December 28

Dear Family and Friends, This Past week has been quite a week of anticipation! I was so excited for this week to come it was almost unbearable. My companion and I since our last week was a little on the rough side, have really been hitting it off, telling stories of past christmases and such. We have been getting along swimmingly. There will always be those little things that are out of our control but, they feel so minnute that they really dont affect the work anymore. I pray that It stays that way for the rest of the transfer. Our week started off with a rather good start, we had a fantastic Family home evening with the Kaufana family, we went christmas caroling to some of there friends and were able to visit a less active family. The visit with the less active family was really good, we have been really working hard on them this past few weeks. One of the young girls in there family has chosen to get baptised so we are teaching the lessons to her. Her parents are so excited for her and want to make sure that it is a special occasion. I am so glad that they are making this choice. We had a great day on Tuesday, we were worried with the holiday season that our lessons would take a nose dive for the week. So we piled on the finding activities. We ended the day with five lessons in all. We could not have been more pleased. it sure made up for the christmas lul that we had. On christmas Eve we had a really good district meeting where I learned a lot. We had a small gift exchange which was fun. I got a migraine mid meeting though which was crappy, but the other missionaries were very accomodating. When we got home after a brief mcdonalds stop I took four Ibuprofin, which took care of it. We proceeded to go christmas caroling at the local old folks home and we talked to some of the people there. We even had a lesson. We had a good time. Near the end of the day elder carbonell attempted to skype his family, he was not able to get into contact with his family because of local internet problems. He didnt seem too disappointed so it wasnt all that bad. Christmas day started off like most christmas days go, we openned some presents that my family had sent. I was very excited to skype you guys later on though. The skype was not all that I expected. The minutes ticked away like seconds and before I knew it we were saying goodbye. I was very depressed afterward. Five months just seems like an eternity, let alone two years till I can embrace you. Later on though I got over it and got back into the swing of things. We had a good rest of our christmas day, we ended up teaching one lesson that day so it wasnt a complete dud. We had a good amount of lessons each day for the rest of the week, so we ended up very pleased this week. On saturday we visited this woman and her husband. Her name is Lisi and I forgot her husbands name. We had a very powerful lesson with them and we left them with a Book of Mormon copy. They seemed so open to the message we shared. We were so happy afterwards. Ending the Week at church is always such a great experience. We were able to hear from the branch presidency this week and they gave so great talks. Pres. Gaskill gave a talk on Obedience and specifically obedience toward our parents, Heavenly and earthly. It was very powerfull. I guess if I could describe this week I would say it was like an emotional roller coaster, but most weeks are. We just have to trust in our savior and Keep moving forward. I am constantly reminded of the saviors love for us and for his great sacrifice, I think this is a week where I needed it a lot. I am so gratefull to be out here serving the people of New Zealand. I love you all so so so much. thank you for all that you do. Love always, Elder Tanner Bowers