May 27, 2012

Hello hello!!!! :) How's everyone doing?! I hope everyone is just doing amazing as always! Love to hear from all of you and am so grateful for your support and prayers!! This week was what can I say?.. Another awesome week!!! But more awesomer than most that's for sure!!! :) I'll tell ya why soon!! So we'll start from the top shall we?! So last preperation day was pretty fun! We all went to that lame mountain again but this time we played touch at the bottom of it! It's been awhile since I played touch! It was super fun I love touch so much!! So that was fun kickin it with all the elders! :) Than as always we had an FHE at the Tutai's again with all of our sets! Those are so much fun! We had the game this last week so it was good stuff! :) The next day was also really good. For our DM training we printed off copies of mission calls and reinacted opening up all of our mission calls with the missionaries it was really funny and a lot of fun! Fun little training! After that this whole last week we'd been organizing and getting everything ready for the upcoming weekend baptisms! :) Did all their interviews and each day their lessons take up like the days! haha Just such incredible awesome people that we're teaching it's been so much fun!! this is hands down my favorite area of the mission thus far! I know i say that in all the areas I serve in but seriously! Nothin like Mangere! :) Things were chackaz busy this last week due to all of that! Just workin our tails off as always!! My body is just exhausted!! haha But I'm hangin in there cause I know who is my strength! And he will NEVER fail me!! :) So things got exciting because of the weekend coming up!! There were a lot of baptisms throughout the zone this last Saturday but ooooweee we could not wait for ours! It finally came Saturday night! We had Tania Robert, her two daughters Mata and Rebeccah, also Devantay and Emi Taime!!! :) These 5 beautiful souls are incredible!!! :) Honestly my favorite baptism of the mission thus far as well!! The spirit there was incredible! It's a service that I will never forget! They're all so sincere and devoted... It was so much fun and was very rewarding to be a part of it! And yes Ben I wore the bappy suspenders!!! :) i'll attach all the photos I hope ya'll enjoy!! We combined all the services together and turns out they're all related! But i guess all islanders are in some way!! haha but they're all cook island!! I think I've been blessed to baptize someone from everywhere in the Pacific almost!! haha :) All of them after got up and bore their testimonies which was powerful and special!! They're all such wonderful examples to me and have inspired me to be so much better... Thanks to the Tutai family for doing missionary work! Such an incredible family they've done so much for us! It's been fun working alongside them! The blessings have been many that's for sure!! :) it was a great service, heaps of people there, awesome musical items and talks, and the baptisms were heaps of fun!! :) Just one of those days on the mission that makes it all ALL worth it!!!! And it didn't end there!! That whole sacrament meeting on Sunday was basically us doing confirmations! lol and than there was one speaker and guess who it was?... Me!! haha The confirmations were very special as well! The spirit was there in full! And just like at the baptism the converts were emotional once again! It's beautiful to see others be "born again" there's nothing like it!! :) So my talk that i was assigned on wed or thurs was the divine nature and mission of Jesus Christ!! So into the deeps i went! haha :) It was very fun preparing for the talk! pumped me up to serve even better that's for sure!! Strengthened my testimony and inspired me to be better... As our Savior does!!! So it was a bit more lengthy of a talk! i haven't talked for a bit so it was a good experience!! I enjoyed it very much!! Pretty nervous about a homecoming talk though! lol feel like that's where everyone sees the final result of the whole 2 years!!! haha ahhhhh!!! :) Before my mission I remember the two things I was most nervous about was those, the farewell and homecoming!!! haha Though a mission is a whole lot more intense than any of that!! So Sunday was a very rewarding day and in classes Elder Afa and i had to split up and teach different classes so we were just goin hard out all sunday!!! After church we had a massive feed with our beautiful new families in the gospel and some members from the ward at Tania's house! Cook island feed all the way it was awesome!! :) Than last night sunday night we had a missionary fireside in Manurewa, my greenie area, where we went with all of them and Ally, lillie, and D! It was really good and they enjoyed it very much! So just a super fun weekend!!!! One of the best ever and one that i will never forget!!!! :) I love the mission so much and I'm so grateful to be serving my Master and my King... I love you all and wish the best!!!! May the Lord bless you abundantly in my prayer!!! OFA LAHI ATU!!!!!!! :) ps I'm sendin more! To be continued...

