Nzer133

Heard a nice illustration from a branch committee member about contentment last year: Imagine you are invited to a wedding reception party. You get a fancy invite with your name on it. When you arrive to the reception, you are welcomed warmly. You are given a gift bag to take home with your name on it. You are given a seat number and you make your way to that table. You notice that your name is on a card that signifies that it is your seat and table. The food is lovely. The gifts are great. You love life. You are content. However. Your eyes start to wander. You notice “hmm… my table is actually a bit far away from the bride and groom.” Then you start to realize “hmmm, my particular seat looks the opposite direction from where the bride and groom are.” Then you start to notice little things like why you have a bad seat. All these things start to have an effect on your appreciation of the event. Likewise, when we start to look around- we can start to focus on what we don’t have instead of what we do have. Success, in the worlds eyes, is measured by how much a person has. True contentment means “what I have is enough. I don’t need anything else.” I don’t have to look around. Contentment means living within ones means.

Did you know that the construction project in Australia Branch is the only theocratic construction project that has been continuing since COVID. There was so much organization and the saftey regulations and infection control were probably the finest in the world. I think other projects may just be starting again but this one definitely has seen Jehovah’s support!

There’s an app called House Party! It’s free and it’s like zoom but with games. Only can have up to 8 people though. But it’s fun!

Just like you, only from up north! Never been to a crowd over 5,000 yet travelled to Houston’s international back in July where there were over 50,000!! As a New Zealander, that was just mind-blowing. It was just love. Wherever you looked, love. It felt so faraway and yet just like home. If I find time, I can tell you more about it. Have you had your convention yet?

Our co is leaving and I am trying to find some encouraging scriptures we could leave with him and his wife in a letter. What have you used previously or know about? Would like some help. But on an even broader subject, what other scriptures come to mind when we want to express our appreciation for our hard-working brothers and sisters who possibly serve as regular, special pioneers, bethellites or LDC crews??

Some field service experience: We have heard from brothers in Auckland that Friday night (the day of the attack) police were stationed at most, if not, all mosques. Multiple field service groups were warned of use of literature carts as it can be dangerous. Either householders would be really happy to hear a comforting message or they would be very angry that we are talking about God at this moment in time. We were able to setup a cart at our popular marketplace 6am in the morning. People were very pleasant with us. Various field service groups across our circuit and in Auckland focused on what comforting scriptures we could use. Some included: ”We are here to share a positive scripture in light of yesterday’s events- Rev 21:4.” ”Genesis 6:5, 6- How do you think God feels about what has and is happening? Hurt. Like us.” ”Pr 17:22 says “a crushed spirit saps one’s strength.” That’s how we feel right now. But the hope the Bible gives makes us to see up” New Zealand, is not a big place. The littlest of news here is the biggest of news here. Just a few months ago, one young tourist girl disappeared and the whole of New Zealand felt heavily affected by the whole ordeal (later became a murder case.) Any news here is big news. New Zealand feels like they have lost their innocence and their “pure” image. I have met so many householders who would tell us that nothing will ever happen in New Zealand. It is faraway from everyone. People come to our country to escape the worlds problems. They see New Zealand as a paradise. A bubble. And that changed yesterday. Some Brothers and Sisters did not have the strength to go out in the ministry today. So we didn’t spend too much in the house-to-house work. It was a time to check in with our calls (return visits), friends and family.

Here in New Zealand, everyone is feeling down. This has never happened before (not to this degree) and has visibly shaken the country. We found out the news while in the ministry around the same time, though we are from the north of New Zealand. The householders were really concerned- frightened even. I have been flooded with texts, messages and posts about how people are feeling. Makes our preaching work and the message we bring so much more important. We will be in the city with the literature carts tomorrow morning. Very tragic what has happened.

Got accepted into Houston. Heard of ones in our cong invited to Athens and Miami. No word on Denmark/Philippines. Does anyone know how the US bethel tours are organized? The website just says a survey will be compiled on delegates visiting US international conventions and their preferred time of visiting. I should perhaps be patient and wait for that info to come out, but I want to plan for the trip to NY. So if anybody has any more details I’d be happy to hear them. It looks like you can’t make a booking to the US Bethels in July (time of the Houston international) as it’s all booked out. Is it reserved with delegates in mind?

It’s on now:)

Anybody able to help me out and send the latest "manual" update. Having trouble with it. Much thanks:) Latest version showing is 17.0

And it’s got new pictures!

Hmmmmm that bully one sounds rather interesting!

We have a number of skits in process but would appreciate any other interesting ideas from you brothers and sisters? Mostly youths will be involved as participants.

At the moment our hall is going under Reno so we are in a neighboring hall. Could have a look soon at what we are using. Forgot to mention, the setup (from a year ago) included a new sound desk, pc and screens.

To be completely honest- our JW Library hasn’t glitched out since we’ve had it. Then again, the LDC were the ones who set it up. Have been using it for a year and a bit now. There is a shuffle mode for theocratic music. We have assigned a brother to care for all downloads. It only takes a nice afternoon to set everything up (downloading most of the content). Videos are downloaded on a month by month process though usually new videos that would be needed are downloaded when released. In regards to images. We just close the program down. And full screen the images. No biggie. The app is very easy to learn because it’s basically the same app we all have. We are well aware of how to get around the app.