Wassup!
Sorry about the late email, technical difficulties lol anywho.
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| at the seminary weekend |
Man it's been something else down here. Tokoroa is straight lit, this small town about 45 mins from Rotorua is full of Islanders, mainly Cookies and then Samoans but it's beautiful and being small it still has a lot of major stores and stuff to shop around at. The ward is like family everyone is so close with each other, but I guess you can expect that from a small town. The activities that the leaders do are 100%, they go all out and think outside the box so it benefits everyone in one way or another.
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| with our investigator Tala at the seminary weekend |
Like this seminary weekend catch up that was done. I know back home it was just in a classroom writing and reading with some sports after, but not here lol. They had a sleep over at the school's library. It started Friday 4:30 pm and finished Sunday 8:00 pm and did various activities that helped them with catching up on their work. Everyone was split up into groups and most of the time they were reading and evaluating and then also some scripture mastery games as well as sports and everyone had some choir practice where they sang and learned songs from different Polynesian cultures, plus the feeds. Such a cool idea for the leaders to come up with as there was a big turn out. We also had 2 of our investigators there as well, Tala and PJ and seeing them learn and recite scriptures from the Book of Mormon as well as getting into the Gospel is amazing. Legit it was a great weekend and we were grateful to be apart of it, Sister Solomon (Seminary Teacher) and Bishop asked us to come along and help out with things throughout the day. So we were in and out of the school coming back when they needed us there and leaving when we had services and appointments. Man it was a good spiritual weekend and you can see it in the youth with their spiritual growth.
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| Seminary weekend |
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| with the Taupo Elder's: James and Villanueva |
We had our first District meeting which is now called District council and man it was a long meeting, took almost 3 hours because of all the changes with the new daily schedule and flat training and heaps of other things that President Cummings has set out and new "guidelines". I guess you can say there was a lot of questions that people had and also training and explanations from the STL (Sister Training Leader) and DL (District Leader). So changes in the mission and it was the opportunity to meet the rest of the District. It's pretty good I can say, miss my old district but I can tell this district is going to be good. We went mini golf last Monday which was fun, good time to get to know each other within the District.
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| Mini golf |
You'd think it would be a lot easier to catch people at home here compared to Auckland seeing that it's a small town but nope, kinda have that trouble here as well. A lot of houses visited yet only a few were home but hey, it's the few that make a difference. Met a less active Malcolm, because of a stroke it's a struggle for him to move his right arm and leg but mate he's an awesome lad and has so much love for missionaries. He invited us into his home and we talked, sharing stories and experiences getting to know each other and his love and testimony of the church has always been strong but we all have our challenges and sometimes even with the strongest of testimonies we can still fall short. We shared a message with him about trials and how overcoming them with the help of the Lord is 100000 times easier than doing it on your own and when you look back after overcoming those trials you will see how much you've grown as an individual. A nice simple message which he said was just what he needed to hear, that he was waiting and praying for someone to come and minister unto him. Literally every time I hear that, especially as a missionary, something always hits me. I know it's cause the Lord answers peoples prayers and watches over his people through us as members of this Gospel or just as people in general, which is why it's important to be in tune with the spirit so it can prompt you and even more important to listen and act on those promptings and not ignore them.
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| Elder Poloai and Elder Villanueva |
I definitely love being a missionary and doing the Lord's work, meeting so many people from different cultures, backgrounds and up bringing and learning from each and every one of them while they're learning from us (hopefully) lol, but yea being a missionary is literally the best thing you can do before getting married lol. Something I'd recommend everyone who has the fire to go even if it's a little baby one lol like my one was but here I am doing the Lord's work and can say how happy I am doing it.
Hope you guys enjoy the rest of the week,
Elder Purcell
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