AND A HAPPY NEW YEAR

Hey everybody!!

 Hope you all had a wonderful week and a merry christmas!! :) I wish that you were all able to feel the spirit of Christmas and have reflections on our Savior Jesus Christ.. I thank you all for your support and all that you have done for me and the gifts!! Loved em! Well this week was another exciting one and a whole lot more surprises lately! That's just how the mission's been as of late! But earlier this week my companion Elder Baraniko got in a really bad accident.. We were heading home from a baptismal interview for Ollie and her two kids.  We were going down a hill on the motorway.  Baraniko's breaks weren't working, so this was an error in our part, we shoulda fixed them! But he was braking his front tire with his feet.  When his feet got stuck in the wheel and he was thrown over the handle bars.  He face planted into the ground.  I was in front of him and wouldn't have known that he crashed, but he's got this little dorky horn on the front of his bike that squeaked when he crashed.  So I looked back and saw him on the ground.  So I jumped off of my bike and ran to him.  He didn't look to good, his mouth was bleeding and he could barely move.  So I did what I knew to do and just checked out all the basic vital things to make sure the injury wasn't really serious.  But it still looked really bad and definantely was an emergency.  He wanted to say a prayer, so I started saying a prayer.  And on this sidewalk there wasn't anyone walking on it up and down the length of the sidewalk.  And it was a really big sidewalk.  When we said amen to the prayer there was a third amen with us.  It truly was a miracle! It was a member from another ward.  So he gave us a ride, we called sister Porter and the zone leaders.  Well the rest of the night was a long night.  The first clinic they took xrays and found out that he broke both of his arms, he also lost a tooth too!! Bad huh?! So we were at the hospital in Auckland til like 4 in the morning.  The next day he just slept all day and rested, our apartment has never been so clean! haha Poor guy.. So I've been doin all I can to help carry his burdens with him.  And since then we've been struggling.  We've had to walk our area this whole week and it's extremely inefficient! Our area's suffering right now.  But we're not complaining, we're gonna just have faith and continue to serve with all that we've got no matter what circumstances and have that faith, than the Lord will take care of the rest.  He'll lead us to those who need us and are prepared.  So we're excited to have this trial of our faith at this time! But it's been pretty hard for us that's for sure! And he needs help with everything because both arms are broken!! But that happened Tuesday! But we were still able to have Ollie and her kids baptized on Christmas Eve.  Right after I called home! So Christmas was a lot of fun for us! We had a "white christmas" yay!! :) The first family baptism I've been able to be a part of, all at once.  It was wonderful.  And since Baraniko's arms are broken he couldn't baptize or confirm.  So I baptized the 3 and confirmed the mom.  Kaufusi and bishop confirmed the kids. It was amazing to see a family on christmas be baptized.  It was such a wonderful experience.. The lord just keeps pouring out his blessings on this mission through his love and mercy! But now this coming week we're gonna have to excercise a whole lot more faith.  They're still trying to figure out if we'll get a car or if he'll go to a different area.  So we'll see what happens! So more fun coming our way!! haha But ya Christmas was wonderful! I hope you all had a wonderful and merry Christmas!! And congratulations Brooke on another one coming our way!! Especially on my bday!!!! :) Dad says it looks like I can be replaced!! haha But I'm so happy for you and Steve and Peypey!! :) All my love to ya!! Hurray!! Just so exciting!! And you to Ben and Krystal with Brittlyn's birth last week!!!! Just so many blessings from our father in heaven it's incredible!! Enjoy all of this and cherish this love that our Lord freely gives us.. I can't wait to come home and see all these new faces everywhere!! How amazing!!! :) I love you all sosoooo much and I'm so grateful for you all and all that you do!!!! :) have a wonderful week and a happy new year!!!!! :) Be safe and have fun!! ps in the ensign, the general conference one on pg 47 is Elder Baraniko.  On pg 118 there's some sisters in our mission to! Just throwin that out there! I'm with a celebrity! Love ya all!!! :)
With Love Elder Devey

Merry Christmas

Aloha everyone!!! :) Merry Christmas to one and all!!

