Dear Family!

I am so grateful to be able to e mail my wonderful family! I love you all so very much and think and pray for you all the time. I am so grateful to say I am doing great, safe, healthy, and just really happy. Awww I just love this wonderful gospel and I'm so truly grateful to represent the Lord Jesus Christ for these two wonderful years of my life. Sometimes its so weird to think I've been gone for such a long time and that I've haven't seen any of your faces...I miss them. I know it will be one incredible reunion when I return home. But that's not for a long time so I don't need to be thinking about that at all. I'm doing really good...I am staying focused and working really hard. I know the Lord gives me strength everyday. Transfers are coming up next Thursday and I have a strong feeling that I'm getting transferred. I actually hope I get transferred because I've been in Rotorua so long and I want to experience something else.

I'm sure you all heard about the earth quake down in Christchurch. Well just so you know nothing happened at all in Rotorua. I am perfectly safe and okay. We didn't even feel a movement. But members have told me somethings and I've seen just glimpses of what has happened down in Christchurch. It is very sad and horrible. I feel extremely bad for all the people of New Zealand. I guess this is one of the worst natural disasters that has ever happened in NZ. A lot of people have been killed, injured, and A TON of people have lost everything including their homes. A lot of people have left to go down to Christchurch and help them out. I have been remembering them in my prayers.

My week was pretty good...some ups and some really hard downs. Last P day was really fun, we went fishing...I never caught anything and my companion just caught a really small fish. we need to go to a better spot next time. We have had some miracles and some really good lessons. We received 8 new investigators this week and had some very spiritual lessons. We also had 8 investigators that came to church yesterday! Jessica and Adam got married too! It was great! A huge trail is that a couple of days before her baptism she told us that she isn't fully healed from having her baby...so she cant get into the water. So she is set for baptism this Saturday. And another one was a couple of days before Judy's baptism she told us she wasn't fully commit ed at this point to pay her tithing so she wasn't baptized either. It was pretty hard but I'll just keep moving forward. Jasmine's partner doesn't want to get married so Jasmine wasn't baptized either. The only thing is that he wont marry her so they aren't keeping the law of chastity.

Sounds like the family is doing alright. Man I still feel really bad about Ryan. Thats too bad that he can't play any sports for that long. He must of really messed up his knee. My prayers are with him. But I'm glad that he is able to walk and drive better and that he knee is getting a little better. Oh yeah I remember when I had senior- itis! Haha yeah it gets hard but its good just to keep it up because your grades are important for college. Dad it was cool to hear that your going up to Park City again. I'm sorry that your still sick. You've been sick for a while...I hope you start to feel better. Mom that is so cool that your teaching now. I wish I could watch your class as you teach.

Its cool that President Porter is moving to Alpine because he will live so close to us! The new mission president is from Perth Australia! So that's not far from here but way far away from Utah!
Oh yeah we had a crazy experience. Well we always have people yelling at us sometimes and some people are really rude to missionaries. Its funny to see some of the experiences you have when you go tracking. Well we were having a lesson with Jessica. We actually and just finished watching the DVD on Joseph Smith and the spirit was really strong, and then comes in her uncle, and he was drunk, way drunk. We were late to our next appointment. and he asked us in a really rude way to teach him at that very second. We told him we would set up an appointment for him. Oh man he didn't like that answer. He was drunk and just being stupid. It's funny I think, to see the stupid things people do when they're drunk. I have had a ton of crazy experiences I just don't always type them out.

Well we have our zone conference in Hamilton this Thursday! I'm excited President Collister (the Pacific area president) is coming. It will be cool. Well I got to go now. I really love you all so very much. Thanks for all your prayers and everything you do for me. I couldn't be out here serving if it wasn't for you. Thanks again. I love you.

Love Elder Kitchen