and now for this week

This week was pretty good. We had 2 baptisms, 1 a 12 year old girl named Zhontee and then a 9 year old named Izana. Both were really really smart and blew the zone leaders away during their interviews. Whoo hoo! Those are m'girls! I got to baptize lil Izana, hence why I'm in white in the picture. Both are from less active families who aren't coming back to church but both said they wanted the blessings that baptism brings. We're using Zhontee as a member missionary tool already and we'll be teaching her friends soon. Suh-weet!

I can't believe I forgot to mention this last week but I did so I'll say it now.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY DAD!!!

Did you guys do anything? Hopefully you had cake at least. The cake mixes here stink compared to back home, not even worth buying. Lately I've been finding a lot of stuff not worth buying. Oh well, everytime I do I get a little wiser and will save money later. The other day I made burgers for my comp and I and he thought they were the greatest things ever. All I did was mix some onion with the ground beef but he thought it was crazy good. I think the reason is cause everything's really bland here. People set out hunks of potato, pumpkin and kumara to eat with like nothing on them. Kumara is like a potato but grosser. Oh, after Zhontee's baptism we went over and I had my first hongi! Hongi is when they cook the meat in the ground. As cultural as it is, it's gross. There's no barbeque sauce on it and loads and loads of fat. The whole thing tastes like an ash tray. I wish I could take Elder Whaanga to just 1 of our barbeques, have him taste Dad's ribs nd see what he thinks of it. I think people here tend to stick with more cultural stuff then tasty stuff. Hmmm, I think it's time they wisen up and start importing some Sweet Baby Ray's.

Hey is it conference weekend there? We have it the following week because if they broadcast it live here we'd be watching it in the early early morning Sunday and Monday. Tell me how conference is and what talks to look out for next week.

One last thing, could you guys get me Nate, Cameron, the Pace's and the Dayleys addresses for me? Like old brother Dayley in Camas now. That would be sweet.

Okay, I love you guys! Kristine, you better start emailing me! What's you email address? You have friends in New Zealand waiting to send you stuff!

Okay, now I'm really done. Love yous!

Elder Keifer (or for the kids Elder Big Bird cause it's easier to say)

Kia ora whanua!

Kia ora whanua (pronounced key ora fawn-ah-oo) means hello family in Maori. The pronunciation of everything in Maori is pretty much like Spanish except for some reason "wh" makes the fffff sound like "ph" does in English.

Anyways, this week was alright I suppose. We have been a little slack on using our time effectively which makes me cringe when I think about next months success. We also had a couple baptisms fall through which really stinks cause that usually doesn't happen, at least it hasn't for me yet. We did however have a baptism this Saturday which was really awesome. It was this girl named Tawera who's come from thinking about suicide to being surrounded by loving and supportive friends. At the baptism her sister then came up to us and told us she was ready and wanted to be baptised too. Sweet! She's now set for April 6. I just hope the rest of her family will open up as well.

There's this other investigator of ours who's name is Zhontee. I think she's the best investigator anyone could ask for. Whenever I feel like garbage and need a pick me up I can always go to Zhontee's and be 100% better. She's just so ready for the gospel and soaks everything up like a sponge. In Sunday school last week she was answering all the questions spot on, questions that the members weren't even getting. Her baptism is this coming Saturday. I'm hoping that once she's a member we can use her to get to her friends as well. We've had a couple of er friends sit in on lessons but not consistently.

There's this one somewhat crazy lady we've been teaching that I'm thinking of just forcing her to be baptized. Okay, not really but maybe I'll try laying down God's law a little with her. I think she has like ADD or something because when we teach her she's always looking all over the place and then blurts out the most random ideas. Like I was bearing my testimony on prayer and out of the blue she asks in the middle of my sentence if I think online dating sites are a good way to meet guys. My comp started laughing at me cause I was staring at this lady for her stupid random interuption and then got mad at him for laughing so I told her "Seeing as how I've never used an online dating site to look for guys, I wouldn't know. I'm sure my companion could help you out though." Then it was my turn to laugh and his turn to be mad. Whenever Raywin looks around now we've started going "SHH!" like the dog wisperer does on his show. We laugh about it later but it's a little frustrating at the time. I've got the most important message she'll ever hear and she's watching the wind blow stuff around.

So back in like the early 1940s I think there used to be a mission president here named Matthew Cowely. He's somewhat of a local legend because he was a man of incredible yet humble faith. There are countless stories of him holding his arm to the square and stopping the rain for outdoor meetings or healing sick or even dead people. Yes, dead people. I was listening to one of his talks and he related an experience where he layed his hands on a dead man's head and basically told him to arise. The man did and his first words were "President Cowely, I'm so glad you're here. I've been feeling very sick and would like you to give me a blessing."

Not only was Matthew Cowely a man of miracles, he was funny as heck too. I listened to a couple of his talks and he tears it up. At the beginning of one he tells the crowd something like "I've never wrote a talk or speech or fireside that I've given. Instead I stand at the pupit on my own 2 feet and give the people what the Lord gives me. There have been times however that the Lord has forsaken me... I just pray this isn't one of those times." Another time he was talking about meeting a Methodist minister. The minister came up to him and said "You know all you Mormons are going to hell right?" to which Matthew Cowely replied, "Well I'd rather be a Mormon and know I'm going to hell than be a Methodist and not know where the hell I'm going!" Brother Cowely is the man!

OKay, that's all I have time for. I love all you guys!

I forget what week

So I just finished my very first transfer and I'm so proud of myself. I'm a seasoned missionary now! Okay, maybe not but at least I'm not the greenest one in the mission.

This week was pretty uneventful, we've just been solidifying our baptismal sets. One of our girls asked us yesterday if she could get baptized a week earlier so I was pretty excited after church.

