January 19, 2014

Hello everyone!!

Hawke's Bay...oh I love this place!! It's fantastic!! We have a thriving ward, and the members are so willing to help us out!! It's beautiful here too!! The weather is apparently always warm, even in winter, just warm. It has been weird lately though, we had a hot days, then two really windy cold days,, then blazing hot, and now overcast but still warm. I think i might get skin cancer out here, that's what I have basically accepted. I'm gonna try not to, buit apparently the Ozone layer is non existent here, soi yup...I use my sunscreen every day, but I ama redhead, I just feel my skin burn when I'm outside...:P Anyways, but I love Hawke's Bay!! Love it! The Bishop here is the man!! So powerful!! 

My new District is awesome!! There are 10 of us altogether, and we are all pretty much crammed into Hastings, except for Havelock North and Waipukarama.  I've seen people from my intake, Elder Keil and Foremaster, they are in my zone, and also Elder Medley!! He's Elder Keil's comp, so I get to see him at Zone conferences and when they have to borrow the lawn mower. So sweet! My new companion Elder Taufa, man he is so CRACK-UP!! He's Tongan, and hilarious!! Love this guy!! 

So, the youth and leaders in the ward just did a 24 hour Book of Mormon reading at the Bishop's house. They stayed up from 6pm Friday to 6pm Saturday, and read the whole thing! Way cool! Maybe our ward could do that? They had a lot of mattresses and blankets if it was cold, and then they had heaps of snacks and people there, we popped in 3 or 4 times, and it was so cool! You just felt different when you were there...Maybe when it's warmer they could do that? It's awesome!! My week has been great! We have two baptismal dates, one for this GOLDEN AS investigator who WALKS an HOUR AND A HALF every week to church!! Crazy!! He's the bomb but he has to stop smoking...

Other than that, the new area, love it so much!! I'm going to have some great times here in Hawke's Bay!!!

Love and miss you all, hope you are doing good!! 

Love,

Elder Passey

New companion Elder Taufa

Gandolf riding an oversized eagle inside the Wellington

Airport

January 12, 2014

Hey there everyone! 

Well, this week has been great! I started on an exchange in Ashburton, which was really fun, I was with Elder Bearnson again and we actually got to do stuff because he wasn't sick this time! It was really fun, we did service, a lesson or two, and at FHE on Monday I tried a cockle! It's like a mussel, but smaller, and not very tasty...well I had it right out of the shell, so raw and wriggling! Not really, they don't move, and you pretty much kill them in your mouth. Straight from the sea, they tasted like saltwater. :P Pretty gross, all slimy and salty. The islanders and Maoris down the things I guess. Yuck. Had a great time there though! 

What else was a highlight of my week...I accidentally killed a bunny on the highway coming home from the Gemmell's in Pleasant Point. Going 100 Kilometers, and the bunny was dumb enough to run across the road, sit in the other lane so Elder Tarati and I could say, oh look a bunny! Then it turned it's head right as we came up to it and I hit it.....It might have survived....anyways. The Gemmell's are really cool, a part member less active family, and the three youngest boys are crazy! They wore us out playing and horsing around with them. We had a good feed and FHE at their place, mostly on families, it was awesome!! 

We have biked all over Timaru at least 20 times, and it's exhausting, but President wants us to use our bikes every day, so that's what we do. I have received more Christmas cards than I have room for almost, but I love it! 

President came to church on Sunday and helped out at our Branch Council meeting for the Branch Mission plan. That was good, we also had interviews with him on Friday, and that was also great. I crashed a house party while we were looking for a potential investigator, he said not really the best time but not necessarily no, and to be honest, I got such a thrill from talking to 13 people all at once. They were drinking so some of them may have been a little off, but that was really fun actually! I was shaking afterwards but it was pretty sweet. 

I met the coolest guy this week! We were looking for a less active, and when we knocked on the house a guy answered and was all, how's it going boys? .....Good...were looking for Irene? She's my wife, come on in and have a glass of water or a lemonade. Sweet! It was a pretty hot day that day too. His wife wasn't there, but man he was the coolest guy! He showed us some of his stuff he has acquired over 52 years of life, including a chess set made from the original Kauri and Oak wood that held up the Christchurch cathedral bells from 1879-1979. It could potentially be a 1000 year old wooden chess set. Way cool. Once he brought out the case he had it in and opened it, I could tell instantly it was something of great worth. He said he hassled a guy down from 400 bucks and he only paid $250.  It was awesome, I wish I would have had my camera. He also showed us a Samoan trio called Sole Mio, and they were on New Zealand's got Talent, so awesome!! I would recommend looking them up. If you have not seen yet,

 I'm going to hawke's Bay this next transfer. SWEET!! Elder Medley is in my zone! So cool! Anyways, I'll be sad to leave Timaru because I love it here, but I know Hawke's Bay will be legit!! 

