Second Real Week - Letter Home

So this week I had my first baptisms! It was these 2 brothers, Zion and Kaya. They'd been going to church for 5 years but didn't want to be baptized until one of their friends died and that really shook them up. We've had 2 baptisms before, one a kid named Jacob and the other this guy named Junior who plays professional rugby but I hadn't ever taught them so It didn't really count.

Speaking of rugby, everyone plays it here. We play it most every p-day and it's okay but we only play touch and I hate that. I get really bored because there isn't much you can do to not get touched. We should at least play wrap up or something.

One thing that's been ticking me off about New Zealand is that everything seems to be backwards and I think they're just doing it on purpose. I already knew they drove on the left side of the road but that isn't all. If you flush the toilet it spins the opposite way. If you want to turn on a light you push the switch down. The plugs aren't parallel, they're crooked. Oh and every plug in the house or anywhere really has a switch you have to push DOWN to run the plug on. Lights bulbs aren't twisted out of sockets, I learned that when the bulb shattered in my hand. Instead they have prongs that slide like a quarter of an inch to hold it in place. Sinks have separate faucets for hot and cold water which means if you want room temperature water you have travel 7,000 miles back to the states to get it. It's infuriating sometimes.

There are some things that remind me of home. Little old white ladies are still afraid of dark-skinned men. To get a scholarship in school you have to be an islander cause if you're white they figure you can afford it. Parents still complain about their kids being on facebook and texting all the time. It's like America pretty much but everything costs twice as much.

So last week on fast Sunday My comp and I went to different wards cause we had investigators in both and they meet at the same time. Being alone, I got up to bear my testimony and basically introduced myself. There were tons of people nodding off or "pecking with the hens". Here's about what I said:

"If you look around you'll notice I'm flying solo today as my companion is no longer with us." I got some pretty weird looks at that. "I'll tell you why. When I first got here I was set on being the best missionary I could be and working as hard as I could. After a while with Elder Whaanga though I noticed my mission wasn't going to be like that. We started off okay but after a while I noticed we were leaving the apartment later and later and returning earlier and earlier. It got so bad that we were returning in the middle of the day so he could take naps. I finally realized that my mission was being wasted away by an elder who didn't want to work." At this point all the people who'd been nodding off were staring at me all wide-eyed. A lot of people were whispering back and forth and some people were outright scowling at me. I kept going. "One of these times as I was watching him sleep I just asked 'What am I supposed to do? Here I am, a greeny and my trainer is just lying here sleeping.' I grabbed my scriptures hoping for an answer and just let them fall open. The first scripture I came to was my answer." At this point I opened my Book of Mormon at the pulpit and read:

"And it came to pass that the Spirit said unto me: slay him, for the Lord hath delivered him into thy hands. It is better that one man perish than a nation should dwindle and perish in unbelief."

After I read my scripture the ward was laughing like crazy. Just to make sure they all got it I told them that I had to wash the blood from my sleeves before coming and then I saw a few that finally understood it was a joke. To save my skin I said I was joking, that Elder Whaanga was a great trainer and a hardworker and then bore a real testimony. It was a good ice breaker and people finally started asking what my name was and where I was from and stuff. This lady even asked me to come slaughter her husband. I'm just trying to get on good terms with the members here cause the vast majority of our baptisms come from them, 85% to be exact. President Porter calculated where all the baptisms come from so we could see how to work smarter and not necessarily harder. Of the remaining 15% only a portion comes from missionary tracting so whenever he hears a missionary brag "Man, I tracted for 20 hours last week" Pres. Porter calls him an idiot. We still do tract and talk to people on the street, which I absolutely hate and suck at but even for us the vast majority of our investigators have been referred to us by members.

Okay, I gots to go. I love you guys, and tell everyone else I love them too.

Elder Keifer or "E. Hibbskees" as I'm known to the youth in our ward.

First Real Week - Letter Home

Hola family and friends, wherever you all are! So I've been taking notes throughout the week so I remember everything I wanted to say.

First there's the food here. Everything here is crazy expensive, gas is $6 a gallon. Food's just as spendy but don't worry I have plenty enough. Instead of buying MY food and my comp buying HIS food, we just pitch in together. There's places here and there that we get free food too, I've gone to a Kabab place and a Fish n' Chips shop for free. My comp and I gotta find more. We have omelets pretty much every morning and top ramen for lunch most every day. I'm not complaining or anything, in fact it tastes so good! I guess I have the blessing of Lehi and his family- sure what I'm eating is junk but the Lord has made it sweet unto me! Oh, they have fast food places here but they're seriously twice as expensive as back home. I went to a Burger King and my meal was $10! I was looking for a dollar menu or something but everything on the "value" menu is $3 at least. It's actually really good though, the burgers look just like the pictures on the menu. Another weird thing about fast food in NZ- since the Maori people LOVE mayonaise they advertise their burgers as having more mayo than like McDonald's or something. There's pictures of burgers with mayo just oozing out, it's a little disgusting.

The one thing I probably miss most from back home is cold cereal. The cereal here stinks! They only have 100% whole grain healthy junk and no sugary kids cereal. My comp was tripping out when I asked if we had any cereal; apparently you only eat cereal here if you're trying to lose weight and I guess most every American he's been with asks for cereal. I've been craving fruity dino ites but dont send any mom and dad, its not worth $50 to send a bag of cereal.

As far as weather, we're at the end of summer here and the weather is really inconsistent. We've had rain one day and sweltering sun the next. I have a mean tan line from my watch.

The plants and stuff in New Zealand are pretty trippy. It's more jungley than forresty here. I heard that 80% of the plants here are exclusive to NZ, which is probably why everything nature like looks so weird.

It's not like I'm even in the jungle though. I'm in a suburb of Hamilton, where the temple is. If you want to check the place out it's at 42a Wake Street in Chartwell, Hamilton, New Zealand. It'd probably be easier to google Westfield Chartwell Mall and just look for wake Street to the just to the west. That's right, I have a mall sitting pretty much just outside my apartment.

Speaking of the flat as they're called here, it's like living in the McGlohn's house all over again. They're selling the place so we have to keep everything tidy all the time for when people come to check the place out. We're actually trying to use it as a missionary tool, we've strategically placed pictures and pamphlets all over the house to try and spark interest. Hopefully it'll work.

We already do have a lot of people to teach now though. We set everyone we teach with a baptisimal date early on so they realize what exactly they're working towards and a whole lot here stick with it. We just taught this lady for the first time yesterday and we got her from believing we were planted here by aliens anciently to believing she could recieve an answer to her prayers from God. It's cool guiding people from crazy beliefs to truth.

There's no way we could be as successful if it weren't for the members here. We can call most everyone and they'll pick us up and go to a lesson or they'll tell us about somebody who's ready for the gospel. There's a family in one of our wards, the Rototuna Ward, that had their 17 year old son just commit suicide. It hasn't even been a month and they're having us come teach 4 different people in their home. I know the culture may be different back home but we should have been better with the missionaries. President Porter gave us a statistic about new converts: 85% come from member referals and only 15% of new converts come from set apart missionaries. Our family as normal people have a way better chance of bringing people to the gospel than us guys on missions. The only difference is we do it all day, day in and day out.

Oh man, I forgot to tell you about probably the coolest thing that's happened on my mission so far. On our 1st day here we were taken directly from the airport ot the top of this landmark called One Tree Hill. It's this giant steep hill in the middle of Auckland with this obelisk at the top. From there I could see for miles and miles in all directions and I thought to myself "This is the land I will serve my mission!"