I love Christmas time! Even though it really really doesn't feel like Christmas. Yesterday it was actually pretty rainy and got pretty chilly, so I pulled out my long sleeve sweaters and my boots and we had some milo and it definitely helped it feel more Christmas-y, but it's warm again today.
It's been kind of a crazy week with lots of ups and downs. Chrissie, our friend we met 2 weeks ago and is/was getting ready to be baptized on the 24th. Things were great, then she showed up to the chapel Friday night for her baptismal interview and things were not good. She had told her dad about tithing, and he was NOT happy with that. He's been very supportive of her and learning from us and going to this church, but he didn't want her to have to pay tithing b/c she can't afford it b/c he's already helping her financially as it is. So she wasn't planning on getting baptized the 24th, but she went ahead and had the interview w/ President Higgins, also to get some more advice and a priesthood blessing. We had a little chat with her more about the situation on Saturday, and we've both been trying really hard to cast out all doubt and have faith that this baptism will still go through. So we called her this morning to see how things were going with smoking and coffee and how the rest of her day was yesterday, and she said her dad is going to let her get baptized!! We were both freaking out and are just so excited!
We also have another girl getting baptized on Saturday. We started teaching her probably in September, but had to stop because her daughter in law, who she lives with, didn't want us around. Long story short, we were able to get a hold of her last week and she wants to get baptized on Saturday!
So there's this guy here, named Hiniwera Jones (I think that's how you spell his name). Anywho, he's a BIG deal. Some members told us that wealthy members in the states pay him $10,000 to fly to the states and teach them & whoever they invite for like 3 days. I think he does more, but I'm just not sure. So he had this fireside kind of deal (there's a special Maori name for it, but I can't remember it), and we had a couple of investigators show up and he talked about the design of the marae and how closely it relates to the gospel and it's just amazing! I love learning more about the maori culture!
I read Elder Hales's talk today about waiting upon the Lord. I realized that's something I've really learned to do as a missionary, b/c I can only go to my Heavenly Father or my companion to talk about things every day, and I've also come to learn how this really is the Lord's work and how much help I need from Him and I'm just thankful for how much I've been able to strengthen my relationship with my Heavenly Father over the last couple months. I then looked up "Strengthen" in the topical guide and it led me to Mosiah 24, where Amulon is threatening to kill anyone he catches praying, and it talks about how they pour out their hearts to the Lord and how much they were blessed for being patient, faithful and for keeping the covenants they made and I know that the same goes for us! I know without a doubt that the Lord really does want us to be happy and He's always there to help strengthen us, but we have to rely on Him and wait for things to happen according to His will, as hard as it can be sometimes. I love the gospel, and I love my Savior, Jesus Christ and am so thankful for Christmas and the time we have to remember why He came to the earth and the blessings we can receive as we all draw closer to Him. Hope you all have a good week getting ready for Christmas! Love yous!
Love,
Sister Mullen
PS I try to make my emails short, but it just never happens! Sorry bout it!
PPS I (nor Sister Perry) appreciates the comments we keep getting about us being from Utah. We went to a fireside in Whakatane, and there was a couple there, and both of them are actually from the states, and she talked to us afterwards about our musical number and she said "when I saw you guys up there, I figured you HAD to be from Utah? You two are from Utah, right?" Umm..no. And then driving to our Christmas Conference last week, we had an Elder in our car (from Utah) who we don't know super well, and he asked, "So where in Utah are you both from?" & then we found out that 4 of the 6 sisters at the VC right now are from Utah. We can be musically talented AND sister missionaries and not be from Utah. Thank you very much. & I'm just glad Sister Perry & I understand how each other feels, haha. (no offense to you Ariel!! Everyone just thinks all the members in the states come from Utah, haha)
Monday, December 19, 2011
Monday, December 12, 2011
2 Weeks Til Christmas!
Kia Ora!
Not too bad of a week this week. No crazy stories though. Definitely the highlight of the week was our Christmas Fireside we had last night. I was so excited about how many people came and I hope everyone enjoyed it, I was playing the piano for all the songs except two, so I don't really know how it felt to be watching from the audience. It took quite a bit of preparation on both of our parts. Sister Perry was much more involved in the organization process than I was, but it took lots of piano practice on my part, but just like all my piano festivals growing up, crazy how much I can prepare for one thing and how quickly it's all over. I played this Christmas Medley in a book mom sent me, and the rest were mostly just hymns sang as the congregation, then played O, Holy Night, which Sister Perry sang and then had a couple other numbers from members from the Otumoetai Ward and Katikati Branch. In the middle of the firesides, I realized that I just don't feel Christmas-y, I'm in such warm clothes and it's just weird not seeing everyone bundled up. I'm kind of missing having a cold Christmas, but I know I'll get home and be missing the warm New Zealand Christmases.