May 20, 2012

Well hello hello everybody!!! :) It's me once again! Hope ya'll had a super awesome week this last week! I love you all and pray for you unceasingly!! Sounds like everything's going just wonderful back home and I hope it continues to do so!! Let's get into it aye?! So this last week was another super fun week!! Oh my goodness I love South Aucks more than anything!!! This is up there on one of my favorite areas in the mission that's for sure!! The blessings have been many as of late and they seem to keep coming! It's amazing how he is laboring alongside us.. For I know that these miracles are brought to pass by him and definantely nothing of ourselves!!! :) Well to begin from monday! So Last monday was scrumtrulescent! haha jokes it was great!! The mother's day phone call definantely a highlight as always! Than after that we did our usual monday business! Emailed, shopped, ate, etc etc! Than we went and played some ball again! But from there we ventured to what they call Mangere Mountain.. Which is nowhere even close to a mountain! It be but a little hill!! But it still was fun, something different I guess! It was doing the good ol New Zealand rain and was pouring! So it was pretty fun and made it quite epic I suppose!! So it was a really fun prep day!! :) That night we had some lessons with our sets and also family home evening with the Tutai's as usual! Super fun!! I love our investigators right now SOO much!!! They're all so amazing!! :) It's been such an incredible blessing being able to serve them!! On Tuesday we had our zone conference with some of the other city zones at one of our chapels. And that morning didn't start out to great! Some sort of miscommunication happened and our zone came like an hour late!! lol So before the conference there was to be a zone meeting just with the zone prior. But on accident we got the wrong time in a text from the assistants and so our zone came super late!! It was hilarious cause Elder Afa and I were there early helping set up the chapel and we're with the assistants than all of the sudden heaps of missionaries start coming in and I say to them wow they're all coming very early! And they're like what do you mean it starts in 10 minutes!! I was like oh for heaven's sake!!!! :( So we rounded up our troops and got em all there so we were at least able to give a quick training before! Lucky Elder Hamula wasn't there yet! We were blessed to have him come once again, he's a member of the seventy and is incredible!! But I was terrified that he'd be there early and that he would sit in on the different zones. Luckily that wasn't the case!! Or else I woulda been chastised and rebuked hard out!! lol But anywho so that all worked out and the conference was fantastic!! :) Very very good!! I enjoyed it very much!!! It's always fun being around all the missionaries as always! But I hardly know anyone anymore I swear! All my mates are gone... I'm getting old that's for sure!! :) That evening was fun! Just more lessons with our sets! They're an everyday thing now! We've drawn really close to all of them! They're all so amazing I love it so much!! So it was yet another good night! And of course the members fed us KFC! So Elder Afa was pumped!! The islanders love KFC more than their own children i swear! well... Maybe not to that extreme! Especially with their close family ties! haha but it's ridiculous how much they love KFC!!! Let's see oh!! We had more MTC tradeoffs again! Fun as always!! We got our mate back that before he left on his mission he came out with us a couple of times! This kid from the cook islands he is SO funny!!! So it was fun having him come out with us again for one last time before he hit the field:) He's the man!! Also that night one of the missionaries that was finishing Elder Asaasa came and stayed with us and we took him to the airport! That's always such a weird duty that we have to do!! The airport's in our zone so we're always doing stuff like that with missionaries coming and going! So it was all good!! Also our little army of perspective elders still love coming out with us so it's been super fun!! :) Henry came out with us heaps this last week! I love him so much he's the man!! It was also our convert Ally's bday! so we went and wished her a Happy Birthday! This friday we did some comp study with the sisters did our usual weekly planning all that jazz! And than we got a call from the mission office.. There's a nonmember lady whose family is all members but she's