so another week has past by out here and it was a pretty good one, although not too much has happened this week.

The Cooper's are a less-active family that we are working with and their 8-year-old is set for the 31st of July for baptism! That will be fun for her and she is loving church although she didn't come this Sunday because her older sister's didn't want to come, which was a little hoha, but they will be coming next week for sure.

Went on my trade-offs this week and that went pretty well, Elder Fermanis and Elder Hann are doing fantastic! Relatively. . . So spending some time in Dargaville is always interesting and then in my last area with Elder Hann, so I'm guessing my next trip will be back to Papatoetoe and I'll go on trade-offs again into my old areas. Weird how all of that is working out so far.

And yeah that was pretty much the week. We seem to have more success when we go on trade-offs. For example we were able to help a lady this week, Joanne, she has shifted up here from North Shore and we are helping her unpack all of her stuff and put it away in her house. She's a bit odd though, she has all of these Christian tapes and recordings of preachers and others and movies about Christ but then she wears a Star of David as a necklace. But we will start working with her this week, but the miracle happened that we needed an 18-year-old with us so we could actually get into the home, so we went to Elder Hann's bishop's place just down the road and grabbed his recently turned 18 less-active son. He came with us and helped us shift things around and then we had a good chat with him over cheesecake. And he loved it! He really enjoyed just talking with us and not being all in his face as to why he isn't coming to church. And it struck as his dad was telling me this on Sunday, because in this hastening of the work I reckon that we miss out on establishing relationships with people because we are so caught up in the work. We just want to bring people back to church and then find more and if they aren't coming back then we stop visiting them. I find that is really quite common with members, the whole we are here to do the work, pretty noticeable in service projects, and not establish friendships. And a relationship comes first before everything. We have this correction guide in the mission and it is: 1. establish a relationship of trust 2.ask them what they want to improve one 3. tell them what they are doing well 4. ask if you can give a suggestion 5. give correction and suggestion as to how they can improve 6. tell them how much you love them.

That first step is first for a reason and that is where missionary work needs to start off and really any thing with others is with a relationship of trust; and we may be getting there with him.

We have a new mission president now and that will be a bit of a change here, we have interviews with him on Monday next week and we will see where things go over the next few weeks. President Lekias told to look up this scripture that he always shares with us, I have forgotten where it is; it is in the Doctrine and Covenants though, and it talks about eternal families and seed. How that is what it is all about preparing for.

Have a good week!

Elder Long