Kia Ora and Happy New Year!!

Wow 2011 that is crazy. What a great year I had last year to be in the service of our Heavenly Father. The year went by really fast and its way weird to think that I will be coming home this year! I'm glad to hear that you all had a great New Years and got to do some fun things. That is so weird to me to think that its so cold there. I am like dying of heat over here right now. Its going to be hard this winter because I will go from an horrible winter in New Zealand to a freezing Utah winter when I arrive there. I guess I deserve it though because I have had so many nice days on my mission.


I am glad you got my pictures. I'm sure you liked them....I'll have to sit with you after my mission and go over them with you guys. I should take more pictures in New Zealand. I get so busy with the work I don't take very many photos here. The landscape is really beautiful and I need to take more photos. I still need to send those Niuean things but I might do it next week. I need to remember in the morning so I'm prepared. Plus I think the post office is closed today for some reason I don't know why. I bought some nice pants with some of the Christmas money that you put into my account. Oh yeah and when I went to the temple about a week or so ago I finally bought some white pants. Remember I never could get some before I went on my mission. Well it just turned out that I've been trying to get some for a while but it never worked out until then. It was cool to read that you went up to the cabin for new years. That sounds way fun. I cant believe it was SO cold though. That's also exciting mom that you shared with them about my mission. Your being a missionary, now just invite the Suters to church! :)

Oh yeah the Stucki's are an American family over here living for his work. They are from California and they are really good members of the church. They are in our ward and they fed us for dinner last week. It was really good and they had all their family over from the states with them. They live over in the beautiful country side of Rotorua and their view is just breath taking. You can see the Lake and all the green rolling hills WOW. I thought you mom and Jami and Kaylee would like it if she took a picture of the view with their horse in it.

It sounds like you loved the break off work Dad. I bet it was way nice to relax and have some time off. A lot of the members of the church have work off around the holidays too. They all go to the lake and beach and stuff. That sounds fun your going to go skiing in Colorado. Tell Sposi's hi for me again.

Well this week we had some pretty crazy experiences. My companion almost got attacked by a dog. Man some of the dogs here are CRAZY! Some places people have attack and guard dogs that just hate missionaries. You should have seen how fast he was running and the dog was snapping at his ankles. Man I thought he was gunna get it from the dog. The owner was chasing after it trying to stop it. We also had a weird experience. We knocked on this house and a guy calls out for help. We felt bad but it was a really large Maori guy that I guess had had a stroke some years before. But his care taker couldn't lift him out of his chair. So we helped him out and his sheet fell off and he was BUTT NAKED! ahhh it was nasty! then the lady was like wiping some ointment all over his butt and then she shook our hand! EWWW! we washed them like 10 times! Man some of the things you see or experience on your mission are crazy. We were walking down the street and a car drives by and they threw a bottle at my companion. It missed him but wow that's so rude. We go through difficulties but the rewarding experiences are what makes it so worth it.

We did some really cool site seeing last Monday. We are trying to figure out a way to go fishing today because my companion loves to fish. Oh yeah we have 3 investigators set for baptism right now. Aroha is set for Jan 15. Judy is set for Jan 22, and Debbie is set for Jan 29. We are really excited and will just keep working really hard for them. Well man I'm just working hard and just having great success with the Lords help. Its cool I have met a lot of amazing people.

I am going to go now. But thanks for everything. I really do love you all so much! Your prayers really do mean so much to me and I know I am drawing so close to you even though I'm so far away! Have a great week.

Love Elder Kitchen