I Love New Zealand!

Yep. That's it. I love it here.

 

FINALLY did something fun this p-day! Yay! We are blessed with k's this month because our car is getting fixed after it got swiped during one of our appts, so we're using another car and it doesn't take away from our total k's, so we went to the Elders' area in Ngaruawihia (I think that's how you spell it) and went and hiked some mountain up there, don't know what it was called, haha. Some members just told em about it, so we decided to go out there. Pretty steep climb, with heaps of steps (they heard that there was 1000 steps or something). Anyway, it was beautiful, So many trees and plants you couldn't see out of them. The sign said it would take an hour to get to the top and we thought we might be short on time, but thankfully we went to the top because it wasn't that long and it was gorgeous! I forgot my camera cord, so pictures will have to wait til next week. Hopefully we're going to hike up to some waterfalls next week too! It feels good to have a good p-day.

 

Let's see, what happened this week. We have two pretty keen investigators in one ward. One is a member referral, she's 14 and so cute. She came to Stake Conference yesterday, and after talking to her after church when we asked her how she felt she said, "It was indescribable." Thankfully a good indescribable. We set her for baptism on the phone, she didn't know a whole lot about it, but after teaching about baptism and he Holy Ghost and how the feelings she had at church were from the Holy Ghost, she said she would LOVE to have more of those feelings. I'm excited to teach her more! And the members that picked her up told her about mutual as well, ahh! Dream come true when the members help out so much!

 

We have another girl who is so ready to get baptized, but has some family concerns. We're praying to know how to help her. We found out some more information from a member, like if something happens with her visa here and she has to go back to Samoa, her family isn't happy with her going to our church, so she would have to do everything undercover to be able to go to church. Something our district leader has been pushing us to do is to exercise our faith as a principle of power, which is really going to help me to exercise my faith and to make it stronger. Praying for a miracle so that we can have another baptism this month! Our mission goal for the year is 2012 baptisms! Yay! So this means we have to like 167 per month, and we were all invited to pray about it, which we did and know it was an inspired goal from our mission president, so we've got to do our part to help reach that goal and I know that people are ready! We just gotta find them! Something I need to work on is just really, truly, believing that we can have those miracles that we ask for. I was reading Enos today and in there it says, "Whatsoever thing ye shall ask in faith, believing that ye shall receive in the name of Christ, ye shall receive it." We really do just have to have faith! & serving a mission in New Zealand has really opened my eyes to the fact that miracles still happen today all over the place! At the end of last year, we were asked to email in our favortie miracle and they made a "Book of Miracles" with a miracle from each missionary and it's been a good reminder to read it and to see how we never know how miracles can happen! So keep your eyes open for the miracles!

 

Love you all! Hope you have a good week!

 

-Sister Mullen

Half Way Official

So like the first week I got to the VC, I ordered a nametag that says "New Zealand Temple Visitors' Centre" under my name, and I FINALLY got it last week at transfers and was SO excited for it, because that's what I get excited about, new name tags, and then I opened it...& was as depressed as I was excited. The nametag was a pocket one, which I have no way to wear. But I ordered a clip one, so hopefully it gets here soon.

 

I can't believe I've already had a whole transfer here at Hamilton! This past 6 weeks flew by! & yep, I'm still in Hamilton, still with Sister Clark--bring on the new transfer! One change though is that we changed the district we're in, so instead of 3 sister companionships and 1 set of elders, we'll be with 2 or 3 sets of elders. I'm excited for the change, elders just keep things exciting and more interesting.

 

So we had a baptism this week, woot woot! And the more we spend time with this girl, the more I see how we would be legit friends even if I wasn't a missionary. I just love how she has no shame and does dorky things. She was SO excited for her baptism and after her confirmation, it was so fun. Right after she got baptized, still in the font, she threw her fist in the air and said, "Yeeah!" Probably not the most appropriate,but I loved it because it was so her.

