Dear Family, October 9, 2011

What a wonderful blessing it is to be able to e mail you all this week. It sounds like everything is going great for all of you and that is a big blessing. For me things are just amazing. As you can see on the subject of the e mail, transfers has happened. I stayed here in Massey ward of Henderson Auckland but Elder Moss got transferred. He went down to Hamilton. And President Lekias has asked me to be the senior zone leader and I am training a new zone leader named Elder Walk. He has just been a District Leader and this is the first time for him to be a zone leader. I know this is from the Lord and even though this is a lot of responsibility I know the Lord will strengthen me and help me as I have faith and rely on him. It is quite different being the senior zone leader. There is a lot more reporting to the Assistants and the Mission President, and of course most importantly to the Lord. I would love your prayers for me to help me always have the spirit so I will know what the Lord wants me to do. The zone got changed a lot. 8 new missionaries left and new ones came in. Elder Walk just came from the Chinese Program in the mission. So he got called to speak Chinese in the New Zealand Auckland mission. He can speak fluent Chinese. It’s so cool to hear him bear his testimony that he knows the Lord gave him the gift of tongues to help him know how the speak the language. He is from Park City Utah! His Dad is a convert to the church and his mom came back into activity. He was one older sister who just got married. He is around the same height as me, has blond hair, and he is just a great missionary. We get along very well and I’m excited to work with him.

In the mission right now we have a mission goal of saving (baptizing) 204 souls! In the Book of Mormon Alma was able to baptize 204 souls in the waters of Mormon. President Lekias has received revelation that we can do this and we are so excited to rely on the Lord to achieve this worthy goal. I love helping our brothers and sisters gain testimonies of the truth. I love kneeling down with them and as they pray about the Book of Mormon it is the best feeling when they feel and recognize the spirit speaking to them. This week we have had many spiritual experiences and I wanted to e mail just a couple. We found this lady named Marlena about a week ago. We had a very spiritual experience at the door and she knew we were messengers sent from God. She started to cry as we told her our message. So we have been trying to help her any way we can. She needed her lawn mowed and so one day without even telling her we brought a members lawn mower over and started doing it. She is a mother of 7 children and has a defective relationship with her partner (boy friend). They are struggling a lot financially. Well we were mowing it for her and then suddenly it wouldn’t work. We tried everything and it just wouldn’t start. So we had faith and we said a prayer and begged Heavenly Father to start it so we could finish her lawn. Right after the prayer we had faith and pulled the starter and A MIRACLE it started!! WOW it was such an amazing experience and I know the Lord answers even small prayers like that. We also had an experience with one of our investigators named Patu. We were at his house and we helped him understand that in order to receive an answer he needed to pray with all his heart. We taught about prayer and knelt down and asked him to say the prayer. He did for the first time and after we were silent waiting for the spirit to answer him. He said he felt something he has never felt before and it gave him so much peace and happiness. He started to cry (which he would never do) and said he knew that God had answered him. He and his partner committed to obey the Law of Chastity and get married. They also committed to obey the Word of Wisdom and said he would stop smoking.

I absolutely loved General Conference!! WOW!

Well it looks like everyone is leaving now and they are waiting for me....so I have to go now....I’m sorry it was short. I love you all so much.

LOVE elder Kitchen