Things are going great with our investigator, Chrissie, who we met last week and set to be baptized on the 24th. She's decreased her smoking and cups of coffee a lot, but still has a way to go, but she was saying how she's been feeling happier and better knowing that she has self control. We had our ward Christmas Party friday night that she came to. She got a ride because she doesn't have a car, but her ride was the MC. We left at 8:45 so we could be home by 9:00, but we found out the next day that it went til 10:30 and it started at 6:30! Ahhh, it was a variety show and they brought some performing groups from the community too, but apparently had a ton of performances by the members as well. I definitely would not have stayed til the end if I was a member in that ward. But thankfully Chrissie said she enjoyed herself.
So we had a lesson with this guy that we met on the street, Kendall, he's quite religious and goes to church, so he knows lots about the Bible, but was interested in getting a Book of Mormon. The first lesson he was quite open and willing to listen, and his kind of creepy flatmate was the not-humble one. But the second lesson (when we went over the Book of Mormon and invited him to read it), it completely switched. He kept asking if we understood the danger of the statement we were making that this is the same church the Jesus Christ set up, and kept trying to say we thought Joseph Smith was our Savior and was just getting worked up about things, but it was obvious that he was scared to read it. Scared to find out that he's wrong in his church right now or scared to reject something that's true. We'll see if he read at all or not this week!
One things I am slightly tired of is people, like our friend Kendall, to question what I'm preaching and to just look at things deeper, or telling me I need to be born again and accept Jesus Christ in my life. You would think I would have done that before I volunteered and paid to do this. Unfortunately I know it's going to be happening the rest of my mission. I attached a picture of us, after our fireside, out in front of our flat. This week, I've realized how many and how big the trees are in the homes that I can see from our flat. I love New Zealand!
Love you all! Hope things are going well!
Love,
Ally
Not too bad of a week this week. No crazy stories though. Definitely the highlight of the week was our Christmas Fireside we had last night. I was so excited about how many people came and I hope everyone enjoyed it, I was playing the piano for all the songs except two, so I don't really know how it felt to be watching from the audience. It took quite a bit of preparation on both of our parts. Sister Perry was much more involved in the organization process than I was, but it took lots of piano practice on my part, but just like all my piano festivals growing up, crazy how much I can prepare for one thing and how quickly it's all over. I played this Christmas Medley in a book mom sent me, and the rest were mostly just hymns sang as the congregation, then played O, Holy Night, which Sister Perry sang and then had a couple other numbers from members from the Otumoetai Ward and Katikati Branch. In the middle of the firesides, I realized that I just don't feel Christmas-y, I'm in such warm clothes and it's just weird not seeing everyone bundled up. I'm kind of missing having a cold Christmas, but I know I'll get home and be missing the warm New Zealand Christmases.
Things are going great with our investigator, Chrissie, who we met last week and set to be baptized on the 24th. She's decreased her smoking and cups of coffee a lot, but still has a way to go, but she was saying how she's been feeling happier and better knowing that she has self control. We had our ward Christmas Party friday night that she came to. She got a ride because she doesn't have a car, but her ride was the MC. We left at 8:45 so we could be home by 9:00, but we found out the next day that it went til 10:30 and it started at 6:30! Ahhh, it was a variety show and they brought some performing groups from the community too, but apparently had a ton of performances by the members as well. I definitely would not have stayed til the end if I was a member in that ward. But thankfully Chrissie said she enjoyed herself.
So we had a lesson with this guy that we met on the street, Kendall, he's quite religious and goes to church, so he knows lots about the Bible, but was interested in getting a Book of Mormon. The first lesson he was quite open and willing to listen, and his kind of creepy flatmate was the not-humble one. But the second lesson (when we went over the Book of Mormon and invited him to read it), it completely switched. He kept asking if we understood the danger of the statement we were making that this is the same church the Jesus Christ set up, and kept trying to say we thought Joseph Smith was our Savior and was just getting worked up about things, but it was obvious that he was scared to read it. Scared to find out that he's wrong in his church right now or scared to reject something that's true. We'll see if he read at all or not this week!
