Airport

Farewell

Opening Call

From Sister Stosich--ADD PICTURE

OK! He is so wonderful! He has such a dynamite personality! We love him. I told everyone he was my favorite and I don’t even care if they know it.

From his Mission President--ADD PICTURE

Dear Brother and Sister Cushing

It was a great pleasure to welcome Elder Cushing to the New Zealand, Auckland Mission.  He arrived ready to begin his missionary labors with people who are full of faith and love.  We appreciate the privilege of having him here in the mission.

Elder  Cushing’s companion, Elder Brodie will help your son adjust to missionary life.  They have been assigned to work in the Waitemata zone.  We are confident that as they work diligently together that the Lord will bless them and they will experience the joy of seeing our Heavenly Father’s children progress towards baptism in His church.

He will look forward to your weekly letters of encouragement and support.  Monday is his preparation day and the time allocated to him to write emails home to you.  All mailed letters should be sent to the Mission Office (see address below).  Please feel free to contact us with any questions or concerns.

We have created the New Zealand Auckland Mission blog and we will be posting some more photos: https://jahwalker3.wixsite.com/nzaucklandmission.

We will do everything in our power to help him have a wonderful and productive mission.  We pray the Lord will bless and sustain you in his absence.

Sincerely yours,

President and Sister Walker

New Zealand Auckland Mission

Letters:

PO Box 33-840

Takapuna 0740

Auckland

New Zealand

Packages:

7A Auburn Street

Takapuna 0622

Auckland

New Zealand

WEEK TWO!!!!

WHATS UP EVERYONE

Week two in the MTC (prison) and it's awesome. Nothing too special in the MTC the sports are still really funny and hurtful but other then that just same old class and laughs. 

This week we got to go out on missionary exchange. It was thee coolest thing ever. It's where we get to leave the MTC and go out with the missionaries from our field for a day and teach and knock doors and things. I was super pumped and I got paired up with two elders. Elder Damuni from Logan, Utah a D1 athlete he's playing football at Stanford and Elder Zacher from Montana he only has a week left in his mission. 

      They were thee best, I was nervous. But they've had tons of success on their mission because the people here are super chill and relaxed. So that was a blessing. We had a car so we drove about 30 minutes to these MASSIVE houses. They were thee nicest things ever. They had never been there before so they were super shocked. Some of the houses we would try and get in but if they rejected us we asked if we could go the bathroom just so we could get inside. 

     We knocked doors and had found an Investigator and talked to a family for an hour about religion which was awesome. Then we gave away 5 Books of Mormon! And got a couple referrals. We walked up and apparently one of the mission presidents lived up there so my two companions just walked in and asked if we could have lunch with them and HOLY COW they fed us good. I forgot to mention I've gained 17 pounds in the MTC hahahha. I'll send you a pic of me to see if I look any different. But I thinking I'm sticking to salads for awhile. But it was an awesome experience the people here are thee nicest and it got me beyond excited to get out in the field and actually start teaching. Not that I don't love the MTC and all the people I've met here I'm just ready to get out and PREACH.

LOVE YOU GUYS,

Elder Cushing

WEEK ONE--ADD PICS

WHATS UP EVERYONE 

It's ya boi and I'm still alive.

     New Zealand is amazing this place is so pretty. Even though I've only seen it from my bedroom window which has a great view. But I love it. I've already been here a week and I have stories on top of stories. But I'm doing so awesome. This place is amazing.

     We flew in last Thursday and as we were driving to the MTC I was hoping to see the country but it was the foggiest I've ever seen we couldn't see five feet in front of us in the car which was the scariest thing ever but we made it to the MTC. 

     The MTC is awesome right when we got here I got my companion! ELDER WHITEHEAD. This kid is awesome he's from Arizona and he's a super athlete. But weird enough we have so much in common which makes it way easy to teach and we got super tight within the first day which is awesome. There isn't that many missionaries here which I like a lot cause you know everyone and everyone knows you. There is missionaries here from all over but a ton from the islands which is awesome. I've learned some rugby and just for all my friends to know if you thought we were good at volleyball back home we weren't we sucked but 'm getting better so watch out when I get home. Also we played basketball with the Tongans we made a USA team and they made a Tonga team and it was thee funniest\PAINFUL thing ever. They came out tackling. I had the ball to start out and I tried to go for a layup and I'm not kidding I got him by a truck. One of the Tongans went full blown rugby mode and LAID ME OUT with perfect tackling form. It killed but I couldn't show I was a wuss so we kept playing.

     We are learning a ton here which is good but being real I'm having a GOOD TIME. When I say I'm having a good time I mean I've been laughing for a week straight. Me and Elder Whitehead share a room with Elder Ross from Phily and Elder Vaca from Fiji and HOLY SHEEP these kids are hilarious I've already got tons of stories about them I won't share on here but it's been so funny. We've had almost every night were we didn't go to bed we stay up laughing all night and it's was the best. We also have these things called districts that we get put into for our classes and I seriously have the best one. We have a good time when the time is right, which we have gotten into a bit of trouble but other then that we have been progressing so much in becoming missionaries which is awesome. But these kids are awesome. Other than that I've learned a ton here and I'm getting ready to go out into the field which isn't for another 2 weeks but I'm pumped to get out there and PREACH. I love all the guys here and I already know I'm gonna make tons more memories.

LOVE ALL YOU GUYS