Elder Gardner: 9/2/24

 

First full week in da field

Kia ora! Ita already been one week! 

Its crazy that it has already been a week. I feel like the days flew by! Theres a lot that happened so lets get into it.

On tuesday we were able to go to the night markets for dinner. The nighr markets are basically farmers markets, but its every day of the week all in different locations each day. Tuesdays are the day where its in our area so we stopped by with the sisters in our district (oh yeah our district is only me + my comp and then 2 sets of sisters). The night market was so sick. It was on the bottom level of this parking garage so it was so smoky but they had tons of food and little shop's. I got some chinese food and then a member we ran into got us some more food 😋. That was clutch cuz me and elder oriordan have been getting clapped with our member meals 😴. All good tho.

Wednesday was pretty normal. Weve just been trying to meet more people to teach so weve been knocking a lot of doors. Also wed night we had english class which is where we just teach English to anyone who meets up at the church. It was super fun and we met a really funny Chinese family.

Thursday was normal. Just more finding. We also had interviews with pres allen and his wife bc zone conference was the next day.

Fri was zone con basically the whole day. It was fun, plus there was free lunch 🤑. We also got facebook back that day! Im so hyped to scroll all day (jk). Zone con was a little awkward tho bc i didnt really know very many ppl because im so new. But it was still good. 

Saturday was awesome. After lunch we went to this inactive ladies house and thanfully she opened the door because the past 2 times she wasnt home. We had a great talk with her about maori culture and the church and she kinda reminded me of my mom haha. She was super nice and we talked for almost 2 hours and we also gave her a blessing! It was so great. She said she would go to church on sunday too so thats clutch. 

Sunday was stake confrence and fathers day so we had some great speakers (like our bishoppp 🐐🐐). And brother tangi invited us over for fafaga which is just a meal basically. It was super nice and we had great food. Their family is so great and bro tangi is the goat fr. We also tried surgarcane which was cool cuz you just take a bite out of it and suck all the sweetness out and then spit the cane back out. They grow it in their yard so it was cool to eat it el natural. 

Monday today is P day so we got up and cleaned a little and then went to the shops and we are gonna hang out at the church later. 

Overall a great week. Its been good to see that our efforts of finding people to teach are starting to pay off bc we are getting more appointments! Also shoutout robert for being the best dad, love ya!

Spiritual thought: in 2 Nephi 4 nephi cries out to the lord and that chapter is called "nephis psalm" its cool to see that even the most righteous people like nephi have struggles and challenges with their faith. But nephi relies on his testimomy to get through challenges and we can too. Mic drop.

-Elder Gardner