On Thursday I went on a trade off with one of the members in the ward, Brother Day, to visit some less actives. Bro Day is probably the coolest guys I've met. He's a self made millionaire who's into motorcycles and he lives on the fringes of town in this massive house with a track on his property. We have dinner at their house on Thursday so pray for me that I'll have the strength to stay off his brand new KTM 350. Bah! Maybe we should just cancel. The guy is super knowledgeable too, he knows everything there is to know about church history and the scriptures so we can have both a worldly or a gospel centered conversation and I'm still interested.

We also had a bit of a misshap with one of our investigators. She is a single mother who's been trying to give up smoking cause she knows it's hurting her and her children but she's still struggling with it. To help comfort her we asked her to read 1 Nephi 3:7 before we came back, the "I will go and do" scripture. A couple days later we got a call from her telling us that she thought we were sick and that she didn't want to see us again and if we tried coming to her house she'd be "ready". We couldn't understand what she was talking about so we went over to her house to talk to her. At first she was almost hysterical and wouldn't shut up about how she had all this family that would be here as soon as she called. When she finally calmed down enough to talk we learned what had gone wrong. Instead of reading 1 Nephi 3:7 she had read 3 Nephi 3:7 and then had continued to verse 8. Read over the verses and then re read what it was she was saying to us.

When I realized what had happened I seriously almost died laughing. She was still wary of us until we laughed our heads off and then explained what was occuring in 3 Nephi chapter 3. Funniest experience so far.

So that's all that was interesting this week. Oh yeah, I finally got mail after transfers cause we only get it then, every 6 weeks.

So that's really everything. I love you guys, I'll be praying for all you guys. If there's one thing I know it's that God hears. That's never been so evident as on my mission. I love it here!

Elder Keifer

Best/Worst Week

Okay, now for the week's events. So they week started off pretty dismally. I was getting mad at my companion partly because he was being lazy and partly because I was going along with it so I was blaming him in my head. I was also disappointed because last montyh we had over the goal of weekly baptisms and this month was looking really stink in comparison. I know I should be happy with the 2 bap. dates we had set but in this mission that sucks. The people here are so ready for the gospel, especially in our area, so there's no reason not to baptize weekly. Anyways, I was steaming about how bad we were doing and how we weren't teaching any new people until we had zone conference on Thursday.

At zone conference we had a member of the area presidency, Tad R. Callister. He spoke about a ton of topics here and there but the last thing he spoke on was on being a consecrated missionary. Essentially a consecrated missionary is one who puts everything he has on the alter of sacrifice. He gives up his time, talents, fears, thoughts of home, girls and life there. He gives up his pride and his will. A consecrated missionary gives up all of this and becomes totally subservient to the Lord. After the conference and when we went home I realized I hadn't been acting as a consecrated missionary. I was dwelling on what it will be like to come home and was looking forward to moving on out of my area. Essentially I was saying that the area I'm in wasn't worth my time. I was being selfish. Even as I realized this it was hard to just up and change how I was feeling in an instant. I was still feeling angry and was getting depressed because I hadn't gotten any mail at zone conference (we only get mail every 6 weeks). The next day on Friday I just decided to fast for strength in overcoming my natural tendencies. I naturally want to blame others for my lack of success and I naturally want to sleep when my comp is napping but I knew I had to overcome that.

Friday was probably the worst/best day to be fasting. We spent the day visiting referals and delivering their requested materials so we were biking all around town. Oh yeah, and it was raining. Well, not really raining, more like pouring. My pants were completly soaked through and I was grumbling cause my scriptures in my backpack were getting wet. Then my seat bolt loosed up so my seat was tilting way back and there was no way for me to tighten it so I couldn't ride sitting down which was super annoying. Finally, right after delivering a Book of Mormon to this guy on the farthest side of town, I hopped on my bike to find that my tire was flat. This was the 3rd time I'd had a flat tire and the worst time by far. I was so stinking mad cause then I had to walk my bike home in the pouring rain. I got even madder when my comp told me he couldn't walk because it would ruin his shoes so he would ride ahead like a mile and then wait at a bus stop shelter for me to catch up.

So there I was, walking by my self for the most part down the streets of Hamilton in the pouring rain. I could only think of how much this sucked for so long and then I started to pray that I would be able to not only overcome this, not only to endure my time here, but to do well in this area as well. As I prayed for this the scipture in D & C something came to me, the one where it's the Lord comforting Joseph Smith in Liberty jail. I couldn't remember the whole scripture but one phrase did come to mind: "and if the billowing storms should rage upon you... know this my son that it is for thy good." I kept thinking this over and over and I was crying as I kept thanking my Heavenly Father for the oppurtunity to walk home in the rain. My prayer for strength became a prayer of gratitude as I thought of all the ways I have been blessed in my area. Of coarse I've been blessed in coming to New Zealand, that was an amazing blessing in and of itself but my very specific area has been such a blessing as well. At zone conference I learned that of all the elders from my intake I've been the only one who's had a baptism and I've had 5 already. Even out of the districts in our zone I've gotten the best. My eyes were finally opened to what I've been given and I just bawled my eyes out. It was fine cause my comp was a mile and a half away most of the time so he still thinks I'm tough.

When I got home I was like totally committed, so ready to be a consecrated missionary Saturday was another rainy, hard day but I was so much happier. I think the Lord was just trying to see how committed I really was because it wasn't until Sunday until the miracles came. In one day me and my comp were able to find and set 4 new people for baptism later this month, bringing us past what we were able to do last month. I am just so happy to be where I am and to have a Father in Heaven who helps this stubborn son of His along. There's really no place on Earth I'd rather be than Hamilton, New Zealand and no work I'd rather be doing than His.

Best. Week. Ever.

Love you all,

Elder Keifer