Transfers and Training

Well another week has gone by and Shifts are coming up. The big news is that I will be training this upcoming transfer! Panic! Don't know who I will be training or where I will be training other than I go down to Auckland on Thursday to pick up my new companion!

The rest of my week was pretty good. It was another finding week, I have had quite a few of the mainly finding weeks, and it went alright. We actually found investigators. . . kind of. . . Found two people, one of them just qualifies and the other is keenaz! She watched "Mountain of the Lord" and is currently reading a little bit about the church. She doesn't want to read the Book of Mormon that she has, instead she is reading "Teachings of the Presidents of the Church: Lorenzo Snow" . . . . I don't understand it. Literally it just does not make any sense in my mind.

I also had my first Hongi this week!! The Breath of Life! It was incredible! The Maori culture is a beautiful thing and links in so symbolically with the times of the BoM and heaps of connections to the Old Testament. Now I just need an invite to attend a Marae, the Maori belief, which is a religion, took me awhile to realize that. When they say that their belief is Maori, they mean the ancient time Maori religion.

The Dargaville branch had a big change on Sunday. We have a new Branch President in President Gilligan, the man!!! He will be an incredible Branch President, and Elder Curtis and I were able to take part in setting him apart as Branch President, not sure if we could but the Stake President Pouto said we could so we did. And we now have a Branch Mission Leader in Ex-President now Brother Anderson. So he will be the main individual that we work through in the Branch.

Lots of changes going on in the Branch and this week, and the progress of our investigators and the area is going a bit slowly and lately I have been studying the Christlike Attribute of Hope. In PMG it comes directly after faith and I believe is heavily built by faith and they often intertwine with each other but Hope is what I really wanted to share a little bit about. Elder Neal A. Maxwell states "Being blessed with hope, let us, as disciples reach out to all..." I really like how he states that we have been blessed with hope. Although I would expound in that we have been blessed not only with hope but with the knowledge of what hope is. We know that hope can be a driving force behind our doings. I hope with all of my heart that this mission will change me from whatever I was before my mission to a humble man who truly understands his purposes on this life. In the Bible Jesus states that it is the Publican and sinner who went into the temple and could not find it in himself to look up as he prayed. He is the one who would find himself exalted. I hope that I will reach that with my family one day. . .

Arohanui,

Elder Long

District Elders