When you let a little girl play with your iPad you often get selfies you were not expecting. This is the daughter of an investigator. She hasn't felt comfortable going to Primary and so this is during our Gospel Principles class. We couldn't resist putting this on the blog.
This is our team of Ward Missionaries and Full time Missionaries at our Missionary Correlation Meeting. We now have 2 Elders and 3 Sisters in our Ward, along with the Ward Missionaries and the new Ward Mission Leader and his Wife. The full time Missionaries also cover two other Wards besides ours.
This is a new Senior Missionary Couple, the Downs, who are now serving in the New Zealand Auckland Mission. Our childhood friend Danzelle Lewis Allen was good friends with them back home in Utah. They are serving in the Church Education System and teaching Institute. This was at our Come and See fireside which is where missionaries can bring their investigators to hear music and testimony. Danzelle and her husband are serving in Greece.
We had to say goodbye to most of the beautiful trees that lined the golf course behind our flat. Evidently this golf course merged with another adjacent golf course and they are redesigning the one in back of us, which means they are cutting down trees. So now we have a logging camp behind us. This day was so unusual since we had this sunny day with a few clouds and in just a few minutes it all changed and we had this
cloudy day and rain. Then in a couple more minutes it was sun shine again. That is how fast the weather changes here.
Last Tuesday we received a phone call from two Sisters who said the had their bikes stolen the previous Thursday. We immediately called the police and reported the bikes stolen. We decide to go see where the bikes were stolen to see if we could spot them. We also decided to check
the local pawn shops but didn't find anything. We had to go to the pharmacy to pick up some prescriptions so we left the area. When we were done with picking up the prescriptions, we decided to go back and check again. As we drove past the home where the bikes were stolen we noticed that two doors down there were two boys on bikes that looked like the Sisters bikes. We stopped at the home and the two boys rode away. We knocked on the door and talked to one of the boys mothers. She said she would get the bikes back for us. We drove around again looking for the boys and when
we returned the mother waved us over. The two boys were there with the mother and the father. They gave the bikes back and agreed to listen to the Missionaries message.
On Wednesday, we received a call from the Pokekohe police and they said they had an Elder's bike that was stolen about 4 months ago in Mangere. Pokekohe is about 30 kilometres from
Mangere so that was a little surprising. We took about 30 minutes to get down there. While we were there we needed lunch so we found a Turkish restaurant and this was our food. Sister Bartlett had something chicken and Elder Bartlett had shrimp. Very interesting, and the person serving us was from India.
Friday night we had a Missionary game night. Members and Missionaries could invite investigators and less active members to play games with the Ward Members. This is our Bishop in the middle in the apple eating contest.
The hit of the night was a human Hungry Hungry Hippos. One team member laid on a skateboard with a strap tied around their waist and a bucket
in their hand. The team members would push the person on the skateboard out to the center of the hall where there were balls. They had to grab as many balls as they could with the bucket and the team pulled them back to their corner with the strap. We also did Face the Cookie and the M&M game. Great fun was had by all.
We woke up Saturday morning to a panicked phone call from a Zone Leader who said there was a fire and some Sisters were at the Middlemore Hospital Emergency room. So we rushed over there to find four Sisters and their Zone Leaders. Sisters Graf, Fuimaono, Fehoko, and Tanuvasa. Elders Stringer and Del Rosario. These Sisters were being checked out to make sure there were no after effects of them inhaling smoke. Sister Graf had soot all over her face from the smoke but she
was OK and no other problems. We took them all back to our flat and fed them waffles. Food can cure many ills.
When we went back to the Sisters flat we saw what had happened. Since they don't have central heat here all of the Missionaries have to use space heaters. One of their blankets somehow came into contact with the space heater and started to burn. You can see below the damage done to the mattress and box springs. Luckily no one was injured in the fire and it was put out immediately by one of the Sisters. This is a picture of the mattress and box springs and the heater, and the small bundle at the feet of the Sisters is what is left of the blanket. Sister Graf and Sister Fuimaono are posing by the damage.
We know that the Lord is looking out for these Missionaries. There are so many things that can
go wrong. We pray for their safety and health, and for their bikes. We have joy in this service and hope you all have joy in reading this blog. Love Elder and Sister Bartlett.
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