AWESOME Week!!!!

Dear family,

Sheesh! Mom and Dad, it feels like I have written way too many of these letters but really you guys have been writing them twice as long as me and still have quite a few more to go. J hahaha No breaks. Back to back to back. So thanks for always emailing me. It's cool you guys do that.

To answer some questions, Matt Devlin—I am shocked that he remembers me... That was ages ago! I am surprised. I don’t even remember watching The Other Side of Heaven with him, but obviously he remembers. That is pretty funny. Oh and Mom, that is totally fine by me. I don’t need anything for Christmas. Maybe it would be sweet if I had a combined Christmas and birthday when I get home??? Feel free to wrap up whatever Collin leaves behind that will still fit me... I am not sure if I have gotten any bigger or skinnier which is shocking with all the Massive Samoan feeds I have received, but even they couldn't break the Ward Family curse/blessing.

Well, Robby is home. Karson is coming home. Ryan Nelson is back. Sean Wade should be home pretty soon... All of Trevor’s friends are getting married. haha Well, at least all the guys are that happened to the girls before I left. J Time will never slow down will it?

Good job Dad. It sounds like things are really good in young men’s. Between you, Brother Aubrey and Brother Morris, you three coached a super team of awesome young men... Even guys that I thought wouldn't make it on a mission have made it. Give yourself a pat on the back and keep working at it because just like Edward Dube's mother said, don’t look back—we still got a lot of work to do.” Oh, and something must be terribly wrong. Mom informed me more about volleyball this week than you did!!!

So let me tell you what happened this week! I will start off by saying this week was AWESOME!!!

One of the foremost experiences was when I was sleeping and I had this dream... I think I was still a missionary in New Zealand because I was in the passenger side which was on the left side of the car... Anywho, it was dark outside and there were a lot of dark, low-hanging clouds. When I saw them I thought, "Oh shoot, that looks like a tornado forming." Then, next minute A MASSIVE tornado touched down in the street in front of us. Weird though. I wasn't really scared I kinda just felt at peace and figured it would be okay. God would protect us... Then we drove straight into this tornado and as we passed this thick wall of gray there was a big light shining above our heads over the car. Everything kinda just slowed down and I tried to look up to see where that light was coming from, but then we passed through the other side of the tornado. I still looked back behind and the tornado was actually lifting back into the sky and the light was coming out from the bottom... As I kept watching some kind of angelic being came out and stretched his hand out after me and I just remember hearing “I baptize you in the name of the Father and of the Son....” And then I woke up completely overwhelmed by the spirit.  I knelt down and said a quick prayer and thanked Heavenly Father for letting me experience that. Then I went back to sleep... Later that morning during personal study I read a cool scripture. I think it is in Alma 26:5 where Alma is glorying in God and is happy over the people he converted and it talks about how they will avoid the storms and strong winds...

Other things that happened, we keep finding all these investigators. We found 31 in the past three weeks... That is no small task but a lot of these people are not doing the best at progressing or keeping appointments... Sooo we’re going to have to change something in order to have more success. I do a pretty sad job at working with members to find people to teach which isn't good because that is the best way to find people that are solid and ready to progress, so I will try to change that around. Trevor, do you have any good ideas for working with members? I have heaps that are keen to have us over for lessons with our investigators and family home evenings which we try to do a lot, but when we try to find people to teach through them I have been met with small success here in New Plymouth.

Also WE DID IT!!! Elder Rasband and I had an awesome lesson with a lady who suffers from post traumatic stress from all the abuse in her life... We taught a really powerful lesson and Elder Rasband invited her to be baptized on the first lesson. She said yes but she wouldn't commit to a date cuz she is leaving to Hamilton for 2 weeks. So we will wait till she gets back! Keep pressing on family! The Church is true and I love you!

Love,

Elder Ward