Letter #2

Hello to all!

Once again, I am doing great. The time has flown by so amazingly fast! I leave next Monday. I can't believe it, but it's great! Except for the fact that I leave Monday night from San Fransisco, and arrive Wednesday morning in New Zealand. But I'm hoping that the time difference applies and that my flight isnt really 33 hours. I doubt it, but it will be long nonetheless.

Fortunately the long flight will give me plenty of time to write letters and then preach the Gospel to all of the people on the plane. I'm very curious as to how that will work because it will be my first time to ever share the Gospel with a stranger. I feel I will have to talk to at least one person, considering there won't be anybody else to do so, except for the one sister missionary who will be on the same plane. That's right. Sister Palmer and I, (I met her last week) are the only missionaries on the flight. We'll see how that goes... I'm not sure if she and I were the only ones that were sent to the Provo MTC from the States. I guess all of the other missionaries live closer to New Zealand than Provo, so maybe they were all sent there. I will let you know when I arrive.

Speaking of which, I won't be emailing next Tuesday because I'll be on the airplane. Hopefully I will be allowed to email once I arrive. Otherwise, I'm afraid you'll have to wait two weeks to get an email.

Anyway, everything is going fantastic. Despite my lack of sleep, I'm loving it all so much! I love learning from my teachers, and having workshops where we get to learn specific skills. Yesterday we had a meeting where we learned about how to find people to teach. We were told stories about so many converts who had been waiting to hear the Gospel. In each case missionaries saw them and didn't talk to them so they didn't get baptized until years later. The simple key to talk to everyone, everywhere, all the time! I think that will be hard, but I also think it is necessary. The more people we find who are accepting, the more people we can teach, which means the more people that can get baptized. Our purpose as missionaries (which we recite everyday) is to "Invite others to come unto Christ by helping them recieve the restored Gospel, through Faith in Jesus Christ and His Atonement, Repentance, Baptism, receiving the Holy Ghost, and Enduring to the End." Missionary work is so important. And I love it so much!

We spend a lot of our time practicing teaching. I always go into a lesson somewhat terrified, but afterwards, I always feel so great because of the Spirit. Without the Spirit, there is almost no point in teaching. The Spirit is what prompts the investigators to be baptized, otherwise we're just teaching them a history lesson. So we have been working on the importance of "teaching people, not lessons." We teach according to their needs and how Christ's Gospel can bless them. Because it can bless everybody! Everybody needs it in their lives, us missionaries just need to know what to say that will convince them of that. And that's why we rely on the Holy Ghost to help us.

Also, last Tuesday was our first devotional. Elder L Whitney Clayton came and taught us about the "stone that is rolling." The Gospel is being spread all across the Earth, and it can't be stopped! And it's our job as missionaries to help it spread even more! It was a very encouraging and uplifting talk. And if there's a way for you to read it, you should!

Conferecne was so great.

I'm almost out of time, but I just want to say I love you! I will write you later.

Love,

Elder Dave Rowe