Happy Fathers Day!

First and foremost i want to say Happy Fathers Day to my wonderful and my amazing grandpa's. Thank you so much for being the wonderful support and influence you've always been in my life. I am so blessed and grateful to have you apart of my life. Thank you for all that you've done.

Next, i want to say that the words in this email cannot even describe or explain properly the amazing miracles and experiences that we've encountered this

week. Our Heavenly Father has blessed us to much to be able to teach the people that we are teaching but also that he has blessed us to be able to find them, those that are prepared to hear and accept the gospel.

We have met so many wonderful people these past few weeks and now they are progressing in the gospel and it's beautiful. One of whom i want to speak is a girl named Hoki Becker who lives in Mere Mere. Mere Mere is a small town about 15 minutes out of Tuakau and honestly i hate it out there. Everyone is on drugs, it's a small town where no one anything to do, especially the kids, and so they just are mischief and get up to no good. It's a dirty town or village you would call it, it only has maybe 7 small streets. Anyway, it was sister Samataua and i that started working out there and it's taken a while for it to start picking up, especially since we only go out once a week. Well last week sister Ahokava and i followed up with some of those people and actually fully shared with them what we do and asked if we could come teach them about why there are so many churches. They agreed and we set an appointment for saturday, a week from then. When Saturday came i wondered on how serious they were and if they would stick to their appointment. We went over and they were home. He,Rob,  invited us in but invited himself out of the lesson, and Hoki was in the living room. Hoki has never been to church before in her life but believes in God because of the experiences of others. As we taught her, specifically about prophets, she was on the edge of her chair. She found every word we said so amazing and interesting. She wanted to know more. The spirit filled the room, one because she was so involved and two because we were listening to the spirit in what to say to her. We invited her to be baptized and she agreed and asked us what were some of the things she needed to do to be baptized... "come to church?" she said. She's onto it. It was such a neat experience. she didn't end up making it to church this Sunday because she didn't finish with something that she had on in time but we'll get her there next week. Mere Mere if finally picking up and it's so exciting. We also found a LA 19 year old out there, who has a perfect understanding of the gospel and why it's important and he feels inclined to come back. I love how the Lord places people in our pathway so that we can help them. It was a miracle that day.

The next person i want to talk about it a man named Shannon King. We met Shannon last Saturday as well before we headed off to Mere Mere. He seemed interested in what we had to say but wasn't to keen on giving us his address. So we got his number and scheduled and appointment. We called him saturday to confirm and he seemed a bit anxious and didn't talk to us much there. However, we finally ended up meeting with him on Sunday and we had to meet outside the Primary(elementary school) and we taught him there outside on the bench. He shared with us how he was nervous that we would judge him and that we would be scared because he's had many bad nick names. He shared with us how he has been in and out of jail for years and finally he read the bible and it changed him. He's read it through 3 times now. It's truly amazing. He understood completely the concept of prophets and them having an authority, it was just so neat to see how the Lord prepared him to understand that so that he could accept the Gospel. He said that as we taught him he felt so good inside but was bothered that he couldn't show it rejoicing on the outside. We saw him many times, smile at the things we were teaching him. The spirit moved him to say that he would come to church next week, so hopefully he follows through with it like he did with the lesson. It's been great!

Lastly, i want to talk about a lady named Barbara Turnbull. This is Roberts mom, the man who was healed by the priesthood. He told us this time that we wasn't ready to learn, which was disappointing but it was okay. We had an amazing lesson with Barbara. I have grown to love this old lady so much, it truly reminds me of the nursing home because we take care of her. Not physically but we are now doing her house work and we offered to do lawn care. It's beautiful how appreciative she is. :) She is so sweet. I'll try and get a picture soon! ha she cried as she told us that since we have been coming her spirituality is going back to what it used to in the past. A hole in her heart is now being filled with light. We also invited her to be baptized, she knows it's true she said, and she's going to give it deep consideration. She knows that she needs to do something about how she feels inside. It is so amazing to have these kind of experiences everyday. If only all of you could serve a mission, you would know why missionaries say that they love their mission, it's because of this, because of these precious moments.

We had two baptisms this week. They are both ward baptisms because they are 8 and their parents are members but less active.
Heremia is the son of Fitz and ruby. Ruby is an investigator and fitz is a less active. It was good to see him baptized, i think it really is helping his parents to come closer to the steps they  need to take.

sikale is also 8 and he is kiribus. I absolutely love him. I've known their family since i got to this area and they are really so dear to my heart. When i saw him go down into the water peace just filled my soul because the little boy i loved was coming unto christ and even if he didn't remember much of the things we taught him he did understand and know that what he was doing was right. The family is slowly coming back to church, it's been more of the mom bringing the younger kids but now hopefully even the dad and the older kids will come. I am so proud of them:) I'm getting pretty good at organizing good and spiritual baptisms. ha Sister Samataua taught me well, let's hope i can continue with this and get better and now worse.

This week i learned how to be humble. Hopefully that stays. I have realized how much the Lord is blessing me and helping me to have these wonderful experiences and i am so grateful for that:) I just hope i can be all that he needs me to be. I love Him with all my heart.

Love you all

Challenge this week: study the doctrine of the Sabbath day and see what you can do to keep it more holy. it will change your life! honestly. PMG says "When a nation, community,  [or an individual] grows careless in their sabbath day activities, their religious life decays and all other aspects of life are negatively affected." "our Sabbath-day behavior is a reflection of our commitment to honor and worship God" Let us be more careful in the activities we choose to involve ourselves in on Sunday. I can promise you that if you brings your lives in closer harmony with the teachings of Jesus Christ, you will see more peace in your life. We all need the peace that comes from the Savior and i have grown in testimony that a big part of that comes from keeping the sabbath day holy. Even if this means no more TV on Sunday, do it. It will bless and impact your life more than you know.

love you
sister Bird

                             Sikale's baptism                   Heremia's baptism