August 3, 2014

This week was pretty average, nothing too exciting. John has just received the new Ensign, and he said it was really cool to get it. YAY!!!!!! 

 Weird weather this week....weird... It felt like summer for at least half this week, and then it rained Sunday. It was warm, beautiful no clouds, and then rain. That's New Zealand for you. We chopped wood for like 4 hours on Saturday. It was a lot of work, a bit sore from that, but mostly just fun. Our member we do it with is getting a heap of it for the members, mostly widows and old people. It's really good of him. He is trying to help out as much as he can while he works on getting his priesthood back. Had a member kid get baptized this weekend, it was really cool, had heaps of nonmembers there, that was awesome! Just an all around average but pretty good week. Bishop is still pushing change and returning to church, so that is really good. 

Hope you have a fun week! Love you all!

Elder Passey

The "fruits" of his labors. :)

July 27, 2014

Dear Family, 

John is doing well, we have re challenged him to baptism again, haven't set an official date yet, but he does want to be baptized and wants to set the goal. He is having a clean week so far, so we will see how that goes. He is doing very well though, and the members love him! We have still not yet caught up with that family but we will go around this week probably. We have them as potentials and also a part member family that is going to be fellow shipped by her uncle, so that will help a lot. 

This week for me was up and down and then good and bad and ended good haha :P Exchanges this week, I walked  all day with Elder Anderson around half of Hastings, it was great fun! rainy at first but then all good the rest of the day. There were 4 cops that showed up down the road from our flat and arrested this lady. She had a kid too, it might have been domestic violence, and she was resisting and yelling the whole time.

 Visited with a lot of good members this week, they are the key to work here. It helps so much when we visit them. This week is another focus on members and we will hopefully get more referrals from it too.

Hope you all have a great week, miss and love you all! 

Elder Passey

July 20, 2014

Hey family!

Yeah pretty dry, to start off. it hasn't really rained too much and so we have been pretty fortunate to not get in it. I had an exchange with Elder Loveless this week and we did heaps of walking because he forgot his bike, and so that was pretty tiring, but no rain luckily, mostly just cold.

 We went to the rest home and got yelled at by a midget sitting in his chair. One of the ladies told us to just talk to him, so we were like, hey, how's your day been? he's all pretty good...are you guys mormons? yeah we are! well then ?*%&*? get out of here. hahaha it was pretty funny. He was so small, but so mean too! Benefits of serving a mission. We did get to go to the ward kareoke night and it was awesome!!!  Elders Dorius Loveless and myself sang I want it that way by Backstreet Boys, and it was epic!! One of the other Elders videotaped it so I will hopefully be able to show you. It was hilarious! Lots of good places to volunteer at this week too, we might be helping the red cross, and also we are doing the salvation army and maybe library. Pretty fun stuff. 

 Besides that, pretty normal week, it has been hard to catch up with some people but otherwise not bad. Looking forward to working with President Hudson, who seems like the man! Oh yeah, we had Zone Conference too and he was way chill! Love the guy already. Anyways, have a great week everyone! KIA KAHA! 

Elder Passey

July 14, 2014

The new family we still haven't got to, but we did get a referral from a member who's niece it was, and they let us right in, he is inactive and the niece is a non member I think, but they are really cool, said if we need a feed we can text them and come around, and also visit anytime. That was awesome!! Way cool people. We will begin work on them this week.

Not too much new stuff this week, just working, trying to at least. and new investigators, new family to catch up with, so that should help us a lot. Hope it all goes good, we have a ward activity this week, kareoke and dancing, and so we can go if John or someone comes, no dancing for us, but the kareoke we might have to try  :) we will see. hope you are all well, and have a great week! 

Elder Passey

July 7, 2014

hey family!

Yeah the sickness went away, but now Wenke has it...that backfired.... hope it goes away quick... I had an exchange with Elder Dorius this week, put up some pics, also, the sisters had a pig head for dinner at a member's house, and they dropped the rest of it off....we would have eaten some, I like pig head, but it was cold and half eaten, so we didn't trust it.

