March 26, 2017: AMAZING WEEK!

March 26, 2017:  AMAZING WEEK!!!

I can't believe how much the Lord is blessing this mission and the people of New Zealand!  It is amazing what is going on here in the Paeroa area.  Monday we had the interviews for Starrie and Maddy and Arron and they passed easy, no problem.  They are so smart and they were so excited.  We had the baptism on Tuesday and it was awesome!  All of the Coromandel Branch came and supported them.  They looked so good in their whites that Sister O'Neal made for them.  Elder O'Neal was the baptizer and the creek was cold.  They all went in cold and they all came out shivering but filled with the spirit.  We did the conformation on that day as well.  They were all just glowing with joy.  I was so happy for them!  We ended with a big feed that day and the family came over the next day to hang out with us and they brought us a feed.

In that week we continued to contact people on the ward list and see some of the people who was investigating the church and some investigators who we hadn't been able to see in a long time.  We went down to one of our further areas called Whangamata and there is a big event there that was going on that entire week called the Beach Hop.  What it is is where everyone dresses up in 50's and 60's clothes and drive around and show off their cool as and amazing Camaros and Mustangs and Cadillacs.  It was way cool!  There was a lot of American cars that came over with their steering wheel still on the left side.

We have two new investigators who we found again this week and started up teaching and appointments again.  One is Poura.  He is trying to get back into doing good after getting out of jail.  He is working, doing school, and running a gym.  Missionaries met with him in the past so we explained our purpose to him again.  he told us that he is willing to do what he needs to do to change and be baptized soon.  He's so humble.  He said, "if I need to quit my job so I can go to church bro . . . I'll do it!"

We are also teaching a part member family a Tongan mother and her four kids.  She has a really cool experience of learning about the gospel.  She slammed the door on missionaries and went away when her husband talked about the gospel but one day she went and researched the Mormons and liked the principle of being a family forever and then started taking lessons.  We taught her the first lesson and it was way good! Then we set her for April 15th.  Sela is her name.  The Lord really prepares people to be taught and live the gospel.

We had Branch Conference on Sunday and had over 100 people come to church.  Visitors from different parts of the Stake and less-actives, investigators and Tongan families visiting for the first Sunday for the Branch President's oldest daughter's first Sunday married to her husband.  Both are returned missionaries.  Awesome meeting with the leaders and talking about ways we can better the work.  We had a massive feed after church.  10 pigs roasted on a spit , 45 chickens, fish, kumara, kalo, mussels, lusipi, and other foods.  No room for all the food.  We needed more people for all the food we had.  I didn't eat heaps because I didn't want to regret it after.  The food was really good though .  We got a phone call after, telling us that we have a family of 12 who want to start taking the lessons in Coromandel.  We are so excited to teach them.

So much blessings we are getting from the Lord as long as we are obedient to everything there is, big or small!  We will receive the blessings from it!  I love you all!  Easter is coming up and me and my comp are best friends!  Talk to you soon, bye for now.  Ofa Atu!

Love,
Elder Mortensen

March 19, 2017: Amazing even though it started slow

March 19, 2017:  Amazing even though . . .

Aloha 'Ohana,

Amazing week this week even though it was super slow at the beginning. We printed off our branch list and we went about trying to find all of our less-actives and it was good.  We met with some of them and they told us straight up if they wanted us around or not and some of them invited us in for a drink and we talked.  I love it when people are honest with us. It is so much easier. It was so much easier to find people's homes with the GPS that we have now.

We gave the two girls Maddy and Arron new dates for baptism that will be on Mar 21,2017. That is Tuesday, tomorrow. They are so ready. They can answer the interview questions with ease. We are doing it in a creek like I told yous and it is a really nice place. Nice and quiet and calm. I spoke in sacrament this past Sunday on Missionary work. Big topic.  Cut it down to Strengthening the New Converts and the Less-Actives. It went really well! I think one of the best talks I ever gave.  Scriptures in there, quotes from the prophets in there, personal Hawai'ian experiences in there, and Preach My Gospel (PMG) too!  It was mean as! Lots of people came to tell me how they felt the spirit. Crazy thing happened that day in the middle of class.  We get a text from Starie, Maddy and Arron's mom telling us that she wanted to be baptized the same day as the girls. We were so excited we had to leave the class to go jump around and stuff. The girls have been asking Starie to ask them the interview questions leading up to their interview day today.  Today too! And she just got an overwhelming feeling at church that it was true and she was going to do it. We told her that she can because she went to church with the girls all three times and sat in all the lessons that we taught so she was set to go.  You could hear the excitement in her voice when we told her yes!  We drove out to their place that evening to go over the questions and she had the questions on her screen saver.  It was so cool!  She had her answers ready and she was just glowing! A different person!  I love them so much! So we have three baptisms tomorrow at 11 and elder Oneal, the missionary couple in our area will be the baptizer. Also Morgan, their father, we can't find his records so we are going to have him re-baptized as well. He was keen to have a clean slate again. They are all so excited for the day that they will be able to go to the temple to be sealed.

