Cows, Wood, Horses, and Rolled Cars.....

     So as you can tell from my title this was an interesting week! 

     We started the week off well! We had a great Trade off with our Elders in Kaitaia. I got to go with Elder Ateo from Tahiti. He was practicing his driving so I got to sit in the passenger seat the whole time and it was mean! Good to have a break from driving! Their area is huge and so its a lot of driving. It takes about an hour to get there from here so yeah. We had fun though! Elder Ateo is the man. He is still working on his English, but tries really hard. Fun guy!

     Following that Thursday was a fun as day. Our Member, Brother Matene, asked us to come and help with some service. So we happily accepted! We went over around 10 and we started chopping wood. He had the Chain saw chopping up trunks so we could split it with the axes. We chopped for like 2 hours. Overall it was so fun. But I was so sore the next few days! I also have the blisters to prove it! Ha. Well the next day we went to go and visit his family nextdoor to him and his son was there and we talked to him and he said that his dad was in the back yard. So we went to say hi. Well he ended up asking us to help him move some of his cows down the street to a new paddock. So again we happily accepted and thew on our gum boots in our boot. So we then ended up driving 6 or 7 cow about a Kilometer down the street. Stopping traffic the whole time. That was pretty fun. After that his son asked if we had ever ridden a horse before. Then he let us ride his horse. That was fun as too! Just an average week her in Kaikohe!  

     Last week we got to do some Bone Carving with a Less Active member in the other ward. His name is Graham. I started on a pretty mean carving. I am going to make a necklace out of it. I am pretty keen to try to get into that when I get home. Its pretty mean and is a better hobby then Xbox all day! Ha.

     We got to meet with a few investigators this week. We finally caught up with Wesley yesterday. He told us that he is moving on the 4th of July. So its set. Well we talked to him for a bit then we asked him about baptizing his daughters. He is going to talk to his wife about it cuz one of them is staying in New Zealand with an Auntie and Uncle when they move. So we might get her baptized before they move away. 

     We also got to go to our branch yesterday for church. Got to bless the Sacrament for the first time in ages! It was funny when we sat down after the sacrament our Branch President came down to us and said that they were short a speaker so asked if we would talk. When he said it we couldnt tell if he meant just me or both of us. So thankfully we both started to prepare. Well the 2nd councilor then announced that Elder Inglis will speak to us. Then never called me up! Ha. So I missed that one. Well 2nd hour we basically did set up to try to teach a kid that came with one of our members. His name is Holden. He has been coming off and on to church for a few months. He has been pretty regular at seminary as well, so there isnt really much holding him back other then the fact that he is a 15 year old boy and they are all stubborn and just do their own thing. So we are going to hopefully teach him this week. We then got into combined Elders Quorum and Relief Society and no one had prepared the lesson. So they all just said to have us do it... So we did. They gave us the book and we taught just straight from nothing. Just a solid testament that the spirit help us when we need it! 

     So last crazy story this week. Sorry this is huge. So we got a call on Wednesday around 3:15. The assistants told us that the tracker on the Zone Leaders car had sent into the office that their car had flipped. They tried to call but were not answering. So they wanted us to go and see if they were okay. They gave us the street they were on and we found it quite easy. They are in the bush. So just heaps of farm land and dirt roads. So very little cell service. Well we got to the street about 30 minutes later. We drove the entire street... No car. So we drove about half way up again and got cell service. So we called the mission office to ask again where they were. Well they told us that the car had moved..... My question was how does an upside down car move? Well they had moved about 20 K's up the street.... What? So we drove there. We found them about another 30 minutes later and they were fine. They had just hit a bump and drifted a bit and they just didnt have cell service so they didnt see us calling... So yeah. We then got back at about 5 just in time for dinner! Ha. 

     Thank you for all the birthday wishes!  I had over 30 emails to open this afternoon!  Love my family.  

              Well thats my stories for this week! Heaps of fun! 

                     Love yous heaps!

                         Love Elder Seelos

Working on my carving skills

My mean as carving....

