09/04/2016: How was that Earthquake!?

Kia Ora Whanau,

It was a pretty interesting week.  It went by pretty fast but it's all goods.  We did have that instant of the earthquake and it happens at four in the morning.  I was sleeping and me and my companion woke up to our beds shaking.  We got up and right away went to the nearest doorway and stayed there for a good 45 minutes.  It was shaking the entire house.  Nothing was damaged in the house so we were good.  We packed a fast get away bag ready to go just in case but there was no siren and President didn't call so we were all goods.  I stayed awake for another hour after that just listening and then there was two more earthquakes after that.  They were small ones though.  We woke up that morning and went on our morning run down the beach and the tide was really high and rough but no tsunami or threats.  The only thing we were counseled to do was stay away from the water for that day which we only found out about after we got back from our run to the flat.

That same day, we did some service from the Wairoa college (High School).  After that we were invited to attend the music concert they were holding there that night.  They paid for it and all.  It was sweet as and surprisingly reverent.  It was the college students and their bands and some soloists.  It was cool.  There are some really talented students there but that wasn't the highlight of the night.  We were able to teach three object lessons.  One on baptism, one on faith, prayer and Heavenly Father, and one on the Book of Mormon.  There was about ten youth and one adult there.  There was a lot of lessons that day.

We also had Stake Conference that week up at Gisborne.  We drove the Nuhaka Elders up there.  Us and the Mangapapa Elders stayed at the Zone Leaders flat.  The Saturday session was awesome just as well as the Sunday's one.  I was so excited!  President Cummings and his wife was there and they spoke and they rallied the members in a nice way about doing their missionary work and so did the Stake President.  President Cummings explained about the story of the lost sheep and how sometimes we just get lost and don't know better.  Then the story of the lost coin on how we lose things because we are just careless and then the story of the prodigal son and how we just want to get lost sometimes.  With all of these stories, he related it to finding our less actives and finding new investigators and when we do like all of these stories, He rejoices because we found the lost or brought back the lost.  I love President Cummings.  He is FOTI as ("flippin on to it")!  The cool thing is that we talked to some of the members back in Wairoa and they were working already.  Lots of referrals and two new investigators to teach already.

I hope to make this area of Wairoa better as I work to make President Cummings proud and most important our Heavenly Father and Jesus Christ.  I love you and hope you are all doing awesome.  Stay safe.  I pray for you all the time.  

Ka Kite and Ofa atu.

PS-We made cookies with Harold

Thanks Mom