July 22, 2012

Kia Ora Whanau!!!! :) Guess who?! It's Elder Devey!!! Hello everyone!! My vast audience back home!! haha jokes! Good to be chattin with ya'll again!! Hope you all had another wonderful week and that the Lord is just blessing you like crazy right now!! Cause he sure is!! Just gotta look for it!! I love you all!!! Just wanted you to know that!!! :) Well what another beautiful week!! Let's get started shall we?! So first of all we had heaps of miracles this week!! Things that we did not think would happen but they did!! Well first of all monday was pretty fun! We basically didn't do anything but just makin the most of what we were doing! We just sat around and passed a rugby ball around for like 4 hours!! It was awesome!! haha not really but it was good! Did yet another trade off on Tuesday as always!! In my old area Papatoetoe 1st one elder finished his mission and the other got sent out so we have been double covering that area with ours:) Which we totallydon't mind! Mine and Elder Whipster's old area! So that has been fun!! So we had a feed with the Fatupaito family! How I love those old Samoans so much! The cat is outta the bag to say the least that I'm finishing soon! And both of these areas are planning all these things for me before I go it's awesome! haha with gifts or feeds or what nots! Sis Fatupaito is trying to book the chapel for when my parents are here to have a Fiafia! haha :) So that'll be cool!! That night we got a call from President.. Looks like he's got new plans for me once again!! A little background on the story! So awhile back I got a good impression that at the very end of my mission something different would happen. I felt strongly that I would kinda get away from all of this leadership and train at the very end again. I thought about it for awhile and could definantely see the benefits that would come from it. It would help me to finish strong and keep me focused. I could easily see that if I stayed here with Elder Whipple that I could have finished on a level that I would not wanna be upon. So I expressed these thoughts to President in our interview a bit ago and he said he'd take it to the Lord. Well turns out that he has a special assignment for me. I'm no longer a zone leader or a leader of any sort and I'm going to be double-shifted again to train a new missionary. I'm going to Hibiscus, Wellsford, Wark worth and Torbay. An area that is massive!! It's at some of the richest areas of our mission and has been closed for a LONG time due to no success with previous missionaries. Well he wants me to go and in 6 weeks to do all that I can to get it pumping with my new missionary!! Feels like the ol days at the beginning of mymission with Elder Espino in Tauranga! Oh by the way he's the new Assistant! haha But anywho so President and I feel this would be a great way for me to finish strong and togo back to the asphalt! I'm SOOOO excited but kinda nervous as well!! :) So there's the news! Kinda sad because I love this area sooooo much.... Our investigators,the members, Elder Whipple it's been my favorite... But Iknow that this is what needs to happen! The conditioning as they call it in sports. Or the deep incline before reaching the summit.. It begins this Thursday.. So here we go!!! Chee hooo!!! :) So there's some exciting news! But that's not all of it!! So the members all here think I'm going home this Thursday it's pretty funny!! In church on Sunday, at both wards, here and my former Pap 1st they had me give last second talks to say goodbye and bear my testimony which was really hard... It's started hitting me pretty hard lately that it's here at the end.. Just one more transfer and this beautiful chapter of my life will be closed!! I don't like it! It's gone way too fast!! Emotions have been on the surface.. I feel like momma lately I just cry so easy!! haha so those testimonies were pretty tough to give!! I love the mission so much I don't ever want to say goodbye.. Elder Whipple and I had a special moment this week that was very fond to me. He is one that still says he is unsure that God lives. In a lesson he bore a powerful testimony and within it said things that mattered very much to me. He spoke of a blessing I gave him a long time ago when we weren't companions and he spoke of how after receiving a blessing from a dear friend he came to know fully that God did love him and was very aware of him. That's when he came to know.. It was a special moment and it meant the world to me! I love the guy to death! Members have already started givin gifts and gettin things ready for me haha Islanders are the coolest people ever.. They're so faithful, so loving and so believing!! No place better than the Pacific!! On Friday we had heaps of miracles that we didn't even think would happen!!! :):):) So Sister Fosio miraculously got baptized!! She was my very first lesson in the area 6 months ago and after things went south and I saw the desire of her husband getting her baptized and being sealed in the temple I told him that before I left the area I promised him she would be baptized.. Turns out my verylast weekend in the area she got baptized!!!! Even though she was like 40 minutes late it happened!! Up even to that moment of her entering the water we did not think it was gonna happen and than she finally showed up and it happened!! After me and Brother Fosio baptized he was just ecstatic in the bathroom... It made it all worth it.. The beginning of an eternal family.. I love them so much.. It's so amazing to see the Lord's hands in his children's lives.. It was beautiful!! But not just sweet Sister Pule Fosio got baptized!! Nancy's daughters got baptized!! Tenaya and Alex!! :) We've tried so hard and finally they did!! I baptized Nancy and confirmed her also so she asked if I could do the same for the girls. It was yet another wonderful experience!! So these 3 wonderful sisters were baptized this weekend and most of it all occured on Friday! Especially Tenaya! Literally an hour before the baptism Nancy called and Tenaya had a change of heart and wanted to get baptized with her sister so we organized a quick interview ran and got the whites and she got baptized as well!! Amazing aye?! How I love this work!! I'ts just incredible I can't get over it!! Another beautiful experience at that baptism was while baptizing her daughters I looked to Nancy in the doorway and she was crying.. She's an awesome lady and I have drawn very closeto this family.. So fun to see on my last weekend here:) So Sunday they were all confirmed and welcomed warmly into the Thomas Rd ward:) Than I gave my last little testimony.. I've had enough of these goodbyes!! The mission is full of them and it's so hard!! It's amazing how nameless faces, strangers can become your best friends.. So many people who are very dear to me live here in New Zealand and the islands.. I will never forget them.. Well I love you all very much and miss you dearly and am looking forward to seeing you soon.. I love you!!!! :) Love Elder Devey:) OFA LAHI ATU!!!!!