The District...part of us anyway.

Here we go! After another awesome week I can say, Elder Blandford and I worked our butts off! Making everything as effective as possible and building our desires to become more effective servants of the Lord!
When in doubt rely on the members to get someone for you to teach! We were able to teach two new investigators, referrals from our dear Relief Society president! She wanted us to teach her nephews Isaia and Iupeli! They should be set with a baptismal date here shortly! We taught them the Plan of Salvation on Monday and this week we will be teaching them the Restoration.
     My District went from two companionships to one to watch over this past week. With sickness and "disability" a lot of changes have been made.  But it's been interesting to see what happens when a ward is split and then combined into one. The faith of others is really tested. Sister Merrill and Rarawa have really grown in the past week. I am so glad to be able to help these sisters grow. They have made a lot changes! It's interesting to be a District Leader. It does not add stress it just adds extra responsibility and need to be the best YOU you can be! I has really been a test that strengthens!

Service Project

        We had a cool experience having a member (Dekon Yee) come out with us to work. Martha Collins is a member we have been trying to get back to church,we were able to get her to come. All because of Dekon Yee. He is preparing for a mission and has a DESIRE to be out there. We had him teach on the Atonement (what he has wanted to know more about) It was so good to hear what he was saying. He resolved concerns, bore testimony, and made clear what his message was about. The icing on the cake was this, Sis. Collins came to church, after years of in-activity she came yesterday! I told Dekon "It's because of you she came." He replied "This is a good day." The Spirit truly does testify. The work of salvation is inspired from a loving Heavenly Father who is constantly needing us to provide the means by which our brothers and sisters can not only discover the "Living Waters" but drink from it.
             The gospel is so true and will always be! The blessings of heaven are available to everyone if they act in faith according to the promptings of the Spirit and all other sources of inspiration that are given to man. God always rewards the true and faithful seeker! Let us all be those faithful seekers.

LOVE YOU and find a missionary moment this week!!!!

Teaching the AWESOME Sunbeam class!!!

               

One extremely important lesson I learned this week was to "Treasure up the words of Christ." In my studies this week I have learned just that, straight from one of the the greatest sources of truth we have...The Book of Mormon! In 2 Nephi 31 we find the key components to the gospel...The Doctrine of Christ, "Follow thou Me." What a powerful statement in the 12th verse; " Follow thou me and do the things which ye have seen me do." The great importance of these words is that I can know the truth of all things from God by way of the Holy Ghost. But more importantly, it comes down to this...Knowledge. There are a lot of things we CAN know but its the things we SHOULD know that will save us. We need knowledge to have faith and if we don't have knowledge what are we supposed to believe in?  I had an experience this week with Elder Blandford where we experienced just that.

          In a conversation with a Congregational Pastor he stated.."You do not need a name to be saved all you need is Jesus, we are saved by Grace." How much knowledge of Christ did he have not very much. We tried our best to teach him it's by grace we are saved after all we can do. He however was stubborn and would not lest us teach him. This brother didn't believe that we have to "work" for salvation, not just rely on grace. Hopefully he'll one day receive knowledge, but all we can do is plant a seed and hope it sprouts someday.

It was a great week, filled with fun Zone activities, a visit from Elder Bednar (AWESOME!!!!!) and just getting out and doing WORK!

The Gospel is so true and I've learned so much about it this past week and looking forward see what else can be learned! Love you all!!!

Papatoetoe Zone

My district..the Relief Society district

The Swamp

The TRIO. A Samoan, a Tahitian and a Maori

Big shout out to Elder (Nick) Lortsher and Elder (Riley) Duckworth, well done good and faithful servants. Onward and upward, stay TRUE!!!