Slow week!

This was the slowest week on my mission, and hopefully the last slow week ever.  Elder Rigby was sick almost every day this week. [he has had some asthma issues]  I felt so bad for him and couldn't do anything for him.  However, I did get a lot done around the flat, like updating our area book, reading scriptures, and writing letters and writing in my journal. 

I loved getting to talk with you on Christmas.  I am glad you think I am getting a little accent!  However, I am sure that I won't keep it.  Our American accent is so strong to everyone here in New Zealand!  

I am having so much trouble with this computer.  I can't upload any pictures or do anything, so this will be short.

I love my mission.  My favorite part of the mission so far is when I was training.  I love focusing on just my area, and helping a new missionary see the best ways to do the work.  

Love, Elder Tuckett

Mom notes from our call:

He is doing wonderful.  He is so positive in all that he had to say. Not one negative thing.  He has worn out a pair of shoes, and his belt, and one pair of pants.  

He will come home either two weeks early or four weeks late --  as much as he wants to come back late, he will probably end up coming home early so he can return to school.  He has decided that he is probably just going back and continuing at BYU-I.  

He is one of the "older" missionaries now.  There are more that have come after him than before.  

We could detect a small accent in a few things that he said.  

We loved our call and it was the highlight of our day.  An hour of pure heaven!  

Happy New Year to all ---  Let the COUNTDOWN begin! 

My Christmas Package Arrived!

It is looking like Christmas.  People have been putting up lights.  Not everyone celebrates Christmas or puts up lights or trees.  It is like optional here, which is weird.  And if they do have a tree at all,  it is really small and they put it on a table to make it look bigger!  Ha ha!

Thank you so much for my birthday presents!  I love my new tie!  And the watches are perfect and very flashy!  I love every present you gave me!  Thanks!   Not much exciting happened on my birthday, someone in my district had the same birthday as me.  I baked the brownies that you sent me, but they only really cooked on the top so they were extra fudgy!  They were good.  

I got the Christmas package this week.  I love the new socks!!!!  I haven't opened any of the presents yet.  On Christmas we are having breakfast with the Sr couple.  Then, we are going to some peoples house to sing, or do service or something.  Then we are hopefully going to eat Christmas dinner with a less active family who are Americans.   And we have a teaching appointment that night!  Then on Boxing Day we are skyping you!  The family where we were going to go are now going to the beach, so we are going to our ward mission leaders house.  

We had a wedding this week.  Some of our investigators got married. We are now going to re-teach them and then they can hopefully get baptized.  We haven't been able to see a lot of our investigators because everyone has been so busy with Christmas things.  So we are kind of in a slow spot.  I thought that it would be the exact opposite at Christmas, and everyone would want to hear the message of the Saviors birth.  Oh well, we just try to remind them that the reason for Christmas is not for presents, but to celebrate the birth of Christ.

After the wedding this week, there was a huge feast.  They dig a hole in the ground and they put wood in, and then cover it with dirt.  It was pretty cool, it tasted like dirt though, maybe they did it wrong.  It was great though.

I am so excited for Grandma to be a missionary!  [my mom is going to do a service mission, working in the mission office of the Oklahoma Tulsa Mission] Tell her to take a picture of her badge and send it to me.  I am so excited for her!  Those grandma missionaries are the best! 

I have just finished studying Matthew this week.  I really have received a testimony of the scriptures.  I have gained a greater love of the Savior and his life here on the Earth and how he showed us how to live.  I love Jesus Christ and I am so glad I could gain this strong witness right before Christmas.  I know this is the true church and this is his work. 

Merry Christmas!

Elder Tuckett

It's hot!

I have been getting lots of letters and boxes this week.  Sadly, they are mostly for Elder Foremater.... Who is now in Napier...  I have got to get them up to him.  I did get your birthday present.  I am so excited to open it!!!  We will be on exchanges for my birthday tomorrow so I will be with a different Elder.  I haven't told anyone that it is my birthday, but I am going to get some of my favorite ginger beer with the money you put in my account and we will have fun!  

This is the first week of my whole mission that I have ever felt homesick.  It sucked!  I got through it because I got some great letters from Ryan and Kylie!!!!   Their letters made my day.  

The lady with the cancer that we have been teaching got some good news this week.  Her cancer is not spreading!  The cancer is in just one spot and they are going to do surgery in January.  Hopefully she doesn't have to do chemo or any other terrible treatments.  She said God still wants her to live and I have to agree because He wants her to taste the beauties of the church.  We got to see most all of our investigators this week.  But it is getting harder and harder because school is out now and everyone's schedule is very busy.  We were knocking on doors this week and ran into a Mormon that had converted to Jehovah Witness.  We took a member over that knows her and he taught he whole lesson in the prayer!  He talked about repentance  and prophets and almost everything that they don't believe in.  It was great!

