Week 67

Messaging the Good Word

30 November 2025

Our walks to work and home from work have become very memorable. This is our walk to work. We usually talk about what meetings we have and how we are going to prepare for them. We talk about who we are going to minister to and help. Then we pass by the French bakery and commit to one day stop and buy an almond crescent for breakfast. We talk about what we are posting on Newsroom Facebook that day. Lastly Kelly tries to tell me my badge is straight when it is crooked. 

Next week we will tell you about our conversation walking home.

This was by far the best part of the week. We figured how to watch a BYU basketball game was during lunch.  We walked down the street to Scotty's Sports Bar and ask the owner if he could put up the game.  He was happy to when we order food.  So a two hour lunch produced a BYU basketball game victory.  Now that is what I call spreading the GOOD WORD, bringing the Church out of obscurity, and promoting faith.

We are starting to wind down our projects and finalize our work. We have been task with making a communication training for the stake CDs and Coordination Council CDs. It has been inspiring going through the Church communication website (GCN) and condensing it into 5 Powerpoint presentations, 5 slides each. (I hope there isn't any GCN Church HQ personnel reading. It's all good stuff but sooo much.) I have learned the importance of our purpose and messaging.

Basically the purpose of the Church communication is to increase positive awareness of the Church by:

*Sharing messages that uplift and point to Christ.

*Support Church initiatives: Light the World, Easter's Greater Love, General Conference, #Give Thanks

*Build relationships of trust and understanding in the community.

I love these guideline above for messaging: welcoming, compassionate, global, honest and true, hopeful, humble, inspiring. What would our world be like if all messaging contained these guidelines?!? I love the gospel. I love how it teaches us to focus on the Savior who is welcoming, compassionate, true, hopeful, and inspiring. This messaging helps us to be more like Him.

 

Just a cozy little beach house our Takapuna beach. We try to walk the beach about 3 times a week. Notice the red tree. It is call the Christmas tree. Every December this tree blossoms with a furry red flower and lasts all month. Everyone plants one in their yard so they are everywhere.

This little cutie is Lyza and she turned 8 this week. It's hard to miss birthdays. She has decided to be baptized so grandpa and I are very excited about that! I told her that she is now old enough to make some really great decisions. I said when she feels like she is going to make a great decision with the Holy Ghost, she needs to tell her parents and they will let her do that. :) 

I asked Lyza her birthday questions. Did you know she want to be a scientist and she thinks I am 64 and grandpa is 70. :l

Our Happy Thanksgiving dinner. It wasn't quite the same as the traditional homemade fixin's but we talked about all the things that we are eternally grateful for, mostly all of you!  By the way, Launette made me order Lasagna because she wanted 1/2 of it and I wanted 1/2 of her fish.

Thanksgiving Feast with the senior missionaries! Very fun. This is Sister Couch from Parker Colorado. There are some great cooks out here. Who knew pomegranate, apple, raisin salad would be good.

We had the chance to spend an afternoon with our friends from the BSU YSA ward. Amanda, Falco Hawkes and Evan came to see her parents in Australia and then stopped in Auckland on their way back home.  So fun to see them again, and get to meet little Cooper also.

This is our typical 4th week YSA FHE. We usually split into two groups for 4th week FHE. One group (18-25) went to the bishops house and this group (26-35) gathered at the 1st counselor home.  We started with "what was your favorite thing this week," then a spiritual thought, then they decided to sing! :) We had a game prepared but this older group is so self contained or motivated. It doesn't take much to get them to sit around and sing. All it takes is some snacks and a guitar. They were pretty good.

This is Vita and Diamond.  They are some of our favorite YSA and we hope they stop being YSAs soon! 😀.  They are both so wonderful.   They came to our Wednesday night institute class and then we saw them at the combined YSA Sacrament Meeting today.   As good as they get.

Lesson learned this week is negative attracts more than positive.  I know it doesn't make sense, but if you are talking about news then it is completely true.  This week in Australia the leading news organization ran a entirely inaccurate set of articles on the "Mormon Cult."  The news piece spun everything about the Church as negative.  It got a lot of attention in Australia.  Our team spent part of the week deciding if and how to respond to the news.   It is interesting to watch the Church, they rarely respond to such articles and news.  News cycles come and go so fast that it really doesn't merit fighting every battle.  Instead, we try to publish peace, post positive message, and know that we stand on the side of goodness.

We love the Lord. We love serving His church. We love being apart of goodness and truth.

We also love you and miss you!

Elder and Sister Shaw