The battle is well. We had transfers this week so the zone is completely different. I will talk about that later. I will call from a member's home on your Christmas, I can do it past two no problem. There isn't really a time limit. President just counseled us to keep it short and sweet. Will you be at Gramma's by then? I want Gramma to be there if she can. She is invited even though I know she already knows that and was probably already planning on being there anyways. It has been a busy week for us too. I am so jealous about Star Wars - I am sure someone will spoil any surprises before the end of my mission. Send my love to the Hansgens - I don't really see a point in going there for Christmas Eve now though. I mean Sam and I are both gone and we were really the life of the party. :) Christmas is so different here. It doesn't feel like Christmas at all. It is far to warm and sunny. The gifts aren't as all out here in NZ. They give gifts but the kids are happy with just like one a person pretty much. It seems like they don't really care about the presents as much. It kind of reminds me of our 4th of July minus the fireworks. Everyone goes and has a BBQ on the beach and that is about it - it is pretty much just an exuse to roast a pig and lay a hongi and of course to spend time with family.
This week:
This week was very busy for us as well as I previously mentioned. We had transfers and we had 7 people transfer out. Elder Peihopa and I are still the same - I am very grateful for that. We are responsible for getting everyone's stuff and making sure they all get to transfer meeting then making sure all the new people get all there stuff back to their new areas. It was a busy day but the whole week seemed to be about transfers. We only had 5 missionaries coming back because there is an area in our zone that has been shut down. That was a headache. We have made multiple trips to the area which is about 40 min north of where we are plus with traffic it can be longer. We also mixed up some of the luggage at transfers - it wasn't just our luggage that got mixed up but the other zone's did as well. Because our area covers 6 zones we have been pretty much trying to sort all of the luggage issues out in between planning where we are going to be working for the days, trying to save k's, and still proselyte. Pretty much I feel like a glorified mail man. Nothing wrong with the profession it is a really important job but I wish we could have spent more time working.
In the work we were able to do however we had some cool stuff happen. We had an investigator named Michaela that came to church even though she said she didn't want too and didn't think she could make it. She said something was just pulling her come. (It was the Spirit.) She came and we have a girl named Rafa from Brazil that came and a girl from Russia named Olga come as well. On top of that our investigator Jackie, who is really nervous in front of people, came for the very first time in the past 5 months that she has been taught. It was an interesting experience teaching that class, very multi-cultural (which pretty much fits NZ to a T). They are also all female investigators and the whole ward has been cracking jokes about how we are just going on dates not really teaching :)
Love,
Elder Summers