Howdy Family! Thanks for all the emails today, they were quite entertaining!
This week was pretty okay. I got to go to Ngarawahia again this week and you know what that means- FRY FEST!!! We actually went to Papa's twice when I was there so I got extra extra fat that day. The guy told us we'd better watch what we eat or we'll end up like him (he's kinda big). I was like "Sure, whatever." then dropped my battered Snickers bar into the frying oil. It was crazy good!
After seeing a couple recent pictures of myself I decided that I've just stepped into fat territory. What I mean is before I was plump or rounded but now if I think I would consider myself fat. Oh well, it's not like I'm trying to pick up chicks here anyways. What will you guys think if I come home looking like the Pillsbury dough-boy? Even worse, what will Hailey think?!?
So I have found probably my favorite fruit here in New Zealand. It's called a fejoa and man are they good. Try looking them up and see if you can find any fejoa trees in the area and then buy one. You only need one cause they produce fruit like crazy. If there's one place in the states that can grow fejoas it'll be the northwest, the weather is exactly the same here. Fejoa's look almost like limes but they have a smoother skin. To eat them you cut it in half and scoop out the inside. The skin isn't all that bad so you could eat the whole thing but then again the skin isn't all that good either.
Near the end of the week I was struck with a plague. It all started one day when I woke up and my legs were itchy as heck. It was a while before I actually looked down at my legs and noticed I had what looked like mosquito bites all over my legs. I knew this could have been from mosquitos though cause my legs had been covered and there were tons of bites everywhere. I'd heard that they have fleas really bad here so we figured there were fleas somewhere in the house. We were going to get a flea bomb but then Neither of us were bit throughout the morning so we figured it was an isolated inncident. Then the next morning I woke up with the bites further up my legs and across my stomach. I was frwaking out cause there were spots where the bites were running into eachother and I'd have the biggest red blotches across my legs. I showed my comp what was happening and he said I had bed bugs. Bed bugs? Bed bugs aren't even real. "Don't let the bed bugs bite" is just a saying! At least I thought so. Now I have to get new sheets and blanket and I'm getting a new matress I think. It's gross to think I had bugs crawling out of the matress and on me then sucking my blood. Dumb bugs. I've been sleeping on the floor so I don't have any new bites and the old ones are going away now. I hope my comp gets em in his bed cause he's been laughing at my freaking out.
So transfers are coming up. I'm unsure whether I'm moving or not. I'm unsure whether I want to move or not. It'd be nice to go to a new area but we have some really choice baptisms coming up just after transfers. Also, I think I could do a lot more good in the area if my comp would listen a little. If someone isn't like asking to be baptized he doesn't like to visit them, he doesn't want to help someone towards conversion. Most of our baptisms have been people wanting to get baptized because their girl friends wants them to or because their grandma does. We have some people in the area who are actual investigators that Whaanga doesn't want to visit because... well I don't know why. I think with a new comp we could do a lot more in the area.
I don't mean to say that I don't like Elder Whaanga. He's a great comp, really fun and loving to the people he serves but he's a little lazy and has slowly eased me into it. It annoys me to think how far I've gone astray lately, to think of how we used to work and how we used to baptize. When I first got here Whaanga was afraid of not training well so we worked hard and had 5 baptisms in Feb. Then slowly we got lazy and had 3 in March and now we've gotten so bad that we'll only have 1 in April. This area can reach the mission goal of baptizing weekly month to month if we just work hard enough. We need a reboot bad.
So I've found the Dayley's address for Camas, I guess I'd wrote it down before when I helped them move. I also wrote a lot of letters to people and finally sent them, I know they'll probably be mad with me. I'm worried too because I sent Hailey a letter to her Idaho address but she's home now and I don't know if she's gotten it or if she'll be going back to the same address again.
Last thing of note for this week- Elder Whaanga and I were asked to help out with Chartwell Ward's primary Easter activity. It was a little last minute, they called us the morning of to ask if we could help. We had nothing planned so we went. They were taking the kids from room to room with each of the rooms being a different event at the end of Christ's life. The primary presidency had gone all out on their rooms, building fake tombs and having awesome activities for the kids to do. Since we didn't even know what exactly we were doing, Elder Whaanga and I showed up with nothing at all. The primary presidency was a little miffed and told us we would be doing the last room, the resurrection. We were given the baptismal font room and told to "Figure something out." With only a table from a seminary room and the sacrement table cloth, we ended up with the best room of all.
Before the kids came into our room I told them to fold their arms and be reverant because we were going into a very sacred place. When the kids came in Elder Whaanga was lying on the table with the sacrement cloth covering him. Some of the kids were a little scared but then one of them said something that calmed everyone's fears, "Why are you afraid? That's Jesus and he loves us!" With everyone calm now I had the kids sit down while I stood in front of the table. I told the kids why Jesus had died for us and how even though he had died, he rose again 3 days later. As I taught of Christ rising again and of his body being perfected, Elder Whaanga rose from the table and turned away from the children. He gathered the sacrement cloth around him like a hooded rob then left throught the doors to the baptismal font behind me. The kids were absolutley mesmerized by the display. The primary presidency was super impressed too. Even though these were primary kids and they probably didn't understand or remember half of what I said, I felt the Spirit super strong when I taught them.
Well that's all for this week. Keep praying for my and especially my bed!
Love you all,
Elder Big Bird
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