May the thoughts of our Savior Jesus Christ be fruitful the Christmas. It's such a beautiful time of year! Well here it is! At least you're all truly having a white Christmas! It doesn't even feel like Christmas! It's so weird! But it's finally kicking in because we've had some Christmas events.  Hopefully my "white Christmas" is with baptisms!! Haha Now that's the white Christmas I want! :) We have planned a baptism for Ollie and her children James and Lora.  That's on Christmas Eve so that will be wonderful! :) So ya I'll email about the last two weeks since no one knows what happened last week.  Neither do I! Haha But ya basically as I said I got a random call and I've been in Mangere in Papatoetoe for the last two weeks with Elder Smith the Zone leader up there.  It was an awesome experience! Being able to see all the different missionaries and be with them all and learn from them all and their individual teaching styles.  I grew so much in that little time.  So I loved it all very much.  But I missed my area here in Manurewa, I missed the wonderful people here. Being with Elder Smith was awesome though.  Elder Falepapalangi is in that zone so it was great to see him again.  Everyone thought I was already going Zone Leader it was pretty funny! Not even close! But it was fun doing all the Zone Leader tasks and just being with all the different missionaries.  It just was rough being pulled out of my area with so much big stuff going on.  And I thought I was gone for good.  I felt so strongly that there was so much more stuff that I needed to see through.  So much left undone here.  I know I still have a lot more I need to do in Manurewa. 

But that's part of the good news! I'm still here! I went back at transfers! And I'm still with my little islander Elder Baraniko! We were so excited! :) Elder Jibas is being trained elsewhere so he won't be with us anymore.  So now things are back to normal and we can just continue in thrusting in our sickle with all our might! It was fun because we got to pick up the elders coming in from Niue at the airport and they stayed with us for a week until transfers.  They were a lot of fun.  We also got to go pick up a missionary that was getting sent from the mission in the West Indies in the Caribbean to our mission.  He's been serving for about a year.  He's an awesome missionary to.  We got to also go to the mission office and mission home a lot which I haven't seen since I came out here.  So that was a lot of fun, I was able to talk to President Porter more.  So there were a lot of fun things about this whole crazy transfer thing they did.  They did it because Elder Smith's comp is going AP so I came to fill in for him for a couple of weeks until our transfers which was also our Christmas conference.  At mission conference it was fun to talk and hang out with all the missionaries.  I love the men that are serving here.  There are some awesome guys.  I talked to Elder Atkin a lot.  And he was just completely shocked that Paora had been baptized.  Because when he left Pa hadn't even gone to church and was still addicted to a lot of things.  What a huge change he made!

 But speaking of Pa… I've never seen a bigger miracle in my life! If you all knew him when we first met him. He was about as far away as you can get!!! Now he's got the priesthood and he's coming out with us all the time and he says that he's having thoughts of serving a mission.  So we've shared our thoughts with him a lot about that as well.  How cool is that?! Man!! This truly is the mission of miracles!!! :) For the year so far to this point the mission has about 1,550ish baptisms.  It just truly is the Promised Land out here in the pacific.  Such humble believing blood here in the islands.  The prophecies are coming true of the Lamanite descendants flocking to the gospel! I'm so lucky to be a part of the glorious work especially in this part of the Lord's vineyard!!! :) It's amazing I'm telling ya!! This year the goal for the mission was baptizing multiple souls monthly, doubling the mission’s baptisms.  And the mission only needs 20 more this week and then they would literally double their baptisms from last year.  (i only know that number because I heard it in the office.) But that's what big miracles are going one! That's amazing for a mission to double the numbers in a year! So this next week is huge!!! This next year, with raising the mission's faith, our goal is to baptize WEEKLY!!! So you can see how much faith that's going to require!! So we'll see what I got! haha I'm excited!!! :)

