saying goodbye . . .

Clover Park Ward

We were told of a ward party to be held last Friday evening.  These are events you don't want to miss.   They are so fun, the people so happy and welcoming, and the food is great.  We always try to get our investigators to come and when they do it is magic.

Marietta Ulugia, who is the life of any party,  called to tell us that they would like us to bear our testimonies at the party since we would be going home soon.   We went, funeral potatoes in hand, and were blown away by what awaited us there.

The gym was set up with chairs in rows facing each other and a couch covered in a Samoan spread with a Polynesian wall hanging behind it and a table laden with gifts to the side.  The couch faced the stage and the tables of food.  We put our food on the tables with the other platters and took our seats on one of the back rows, saying hello to everyone as we sat down.   It seemed like everyone had gotten there before us. They were ready to begin.

As soon as we sat down Marietta stepped to the microphone and the event began.  She began by asking us to take our seats on the couch.  Surprise!  This was not a ward party but rather a farewell to honor us.  The evening had been planned for us.

"We have brought you here to show the love and appreciation we have for both of you for the work you have done in our ward."  said Marietta to begin the evening.  We wanted you to feel 'what's in our hearts', she said.  "The slide show we are about to show is a little insight about the Thatchers and their journey on their mission through the photos that Sister Thatcher has sent me and, please forgive me, some that I borrowed from your blog.  I hope you like it."

Marietta Ulugia - dear vibrant friend - the life of every party, and slide show producer

Marietta starts the slide show - you were in it too! - she gave me a copy of it that we will show you at home

She then began the slideshow which was full of pictures.  Many of you are in it.  There were also beautiful quotes, which just happened to be backwards because of the way the show was projected.  This only added to the charm of it all.  I know the work that goes into making a slideshow and was very touched at what Marietta had put together.  It was beautiful.

Sister Ulugia with granddaughter Lynell

Next, members of the ward stepped up to the microphone and expressed their love.

Brother Hopoate, the ward mission leader talked about rescue night and the work we had done together. "I so appreciate how you guys approached missionary work with kindness and faith.  I was driving around and saw Elder Thatcher walking around the car to open the door for Sister Thatcher, 'Oh, look at that! It's awesome he is showing so much love for his wife.'  I'm glad my car is electric.  When we have met some of the less-actives or investigators that you have worked with they have had nothing but good to say about you - the strong spirit you've brought into their homes.  We hope as you prepare to go back home you have enjoyed your time with us and enjoyed the New Zealand Culture.  If we don't see each other again in this life, because of the gospel we have hopes to see each other again in the next life."

Marietta hands microphone to Brother Hopoate

Brother and Sister Vaivai: (Stake Presidency Counselor and the best fellow shippers in the church)
"We are very good friends with Leitu and Tito because of you.  We would like to thank you for bringing these people into our midst. And you changed lives.  So like others who spoke before we thank you for the work you are doing in this ward.  We wish to express our love and gratitude.  We are missing you when you go but the Spirit is always strong in the hearts of these people. I keep in contact with Dan.  he is busy tonight but we will continue to contact with him. Hopefully they will accept the gospel.   I don't know if my wife would like to say something but we have some bola (?) We make these special for you, It is special in Samoa, it is for the men."  

They then put beautiful leis or bola, around our necks, a red one for the men and one for Sister Thatcher.  President Vaivai ended by saying;

' It's just little, but show you how much we appreciate the work you do for us.  Thank you.'"

Bishop Utai, Elder Thatcher, Sister Thatcher, beautiful Sister Vaivai and President Vaivai

Sister Laveai Talo  (The Primary President who has picked up Ronak Singh and brought him to church with them - her sons Larry and Lavon are great missionaries with Ronak)

"I was very shocked when the RS came out and told me that you were going home so soon and that we were having this send off dinner tonight.  We will miss you Elder and Sister Thatcher.  You guys have been a big help in our ward bringing in lost souls back to the gospel and helping our little ones.  I don't know what to say, thank you so much for helping us out.  I'll try to bring Ronak to church.  I keep trying.  We will try to bring them and hopefully one day they will come join us in the gospel.  Thank you.  We love you and you are a part of our eternal family.  We have something for you guys. (more beautiful shell necklaces and a beautiful basket of gifts).

