Kia ora Feb 27th

Kia ora kotau kotoa!

          This week was a hard, frustrating week for me.  There seemed to be a lot more persecution and harsh rejection.  Elder Walker, my Zone Leader has talked to me and given me some things to reflect on.  Thinking about in preach my gospel under my purpose and a successful missionary, and I'm going to create some goals myself, to see what I can do better at.  

     Our pipeline is really dry, (very few investigators) but we sat down during weekly planning and came up with as many names as we could to visit.  Potentials, referrals, formers, members, less-actives, part members, etc.  I'm hoping that will give us more productive things to do and preaching by the way between, rather than just tracting.  I just hope that between my own goals and doing more productive things will help the work progress.  Our most progressing investigator is Matauraura (she goes by Robyn).  She's so close.  She just needs to quit smoking and get married, and then she's ready.  She has a testimony and a desire to be baptized, but she looks at these problems as too big.  She's too busy and so we haven't had time to teach her much or uplift her.  But finally we sat down for about 20 minutes Last night before we had to turn in for the night, but that wasn't enough time to resolve any concerns.  

     The sisters are doing great.  They've got 5 people set!  And they all sound pretty solid.  Their goal is 4 for the month, but we're going to talk and see if we can re-evaluate, especially because in order to reach the zone goal, each companionship needs to baptize 6 people.  From what I can tell, Sister Funaki and Sister Vailea are both happy and working.  

     The thing I need to work on with Elder Fox is having him not wait for me to do something for him to work.  I just need to come up with some actionable items for him to work on for this week.  Other than that, he did a great job during one lesson in particular.  An investigator named Jesse was struggling accepting Joseph Smith, and without turning the lesson to him, Elder Fox jumped in with his experience coming to know that the church is true.  It was amazing to see.  I just need to get him to do it on his own volition now.  

as american as it gets (still not the same)

finally someone who understands

Arohanui! 

Sincerely,

Elder Sorensen

Zone Conference 2/26 From the President

Dear Elders and Sisters of the great NZAM,

Sister Lekias and I want to express our love for each of you and all you are doing in this great mission.  We are grateful for the time we had last week to meet with each of you for zone conferences.

We felt the spirit as we met with you and felt of your desire to do what the Lord wants you to do.  We discussed many things, including commitments, lesson plans, consecration and conversion.  As we thought more about this conversion, our hearts are turned to the experience in 4th Nephi...see the verses below:

2 And it came to pass in NZAM, the ELDERS AND SISTERS were all CONVERTED unto the Lord, upon all the face of the land--NZ, both ELDERS and SISTERS, and there were no contentions and disputations among them, and every MISSIONARY did deal justly one with another.

3 And they had all things common among them; therefore there were not rich and poor, bond and free, but they were all made free, and partakers of the heavenly gift---TO SAVE SOULS.

5 And there were great and marvellous works wrought by the disciples of Jesus, ……..and all manner of miracles did they work among the children of men IN NZ; and in nothing did they work miracles save it were in the name of Jesus.

13 And it came to pass that there was no contention among all the people, in THE NZAM; butthere were mighty miracles wrought among the disciples of Jesus IN THE NZAM.

15 And it came to pass that there was no contention in the MISSION, because of the love of God which did dwell in the hearts of the MISSIONARIES.

16 And there were no LAZINESS, nor DISOBEDIENCE, nor DISHONESTY, nor COMPLAINING, nor LACK OF URGENCY, nor PRIDE, nor any manner of WASTING TIMEness; and surely there could not be a happier MISSIONARY among all the MISSIONARIES who had been created by the hand of God AND SENT TO THE NZAM…..

These verses (with a few changes here and there) ought to harrow up in our mind what we need toBECOME as individuals as companions and as a Mission to accomplish our task of saving at least 167 souls a month.

We are excited about our goal to be CONSECRATED...which will help us become more cantered on Christ and His Atonement...and ultimately become PMG missionaries.  As a Mission...we have agreed to:

1.  As at 1 March 2012---Eat dinner between the hours of 5pm and 6pm every day.  This applies across the Mission and there are no exceptions.  We can confirm that each Stake President has been advised and will be advising the Bishops....who in turn will advise the members.  You can be confident, that by this time next week, each member in the mission (aside from those not attending church) will be aware of our new consecration goal.  It's now up to us to have the right ATTITUDE and turn this goal into a wonderful blessing for the NZAM;

2.  Mission Wide Book Of Mormon reading in 90 days.  This also commences 1 March 2012.  We look forward to hearing great experiences as you read at least 6 pages from the Book of Mormon daily;

3.  Mission Wide Fast...Sunday, 4 March.  Please prepare for the fast and pray for the NZAM so we can achieve our righteous desires.

We appreciate all you do Elders and Sisters.  May the Lord continue to bless and prosper you as you Seek to be Obedient with exactness, become a PMG missionary and PBTW in all that you do..is our prayer.

Ofa Atu

President and Sister Lekias

Photo of Tamaki, Manurewa/Papakura, Panmure/Waterview 

Malo Lele Feb 20th

Kia ora whanau!

     This past week was an improvement, but still a bit low for what we want here in this area.  I feel we're doing well on teaching, and alright on finding.  But we need to do heaps more member work.  In fact I've just had the thought for that to be our major focus for next week.  Elder Losalu our Zone Leader committed us to work with the members more this week, for friend shares and asking for more referrals.  And then for companion study this morning we had an idea to look through the white handbook to look for all the things we're supposed to help members to do.  Then we had the idea to go through Preach My Gospel to find more.  Then we're going to look for things we can do to improve.   Then he also committed us to talk to 250 people this week.  

