October 19th

Hello family! 

How's everyone doing? 

Andy Snowdine is rocking it! We have a Come and See fireside every second month in this stake, and at the fireside investigators who have recently joined the church speak for 5 minutes or so! The purpose of the fireside is to bring nonmembers and have them hear testimonies from people who just recently joined the church, and who might have been in their same situation a few weeks earlier. Anyways, Andy spoke and all of Whangaruru came to hear him, and there were two really really wonderful investigators there. 

I conducted the fireside, and announced, "Brother Andy Snowdine from Punaruku ward will address us, after which..." and as soon as Andy got up, the first thing he said was, "My name is Andrew Snowdine, not Andy" haha, it was really funny. Ever since he has been learning about the church he has wanted to go by Andrew. He's so cool. 

We had a good week. We woke up at 4 am on Friday to drive a missionary down to Auckland who will be training a new missionary for the first time. The drive to Auckland is brutal, especially that early. I'm pretty sure I fell asleep on the way down, and I was the driver. Ha! 

I was talking to some other Zone Leaders at the meeting on Friday, and as I was it really hit me that I have been so very blessed to serve in Whangarei. There hasn't been an area that I have loved serving in more than this one, and this stake. There is just so much good! This is the only area where I have had the thought, "I'd like to live here someday." The people and the land and the community are all so great, and the happiest I ever been ever has been in this zone! 

There is a lot of great potential in our area, and the families we are working with are starting to progress. It's a little bit different missionary work because there are not many homes, and everyone is either a member, or less active, or have at least taken missionary discussions before and have family who are members.

We had interviews with President Balli around 2 weeks ago, and at interviews Sister Balli shared a study idea from Elder Bednar to take a new copy of the Book of Mormon and read it from beginning to end with a question in mind. I've been doing it, and it has helped my personal study become much more meaningful. 

Elder Larson is good as ever! We've been together for nearly 4 1/2 months, and it's been awesome.

Love hearing from you!