The Gospel Brings Families Closer Together

Dear parents...

Assuming the rest of the family won’t be there to receive my letter, I guess this is just more for you. Boy am I happy that you guys aren't dead yet. Those roads in Nicaragua sound dangerous! In NZ the roads are generally safe because even when people get in accidents the usual speed limit is 50 KMH which I think is about 35 mph. Mom would probably get lots of tickets here. ;) I'm not really too worried about Trevor because the Lord protects his missionaries. :) I joke around from time to time that we can jump out of airplanes without parachutes, but I don't think I will try that one. Keep praying and I forgot to mention the whole fam is on the prayer roll in the Hamilton, New Zealand, temple pretty cool aye?

So just yesterday a missionary named Elder Taotua, a Samoan who actually just returned from his mission, spoke in our sacrament meeting. Before sacrament meeting, he passed by and I shook his hand and boy it sure was easy to tell that he had served as a missionary, but not only that, but I could tell right away that this Elder had served a very honorable mission. 3rd hour was combined and we watched Elder Bednar’s 3 part series talking about LIGHT on Lds.org. Go watch the video. It's sooooo good! Anywho, I went and talked to Elder Taotua and I just let him know that I could tell he served a really good mission. I also asked him if he knew my friend Dalton Brough. He said "Elder Brough!!" He spoke really highly of him and I tried to figure out how he knew him but he was too humble to let me know that he was an AP for the Adelaide, Australia mission. I know that when you get to go give Trevor a big fat hug and talk to him all the way home, you will be able to feel that same light coming from my awesome brother. :)

So what is there to tell... This week we had an awesome lesson with a lady named Tania and we had a guy named Pita King come out with us. The Houia/King family I have probably mentioned in the past but they were baptized a year and a half ago and missionaries have been coming over ever since. They have 19, 21, and 25 year old sons who have a ton of time on their hands, so we usually have one of them come out with us almost everyday. Anyway, Pita is the 21 year old and he was with us when we had a lesson with this lady, Tania. She is afraid to get baptized because she is afraid it will hurt her family. Pita jumped in and asked, "can I share my conversion story with you?", and he talked about how when he moved back home he didn't even recognize his family (who had just been baptized a couple months earlier). They were just happy and got along with each other which never happened in the past. Then he bore powerful testimony that the gospel brings families closer together while on the brink of tears. After the lesson, he realized what that true kind of happiness really is…. He said, "You know I really want to go serve a mission now". That made my really, really crappy week a whole lot better! :)

Dad, thank you for your advice with prayer. I will have to let Kanahana know about that. She is progressing well. We were going to have her baptized on the 13th of October but that's actually our general conference weekend, so we had to push it a week back to October the 20th along with her son, Miami, and little girl, Kaniehana.

So, I got some crazy news! This is kinda just going to be one big cliffhanger, but my companion is going home today. He is getting picked up by the AP's at 3:00pm. My new companion's name is Elder Fal'e. I definitely just had the worst week of my mission. The spirit was pretty much gone... I felt completely alone as I taught Kanahana and then again while I read the BOM with a less active member, and at other times throughout the week.  NOT what you were expecting, huh?! I am happy though cuz I’m back to my old cheerful self and I will let you in on more details next week... for now I got to do emails to PREZ

Love you guys heaps,
Elder Ward