     We do have one investigator set for this weekend which we're pretty excited about, but she has 2 concerns to overcome.  She has to finish off the smoking, and getting married.  She's going to talk to her partner today about it.  Other than that she has no concerns and she's solid.  

     Elder Fox is doing pretty good this week.  When I ask him he'll take the lead to where we're going and doesn't complain about it.  So what I'm going to work on next with him is making sure he knows to step up even if I don't.  That way it will be more even and the work will push forward even faster.  

     We're also trying a couple of ideas with the district so that we can live the mission vision better.  We're using the stats as links in a bike chain, and we need to use them all to go.  And then we need to deserve our pillow.  Every night we ask ourselves, "do we deserve our pillow?"  (have we done all we could).  If not then we evaluate and fix it for the next day.  It looks like things are moving up, now we just need to do more, and faster.

     This week on Friday we also have a zone conference.  Those are always good.  For those that served missions, is it normal for zone conferences to be for 2 or 3 zones?  I'm pretty excited for it.  

Arohanui! 

Sincerely,

Elder Sorensen

Transfered

Kia  koutou kotoa,

     So last week was transfers, and guess what, I got transfered.  But before I found out about transfers, I got a call on Tuesday night.  And can you guess who was on the other side?  None other than President Lekias.  He called me to be a district leader here in Tamaki.  So I packed up and shifted to south Auckland again.  I sure feel overwhelmed by this calling, but I'm trying to do my best for sure.  The numbers for this week were very disapointing.  But considering that Before I came into the area the only work that they had done was 1 LARC, I feel like we did alright.  I know we have a lot of work to do for this area, but its worked before and so I know it can pump again.  

     My plans are to record everything.  Who is good for fellowship, teaching records for everybody, who can cut hair (just kidding, kind of), but things like that.  Getting a formal list of felloship names, schedule, and phone number.  Inviting members to open their homes to cottage evenings.  And I want to write it down so that all that information doesn't get lost over transfers.  

     Elder Fox said that sadly he's seen the area spiral downward to where it was when I came in.  When I came in, there was 2 appointments for Saturday (which both dropped us), 1 LARC for the week, and the only person anywhere close to baptism was a lost record that they're trying to recreate rather than baptizing again, which is fine.  But I do feel disappointed with the Elder that I replaced.  But this is the perfect time to apply the principles I learned in Whangarei and hit this area hard.  

     Elder Fox it a great companion.  In fact, he reminds me of myself when I first came in, and has some of the same fears, and whatnot.  So I know some things that helped me, and that will help him too.  He said I've already been helping him heaps, because I explain how to do things, show him an example and then let him try it.  He's already gotten a lot better than last Thursday.  We're doing things like we each have to find 5 houses to knock and have someone home to talk to, aside from people on the street, in the next half hour to an hour.  It shows him that I want him to be an equal companion not just a junior who follows me around and chimes in every once in a while.  I'm having him lead some lessons too.  So its been really good to see him grow already.  

     I was talking to the Zone Leaders last night for weekly call-ins and they committed us to hit our PBTW goal, and to invite most of them for baptism even on the street.  I think that this will help us really put our minds onto setting people for baptism, having that as their goal, and then really working on commitments and resolving concerns.  I guess really learning how to do everything effectively and without forgetting or dropping the ball on anything.  We've got a lot of work to do in this district, but I just hope and pray that I can be a good District leader to lift, encourage, inspire, and bless this district to make stretching goals and hit them.  

     Sister Funaki and Sister Vailea are the other missionaries in my district.  They're great sister missionaries.  They've done very well last transfer and last month, but it seems like they're slacking this month.  I hope the trainings for this month will help them and usto turn it around and move forward.  I'm always asking the Zone Leader for ideas and counsel, and they're helping a lot.  I still need one of those District Leader packets though.  I've told Elder Walker and Elder Losalu about it.  Thats about all I have time for.

     Sincerely,

     Elder Sorensen

Kia ora koutou kotoa ra! (2/6/12)

Kia ora koutou kotoa ra! 

 This week was a very busy, very stressful, and very productive week.  I feel really good about the week.  There's definitely things to improve on, and I think there always will be.  But I feel we're right on track with improving.  Like I've said before, this area is ready for harvesting.  But we need support from the ward.  Its coming, but slowly, and still without a ward mission leader.  Everybody in Whangarei 3rd ward already have big/stake callings, which is the problem.  Everybody is overworked and down-hearted.  I don't know what to do to lift everybody up and be excited like Whangarei 2ne ward is.  But they're planning on splitting and re-arranging the ward boundries to create a new ward and possibly a new branch as well.  Pretty exciting huh?  

     Some exciting news about Elder Clark, he's training a new missionary!  I'm sure he'll do great.  So that means I'm probably going to get shifted.  I think he'll just need to give the new missionary time to talk make mistakes and grow, rather than just trying to do it all and get it done himself.  Thats the only thing I'm trying to suss out with him even for myself.  

     Sorry sometimes I'm so short in words, but its just so hard to explain everything thats going on.  But what's cool is that we're teaching 25+ lessons a week on average.  Last week we taught 26.  And 3 investigators came to church.  One of them came on his own too.  

     Good things are happening here, but I'm excited to see what I can do in my next area too!

Arohanui! 

Sincerely,

Elder Sorensen