One things I am slightly tired of is people, like our friend Kendall, to question what I'm preaching and to just look at things deeper, or telling me I need to be born again and accept Jesus Christ in my life. You would think I would have done that before I volunteered and paid to do this. Unfortunately I know it's going to be happening the rest of my mission. I attached a picture of us, after our fireside, out in front of our flat. This week, I've realized how many and how big the trees are in the homes that I can see from our flat. I love New Zealand!
Love you all! Hope things are going well!
Love,
Ally
Monday, December 5, 2011
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!
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!
Sunday, December 4, 2011
Disclaimer
I just recently posted 4 letters from Ally. So if you want to get caught up you have 4 lovely letters plus whatever she writes tonight.
Love,
Megan
Love,
Megan
Less than a month til Christmas!!
Hola! Christmas is in less than a month, woot woot! & the weather is beautiful and perfect today (we did a little spring cleaning...kinda weird right before Christmas) and the only reason I can really understand Christmas is almost here is because they have Christmas candy out in the stores, other than that, I probably wouldn't believe it.
It was a good week...we had Zone Conference on Thursday (that was my Thanksgiving) and we went over our purpose as missionaries and it was a good reminder and motivator to work as hard as you can...because that's why we're all here!
So last week when we went to Katikati, in an effort to save km's since we were planning on driving to Hamilton for Zone Conference, we decided to bike to our dinner appt that night. It was a rough ride, about 10 k's, about 35 min, up and down some hills and I was extremely tired in the middle of this long stretch up hill and thought we were never going to make it, but it was kind of fun at the same time. Even though girls in skirts on bikes is probably one of the most messed up ideas ever. Seriously. It's awful riding a bike in a skirt. Anywho, it'll be interesting being in a biking area. & I was shocked that my legs weren't sore the next day. I haven't ridden a bike in months! That's my picture this week...us and our lovely bikes. I'm working figuring out a name
The most exciting thing this week was when one of our investigators who we've been teaching for probably 6 weeks FINALLY came to church. She's been saying she wants to, but I think the biggest thing is that she's pretty shy, but we've been taking fellowship to meet her, so she felt comfortable knowing people a head of time and then we took her on a tour of the chapel last week (she's out in Katikati). The biggest problem with her is that she won't give us her phone number for some reason, she said she just doesn't like giving her number out, so we can only talk to her when we're out in Katikati and couldn't call her Sunday morning. So we got to Katikati and were so excited when we saw her car in the car park and she had a really good experience. Yay! And all the members were being so helpful with her and her baby, I loved it. She's definitely planning on coming again. She's so good and believes what we've taught her, but it's been hard, obviously, getting her to church and working on getting her to read more from the Book of Mormon.
We had a pretty intense encounter with a dog this week while tracting. So apparently it's a law that you have to have a sign on your gate if you have a dog. We were walking up to one house that had a tall, wooden gate and I was thinking, "Big gate...they probably have a big dog." But I didn't see a sign, so I went in. Then it was a pretty long walk up to the door, in between cars, up the stairs, and then around the corner was the door. The door was open, and as I was knocking, I saw this huge dog sitting on the other side of the couch RIGHT by the door and turned to Sister Perry and said, "Big Dog!" and she BOLTED out of there, and so that scared me more, and then I hear the dog barking, so I'm running as fast as I can trying to keep up with Sister Perry, end up losing a shoe and sock, but I could hear the dog right behind me and didn't think it was worth it to stop, so I just ran out the gate. Sis Perry was dying laughing when she saw me with only one shoe on. I was hoping that he wasn't going to eat my shoe, then about a minute later, the owner came out, we gave him our missionary shpeel, he wasn't interested, and started walking in, and then I asked for my shoe. My goodness, I can feel the adrenaline rush thinking about that. I was shaking so bad afterwards I was so scared, haha. Not cool having to run in flats!!
One more: my Zone Leader, who rode in our car to Zone Conference, asked if I could express myself via hands or facial expressions and not so much with my voice, haha, some things never change.
One of my favortie General Conference talks was Elder Scott's talk about the power of scriptures and it just really hit me how important and beneficial it is to memorize scriptures. I decided to start working on that more, it's just hard because I want to use my personal study to study more, but I've decided I just need to take the time to memorize scriptures! I'm also surprised how well I remember the scriptures from seminary and just realized thankful I am that Sis Johns really helped us to memorize all those in seminary because they're just good to have! Like Elder Scott said, they're friends that you can call on at anytime that won't change over time! So I guess I'm encouraging everyone to memorize a scripture this week! The two I memorized this morning were Moroni 7;16-17 about the Spirit of Christ (I guess that was re-memorizing since it's a master scripture) and also Alma 7:23-24, just values we need to have in this life in order to be blessed! I love the scriptures and it really is a wonderful blessing to have them and be able to study them everyday!