Larry, Sister Talo, Sweet little Sila, and Lavon

Next they gave us time to bear our testimonies.  We were able to tell them how much we had loved being with them and watching them work together.  They have made our mission so special.  They have taught us how to be missionaries.  Their Rescue Nights have been amazing.  So many of the members came out to support that effort.  They were willing and happy to go out and make contacts in the ward.  When we had investigators who would come to church or to parties these saints would rally around them and in the warmest way make them feel welcome.   We talked about Larry and Lavon making friends with Ronak, and Sister Talo who would pick him up for Church because we were at the MTC.  She would pick him up and after church would take him to their home for dinner and play time with the boys.  The Vaivai's have been so good to befriend our investigators.  So many have been wonderful in so many ways. 

They lastly had a very special gift for us.  It was a Haka from the Young Men.  The YM's president  Brother Perich is Maori and performed his family's personal Haka to honor us.  He told us afterwards that it felt appropriate because it had been made by 3 brothers and now was being performed by the 3 Aaronic Priesthood Quorums.  The Teachers quorum president had asked him if he would teach it to the YM so they could perform it for the Thatchers.   Brother Perich said; 

"The Teachers Quorum President exercised his Priesthood keys and asked me.  What could I do? I had to honor that."

  

It was a beautiful gift and so appropriate as we leave Aotearoa, (the Maori name for New Zealand which means 'the land of the long white cloud')

We were able to get pictures with many of the ward members afterwards.

Brother Rotana is the one who carved the Maori bone necklace for me.

Brother Rotana has become a dear friend.  We wrote about his conversion story in the blog.  He is Maori and carved the necklace they gave me at the end of the Haka dance.  He told me that it has special meaning.  It honors womanhood and motherhood.  He told me it is only for me, I must never give it to another and the longer I wear it the more power it will have.  He carved it with his hands and his grandfather was a Maori prophet and a healer.  He was known all over the country for the healings he performed.  'That blood is in me and I carved the necklace.  You will wear it and the powers of a mother will come into it.  When you get home and see Aaron,' he said,   'take the necklace and just touch his forehead with it.  That is all I ask.'

We will be home soon Aaron, and I will be wearing Brother Rotana's carved necklace.  I will be following his instructions.

Brother Rotana explaining about the necklace he carved for me

Brother Rotana's Maori Book of Mormon that he has the missionaries sign.
He brought it for us to sign

President Vaivai, Brother Rotana and Eder Thatcher

Sister Sau Lavea, who is packed with fun - what a dancer she is!

One of the joys of the night was when Brother Ols told us that he is back in the church and that they are planning to get to the temple before it closes in July.  Such wonderful news!  We have a testimony that the Lord can work miracles in lives - especially when there is sacrifice.  Sister Corinne Ols has sacrificed continually for the good of the YW of the ward.  She was so good with our Teqwyn Edmonds who was fully active in YW's before her family moved and loved being in the church with these new friends and Sister Ohs.

Corrine and Tana Ola
Corinne is the wonderful YW's leader who brought Teqwyn into activity
She is one of our miracle workers 

"I'm back in the Church!" brother Ols told us.  "We are going to get to the temple before it closes"

The daughter of Corrine and Tana will be baptised soon by her father

Another great joy was having Marietta tell us that she believes she and her husband will make it to the temple.  Elder Thatcher and I could hardly hold  our excitement in tow for  these two couples who have made great progress in their lives.  If we feel such joy, can you imagine the joy that Heavenly Father and the Lord feel?  Once again we have watched Brother and Sister Ulugia serve faithfully in the ward.  They were at every Rescue night and always willing to do anything to help anyone.  We love them dearly.  Sister Ulugia reminded me that I had told her that one day they would make it to the temple.  She said it didn't seem possible then, but she can see it now.  We are so excited for them. 

Clover Park Ward
Can you feel the love and fellowship?

