We finally visited Natasha again. She is the mother of Denise who has Cerebral Palsy. She was waiting for us and seemed excited to have us. She said that Denise wanted to miss school because we were coming. We showed Natasha pictures of our friend Kelly Werner which she loved seeing. Natasha tells us she was praying for help before we came a couple weeks ago. We told her we wanted to meet with her partner - that we didn’t want to teach her unless it was all right with him. She seemed to warm a little to the idea. It worries her that he won't want to learn, but we told her miracles happen.
We taught her about the restoration of the gospel because she asked why there were so many churches. She feels the Spirit while we teach and is so accepting of anything we tell her. We love her and hope we can teach her whole family.
Tuesday 8 Nov 2017
We had the most amazing experience this evening. It was the Rescue Night at the ward where people meet at the church at 6:00 and split up to go visiting less active people in the ward. It is a wonderful thing to do.
When everyone split up we left with no particular names to visit so President Thatcher felt that we should tract again and what better place to go than Cluthe Cres. It has been such a magical street for us and there are homes that we still haven’t visited. The third door that we knocked at opened revealing a sweet young woman and 4 beautiful children. It would be a magical hour spent in that home.
The young woman let us in to show a video to the children. When we said we had a video about Jesus she opened the door wide and smiling, gave a sweeping motion to direct us inside. She turned out to be the aunty of these children. It was the home of her brother and sister in law and the little boy David, said there were 10 of them - 10 children.
Aunty Taiti (her Samoan name is Orepa - Samoan for Orpah, one of the daughter in laws of Naomi in the book of Ruth) She is a triplet and her sisters are Naomi and Ruth. She is the 2nd to the youngest of 13 children. We felt a bond right away. The children were David (7), Serafina (6), Nyreen (4) and Talia (3). They turned off the Disney movie ‘Brave’ and sat down on the carpet to watch our little video ‘Fishers of Men’.
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| Talia, Noreen, Serafina, and David |
Aunty Taiti was so good with the children. They were well behaved and there was a feeling of love in that room that we all enjoyed. They loved the video and when it ended Aunty Taiti grabbed her guitar from it’s resting place by the wall and asked the children to sing with her the song, ‘Fishers of Men’. We hadn’t heard it before but the children sang it first in Samoan and then in English. She would ask them questions about what they had watched, like ‘what did you learn from the video?’ and they would raise their hand and say the sweetest things.
We then sang, ‘I am a Child of God’. She played along with her guitar and the children tried to sing with us doing a beautiful job for never hearing the song before. David ran and got his Ukulele and played along with his aunty while they sang other songs too. We played more videos - the children’s one on the Atonement because Serafina had asked how Jesus died.
They wanted another story so I told them the story of Jesus and his apostles and how they died and then the story of Joseph Smith and his prayer and first vision. It was a sweet moment. The children listened with their eyes glued on me and so did the Aunty. I also told the story of the angel Moroni appearing to Joseph Smith and telling him about the golden plates. When I told them that people were unkind to Joseph when he told them about what he had seen David said, 'That is because they didn't believe in the angel.' You could tell that David believed.
We gave Aunty Taiti 2 copies of the Book of Mormon one in English and one in Samoan.
Elder Thatcher had brought treats along for the children and while they enjoyed those we put on the song video ‘I’m trying to be like Jesus’. It is the sweet one with the Tabernacle choir singing while videos are shown of Jesus in his ministry and of children being kind to others and serving like Jesus did. When it ended Aunty Taiti asked the children what they had learned and asked them how they would better follow Jesus after this. We talked about the feeling we have when we are kind and loving and trying to be like Jesus. It was the same feeling we were experiencing at that moment.
It was a wondrous thing to be there with these sweet souls. We left feeling like life couldn’t be much better. We will return.
8 Nov 2017 - Wednesday
We had a great lesson with Moses and Antonina and the girls on Wednesday. They recently had Naomi baptized in Moses' parents ward. His mother is the Relief Society President there and all of his family is active in the church except for him. We know he has a testimony and wants to change his life.