not. And she has breast cancer and it's very severe and she may be passing away soon.. And she requested missionaries to come visit her!! So guess who they called?! haha us!! Cause that's in our zone as well!! Since we were already with the Sisters, Sister Perry and Taotua, they can sing way good so we figured they could come along and help us out!! That was quite the experience and miracle... It was very sad but we were grateful that we were able to go share a message of Christ and the Plan of Salvation.. She's such an incredible lady!! Her hope and optism was inspiring.. Though she's gone through all these trials and things weren't looking in her favor she was so hopeful and positive it was amazing.. And all of it was from her foundation of faith in our Savior.. It was a special experience!! We have had to do certain things like that a lot at the hospital here! Those moments have been intense and they stretch my faith that's for sure!! :) But we're grateful that we were able to go and help! On Saturday there were a few baptisms! One was a tongan lady that was 97 years old! That was amazing!! :) We got most of our sets to a few of the baptisms and they loved it!!! They're just pumped for their Bappys!! Really good baptisms this last weekend! Some members of convert families that through the new convert have gotten baptized! Also one huge miracle baptism!! A girl that has been taught at her fellowships house for ages was getting baptized and turns out she lives in our zone so two days before the baptism we get the refferral and the elders in that area baptize her on Saturday!! :) Such a miracle! And those elders have been qualifying so it was a wonderful blessing!! Sunday was yet another awesome day!! We had New Zealand's General Stake Conference!! It was very very good! Elder Bednar spoke and it was amazing!! :) After that we did some baptismal interviews for our sets and than had lunch at the Laban families house! Than after that had a lesson with our sets at the Tutai family home! And yadayadayad! Just busy busy busy saving souls and loving it to!!! :) I love this work!!!! So things are going amazzing here and we have our baptisms this next saturday! One in the morning for Emi!! :) She is hilarious oh my goodness!!! Than in the evening we have for sure Tania and her two daughters, Rebeccah and Mata! Also Nancy's daughter Alex and Martha's son Devante! Hopefully Martha as well! If a miracle occurs!! She has many concerns but it definantely is possible!!! :) So we're praying for that hard out!! So this week will be super crazy and hopefully all these souls get saved!!!! :):):) Well love ya'll heaps and hope yo0u have a wonderful week!!! God Bless!!!!!! :) Love Elder Devey

May 13, 2012

HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!!! :) Another shout out to my momma! Mom i love you so much you're the best mom in the world!!! ;) I love you heaps!!!! i hope you all had another wonderful week and that everything is going awesome with all of you guys! Know that I miss you all and love you very very much!!! :) So this week was another good one! As always!! Things are going good! No complaint over here! :) So last pday was super lame!! We had heaps of random errands to do! Moving cars around and what have you! BUT! Where we were doing a lot of errands was around the one and only Carl's Jr in New Zealand!!! It's brand new! So of course we went there for lunch!! So that was pretty epic! :) But besides that nothing else really happened on pday just random as errands! But that night we had another FHE with the Tutai family, which is fellowshipping most of our sets! We found them all through them so the FHEs are really fun! So that was good! We've been working a lot more effectively with the ward as of late and we've been seeing the blessings that have come forth because of it! it's been wonderful! :) So things have been pretty good here on this end! it's starting to get cold though and it's raining a bit more! Not looking forward to the winter months! Elder Dyumthi came up again!! :) Yay!!! He came for ZL council, it's so much fun staying with him all the time when he comes up! I love that guy to death!! Our Zone Leader Council was REALLY fun and SUPER special!!! We had a general authority, he is a member of the seventy, Elder Hamula there who gave us heaps of training! It was incredible!!! :) So much fun he was very good! Inspired that's for sure:) He's still hanging around the mission and will be at our Zone Conference tommorrow! So