Love and Miss you all, hope you have had a great week, next email will be from Hawke's Bay! 

Love, Elder Passey

His last get together before leaving Timaru

January 5, 2014

My week has been pretty good. New Years in Christchurch with Elder Cunningham was good, we made a pie, had a good feed, but there wasn't any big fireworks shows! Apparently, Elder Cunningham, who's from Hamilton, told me that in NZ it's not the big fireworks shows that people do, it's how much alcohol you can get down.  It was pretty fun though, we had a car wash with one of the districts there, which was fun, but no one really showed up or drove in except members and one less active teen, but it was still fun. I met some more elders from Utah, Elder Barnes from Pleasant grove, and Elder Palmer too. It was pretty cool. We did it because the Zone Leaders do exchanges with all the District Leaders, so we had ours on New years. It works out pretty well, and it was fun to go work with lots of Elders in Christchurch as well. The holidays were crazy, no one home, or away, so we didn't get to do a whole lot, but next week will be better, we'll start doing more. Door knocking on New years though, pretty much useless after 4pm. Yeah, it starts early here. I hope that it picks up now that most people are back to work and the dust has settled. 

Elder Passey

Mt. Peel

Enjoying a little free time at a Branch activity

December 29, 2013

Dear family,

Skype was so awesome!! I loved seeing all of you and the cousins too! It made my week!

That's good that you had good travels, no storms, out here it has been overcast every day since about Christmas eve. So lame, not really rainy at all, just a bit, but cloudy all day every day. Real hot though, we went down to street contact at the bay carnival and town and the sun came out just for us to contact people and it was super hot! Then we went to dinner at a members and it got cloudy again. weird. That's something cool I guess, Caroline Bay has a carnival going on every day from the 26th of December to the 12th of January. Two free concerts every day, and then rides games food etc. Most of it is pricey so we haven't spent any money, but it makes for great street contacting and it's cool just to be there. We have sat at one or two of the shows for a couple minutes to listen, and we heard this one lady who was okay, and a country artist named Cameron Clayton, he was actually pretty good even if I don't like country. He sang a Rascall Flatts song and he's from Auckland, but when he sang he sounded pretty country. Not bad. It's free entertainment and the people like it. Easy for us too. Not a bad week overall though. I'm headed to Christchurch tonight for an exchange with the Zone Leaders, I'll be with Elder Cunningham today and he's from Auckland, real cool guy. That should be fun. Anyways, I'll take pictures, hope you have a safe drive, love and miss you all!

Elder Passey

December 22, 2013

Dear family,

Merry Christmas everyone!! I'm so EXCITED to be able to Skype on Christmas!!! The 26th actually for me, but Christmas for you. 

 We have been trying to get member present lessons here in the mission. The Mission president has been really asking us to all do it, so our action plan for the week has been to prepare and invite members to come to lessons with us. I hope we can get a lot, being Christmas week it could be pretty hectic. Looking forward to it though! 

Let's see, brief overview of my week. 

We, the Elders from Waimate and us, went down to the bay to take pictures and stuff for Christmas cards, and we also had an exchange with them so I got to go down there for a day. small town, real small. It was alright, we stumbled on this lady who is on the DO NOT CONTACT list for us, and she seemed super nice, a less active, but when we called the Mission Pres. about it, he said Don't go there, don't go on the street, get the Branch involved and leave it. 

Elder Tarati and I went to a shop having a sale, and we got a couple shirts. I got a Batman one, he Superman. I put up pics in Dropbox of us wearing them, and also the Timaru sunset and our Christmas tree in the flat. We had one in a box! So we set it up and got it all decorated.  We've been doing a lot of biking, which is good for exercise  and trying to help the branch and people out as much as we can. We haven't been able to teach as much because it's been getting real busy, but we do visits and stuff as much as we can. Had a pretty good week overall. Hope you're all doing great, and hope you have a MERRY CHRISTMAS!!! 

Love and miss you all! Remember the Reason for the Season! Keep CHRIST in CHRISTmas!