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| Moses and his sister Salote, Kesha, Samantha, and Naomi |
In the lesson we went over what would need to happen before they could go to the temple. It is a pretty long list and must feel like a mountain to climb. But we testified that the power to do would grow with each step. We showed a video by Katie's Mission President Elder Redd who talks about 3 simple things that will make a big difference in our lives; the sacrament, prayer and scripture study. Moses told us that he has been reading the Book of Mormon. 'When I feel alone and tempted. I read the Book and I feel different. I have more strength.'
9 Nov 2017 Thursday - Intake Day at the MTC
Intake Day is always busy. It begins early and ends late. We love meeting the new missionaries and are always amazed at their faith and goodness. Sister Howes tells them at the Welcome Meeting in the afternoon that each of them is a miracle. Each of them have a story to tell of how they came to be missionaries. One little Sister is the only one in her family that is a member and she was baptized in 2016 - such faith! They truly are miracles and we love them.
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| Sister Mata'u |
Beautiful Sister Mata'u is one of our new Sister Missionaries. She is from Samoa. She told us about how she came to be a member of the Church. The missionaries knocked on their door in 2006. They were looking for an investigator family and mistakenly knocked on the Mata'u's door. At the time, she told us, her family was about to split up. Her father had another girlfriend and was moving away to be with her. Her father let the missionaries in and they taught about how important family is to God. Her father felt deeply what they taught and called the girlfriend and told her, 'I'm sorry but I love my children.' Now he is a counselor in the bishopric and Sister Mata'u is the 3rd of the children in the family to serve missions. 'I am so grateful for this church!' she told us with tear filled eyes.
The day went well. Towards the end of the Welcome Meeting Elder Thatcher whispered to me that we should leave, we weren't needed any longer and he thought we should go tracting. How many of you are surprised at that? We left and went home to our flat. I was very tired and had a short nap but soon we were off to do a little tracting. I was not expecting the wondrous experience that awaited us in the field of white.
Tuan Tran
At the third door, 4 Awatere, a small man with long grey hair answered our knock. We learned he was Vietnamese.
After speaking for a minute at the door he said he had a question for us and left us standing there to go get his Bible. He wanted to ask us a question about Gog and Magog. He invited us in to his kitchen table where we opened our Bibles.
He was difficult to understand but his Bible was an English one and he knew the Bible. Time and again he would turn to scriptures both old Testament and New Testament. He wanted to know about Gog and Magog and took us to Ezekiel 39. Elder Thatcher told him to go to Ezekiel 37 and he read to him about the two sticks. He knew the scripture. he went to Genesis 48,49 and was talking about the blessings that Jacob gave to his sons. He talked about Jacob crossing his hands and giving Ephraim the greater blessing. He then asked where Ephraim, (the great nation) was in the earth. We told him we knew, he knew too. He knew the great nation was America and is where Ephraim must be.
He told us of miracles in his life. God had saved his life many times. He spoke of the war and times of hiding when he had no food or water. He cut bamboo and would drink out of it but became so sick and was in so much pain that he wanted to die. He couldn’t urinate and was in tremendous pain. he wanted his enemies to kill him. He prayed to ask God to either kill him or save him, he didn't care which, and it immediately began raining. He caught the rain in his pancho and drank it and immediately could urinate and the pain eased. He told of an enemy shooting at him so close that he saw the fire of the blast but was unhurt. Over and over again his life was spared.
He told us how he couldn’t read well or understand English. He was put in jail (maybe by the communists) and while there had enough time on his hands that he began to read the Bible. He read and read and until he could understand it. He said he would never have been able to read without that time in Jail. He has learned to understand what God was teaching and showing in the Bible.
We gave him a Book of Mormon and told him that it is the stick of Joseph and the Bible, the stick of Judah. We played the video called ‘The Great Apostasy'. It is the story of Wilford Woodruff and George Mason, his friend that believed that the Lord would set up his church anew. We could tell he was very moved by the video. When it ended he touched the Book of Mormon he had just been given and said, 'I will read this book.'
It was such a Spirit filled evening in the home of Tuan. We feel so blessed, so humbled to have had the honor of meeting him and talking with him about the things of God. We were touched by his study of the Word of God and his searching heart. We will meet with him again next Wednesday evening. We need to get him a Vietnamese Book of Mormon.
