Cooked Avocados

Kia Ora!

So a couple weeks ago we got heaps of avocados from one of our recent converts. She just moved into a new house and lives pretty much right on an avocado orchard, so she gave us bags of avocados. And in the past, we would put our green avocados on the windowsill and they would ripen up and would be perfect, but now that it's getting warmer and the sun is becoming more deathly, it ended up cooking all, prbly 20  of our avocados. I wanted to cry and was depressed all week. We opened a couple and they just smelled awful. Thankfully we got some more this week, so it's all good. Just remember, don't put your avocados on the windowsill. I heard that putting them by apples actually help them ripen up.

Last week had a rough beginning, but it ended up flying by. First off, the most memorable experience I've had with a dog. So we were going to see these boys we haven't talked to in weeks (they're ready to get baptized, but their dad,who is hardly in the picture, isn't okay with it, so we were giving them time to breathe from us) anywho, so here, there is almost always a house behind every house you see on the road. So they live in the house in the back and you have to go down a little hill, we've been there several times, but this time, the front house had this beast of a dog. I started walking back there, but then the dog came running after us, so we ran back out to the street. We tried one more time, failed, the dog came running out again. So we decided to try to go around the other side. Worst idea ever, there's a wall on the side we first tried, but this other side, there isn't a wall around the back porch, so it was like running into the dog and he came BOLTING after us, I was so scared! & it's not easy running in flats. Then their neighbor heard us kind of screaming and running and said over the fence, "yous okay?" & I just lost it and busted up laughing at how ridiculous the situation was. We tried one more time, on the other side, but the dog still wanted to eat our faces, so we finally knocked on their door (their grandma is a less active who we've met before, who lives in the front house) and the grandma started laughing when we told her we had been running from the dog & she said she would hold the dog. & then we FINALLY made it back to the house, but they weren't home. But Heavenly Father knows we were trying! (PS like the first week we got here, I had a spider in my room and was FREAKING out and made Sister Perry kill it for me, now, I kill spiders all the time. They have a serious problem with spiders, especially daddy long legs here. But I was thinking how it's funny that I could hardly kill a spider that is a million times smaller than me, but I was so much more willing to try to face the dog that could bite my face than Sister Perry was. I'm so weird)

So this week I feel like we've had a huge emphasis on the Book of Mormon, maybe because Sister Perry & I both read the Ensign all about the Book of Mormon (PS if you haven't read it, you should, it's awesome. PPS At the end, they have pictures of like YSAs for this question part about the Book of Mormon, and of course the red head is the not-as-cute one, she has glasses, hardly no make up and her hair isn't that cute and she has a dorky face...Sister Perry was NOT happy that they were contributing to the bad reputation red heads have, while on the other had I was dying laughing about it). We also had a fireside last night with some musical numbers by the missionaries, some testimonies from recent converts (the two recent converts ended up taking up 30 minutes, where I'm sure the plan was 5 min at the max each), our mission president spoke and so did our stake president and they spoke about the Book of Mormon. & I've just really had it emphasized to me this week the importance of the Book of Mormon and how it really is the foundation to our whole church. If the Book of Mormon isn't true, then Joseph Smith wasn't a prophet, this isn't the true church, we don't have the real priesthood authority from God and everything else is a joke. & I know without a doubt that if anyone reads the Book of Mormon and prays with a sincere desire to receive an answer, they WILL receive it! & I know that when anyone receives that answer, it is just natural to have that desire to be baptized! So that's really what we've been working on this week. We had a lesson with this lady in Katikati who we met like over a month ago, but have had a hard time setting up a time to see her, and we taught the Restoration and gave her the Book of Mormon and I'm SO excited because I really think she is going to start reading it. I'm so excited to work with her! She seems so ready! A nice breath of fresh air because things have been rough lately. We had this guy getting ready to be baptized this weekend (he lives with a couple where the wife is a member, but the husband isn't) but found out that the husband is a horrible influence for him. The husband was coming to church at one point, but now he is quite against the church and has pulled Tao away from the church as well when we was doing so good before and reading the Book of Mormon all the time. But we're still holding on to him! We're trying so hard and hoping that we'll see some miracles soon! That's it for now, love you all! Enjoy your Halloween enough for me too! Halloween is not a big deal at all here, and hardly exists. I'm so sad.

Love, Sister Mullen

PS I'm in New Zealand. I'm a legit missionary. Both of those facts still blow my mind.

PPS the pictures attached are from our hike up Mount Maunganui again last week. & some sheep we saw walking down the mount. I actually feel like we see cows way more than sheep, but it's still more sheep than I've seen anywhere in the states.