This email was sent by Sister Welker on November 28th.  We received it on November 27th.

Week 16: Thanksgiving, and Saturday

Man, sorry that's a pretty lame title.  If I had more time, I'd think of a better one, but for now we'll stick with that.

It's been a good week.  It's been super busy.  We went on two exchanges and will go on two more exchanges this week.

Sister Johnson only has a little over a week left of her mission.  It will be sad to see her leave, but I know her family will be really excited to see her.  We've visited our golden family almost everyday this past week, and we plan to see them everyday next week.  Their baptism is this SATURDAY!! I'm super excited and can't wait.

I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving and a safe Black Friday.  I'm grateful for each one of you in my life, and I hope you know how important you are to me.  We spent Thanksgiving night at a restaurant called Breakers Café and Bar in the Mount.  It was really fun.  The restaurant was all beach themed.  I had a pineapple chicken meal and Sister Johnson had a chicken salad. Of course, we had to have dessert, so we had a New Zealand styled cheesecake.  It's not quiet the same as a turkey dinner, but it was still super yummy.

Saturday, the Welcome Bay ward had a camp and the missionaries were assigned to help with the games.  Half of us worked with those 12 and up, and then some of the other missionaries and me helped with the 11 and younger.  The 12 and up played water balloon volleyball, which is just like regular volleyball except two people hold one end of a towel and they have to cradle the water balloon and toss it to the next person.  I was helping the younger group with their game.  They each got a balloon and they had to tie it to their ankles.  The goal of the game is to pop everyone else's balloon and be the last one with a balloon on your ankle.  Sadly, the balloons kept popping before the game even started.  We finally got every child a balloon, and started the game but it ended quicker than we were hoping, so we improvised with a game of Red Light, Green Light.  It was so much fun!!

Later on we went to help feed the homeless in Te Puke.  The last couple of weeks we've had such a great turn out, that we ran out of food completely!!  This week not as many people showed up, but I made the effort to talk to some of the homeless.  In weeks past I might have said something like "Hi, how are you?" and "How was your week?" but Saturday I really made the effort to have a good conversation with them.  It wasn't that hard to do.  I guess when you're homeless, you're use to nobody caring, so when someone actually does care, you want to talk to them.  They want to tell you their life story--they're just waiting for someone to listen.  It makes me really grateful for all the blessings in my life, including a home to go to every night.

The gospel really does bless peoples lives.  It provides true happiness for everyone, and the best way to be happy is to stop worrying about yourself and think of others.  The more I serve others, the more I learn to be happy and love others.  I'm so grateful that I get to be able to have the chance serve a mission--to be able to share the gospel message with New Zealand.  One person really can make a difference.

Hope you all have a good week.

Sister Welker