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| Elder Thatcher and Tuan Tran |
Here are Elder Thatchers words about our experience. “It seemed like it was a Parley P. Pratt experience, or someone like him who had loved the Bible all his life and had been led to a feast. It was a melding of hearts. There was a love between us three. We felt like he was able to see that this was something important that he had been searching for. It was amazing that he went to Genesis 49, that he had an understanding that the history of the world needs to be looked at through the lens of the Bible. It was his belief that his life had been preserved many times, once from close up, point blank gunfire. So he had been led to Christianity years ago and away from his family religion of buddhism. I feel that now through Christianity, and reading of the Bible, he has been led to the Book of Mormon. This is how it seemed to me."
Tuan Tran is my age, 67. I thought of my father on that night shortly before he died when he kept saying that we needed to get him up so he could go on a mission. “It isn’t fair.” he said, “We have the gospel and so many don’t know it.” “Get me up! I need to go on a mission!” I felt keenly the difference in the life I have lived - so rich with the gospel - so full of the joy it brings, and the life that this man has endured - war, enemies, hard work, survival - all without the gospel - and his struggle to know God. It was a humbling touching evening. We pray for help in teaching this dear man about the Restoration of the Gospel.
10 Nov 2017 - Friday
We taught a couple we had met tracting today. They are Maori and were difficult to teach. The wife is sweet and teachable but the husband was pretty closed. He wanted to do most of the teaching so we have learned quite a little about the Maori religion today.
We left that teaching appointment for our Clover Park Ward Party - 'Blast From the Past' and it was a blast! Marietta Ulugia was in charge and she is a riot. She is the mother of Lamanite, the little boy that Elder Thatcher confirmed a few weeks ago. She is always so helpful to us but we had no idea what a comedian she was.
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| Sister Ulugia - the life of the party |
The big surprise of the night was that our investigators Richie and Georeah came to the party!!!!! The rest of the Edmonds family is in Hawaii. They enjoyed themselves. Georeah (9) had no shyness at all. She quickly made friends and was running the halls having a ball.
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| Richie and Elder Thatcher at the Ward Party |
It is a wonderful ward. President Viavia, a counselor in the Stake Presidency, and his wife sat by us and told us of their visit to Leitu and Enekosi at the hospital. They spent a couple hours with them there.
What a week! We love working in this beautifully white field. We wonder who lives behind all the doors we have yet to approach.
Happenings Back Home
Welcome baby Kate. Born 9 Nov 2017 - 6 lbs 15 oz. - 19 inches. So beautiful like your sisters before you. So happy you have arrived safely and that your mother is doing well.
It makes us smile to think that Katie's little Tommy was named after Kent and Kent's little Kate after Katie. May they grow up loving each other like their parents did.
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| Baby Kate Thatcher |
We had several birthdays this week. Ty celebrated his first year of life. He certainly has adoring fans.
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| Happy Birthday Ty |
Lindy and Thatcher celebrated their birthdays as well.
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| happy birthday dear Lindy - your party sounded very fun! |
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| Happy Birthday Thatcher - We love you! |
And Jonny got a blue fish for his birthday and named him 'Blue Fish'. They spotlighted Jonny in nursery. Thought you might like to read what his mother wrote about him:
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| Jonny and 'Blue Fish' |
Jonny is almost always happy! He is content with very little. He loves to wrestle and run around with his brothers or sit and look at books or do puzzles. he's constantly making us laugh. he thinks food is 'pure delicious, or pure disgusting.' He has a big imagination. We never know who he's going to be when he wakes up. Sometimes he's an elephant, or Optimus Prime, or a Ninja, or Batman. Jonny is a very special boy and an important part of our family. We love him very much!!
It is very hard to miss all the fun happenings back home. We especially missed seeing Will as Aladdin and Steven as one of the guards in the play this week. We have received glowing revues and even been able to hear a song or two. So thankful for technology.
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| Steven keeping Will in line |
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| Our Talented Will as Aladdin |
We love you all. We miss you all. We love you ever more and more.
Mom and Dad,
Grandma and Grandpa,
Elder and Sister Thatcher
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