Great women every one!
Sister Talo, Sister Fiu (Sister Talo's mom), Sister Tipoti, sister Vaivai, Sister Ola, Sister Ulugia, Sister Wendy Malungahu, sister Thatcher, Siter Palu Saulala, Sister Hopoate, Sister Lavea, Sister Fereti, Sister Perich (F) Sister Elizabeth Saulala and Sister Matewai Roberts

Sister Elizabeth Saulala

With the Relief Society Presidency
Marietta Ulugia (2nd Counselor), Sister Paul Saulala (1st counselor),
 Wendy Malungahu (President),  Sister Fia'i Fereti (secretary

With Sister Matewai Roberts and Brother Warren Roberts 

Brother Richard Heather, Elder Thatcher, Ola daughter and myself

We have loved the children, here are
Promise Roberts, myself, Sila Talo, and Lynell Matamaki (Marietta's granddaughter)

They showered us with gifts from the families of the ward
Lava lavas, fans, purses and totes, jewelry and bracelets for the granddaughters
a polynesian dress and shirt, a beautiful ceremonial bowl, flowers for our hair
table mats and napkins, paintings, and the basket to put all the gifts in.
 What an overwhelming outpouring of love.  

And later after most of the gym was cleaned up they put some music on and we all danced a Samoan dance together.  Brother Roberts took my camera and did the filming and narrating.  We love Brother and Sister Roberts.  Sister Vaivai tried to teach me the dance and Bishop was helping Elder Thatcher.   We tried to follow.  They dance with such naturalness and enthusiasm.  We could watch them dance all day.  Notice how effortlessly our Bishop Utai dances, and the grace and beauty of Sister Vaivai.  And can you see that talented Samoan behind me who is having such fun?  That is Brother Ulugia, Marietta's husband.

These people know how to have fun.  How we will miss them.

They enjoy each other so much that no one seems to want to go home
The party continues in the foyer

=

Bishop Utai stood by the door of the church waving farewell to all until the last car had left the parking lot
  Such gracious loving people

A Series of Lasts

Last Intake at the MTC

Last Thursday we welcomed our last group of missionaries to the MTC.  It was one of the calmest intakes.  We only had about 25 missionaries arrive.  There were about 23 ESL Missionaries still here for their last 3 weeks of learning English.  It always seems like a miracle that the missionaries keep coming.  Each with his or her own story and journey of faith.  It has been wonderful to 'behold this Royal Army'.  We see them come and we watch them 'march forth to conquer on life's great battlefield'.  We know them to be 'united, bold and strong, who follow their commander' and sing His victory song.

Last Intake

Elder Webber from Bolivia (heads up Murphy) and Elder Pincock from Idaho
our new Zone Leaders 

All these Elders are from the Islands except that one in the top center who just thinks he is

Like all the Thatcher missionaries before us,
The MTC has been a place of growing, of learning -
a sacred place where the Spirit has been felt in rich abundance

Our last day of adventure and sight seeing

On intake day Sister Michi Matsumori who comes to the MTC every intake day to help us, invited us to come Monday morning to her home in Auckland for breakfast before we toured Auckland on the Hop On Hop Off Bus.  We thought we should at least see downtown Auckland before going home and we took Sister Matsumori up on her kind offer.  Sister Matsumori's husband is the legal counsel for the church in the area.  He works harder than he ever has in his career.  Part of the challenge is dealing with 41 countries and their varied laws.   The Matsumori's  are wonderful.  That is one of the great blessings of serving a mission as a senior couple.  You rub shoulders with such amazing, talented, faithful people.  

Sister Matsumori helps Elder Thatcher

Sister Briggs on Michi's deck enjoying the incredible view of Auckland

The Matsumori's

The breakfast was divine.  The most scrumptious buttermilk pancakes with exotic syrups, bacon, eggs, yogurt, orange juice, fresh fruits, granola . . .  we tried not to over eat.  President Briggs probably did the best.  When we were confessing how many pancakes we had eaten he humbly said, "I only had one . . . one set of four."

