Week 65

Young Adults Add Spice and Sugar to Our Mission

16 November 2025

Dear family and friends, What a great week! It has been busy and eventful. 

Tonight we meet to pack up three digitial Giving Machines and get them shipped to locations.  We have the Giving Machine launch this week in two locations in the Auckland area.  In our previous blogs we talked about the 30 second advertisement we helped with. It will show at the location of the Giving Machines in the movie theaters before every movie. They will also release the advertisement on our Pacific Instagram and Facebook page.  We will share the link. The production team did a great job. 

Chiara is one of our interns from BYU.  This week we shot a video of her for Facebook content.  She does video editing and creates great content.  We hope she learns something from us because we certainly learn from her.

These two pictures come from FHE with the YSA. We helped with a family history FHE and one of the funny activities was finding your bird family.  That's right, you read it correctly. Everybody was given one of 6 birds to listen to on YouTube and then when they said, "go," they had to make the bird sound while finding the other birds in their family making the same sound.  (There are some interesting bird sounds in New Zealand.) The bishop was the only one assigned to bird #6. It was funny to watch him try to find someone. He was a good sport in being a solo bird. It was funny and pretty chaotic to say the least. We instructed how to "Get Involved".  I was surprised that many didn't know about that family history app. Turned out to be a great FHE.

This is our bishop. He does a great job!

We had an interesting request from the local news this week here in New Zealand. Their request about sleeveless garments was directed to our department.

"I’ve been reading about recently released temple garments in the US that are sleeveless. I was wondering if they are being sold here in New Zealand now. The church mentioned in an official statement that the garments were designed with humid countries in mind, which would include, maybe New Zealand, but definitely the Pacific Islands, I would say. Would love to know if there has been a bit of local buzz about the sleeveless temple garments."

There are trying to drum up a "buzz" story in New Zealand that does not exists. They have been selling the garments since the beginning of the year but I haven't heard a word about them, even serving in a YSA ward and institute. The Islanders are very private and respectful of their sacred clothing. It's very sweet.

Apparently this is what post mission life looks like. We called K.C. and Judy this week to see how things were going and if they had made the needed adjustments for post mission life. Sounds like all is well and people actually do go home and get back to normal life. Fun to catch up with them and keep them updated on life in New Zealand.

We found a coastal hike (at low tide!) not far from our home. It was a hike. (That is our city behind Launette) We were tired after 4 miles. There is beauty all around us and the flowers are pretty also.

Lunch time splurge on sushi.

A little geography lesson. Notice where Solomon Islands and New Caledonia are located. We are over Vanuatu, Solomon Islands, New Caledonia, Tonga, New Zealand, French Polynesia (Tahiti). The other senior missionary couple are over the other pacific islands.

Solomon Island has experienced great growth this year. They have consistently had over 100 baptisms each month, bringing their current total membership to 2,894.  In addition, 280 members are currently attending temple prep classes to prepare to attend the temple in 2026. Those enrolled in temple prep will benefit from the temple patron fund. They will travel to Fiji for a week to attend the temple for themselves and then proxy for their close relatives. I would love to be a part of that program. There are missionaries assigned to assist with those visiting for the first time. I can't think of anything better!

They also have 3 new branches and 2 new groups. (A group is smaller than a branch.) :) 

We may be going to New Caledonia in a few weeks to do some training with the new communication director.  It takes about 12 hours of travel to get to this small island of about 300,000 people and they speak French. They recently had some pretty serious civil unrest.  They pulled the missionaries out for awhile but they are back now.

We taught our last institute lesson. I am going to miss these YSAs!!! We have been teaching a course on the Book of Mormon. How do you wrap up the Book of Mormon, teach Moroni 10:4-5 and Moroni 10:32 "come unto Christ", ask 10 review question from the course and bear our testimonies in 1 hour?!? Impossible. I'm sure we slaughtered it but I mostly hope they know the we love them and we love the Savior. They are drawn to love. I don't know if it is especially needed here but they look so earnest when we express our love. They have difficult lives. Someday we will have to tell about the YSA struggles here. They are strong and good and love the temple. Some YSA work 2 shifts.

It is a privilege to feel their strength and hear testimonies from their comments in class.

We love you and miss you!

Elder and Sister Shaw

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