Te Awamutu Week 8

Kia ora everyone! 

I had a great week this last week. Elder Powell and I were able to get so much more proselyting done in our area and a lot less zone leader stuff to deal with. The lady that we are teaching, Jane, is finally ready for baptism and we plan to have her baptized this upcoming Saturday. We were also able to meet with a different person we teach named Dean and have a really good catch up with him. I realized that he and I are into a lot of the same things and we got on quite well. He has such a strong testimony of the gospel and believes in it so much but his partner won't marry him until 2020 and he rarely is at church because the members make him feel like an outsider. We are working as best we can with him to make him feel more at home in the ward and trying to teach his partner as well. We also did a lot with a couple less active families we work with, the Thompsons and the Parkes. We got to work on the farm and go out to a duck shed on a small lake. We mostly just minister in little ways to the less-actives and do what we can to fellowship them. They both are not very fond of the members in the ward but they love missionaries and take very good care of us. We had zone conference on Thursday and we learned about this years #LighttheWorld initiative. It's really cool and we as missionaries will be a big part in applying it to the many people found in Te Awamutu. Other than that, just minor other things happened this week. Hope everyone else had a great week! 

Arohanui, 

Elder Green

Ps funny story.. Totally left my badge on my study table for the first time ever. I went to a dinner appointment with no badge! I put on a jacket to hide my naked pocket and the family never noticed. I felt so unholy and empty without the badge! Never again... 

Mom's Note:  I asked Braden to please send pictures and please please have some with a normal looking face and he sent me like 8-10 pics and these are the faces I get . . . (*sigh)

Te Awamutu Week 7

Kia ora eve everyone! 

It has been a really hectic week... We had to deal with transfers and plan it all out and there were so many different variables but it finally has mellowed out. Now we are only running minor errands and getting back to strengthening the area. This coming week we have zone conference and we have to sort a few things out with the new district leaders. I am still in TA and probably will be for awhile. Elder Powell has been here longer than me and will get transferred before I do. Transfers went really efficiently! I found that I really like arranging and organizing things so I kind of did the transfer planning on my own but only because when Elder Powell asked if I needed help, I said I got it he doesn't have to help unless he really wants to. He just took a nap and I planned it all out. It went really well though! Everyone got back to their areas and proselyting by 4 on transfer day so it was really efficient! But all the post-transfers was really stressful too. We had to handle a situation where one of the Sister missionaries accidentally brought a members car key with her to Hamilton and she was in Taumarunui, 2 hours away! We pretty much spent the whole afternoon picking up supplies and driving a little key back to Taumarunui. Then we had to go around to all the missionary flats and drop off supplies and get things sorted for the upcoming transfer. We now have 4 districts in our zone then 2 and a half. But its good, the 4 district leaders take a lot of the pressure off of us as zone leaders.

I was able to go on an exchange with an Elder Rowley on Saturday and he helped me run some errands around the zone. Hes a really good guy and has only been out for about 3 days! Him and I are really similar with what we liked back home so he caught me up on a lot of the stuff I've missed. Him and I were able to get a lot done though and it was really good. Other than that not a lot went on. Hope everyone had a good week!

Arohanui, 

Elder Green 

Te Awamutu Week 6

Kia ora everyone! 

This has been a good week but really really busy! We have gone around the whole zone to meeting after meeting trying to teach every missionary how to use their smart devices. It has given us a full plate and not enough time to properly proselyte in our area. We have a baptism coming up soon for an old blind lady that missionaries have been teaching for a little while and she is the nicest kindest lady. We hope to get her to baptism soon but there are just a few things holding her back. But lately things have been good. The district I threw the cake in is probably one of my favorites and we had a good time in their district meeting but as soon as we asked everyone to pull the phones out of their package, the meeting turned to chaos and no one was paying attention anymore. I kind of lost focus trying to teach everyone and lost track of it all and started playing around. You could really tell the Spirit had left the room. We had a good time but realized we needed to reign it all back in and at least close the meeting before we got too casual. But all in all, it was a good meeting. 

This upcoming week we have transfers. This is my first transfers I have had to handle as a zone leader and based on what the Assistants told me, it'll be really hectic. A lot of massive changes are happening and restructuring but I think Elder Powell and I will remain companions in Te Awamutu. I'm looking forward to seeing the changes and helping everyone get sorted. 

No special stories this week! Hope everyone has a great week!

Arohanui,

Elder Green

Te Awamutu Week 5

Kia ora everyone! 

So big news for the week, we actually set up our phones early! We have been using the phones since yesterday and they are super flash! It feels really weird to swipe to answer calls and to finally be able to send emojis and better mass texts to the zone. The phone we have been using is a Nokia 100 which is quite honestly the worst phone. Its options are so limited but now we have Samsung J4s which just came out in May. It will be good for me because now its a lot easier to take photos! My camera actually sort of broke not too long ago so its perfect timing! It is very exciting to have technology in our mission because when I first came out, I never would've thought that technology would have ever made it to the Pacific missions. 

