Hello from NZAM

Hello everyone! I hope you have all had an amazing week! This week was pretty good! There is a lot of potential in the area just need to make that potential into something real here!

The biggest two things were Andrew and the Come and See/Jerome.

Andrew is a man we met on the street one day and he said he'd love to come to church with us. He is very addicted to smoking and has some struggles keeping away from it for too long. He came to church and almost started smoking on church grounds. But we talked with him and made sure that he didn't do anything. He said afterwards that he really loved church and felt something good there. We are going to try and work with him this week and keep him on the right path.

Now Jerome is a tricky one. He has been investigating for a very long time and just has some concerns about the commandments and stuff. But he came to our Come and See fireside. That's where all the missionaries in NZAM get to come to a stake center with investigators and listne to a recent convert speak with a lot of musical numbers. The spirit in that room was indescribable!!

He said that he really enjoyed himself and had a good tringling inside his stomach. The spirit is working on him!

Other than that not much to report. The district is on fire and our area is slowly picking up. I love you all so much and love hearing from you! Keep to the basics of the gospel and look for your own missionary opportunities to share your testimony!!

Until Next week!!

One Transfer gone

Hello everyone!! I hope you all had an awesome week! So by the title of this email you can probably tell that it was transfers here in the mighty NZAM. My comp and I didn't get shifted but he got assigned district leader so we have some new responsibilities to take care of! We lost two elders in our district and got two brand new missionaries. SO I'm no longer the youngest in the mission field!!:) This week was just chill. Not a whole lot of teaching right now due to no investigators keeping the appointments we set with them. But we got a lot of potential this week so I'm excited to see how these next few weeks go!! Saturday we had a ward baptism for a girl named Brianna. If she would of waited just 2 more weeks she would of turned 9 and be considered a convert baptism haha. But it was way fun to be a part of! The dad invited us to be in the circle to confirm her so that was way powerful. Then that night we went to the ward seminary graduation and they had a massive feed!! Nothing like my graduation haha. They had a full roasted pig and ham!! IF you want to see those pictures ask my parents and they'll show you haha. Yesterday while we were having lunch and having some down time we got a call from bishop at 12:30. He asked if I'd speak for 10 minutes. Church started at 1. So I was scrambling trying to find a topic and I tried to plan like 3 topics and they all didn't seem right to share. I ended up sharing the Importance of Daily Scripture study. How we should read, understand, find the doctrine, then apply it in our lives. I felt really good about it and I had a lot of people say they enjoyed it and that they needed it. The cool part followed my talk. The lady that got up to speak after me said that her topic she chose to share was on Daily Scripture study. My mind was blown and I knew that the Spirit was with me! I knew that by listening and praying with a sincere heart the Spirit told me what to share and what my ward needed. So my challenge this week- open your heart in prayer and really be sincere about it. Take that prayer and apply it to your studies so you can apply your studies to your life. Thank you for all you do!

Love you all and have a good week!!

Another Week Gone By!

Hello everyone! Where did the month of October go?! Crazy to think how fast time went with that month!! This week wasn't too crazy! We got a new relief society president, this is her 3rd time being called as a relief society president so she's pretty experienced! She really wants stuff to start moving so it'll be good to work with her!! On Friday we had our ward trunk or treat! Halloween isn't very big here but it was good to get to see and know the ward more and more. We had a good turn out and a lot of Less actives showed up so it was good to get them back with the ward!! We had a question and answer game so we still had some gospel teaching in it!! On Saturday we thought we'd use trick or treating to get some good door knocking in ;) some people thought it was funny when we said trick or treat some people not so much, but some people actually gave us a few pieces of candy and let us talk with them a little about the gospel so it was a good thing!! Yesterday was the big day.. On our way to church we were just driving and I was relaxing just gathering my thoughts for church. I heard my comp say "are they going to slow down?" I didn't get what he meant by that then BOOM!!! We got rear ended bad. I wasn't expecting it at all so I was like a rag doll. Blacked out for a quick second and walked away with a very sore back and neck. So we were both pretty out of it for the rest of the day. But our car came out victorious. Still drives, the trunk just doesn't close and the back is smashed. SO everywhere we drive the car beeps at us saying our door is open. But their car is destroyed. Won't start or anything. They had a 92 corolla and we had a 2014 corolla so that just shows how much better cars have gotten over the years haha!!  Today we had a zone devotional where we really got to know every person in our zone and had a good breakfast to go a long with it! One of our zone leaders finishes his mission tomorrow so it was sad to say goodbye to him! But that's the mission life so all is good!! 