That was kind of a long email, sorry! Hope everyone is whipping out the Christmas decorations! I don't know when we're getting a tree...but I want it NOW! Love you all!
Love,
Sister Mullen
It was a good week...we had Zone Conference on Thursday (that was my Thanksgiving) and we went over our purpose as missionaries and it was a good reminder and motivator to work as hard as you can...because that's why we're all here!
So last week when we went to Katikati, in an effort to save km's since we were planning on driving to Hamilton for Zone Conference, we decided to bike to our dinner appt that night. It was a rough ride, about 10 k's, about 35 min, up and down some hills and I was extremely tired in the middle of this long stretch up hill and thought we were never going to make it, but it was kind of fun at the same time. Even though girls in skirts on bikes is probably one of the most messed up ideas ever. Seriously. It's awful riding a bike in a skirt. Anywho, it'll be interesting being in a biking area. & I was shocked that my legs weren't sore the next day. I haven't ridden a bike in months! That's my picture this week...us and our lovely bikes. I'm working figuring out a name
The most exciting thing this week was when one of our investigators who we've been teaching for probably 6 weeks FINALLY came to church. She's been saying she wants to, but I think the biggest thing is that she's pretty shy, but we've been taking fellowship to meet her, so she felt comfortable knowing people a head of time and then we took her on a tour of the chapel last week (she's out in Katikati). The biggest problem with her is that she won't give us her phone number for some reason, she said she just doesn't like giving her number out, so we can only talk to her when we're out in Katikati and couldn't call her Sunday morning. So we got to Katikati and were so excited when we saw her car in the car park and she had a really good experience. Yay! And all the members were being so helpful with her and her baby, I loved it. She's definitely planning on coming again. She's so good and believes what we've taught her, but it's been hard, obviously, getting her to church and working on getting her to read more from the Book of Mormon.
We had a pretty intense encounter with a dog this week while tracting. So apparently it's a law that you have to have a sign on your gate if you have a dog. We were walking up to one house that had a tall, wooden gate and I was thinking, "Big gate...they probably have a big dog." But I didn't see a sign, so I went in. Then it was a pretty long walk up to the door, in between cars, up the stairs, and then around the corner was the door. The door was open, and as I was knocking, I saw this huge dog sitting on the other side of the couch RIGHT by the door and turned to Sister Perry and said, "Big Dog!" and she BOLTED out of there, and so that scared me more, and then I hear the dog barking, so I'm running as fast as I can trying to keep up with Sister Perry, end up losing a shoe and sock, but I could hear the dog right behind me and didn't think it was worth it to stop, so I just ran out the gate. Sis Perry was dying laughing when she saw me with only one shoe on. I was hoping that he wasn't going to eat my shoe, then about a minute later, the owner came out, we gave him our missionary shpeel, he wasn't interested, and started walking in, and then I asked for my shoe. My goodness, I can feel the adrenaline rush thinking about that. I was shaking so bad afterwards I was so scared, haha. Not cool having to run in flats!!
One more: my Zone Leader, who rode in our car to Zone Conference, asked if I could express myself via hands or facial expressions and not so much with my voice, haha, some things never change.
One of my favortie General Conference talks was Elder Scott's talk about the power of scriptures and it just really hit me how important and beneficial it is to memorize scriptures. I decided to start working on that more, it's just hard because I want to use my personal study to study more, but I've decided I just need to take the time to memorize scriptures! I'm also surprised how well I remember the scriptures from seminary and just realized thankful I am that Sis Johns really helped us to memorize all those in seminary because they're just good to have! Like Elder Scott said, they're friends that you can call on at anytime that won't change over time! So I guess I'm encouraging everyone to memorize a scripture this week! The two I memorized this morning were Moroni 7;16-17 about the Spirit of Christ (I guess that was re-memorizing since it's a master scripture) and also Alma 7:23-24, just values we need to have in this life in order to be blessed! I love the scriptures and it really is a wonderful blessing to have them and be able to study them everyday!
That was kind of a long email, sorry! Hope everyone is whipping out the Christmas decorations! I don't know when we're getting a tree...but I want it NOW! Love you all!