Elder Passey

December 15, 2013

Dear family,

My week has been great! I'm way excited for Skype as well! Looking forward to seeing you guys! I have a package coming? Sweet! I should be sending the one for you guys today. It took me ages to get it all together, but I finally figured it all out. Is there anything dad wants though? I may need one thing for him, I kinda have something but not officially. okay....looking forward to finding out! 

  

 This week seemed a bit long, but it was really fun too! We had a lot of finding, and continuing on our missionary work, so the week itself was a bit uneventful, but Saturday we had the Waimate Strawberry Fair, which was awesome! We had a  booth, which was organized by the mission, we got a sign printed at a  shop, professionally done, and it was awesome! I'll upload the picture of all of us at the booth. There's me and Elder Tarati, Sisters Hammon and Vila, and then the Ashburton Elders Poole and Bearnson, and Waimate, Paulson and Makalio. It was real good, lots of people talked to, not many approached our booth, so we had to go out and talk to people, but it was great anyways! Found some cool stuff for you guys, at least Jaydon and the girls. Had a few good conversations with people, a few potentials but mostly giving away stuff to anyone who wanted it. I don't know that people realized that our stuff was all free, we almost put a price on it to attract people...nah we didn't. There were so many people there, biggest thing they do in waimate! I think there were about 15-20,000 people there. We had a lot of people there to help us out, all the missionaries and members, especially the O'Sullivans and President Paea. It was awesome! Overall though, good week, I'm having an exchange with the Wauimate elders today, I'm going there with Elder Paulson. It should be pretty fun to work in super small Waimate! So pretty good, doing good overall. Working with investigators and finding new ones, and trying our best to be our best! Miss and love you guys! If i think of anything else I'll let you know!

Love Elder Passey

I'm uploading a bunch of pictures from yesterday, we all took some pictures down in the gardens at the bay for Christmas cards, and they are pretty great!  Also a few of Elder Tarati's drawing, a Lamborghini, and that's only half! He's way good!

Dec 8, 2013

Hey there friends and family! 

Just wanted to let you all know I found my street, and so at the end of my mission I will be returning to Timaru and living here.

Nah jokes, it's not the best street in the world..well...maybe..

No baptisms out of it, sadly, but we did some mean service for this lady who was real nice but goes to another church. I knew we'd get something from it!

Haven't knocked the whole thing, but we'll get there! 

Hope all of you are doing great! I'm doing pretty great, no baptisms yet, but they're on the way I think! Love and miss all of you, do great things, keep the faith!

 My week has been great! Met a few new investigators, not much luck with others yet but we are moving along with a few. It's hard sometimes, it takes a lot of time for anything to happen here, but we work hard and do our best, and the Lord will provide. Not really any cool stories to tell...average week I guess. 

Work hard, play hard, pray hard!

Elder Passey

December 1, 2013

Hey family!

Yeah Thanksgiving wasn't that big, we did get a few feeds, but no Thanksgiving official. We did get a lot of food this week from members and less actives, and so we have a ton of food, but not an official meal I guess. It is crazy that it's already December! Christmas seemed like ages away and now it's only 24 days away! 23 here :) If you guys want anything let me know soon, it takes like 20-25 days for a package to get home, and if I send it by tomorrow or next week Wednesday, one of the two, it should get there before Christmas. I think tomorrow. But I'll send it when I can. 

The weather has been up and down. Windy and rainy, then cold, then super hot, and today it's a bit overcast but warm enough. Elder Uasila'a and I biked to the bay today and kicked a soccer ball around and did some stadiums at the amphitheater for exercize, and that was petty fun. It's hard to get up and move sometimes, so we just jumped up and left to get going. It was great! 

Snow..I hope I don't really get that down here, but then again I hope I do to see how it is. Show me pictures so I don't forget what it looks like haha :) 

I am not being moved this transfer. I am staying in Timaru, and Elder Tarati will move back up here. Elder Uasila'a is going to the North island we believe, but we don't seem to have the transfer list in our email yet. Elder Paulson will then get a new companion and be in Waimate still. 

It's been a great week, sometimes feels long, but then before I know it, it's Monday again, or I'm waking up to yet another day, crazy how fast it goes. A lot of driving this past week, we had to drive the Waimate Elders around again, and we had to go to Ashburton twice, then church and other stuff. Driving to Waimate and then to Ashburton and then Ashburton and back is like driving to Christchurch, which is a lot of driving in on day and just drains you. not a lot done with so much driving, but still pretty good. Hope this week is better, transfer week is usually hectic though. We'll see. 

well, here's to another week, hope you are all doing good, love and miss you all! 

