Kyle is serving as a full time missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Auckland New Zealand. This is a record of his mission.
E-Mail Dated 6/18/12
Kia Ora,
Happy Father's Day! (I think). Father's Day here isn't until September so I am just making a guess based on your emails. So as you all guessed transfers was this last week. Fortunately, I was not shifted. I'm still in the beautiful land of Tamaki, South Auckland. My companion, Elder Sorensen, however, was shifted to the next stake over (Manurewa). My new companion is named Elder Singh. He is from Fiji, close to the capital Suba. He is Indian, and he is hilarious. He is like an Indian, member version of Sean. I love him already. Oh and he's my junior companion. So I am now a senior companion! This week has been a great learning experience. Taking the lead in this area has been a very daunting task with a lot of worry, but we pulled through and even had a successful week. We were working hard to build people's testimony's in the Book of Mormon by reading with them and showing how it works with the Bible. It was really amazing to see how the people would really open up and seek to read more to know if it's true. We had this awesome lesson with a Filipino man named P who is Catholic but is looking for the truth in his heart. At the end of the lesson he said that he would pray about it when he had some time to ponder on it and wait for the right time. I learned from Elder Singh a great way to address the concern of not praying right then. He explained that there will never be a perfect time to ask and when we procrastinate our prayers then it shows Heavenly Father that we don't really want to know the answer. Also, our set, S P (he's related to our Bishop) came to church yesterday so now that he's been for a total of 3 times he can be baptised this weekend. We are so excited for him. He also came with us to the Come & See Fireside in Mangere. It was a massive one. So many people were there. We were standing about halfway in the gym because there was no room in any of the classrooms or hallways or on the stage or anywhere. The reason why it was so full was because the main speaker was Jonah Lomu. He is a famous as rugby player! He is a recent convert. He got baptised in March. It's so crazy! I can't imagine being the missionaries that taught and baptised him. It was an awesome fireside and it was a great week! I love you all and thank you Gram for the emails.
Ofa Atu,
Elder Lee
Mum- I think I would like the money in my account better that way you don't have to send anything. I don't even know what I would want for my Birthday. And yes it is weird having my birthday in the winter. Also, could you ask Katelyn if she got my letter, I just don't want her thinking I didn't write. I think I'll probably write her again today. Thanks Mum. Love you.
E-Mail Dated 11/10/12
Kia Ora,
Man, it's so crazy that Brandon is graduating on Tuesday! He is free to use whatever I left in that Tupperware with Ryan. He would need to ask Ryan where it is though. Also I had my graduation party at the Goodfellow's I believe. Any ways, we had a great week this week in some aspects. We had a miracle where we had received a referral from our Mission Office and so we were trying to contact him all last weekend and we didn't get a hold of him until Wednesday this last week. His name is S and apparently he called the Mission Office to know how he could get baptised in the Mormon church. When we finally met him, he told us his story about how he used to live in West Valley, Utah and had been to see the temple and the Conference centre. He then got deported for a felony and was living in Mangere which is a little bit West of where I am now. When he was in Mangere he met with the Tongan missionaries and went to church with them a couple times but eventually said he's not ready. Later after he moved to our area he was in the city one day and just bought some smokes but when he stepped outside he saw our church family services building and so he threw the smokes away and went and asked how to get a hold of missionaries. We went and taught him and found out that he was already quitting smoking and drinking before being taught the Word of Wisdom. We then set him for the 16th of this month. It was a huge miracle. The only sad thing is that he ended up not coming to church for some reason and so he can't get baptised this weekend. Next weekend though for sure. We also went on trade-off this week with the missionaries that are in the MTC. I went with a missionary named Elder Tehei. He is from Tahiti (I always end up being with the Tahitians) and we had heaps of miracles. We had a few lessons on the street and had a few new investigators from it. After that trade-off we had another one with our zone leaders. I was with Elder Walker for the 3rd time in a row but this time we were in my area. It was only for a couple hours but we had some really amazing experiences. We taught a guy named A (we taught and set him before but he seems to always dodge our appointments and so he didn't get baptised). When we taught him that night we invited him to be baptised as he put his focus on the temple. He agreed to the 30th of this month but unfortunately he didn't come to church either. We are really having a hard time getting our investigators to church. But on the other hand we brought a random guy to church that we met 10 minutes before church. His name is T and I believe he is the uncle to one of our investigators. So that was our week. It was good but unfortunately we didn't get anyone else to church. Love you all.
Ofa Atu,
Elder Lee
E-Mail Dated 6/3/12
Kia Ora
HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUM!!!!!! This is the first time I've been able to email on somebody's birthday. Today is actually the day we celebrate the Queen of England's birthday as well so it's public holiday. That means everyone is out of school and almost every shop is closed except the Chinese shops. It sounds like you've been having a good birthday weekend though. That's pretty cool about how Rockefeller preserved Williamsburg. I didn't know that he even owned it. So this week wasn't one of our best weeks. It wasn't terrible but it just seemed very unfruitful. We had heaps of lessons fall through this week which is a sad thing. We also had A tell us that she received an answer to her prayers. She said she felt good but she also talked to her mum and she talked her out of it. Luckily we had a member with us who we found out is actually a former Catholic and so he could feel exactly where she was coming from. He truly saved the day. So she's still willing to have us over because she considers us friends now and so she's happy to have us over. We even committed her to come to church but unfortunately her cousin was having his first communion so she had to go to that. It was quite depressing. We thought we would have a lot of people at church but then only two showed up. One of them was R who is still doing well. He is looking to change and so he is very willing to keep commitments. The other was F'a (the boy that didn't get confirmed last week or the week before). He got confirmed yesterday so it made us happy. It was so much work though because if we didn't go over there and help him to come to church then he probably wouldn't have come. Missionary work is so hard sometimes. I find myself wondering very often what more can I do? Love you all. Sorry it's not longer but I don't have much to say this week.
Ofa Atu,
Elder Lee
P.S. Haha, I'm not sure if I told you but our heater broke for a while and so Elder Sorensen and I have been freezing our butts off this week in the mornings. In New Zealand there is no such thing as central heating. We have only one small heater for our entire flat. Luckily we got a new one on Friday so it hasn't been nearly as bad but it's still pretty cold. One day during the week it was 8*C in our flat and we could see our breath! It was so cold!
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