But Mission conference was just wonderful!! Elder McAllister came again, whose over all the missions in the Pacific.  It was so uplifting and inspiring, especially uniting as a mission together.. Spirit was so strong and powerful.. It was a great Christmas celebration.  And we had a talent show with the mission and all the different nationalities performed.  It was so cool; the Samoans did some amazing songs and dances.  And then the Tongans did their thing to and of course did the Haka.  Than the Samoans answered back with theirs and they just fed off of each other and went nuts.  It was so cool to see!! Such strong cultures and people out here it's so beautiful.. There truly is no better mission than this!! Haha But now I'm back in South Auckland in the rough parts! But I love it!! My 3rd transfer here, but I wanted to come back so I don't mind!! Just excited to get back to work!! Sorry about last week just was so busy had no time for anything!! But I'm glad I have an opportunity now to have more time!! I love you all very much and I'm so grateful for your support and prayers in my behalf. I hope you all truly have a 'Mauri" Christmas!! haha :) I wish you all a MERRY CHRISTMAS and send my love to you all!!!!!!!! :)

Kia Ora U.S. of A.

Aloha everyone!! :)

 Feliz Navidad!! I don't have too much time this week so it's gonna have to be a quick one! But next week I'll send one of my big ones. So basically this week had heaps of surprises again.  Tuesday morning I got a call from the APs and they asked if i was ready for an adventure.  I said of course I am! So they said pack up your things we'll be picking you up in 30 minutes.  So I was only able to pack up some of my things and I was sent to be with a zone leader Elder Smith in Mangere, Manukau Papatoetoe zone.  I'm not a zone leader or anything.  But his companions gonna be the new AP so I'm here to be his companion for two weeks.  And every day almost since I got here I've been on trade offs with all sorts of different missionaries.So it's been a great experience but =I've been gone for two weeks and all my stuff is in Manurewa. It's far away, sio hopefully I can get it all at transfers.  But now I can't send stuff to people cuz I've been gone. So everything has to hold off for a little while. It's all just been crazy lately!! I've been thrown all over the place doing all sorts of different stuff! We even picked up the elders who came back from Niue island and they've been staying with us.  But ya it's been awesome but crazy! I don't have a home just going all over right now! So we'll see what happens at transfers this friday and where I'll finally settle in.  This transfers we have a big xmas conference so we're very excited!! I'll update everyone up on everything next pday.  SOOO much stuff has happened but I've been playing ZL;) this week and next week in a car and everything so it's been fun! Pa was finally baptized so we traveled back to see that! But I'll give all the info next week, gotta run I'm so sorry! I love you all!! Merry Christmas love you!!! :)

Meri Kiritimatti!!

Merry Christmas!! 