that was a wonderful experience! We've had heaps of miracles this week as well!! :) So the members have helped heaps and we have now 5 sets for the last weekend of this month!!! :) We got Tania, Martha, Emi, Talanoa, and Devante!! It's funny but most people I've baptized throughout my mission are single ladies from 20-35 and some with children that we baptize!! But I don't know why that is!! lol Devante was a miracle, it's Martha's son and he turns 8 next week so he's getting baptized with her! We were talking to him we're like how old are you?! She's like he's turning 8 in a week! We're like you should get baptized with your mom! Would you like that?! And he's like ya!!! haha:) Also Tania has 2 girls that say they wanna be baptized with their mom! :) We just need to properly teach and invite them! Also Talanoa's family is keen as well!! All this came through member work and referrals!! So we're pretty pumped!!! Heaps of blessings and miracles lately!! Oh also we're still working on getting Nancy's daughters baptized any weekend now! They just need to be home for it!! :) So things have been awesome lately and it honestly feels like none of it was from us!! The Lord truly is merciful and has blessed us greatly as of late!! The members are incredible so it's been a lot of fun!! We also had leadership training after that which was really fun as well!! Always good to receive counsel and guidance! Than off went Elder Dyumthi once again! But we shall see him soon as always!! :) Went and watched another baptism on Saturday. had a really fun day on saturday! and... what else?! I dunno! Things are just going awesome over here!! Sunday was really good as well!! Great mother's day and we were blessed to have a lot at church again and a fun lesson with all of them in our class!! :) More lessons in member homes and had some mean feeds this week as always!! Our fridge is always packed hard out and we're always eating i swear!! I'm gonna miss the islander lifestyle!! Such loving, beautiful people... I just love the mission so much!!! It's the best thing ever!!! :) And it was heaps of fun talking to mom and dad this morning!! :) oh my goodness it was great!! Wonderful to hear their voices and to speak to them!! Too much fun!!! :) HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!! :) Love Elder Devey ps the pics.... one with the sisters. They did a dance at a missionary activity! haha Other ones is my posterity!!! :) The fruit of my loins! They're all within leadership! Just missing the greenie. So I begat Elder Espino, who begat Read, who begat Alder, who begat Mutton... And the greenie isn't in the pic!! Elder Espino my firstborn in the wilderness!! :) oh and E. Dyumthi!! Enjoy!! OFA ATU!!!! :)

May 6th, 2012 HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY

First of all a big shout out to ma momma!!!! :) HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!!! Love you more than anything mom!! You're the best mom this world has ever seen and don't ya be jealous ya'll!! Well it's good to be back once again communing with my peeps back home! I miss you all very much and love you even more! And as always I wish you the best and i send my love and prayers to each and every one of you!!! :) Well this week was yet another crazy one!!! I'm tellin ya my body can hardly take it anymore! haha exertion to it's extents in all forms!! So I'll start from the beginning as always!! Last pday was really fun we played some ball again! I think i've gotten better on the mission but I'm a lot slower that's for sure! And I sweat profusely way faster than I ever used to! It's quite sad really! But all good I still got game! :) That night we went on a trade off and me and Elder Hibbard had the wonderful privilege of getting to go all the way to sky tower!!! :) right underneath it it was pretty epic!!! :) Saw some dude bungee jumping and the thought came that that is so me and dad!! Hard out that's our good by to Aucks ma ol man!! We're doin it! :) would that be allowed? But anyways there was a reason for going to the tower cause normally we're not allowed to go to those parts of the city. We had to go pick up a couple of sisters that were going home. That's a weird thing about serving in this zone is always takin care of business like that! Than after that we had a mean FHE with our stake ward mission leader's family. He brought a few investigators and we had a really fun lesson with them and the spirit was there in rich abundance! All good stuff! Martha, the