Man it's so good to hear from you all! It's seriously the best thing in the world! Those pictures were awesome. I think my favorites were the one of all the kids and the one of Emily holding Easton and Hailey!
I got the letter with the pictures in it. Thanks so much. I really enjoyed it and them. Elder Bridge read the letter to me because we were driving to Opotiki. I couldnt' really read while driving. Well, to be fair, I can, but if we want to live, than it's best that he reads it. It was funny. We both just laughed when you talked about companions. But I really enjoyed the missionary newsletter as well. It's really neat to see and hear how everyone's doing.
Here in NZ the phone calls are so expensive so everyone just texts. A call from here to Henderson is more expensive then calling the states. Weird eh? I don't know why they do it. I had to speak in church again yesterday. I had a feeling on Saturday night and so I kind of prepared myself just in case. On Sunday the counselor asked if I could be his Minute Man in case a speaker didnt' show. So I said sure of course. Then while we were breaking the bread I saw the speaker come in so I thought ok cool I don't have to do it anymore. Turned out that I still spoke haha. I just spoke on faith being a principle of power. It was pretty good. I enjoyed it.
But other than that things have been going really well. A couple of our investigators are getting really close to baptism. Dani is praying for a date. She's Alisha's sister. She has a boyfriend that she lives with. She's only 16. So it's quite sad. Adam doesn't want to live the law of chastity so he's not being too supportive. So she's afraid he'll leave her. But we told her that if she wants to be baptised bad enough and asks Heavenly Father for help than He'll provide the way. And she seemed okay with that. So yea. As for the other investigators, not much happened with them this week. It was kind of a weird week. Like I said we went to Opotiki and that was an adventure. It's a nice little town. Really small and really quiet.
We are going to Tauranga today for some fun! We are most likely going to climb Mt. Manganui. It's got an awesome view from the top! Than we'll stay the night for district meeting tomorrow and then come back like normal from there. Transfers are this Thursday... Ahh... Crazy. It's gone by so fast. I can't believe it. I'm actually quite nervous for this one. I'm not sure why. I never have been this nervous for transfers. But I'm sure that nothing big will happen. Actually I really dont' know. I try not to think about it.
I can't really believe that it's Christmas soon. It doesn't feel like it to me. Partly because I'm brown. And I think my body feels like it should be getting ready for football too. It's so hot here. It's really nice though. And about me being brown, yea, I'm pretty dark. I'll send you a pic of my watch tan. haha.
But hopefully next week I won't have too much new information or much of any changes. Hopefully I'll be emailing from Whakatane still. But we'll see. Hope ya'lls week goes good!
Love Elder Davenport
Monday, November 17, 2008
Friday, November 7, 2008
On Service in Whakatane
Things are going great here in Whakatane! I love this place. It's a small town and the ward is small enough to be a branch. But it's just an awesome ward because everyone is so close with eachother. The town is only about 16,000 people in it. The ward has probably 200. Active members are probably in number of 50-60. On a good day. But those who do come and are active have the strongest testimonies I've ever heard. I heard some amazing testimonies yesterday. Most of the actives are either converts or they are lifetime members who went inactive. Some for nearly 30-40 years. It's amazing. They have an experience with the Lord and then they come back to church and haven't left since.
The work is going well. We are finding people to teach. I've come to find out that we don't teach near as many lessons in a week as I did in Auckland. But the lessons that we do get to teach are choice. People that you can definately tell have been prepared by the Lord. Yesterday we were on our way to a cottage evening and I went to talk to a guy on the street and before I could say anything he just told me that he's been looking for a church. He's been taught a little before but we are going to go this week and teach him again and see if we can help him. We talked to him for nearly an hour. He just kept talking and talking. He's really choice. His name is Rajkumar.
We've gotten a lot of opportunities to help people around here and the skills that I gained from helping and watching you have definatley been put to use out here. There was one guy we did some help for the other day. He had a massive backyard and about half of it was filled with rubbish. He had a junk pile and some wood. We seperated those and then got to work on all the weeds and over-grown grass. It was as tall as the fence. It looked tough. But I'm so glad that I was taught how to be a hard worker or else we would've been there all day. We got it done in about 1 1/2 hours. But in our companionship you can definatley tell who was the one that grew up doing things like I did. Elder Bridge is learning from me how to do stuff. Today I'll teach him how to do basic maintenance on his bike. He doesn't really know to much. It really makes me realize how greatfull I am for you in teaching me things. I decided as I was pulling out weeds and stuff that I'd learn how to do things that I dont know how to do so that when I have my kids I can teach them everything that they'll need. There's not much that I need to learn. But I just know that if I do than they'll be able to help their investigators when they are on there missions. The guy that we helped was nearly in tears when we finished. It was the best service I've done in my life I think. He kept on saying thank you and how can I re-pay you guys. We simply just said the water was nice and the thank you is all we need in return.
The work is going well. We are finding people to teach. I've come to find out that we don't teach near as many lessons in a week as I did in Auckland. But the lessons that we do get to teach are choice. People that you can definately tell have been prepared by the Lord. Yesterday we were on our way to a cottage evening and I went to talk to a guy on the street and before I could say anything he just told me that he's been looking for a church. He's been taught a little before but we are going to go this week and teach him again and see if we can help him. We talked to him for nearly an hour. He just kept talking and talking. He's really choice. His name is Rajkumar.
We've gotten a lot of opportunities to help people around here and the skills that I gained from helping and watching you have definatley been put to use out here. There was one guy we did some help for the other day. He had a massive backyard and about half of it was filled with rubbish. He had a junk pile and some wood. We seperated those and then got to work on all the weeds and over-grown grass. It was as tall as the fence. It looked tough. But I'm so glad that I was taught how to be a hard worker or else we would've been there all day. We got it done in about 1 1/2 hours. But in our companionship you can definatley tell who was the one that grew up doing things like I did. Elder Bridge is learning from me how to do stuff. Today I'll teach him how to do basic maintenance on his bike. He doesn't really know to much. It really makes me realize how greatfull I am for you in teaching me things. I decided as I was pulling out weeds and stuff that I'd learn how to do things that I dont know how to do so that when I have my kids I can teach them everything that they'll need. There's not much that I need to learn. But I just know that if I do than they'll be able to help their investigators when they are on there missions. The guy that we helped was nearly in tears when we finished. It was the best service I've done in my life I think. He kept on saying thank you and how can I re-pay you guys. We simply just said the water was nice and the thank you is all we need in return.
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