Solos and Indian Food

We were on tradeoffs with Allenby Gardens this week, and I got to be back with my MTC companion Sister Rougeau! We went to a member's home for dinner, and apparently they have a tradition there for new missionaries.... which they waited to tell me about til after we had eaten and had dessert. The tradition is that the missionary must sing a solo, 3 verses of a hymn of their choice, with the whole family and friends watching. Oh and just maybe be recorded while doing it. Sister Rougeau knows how to sing, so I was really trying to get her to sing with me, but that was a no. I got to sing that solo all by myself.

Funny finding story from this week. We were riding our bikes down the street, on our way to visit someone, and there was this really strong smell of Indian food. We kept going down the street, and our friend wasn't home. So riding back up the street, we were thinking, "If they're cooking, they must be home!" We basically sniffed them out, trying to determine which house that heavenly smell was coming from. It was so funny, but it worked! We found this family, who invited us in and we got to teach them about God.

So we're on bikes a lot. I'm used to it now, but sometimes it can still be challenging. Saturday night we had stopped to talk to this lady parked on the side of the street, and parked our bikes on the footpath (sidewalk). Before we were done, one of my companions had walked off to talk to another family, so 2 of us were left with 3 bikes to push down the street, with the neighbours watching us and then wondering, "Why is this weird girl coming to talk to me?" But that's the fun part of missionary work :)

Sister Craig, my first companion, is going home this week, and so she's been staying her with Sister Goisisi and I. Fun to have both of them here.

And this photo is one of the beautiful sunsets I got to see this week, Australia is really such a gorgeous place. So lucky to be here, doing the work of the Lord.

I hope you all have a wonderful week, and are able to recognize the little miracles God gives to us every day :)

Sisters Goisisi, Craig, Townsend

Accidents happen, we move on

Finally fell off my bike this week, I've honestly just been waiting for that to happen, I'm surprised it's taken this long. Luckily, the only bit that got hurt was my knee. The fun part was that it happened when I was in an area where we are only on bikes, and we were rushing to make it to an appointment. I had nothing to clean my knee up with, and so I used some leaves and flowers from a nearby bush to mop it up and hopefully stop the bleeding, then we went jumped back on those bikes to make it on time. I thought everything was going fine until I look down during the lesson and realize I didn't clean it up as well as I thought I did.... But it's all good now, and everyone needs some scars to take home from their mission :)

For New Years, missionaries aren't allowed to be outside after 4 pm, so we spent a long time in the flat that night. We did our weekly planning, then ate heaps of food :) It was so good to et organized. For a few hours, I was in a different year then everyone back home! The hardest part of New Years Eve and Day was that the weather was nice and hot, and because of the holiday no one had any reason to be outside. And anyone we did talk to thought we were crazy for not sleeping the day away :) But the good things come when we work work work!

I really really loved my personal study this week. In Alma 61:15 (Book of Mormon), where it says the Spirit of God is the spirit of freedom, that really stood out to me. It referenced 2 Corinthians 3:17, which says that the Spirit of the Lord is liberty. This is a perfect way to describe it, but I've never thought about it in that way before. When we keep the commandments, we truly are liberated, and are free to choose for ourselves this wonderful path that God has laid out for us. The liberty that comes from keeping these commandments (being an exactly obedient missionary) is what brings miracles, because then we have the Spirit of the Lord with us at all times.
Our continued focus has been to hand out Books of Mormon, and to testify of the power of this book. It is so amazing to see the hearts that are touched and softened when we share this great source of knowledge that we have. I know without a shadow of a doubt that the Book of Mormon is true, and love being able to share that with others. We have done this with people we are teaching, people we meet on the street, or those we talk to at bus stops. When someone does accept this wonderful gift, it makes me so happy, knowing that this one thing can make such a positive impact on their lives.

Have a wonderful week, and Happy New Year!