This week was a good one!! Nothing too crazy but a lot of good potential out there!! Make sure you keep to the basic church standards! CPR. Church attendance, Prayer daily, and reading daily. During halftime of one of the All Blacks games they didn't go into the locker room to sit and recharge, they stayed on the field and did the basic rugby skills such as passing the ball, kicking, and tackling. Ask yourself how often do YOU do the basic church things to keep the spirit in your life and draw closer to our Heavenly Father. I know as you continue to do that basics you will see the blessings in your life!! Love you all! Please keep the letters coming! It's a blessing to see and hear from all of you!! Have a good week!!

Elder Maughan

Be YOU

Fakaalofa lahi atu!

That is "Greetings to you" in Niuean!! Elder Murdock and I have taken a challenge starting today to try and learn Niuean much more! So that will be interesting for us to see!!

So lets start with monday shall we? We went minigolfing as a district and got haircuts for flipping 18 dollars!! But it looks fresh! 

Tuesday we went on tradeoffs with the zone leaders. I got to go with Elder Gulliver from Aussie. He is a super cool guy. Lots of good insight and inspiring stuff for myself!! Then we got to sleep at their flat which is freaking massive and nice!! Played some good touch in the morning, getting pretty good at that!

Nothing happened until Friday night at 8, our last visit. We went over to the Malupo family to see Junior. He showed us all these cakes he was making since that's what he does for a living and he is freaking good! He let us eat some and I enjoyed myself :) But that's not why I bring up this story! Elder Murdock has tried with this guy many times to get him back to church and Junior said we are the 6th pair of missionaries to talk with him. He told us what his issue was. He is gay and has been in a relationship with another man before. Elder Murdock was being really pushy with him and Junior just kept shutting him down. I could tell Junior was uncomfortable and not happy. Murdock kept pushing him and trying to make him do something he didn't want to. I didn't want Junior to give up however so I took a turn at talking and let Murdock think. I told Junior, "No matter how you feel or think is different about you, you are still your Heavenly Fathers child and he loves you more than you will ever know." I went on about that for a few minutes and you could just see a light in him spark and how comforted he felt. Then Murdock tried to push him again (Murdock isn't very patient haha). So I told Junior we will just start with the small steps and get him to the point he needs to be. SO this has been in my mind all weekend long. No matter who you are, what you have done or how you feel. If you have weird teeth, depression,you're gay, or missing an arm or have cancer, no matter what is "different" about you, You are still your Heavenly Father's child. He made you this way and watches over you and wants what is best for you. Never feel like you are unclean, unwanted, not loved, or anything. Know that your Heavenly Father will always love you no matter what! If you slip up, it's okay! He will always love you and want what is best for you. 

I hope you all have a fantastic week!! I love you all!!

Another week gone by!

Hello everyone!! I hope you all had a great week! This week was a total blur for us going by so fast. Crazy to think I've been in New Zealand for a month now!! Any way lets get onto some important stuff. 

Monday night we had a get lesson with one of our progressing investigators Jerome. He came to conference which was a big step for him. He still has some doubts and he's worried about living by the commandments. We have a lesson with him and his partner tonight and we have our Elders Quorum President coming along who has a very similar story to Jeromes so we are gonna hit him hard with some good doctrine!! We are going to try and set them both for baptism on the 31st tonight so cross your fingers!! We have been talking with this guy named Jaemish. The guy who might get deported i'm not sure if I mentioned that before or not. He had a court case on Friday so they are waiting for the final decision now so he's been nervous. But we went over there a few times this week and talked with his auntie, grandpa and him. We had a fast with them so when we went over to break the fast they stuff us with Curry! (we've had curry three times this week. Heaps of Indian people!) But he has really come to like us and our gospel. His grand dad told us "We are welcomed there anytime we want, the door is always opened to us!" And just imagine that being said in an 82 year old Indian mans voice haha. We came home for dinner one night and there was this random guy just sitting in front of our flat. He waved us over and he was without a doubt super high. But being the nice guys we are we sat down and talked with him to try and figure out his story. He said he was baptized 2 years ago and now is Buddhist? He was telling us all about how he beat the crap out of a kiwi guy just cause he was a kiwi. He showed us were he punched him on me so while he was pretending to punch me, he got closer and closer each time and harder each time so I got a little nervous he was gonna drop me haha 😅 but E. Murdock had to go to the bathroom so we left him and went to visit him the next day. His mom is like the sweetest woman I've met here. She is 76 and can hardly move and do anything. Her son is crazy tho.. But he told us if we got him a ride to church he would come, so we should up on sunday and he wasn't there, not a surprise but oh well.

