Back to Henderson!.........

 So the big thing this week. Yes, I am back in Henderson!... but I am in the Henderson Valley Ward this time. Opposite side of the Stake as the last time in Henderson... To be honest when I heard this news I was less than excited... I was planning on not coming back here for a LONG time... But looks like the Lord needs me here. And I have already seen that! My view and attitude to this area have changed a lot since I have been here! Elder Boyack (My new comp) and I have seen heaps of Miracles in the last 5 days!

      Tuesday was a hard day. It was very hard to say goodbye to all of the families that I got so close to in the last 6 months in Favona Ward. I look at that ward as if it is my home ward! I came to love that ward and the people there so much and I never wanted to leave. I guess it is time though! I am excited for the chance to get to know a new ward and a new area. Hopefully it becomes as big of a place in my heart!

       So I wanna start off with the first miracle that we saw on the first day of the transfer. So we dropped our stuff at our flat and got everyone sussed out and then we got to work. We started to drive around and we didn't even know where our area was. We decided to park and tract some doors. So the first house....... Nothing. The second house........ Nothing. The third house........ Elizabeth answered the door! As we started to talk to her she told us that her Partner was a member and they had just moved into that house 2 weeks ago. We set up an appointment and were happy as! We then went to the next door and before we even got to the door someone opened it and called us over. So we talked to her and she told us that she was a member that has just moved over from Australia a week ago. She also said that her 2 sons (10,9) were not baptized and she wanted them to be baptized! Unfortunately we went back and she told us that they got a house in Otara and were moving in a week. So it helped us to have faith in the area, but didn't turn into anything.

      Another note, I had a very happy and touching experience on Saturday night. We got a call and they asked for me. So Elder Boyack handed me the phone and the person told me that it was Alvin. I was very confused... It was Alvin from Titirangi ward (my first area). They had just moved into Henderson Stake and the missionaries came over and when the sisters went over they asked about me. Then they got my number from the sisters and called. It was really cool to see that they still remember me. We are going to go visit them sometime this week!

      Elder Boyack and I are overall just trying to get our bearings. We are brand new into the ward and so we have basically no idea what is going on. There is heaps of work that we get to move forward we are just trying to still figure out where and how to start! We are excited to get to do the work though!

      Elder Boyack is from LA, and goes home in October. So he is finishing up, this will be his last transfer. He is not trunky at all though! He is going hard! He has big goal! It will be interesting to see what happens with him this transfer. He is VERY different than Elder Summers. But he is really great! He is going to really push me this transfer. I will hopefully grow a lot! 

     We are hoping to be better on our feet by next week and know what is going to be happening!

Love Elder Seelos!

My buddy George

Isa'ako Fam

Mamma Lynne.  I will miss her!

Bro Leifi

Dogs and Trade offs.....

 This week was a good and interesting one... It was kind of hard to be honest. But oh well!

     So this week we had 3 appointments with Sarah this week... All 3 of them dropped... They texted the day of every time and said that they had to change it... So now we will see her tomorrow and see what happens... But all good I guess! She was sick over the weekend and so she couldn't come to church, but I guess that is alright. We will see what will happen with her...Just keep her in your prayers! 

     Elder Summers and I had 2 trade offs this week! I stayed in Favona both times, which ended up being really good! On Tuesday I was with Elder Fonua from Tonga. We did a lot of visiting and just seeing people that we don't normally see! It was good to be on trade off considering that we hadn't done a trade off since the beginning of the transfer. Then on Thursday we had another trade off and I was with Elder Leung in Favona. We did a lot of walking and tracting, which is something that Elder Summers and I don't usually do, So I liked that.

    Crazy story of the week! On trade off with Elder Leung we went to go and visit a less active family in our area. So before we knew that they had dogs that were tied up but one of them had gotten hit by a car and the other choked itself on its chain. So we were no longer worried about the dogs at that house. Well Elder Leung and I went walking up to the door and knocked once, twice, thrice. No answer... As we turned around to go I saw something walk out from the side of the house... Yes, it was a dog... A big dog. Well it turned and froze and we froze. We just stood there looking at each other... Then I slowly stepped back against the door and as I did that, the dog started to bark and get angry... So I started to knock on the door louder hoping that someone would come to the door. I knocked twice and no answer... So I started to think about how I was going to kick the dog and get away from it... Right then the door opened. That is when we met Mary-Ann. She is like 24ish. She came to the door and told the dog to shut up and then started talking to us. She is wanting to make changes in her life and become a better person and specifically a church person for her baby who is coming. So we committed her to pray and to find where she needed to go. Then we left. Then the dog jumped up again... It was basically sniffing Elder Leung it was so close! Well the lady called off the dog and we got out of there so fast! It was crazy! I think that Satan puts dogs in places to deter the missionaries from going there. That's what I learned this week!

    Sunday was a really great day! We had an Early morning meeting with all of the missionaries, bishops, and Ward mission leaders in the stake with the Stake President. We talked about missionary work and the Stake President committed all of the bishops to commit the ward councils to give us all referrals.  So after church Bishop called an Emergency ward council and committed the presidencies in all 8 auxiliaries to give us a referral by next Sunday.  So that would be around 32 referrals... That would be a record! We got one from our Elders Quorum President right after the meeting, so we will see how this goes!

     I hope that everyone has a good First week at School! Love You!

                 Love Elder Seelos!

My Zone

Scavenger Hunt at the mall 

Safety is important in our mission

Kiwi bird

High 5....it took us like 10 tries to get this picture!

Great investigators!..lots of meetings....

Hey Family!  

