Difficult Goodbye

Kia Ora,

MOM!!! I GOT YOUR PACKAGE!! THANKKKKK YOUUUUUUUUUUUUUU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! It was good. I enjoyed all of the contents about 3 or 4 weeks ago and I sure do appreciate it! I just totally forgot to respond to that question week after week after week! I think I just might make it to the end of my mission on the stuff that I have with me. My shoes are starting to wear a little thin. My underwear is luckily still white as day thanks to NAPPY SAM!!! My socks are taking a toll and I still somehow lose them all the time!

I think I remember the beginning of my mission receiving some of Elder Jackson Law's letters talking about the “4th QUARTER.” He made a good analogy how that's when I have to be working the Hardest... It’s weird that I am in the 4th quarter now. Also, speaking of which, come June 27th I believe my American driver’s license expires.  I have tried to convert to a kiwi one but for some reason my dumb AZ one is a class G graduated license.  The mission office said that from home you can upgrade my license so, Mom, I hope you don’t have a long list of duties to do, cooking duty.... dead guy duty (Nacho Libre reference)... Maybe it's time for you to get another duty??? Can you please send Dad in his free time to the MVD to upgrade my license? 

To answer some of your email, no I will not be watching the special broadcast today. I have to wait until Sunday at 6 o clock to watch it at the stake center!!! DARN IT!!!! I am sure looking forward to that! We didn't hear the topic but I have a feeling that it will be a call to action for members and missionaries! It's going to be SOOO COOL!!!!!!!!!!! Oh and hey Mom! Kevin Pearson came to one of our Mission Conferences along with Elder Christensen! HE IS THE MAN! We get to see him every now and again because he is in the South Pacific Area Presidency and even lives really close to President Lekias! 

But yeah, I am sad this day because last week we had to say goodbye to President and Sister Lekias. They did one last specialized training with us on Friday and they talked a lot about the new mission and answered all our questions about concerns and stuff like that. Then we sang “God be With You Till we Meet Again.” Sigh. I hadn't cried in a very long time and I honestly don’t get too worked up by goodbyes any more...  But that one was a little difficult. Life moves on though and I will have to make sure to befriend them on Facebook or something when I get back. 

So let's see what else happened this week... We have found HEAPS of part-member families and are still doing a lot of good. A lady was moved to tears who has been less active after moving into our area.  We reminded her of her baptism day and told her how she will be able to feel the spirit just as strong in her new ward, and that the relationships she makes there will become just as strong as she attends actively. 

A and J are still struggling a little bit but we went over yesterday to see if they were all good for church and they were good to go, but not only that.  They let us know they went the whole day without smoking one cigarette!!!!!!!!!!!!!! WHOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! I was so pumped because honestly I was starting to lose a little faith... We did everything—fasted, gave them blessings, taught the word of wisdom.  They are praying often and reading the Book of Mormon diligently, and they completely stopped buying smokes a month ago. They just have so many influences around them that drag them back it's hard to avoid it. So yeah I was pretty pumped to hear they finally went a whole day without smoking. 

We had some other pretty choice experiences. One was teaching Primary in our ward! It made me miss those awesome 9 year olds of mine! My goodness they are all 11 now! What the heck?! We taught them about baptism and the Holy Ghost; two subjects we are masters on! It was fun being back. I even made a little funny cut-out of a person with all these spaces that needed to be colored in and talked about how after we receive the Holy Ghost we need to feed ourselves spiritually every day or the Holy Ghost will leave!!! So we challenged them to read their scriptures, pray or do service, and when they do those good things they can color in one of the spots and we told them to bring it back next week to give to their teachers to show them how much you fed your spirit. 

We also had a great lesson with a guy named S.  He just married a lady with 4 kids who is attending our ward. He is funny. He says he is Methbyterian and it has been a little bit of a challenge to teach him... But the other day we brought bishop Bejerling to the lesson and we answered a lot of questions and stuff but we didn't really have a whole lot of organization and spirit and, finally it got to the topic of the priesthood and the restoration and Bishop just bore POWERFUL testimony of the restoration and the priesthood and how it has helped him as a father and you could tell it impacted S!!! So that was cool.

Other funny story, on Saturday we were driving down the road and we stopped to check our plans and figure out where we were going... and as we were sitting in the car we saw a cute little doggy walking down the street... so Elder Lamb opened the door and told the dog to come and it did! He petted it a little and then pulled it into the car at his feet, then lifted it up onto his lap and then gave me his camera to take a picture with him and the doggy... I was dying laughing but still managed to take the picture. Then he casually opened the door and let it out. Love him.

Anyway, sounds like everything is fine and dandy over there! Give me some of the temperatures for the upcoming week in AZ because I bet it will be a lot hotter there than in NZ. It's starting to hit the low 30's and 40's here... I DON’T LIKE IT!!!! But at the same time I think I can be grateful as well that I don’t have the heat that you do.

Love,

Elder Ward