Love,
Sister Mullen
Happy Thanksgiving over there
Well, we had our 2nd transfer last week and as much as Sister Perry and I wanted to stay together for Christmas (b/c we both love it so much) we were quite certain that one of us would be transferred because she's my trainer, and we were both thinking I was going to be the one staying. We were in the car with the Elders giving them a ride when they got the call about transfers, and we both ended up staying her in Tauranga! We were shocked. We said we probably wouldn't have believed the elders when they called us if we weren't in the car for the call, haha. I was telling Sister Perry how I was bracing myself for the worst, but I've been so blessed with my comp in the MTC and especially Sister Perry. She has helped me so much and we're just such good friends now! I really do feel like a married couple sometimes, haha. So we clearly need to be in this area for a reason, and things have been slow lately, so we're trying to think of how to do things differently, and I was getting pretty stressed last week with everything that's going on and trying to get less actives back to church. It's just a lot of work in this ward...so bring it! & I'll try not to stress out too much, haha. We're also planning a Christmas musical fireside for our ward, so that was adding to the stress as well. Saturday we were going to visit a lot of former investigators because we figured it's easier to say no over the phone instead of in person, but unfortunately a lot had moved, or still weren't interested. But one house, the formers had moved, and so we asked the lady living there now if she was interested and she said , "I think you're all crazy!" and walked off laughing and waving her arms and said, "I don't believe in visible people in the sky!" Not sure if that was about the first vision or what, but it was just really funny. I know lots of people think I'm crazy, but they don't always tell me. Oh the people you get to meet as a missionary!
I almost forgot that Thanksgiving was this week, clearly that doesn't exist here, so we won't be doing anything special. We're eating with some members in our ward on Thursday who told us that they found a place that sells New York sized pizzas (as in American sized pizzas. Here, a large is probably a medium in the states), they were pretty excited telling us about the pizzas, so it looks like we'll be having pizza for Thanksgiving. Oh, and Zone Conference that day, too.
I attached a picture of our district. This was after district meeting last week and we were pretty sure there were going to be some big changes, but it turns out only one elder got transferred from our district, so we're still all together. I'm excited because we're all pretty good friends. In the picture, (L to R): Elder Naicker, me, Elder Martin (who got transferred to Niue, check it out on a map. They stay there for 6 months because it's another country so they have to get another visa, and they just do service the whole time since all 2000 ppl there have heard about the gospel, kind of awesome) Elder Fuataga in front (don't tell him I said so, but obviously he loves the camera), Elder Thomas is behind him, and Sister Perry!
Funny story: The Zone Leaders asked me if my first name was Algah because they saw the card I got from Izzy, but the weird thing is when they asked me that, they also gave me a letter (from Chelsey :) ) that obviously had Allyson on it and they've given me mail in the past, but apparently only looked at that one card. Not the brightest bunch sometimes, haha
I also attached a picture of one of the many gorgeous sunsets we have! The weather has been beautiful here this past week! Like I've said a million times before, it's going to be weird having a warm Christmas, but I'm excited!
Love and miss you all! Have a good thanksgiving!
Love,
Sister Mullen
I almost forgot that Thanksgiving was this week, clearly that doesn't exist here, so we won't be doing anything special. We're eating with some members in our ward on Thursday who told us that they found a place that sells New York sized pizzas (as in American sized pizzas. Here, a large is probably a medium in the states), they were pretty excited telling us about the pizzas, so it looks like we'll be having pizza for Thanksgiving. Oh, and Zone Conference that day, too.
I attached a picture of our district. This was after district meeting last week and we were pretty sure there were going to be some big changes, but it turns out only one elder got transferred from our district, so we're still all together. I'm excited because we're all pretty good friends. In the picture, (L to R): Elder Naicker, me, Elder Martin (who got transferred to Niue, check it out on a map. They stay there for 6 months because it's another country so they have to get another visa, and they just do service the whole time since all 2000 ppl there have heard about the gospel, kind of awesome) Elder Fuataga in front (don't tell him I said so, but obviously he loves the camera), Elder Thomas is behind him, and Sister Perry!
Funny story: The Zone Leaders asked me if my first name was Algah because they saw the card I got from Izzy, but the weird thing is when they asked me that, they also gave me a letter (from Chelsey :) ) that obviously had Allyson on it and they've given me mail in the past, but apparently only looked at that one card. Not the brightest bunch sometimes, haha
I also attached a picture of one of the many gorgeous sunsets we have! The weather has been beautiful here this past week! Like I've said a million times before, it's going to be weird having a warm Christmas, but I'm excited!
Love and miss you all! Have a good thanksgiving!
Love,
Sister Mullen
COUNT CHOCULA!!!!
So basically Mom is the best. I can't believe I completely forgot about Count Chocula til I went digging through my much anticipated package and found a box of Count Chocula. Even my companion was a witness of how excited I was.