one in our area that we were introduced to that night is now preparing for baptism on the 26th of this month!!! :) Cheee hooo!!! Tuesday was fun! Just attending some District meetings as always doin our thang! Had a fun day that day as well!! Elder Afa, since he's terrifyingly energetic I've decided to use our bikes a whole lot more! Also that is in preperation for the wife hunting... Oh!! Jokes! not thinkin of that yet!! haha Gotta get back to my former glory! Also it's way easier to talk to people on the streets that way!! It's always freaky for people to see this little blue yaris fly up to the curb and this little tongan come flying out at them with a book of mormon in hand!! haha so we're using the bikes a whole lot more it's been really fun!!! :) I'm sick of the car ai a wei!!!! :) Oh did I tell ya about the miracle with Talanoa?! Where we came for a lesson and the lesson prior we invited her to be baptized but she shut us down!! (don't worry im used to rejection!) Anyways next lesson right before we begin teaching while we're having some small talk she just interrupts and her words were as follows.."Elders.. I've been praying really hard and reading and.. I feel, well I know, that I need to get baptized.. Can I get baptized?" Our jaws drop and me being my little immature self I go YAAA!!!! and start laughing and getting all excited ready to chest bump Afa! But at this point she was looking at me like I'm a fool! haha so I regain my composure and we set her with a date!!! Oh my goodness the miracles!!!! :) Can't get enough of it I tell ya!!! Also that wednesday transfer calls came in, not to many changes! Just some of my favorite missionaries leaving! Elder Falepapalangi and Elder Whipple took off... Love those two to death!! All goods though!! But besides that the zone stayed basically the same which is awesome I reckon! I love our zone!! :) So we shall continue saving souls in this part of the Lord's vineyard!!!! :) So thursday came and we did the usual transfer business which is always chaotic!!! But it went quite smoothly! Even had time for mcdonald's breakfast!!! :) More blessings!! We were blessed to find even more choice families this week through the ward! So we got quite a few amount of people that were teaching at the moment so it's been really fun!!! Besides that got to see the Samoans baptize 3 more souls this weekend which was fun!! and.... Sunday!!! Miracles once again!!! So that week we'd been trying hard out to get all of our investigators to church and we'd been struggling.. But I remembered! It's not our work it's his! We get to church and heaps of them were there! I was like what in tarnation?! :) The first two rows were filled with our little families!! And than right before we go to our gospel principles class that we teach sister Fukafuka waddles up to me, oh that was mean shouldn't say waddle! Walked up to me and was like Elda Tevi!(trying to sound like them) I replied yes mam? She's like this is my cousin and she wants to get baptized! Emi is her name and she's well over 20. I look to her I was like eo?! (yes) Seipei Bapi? (you want baptism?) She just nods and smiles I was like we can help ya out come hither to our class room!!! First of all I don't really talk with this lingo this is just me being bored on pday and trying to make it exciting for you! :) lol Anyways so we have a lesson about baptism of course and at the end of our lesson after our converts testify on the ordinance of baptism we extend the baptismal invitation and she accepts as well for this month!!! :) Wow!! It's amazing how the Lord has been providing for us as of late!!! I know that when we qualify the blessings and miracles come!!! :) Also Eli left on his mission and that was sad to see!!! Love him to death!!! He was with us ALL the time it's gonna be hard to replace him!! Pic of his last FHE!! Luvs!! We also had a special moment where we saw a sweet little old samoan lady in the hospital that we've been teaching her family and she's a convert from about a year ago. She's not doing well and may be passing soon.. But she is SO set on attending the temple before she goes it's amazing.. That was a tender, sad moment... And today we got to go to New Zealand's first and only Carl's jr!!!!! :) That was SOOOO AWESOME!!!! :) haha but anyways besides that not much else to report!!! I love ya'll heaps and pray for each and every one of you!!! have a wonderful week I love you!!!! HAPPY MOTHER'S DAY!!!!! :) Love the one and only Elder Devey