Dear Family,

Wow it was so great to read your e mails this morning! I enjoyed them very much. I love to hear your all doing great and loving your summer. It makes my week to know my family is safe, happy, healthy, and being blessed by the Lord. Thank you so much for all the prayers, love, and everything you do for me while I'm on a mission. I can truly feel your prayers and love for me, even though I'm very far away. Well I am doing great and loving every second of my mission. This past week has been an adventure as know I'm the senior companion. I'm going to e mail hopefully at this time from now on.

I love being the senior companion so far. It truly is a sacred blessing and responsibility from the Lord. It is extremely difficult sometimes and so rewarding most of the time. I do have a lot more responsibility. I know though if I put my complete faith and trust in the Lord everything will be okay. We are just trying our very best to serve faithfully, obediently, and with all our strength. Elder Havea is doing great and we're getting along very well. He is an obedient missionary and we teach very well together. He also is good at working hard and doing service when we do. He loves Niue and the people and he is trying to learn the language. For me wow I absolutely LOVE Niue and I LOVE the people so very much. I am definitely going to be sad when I leave this amazing beautiful island. My language is getting better slowly. I'm actually learning and know a lot of Niuean. Its so cool to always speak the language to the members and people.

Our week has been really busy. We have done a lot of service and a lot of teaching. We have had miracles this week also. We've found new investigators and also received more referrals. We are trying our very best to find, teach, and baptize Gods children here on Niue. I know the Lord has prepared people for us to baptize and that will accept the restored gospel. We've been teaching a wonderful Fijian Couple named Tave and Micka. They are doing great and I know they feel the spirit. We also are teaching a 14 year old boy name Henry. He came to church yesterday and really liked it. Suta is also doing good, we're just trying to help him overcome his problem. There is a lot of others that just have some small little problem otherwise they can be baptized. We are helping a lot of less active members come back to church too. During the lessons I feel the spirit so powerfully and I can feel the Holy Ghost literally telling me exactly what to say. It is a sacred experience that is so incredible. I know this is the Lords work and we are only instruments in his hands. My testimony has straightened so much. I know with all my heart this is the one and only true church. This member cleaning guy for the chapels (he's from New Zealand) came to Niue and we helped him work on the chapel this week. We cleaned our missionary house also. We painted to chapels ceiling and did some other clean up work. He also got us a referral here, his name is Mr. Lee and he is from China. He wants us to teach him English and then he agreed that we can teach him about the church.

Well even though me and my companion can't really dance we decided just to dance in one dance for the village show day (Alofi its the village we live in). Its called a Mecah, a lot of people do the dance. Its a cultural Niuean dance. Its fun and we get to see a lot of non members. Well we even tracked here in Niue this week. We are really trying to qualify for miracles from God. We knocked on some doors. Most are not interested. But they are really nice. Our week was just really good. Yesterday church was great and then I had a really spiritual experience. After lunch I got prompted by the spirit to go to this house I had never been to before. We knocked and they let us right in. It was a guy name Allen and he is Niuean. We sat down and long story short we found out he had been experiencing difficultly with his relationship with his wife that very morning. He had prayed for help and then there we were knocked at his door. We had a very spiritual and incredible lesson with him. The spirit was SO strong. I could feel the spirit tell me exactly what to say. I felt like a instrument in Heavenly Fathers hand to answer a humble prayer of one of his sons. We are going to come back latter this week. This week has just been amazing.

That's enough about me. Wow your week sounded like it went great. I'm glad to read and hear everything you've been doing. Well first ill just answer some of the questions from last week. You did put the candles in my birthday package...so I have them. I am actually making my birthday cake today! I'm excited to make it and then lite the candles. Oh yeah and I love the sandals, they are nice so thank you so much. And I did receive Grandma and Grandpa's birthday card. Well I didn't get much time to say much about their mission call. Seriously I was shocked. That is incredible that they will be serving another full time mission. I'm very happy for them and that will be a blessing to be able to serve a mission during the same time as them. Please let me know as soon as you find out where they will be serving.

Oh yeah I loved reading about Samantha's heritage tours trip. I wish I could talk to her about it. Just tell her I'm so happy that she loved it and it truly is the best thing that I had ever done besides my mission. I'm jealous she got to go I would love to go again. You had a question last week, we do exercise in the morning. We run sometimes, lift weights, and do other exercises. And its cool your preparing for girls camp. Man they must really love your cooking. We're lucky your our mom and we get to eat your cooking all the time. Thanks for keeping a list of movies I should watch when I get home. But yeah don't worry I don't care about movies right now. But when I get home I would love to watch them.

Awe your lucky you get to go to Cams temple endowment session. Wow I hope he has a very spiritual experience. Tell him I'm so proud of him, miss him so much, and I'm so glad hes going on a mission. I'm very grateful we are friends and that he has changed my life. Tell him I'm so incredibly sorry I have not written him. I'm trying.....ugh. I'm so bad at writing friends.

Dad you asked if I have gained any weight. I can't believe it but I haven't really. I eat so much....but its probably because I work a lot doing service and sweat so much. Thanks for everything you said in your e mail and all the good encouragement.

Well I got to go now. We are going to explore the island today for P day. Elder Havea hasn't seen any sites or cool things on the island so were going today with our branch mission leader. I hope you all have a great week. AND, Happy 4th of July!! Have so much fun and do some fireworks. I'm sure New Zealand recognizes it but I don't think Niue does. I'll be thinking of you guys on the 4th. I love you all so much. Have a great summer and love every second of it. Be safe and keep doing whats right. miss you a lot and I love you.
Love Elder Kitchen