Elder Passey

They helped build this car for their neighbors grandkids

November 24, 2013

Another week has come and gone, they always feel so fast! I thought it was only supposed to get fast after the year mark? Crazy! My week has been great! After Stake conference last week I'm with Elder Uasila'a till transfer, not sure if I already told you that. We've been having heaps of fun and doing the best work we can do. We have tried meeting with as many investigators as we can and also getting new investigators each week. We have a few potentials now, and hopefully they come through. We've been talking to more and more people each day, and trying to get more and more interested or at least aware of what the missionaries do. We are always asking for referrals and seeking opportunities to serve,  which sometimes works really good. 

Last weekend we had a Branch activity, more like a farewell for the Jarvis'. That was really fun! We had tons of food, and fun, and the missionaries and President Paea sang Come Thou Fount. It's Elder Jarvis' favorite. Speaking of the Jarvis' I gave them our address and phone number, and they said that they will call or come by sometime. Maybe next year I'd think, they will be busy with family during the holidays and such. Really nice people, I'm really gonna miss them. To tell you the truth, they have felt like my grandparents out here, can't remember if I told you that already, but they do, and I've grown to love them. Also the Branch members, I just love all of them. It makes the work so much easier when you can just gain this love for the people you serve and the area you are in. It's awesome, and I love Timaru!

I really don't want to leave here anytime soon, I hope I stay through the next transfer on December 4th and be able to have another go with Elder Tarati. that would be awesome! But we'll see, you never know. If I'm doing too good President might move me to a struggling area, but I think Timaru is a bit of a a struggling area, especially after the Jarvis' leave today, they did a lot for this branch, and I hope to be able to keep up with everything they did. 

It's a hard work we are doing out here, but I love every minute of it. There's harder days than others, but even at the end of the day and I'm worn out and tired as can be, I know that I worked hard that day, and there's another one sure to come. 

We have been doing pretty good here in Timaru. Visiting members and investigators, our guys from South Africa had a little look on the internet about Mormons and they apparently don't like the thing about becoming like God, which just blows my mind. We met another potential from South Africa as well and he seems cool. I don't know about them, but we will keep working until they reject us altogether or we feel it's a waste. We went to Temuka on Friday to see the Geddis' and Zarrias, both member families who we love. We prayed with both of them for missionary opportunities, and gave them materials to give away. Sister Zarria made us these cake like things with caramael in between, and they are really good! I forget the name though and I was gonna ask dad. Oh well,they were tasty. I love the families here, I wish there more. That's what we are trying to do here. Hastening the work of salvation, finding families. I hope we just get this golden family sometime soon, but until then, we work at it!

Everything is going great! Got a busy day today, lots to do, clean the cars, make a thank you picture for the Jarvis', and have fun I think! Miss and Love you all! Have a great week! Keep the faith! Arohanui!

Love,

Elder Passey

The Face of Peace

At Caroline Bay

His District

model car from his companion Elder T

November 17, 2013

Hello family!

How is everyone? I'm doing great! We recently just had an exchange with the Ashburton Elders again, I was with Elder Poole, and I uploaded a picture of him, the Catholic Basilica in Timaru, pretty cool building, and then Elders Tarati, Poole, myself, and Bearnson. Good group of Elders that. It was a fun exchange. Now we are doing an exchange with the Waimate Elders for the rest of transfer because of issues with President. It's all good and it's fun. I'm with Elder Uasila'a, the Tongan one with Elder Paulson in the photos I uploaded. 

I've had a good week, lots of finding and a few lessons with our new South African investigators, who are very cool. One seems really keen as of now, and we are giving the other a Book of Mormon in Afrikaans because he can't read English the best, but speaks great. He's real cool, and he has good analogies and ideas with everything. For example, eternity. Here's how he describes it. "So you take a diamond the size of the sun, and then a little bird. Every 100 years this little bird comes and wipes his little beak on the diamond and then leaves. After that diamond finally wears out, that's eternity. Something you can think about and measure, but not really know how long. I thought it was cool as! He's real good with analogies. Cool people, real nice.

We are working with the Fijians as much as we can to get them involved with members and church activities. They are close, but need a greater understanding of the  Restoration and Apostasy I think. After that I think it'll be golden. I hope so. I really want to see their family be baptized. They're a great family, strong in faith and love of God, they just need to see that what we have is true. 