After cleaning up and visiting, Michi led us through the town to Devonport where we hiked Mt. Victoria and caught the best view of the Auckland Skyline and  Harbor that we have seen.

Found this rock figure like something out of Lord of the Rings on the way up Mt. Victoria 

On top - the perfect day to take in all the beauty

Michi, Myself and Sister Briggs

From atop Mt. Victoria - Michi had recently come here with the YW she works with for their New Beginnings to watch the sunrise.  She said they had balloons in the value colors grouped at intervals all the way to the top.  They picked them up one color at a time until they got to the top where they became the backdrop for their breakfast. 

Michi took this shot of the two of us

We left Michi and caught a ferry to Auckland

. . . on the ferry ride

It was nice to ride the Hop on Hop off bus around Auckland and not have to worry about driving.  We only hopped off at two placed . . . .

The War Museum

And . . .

The Sky Tower

 The Sky Tower is the most recognized of spots in Auckland and we were thankful to be able to go to the top of the 60 stories and catch the breathtaking view.

Doesn't do it justice but you get the idea

The 360 degrees of view are amazing.  This is of the bridge that takes you to Takapuna where the church offices are

Sister Briggs 

It was a wonderful day spent with dear friends.  The only thing that would have made it better would have been to have President and Sister Howes with us.  They couldn't go.  They are too busy on Mondays at the MTC.

Our last interview with President Walker

Yesterday, Tuesday May 1st, we drove to Auckland again for our final interview with President Walker.  It was a privilege to sit across from him and hear his instructions and have him give us his blessing.  We admire and love President and Sister Walker.

President Walker has done a magnificent job of inspiring these missionaries and of building them.  We are always taught profoundly when he teaches us at zone conferences.  I  have many of his teachings recorded that I will love to share with David and other grandchildren when they leave for their missions.  He taught us privately this time and I thought I had my voice recording app on.  I did for the first part of the interview but it must have turned off for some reason and I don't have the last beautiful part with his prayer for us and his blessing to us.  Still we were grateful that it recorded the part where he talked about his door approach because we loved the simple power and directness of it.  I have transposed it to send to Megan and will put that part in the blog here.  Enjoy.

President Walker has asked the missionaries to use TTIP (teach, testify, invite and promise) in their door approaches.  We feel this is inspired.  It is right out of PMG for teaching, but he tells them to use this in their daily tracting.  One of the Elders in our district says he loves doing this because he is able to bear his testimony many times every day.

President Walker told us of tracting with the STL Sisters missionaries.  I  recorded this part of the interview so this is word for word as President taught us.  He and Sister Walker went tracting with the Sister Training Leaders.

We knocked at our first door.  It was a screen door, very rare.  The woman of the home comes to the door, she must have been in her late 40’s early 50’s.  She was caucasian,  She knew who we were. There were 4 of us there, Sister Walker and I and two of the Sister Training leaders.  And she didn’t look happy that they were there, but, she was there.  So she said;
‘Yes, may I help you?’
And then,  nobody said anything, because we didn’t determine ahead of time who was taking the door.   So there was this awkward silence and finally one of the Sisters said,
‘How has your day been?
And she says,
‘Um, good, why are you here?’
Then the other Sister says,
‘That’s a nice flower you have over there.’
And then, she’s irritated,
‘Well, thank you, but, why are you here?’
They finally said,
‘Well we are missionaries . . . ‘
‘ I don’t need missionaries!’
and that was the end of it.

I pulled them aside and said,
‘Look, we can’t do that.  We don’t have time to diddle daddle.  I said, all the research the brethren have done shows that there’s no relationship between your relationship with someone and their willingness to accept an invitation from you to listen to the gospel.  And then it came to my mind what Elder Renlund had talked about, and I said,

“OK, what we need to do, we have a brief window of opportunity, we need to teach and testify so the Spirit can come, and that they can feel that. Our job is to sift. If we bring the Spirit, and then say, ‘Will you listen to our message?'  which is really, it’s abrupt, but it’s to the point, and they have to use their agency to say yes or no.

