Dear Family! Kia Ora!

My heart is just so full of gratitude to our Heavenly Father right now. I thank him every night for my wonderful family and the joy you all bring into my life. I am so thankful we get to e mail each other every single week and I get to hear all the exciting and wonderful things that are going on in your lives. I am also so grateful that you are all safe, happy, and well. There are so many natural disasters happening throughout the world right now. It truly is the signs of the second coming of our savior Jesus Christ. I heard about all the tornado's in the southern United States. I heard Alabama got hit really bad. I’m glad the Eakins are here safe in Utah now. Well when all these go on in the world we as members of the church should not fear at all but be happy and grateful that our savior Jesus Christ is coming. That is if we are ready spiritually and everything. My prayer is that all of us as a family will continue to always be ready to met Jesus Christ again and know we are clean and worthy to enter into his presence.

Well far far away in a foreign country of New Zealand....over up in the far northland in a place called Whangarei it just keeps raining and raining. Wow, I think it rained all last night and so far as rained ALL day! There is a fair amount of water flooding parts of the fields and stuff. New Zealand truly is a very different place from Utah. It rains here like crazy. It’s so beautiful here though and it’s starting to get even more and more green. I really feel like I’m in a foreign country....I love New Zealand. I can tell it’s starting to get more and more cold. That should mean you guys are getting warmer...but when you told me there was snow on the ground I was very surprised. Me and Elder Naicker are just getting along very well. We are having a lot of success and miracles happen all the time. Guess what we have 6 investigators right now with a baptism date!! We have seen so many spiritual experiences. We had 5 of our investigators attend church yesterday which made me so happy. I love to see them be there and them to tell me they feel the spirit so strong. It was a great fast and testimony meeting and our investigators loved it. Caleb is just doing incredible. He is almost 15 years old but looks and acts like 17. He already wants to go on a mission and he reads his Book of Mormon and prays every day. He is keeping all the commandments and just loves church. He is a golden investigator. He will be getting baptized on the 14 of May!! I am so excited. His cousin Lyric is also getting baptized on the 21st of May. We have Naina getting baptized on that day too. And we have a guy named Boudene. He is awesome. He is my age...almost 21 and he came to church yesterday for the first time and loved it. We have a Family Home evening with him tonight at some member’s house. It will be great...We have a young girl named Sheridyn we set for May 2nd and we are working with her less active family to come back to church. We also have a lady with a family of kids getting baptized on May 28th!! So on Kaylee’s birthday hopefully we have a lot of baptisms!! This week has just been a very spiritual week and I love it so much. I love my mission....I just can’t get off my knees....I love praying. I LOVE reading the scriptures too....I have learned So much about the gospel. I can’t believe how much my testimony of the gospel and the Atonement of Jesus Christ has strengthened. I have learned to use the Atonement each and every day and I’ve repented more and more. The thing that I could encourage you all to do the most....is use the Atonement in your lives. Repent and just change and do better and better each day. Awe I just love this gospel with all my heart.

I wish I could tell you about all the little miracles we see as missionaries on a daily basis. When we follow the spirit it just leads us to amazing things. Like one day we got prompted to go visit one of our new investigators. When we got there she answered the door in tears....she knew that we were sent from God to comfort her from the trails and challenges she was going through...We said a prayer and she was comforted. We also were lead to someone who was prepared to receive the gospel. We taught a powerful Restoration lesson to two of our new investigators and the spirit was so strong. We bore powerful testimonies of the Restoration and the Book of Mormon. We had her kneel down with us and the end of the lesson and ask God if the Book of Mormon was true....she did and the spirit testified to her that it was. She said she felt light and happy. Time and time again I see the spirit testify to people this gospel is true. I also have had incredible spiritual experiences to witness to me that this is true. I know that Jesus Christ and our Heavenly Father love us and they want all of us to come home. I challenge each of you to do missionary work. It will bring you such great joy as you share the gospel. I know it’s hard because most of the people we know are members but just pray and think about people that aren’t...God will provide a way for you to share the gospel.

I hope you guys have a great trip down in Arizona. Have a relaxing and fun time. Tell Susan hi for me if you see her! :) Dad I’m sorry I wasn’t able to answer all your questions but I kind of have to go. But guess what!! I can’t believe you forgot...well I don’t know if you forgot but you usually always say something about it but its mother’s day this weekend....so be ready I will be calling you!! I love you all and I can’t wait to talk to you then....have a great week!!

Love Elder Kitchen