New Zealand Hamilton Mission

We’re continuing forward with our work, always learning new things, and doing our best with what we know. This past week was filled with the unexpected.  The most unexpected and saddest thing we’re experiencing right now as a mission is the heart-wrenching news we’ve received over the past two days regarding one of our wonderful missionaries.  An MRI showed a large mass behind his eye. A biopsy done yesterday confirmed that the mass was an aggressive malignant cancer.  Our mission president gave him a beautiful priesthood blessing, and we are participating in a mission-wide fast in his behalf today.  His mother arrives in New Zealand tomorrow and he will begin chemotherapy.  We believe in miracles!  We are exercising our faith for our missionary that he will receive a miracle and be able to continue his work here in the mission.  At the same time, we desire to accept Heavenly Father’s will in behalf of this missionary. 2 Nephi 26:13–Christ works mi...

Sunday evening September 15: We are completing our 15th week in New Zealand.  Most things have become familiar and the constant bombardment of new views has settled down.  We can get around the city of Hamilton, for the most part without GPS and the city feels more like our home.  Our life back home in the travel trailer seems so long ago and moving from our home nearly 8 months ago is like a dream.  It seems strange that we are not busily havesting garden produce like we have the past 25+ years.  I really am missing a just-picked, garden-ripe tomato.  Since it is winter here,  all that is available are peaked greenhouse offerings.  I hope we can plant a few in our landlord's garden to enjoy this Summer. Breezes of change, that started blowing gently the middle of the week, developed into gale-force winds by Friday.   On Wednesday, Elder and Sister Clayton arrived in the mission from North Dakota.  They are the couple who will be...

Elder Folland and I watched and listened to the Celebration of President Russell M. Nelson's 95th birthday held in the Conference Center in Salt Lake City, Utah.  Several of my favorite artists performed:  Donnie Osmond, Nathan Pacheco,                        Jenny Oaks Baker, and of course, The Tabernacle Choir.  President Nelson's life inspires me---he loves people!  He is a lifetime learner.  He is an innovative cardiologist.  Doug's Dad was blessed at his capable hands, as he performed open heart surgery, and gave Doug's Dad many more years of life.  But what inspires me the most is that he has an unwavering testimony of the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ, he has a surety of God's Plan of Salavation, he knows the Savior and that He atoned for our sins, and the Atonement of Jesus Christ empowers us to live as he did and to overcome our struggles and our trials in this earthly lif...