I wish I spoke Maori...

Kia Ora!

This week was SUCH a good week! Full of miracles and just so exciting! First off, one of the not-so-happy parts of this was the first counselor, Bro. Hona, in the Katikati branch died this week chasing one of his cows. He was probably in his 70s and just doing too strenuous of an activity for his age/health. So that's why my email is late today because we went to his funeral this morning. It was crazy to see their little chapel PACKED! So we also went to a service they had at the Marae last night and it was so cool to just see more of the maori culture. Once again, I went lame and white and uncultured! We went to Katikati for Sacrament Meeting and it was one of the most powerful Sacrament Meetings I've ever been too. They have some members with AMAZING testimonies in that branch. Especially the wife of the 1st counselor, Sis Hona. She just loves the gospel so much and loves missionary work and is just an amazing example of putting the Lord first. So the deal is that they keep the body at the marae for a couple of days before the funeral, and the family stays there the whole 2 days, which was Saturday and Sunday, but Sis Hona left to come to church, and when she bore her testimony, she said, "I'm probably breaking the marae protocol by being here at church (instead of being with her husband's body) but the Lord comes first and this is where I need to be to fulfill my responsibility." I have just come to love the Katikati branch so much and am so humbled to be working with all of those members!

We just had a really effective week and have had lots of appointments and have just been so busy the last couple of days and it has felt so good. So our awesome miracle of the week is on Thursday we were driving to an appt and we both were thinking how we just needed to get there, we saw a lady on the sidewalk, and Sister Perry almost kept on driving, but then last minute decided to pull over and I jumped out to talk to her, told her a little bit about prophets and she said she would like to learn more, so we set up an appt for Tuesday (as in tomorrow) because we were busy for the next several days, but then thankfully things changed and we were able to see her Friday. We ended up just going over church attendance because she said she's been thinking about going to church lately and wants to make new, good friends to help her out because she's been going through some hard times, so she came to church on Sunday and she LOVED it and just felt so comfortable in Relief Society with everyone else, and then we went over Sunday after church, taught her a little bit about the Atonement and Christ's baptism and why we are baptized and invited her to be baptized on Dec 24 and she said yes! It was just an amazing lesson and the Spirit was so strong! I already love this girl so much and just feel so ridiculously blessed to have met her and how she really has been prepared for to receive the gospel! I am just so excited to work with her and already feel so close to her. Oh, and when we walked up to her door for our lesson yesterday, her door was open and I could see her sitting on the chair from the door reading the Gospel Principles book. It doesn't get better than that!

We also met a guy, by pulling over on the side of the street, who was born in Dallas and has actually been to El Paso, who knew I'd meet someone in NZ who has been to EP.

I've been trying to recognize blessings and tender mercies we've been receiving throughout the day and it has been so fun! haha, like last Wednesday wasn't that great because we didn't have a ton of appointments, but it was a good day because we could look back and see how we were inspired to stop by and see certain people or just random things that worked out perfectly. I know that we all have more tender mercies every day than we realize and I know as we look for them, we'll begin to see how much Heavenly Father is involved in our lives and how much he really does care about us! Sunday during Sacrament Meeting, with Bro Hona's death, I was just overwhelmed with my love for the gospel. How wonderful it is at times like that to know that there is a much more wonderful life waiting for us after we die and to know that we have a Heavenly Father who knows each and everyone one of us by name. I love the gospel so much and am so thankful that the Lord saw me worth to represent the church and my Savior, Jesus Christ. I love you all! Hope everyone's getting ready for Christmas! Dad told me when everyone eats their candy from their candy calendars, I'm amazed that Izzy and Zoie wait til night. I remember always taking my candy with me on my way to school.

Love,
     SIster Mullen

PS we finally got some Christmas decorations up. Because decorations are so expensive (a strand of 50 lights is $8, and good tinsel is $8 too) we got 2 strands of lights, some super pathetic tinsel that was $2 and wrapping paper to put on the walls, haha, SOOOO ghetto, but we gotta take what we can get! And then one of our investigators bought us a tree with ornaments and it made a world of a difference. Christmas trees just bring so much happiness into the room!