Gr8 W33k 4 BAPTeyeZING

No. We did not.

But we set another person baptism! If you remember Nia, the massive Cooky/Tongan, he has committed to be baptized in December because Nola's family will be in from OZ for Christmas. So exciting! Huzzah!

I have some wonderful food stories. But I want to stress that the food here is awesome. Even the taro isn't bad! Everyone was telling me it would take time to adjust to but I quite enjoyed it. It's a potato with natural steroids in it. That's why the Tongans and Samoans get so freaking huge. They eat taro by the barrel. But I'm slowly gaining weight, but because of the mandatory exercise it is becoming muscle. Blessed Kiwis. So basically I could stand in front of a bus and stop it with my abs alone. Just saying. But in all reality I gained six pounds from the time I went to the MTC to the time I went to the field. I don't even want to the check the scale to see how much I have gained out here.

However, we had a wonderful AMERICAN dinner on Friday night. We went to Brother Pearse, the acupuncturist, for a feed and he had cooked up steaks and baked potatoes. It was seriously glorious. I had two porterhouses and a couple baked potatoes lathered in Greek yogurt. So good. Then came the surprise. He made us milkshakes! Real milkshakes! The milkshakes here are just chocolate milk basically. You have to ask for a "thickshake" to get a normal milkshake. Anyways, so we drank them and we were super full and I was feeling a bit sick, but obviously I had to man it up till we got home. He started telling us what he put in it: the main the ingredient was avocado but then he also put in RAW MILK. Right when he said that, my stomach dropped and I knew we had to get out of there. I was getting sicker by the second and we basically ran home before I blew. But we made it, so it was all good.

We have ice cream about 4 times a week because the members love to give us dessert. But I have actually been handling that quite well. The Lord blesses his missionaries, that is for darn sure.

So we set Nia for baptism and Paora is slowly working his way there. He is still having some problems he is working out but he knows he needs to be baptized and he is very keen.

Amy and Reuben are now my favorites. They told us they love everything about the LDS church and want to join but they still have a lot of issues, namely W of W stuff, along with the fact they are only partners. But they are planning on getting married so that problem will soon be gone! They have 4 kids and their family means everything to them, so basically we talk about family a lot. Which is perfect! The best part is we haven't even taught them the second lesson yet. We're gonna blow the alcohol and smoking out their butts! In a Christian, missionary-like way, of course.

We found 9 new investigators over the past couple weeks! 2 last week, and 7 seven this week. We have been working really hard to exercise our faith as a principle of power and it has been paying off. The Lord has blessed us so much this week! We were trying to figure out what we had been doing to merit such blessings and success and we couldn't figure it out! We just get further in debt the more we serve the Lord. Mosiah sure knew what he was talking about...Anyways I'll write more about them as they come to fruition. Ya know, since they will all be baptized, of course.

And basically we are receiving enough member referrals for half our mission! We have received over 40 in the 3 short weeks have been here. Though that might be because we sang in sacrament meeting...they basically love us now. And I can't remember if I mentioned it already, but we sang "Nearer, My God, To Thee" and everyone came up and told us they couldn't remember the last time the chapel had been completely quiet. But to answer your question, Elder McFarland and I sing everywhere we go (I would by myself anyway so he joins along) and we have been doing that for our spiritual thought for the past couple weeks and I have been enjoying it! Music is awesome and it really softens the hearts of people. Even the people who swear at us and slam the door in our face on the rare occasion we have to tract. We ask to sing them a hymn and afterward they just want to hug us and apologize. Sucka please, you can't handle us. But the Spirit really works through music. I would seriously say we can draw closer to the Lord through music than anything else except prayer. But I'm good with a close #2 to talking with the Lord...I guess that's kind of important... :)

And Dinsdale is a region in Hamilton. It's kind of weird how New Zealand does it...they have regions in their cities like we have states in our country. That's the best comparison I have for it. They don't have states in NZ they just have regions in the cities. So in Hamilton there is Dinsdale, Frankton, and Grandview to name a few. But Pops, you were right, Dinsdale is a street in our area as well. And we are VERY close to temple. You Googler you.

I have nothing else to write and I hope I was able to answer all your questions and give you some idea about what has been going on! I love you all and I'm so thankful for the kick butt family I have! Missionaries can't believe how many emails I get a week and I would be lying to say it doesn't make me really happy you guys write so much!

Good luck to Stephen in his interviews in NY and at Baylor!

The church is freaking true!

Love,

Elder Seth Thompson Jenkins, Gung-Ho