We have some work to do....

I am so happy to hear that Jaron is back to the MTC!!!! He is going to be an awesome missionary!  

Our investigator still has a baptismal date but we didn't get to see him all week.  He keeps canceling all of our appts, we think he might be lying to us.... Not good!  We will be checking up with him this week.  Transfers are next week.  I am hoping that I will be staying here for a couple more transfers.   This is a really good place to be.  I love it here!  My companion only has three more transfers left, so I am thinking he might get moved and then stay there for the rest of his mission.  But we will see next week!  

I am glad that the Thompsons are working in the temple.  I want to be a temple worker.  Arizona needs lots of temple workers with all the new temples,  you guys will be working there soon too.  With all the new temples, Arizona is going to be celestialized by the time I get home.  I am starting a countdown.... 8 1/2 months and I can go to the temple!!!!  I miss the temple so much.  

We have been knocking on doors and inviting everyone to come listen to a prophets voice and people are not thinking that this is important.  So, we have been asking the members to invite their friends because they are more likely to listen to them.  

We had exchanges this week.  I stayed here in Carterton and was with an Elder who has been out as long as Elder Usalai'a. He was giving us some tips and different views on what we can do to help this little branch.  We are still working on getting more Melchezidiek priesthood holders in our branch.  Yesterday we were told how many Melchezidiek priesthood holders we need to for a ward, 15.  We currently have 5.  And we need 150 members attending church, we have about 35.  And, they are mostly women and children.  So, we have some work to do.    We are just praying for the area to find some new awesome families to be baptized.    Yesterday we watched a training video, and they said we are all here because of missionaries and conversion.  This church would be nothing without the missionaries.  Everyone has a missionary to be thankful for.  Without them, we wouldn't know about the restored gospel.  So, that is my thought of the day, I am one of those missionaries that are bringing people to The Lord, if we bring them to the water or not when I am here!  I love being a missionary.  

When The Lord is on our side, we are unstoppable!  We are going to make this branch a ward.  

I am so excited for General Conference!  It is my favorite time of year. 

I love you!!!!

Elder Tuckett

P.S.  No pictures this week, I am running out of things to take pictures of!!!! 

Happy Birthday, MUM

I am so glad that you loved all your birthday presents!  [My favorite present was an appt card that he sent with the date that he would be coming home -- December 17, his birthday.]  I recounted the days three times to make sure that I got it right.   So cool, right?  [He counted up the transfer days.]  

[We went over his Facebook friend requests.  He told me of the ones to friend.]  Cool story about Robert [one he told me to friend]...... We door knocked into their family.  They haven't been to church in over 20 years. And now he is back at church, and getting the priesthood again.  I FOUND THAT GUY!!!! awesome, huh?  They are an awesome family.  I love this work!  Elder Rigby told me this, and I was so happy!

We had zone conference this week.  This is the awesome list of ideas that we brainstormed of finding/talking to people!  We will be trying them all out soon.  

Here we are at zone conference.  I got to catch up with Elder Edwards, one of my closest companions yet.  He is the man!  And of course Elder Usalai'a popped in there too.  

We had a wild ride driving from Featherston to Upper Hutt. It was one of the curviest roads I have ever been on!  I filmed the whole way down.  I can't wait to come home and watch it.  We drove through the Rimutaka Range.  It was so much fun.  Look it up on the Internet.  It was definitely one of the highlights of the week.  

But here is the best news of the week....  We have a baptismal date set for our investigator.  April 15th! Or maybe the 18th, we aren't for sure yet, but it will be one of those.  We will be visiting him three times a week to really make sure he stays on track.  I am so excited.  Transfers are in 2 weeks, so I hope I am still here.  

I love the scripture you sent me this week, and your thoughts. [The first year he was gone, I mailed him a quote each week, this 2nd year, I am sharing a scripture and my personal thoughts each week] It was inspired, for the people over here.  You can see that when the people here live on the benefit and don't work, then they are grumpy, sad people.  We talk about that a lot with people.  People notice when they start working they feel better and more useful and needed.  Sweet! Now I will have a scripture and story to back me up.  Thanks mom!

[Here is what I sent him:
2 Nephi 5:15, Nephi is speaking,
"And I did teach my people to work"
my thoughts...
Hard work brings happiness.
Idleness invites tempation, Hard work brings happiness and prosperity, and invites the spirit.]  

I hope your birthday was wonderful Mum!  Thanks for being my motivation while I am on my mission!  You have made me who I am today.  I will always be in debt for everything you have done and given me.  I will love you forever!  I did not doubt my mother always knew what was best for me.  Alma 56:47-48.  

Love, 

Your son,

Elder Tuckett

Boys will be boys.....

Yes, there was a big storm in New Zealand this week.  On Thursday, we got a call from our leaders saying get your 72 hour kits and have them ready and cancel all service projects for the weekend, and prepare to help people prepare for the storm.  We were kind of freaking out.  So, we started doing all that, and then no storm came.  We did get rain, but not really that much.  I think they maybe got more up in Auckland, not sure, we are going to ask around today.  So that was the storm...we are starting to think that the stores just wanted people to hurry out and buy up all the food.  