  

We had a lesson with one guy, covered in tattoos, has "HELL" across his knuckles, pretty nice and chatty guy. His son has cerebal palsey, he actually didn't let us talk a whole lot except when I just butted myself in and didn't let him interrupt me, but when we were getting ready to leave, he told us, "You two are freakishly the most interesting messengers I've ever met." uhhh...thank you?

 

This happened a couple weeks ago on chat, I was feeling like being fun and saw that I was chatting with Eduardo from Mexico, so I said, "Hola Eduardo!" And he said, "That's racist...I'm German." I never found out if he was serious or not, but it'll probably be a while before I do something like that again, haha.

 

So our mission president wants us all to have a 5 minute talk on the Atonement and then another on the Plan of Salvation incase we randomly have to get up to speak in Sacrament Meeting, and as I've been working on improving mine, it's been fun to learn new things even though I feel like I'm forever away from being able to understand the Atonement. But one thing that stuck out to me that I learned this week, from reading an Ensign article by Elder Holland, was that we have unconditional gifts from the Atonement, like resurrection, and then we have conditional gifts that are dependent on our faithfulness, but even the "conditional" gifts aren't really earned by ourselves, they're still given freely by the Savior and His grace. I know that we are all blessed more than we realize every single day because of the Atonement and I know that it is the most important even that has and ever will happen in the history of mankind. I am so thankful for my Savior and all that He was willing to sacrifice for each and everyone of us!

 

Hopefully I have more to tell you next week, love you all!

 

-Sister Mullen

Happy Waitangi Day!!!!

Another holiday!

 

This week has been good! I think I mentioned this investigator last week, but her name is Ngavaine, she's the hip-hop dancer, and we found out that she's on the team called Request, which is as good as it gets in NZ. Apparently Request was on America's Best Dance Crew a couple summers ago, I vaguely remember hearing about them. This is probably as close as I'll get to teaching a celebrity of New Zealand, haha. Anywho, she's awesome! I feel like she's just one of my best friends now and it's always so exciting to see her. Definitely a confirmation that this is where I need to be by meeting people that I have become good friends with! She's also been the perfect investigator, so willing to accept everything we tell her, especially the commandments, and has heaps of friends who are members. Everything has been going so smoothly with her, it's been a huge blessing! The plan is for her to get baptized on Thursday afternoon and apparently people are taking off work to drive down to Auckland to be here for it.

 

Highlights of the week: long story short, we were outside for two hours because a member who came with us to an appt, her car died, we tried to jump it (I didn't know you have to push the gas to get it to actually jump...but now I do! I can't believe I'm going to be a Mechanical Engineer sometimes...), but ended up walking around trying to find members who were home since we couldn't take her in our car...it was completely overcast and even sprinkling sometimes, and my part STILL got burned. Yeah, the NZ sun is a little more intense.

 

Sometimes when things are slow inside the VC, we go outside to talk to people, trying to get referrals or trying to get people to come inside. So last Saturday, there are always heaps of people for stake temple trips or weddings, and obviously I plan on them being members. Anyway, we were up at the top by the temple doors, I saw 2 boys, around my age, come sit on a bench, i thought I could tell one of them was wearing garments, but when I started talking to them, they said they weren't members. One guy was waiting for his mom to come out, his mom got baptized a year ago and he knows nothing about temples, they might have seen some videos on youtube about inside the temple, the other guy was apparently his half brother...blah blah blah, thankfully it didn't take long to come out that they were members and I didn't make too much of a fool of myself. The one I was talking to said he just got home from his mission and hated it when they would go talk to people and they would say, "oh, we're members." He obviously didn't serve in Hamilton which is like mini-Utah where we run into members all the time...especially on temple grounds. Thankfully there are some people who keep the work interesting and keep me laughing.

 

I feel like lots of members lately have been asking us if we had even heard of New Zealand before we got our mission calls...little do they know that pretty much everyone has heard of New Zealand and tons of people told me "Oh man, if I could have picked anywhere to go on my mission, it would have been New Zealand..." They're not a tiny, forgotten island out in the Pacific like they think they are.