That was merry christmas in Kiribati.  Now that I'm basically C3PO with languages! haha not really.  But Kia Ora to all of you in America!  Thank you once again for your support! And I'm excited for these packages that will soon be here... I'm expecting heaps! haha just messin all goods.  It's so weird, of course I feel that Christmas spirit and everything.  But with how the weather is and just working hard day in and out it doesn't feel a thing like christmas is close at all.  It's really weird!  Guess when we get to go to the temple we'll see their Christmas lights and it may feel more like Christmas.  Even though the lights are on palm trees haha. :) I'm livin the life here that's for sure!  I've been on my mission now for over 3 months i think... Time has just flown by, it's unreal.. I almost don't like it!  I don't want the mission to go too fast! I wanna be able to cherish all the amazing experiences here..The mission is truly the most incredible thing that us young men can be a part of. It really is life changing and just the most amazing thing ever.. I truly don't now how to describe how much the mission has meant to me so far.. It's been so incredible.. I love it all so much.. Being able to help the Lord's children and bring them to the truth and light in the restored gospel.  Not only serving others but what it does to me, my heart, and my testimony myself.. I've already made such a dramatic change in these few months.  I can't beleive the stupid "boy" I used to be!! I now see what life is really about.. I mean I already knew, but wow there's so much more!!! So ya I've been loving every moment of the mission so far.  It's ups and downs, It's all been the best thing that has ever happened to me.  This week was good!  We had quite the surprise on Tuesday!! :)  One part of the day we were going out with a prospective missionary in our ward and some appointments fell through and I just had this impression to head back to our flat.  So we threw our bikes in Nuatua's massive van and drove back.  There were 3 missionaries outside our flat waiting, we had no word of anything happening this day.  But we got out and they told us here's your new companion!  haha His name is Elder Jibas (seebus).  He's from the Marshall Islands.  That was his very first day of the mission.  He never went to the MTC, I guess he was stuck in Hawaii a little but now he's with us! So the last couple weeks of this transfer were in a 3man companionship.  And I'm starting to train already I guess! That's what Pres said!  So it's gonna be a fun opportunity! Me and Baraniko are gonna be his MTC!  It's been fun! We had no warning and so we've had to scramble to make it so all could work, we ran out of food and it's been a fun experience.  They're both wonderful guys, they're both so fascinated with America though.  They haven't heard to much coming from small islands.  But ya so that was a great blessing and experience!  With the added faith from this new missionary we were able to have a great week.  We set a family for baptism on Christmas Eve, and Solomon on Christmas.  Paora finally got answers to his prayers... It was one of my fondest memories thus far..  Ever since I've been here me and Elder Atkin started workin on Pa.  We've grown a great friendship with him but he just wouldn't change.  Every time we're there I really feel like I just pour out my soul to him.. And he has improved a whole lot because he 'feels' its all true but he doesn't 'know'.  So he has changed a lot but he's still addicted to a whole lot of different things.  He's tried, but he can't fight them off.  And this Sunday we held a fast with him.  Saturday night we went out and got a whole lot of fish n' chips.  (Which is fish and fries, they call fries chips.)  And we had a feed with him.  Than we opened a fast where he wouldn't take anything at all.  On Sunday he came to church and than to a Marai fireside with us at night.  The fireside was soo powerful.. It was about the Maori culture and how they're direct descendants of the lamanites.  Hettueta Jones spoke, whose a famous Maori and is a member of our church.  And Spencer W. Kimball prophesied that in the last days the lamanites would flock to the gospel.. And that's what's happening in this mission! How awesome is that!? I get to be a part of bringing the descendants of the lamanites into the Lord's church, part of that prophecy! But anyways it was a strong cultural presentation and the spirit was very powerful.  Many people bore testimony of their heritage and what the Book of Mormon means to them.  Because it's actually an account of their ancestors, the ones who traveled here.  And Pa's Maori and he just loved it.. With the testimonies at the end ALL of it related to him, and he felt it.. After it was over I walked over to Pa to chat with the man to see how he liked it and he just hugged me.. He usually sees us as some of the bros so it's definantly not like him to hug! But he just started thanking me for my persistance and all I've said.. He said he finally got the answer he's been looking for and that last cigarette the other day is his last one.  He said without a doubt I'm getting baptized THIS next weekend!  It was incredible.. How the Lord gives answers.. Pa has had faith at the beginning, He had that trial of his faith and through it was able to finally receive the answer he was seeking.  The Lord answered him in his time.  But now Pa says he's all in! When we were leaving the sunset was just absolutely stunning as they always are here and he turned to me and said "that's the setting sun of my old life, now begins a new life."  It was just SSOOOO incredible! Because I've really grown close and fond of Pa.  We have a strong friendship and it's been so hard, and I've done everything I could possibly think of for this guy. Seriously though we've done so much for him and finally our labors are being harvested.  Last night when I was talkin with my companions about it I just started crying. Because I really love Pa and I've tried so hard and I know he finally received his answer.. So that was the highlight this week! :) So everyone pray for him and add to the efforts so he can enter in by that gate of the waters of baptism this next weekend.  That would be much appreciated! :)  But ya this week was a great one! A lot of surprises and opportunites to grow.  And of course funny moments as well.  Like this old lady we see EVERY single day who just absolutely hates missionaries.  The other day we rode by her house and started talking to her son and she was washing her car and she started trying to spray us with water and yelling at us in her little voice.  it was hilarious! Poor little old lady! If only she knew! haha But ya so things are good here! I love hearing from you all and love the support!! I love you all very much and pray that the Lord will  be with you every step of the way this coming week! Happy Holidays and I love you all very much!!! :) as always Ofa Atu from Aeotorea!! Kia Kaha!! :)
With love Elder Devey