War against calories

Kia Ora Whanãu! That means hello family. The WH in Whanãu is pronounced like an F. So it sounds like fauno.I hope you guys are doing fantastic. Wishing yall the best. Its been a good week. Loving it out here in NZ.

Anyways, we only have bikes so that's all we do everyday. We bike 5+ miles a day, sometimes 10+. But honestly I'm super grateful for it because it's going to help with all the calories we eat. It's also super fun just cruising around. Cars are honestly boring compared to this. But ya, we are really going to need the exercise. It is a good day if we don't get 2 dinners. I'm not trying to sound ungrateful but I'm going to get fat real quick if we keep getting food shoved down our mouths. We get member meals about every day, but on top of that whenever we visit members at night they will feed us even more. We had a Maori funeral devotional this week which was every day and they had a feast at every single one. Those Maori people will hunt you down if you don't come get some food. Those along with member meals is enough calories for a month. So pls pray for me that I don't put on 100 pounds out here yall!

Anyways, I wanted to talk about that Maori funeral devotional because it was so cool. So, one of the members in our ward named Sister Horua died. They were a Maori family so the family put together a funeral devotional for every day of the week. These funeral devotionals are really cool, they basically have family and friends come over and they have people speak about the person that died. They also sing Maori songs and stuff. Along with that they have a huge feast at every one. They all are impeccable singers so it's so cool. Some of the people don't speak any English so we just sat there trying to understand the Maori. They put us, the missionaries, on spot and asked us to sing a song. So, we sang "God be with you til we meet again". I suggested that because I thought it would fit perfect especially because of that scene in The Other Side of Heaven. We were the clown act of the show. But, one of the days they sang a Maori version of "How Great thou art". That was getting me emotional honestly. I had never met the woman but it was so beautiful hearing a Maori version of that song. Those were such special experiences and I'm so grateful that I was able to be there. On the way out, I had my first hangi, which is a Maori greeting. Basically, you touch noses with each other. I was so scared lol. Felt like the dude was about to kiss me. He had a bunch of face tattoos which made it even scarier. But ya, that's for you Grandpa, just want to apologize because I know I didn't believe you when you told me about that. That was quite the experience.

The work was good this week. We are basically biking around town every day starting at 11 am and go until 9. So when I get home im just wiped out. It's harder to do as much work with bikes because it takes longer to travel between places. But, we managed to do a lot of work this week. We've been teaching a lot and found a good amount of people so that was awesome. We got bashed by some J dubs this week which was the most miserable thing. It was these 3 ladies that tried to instigate us the whole time. After a little bit I just shut it down because it wasn't going anywhere and the spirit was definitely not there. I thought they were funny in Kansas but now they just suck. So, I hope that never happens again. Probably will tho lol. Anyways, other than that the work was good.

One awesome thing that happened this week was our mission tour. We had mission tour on Tuesday and the area authority Elder Nattress came to speak to us. It was so awesome to hear from him. The spirit was so strong and I loved every bit of it. There was not a dry eye in the building. That was so awesome. One of the questions he asked us was "What ye think of Christ?". Which isn't very profound but thinking about it was so awesome. Sometimes we forget to just think about Christ.

Alright let's get into the spiritual thought of the week: I want to talk about life after death. Because my testimony of the Plan of Salvation was strengthened so much after the funeral devotionals. It was really odd to see the Maori people celebrating and cracking jokes at the devotional. At first I thought that it was kinda messed up. But, I just wasn't used to that. It was so cool to see people that truly had a testimony of life after death. They all knew where she was going and knew that life is eternal. Which was kind of mind boggling to me. I now know more than I ever have that this life doesn't end when we die. Because of Jesus Christ breaking the bands of death, we can all be resurrected again and have eternal life with our families and heavenly father. I know that we will all be resurrected into our perfect form. I know that we lived before this life and will live after this life. I can testify that the plan of salvation is true and can bless each and every one of our lives.

Alright that's all for the week. I love you guys a ton and hope you have a great week. Talk to you next week!

Arohanui Elder Larson

                                                                            Our friend Sapo!!

                                                        Thought this was cute. Might delete later

                                                                        Beautiful front yard

                                                                                    Cool road


                                         Very pretty flower called hydrange. Not sure if I spelled that right.


                                                                                     The trio

                                                            Bussin steak and cheese meat pie


                                                                          Extra pics





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