First off, let's back track to the week before last. I can't believe I forgot to write about the Relief Society Christmas party we had in the Katikati Branch! Dinner was delicious, but we had a little variety show aftewards, Sister Perry & I did some songs (they love us two, I play, she sings, and everyone is in love with her voice). And then some of the sisters got up and did some Maori dances with a song and it was so fun! Sister Perry & I both agreed that it's pretty lame being white because we have no culture. We were trying to think of something American to do, uhh...Yankee Doodle Went to Town? It was just fun to see everyone loosen up outside of church and I fell more in love with that Branch!
Saturday we took two investigators to the Visitor's Centre again, and because the ward says there's no money for anything missionary related, they just put us on the bus that the Stake takes once a month on Stake temple day. So the bus left at 7, we got there around 8:45, but the VC didn't open til 10, and then were there til 3 because they were doing two sessions. It was a LONG day. So to change up the picture of my comp & I in front of the temple, guess what I did to change things up? Jumping picture! & this one is pretty funny. My hair just cracks me up!
So yesterday, we were tracting around the neighborhood of our dinner appt, which is also the street of one of our former investigators. So our dinner appt fell through, so we went back to the street we were tracting on before. As we were parking the car, we saw our former investigator, Redem, walking down the street. Long story short, she's living with her daughter in law, we were teaching them both, but the daughter in law ended up not wanting us to come to her house anymore, so Redem broke up with us. So we didn't know how Redem was going to treat us as she walked by (So Redem is this 60+ yr old lady from the Philippines), and she hung up her phone and came over to the car to tell us her son in Australia just got baptized, told us to text her so we could meet with her this week and asked if it's okay if she asks all her family in the Philippines to join the church. Kind of a miracle! Hopefully SHE wants to get baptized. She just needs to come to church one more time. It was just such a blessing that we happened to be in the right place at the right time. I don't really care that after tracting for 2 hrs, we didn't have any follow up appts, I'm just glad that we were able to talk to Redem! Hopefully things go will with her!
I have 25 more pages to go in the Book of Mormon. I have LOVED reading it so fast. I feel like I understand the stories so much better of how everything relates. & basically the biggest theme of the Book of Mormon is that life can be GREAT when you're trusting in the Lord and striving to be obedient, and it's amazing how quickly everything can go bad when you get prideful and forget the Lord and no longer make him a priority in your life. I also liked how it said that the Nephites brought these wars upon themselves because they were being wicked and naughty and they could have avoided them if they had just been obedient and remembered the commandments God gave them. Clearly that is something that relates to us today, life really is so much better when we trust the Lord and exercise faith and be obedient. Blessings are predicated on obedience to specific commandments! I love the Book of Mormon and I know without a doubt that it was written for us today!!
Another picture is of us and Sister Moka. She has every missionary who serves in this ward go to her house to make a rock with their name, home town and today's date. She paints the rocks black, we write on em with gel pens and glitter glue, and she paints them with a clear coat. & then she gave us each a rock that she did herself. We got the same design, it's a picture of Tauranga harbor with Mount Maunganui and Matakana Island.
That's it for now. Kind of a long letter. But I have plenty of time to write since I don't have to take much time reading emails :) Love you! Talk to you next week!
Love, Sister Mullen
PS Before I forget, I don't know if Lauren is reading these, but I tried L&P ages ago. It's alright. It takes like lemon flavored, carbonated water. I feel like it could grow on me, but since I hardly ever drink sodas anymore, it just burns my mouth and I think it's something I'll pass on, haha, but I tried it just for you! Also tried toffee pops, so good. But not sure why they're called toffee pops...As far as I know, there isn't any toffee in there.
First off, let's back track to the week before last. I can't believe I forgot to write about the Relief Society Christmas party we had in the Katikati Branch! Dinner was delicious, but we had a little variety show aftewards, Sister Perry & I did some songs (they love us two, I play, she sings, and everyone is in love with her voice). And then some of the sisters got up and did some Maori dances with a song and it was so fun! Sister Perry & I both agreed that it's pretty lame being white because we have no culture. We were trying to think of something American to do, uhh...Yankee Doodle Went to Town? It was just fun to see everyone loosen up outside of church and I fell more in love with that Branch!
Saturday we took two investigators to the Visitor's Centre again, and because the ward says there's no money for anything missionary related, they just put us on the bus that the Stake takes once a month on Stake temple day. So the bus left at 7, we got there around 8:45, but the VC didn't open til 10, and then were there til 3 because they were doing two sessions. It was a LONG day. So to change up the picture of my comp & I in front of the temple, guess what I did to change things up? Jumping picture! & this one is pretty funny. My hair just cracks me up!