This week was very good! I hope you all are doing well!! My challenge for everyone this week is to find one conference talk and read it a few times this week. Find which one was your favourite and really study it!

I love you all and hope all is well back home!

Also keep up on the World Cup, the All Blacks are killing it!! ;)

Elder Maughan

Week 5- 1 month down, conference, and service!

Hello everyone!! As you can tell by the title, this past week I hit my month mark!! It was super crazy, it has felt like an eternity!! But at the same time it has gone by quickly. So this week was actually a very good week!!

Monday- We went over to this guy named Jaemish. 27, Indian guy. Elder Murdock met him before I was in the area so we thought we'd pop by. We found him and he was really discouraged. He had a court case for a DUI he had about a year and a half ago. The case would determined if he'd get deported and have to go back to Fiji or not. So Elder Murdock offered to give him a priesthood blessing and he accepted. After the blessing his mom came out. I saw her in the doorway before we started the blessing so I knew she was watching. She came up to us after and asked if she could "have a prayer also" haha. So I got the chance to give her a blessing of comfort. Very cool for them and us to experience. Right after we went to a FHE at the Tongimua's. Their son and his partner aren't members so we went in focusing on them, mainly the son Jerome. We talked with him a lot about faith- 

Sorry i accidentally pushed some button and it sent my email. so let me continue! If any of you are having a hard time with Faith in Jesus Christ, this gospel, or anything at all! I encourage and invite you to read Alma chapter 32. And really focus on 21, 27-30. Those helped me a lot. And these are the exact scriptures we shared with Jerome. That really hit him. and he said he wanted to follow through with this. I gave him the baptismal invite and he accepted! He said he will go to conference this weekend and let us know about the date we told him so when we saw him at conference yesterday we were super excited!!

Tuesday was nothing special. Wednesday was awesome tho!! Our day really started after lunch. We went and were going to mow this ladies lawn so we got to be in our p-day clothes. And we didn't have a lawn mower that we could borrow. so we made arrangements to have someone with a mower come and cut it on friday. We just had an edger and she insisted that we cut it with that since it was so long, so we did!! We started going and got like 1/4 of the way done and she went and asked the little school next door if they had a mower we could use. They let us borrow one and she wanted it cut super super short so we went over it like 3 times. It was an old mower but I liked it! Right after we mowed her lawn we went to this families house that is always working in the yard so we thought we'd go offer them help again. We come to the driveway and the youngest one (Daniel) goes running inside yelling to his mom (Mum the mormons are here the mormons are here again!!) Haha so they came out and put us right to work! We dug up their garden and put their own kind of fertilizer on it (coffee beans) So we got to do that and we had a follow up appointment with Jaemish at 4. So we had to cut the service/lesson with them short and run. Jaemish had his case and they are making a decision sometime this week. They were super nervous and stuff. But we taught them a lesson and told them how much peace and comfort can come from our gospel. He told us he was planning on coming to church next week without us even inviting him yet! So he came to a session of conference with us this week and that was super cool! We then  had a dinner appointment with a less active/ part member family. So we talked with them, had a good meal, and had to run to another FHE with a Niuean family. I like going to that family because they always feed us no matter what 😁 After that lesson Elder Murdock realized he forgot his planner. So we ran back to Jaemish's and we called him to let him know we were coming, but he said he wasn't home because his mom collapsed and had to be rushed to the hospital by ambulance!  She's been in there since then and is in intensive care so it was kinda scary. Any way the rest of the night was pretty relaxed. But you may have noticed that I didn't say once that we went back to our flat. We spent the WHOLE day in our P-day clothes!! It was by far the best proselyting day ive had  😉 Friday was mine and elder Simelanes month mark. But it was also Elder Murdocks year mark. So the other elders brought over some cake and we just chilled. It was way fun!

Saturday after priesthood was awesome. We decided our post meal would be Wendy's. They have a Black bun here for the All Blacks. Looks super gross. Any who. We went to take some other elders home. However we took a wrong turn and got totally lost. We went around one turn and BOOM there was the main city!! We were in downtown Auckland!! So we thought we'd take this chance and go see the Sky Tower!! We drove past it and then had to find our way home haha. We were lost for like an hour. But we drove over the Harbor bridge and the view from there of the city was a sight I will never ever forget!! It was so cool to see all that!!

Other than that the week was chill. Weekend was very slow, but conference was awesome. I highly recommend rereading some of them or watching them again because there is some great insight and perfect for our days!!