We also had to go to Taranaki again to do some baptismal interviews because the district leader who was down there got sent home at the beginning of the transfer. It makes things harder on us as zone leaders because we essentially have to be both a district leader and zone leaders. But it was good to go for a bit of a roadtrip. I also found out that we have to do that road trip again this week to set up the phones for the missionaries down there. So it will be a hectic week travelling the whole zone this week teaching the missionaries how to set up their phones! 

Funny story for this last week, so we went to a district council on Wednesday and we heard that it was going to be the district leader's birthday so we ran to the store and I bought a small sponge cake. We walked up to the room and all the lights were off and it looked like no one was there through the door window but when we walked in, about 8 Sister missionaries and 2 Elders yelled surprise and jumped out. It scared the living daylights out of me because we were 5 minutes late and a surprise not meant for me was the last thing on my mind. No one told us they were planning on surprising him because they didn't know we were coming to their district council. But the best part is that when they scared the crap out of me, I ended up dropping the cake and jumping back. Everyone laughed for a solid 5 minutes and the district leader walked in about 2 minutes after us. They didn't surprise him because everyone was too busy laughing while I was trying to salvage the cake that hadn't touched the ground but stayed on the plastic tray. It was a sad wasted cake but a really funny moment after thinking about it. But if you get anything out of this, just always be prepared to be surprised even if its not your birthday.

Arohanui,

Elder Green

Te Awamutu Week 4

Kia ora everyone! 

This week has been rather uneventful. We started out with interviews which were really good. I didn't realize that President was going to tell me so much about all the areas and missionaries in our zone but he told me things that will help me to better minister to the missionaries. We then had zone conference the other day which was exactly like a meeting we had had earlier on but it was good to see it all again. We then at lunch had to entertain the whole zone by doing basically yoga. It was embarrassing but the mission office thought it would be a good idea to have us demonstrate it. Quite a bit of laughing and well, it did lighten the mood of the relatively informative videos we were watching. All the videos we watched were based on the smart phones we are going to use and some of the video material they used were actually filmed at ASU. I recognized the room I had class in for institute and quite a few other spots that are pretty close to the institute building that missionaries were using to do missionary work. I think the new District videos are supposed to be filmed there and the last 2 district videos were filmed in California so go Arizona missions! 

Later in the week I ended up getting the flu and being pretty much bed ridden for a few days. It was a bit miserable but I am coming out of it now. ANyway I hope everyone has had a great week! 

Arohanui,

Elder Green

Te Awamutu Week 3

Kia ora everyone!

This has been a relatively good week for me! I was able to build up a few relationships with some of the members and some of the people we teach and I feel like I am settling more here in Te Awamutu. We were able to go on an exchange with one of the district leaders in our zone and that was good. His name is Elder Thompson and he is from Gilbert. We found out that we were only about 10 miles from eachother. But the Phoenix metro area is really big so we never met and couldn't really find out if we have friends of friends or not. I feel like I have learned a lot from my companion and from other mission leaders as I work to become a better leader. I hope that I am qualified enough to be giving all these other missionaries tips and advice. 

This upcoming week, we have interviews with the mission president and zone conference the following day. Because our zone is one of the bigger ones, we won't be meeting up with any other zones and will just be the missionaries in our zone. It will be a good conference because we are going to go over what we need to do for our cell phones coming up in the next month or so. I am looking forward to everything going on this week but it will be a little hectic for us too. 

Other than that, not a whole lot is going on. I came into this area with a set for baptism, her name is Sister Jane. She was being taught by the previous Elders and she was supposed to be baptized last weekend but she was in and out of the hospital for the last while so we weren't able to get it properly sussed. We hope she is doing fine and we intend to follow up with her this week. But that is all from me for now! I hope everyone's week goes well! 

Arohanui,

Elder Green

Te Awamutu Week 2

Kia ora everyone!

This has been a good week! My new companion, Elder Powell, and I have been working hard to get up to speed on the new area and what not. This week we also had to attend MLC (mission leadership conference) which is for all the zone leaders and Sister Training Leaders together together and discuss new upcoming changes and how we can help the missionaries in the mission. It was a little nerve wracking for me because I am the youngest (in mission age) zone leader in the mission and I felt like I had no right to be giving any form of advice or input. But I learned a lot. The entire meeting was actually focused on a quite large upcoming change for our mission. We will be getting smartphones! They are only going to be Samsung Galaxy J-4s but it is quite an improvement from the small brick Nokias we use. The day that it is finally implemented is a day that our mission president has been dreading but our mission is one of the many that was chosen by the missionary department to have smart phones. I think it will be good for us and we will be able to accomplish quite a bit with it. My companion and I will activate our phones at the next MLC in 6 weeks and the rest of the mission will follow soon after. 

Other than that, we had to drive down to Taranaki to run a district meeting because the district leader down there got emergency transferred out for disobedience. Its about a 3 hour drive and is very VERY twisty and windy. My stomach suffered quite a bit. I usually do fine for car sickness when I'm driving but my companion loves to drive so I let him drive. I didn't throw up at all but I do remember throwing up all the time when I was a kid and we did drives in New Zealand. My mother can testify of that. But it was good, the poor missionaries down there are kind of stuck on their own from now on. But this week has been good. I am still getting used to it all but I think I will settle in quite nicely here. But that's it for the week!

Arohanui,

Elder Green