Week 37 - Pres. Nelson came to New Zealand

Kia Ora! This past week, actually 9 days, has been pretty crazy. I'll just start off from last Monday. As you all know we went fishing and sadly no one caught a single thing haha. It wasnt high tide so apparently that had something to do with it haha. After everything we had to take off for our area and do some shopping but elder Tuala was asked by another set of missionaries to help them teach a Samoan guy cause spoke pretty good Samoan and the other guy couldn't speak English very well. So we called president Walker and he allowed it but he wanted us to pick Elder Tuala back up after the lesson. Thing is we live an hour and a half away from where the lesson was and we had a very important family home evening back in our area. So we drove all the way to Wellsford had the lesson and drove all the way back passed whangarei to pick up our companion. We ended up staying the night at another flat cause it was too late to drive home. So we did sooooo much driving haha. Tuesday we had District Council and went to the zone leaders flat which is an hour passed whangarei to pick up some stuff and then back to our area. We did so much driving that day as well. Wednesday we were able to meet with a few less actives and one of them named Campbell made huge steps into coming back to church and wanting to move forward so that was so awesome. He was also able to get a ticket to go to the devotional with President Nelson! So that was awesome for him we are super excited and happy for him. Friday was pretty good. We had a really good lesson with a guy we are teaching on the Plan of Salvation and he was able to learn more about the spirit world and what could happen to his family. He was pretty happy about knowing how we arealways aloud to have a multiple second chances. He has taken a big step forward but we still have heaps to do with him. Saturday we had absolutely everything fall through sat that kinda sucked. Nothing too amazing that day. Sunday was stake conference and that was awesome. We had some great talks and I really enjoyed it. After that we went back to our area and taught a less active family we played this game with them and after about 20 times of us winning we were able to commit them to coming to church haha. It was a lesson on reading the scriptures and they have truly been trying to do so. It was an amazing lesson. We than drove all the way to Auckland to stay the night at a another flat for a zone conference the next day. Monday we had a zone conference with another zone and it was seriously so good! The APs gave an amazing training and than President Walker gave a training on working with members and helping them do the work as well. It was one of my favorite conferences. Tuesday was absolutely amazing. I cannot explain how strong the spirit was that day. We were up at 5 and at a Chapel by 6:30 preparing for the missionary devotional with President Nelson, Elder Gong and their wives! We were all standing on steps to get a big picture with him and as he walked in there was a huge smile on his face and he waved to all of us. We than took the photos and we were able to walk through and shake everyone's hand! Having been able to do that was such a huge blessing! Having looked into the eyes of the Prophet is absolutely beautiful. I'll never forget it. I cannot explain the spirit and love that we all felt. They than spent about an hour and a half talking to us and giving us advice on missionary work and what we can do to become better and enjoy it more. President Nelson gave such an amazing talk. Such an amazing experience I can't explain it! Later that day we drove all the way back to whangarei to watch the broadcast of his talk to the rest of New Zealand. Has gave such an amazing talk on some advice on what to teach our kids and how to raise them. It was great. He's such a funny guy and has such a great love for each and everyone of us. He left some powerful blessings upon us and the whole of the country. I love our Prophet! He was definitely called of God. We are so blessed to have him as our prophet and for the changes and advice he has given us. He also announced where the temple will be!! Redoubt road in South Auckland! Right by the MTC. What an amazing announcement. I'm so happy for the people here and love them so much! This week has been long but it has been absolutely worth every second. I'm so happy to be a missionary here in the Great NZAM. How blessed are we to live in a time where the gospel is so strong and worldwide. I love you all and hope you have a great week!