     We had good week! Monday was MEAN! We had our lesson with Sarah and the Kavea Family with President Seve, Our Elders Quorum President because we are trying to get him and his wife fellow shipping Sarah. We showed up to the Lesson and they had made us Dinner because Sister Kavea knows we don't get fed on Mondays. So Elder Summers and I ate but Seve had already eaten which turned out to be really good! While we ate he sat and talked to Sarah, and just got to know her. So that ended up being really cool and we can now use that for our benefit to help her feel more comfortable! We had a small family home evening planned where we played a game and her son loved it and had HEAPS of fun! Using the game we talked about the Scriptures and just explained what the scriptures were and how they can help us and answer questions. Well after we did that we were thinking we were going to start to finish up. Well we asked her if she had any questions... Well that was a good/bad question... She answered with Um... Yes! What is this? What does that mean? Just heaps of questions! It was really good! It was super cool we got to answer questions all night and ended up taking ages and had a very long lesson! It ended up being really cool though! So we finished up and were leaving and asking when we could come back. As we were doing that Sarah stood up while holding her 2 year old son. Well he was acting weird most of the time. So we talked to her about when we could come back and she said Friday, well before she could tell us a time her son Jordan threw up all over the floor... Then again. and again. and again. and again... All over the floor... So then we just gapped it! It was pretty nasty.

     So we went back on Friday to see them again. This time we took Brother Mafi. Long story short we took 2 hours to teach her Faith and Repentance. It went really well and she still had heaps of questions for us to answer so we took a really long time! We committed her to come to church also. Which she actually came! It was AWESOME! We were so excited to see her at church! It made me so happy when I saw her walk in. Unfortunately she had to leave after sacrament because her son Jordan hit his face on the bench and gave himself a black eye... Yeah, I thought it was kind of funny though!

     Other than that we had heaps of meetings this week. We had MLC and then we had Interviews and then we had Zone training 3 days in a row... So that took out heaps of time, which made the week feel like we got nothing done. Which is never a good feeling. Over all the meetings went well though!

     We were able to make a girl we have been seeing an official New Investigator this week. Her name is Tash. We were finally able to teach a real lesson. We have been visiting her for like a month now. She lives with one of our less actives, Ashwini. They are Fijian-Indian who have lived here for a while now. So Tash just moved up to Auckland from Wellington and is Baptist but doesn't really go. We invited her to be baptized and she said she would think about it. We have high hopes for her!

    For P-day today we are going to play laser tag with President and Sister Balli!  Should be a blast!

Love you all! Love Elder Seelos

Mission Leadership Conference

New Investigators!!!

   Well this week was a great one! We had an awesome week! Well first half of the week.

 I am going to start out with our miracle this week! Just a bit of back ground. 1. We have not had a New Investigator for a few weeks, and its kind of discouraging. Its a really good and big thing to get a New Investigator cuz it doesnt happen every day! Not even every week. 2. We have been working with a Returning Member for a while, Sister Kavea. We would usually go over and visit and share a message with her and she has been coming to church, So she has been progressing very well! Now to start the story! It was Monday night we had an appointment with a Tongan guy named Folou. So we decided to take Brother Mafi with us. We went and picked up Mafi and then went to the house. Well he was busy... So we couldn't meet with him. We tried a few other houses with Mafi, then decided to just go and drop Mafi off and ended up talking to them for a while. Well at about 8:30 we got a text from Sis Kavea (The Less Active). Her text basically said "Hey Elders, would yous be able to come over before you go home and give my cousin a blessing?" So we said yes and left the Mafi's and went to her house. at about 8:45-9. We went in and we met Sarah, The cousin. Sarah is half white and half Maori. She had some stuff happening in her life that basically she thinks is Bad spirits kind of thing. Maori's are very Spiritual People and have a lot of spiritual traditions and belief's, kind of like the Native Americans. Well she was at a Funeral and she thought from some things that had happened while she was there she was being cursed, or haunted kind of thing. So she wanted comfort. Well we gave the blessing and it was a really cool blessing that ended with the idea that God wasnt cursing her but was trying to get her closer to Him. In the End it was a mean blessing. Then we left. So we didn't know if anything would come from it but a good experience for her. Well we were wrong. We got a text from Sister Kavea on Tuesday Night at about 10 while we were planning. Sister Kavea asked us if we could set up a time that we could go over the next day (Wednesday). Of course we said yes. So we went over on Wednesday at 7 and taught her. She has no belief in God at all. She knows he is there but thats about it. So we taught her about how God is her loving Heavenly Father and then taught her how to pray. She had a lot of awesome Questions that we loved getting to answer. So Sarah is 24 and has 2 kids, 6 year old boy and 2 year boy. No Husband or Partner. The beginning of the lesson was weird... We had to bring a member with us so we could get in because they didnt have a man in the house. Well we brought Brother Lese. It was just interesting... He talked for so long and we couldn't get much in for the first hour... It was weird. We were happy we could get him with us but it ended up being a weird experience. Well long story short we will see Sarah again Tonight and have an FHE with the family. So wish us luck!

    Another Highlight of the week was Church on Sunday! The Isa'ako's asked me to bless the kids. So because Tyson (7) and Kingston (4) are not old enough to be baptized and they were never blessed as babies they needed to get blessed. So Sister Isa'ako asked me to bless them both. I was honestly pretty Nervous... They went well though and now they are blessed!

    We were able to see a lot of the people that we had wanted to and ended up having a great week visiting! Other than Saturday. Elder Summers was sick on Saturday and we spend most of the day in the flat. That was literally the worst. So that was basically the Highlights of the week!

    One thing that has stuck out to me this week is how when we honestly and truly pray to our Father in Heaven about the things we need he will ALWAYS give you what you need. Every time he will make things work out! So PRAY!

Love you, Love Elder Seelos!