So yesterday, we were tracting around the neighborhood of our dinner appt, which is also the street of one of our former investigators. So our dinner appt fell through, so we went back to the street we were tracting on before. As we were parking the car, we saw our former investigator, Redem, walking down the street. Long story short, she's living with her daughter in law, we were teaching them both, but the daughter in law ended up not wanting us to come to her house anymore, so Redem broke up with us. So we didn't know how Redem was going to treat us as she walked by (So Redem is this 60+ yr old lady from the Philippines), and she hung up her phone and came over to the car to tell us her son in Australia just got baptized, told us to text her so we could meet with her this week and asked if it's okay if she asks all her family in the Philippines to join the church. Kind of a miracle! Hopefully SHE wants to get baptized. She just needs to come to church one more time. It was just such a blessing that we happened to be in the right place at the right time. I don't really care that after tracting for 2 hrs, we didn't have any follow up appts, I'm just glad that we were able to talk to Redem! Hopefully things go will with her!
I have 25 more pages to go in the Book of Mormon. I have LOVED reading it so fast. I feel like I understand the stories so much better of how everything relates. & basically the biggest theme of the Book of Mormon is that life can be GREAT when you're trusting in the Lord and striving to be obedient, and it's amazing how quickly everything can go bad when you get prideful and forget the Lord and no longer make him a priority in your life. I also liked how it said that the Nephites brought these wars upon themselves because they were being wicked and naughty and they could have avoided them if they had just been obedient and remembered the commandments God gave them. Clearly that is something that relates to us today, life really is so much better when we trust the Lord and exercise faith and be obedient. Blessings are predicated on obedience to specific commandments! I love the Book of Mormon and I know without a doubt that it was written for us today!!
Another picture is of us and Sister Moka. She has every missionary who serves in this ward go to her house to make a rock with their name, home town and today's date. She paints the rocks black, we write on em with gel pens and glitter glue, and she paints them with a clear coat. & then she gave us each a rock that she did herself. We got the same design, it's a picture of Tauranga harbor with Mount Maunganui and Matakana Island.
That's it for now. Kind of a long letter. But I have plenty of time to write since I don't have to take much time reading emails :) Love you! Talk to you next week!
Love, Sister Mullen
PS Before I forget, I don't know if Lauren is reading these, but I tried L&P ages ago. It's alright. It takes like lemon flavored, carbonated water. I feel like it could grow on me, but since I hardly ever drink sodas anymore, it just burns my mouth and I think it's something I'll pass on, haha, but I tried it just for you! Also tried toffee pops, so good. But not sure why they're called toffee pops...As far as I know, there isn't any toffee in there.
It's beginning to look a lot like Christmas...oh wait
Hola!
Well, things are starting to warm up here and I love it! This transfer feels like it's been pretty slow, but it's crazy thinking we only have a week and a half more, and even crazier that we only have one week left of my training. Ahh, it's going to be weird only having comp study for an hour a day instead of two hours, an hour seems like hardly enough time! & who wants to talk to you at 10 am?
So this week, we met up with this guy that we taught one lesson to a couple weeks ago, and it turns out that the day after our lesson he got an email about the Mormon beliefs, and of course it was wrong and written by a non-member. He gave it to us and we just glanced over it, it had a lot of true stuff, but plenty of false stuff. Especially the last sentence that says that Mormons are led by a distorted view of God's nature and whatever else. Anywho, the lesson we taught him was about the Restoration and about reading and praying about the Book of Mormon to receive an answer, but he took this email that he randomly got the next day as his answer, so we talked about how the only way he can really find out if the Book of Mormon is true and if this is the true church of Jesus Christ, then he needs to sincerely read, ponder, and pray to receive an answer. We asked him if he had, and obviously he hadn't. Hopefully we'll be able to go see him tomorrow and we'll see how he's been going. It's been so hard to get our investigators to read the Book of Mormon lately. Like this one man we are teaching, he's married to a member and has been to church several times. Last week, as in October 30, we went over the Book of Mormon intro with him about reading, pondering, and praying, and then yesterday we had another lesson with him (he lives in Katikati, so we only get to seem them once, maybe twice a week) and he hasn't read at all, and we asked him if we had gone over the intro with him, and he said no, so we went over it again, and then afterwards I realized we had gone over it with him. Ugh. So we also talked about how as you pray and come to know the Book of Mormon is true, you can also come to know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, that Joseph Smith was and is a prophet, and that this is the true church of Jesus Christ, and he said he really wants to know if this is the true church, so I hope he really does read this week! Things have been a little slow this week, we're trying so hard to know what to do to get things moving.