 

One thing I forgot about last week was dinner with this Samoan family. The mum's sister was in town from Samoa, and she just wanted to talk away with me to practice her english (which was actually perfectly fine). It was so neat to hear her say how much she loved us even though she just met us and she had been cooking all day for the missionaries! The islanders really do love the missonaries so much. & then it was the most fun meal I've had in a long time, islanders are just fun and I haven't laughed that much in a long time. White people can be lame sometimes, haha.

 

I should probably through in my spiritual thought. I know it's a little late, but I absolutely loved the January engisn. Especially Elder Christofferson's talk about our "daily bread" and taking things one day at a time. Like when we make long goals, we don' have to take on all 3 months at once, just one day at a time. That's something I've really been working on and I feel like it really has helped me to stay in the present and to be happy now. Just thinking about what I need to do specifically today. & I feel like it's also made time FLY! I can't believe this transfer is almost over. I'm almost certain I'll be here and with Sister Clark...and I think I'll be here for quite sometime since there aren't very many VC sisters.

 

Love you all!

 

-Sister Mullen

Pictures

 Mission Photo

 With the Young Women on Splits

 "I love to see the temple"

"I work there many days"

Happy Auckland Anniversary Day!

...just like most holidays here, no one seems to know why they celebrate it, but lots of businesses close down and everyone goes to the beach! Haha, apparently there is a Wellington Day too...they've just got random holidays all over the place.

 

It's been another good week, except I can't seem to remember much of what happened...my companion put it a good way, "Once monday is here...friday is here, but Saturday & Sunday are each a week long." Saturdays can be so long being in the VC for 6 hours. On Saturday, one couple stopped in because they saw the temple (it really is cool where it's placed...it's far from the city, so just out in the country with a bunch of green hills, but it's on a hill, so you can see it sticking out above everything from far away) & thought it looked gorgeous! The tour with them started off good teaching them about the history of the church in New Zealand, but then when we got into the second room (all about Christ...it's got the Christus and pictures of Christ on the walls) it turned out to be not so good. They've defintiely had contact with the church and the guy had a Book of Mormon, but after sharing my testimony of the Book of Mormon and how I know without a doubt that it's true, they wanted to debate me, "how can you know "without a doubt" that it's true?" They were going into how we don't know exactly where it all happened, but for the bible we know where some of those places are. & It seems a bit fishy that some guy got some plates, "translated" them and then showed em to a few friends. This couple just wanted concrete proof of the Book of Mormon instead of exercising some faith. & then he tried to tell me I've been taught what to believe. I left after that because we were done with our shift at the VC, but after talking to the Sister who finished the tour, she said that they told her "We'll pray for you because you have all deceived." That never puts a smile on my face, but experiences like that never shake my faith. They're actually just good reminders of my testimony and how solid it is. I know what I have come to find out is true and there's no one who can take that away from me.

 

We had a good lesson with this girl we met at church a couple weeks ago. She's been to the LDS church several times throughout her whole life, and we met her at church w/ her cousin who got baptized a year ago. We taught her the first half of the restoration the other day, and then last night she came up to the VC where we finished it off and had her watch the hour long Joseph Smith movie and the Spirit was definitely present! Before the movie, we invited her to be baptized after she came to know if these things are true and she was so anxious to say yes! She's preparing for the 11th, but is afraid it'll be too soon, but she's so prepared and I know she'll be ready! She's 20 and cute and a hip hop dancer and I'm a little bit jealous, ha, but I'm so glad we found her!

 

...I don't know what happened to the funny stories. People I guess are just not so crazy here in Hamilton. Lame.

 

Love you! Hope you have a good week!

 

Love,

      Sister Mullen

"...Quentin L. Cook is from Cache Valley..."

