Helping Hands

Hello everyone!  Glad to hear from everyone this week.  It sounds like everybody is doing good.  Baseball is going good, aye!  Dang, this might be the year!  That would be awesome!  That was a cool photo of the Tanner with the boys, dang, I can't believe that they are home already!  Is Austin home as well?  I can't believe how fast time is going though.  That is so crazy to me!  I still have a while so I'm going to enjoy it and I'm certainly doing some enjoying!  Today for p day we're going fishing.  I'm really excited about that.  Now I can say that I went fishing in New Zealand!  That should be awesome.  Ha ha ha, so last night, Elder Jones decided to have himself his own personal bonfire in the back.  He was so happy about his fire that he just made.  So, I filled up a bucket of water and went up on the roof and when he wasn't expecting it, I dumped it right on his big fire, ha ha ha.  He was so mad, man, it was funny!  Our house is awesome to live at, I'm tellin' ya!

Anyways, some of the events that happened this week---we had a specialized training with the Assistants and President this week.  It was amazing.  We watched Meet the Mormons and talked about how we can use it as a missionary tool.  That was definitely a surprise to all the missionaries.  I love President Balli, he is so cool!  He really loves us and wants us to be successful.  I think that he is perfect for our mission and the missionaries here!  I really enjoyed seeing him.

On Saturday, we had our helping hands in Compton....I mean Otangarei, ha ha!  It was pretty bad over there so it was really awesome to see all the yellow vests for the members and missionaries.  We were there from about 10:00 in the morning until 2:00 in the afternoon.  We got heaps done.  The before and after were pretty cool, so I was grateful to have been a part of that!  After that, we had gotten permission from President Balli to attend the Pasifika festival here in Whangarei.  I'll send you photos probably next week because I haven't gotten them from Bishop yet.  It was really cool to talk with people there.  We were able to hand out a lot of the #BecauseHeLives cards so it was pretty effective.  Plus, I got me some much needed Tongan food and Otai!

Yesterday (Sunday), we had an amazing lesson with Dave and Teresa.  Man, it was really awesome.  they prepared food and everything.  We were planning to teach the Restoration, to try to highlight some concerns that they might have had.  Sure enough, we found some.  They main one was the Book of Mormon, why do we need it?  Thank goodness that was a question that I myself had at the beginning of my mission.  The answer is simple, we needed another testament of Jesus Christ.  The Earth was corrupt and confused and we had the Bible.  Heavenly Father knew that the Book of Mormon would straighten out our course as children upon the Earth.  Another point that we were able to make was that the Bible was translated by scholars!  People who learned the language and then translated it.  The Book of Mormon was translated by the power of God, by someone who couldn't even write and structure sentences in English.  We shared the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon and the Spirit was so strong.  I know that they could feel it!  That was an amazing experience and I hope that they will be able to continue to progress.

It was a great week.  I'm excited for the one coming!  Time is going fast, I need to enjoy it a bit.  I love you all and miss you heaps.  Have a good safe week!

Ofa lahi atu!

Elder Johnson