Yello!
This week was full of lots of changes! The first change is that President Cummings is no longer our mission president! Now we have President Erekson, who is just as cool (so I've heard) and we get to meet him on Tuesday :) Apparently he knows quite a few of my family members from Idaho so that's cool! I was sad to see President go, but I'm excited to see what President Erekson will bring :)
So this is kinda technical boring stuff about online teaching, so you have my permission to skip it haha. Recently, okay I guess a little over a year ago, Europe passed a law about privacy which impacted how long we can hold information for, and what we can write about people we're working with. On Tuesday the Church implemented a new design in area book (where we record information and progress of people), so that it acts in accordance with the new European laws (the GDPR). This means that for any country other than the US, we aren't allowed to keep any background information on the person. We are allowed to fill out gender and age range, but there is no open text box for us to write freely little things that we feel would benefit the next missionaries. This makes things extremely difficult in the OTC because not only do we have to uphold this to the highest of our abilities because we represent the church virtually, but now if we don't remember something about someone, we have no way to write it down. It's also made a few struggles in the proselyting field in New Zealand because we fall under a "restricted" country which basically means we can't write down information or record a lot of their progress. So we are working with what we got!
Alright boring part of the email is over now...
Another change is that it went from chilly to COLD this past week. There's no snow like in Utah for which I'm grateful for, but our flat isn't very insulated which just means we sleep with three blankets each. I'm finally getting into the New Zealand winter! (I'm sorry I feel like I've been complaining about the cold for the past month or so by now haha)
Other than that, this week has just been lots of meetings and contacting :) One cool experience is that since Hamilton is a very small zone, a lot of our areas are close to each other and we give and receive many referrals from surrounding missionaries. Earlier this week, the Assistants to President gave us a referral for someone in our area, but when we tried to contact her the person living in the house said she didn't live there. So we went to the house next door and they also said that she didn't live there, but that person used to take lessons from missionaries and had just moved into our area and lost contact with the missionaries when she moved! Hopefully we will be able to teach her in the near future because she likes the lessons and the church and the father of her kids is also a member!
I'd love to share 3 Nephi 12:47 which reads: "Old things are done away, and all things have become new." I think this scripture goes along nicely with the theme of my email so far :) A lot of things have changed, some good and some bad. But in the end, all thing shave become new. This has hit me strongly especially when it comes to repentance. I definitely get caught up with my little mistakes and convince myself that I don't deserve forgiveness or Gods help because of my sins. But who am I to put God in a box and tell him what he can or cannot do? After we change, old things are done away and all things can become new, through our Saviour Jesus Christ.
I love you all heaps! Please let me know if there's any way I can help any of you :) I am here to listen!
SK
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