the New Zealand MTC. It was pretty cool finding that out. They are excited and ready to take on a new challenge in life. Pretty neat sacrament meeting. We than did some tracting and had dinner with the Patterson family. They are amazing! 

Over all this week has been pretty great and I'm excited to see how much I can change with being called as a district leader along with the commitments I got from the zone leaders. I'm really pushing to be the best I can. I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and have a happy new year! Have a wonderful week!

Ofa atu! 

Love, 

Elder Wilding