At that point, because they’ve felt the Spirit, they’ve had a spiritual experience, whether they realize it or not, and they have an opportunity to exercise their agency.  If they’ve been prepared, they will say yes. That’s what I’ve told them, and if they’re not, they will say no.  You don’t need to sit there, and you don’t need to try to convince them that they are wrong unless the Spirit constrains you otherwise.

People say, well, what about that story of Elder Rasband, he put his foot in the door.  I said, ‘He only did it once.’  It was only that one time and he never did it again.  But it was because he was constrained by the Spirit.  If the Spirit tells you to do something, you do it.  But otherwise, we are here to sift. We don’t have time, if we get to the door and they say they’re not interested, then we can move on.   But you need to at least teach something and testify.

It’s amazing, when I do it too, it’s like, you have people and they will stop, and they will think for a second.  I went to one door and I was  just saying, I said;

‘We are representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ. ( I’m not going to tell them I’m Mormon, because a lot of people don’t think we are Christian, so I just say;

‘We are representatives of the Lord Jesus Christ.’

That’s all say when I go to the door.  That’s my introduction.  Then I say, whatever comes to my mind, but I’ll say something like;

‘Our message is that the Heavens are opened,  that God speaks to man, that He will speak to you. He has spoken to me.  I know my purpose in this life, and our message is to bring that story. . . where did we come from before this life, why are we here, where are we going after we die.  And there is a lot to that.’

That is our message.  Will you listen to our message?  I’ll also say, ‘I know it’s true.  This will bring blessings to your life too.   (because you’ve got to promise them blessings)  Will you listen to our message?’

I’ve had people just ready to say, ‘Get out of my door, in a nice way, and just stop for a second and think.  A lot of them will still say no, but at least, maybe even though they said no they will feel bad later because they felt the Spirit and the Spirit works on them, and the next time someone knocks on their door they say, ‘You know what, come in.’


We love the power of His door approach and wish we had another year to put it into practice. We all need to be more bold and direct and willing to share what we have and know.  We need not apologize for wanting to share.  We share and leave it with the Lord.

President Walker said the closing prayer and exercised his keys to bless us and all of you through us.  It was a beautiful thing to be a part of.  We left holding hands and saying little.  Somethings are too sweet for words.

Leaving Auckland for the last time - after our exit interview with President Walker

The list of lasts continues. . .

We are going through things and saying goodbye to those we have met.  We are meeting with Enekosi and Leitu in a little while and have been invited to meet with the Stake Presidency tonight.  One thing wonderful about that is we know they are not going to call us to anything.

We have been copying our notes from our lessons and will be getting that to other missionaries and our ward mission leader.  We will be going to the temple for the last time tomorrow with the missionaries.   We will be saying goodbye to so many.  We are trying to eat everything left in our fridge and we are packing our suitcases.

We will be home soon and this whole mission will probably seem like a dream.  We hope we remember what we learned and felt here better than we remember dreams when we wake.  Serving a mission with dad has been a dream come true for me.  We will forever be grateful for these few months spend in the service of the Lord observing his power, his saints, his servants, and his majesty as he directs this great latter day work.

We leave with hearts full of love and gratitude for the Lord's blessings to us during this mission, for the many answers to prayers, for the accompaniment of the Spirit as we taught, for the people we were led to meet, and the love that filled our hearts for them.  We leave with prayers and hope going forward that those we have taught will continue to seek and learn and recognize truth.  And we leave with a prayer in our hearts that each of you back home that we love will find such joy in your times of service to the Master.  For we know that;

Neither the wrath of the storm tossed sea,
Nor demons nor men or what ever it be,
No water can swallow the ship where lies,
The Master of Oceans and Earth and Skies!

They all shall sweetly obey His will,
Peace, be still. . . Peace, be still. . .
They all shall sweetly obey His will
Peace, peace, be still.

We know as long as we are with the Master,  rowing in the same boat as He, we will experience safety amidst whatever storm rages around us, and have that peace that passes understanding in our hearts.  We love the Master.

And we love you,
mom and dad
grandma and grandpa
Elder and Sister Thatcher