Christmas - A time of blessings and miracles 12/28/2016

What a week! Kind of hard to describe everything that happened, so here are some highlights :)

Sisters Conference:

All of the sister missionaries in the mission came together on Wednesday for a special conference. The first thing we did was go to a nursing home and sing carols (we split into 2 groups) It is honestly one of my favourite parts of Christmas, and something my family would do every year. After we sang for them and shared some scriptures, we were able to just walk around and visit with those residents, especially the ones who didn't have family they would see this Christmas. Loved it!

Christmas Eve carolling:

I guess Christmas for me involves a lot of the Christmas songs, cause those are a lot of the experiences that stand out most to me. This night we went out and knocked on some doors of people we've net since I've been here, and it was so beautiful. This one family, I had met the grandparents a couple months ago, and they had all of their extended family at their house for dinner. They had just sat down and said grace, and then we came up singing. Most of them came out to the door, and started crying they loved it so much. That's why I love it, the songs really help you feel the spirit of Christmas.

Boxing Day (Dec 26):

We had a really awesome training. We talked about fasting, and the importance that it is. Something I really liked from it was to think of fasting as sacrificing something physical like food in order to increase our spiritual sensitivity.

One of our leaders talked about coming unto Christ. He said that the yearning to become better is the yearning to come unto Christ. We can feel more confidence as we continually put ourselves in a place where Jesus can be at our side, always strengthening us. Then, when bad times come, we know that we've done all we can and can turn in over to Him.

Dec 28:

We had such a great day yesterday :) Our goal this week was to increase our referrals from members (receiving names from members of the church who they want us to teach). We started out that morning, striving to be diligent in everything we did. We were knocking doors on this one street, and right at the end there was house where some members lived. We stopped by for a visit, and they started telling us about 2 of their neighbors they had been talking about the gospel with, and wanted us to go visit! It was an amazing miracle for us, a real answer to prayers. We know that there are people everywhere who can find more happiness and joy from the knowledge of the gospel of Jesus Christ, and this is what we have to share with them.

I love you all, and have a safe and happy New Year!

(Fun fact: missionaries here are not allowed outside on New Year's Eve, so we'll be stuck in the flat starting just before dinnertime. But I hope everyone else has a really fun time!)

It's Christmastime!

December 20- sorry for the late post - Janet

Such a wonderful time of year to celebrate. We are definitely staying extra busy, and for this Christmas week we have other missionaries coming in from outlying areas. So we'll be having 2 extra sisters in our area, which means we can do twice the amount of work! Like I was saying last week, it's such an important time to celebrate the Christ in Christmas, but there's also so much more we can do! We live fairly close to the mission home, and it was our mission mom's birthday this week, so we decorated her door and brought a present, leaving it on her doorstep before she even woke up.

Everyone in Australia seems to love Christmas fruitcake. One of our investigators made this cake, it was probably only 9x9 inches, but it weighed at least 10 pounds, it was so packed with fruit. She gave us a little corner of it, and we're still working on finishing it.

A scripture from my studies this morning comes to mind to share with you today. It is found in Alma 41:14 (in the Book of Mormon). It reads "Therefore my son, see that you are merciful unto your; deal justly, judge righteously,  and do good continually; and if ye do all these things then shall ye receive your reward; yea, we shall have mercy restored unto you again; ye shall have justice restored unto you again; ye shall have a righteous judgement restored unto you again; and ye shall have good rewarded unto you again." I know that during this Christmas time it's a little easier to do good to those around us. But as we strive to continue with that attitude all throughout the year, we will little by little become better, and become who God wants us to be. Then, at that day when we meet God again, the attributes and attitudes we have developed in this life will be returned to us again. And when we have done all we can to better our fellow man, we will stand with a clear conscience knowing we did all we could. That's my deep thought for Christmastime, I hope you all enjoy this time to spend with your families and friends, and to remember our Saviour Jesus Christ. I love you all!!