Otherwise, I've been doing great with Elder Tarati, he's awesome! Now that I'm with Elder Uasila'a we will do our best here in Timaru for the rest of transfer. After that, I don't know where we're going. I want to stay here in Timaru, but I know I have to leave eventually. I'll miss it so much when I do though. 

We just had stake conference this past weekend, and it was real good. All about rescuing and doing our part as members, it was powerful! Elder Halleck from the 1st Quorum of the 70 was there for the adult and general sessions, it was mean! I love that guy! Way cool, and inspired council. 

I finished Jesus the Christ. I love that book. So good! So good. It was amazing, all the insight and then at the end with the culmination of it all, fantastic! It was awesome. I learned heaps from that book. Another week, new lessons new finding new work. Love and miss you all! 

Elder Passey

Catholic Basilica

November 10, 2013

Dear family,

    Another week gone...wow. It really is too fast. Two years is nothing. I have figured out that you just have to work hard the whole time, and then BAM! It's over. Crazy. Otherwise, it goes slow and there was no point coming out.

I'm doing great! Just fantastic! I love this work. I love it. So much. I love New Zealand, I love the people. I love it all. We have had a busy week, full of teaching and visiting, not many new investigators as of recent, but we did invite the Fijian family to be baptized. They said no, which was disappointing, but they seem to have holes in a testimony, and they are still going to their Methodist church every week, so once we can get them coming to church I think it will help a lot! I was really sad when they said no...I love these people, and I really want their family to have this, and when they said no, I wanted to cry. We just need to help them get more of a testimony about the apostasy and how the gospel needed to be restored. I think that's the key. Once they know it needed to be restored and not just bits and pieces picked out, then they will know.

Our other investigators are...investigating. We have this Filipino guy named Shirlwell who just needs to get married!! Ahhh!! It's so frustrating when they want to get married, but in the Philippines, or with their family. Man I will plan one for you and then you can do another one later. They need to come to church as well. They're cool as! But not married,. Until then they can't get baptized. 

Anyways, we have been having some good times with the members and doing our best to keep them involved and help us out.

We do have two new investigators, one of them seems pretty keen, the other...eh, we'll see. The one keen guy is real interested in the Book of Mormon because he's never heard of it before, so I hope he finds out it's true and reads a lot. We committed 3 N 11 for them, but I told them they can read as much as they want.

Guy Fox day was Tuesday. Remember, remember the 5th of November. Lots of fireworks, but nothing huge like in the states. They have still been going on all week. But not late, New Zealand goes to bed at like 10. Weird. I had an exchange with Elder Hilton from Christchurch, he came here. He's from Demming New Mexico. Way out in the middle of nowhere, 30 miles from the border.  I forgot to get a picture with him but I'll do it if I see the Zone Leaders again soon. Guy Fox day is also the birthday of a member here, Tom Goldsmith, who we call the Angel of Timaru. He helped out with social welfare kids and all that. Wonderful old Maori guy. Love him to pieces. I'll get a picture with him sometime.

The senior couple here, the Jarvis' have two weeks left before they go home. They are really nice people, and they helped out a lot with the branch. They almost played the parents/grandparents role to us here. Flat inspections, making sure we eat, and stay clean. To me, the Paea's play a parental role, and then the O'Sullivans and Jarvis' were the grandparents. I love these people. I love them.

The family from Argentina, the Zarria's, had us over the other night for Uma's birthday, their youngest. She turned 5 I believe. Super nice people, and they love having the missionaries over. Even if it is 30 K's to drive there and back, they live out on a farm in Temuka. They are awesome, and we help teach their other friends from Argentina and Chile when they are there. Awesome people. Just awesome.

Something that us as missionaries love to do is Tim Tam Slams. We slam the Tim Tam whenever we can. You get Milo, their hot chocolate, and Tim Tam's, and then drink it and it just melts in your mouth, so good! So fattening, but delicious!! Love that. We do so many random things sometimes, I love the missionaries in my district, they're awesome.

All things good on the eastern front, the military is making sure of that. They are here from France, NZ, The US, and other places doing naval and air exercises. Way cool. We watched the Canterbury come into port the other day. Way cool. Hopefully we get to see some Hercules CS-130s. Big planes, really big.

Love and miss you all, I'm doing awesome! I also attached a picture (in Dropbox) of the green stone necklace that a Dutch guy named Gerald gave me when Elder Medley and I helped him out with service. Way cool. He carves them himself, and the guy is like 87 or something. Cool stuff. Have fun, do great things, work hard, play hard, pray hard. Arohanui!

Elder Passey