Our adventure finding the Zone Leaders

Trotting along after working hard...

Muddy work boots & loads of work...

     This week was honestly so fun! It rained heaps this week so Elder Inglis and I spent a good amount of time in the mud! Good thing for Boots! There is HEAPS of less active work to do out here! 

     We were able to have Trade offs with our Zone Leaders this week, Elder Frew and Elder Taranaki. I stayed in the area with Elder Taranaki. It was cool because Elder Taranaki started his mission in the same area that I started. So we were able to talk about all the people that we know from that area. We actually had heaps to do that day! We had Rescue night with our ward, we had an appointment with a Less Active member, Kerehopa Tait, and then we had a lesson with our Investigator Troy. Gotta Love trade offs!

     We got to do another Service on Tuesday with our Member, Sister Tait. This is Kerehopa's Sister. Well she has a goal to paint her house for her Land Lord cuz the Land Lord is letting her live there for pretty cheap. Well she is trying to paint it and there is a lot of prep work to do. So we started to help her sand the house. We got about half of the first wall done and then had to leave to dinner. So we are going to go back and try to finish up the job soon so that we can start painting. We announced it in Priesthood Yesterday that we could use some help with it so hopefully that will work out.

     We truly LOVE our Branch. We are trying to spend as much time out there as we can. We have a less active member out there that we started to visit this week. His name is Westly. He is a convert but has fallen away. He is alone right now with his 4 kids cuz his wife is working in Australia to make more money to build the house that they want. So he has one girl that is 9 that our Branch President wants us to try to get baptized. He also has a daughter that turns 8 today. So we are really going to work on getting them active and Baptize them! 

     One fun thing about our Branch is the fact that it is just farming land. Its just a big long street with houses on either side and a few small side streets with a few houses. So that makes addresses easy. The only issue is that they are terrible with addresses over here. Like way bad. There will be houses with no addresses. There are always numbers skipped. We will see number 6547 and then the next one could be 6503. No houses in between. Just fields. We also found this week a house that is number 34 on the odd number side of the street. Like what the heck? Gotta Love New Zealand!

     My spiritual thought this week comes from Mosiah 26 Verse 14 

          14 And it came to pass that after he had poured out his whole soul to God, the voice of the Lord came to him, saying:

     What I get out of here is the fact that Alma got revelation from the Lord only after he Poured out his WHOLE SOUL unto God. Are we willing to work that hard for the answers to our questions?

                              Love you all!!

                                      Love Elder Seelos

Its COLD!!!!

Our mean as gumboots!

Working hard & lookin good.....

Service, splits, and skyping....

 Hello family!

     The Northland has been so Great! It is very cold and different, but it has been heaps of fun! Its fun to be in the bush! Our area is heaps of little towns along 2 main roads so we do a good amount of driving which is fun! Its super green up here and there is always things to see! 

     On Saturday we got to do a service with one of our members. They had cut a good amount of trees in the bush behind their house and they needed to trek them out of the bush into the trailer and then unload it at their house. There were 2 trailer loads. It wore us out! Then after that a member called asking if we were busy and if we could come over and help him mow an older sister in our wards lawn. So we went right over to his house and helped him. So we did service from about 12 until about 4:30 then we went to our dinner appointment at 5. It was a fun day! 

     So our area is covering a ward in the "City" and a branch in the bush. The missionaries before us didn't do too much work in the branch and the Branch has been kinda neglected so Elder Inglis and I have made it a goal to work there. So we spent all day Wednesday there and visiting. We didn't get to see all that many people but the branch was so happy with what we had done when we reported at Rescue night that night. There is a whole lot of work to do there and I am so happy to be able to be the one to do it!

     I want to wish a Happy Mothers day to all the Mothers out there! Hopefully it was a good one! I was happily able to skype my family today and talk with them. Its crazy to think that was my last skype session for my mission. For Mothers Day both our ward and our Branch did a Linger Longer after church so we all stayed after to have a feed. Because we cover the ward and the branch we can only go to one of them on Sundays. So we went to our branch Yesterday at 10 and stayed the whole time. Then because the Ward starts at 11 we left the feed with our branch and went to the one with the ward and we had heaps of food! It was a good day!