(I doubt anyone else knows that song to help you remember the apostles in order, I learned it my last year and seminary, that's what Quentin L. Cook has said about him.) I think I said something last week, but we had a missionwide Conference last week and it was awesome! Awesome to be reunited with the missionaries I served with from Tauranga, & it was just a fun atmosphere being with so many missionaries. The chapel was PACKED with missionaries. The missionaries from the MTC came too, and we had Elder Cook, Tad R. Callister, Bishop McMullin from the presiding bishopric, & Elder Hamula & Elder Watson from our area presidency and all their wives and it was so good! They each got up and told us something to not forget or something to wrok on as a missionary and then Elder Cook talked for a bit and yeah, it was just a good meeting.

 

So now that the excitement of being somewhere new has died down, it's taking a little adjusting having so much down time being here at teh VC so much, but I had a cool experience while I was on chat the other day with a girl named Helen. She came on askinng questions about where in the Bible does it talk about our Heavenly Mother and the pre-mortal existence, she was getting ready for baptism last saturday and said these were holding her back, but apparently I was really able to help her and she said that she's asked other people but no one else has been able to explain them as well as I did. It just felt SO good to really help someone and to feel like she really did need to talk to me specifically.

 

So as I've been trying to finish the Book of Mormon in January, I finished the war chapters on Saturday and I have just come to love them! I used to not really enjoy those chapters because they were long and hard to follow, but I decided that the best way to read them is to just read them through them all at once so you can keep track (or at least try to!) of everything. I've also come to see how much you really can learn from them, I've come to LOVE the story of the strippling warriors and just love Moroni! He's just so hard core and so confident in the Lord!

 

Nothing else too exciting, I feel like the people are a lot more normal here than in Tauranga, haha, but at the same time we still meet our fair share of interesting people. We have two people getting ready for baptism this Saturday and are praying for miracles because we definitely need the Lord's help to make sure they're ready. Love you all!

 

Love,

    Sister Mullen

Still Out of Titles...

And another week has gone, wow, things really are starting to fly by!

 

So the main event this week was that we had a wedding a two baptisms! So we first had Malia who got married to her less active partner, and then an hour later they got baptized and it was so good. She's pregant, and apparently was having contractions during their reception (but didn't tell anyone), and we showed up to church on Sunday ready for her to be confirmed, and Bishop told us she went straight to the hospital after the reception and had her baby that night, so hopefully she'll be able to make it to church next week to receive the Holy Ghost. Definitely a day she'll never forget! Then Saturday night we had Niels (yes, with an s!) We were getting ready to push his baptism to the next week because we didnt' feel like his testimony was where it should be, mostly because we asked him "So what does it mean to you that we have a prophet on the earth today?" & he said, "Nothing." But once we explained more about the role of our prophet, it cleared things up for him so much and we felt like he was ready! The only stressful thing was that we showed up and Bishop said that Anaru, the guy we talked to to baptized Niels, wasn't going to be able to make it, but we just found someone else to baptize him, thankfully, and it all ended up going really well. I've never had one of our investigators get up and share their testimony after their baptism, but he said he wanted to, but then almost backed out last minute, but then decided to go ahead and do it and it was such a powerful testimony and just so humbling that we were able to help teach him all of what he now knows to be true.

 

Things are a little crazy here with spending half our time at the VC & we have so many people who are willing to set up appointments for us to come back, so we really have to focus on those that are elect and progressing because we jsut don't have time! I came into Hamilton feeling a little more confident, having some experience like I've got the hang of somethings as a missionary, but then over the past week especially I've had a big smack in the face realizing how much I have to learn and improve on. Sometimes I wonder how I've helped anyone prepare and be ready to be baptized because my teaching skills have so much room for improvement, but then I remember that it's not really me teaching, it's the Spirit. Thankfully. Haha

 

Oh, a little change we had this week was we have a new elder here at the VC. He was serving in Sydney, but is waiting for some health problems to clear up, so in the mean time, he's here at the VC almost all day, every day. Poor guy, haha, except he's from Hamilton, so he sees seen tons of people that he knows. Anyway, it's just different having an elder here with us.

 

Love you all! Hope things are going well.

 

Love,

     Sister Mullen