Time Is Flying By

7 Sept. 2009
Kia ora Family,

How is everyone doing? The weather sure has been nice the last couple of days here in Auckland. The skys are clear and blue and hardly any clouds, which is different, considering that New Zealand in maori is Aotearoa, meaning "Land of the long white cloud". I love sunny weather and warm days.

Transfers is this week and I will most likely be staying here in Mount Roskill. I don't mind if i get transferred again, but it would be wierd finishing with only 5-6 weeks to go in a completely foreign ward where I'd need to get to know the ward again. It is quite likely that my companero will be getting shifted. He is quite a funny missionary. We are almost like brothers or siblings, one moment having a bit of disagreement and then in the next laughing about something ridiculous that occurred during the day.

We have this new Samoan investigator named Sifaga. She has been an investigator for one week and has been coming for the past 3 weeks to church and came to the Stake Conference yesterday. Her partner is a member. We invited her to be baptized and explained to her how to prepare for it. They are going to talk about getting married prior to our next visit on Wednesday. They are staying with his brother's family, who are fairly active. We will need to work on finding additional fellowship.

By the way, thats exciting to hear about Marty getting baptized tomorrow. Did i ever meet him? Does he have a family? That will be exciting for Dad to baptize him. Some of the neatest baptisms are when there is a close friend baptizing and for me some of the best have been in rivers and lakes. Unfortunately i didn't get a chance to actually be in the water, but just witnessing was enough.

Thanks for letting me know about the Christmas trip to NZ. I am not that fond of long flights. The last one wasn't the greatest experience. It should be better going back. I was probably a bit fearful on the way over.

What if we did a family trip elsewhere in the states during Christmas time. What about going to Arizona. We haven't seen family over there in ages. When we go down to San Diego, how long will we stay there?

Last night we had an awesome lesson with a part member family. This family is different because the less-active father is really coming back well and he is wanting his partner to participate and come to church with him. Our previous lesson was on the experience Enos had and how prayer can change our natures and how we can seek forgiveness and direction. But last night i felt we could move forward with the Restoration. We could tell the Spirit was there just by how smoothly the words came and she readily accepted the pamphlet and the copy of the Book of Mormon. We'll be seeing them on Wednesday. Bishop Halafuka is getting his records transferred from Hamilton for James and has invited him to ask his partner to marry him! Bishop gets right onto it and is very supportive.

I know these last weeks are going to fly by. I have much to complete and fulfill, but i must do my best. I love you all. Give my love to Grandma Cashmore and also to Grandma and Grandpa Dungy.

Love, Elder Cashmore