MIRACLES!!!

Kia Ora!

We had a really great week!!! And today is also my 11 month mark!! Crazy how fast time is flying by! I'm really loving and enjoying my mission!

We were blessed with many great miracles. We found a boy on monday that is really keen and excited to learn more about Christ and knows that he needs to be baptized!! Then Tuesday after District Meeting we left for Auckland for our Zone Council and Leadership Training! To look around the room and be sitting with so many great missionaries was just awesome! There is great leadership here in NZAM! Thursday we had our Leadership Training! Saw my boy Elder Whaanga! He's doing great! And he was able to baptize Mystique and Brother George baptized Reyna! So he's doing really well! It was good just to catch up with him! I learned so much from the training on how I can become a better missionary and become a better leader in this mission!

Big news for the mission, almost every zone is expected to break the zone best! And it looks like we'll be able to baptize over 200 souls this month which is phenomenal!!! Very excited about that!

I got to stay with Elder Magleby back in Tauranga on Thursday. We had some time so I got to go see Fale!!! She's doing great! She has a calling in the primary now, and is going to be going to the temple soon!! So it was great news to hear that from her!!!! Then I got to catch up with Magleby. Magleby is doing great in his area!

MIRACLE TIME!!!!!!! We had just got back from our long 3 1/2 day trip. And we had a potential at 274, so we go there and there is NO house at 274! Couldn't believe it! So we decided to go tract. The 1st house that we knock on a lady came to the door, at first she was not interested at all! So I asked her about her family and we just started to talk. Next thing you know she asks so what happens if she doesn't keep all the commandments. I told her that's why Christ came. To take upon our sins, and He taught us that we need to repent, be baptized, and received the Holy Ghost. The next thing she says is, "Can you come in?" I was in shock, I just talked to her about baptism and she invites us in!!! MIRACLE!! And it's a family of NINE!!!!!!!! WHAT!! WHAT!!! I couldn't believe it! The family listened as we taught. But this lady said, "If I didn't feel the Spirit I wouldn't have let you in." We don't even know this lady, but she told us some very personal things. Right then I realized that this is a real person with real needs/concerns. We helped her and addressed her needs and she felt comforted. But we are going back to teach her and her family this week! PRAY for them that they may progress to be baptized!!! And that would be the biggest miracle!!!!!!!!!

Then on Saturday, I was on a mini tradeoff and we were on our way back to church to watch conference. And I decided that the next person I see that I'm going to go talk to them. As I say that, I look up and I see two girls on this deck. We go and talk to them and one happens to be a less active from Wellington, but the other lady is married to a member. And she was recently talking with her partner about going back to church. And that she wants to go to the Mormon church. She invited us to teach her and her kids!! And the best part, she is moving...but we are helping her move into "our" area!!!! I am amazed at how my Heavenly Father blesses us with these amazing people to be baptized! It goes to show me that it doesn't matter where you serve, as long as you qualify, God will bless you with people to baptize!

General Conference was "Da Bomb"! I really enjoyed it, especially the talk on pride! Very humbling. As they were speaking I couldn't help but think of all of you! As Elder Holland spoke I was thinking of my mother and father the whole time and all the sacrifices that they have made for me. I just really related that talk to them! And the talk that Elder Lawrence gave reminded me just of my mother. And all the times that she didn't let me go to things because she had a "feeling". I thank her for looking over all of my spiritual being. I know I wasn't always the sweetest or understood when she said that, but I am grateful today for what both she and my father did for me to keep me spiritually safe when I wasn't understanding the "why". And that man spoke about the Aaronic Priesthood, I never understood what that meant. I would encourage my younger brother and all young men to read that talk again and ask their father what power you hold in the Aaronic Priesthood! They have great power, they need to exercise it in worthiness and faith! And they and their families with be forever blessed! I want to thank my father for the times when he made me go see the people I didn't know when I did fast offerings. Not only was he helping me prepare for a mission but also helping me fulfill my priesthood responsibility. When Elder Holland spoke, I remembered all the times that Dave Wadman helped me in Young Men's and all the memories he helped me have.

I also had my interview with President. He said why he made me a young Zone Leader. He said that I'd probably be Zone Leader for the rest of my mission. One thing that he talked much about is that he doesn't want this mission to fall after I left. And he feels that I'll be a big part of the transition so he wants to train me young. He said he didn't know if I'll be Assistant President or anything, but he has high expectations for me. But he said a lot of things to me that really made me think. I'm grateful for President Porter. I just hope that I can be all he wants me to be! Love Him tons!


LOVE YOU ALL HEAPS!!!!!!!
KEEP PRAYING FOR ME I NEED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
XOXO


Elder Belnap

It's raining in Gisborne! Crazy! LOVE YA....FULLY INVESTED!!!!!!!