We were able to go ahead and do our service on the weekend after all.  Friday, we mowed lawns and Saturday, we helped clean a lady's house.  

Our service on Saturday took up the whole day.  It was a blast!  We helped this part member family and they had so much junk it was ridiculous. There was so much rubbish!  We divided it into metal, bottles, wood, and trash!  The metals and bottles are going to the recycling center, but you can see what we got to do with the wood.  I was lucky enough to be the one to start the fire!  Playing with fire.... All day!  We really did work hard though all day.  

When we were cleaning we found this frog.  We are giving it to one of our investigators for his birthday today.!  He is so cool.  We have been feeding him insects that we catch in our flat!  We have named him Fredo.  

I found these goggles and cap at a members house this week.  I just had to put them on and remember the good old days.  I miss swimming so much.  It was awesome! 

 I also found out that one of our members has llamas.  They said that the next time I can jump in the pen and try to cuddle with them.  This time, there was a mean billy goat in there so I had to stay outside.  

I had an awesome exchange with my district leader this week.  We made tacos the night we were on exchanges.  It was great, but not as good as my mothers!  It was fake wanna be Mexican food.   But they tried!  We cooked everything from scratch!  I can't believe that I remembered how my mother cooked the mince!  Exciting times!  

Love you all -- I mailed you a birthday present Mom!

Elder Tuckett

Temple Week in our Branch

Sounds like you had a great Stake Conference Mom!  Thank you for the quotes on Hastening the Work.  I love them.  We have been extending the commitment to the members here to pray for missionary experiences and have had a few really good reports already.  It is awesome!  I love how well prayer works!  Ask and ye will receive!  

And I am so happy to hear about Brother Hall in the Stake Presidency -- That's my Pa!!!  [his Pa from the Trek was put in our Stake Presidency today]  Please tell him congratulations for me.  "Many are called, but few are chosen" -- He is truly one of the chosen ones.  I love him.

Here are a few highlights of my week -- 

Monday, we spent in Masterton and I got to see Sister Rose!  Do you remember her?  I was in the MTC with her.  She is doing great and we got to catch up on things which was the highlight of my week.  It was like seeing a long lost friend, even though we only knew each other for 3 weeks in the MTC.  Tuesday, was the usual, but we found an awesome investigator, however she is a single sister, so we have to hand her over to the Sisters!  There are so many single sisters that love the gospel!  I want to know where to find the down to earth men!!!!  We had a great district meeting on Tuesday.  Saturday, we went to Martinborough and they were having a brew day fair.  Who knew there were so many beer fans!  We were getting nothing done there because everyone was drunk!  

Sunday was the greatest day of the week because everyone bore their testimony on the temple because it was the temple week.  So -- that made be very jealous!  I miss the temple so much now.

Well -- I am getting kicked off the computer -- AGAIN!  This will be all for today!

Love, 

Your son Ryan!

p.s. I am so glad that Tyler got to leave for Mexico, and I am happy Olivia is on her mission now!

Llama Boy!

I found some Llamas!!!!!

This week......

It was so fast at the beginning, then it slowed down a little, and ended with a big bang.  It always happens that way.  I love it.  

We found a new investigator this week.  And she is fun and bubbly, it's awesome.  She had always heard that Mormons put down their women a lot, so we found an awesome talk for her and she is now reading the Book of Mormon!  Sadly, we are passing her over to the sisters this week.  Mother, you should read this talk to your Relief Society, and let the sisters know how important they are.  It is called "I am a Mormon because I am feminist". No woman will ever think badly of herself after she reads this talk.  It is amazing.

At the end of the week we went to a massive community fair out in Marlborough.  It was so much fun!  We got to talk to a lot of people!  This picture is us having breakfast.  We got there early thank goodness, because when we left around 12, the line was like 8 k's long to get in.  It was a massive fair,  the biggest in New Zealand.  I was able to buy some souvenirs this time, and will send them home in the next package.  We got to talk to a lot of people there.  Probably not many of them were from our area though.  So we hopefully planted a lot of seeds for other people.  So things are going the best that they can here!  

This week is temple week for our branch.  So many of our members are going for the first time in a while which is fantastic.  I am so jealous of them though!  The temple is only 6 hours away!  I so wish that we could go there with them.   If only......

We got the movie this week!  [Ephriam's Rescue] Thank you so much. It made me cry!  Definitely the part where she tells him "I know that your mother is very proud of you and knows you are helping others wherever she is!" Or something like that.  That made me think of you, Mom, and how I hope I can make you proud of me and be a good son and not only think of myself like she accused him of always doing.  I loved that movie so much!  

One more pic..... That is our car at the bottom, we drove up there then hiked to the top of the hill where we got some great views of New Zealand! Being in this area.... I longed to have my truck for off-roading!

I love you guys!  
Elder Tuckett