Awesome week!!! Just shows that as long as we show God that he can trust us by working all the way to 9pm not 8pm and doing our best in being obedient he with trust us with those who are ready and are being prepared for us. I love this gospel!

Today we are going on a hike in a cool place then shooting off to the sister's place with the Zone Leaders at 5 to have their interviews then we are all going to stay the night at the Oneal's place and have a baptism on Tuesday! Woop Woop Hara for Israel!!

But I love yous all.  I hope yous are being blessed everyday! This is so much fun and important to do this work!  Don't forget to do your missionary work for the day! I love you all and I'll talk to yous again!  Ka kite ano.

Elder Mortensen

Wanted to jump in and catch this fish and fry it up

Baptism spot.

Just some photos of the floods in other areas

March 12, 2017: Happy P-Day!

March 12, 2017 Happy P-Day!

Aloha 'Ohana,

Sounds like everyone is really busy and that there is a lot of things that is coming up.

To answer your questions, no the baptism got pushed back because of the bad weather.  I will tell you about that later.  The Missionary Month is going really well.  We taught the youth how to start teaching the first lesson, the Restoration, and they did okay.  They did pretty good with no phone.  Some of them just moping around and stuff.  They have fun though.  I haven't had a chance to go the to the temple yet and some of my money went to food because we needed it for the storm.

So this past week sucked because we were stuck inside our flat for 4 days!!! There was a storm that came in on Tuesday night and had us trapped in on Wednesday because of the overflow from the rivers and fields so the Counsel of Thames told us we had to stay in town so we went and got some food and stuff to last.  Water and all that stuff.  It rained so hard all day.  Next morning same thing.  One of the members, Sis. Napia, was so nice and got us more food and let us use her church movies to watch .  She is so nice.  Third day was the calm before the storm.  It was so hot that day.  No wind.  Rained a little.  The next day, 1000's of people having to leave their homes and cars flooding, trees falling down.  It was ugly but we survived.  I was able to do a lot of studying in that time and I got to get into my letter writing too.  We got to go to church on Sunday.  That was good to see other people again other than my comp.  That 4 days was a really good inventory, lol.  With that week gone we had to cancel lots of our appointments so we are doing a lot of catching up this week.  I hope everyone is still keen.

I really miss you all.  I think about you all often.  I can't wait as well for the next day that we Skype.  I will talk to yous again.  Later.  Love yous.  Ka Kite Ano!!!

March 5, 2017: MARCH ALREADY!

Another week gone by,

The weeks are still going really fast but we are getting things done.  The two girls M and A's baptisms were pushed back this past week because we need them to come to church for three weeks and this past Sunday we had our Stake Conference all the way up in Hamilton and they didn't get a ride.  It's a week away so that is coming up soon.  We are going to have to baptize them in a river.  We had a new part member family move into our branch boundary and they are scheduled to be taught this coming Saturday.  We also started our missionary month for our youth.  An entire month for the youth to learn the lessons that we teach.  No phones for a week.  Listen to only church songs and some other things.  We also went up to our Stake Conference and they told us that we really need to do better on missionary work.  Last year there were only 16 baptisms.  We were told that we need to 2x it or more and I hope to contribute to it.  On a side note with no gym and heaps of Tongan families feeding us I am starting to hate eating.  I love the Tongan families so much but sometimes not their expectations.  All they say is "Eat!  Your jaws not moving, Eat!"  It's so funny!

But all is well.  I feel like a missionary!  Busy!  Busy!  Same thing as last week so all is good!  Love yous.  Talk to yas soon!  Ofa Atu!

Just some photos:

Met another Elder from Hawai'i

Nice swimming and jumping spots that the youth go to

Elder Osborn opened his own for the first time.  It was so funny! 

Got to have some coconut water and meat! So good!