Oh! So last week I had been talking about how I just want to read the Book of Mormon super fast for once, so on Wednesday we decided to start reading and finish it by transfers on the 17th and it's been so fun! Every meal we eat at home, we eat super fast and read the rest of the hour and come home and read at night, I said it's like reading Harry Potter, haha, you just get sucked in. And it's cool because it just gives me a different perspective of the Book of Mormon and is helping me see how all the people and all the experiences relate to each other better, even though we were talking about how we want a family tree of the people of the Book of Mormon so we can know how everyone is related.
Well, I think that's about it for this week. Hope everything is going well with everyone. Sounds like Dad had fun in California last week. I still can't get over how big the primary is in your ward, Kurt and Jenn. And feel free to send me Halloween pictures anyone!
One more thing, so Saturday was Guy Fawkes' day here, and Guy Fawkes' apparently tried to blow up some government/parliament building (I'm not really sure) in England...so now people in New Zealand have bon fires and set off fireworks. Doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but that's what they do! It's been fun to see fireworks all weekend.
Love you all!
-Sister Mullen
Well, things are starting to warm up here and I love it! This transfer feels like it's been pretty slow, but it's crazy thinking we only have a week and a half more, and even crazier that we only have one week left of my training. Ahh, it's going to be weird only having comp study for an hour a day instead of two hours, an hour seems like hardly enough time! & who wants to talk to you at 10 am?
So this week, we met up with this guy that we taught one lesson to a couple weeks ago, and it turns out that the day after our lesson he got an email about the Mormon beliefs, and of course it was wrong and written by a non-member. He gave it to us and we just glanced over it, it had a lot of true stuff, but plenty of false stuff. Especially the last sentence that says that Mormons are led by a distorted view of God's nature and whatever else. Anywho, the lesson we taught him was about the Restoration and about reading and praying about the Book of Mormon to receive an answer, but he took this email that he randomly got the next day as his answer, so we talked about how the only way he can really find out if the Book of Mormon is true and if this is the true church of Jesus Christ, then he needs to sincerely read, ponder, and pray to receive an answer. We asked him if he had, and obviously he hadn't. Hopefully we'll be able to go see him tomorrow and we'll see how he's been going. It's been so hard to get our investigators to read the Book of Mormon lately. Like this one man we are teaching, he's married to a member and has been to church several times. Last week, as in October 30, we went over the Book of Mormon intro with him about reading, pondering, and praying, and then yesterday we had another lesson with him (he lives in Katikati, so we only get to seem them once, maybe twice a week) and he hasn't read at all, and we asked him if we had gone over the intro with him, and he said no, so we went over it again, and then afterwards I realized we had gone over it with him. Ugh. So we also talked about how as you pray and come to know the Book of Mormon is true, you can also come to know that Jesus Christ is the Savior of the world, that Joseph Smith was and is a prophet, and that this is the true church of Jesus Christ, and he said he really wants to know if this is the true church, so I hope he really does read this week! Things have been a little slow this week, we're trying so hard to know what to do to get things moving.
Oh! So last week I had been talking about how I just want to read the Book of Mormon super fast for once, so on Wednesday we decided to start reading and finish it by transfers on the 17th and it's been so fun! Every meal we eat at home, we eat super fast and read the rest of the hour and come home and read at night, I said it's like reading Harry Potter, haha, you just get sucked in. And it's cool because it just gives me a different perspective of the Book of Mormon and is helping me see how all the people and all the experiences relate to each other better, even though we were talking about how we want a family tree of the people of the Book of Mormon so we can know how everyone is related.
Well, I think that's about it for this week. Hope everything is going well with everyone. Sounds like Dad had fun in California last week. I still can't get over how big the primary is in your ward, Kurt and Jenn. And feel free to send me Halloween pictures anyone!
One more thing, so Saturday was Guy Fawkes' day here, and Guy Fawkes' apparently tried to blow up some government/parliament building (I'm not really sure) in England...so now people in New Zealand have bon fires and set off fireworks. Doesn't really make a whole lot of sense, but that's what they do! It's been fun to see fireworks all weekend.
Love you all!
-Sister Mullen
Apology
I apologize for the lack of posting Ally's letters. I didn't realize how backed up I was. I will get on that ASAP.
Much Love,
Megan
Much Love,
Megan
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)