On Monday we got to help someone move, and I got to drive a trailer and it was so much fun.  I got to take three trips with the trailer back and forth to their house,  it was so much fun.  

I found this cactus plant while door knocking this week and it reminded me of home.  

It was so hot this week that on our way home we had to stop and get an iced hot chocolate!

Every town has some sort of statue in town to take your photo at.  We have this big carrot statue here in Feilding.  

This is the new Elders area.  We spent all day Wednesday helping them get started at moving the work along.  The mountain in the back is an active volcano,  it was blowing smoke when we first got there.  

We are going to a members house to skype you on Christmas.  We will be calling on your Christmas.  (The 26th for us.). Hopefully, in the morning.  I love you so much. Thank you for being on the computer today when I emailed.  

Elder Tuckett

It's beginning to look like Christmas!

We got your package and the tree is already up!!!!  Now we are just waiting for the 12 days of Christmas so we can open the packages.  It is starting to feel like Christmas with the tree that you sent up.  I will be calling you on Boxing Day, (26th).  But I am worried about skyping because the Internet cafe will be closed.  I will see if there is a member that has a computer with a camera we can use.  If not, it just might just have to be a call.  Sorry!  This weekend, the youth had an auction to raise money for the youth to go up north.  I got a Christmas tie for $8!  Awesome!  

My new companion is Elder Rigby and he is from Sandy.  Do we know anyone from Sandy?  He is a lot like me, we both did swimming, life guarding, and both love cars.  We talk too much about these three things. He is very relaxed and easy going.  

MOM...Really?  I can't believe that you got to go into the Gilbert Temple. [I had the opportunity to go inside the Gilbert Temple this week and do a service project on the elevator doors, and got to see the beauty in the temple.  It was a wonderful most exciting day!] That is so exciting!  And now... You and Kati have "your own elevator door".... I am so jealous.  That is the very first thing that I want to do when I get home.  Go to the very first temple session that is available.  I can't wait to be able to go to the temple again.  

I think we are hitting a little rough patch in Feilding right now.  I was so surprised this week that my companion got transferred.  I thought we were going to be together for another week!  All is good though.  However, I am having a hard time remembering everything with our 12 progressing investigators and what they need next.  But things are going great and I know if I trust in The Lord everything will be taken care of as we follow the spirit.  We have had some great lessons this week and have felt the spirit.  I have been studying Moroni 7 and dissecting it this week.  It is one of my favorite chapters in the Book of Mormon now.  

I am sorry if you are all freezing in America.  I'm burning up down here, it is fantastic.  The sun goes down at 10:00 pm now and comes up at 5:00 am.  I LOVE being at the bottom of the earth!  

Love you, 

Elder Tuckett

Good bye to my old companions!  They left me here to fend for myself!

More goodbyes!

Thanksgiving in New Zealand

I was  in Wanginui at the beginning of the week for exchanges and had a blast working down there in that big city!  They had a baptism this weekend and really wished I could have gone for the baptism, but it was just too far.  We are getting two new Elders in our District!  We will have 8 total now in our district, not counting the Sr. Couple.  The two new Elders will be in a small town up north.  There is a small little branch with about 25 members and it will the the first time ever that they will have missionaries!  So much fun! 

We have been in a threesome this week.  Elder Toomalatia has been with us as his companion went home.  I felt bad for him being with us while the ward members in his area, and the sisters were working with his investigators.  However, he has really helped me and Elder Formaster out!  He has also been falling in love with our area and is now sad to go back.  Everything happens for a reason, he has touched some people here in Feilding which was cool to see.  I am going to miss him as well as Elder Formaster who is being transferred this week.  

We celebrated Thanksgiving this week.  They don't celebrate it in New Zealand! [did his miss the lesson about the pilgrims and the mayflower in grade school, and that it took place in America?]  However, the Bishop and Ward Mission Leader made a Thanksgiving celebration for us and even got a little turkey.  We invited some of our investigators and it was so much fun.  Our senior couple gave the whole history of why we have Thanksgiving and the importance of the restoration of the church.  It was cool!  It just shows that God was preparing the world for the restoration of the church to bring to pass the right way and so that it could grow like wild fire!  We had this at our Bishop's house.  I just love the ward here for helping us out, and doing little sacrifices that make all the difference!

  

We had a Zone Conference with Hawkes Bay and Palmerston North this week.  There were so many missionaries there.  I did get to see my old companion, Elder Godinet!  He trained both of us here in the picture!  We are all family!  

I love you!  I get to talk to you in 5 weeks! [clearly, he has lost track of time in the mission, its 24 days, but who's counting?]

Elder Tuckett