Week 36

Kia Ora! Man has this week been a crazy one. We started off the week pretty normal and enjoying ourselves and enjoying the work as a trio trying to get better and better and than we get a pretty big surprise! But I'm gonna start from Monday. Monday we was elders pday and it was decided that we would be going to go fishing, which sounded fun and all but it was 3 hours away from where we lived. So we would've spent half of the day driving to and from that so we decided to skip that and just hang out on our own. So Elder Rogers, Elder Leatigaga and I went to a beach and got some pics and played catch with a rugby ball. It was pretty fun and than we did our shopping and typical pday stuff and than did some relaxing. It was pretty good. Tuesday we had our district council and this week we had to do it over a video call so automatically it was harder to control and run the meeting. So after starting about 15 minutes late because of technical difficulties we finally got going and then about 30 minutes the wifi for every Chapel in our distrcit decides to cut out for 10 minutes haha. So district council was kind of a bust oh well we must move on haha. The rest of the day we tried to visit heaps of people. Members less actives and so on. We had a meeting with the branch president and discussed the work within the branch and it was pretty good. Work is moving. Slowly, but moving. Wednesday we had exchanges with the zone leaders so if you can remember they live just over two hours away from us so we had personal study and than took off for their flat. We show up and they had a service that went way over time which they didn't except so our exchange started late and so most of the day was gone. And so we finally got going than we got a call from the AP's. So from this call we found out that elder Leatigaga was getting moved from our area to down in south Auckland and that Elder Rogers and I would be getting a new companion for the trio named Elder Tuala. So normally on an exchange you stay the night at the zone leaders flat but because of the transfer we had to drive all the way back to our flat that night so Elder Leatigaga could pack. Great day of driving haha. Thursday we went half way to Auckland to switch companions and than back to our area to plan out the day and get to work. Thursday was heaps of trying to get to know the new Elder and work with members. Friday we had some weekly planning and got to know our new companion a little bit better so that was good. We did some tracting and tried to visit some less actives. Not too much success but all goods. Saturday we spent most of the morning helping with a mother's day breakfast. That was pretty fun and great to see how close the branch is and how we can all help each other. It was great cause they didn't eat everything so we got food haha. Sunday we went to church and ended up having to give the lesson in elders quorum and I had to lead that so that was fun. We did a lesson on the talk by President Oaks "Where Will This Lead" it was really good. Than we had a lesson with a less active and her family and found out that they have been trying to read the Book of Mormon Stories with the kids. It's awesome to see that she is trying to get more involved and into the Book of Mormon. We than drove to the zone leaders flat again to stay the night to go fishing for pday. We haven't been yet so ill have to let you know how it goes next time haha We had a good crazy week, and I hope the rest of you had a good one as well. Happy Mother's Day ay to all the Wonderful Mothers out there I hope you all got spoiled and continue to get spoiled as life goes on. You are all amazing! Ofa atu! Love, Elder Wilding

Week 35

Kia Ora Whanau! This week has been a pretty weird and different week. Some days felt like forever and some felt like 10 minutes long haha weird how the mission life works. But in the end we got 1 person to church this week so that's an improvement! Tuesday we had District Council as always it was pretty good this week and we got heaps of stuff organized and sorted out so that was good. We did some door knocking and not too much success but we did find one person that we might be able to follow up with some other time so that will be cool. We than had a lesson with Maasi and we went over the baptismal interview questions with him and was preparing him for his baptism that was supposed to be on Saturday but sadly it has to be moved all the way to June because of the mom having to work weekends and not getting work off.. So we decided to push it back that far so that the whole family could be there which is for the best! Wednesday was pretty long haha. We started off the day doing our usual driving around trying to visit people and our car brakes started to play up and make bad sounds so we decided to stop and check it out. Ended up calling the mission office about it all and set up an appointment for the car in Auckland for Friday. The rest of the day we were walking so that was great haha Thursday we were able to do a bit of driving cause we did a test drive for the car and things started to get better and than later the noises stopped so mustve been a rock or something who knows. So we got more work done and was able to make some less active visits and set up appointments for them later on. Friday we spent ALL day in Auckland walking around trying to find stuff to do while our car was in the dealership for 6 hours not even getting worked on until the last hour so that was pretty useless haha. Nothing else happened just driving and studies. Saturday we spent the whole day trying to visit some people that were found by last missionaries and trying to see if they were still interested or not. So we ended up doing heaps of driving to get all that done. Not too many people were interest or home so we ended up doing more door knocking. Sunday was pretty good. We had Maasi show up to church so that was great. We taught the youth during Sunday school and they were awesome. Super small class but it was fun and we played a few games after the lesson. It was fun. We were finally able to visit a less active family and the husband completely opened up to us and told us how he's trying really hard to come back and get back on track. So we will now be visiting him way more cause he says he needs help staying motivated and support. So we are excited for that family especially cause they have a 9 year old that needs to be baptized. So things look promising for them! Over all this week was pretty good. We have our typical ups and downs and you wouldn't think it but working with 3 missionaries rather than 2 is way harder cause we all want to be involved but sometimes it's hard to get everything to work out like that haha. Oh well the Lord knows we can do it so we must press on! I hope you all had a great week! I hope as things are getting warmer over there you all are enjoying it. As for the great New Zealand it's starting to get cold haha so here we go into my first winter! I love you all and hope you have a great week! Ofa atu! Love, Elder Wilding