I love you all, 1 month down and it's going fast!! I'll talk to you next week!! 

Week 4-Not Our Cup of Tea

Hello everyone!! It's crazy that this upcoming Friday is my month mark!!! For Elder Murdock it's gonna be his year mark on that same day, so we might treat ourselves to some cake or something 😁  Any who let me tell you about my week :)

On Monday after emailing we got together as a zone

This is all the elders devouring some fries we got. The one in the middle smiling and actually paying attention is elder clark from Salt Lake!! 

So we got together at our stake center, played some soccer, touch (rugby) and just chilled. Super good day to hang out and get to know the district. That night we went to a FHE with a family called the Tongimuas. Their son and his partner are not members so we went in ready to teach about the BOM. But of course those two weren't there and they were the whole reason we went over there... So we continued with regular lesson with the family and the last 5 minutes those two show up.. So they gave us some really good sandwiches and we sat and just talked with Jerome (the son). And he finally opened up to us!! He has a strong desire to know the truth of this gospel, but doesn't really have the will do to anything to find out for himself. Stubborn people are no fun.. But we got some good gospel in with him and left him a Challenge to read a certain chapter in the BoM and to pray every day. We have an appointment with him tonight and we will follow up with him and talk with Him about Faith!!

Nothing really happened on Tuesday expect we did some service for a Chinese woman who we haven't really started teaching but have an appointment with this week!!

​We washed her car inside and out!! It was really gross on the outside and we made it sparkle like new 😎

Wednesday we had another FHE with a family and that was good because they are less active. But Thursday is when things get exciting!!

So we started off just walking around and tried to visit people and find new investigators. We talked with this older Chinese woman named June who didn't speak very good English. She told us to follow her to her house so of course we did. And we got to the doorstep and we aren't suppose to go inside unless there is a male 18 years or older home just out of respect. So we were standing at the doorstep and she kept telling us to come in and help her move. She went into another room for like 2 minutes expecting us to follow her but we didn't because of our rule. So we were standing there and she came back and she grab Elder Murdocks hand and started to pull him inside!! We ended up moving a small self for her into her garage and passed her on to the Chinese elders haha. We then went to try and catch this one investigator but he wasn't home. So we went knocking on some doors in his neighborhood. We knocked on this one flat and this lady answered and said they weren't interested but her drunk husband came running to the door asking what we know and who we are. So we gave our little intro and asked what we belief. We started talking and probably 15 words in he cut us off and told us what we believe. Saying the F bomb probably every 2 or 3 words he went on to tell us that the BoM basically tells us that "we believe in a planet that is full of virgins. And at a certain age we get twinkled up there and get closer to God." Super weird right?! So he bashed us for going out and "Not educating ourselves in our own gospel". But he was nice about shutting the door in our faces! He said cheers and shook our hands and put the door in our face!  We both walked away in complete shock and didn't know what to do haha. Later on that night we went to go teach a Recent Convert named David. His wife Shuana isn't a member and we just kinda gave up on teaching her because she wasn't progressing or doing anything we asked. So we went in planned to teach David more about commandments. But half way through Shuana spoke up with some concerns she thought we should know. She's going away to Tonga for a month and she's worried (for some WAY strange reason) that her husband won't keep the Law of Chastity while she's gone. She got very deep and personal with some of the things that she shared with us. She wanted us to help and just to let us know what was holding her back. Elder Murdock just looked at each other, tried our hardest not to laugh and just said "that's not our cup of tea and the only person to really help with that is bishop". We were in complete ah and just didn't know what to do!! So she was talking and getting way more personal than we EVER needed to hear. Elder Murdock just kindly asked Brother David to give a closing prayer and we were gone. We couldn't stop laughing and talking about for the next two days!! It was completely random. On friday we had zone planning and then we went to the McDonalds here and you can create your own burger!! Something back home needs to invest in. Later that evening Elder Murdock got super sick. So we went home at like 4, both took naps, watched a movie about the building on the Salt Lake Temple and crashed pretty early that night. Same with Saturday. He still wasn't feeling too well so we didn't do a whole bunch just relaxed.

The work here has been dead for a long time in Blockhouse Bay! The ward keeps saying that things need to start changing. Elder Murdock keeps saying that his last comp didn't do a whole lot in this area and he was stuck doing all the work and it just wasn't going well. I'm here to change that!! I couldn't be more ready to work and bring this ward what it deserves! Many stories to come and great adventures!! I love you all so much, thank you for all the prayers and blessings! I will talk to you all next week!!