Fruitcake

Happy Birthday Sister Parker!

Angels We Have Heard On High

I love this Christmas season. It is such a beautiful time to be a missionary, talking about Jesus Christ all day long, when he happens to be on the minds of more and more people! It is so important to remember the true reason of why we have Christmas. Every day I get to share a video of how God loves us so much he sent his son, a savior, to be the Redeemer of the world.

We finally had our Christmas musical fireside, a presentation that we have been preparing for the past few weeks. It was the most beautiful spiritual experience for me to see all the hard work, practice and planning come together so well. This choir full of missionaries who didn't have much musical experience really did sound like angels singing together, and I loved it. What a blessing we had and have to sing and announce to the world that Jesus has been born, and will come again.

The Chinese lady we are teaching is named Giselle, and she said her first prayer this week! That by far is one of my most favorite parts of missionary work. Seeing people come closer to God and experience the love and comfort that it brings. She said her prayer in Chinese, and I literally had no idea what she was saying, but the Spirit was there, and she was so sincere, it was such a special lesson. I love this gospel, and I love my Heavenly Father and older brother Jesus Christ. I hope we can all try a little harder at this time to be the examples of Jesus Christ that He wants us to be, and let our lights shine.

I love you all!

The Last Door

It happened! I've actually been waiting for the experience of the last door, every missionary seems to have one. But it happened this week. We had planned to tract this whole street, and didn't get to finish it before we had to go to another appointment. Afterwards, we decided to go back and tract instead of visiting someone else. There were so many people who just didn't want to talk to us, closed the door in our faces. By now it was getting pretty late and we would have to go home soon. But we knocked on this one door and a Chinese lady answered and was talking to us for a while, then invited us in and introduced us to her husband and their boarder. They were super interested and we were able to teach them about prayer and say a prayer with them! We went back later this week and invited them to baptism. We didn't put a date on it, they were still a little hesitant, but it was great to see the Lord preparing people for us to meet, at just the right time in their lives. There are little miracles all around us. I love this work, and am so grateful to be a part of it. I'm stealing a thought from someone else, but there is so much to be grateful for, and it's important to recognize God's hand in our lives whenever we can. So basically, all day every day :)

KOALAS

Miracle of miracles, I saw 2 koalas on Saturday just running down the road. We stopped to look at the first one, then another car reversed into us trying to see the koala. Then we were occupied getting all his information, and lost sight of it. But we got to see another one running down this main road! We got out to see how close we could get, and it had started climbing a tree. But it was going up and down, and we had a staring contest. Honestly I was so happy, we were about 3 feet away from it, and I didn't get any closer cause I've been told they're really vicious. But it just looked so cute, like a little stuffed teddy bear. My first thought was Build-A-Bear :) So that was pretty exciting.

I wanted to share with you all my vision, or goal for what I want to become while I am here in Australia. My vision for my mission is "Persevere in faith to become an instrument in God's hands." I read a quote from Elder Wirthlin (an apostle of Jesus Christ - see Luke 6:13. The same thing happens in our day :) ) that talked about perseverance being a positive characteristic, and one that required our action. Not idly, passively waiting, but exercising our hope and faith to make miracles happen no matter what. It really inspired me to apply that while I'm here, to not ever give up, but give 110% in whatever the circumstances may be. I am giving all of my time to God for these 18 months, so really it is His time I'm on. To see myself as a tool that God can use to accomplish His purpose here, and giving up all of my wants to align my will with His.

1 John 4:18 - There is no fear in love; for perfect love casteth out fear. A great scripture for missionary work, which can also be applied in every single person's life. God loves us, and so we have no reason to fear. We can trust that He will take care of us. We will all have trials and challenges in life, but God never gives us more than we can handle. As we grow and come to love Him even more, we can be fearless in facing the future, because we know who is really in charge. God will always be on our side, and wants us to be the happiest we can be.

Have a wonderful week!