This week...It's a boy

Kia ora whanua!

Elder Bwebwetaake and I got a call Tuesday morning telling me that we would be staying in Whakatane and Kawerau and that I would be training a new Missionary! We went up to Tauranga on Thursday to pick up the new Elder from the bus station and since they didn't tell us his name, we didn't know who we were looking for. The new guy is Elder Gajultos from the Philippines and he is a pretty crack up dude. He is from Manilla so he is kind of a city boy so on his second day we took him to an investigators house to split firewood which was really cool and afterwards, the lady that we split wood for gave us a mean as feed. 

We had a branch activity with the Kawerau branch on Saturday which was pretty crack up because it was Christmas-themed. We spent most of the afternoon on Saturday helping them cook the hangi (Maori way of cooking meet) for the party. A lot of people showed up to the activity which was really cool because a lot of them came to church the next day for the linger longer afterwards. 

The rest of the week we were just driving around and trying to show Elder Gajultos both of the areas which has gone really good. He is a very smart missionary and is picking up the work here just fine. He will need to learn the area fairly quick because in 17 days Elder Bwebwetaake finishes and 41 days later I finish. Hopefully I can pass my knowledge onto him before I leave...

I'll send you more next week!

Elder Mitchell

"Your favorite jersey is covered in lint..."

So I am sitting in our flat Thursday Night just waiting for a ride to go to our dinner appointment (our car had been in the Panelbeaters since Monday) and we got a call from our District Leader: Elder Olsen who is serving in the Kawerau Branch telling us that he would be coming to our flat to talk to us about something. He told us that they are shifting to Katikati so Elder Bwebwetaake and I would be covering both Kawerau and Whakatane until further notice and that I was the new District Leader. We went out with them that night to visit some people because we don't know their area very well and we were pretty well received by the members there in that area. We didn't get our car back until Friday afternoon so we couldn't go out to Kawerau for a couple of days so we spent most of the week walking around in Whakatane so both Elder Bwe and I have mean blisters on our feet. 

We went to church in Kawerau on Sunday and I just have to say that the members here are some of the nicest people I have met! Because we are covering the two branches they are doing all they can to support us and earlier today Sister Bray (wife of a member of the branch presidency) offered to do our grocery shopping for us. We had dinner with the Kawerau Branch President yesterday to discuss missionary work and to suss out some kind of schedule so that we know if we will be in Kawerau or in Whakatane throughout the week. After we saw the other member of the Branch Presidency later to talk about the referrals that he had given the elders that they had not contacted yet. 

We are both pretty excited to what is happening in both of our areas and are trying to get the members behind us so that we can keep both area progressing!

Gonna be a mean week!

Elder Mitchell

"Insert funny title here"

Kia Ora Fam and Friends!

So we have two sets here in Whakatane and so we needed to go and visit one of our sets for the week on Saturday before church. As we were driving up Elder Bwebwetaake saw Sierra (our set) through the window of her house so we went in to go see her. We talked to her boyfriend at the door and he said that she had gone to a birthday party so we thought that Elder Bwebwetaake had mistaken her for someone else but as we were leaving, we heard the guy yell out "Sierra they are gone! Sierra, they are gone, you can come back!".

That story basically describes the work here in Whakatane which is kind of sad. Other then that we didn't get to visit many of our Investigators but we did have Zone Meeting this week and one of the new sisters in the mission is Sister Mitchell so that's pretty cool haha:) 

I don't really have much else to say but thanks for your prayers and faith!

Elder Mitchell

"You know you're not in high finance"

wrote this email last week but I forgot to send it, sorry guys!!!!

Looked at my emails and it seems like everyone back home is ready for me to come home haha :) 

Last Monday after emails, we had a district P-day with the Opotiki and the Kawerau Elders at Ohopi beach. We started off playing some Rugby on the beach (turns out brand-new elders are pretty rubbish at touch) and after Elder Bwebwetaake and I scored a couple of uncontested tries, they were ready to give up and so we went on a hike. We ended up getting to a section where there were some maintenance going on the trail so we had to turn back.

