The Storm of the Century

October 3
G'day family and friends!!!!

This week Adelaide, Australia was hit with the biggest storm they've had in over 50 years!!!!! The entire state of South Australia was without power for about 6 hours, during the day, different parts gradually got their power back bit by bit during the night. For myself, I was on trade offs, so not even with my normal companion! But I was with Sister Tamana, a previous companion. We've been having some pretty heavy storms lately, heaps of wind and rain, and yesterday morning we even had hail! But back to the blackout... When it happened, we were in the city, where there is always people in the streets. When the power went out, people actually started screaming. The end of the world was coming!!! All of the trains and trams were down (obviously, because the run on electricity) and that left so many people in the city with only buses to take them home. But it was a great time for people to come together, to LOOK UP, because now they had to, it was a really great experience! At our flat, we didn't have any source of light, so we went over to the mission home (lucky we live next door) and got to borrow some candles.

Then the very next day we were so lucky the storm stopped enough for us to go to the temple!! Bright sunny skies, a beautiful day. And what was really cool was that Raymond was able to baptize her, and he was just baptized himself 2 months ago! Then just a few hours later, we were told to not go outside under any circumstances to stay safe from the storm that had come back! Just ridiculous.

And last but not least we were very privileged to see our friend Niki be baptized this Saturday! Hard to believe, but we started meeting with her just a month ago, and she was so prepared. We first met her back in July, the day before she was going home to China for 2 months. Sad, but we got her phone number and hoped for the best. Fast forward to the end of August, we were really struggling to find people to teach, so we called up all the people on our phone. NO ONE answered, except for Niki! She agreed to meet with us, and now has entered the waters of baptism, received the Holy Ghost, and feels so clean and excited to share this gospel with her friends. A great testimony to me of what happens when we truly believe in God and Jesus Christ and what the belief then motivates us to do.

I love you all, have a marvelous week!

Sister Townsend