"I told you I was freaky!"

There has been a couple things going on here and we might have a new baptism coming up in 3 weeks!!!

 

 We did exchanges on Friday and Saturday and all I'm going to say is that I am so thankful for my companion today because some of the other Elders in our district have 0 discipline and it shows in their work and numbers. We have been teaching Tara this week and got through the 10 Commandments and CPR (Church, Prayer, Read) and it seems to be sticking finally! The food here is so much more expensive then it is in America, for example for a can of pringles it is 4.50 (by the way the tax is worked into the price of food so the smallest coin is 10 cents). I haven't had a whole lot of opportunities to take some pictures but I did get one of the Thermal Pools in Turangi. It is so beautiful here and the KFC and chocolate is 100% better here then it is in America. There is also like a total of 13 churches in Tokoroa and only one is LDS, the Pacific Island Church is huge here but the LDS Church would be too if it allowed you to drink, smoke, and fed you every other day.

  We met with a guy named Jake McKernan this week on Thursday and let me just start off by saying that he is something else. He was not a member but when he was a kid his best friend was and served an LDS mission. Jake stopped Elder Lukens in a grocery store a week before I got here and said that he was keen for visits. We went and visited him and he pulled out a notebook and started to take notes and after we had finished the Plan of Salvation ( we were impressed to share that first) he asked "what's next?" the whole time asking some next level questions that most investigators never ask. We ended up sharing the first 3 lessons (Plan of Salvation, Restoration, and the Gospel of Jesus Christ) and he told us about his past.

  He had a rough childhood and was really into crystal meth but one night he was reading the scriptures he read 1 Corinthians 10:13 where it says "...God will not suffer you to be tempted above that ye are able..." and he prayed to God to help him with his addiction and woke up the next morning and " it was like the addiction of meth and alcohol had just been taken from me". His friends all thought that he was just hiding his addiction but once they saw him at parties drinking a coke they knew he was legit. He met his wife at a party a few years later and after talking about God for a couple hours they started dating and got married because " it is better to be married then to live in lust". He might be one of the greatest people I have ever met and I know that Heavenly Father prepared him for us to meet him.

Its been a great week here in Tokoroa and we have been working all day everyday to tell these people that "Y'all need Jesus".

Love you guys!!

-DJ Cash Flow (Elder Mitchell)

I believe this is the sunset from his apartment.

Thermal pool in Turangi.