The rest of the week was pretty mean as we were able to visit our sets and help encourage them. One of them keeps dodging us so we haven't been able to do a whole lot with her but the other is super excited which is really nice. Willie (the more excited investigator) is really cool, he works at Pak N' Save (which is like a worse version of Costco) as a night sweeper. Whenever we go over there, we have to be careful because he can push the conversation or lesson in a direction that isn't favorable. 

Now the last 2 days have just been weird as. The Opotiki Elders locked themselves out of their flat so we had to get the keys from the Zone Leaders and it turned out that none of the keys that they gave us worked. They ended up having to stay Saturday night with us in Whakatane and we took them to Church in Opotiki on Sunday morning. The sacrament meeting might have been the weirdest church meeting I have ever attended. During the speakers we had people talking to the speaker while he was talking and whenever someone would say something that they agreed with, they would say "Kia Ora" which is basically how they do it at the Marae (Maori meeting house).

Hopefully everyone back home is not dead because the only email I got today was from the Mission Cards haha all goods :)

Love you guys!!!

Elder Mitchell

Here in Whakatane!!!

This week's and last week's letter:

I moved this last Thursday to Whakatane (pronounced 'Fakatanee') which means literally " Act like a man" so I'm not sure if that is a sign haha. It is pretty beautiful but on my first night here I got sick so we haven't been able to do much work. We spent a lot of time cleaning the flat because the previous Elders didn't clean before they left, when I see them next I am going to give them a hiding. My companion is Elder Bwebwetaake from Kiribati  (pronounced "kiddybus") and he is pretty mean. He goes home before I do so I have been trying to not get too trunky but I think our Mission President wants me to be super trunky when I go home.

My nose has been running hard out since Thursday night so I need to try and get that all sussed but right now we are in this internet Cafe in town and it costs $6 to email for 1 hour so I am not going to write a whole lot so I will send more next week!

Love you guys!

Elder Mitchell

"Looks like you'll never be a concert flutist"

Short email this week...

I am just going to put in the highlights of the week because I don't have much time.

1. We had a non-member come to church yesterday and try to video tape the fast and testimony meeting for "personal reference". He has a Jehovah's witness background and we think he is going to go show it to them haha....

2. On Thursday during MCM our BML walked into the room late, and then rage-quit out of the room. It turned out that he was having family problems and just forgot to tell us that he was leaving.

3. Our flat is being sold so we had someone rock up at like 7 and just walk inside our house without knocking. Luckily I was not in the main room because I did not have pants on yet. The Lady thought she scheduled an appointment with us but she never did. 

4. Our New Mission President came in this week so we all got a call from our Old Mission President the night before he left. 

That's about all for this week but I love you all and hope to hear from you all soon! 

Elder Mitchell

Last weeks post: "But you'll probably have to keep your normal job"

Chur my cuzzies!!!

Pretty good week here in the NZHM. I probably won't write a whole lot because I am pretty knackered. We have been working really hard over the past couple of days to try and get the members excited about missionary work but other than that, not a whole lot has changed with our investigators since last week (or the last couple weeks for that matter). There are several challenges that plague this area, the first being that the large geographic boundaries make it very difficult to keep investigators progressing because we only see them once or (if we are lucky) twice a week. The other problem is the lack of commitment from the previous missionaries who would never try and teach investigators or less-actives but would just play games or watch TV with them which just ruins their expectations of missionary work. Even though these challenges exist, Elder Kailea and I try and work past them. 

Other than that we had a trip to Hamilton this week for President Rudd's Farewell which was awesome. Also I got bit by a dog but I was pretty lucky because the dog was really quite small.

Haere ra!

Elder Mitchell

Attached are pictures with President and Sister Rudd and the Dog bite mark