     We had rescue night on Thursday with our ward and so Elder Inglis and I did splits with a few members. I went with a member of the Elders Quorum Presidency Brother Maxwell. We went to visit a guy named Sam. Well first off it was raining hard out and then he had a steep gravel driveway and so I was just glad that we made it up in our car. Then we started talking to him and he told us that he didn't like the church and had all of these issues with it. Well then right before we finally left Brother Maxwell shared his testimony with this brother and then we left. Brother Maxwell said afterwards that he has visited that man for about 5 years now and every time he goes his goal is to share his testimony and so for 5 years he has shared his testimony with this man. That's persistence. 

     My spiritual thought this week comes from a lesson that we had this week. We were helping one of our returning Less Active Part Member families explain what the Atonement was to their 6 year old daughter. After much testing and trying we got her to finally understand why Christ suffered for us when we asked her if she liked being sad. When she responded with a no we told her that Jesus did that for us so that we don't have to be sad and so we can be happy! It was a really sweet spirit when we saw it click in her head!

Love,

Elder Seelos

My Seelos Family

Happy missionary

Best Mothers Day present EVER!

Hello Elder Inglis!

This Mountain got half a hair cut!

Stupid dog your not a cat!

We played a game with one of our members families!

Saying goodbye & headed up north....

  Well Kia Ora Whano! As you all know now I have been transferred to the Northland. I am in the Kaikohe Zone. Kaikohe is the most North Zone in the mission and in New Zealand. So we have the top of the country here! It took a 3 and a half hour bus ride to get here. Nice long day! It was totally worth it though! The northland is so nice! Heaps of fun! Its the biggest Zone in the mission because its just full of Bush. There are a few small towns here and there and other then that its just bush! Fun though! Haha. My companion, Elder Inglis (My son from October 2015), and I were double shifted into the area and so we both new and trying to get to know everyone! We are covering the Kaikohe 1st ward and the Awarua Branch. So there is a lot of work to do!

     It was defiantly hard to say goodbye to the YSA ward. I honestly loved it there and was super sad to leave. There were quite a few people there that I really loved and enjoyed working with. I will miss them! It was a slow area and not much really ever happened but the ward was fun and it was nice to get use to that environment before I have to go to one!

     One of the hardest parts about leaving was saying goodbye to the missionaries. I will most likely finish my mission up here and so I probably wont see a lot of these missionaries again. At least not until I come home or they come home! So that was kinda hard! Ill get to see a lot of them back in Utah though! So that will make things easier! There are quite a few missionaries that are going home in 6 weeks and so that is sad that I wont get to see them before they all go.

     Kaikohe has been fun to be in the bush and in a tiny little town, but it has been FREEZING! It is so cold here. There are no big buildings generating heat, very few cars, no smog to trap the heat in... So it gets cold as! Thankfully our flat stays warm at night and we have a heater that we use to keep it warm. We have a car, so that stays generally warm during the day. So we never really get too cold. One issue about New Zealand is that its not considered an extreme weather country so they dont really ever insulate any buildings. So it will get really hot in the summer and really cold in the winter. They are just a bit behind...

    So far the area has been good. It was nice to get to meet the members Yesterday at church. The Elders seemed to have some good work going, but we have to start all over with everyone because they kept Zero records... Like if you were to look into our area book you wouldn't even know that they were here. You would think it was October of 2016 because those are the last records in the area book... So we are starting over basically. We will see how it goes. The flat was fine when we got here. Thankfully the Zone Leaders cleaned it while they were waiting for us on the bus so it wasnt too dirty but it was still pretty nasty. So we have been cleaning it for a while. Its almost there! 

     That has basically been the week so far! Nothing too crazy going on for us. Love yous!

               Love Elder Seelos!

Goodbye YSA

Goodbye rugby with some of my favorite elders

Elder Ingles & I