 I actually haven't got an email or anything from president Hudson yet, he's probably figuring out everything still. No worries. 

Wenke and I had a trip out to Cape kidnappers to take some pics, it was pretty cool, we actually didn't make it to the cape, there was a lot of walking involved and we were in our suits. The next big thing was the truck hitting us...we were coming up to a rail line, the lights were turning red, so i started slowing, and then this semi that was in front of us had slammed on his brakes to stop so then I had to stop fast too, and I didn't see that it was a two trailer truck as well,and so then....you guessed it, he had stopped over the rails, and so started backing up....probably one of the scariest moments of my life, but luckily he had a low trailer so it just dented the front of our little hatchback, bent the license plate and stuff. Nothing too bad, but I laid out on the horn, and he never even stopped, the funny thing was, we were at a members house the day after, and we found out he works for the company that hit us, so he said he would hunt the guy down...that was crack up! Not fun, and Sister Ingles in the office was mad, but it turned out okay.

 Oh yeah, happy 4th of July!! We sang the Star Spangled Banner in District Meeting on Friday to celebrate, it was awesome!! our whole District is pretty much American. We had the meanest missionary fireside yesterday too! I wish we would have had one before I left! They talked about Jeremiah 16:16, we are no longer fishers, we are hunters. The time to prepare for a mission is now! The time to decide on a mission is now! The lord doesn't have time to train in the field, we need to prepare early and be ready. It was awesome! Elder Thomson from the 70 was there too, it was great! They said to be sharp, and also, Elder Thomson told us why there are no missionaries in China. He said because there are not enough. If we had 200,000 more, then yeah we would be, but 86,000 missionaries stuck into mainland China, they would disappear. It's all about the numbers,and that's a big reason for the age change as well. Crazy!! Figuring out a few kinks in the companionship, but this week should be a lot better. New investigator family today! As long as we go there haha! Let's see how we go. Also, let's go BRAZIL!!! haha I want Germany out...and I want the World Cup to be done...It gets so annoying. anyways, all is well besides the biting wind, winter has finally set in, and it is cold!! Oh well, no snow, can't get that bad... have a great week all! Love you!

Elder Passey

pig head

Cape Kidnappers

June 22, 2014

Not a busy week. Just a couple happenings:

His current Mission President will be leaving and President Hudson will be taking his place.

He requested that The Ensign be sent to his investigator Jon

The youth in Hastings were able to go out with the missionaries and have missionary experiences. They called it the Missionary Prep Camp.


June 29, 2014

We had a measles scare in the ward, one of the YSA of a family we go and visit each week got them, and anyone who had been in contact with her or the family has potential for getting it. When the mom called us and said what symptoms it could be, I was feeling it as she told me...I'm okay though, just sore throat. I don't think I'll get it, we didn't have direct contact with her anyways. 

June 15, 2014

 So it's a new transfer already, it was a four week one, and I am actually the one staying in Hastings, Schumaker is leaving, so now I will be with Elder Wenke, (Venka) he's from Germany. Another 8 weeks in Hastings, woo!! 

This week was slow, there was a lot of rain, and when it rains a lot in New Zealand, everything shuts down, and no one wants to let you in because it's cold and they all have their fires going. Pretty lame. I had an exchange with Elder Harris, I have a couple pics but I forgot my cord this week. Nothing too special happened, just a bunch of random service, rainy days, a lot of walking while Schumakers bike is in the shop, and then more members and having fun with the other elders. We are going to a driving range today for District P day, so that should be fun. It's a place called Sahrpie's that also has mini golf, pool, and laser tag we hear. Looking forward to that.  Hopefully some fun new things this week, transfer week is always hectic, hope you all had fun in Cali, have a safe drive home, and have fun!

Love Elder Passey

P-Day at Sahrpie's