Kia Ora Kitchen family!!

How are you guys all doing?? Wow I was just reflecting when I found out where I was going to serve. Remember when I opened my call letter. We had all our family and I just yelled out New Zealand Auckland mission!! Awww I was SO happy. I feel so blessed to serve here. It truly is a beautiful country and I just absolutely LOVE the people here!! I have made so many life long friends that mean so much to me. The country is beautiful and the mission is just undescribable! I just love every single second of my mission. There is so many things I miss about home, normal life, and people....most of all you guys. But there are times when I just wish I could stay on a mission for a long time. Because it truly is just a dream come true. But there are those times when you wish you were anywhere else except here hahaha. Just reflecting on my mission...I'm so blessed to have gone to Niue and New Zealand. Awe I've met so many wonderful people. Its always so sad to leave the ward and the people to whom you just come to love. I am always sad to leave the investigators and everyone else too. Well I haven't found out about transfers yet...but I will on Wednesday. I have a feeling that I will get transferred. Deep down in side I really want to leave...even though I will really miss Rotorua...but I've been here for so long..its time for a change now. I wonder where I'm going to go. If we ever come back to New Zealand...WE HAVE to come back to Rotorua...hey I was thinking one of the good things about me not serving in very many areas yet is that if we wanted to come back and see the areas where I served at least so far all we would have to go to is Hamilton, Rotorua, and NIUE!!! YAYY!!! haha just kidding that would be a dream come true if I got to go back there!!

Any way I really want to tell you about our P day we have had today. Its the reason why I am e mailing so late. A member got us into this Maori Culture Adventure center! It was so awesome and I loved it so much. I took so many pictures and it really got us involved with the Maori culture. Wow the people here have such a rich incredible culture but the sad thing is a lot of Maori people have lost most of their culture...but some still carry it on. I love hearing people talk in Maori its so cool. I wish I learned more Niuean and then learn some Maori so I could bear my testimony in the language during my home coming. ..I might still try and do that. Well this place we just learned so much about the culture and their traditions and beliefs. We got to see all this cool stuff. We got to go inside a Marae (its kinda like their culture church/temple) We then got to go see this traditional Maori village. Then we got to go see all these weapons, costumes, and everything. Then we got to go see REAL alive KIWI's Wow there are so Cool! Then we got to go to a traditional Maori performance. Wow it was just amazing!!! The dancers and performers were just unreal. They did the Haka!! The war dance. They did a lot of dances. They also did this crazy welcome thing to welcome us onto the Marae and Elder Russell was the chief guy...it will take me too long to explain what they did....but man sometime you'll just have to come experience it. Then guess what!! We went to a real natural geyser! Like old faithful in yellow stone. Its called Te puia and its the biggest geyser in the southern Hemisphere. It was cool we waited for a while but then it erupted! WOW it was awesome and it burst out...I guess the water is like 250 degrees F. It was just so fun and really cool, There is so many cool things to do here in Rotorua but most of the stuff we cant do as missionaries...but we got to do that.

Well my week was really good. We went on a lot of trade offs and it was nice to be with some of the other elders. We got to go to our mission tour/zone conference on Thursday. We drove up to Hamilton. It was just SO Spiritual as usual. I loved it so much and took so many notes. The spirit whispered to me so many things I needed to hear. One thing I am going to miss so much about my mission is those zone conferences. I cant even tell you how incredible they are. I wish you could have experienced yourselves. President Collister is such a good speaker. We gave a breath taking training on the Atonement of Jesus Christ. Then guess what President Porter asked me to stand up and share my feelings about the Atonement in front of all the missionaries. I got emotional and just bore a powerful testimony. I felt the spirit so strong. I learned so many things at that conference. I wish I would have known President Collister knew Grandma and Grandpa Ellsworth, because I got to shake his hand and talk to him for just a little bit but I didn't know to say anything about them. After I got to go on a trade off with Elder Breeze ( my zone leader) over in Tauranga. It was so cool to serve over there a couple of days. It is absolutely beautiful over there. Its right on the coast of New Zealand. I got to see the beach and the ocean...it is truly incredible. We had some really cool experiences and saw some miracles. I learned a lot from him, he is such a great missionary. Saturday we went to our little town we cover called Mururpada. Sunday was good also.. church was great. We had such a powerful testimony meeting and I bore my testimony and just thanked the ward for everything and basically said goodbye and told them I'm going to miss Rotorua so much. I'm so used to bearing my testimony now and I don't really get nervous anymore up at the front of church. We had a lot of investigators at church and a lot of them are progressing. I'm sure the ward will start to have a lot of baptisms! I'm just sad because I wont be here to see Jessica get baptized and Judy and the other progressing investigators. Oh well where ever I am there will be people to rescue and bring into the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It was so good to hear from you guys....I loved reading your e mails. Sounds like you all had fun in Park City this week...especially you dad. Man you did a lot of skiing. I'm sure your going to be pro soon...haha I miss snowboarding...its weird to think next winter I will probably be able to go snow boarding, WOW Oh by the way its starting to get a little cold here...that probably means its getting a little warmer there eh? Oh yeah tell Grandpa Kitchen HAPPY BIRTHDAY for me!! I hope he has a great wonderful day and just tell him a love him so much. I'm excited to see them when I get back. Thank him for the letter he wrote me too, I loved it. Oh yeah before I forget I did get your package for valentines day a long time ago. I loved it too. The candy was great and I have almost ate all of it already. Thanks for that. Its good to hear Ryan is getting better. I have been praying for him. I'm glad he is better but that's still really sad he wont be able to do all those things.

Well I love you all so much. I miss ya all. Have a great week.

Love Elder Kitchen