Elder Gardner: 11/18/24

 Bible bash, or not?

Kia ora! This week was mighty fine. my training is coming to an end so thats kind of crazy, anyways here are some highlights.

-last monday, a ward member took us out for a mean feed and We ate some nice as food. I love Bro Tangi

- we played chess with craig on tuesday, hes kinda trash at chess ngl but it was good fun. 

- tuesday we also had our last temple prep with Brownie so shes all good to go to the temple

-dcm on Wednesday was good, we played a gospel damily fued and i think team probably got scammed from our win but its all good. Everyones a winner in gods eyes

- we also taught our tongan friend, tito, on wednesday. She is super nice and is loving yhe gospel, but she told us that her husband is already set on his methodist church and i think e doesnt really like us lol. So pray for titos fam pls

- thursday we just did a lot of contacts and it was a pretty basic day

- we played some more chess thusday night with the zl's so that was fun. We always have a good time playing chess with them.

- on friday we had a mean brunch with christine and antony. They told us a lot about the political state of nz and we had some really good pizza and wings. It was nice to have pizza cuz thats my fav.

- it was also rainy as on friday but we were able to go to stanleys and talk with him for a while, he even gave us a ride home so that was nice.

- saturday morning we were able to set up some service for craig. He needed a lot that he owns to be weedwhacked and thankfully the elders in that area were able to get some members to help and provide weedwackers. We smashed the yardwork in a couple hours and craig was super happy about it. 

- we also got in contact with a refferal named junior who is coming back to church, hes super nice and used to be a boxer and dj so hes a funny guy

- sat night my comp found out that hes going to be a zl for the next tranfer so that means that hes moving and ill prolly stay here. I wont find out for sure until Wednesday tho.

- sunday we had a combined church for some stake news, and our old bishops is now part of the stake council. Hes the man. 

- we finally had a lesson with this returning member Aaron, our last lesson was during the beginning of my training, so its gone full circle lol

- we had a QandA event with the whole mission (besides the ppl up north and in islands), we got to ask a church historian guy a bunch of questions, so that was cool. I also got to see a lot of missionaries that I havent seen in a while.

- we also had a lesson with this lady and her husband that we met door knocking, they are evangelical i think, but they had a lot of questions and it kind of was a polite bible bash haha. Overall it was still good though.

-not much going on for P-day today, probably just go to the chapel and play basketball and all that good stuff.

Thats basically it for this week. Ive learned a lot in my personal study this week about grace and mercy and the atonement of jesus christ and how it allows us to repent and be forgiven. I am so grateful for jesus, i have relied in him and his mercy and I will continue to rely on it as i try to be more like him. I love this scripture:

John 14:18 "I will not leave you comfortless: I will come to you."

You are never left to fend for yourself, Jesus is always reaching out for you to claim his mercy and accept his grace. He is the servant of the vinyard who will always plead your case to the father, he will always understand you and he will lovingly help you throughout all of life. 

Ka kite ano, Elder Gardner