Hello everyone!!
I'm finally in New Zealand! :D It looks just like Oregon
here, honestly - I love it! It's so green! And so sunny! It's raining today,
but that's okay :)
The flight to NZ was super long, but that's okay.
When our group arrived at Wellington we were greeted by the President
Kezerian's wife, who is the sweetest woman alive!! A bit later we got to meet
President Kezerian. We all had a testimony meeting together (5 new
missionaries, 2 senior missionaries, 3 departing missionaries, President and
Sister Kezerian, and a couple other missionaries), which was just what I
needed. I was feeling really nervous about being there; I didn't know any of
the missionaries, and I didn't really know what was going on. But once we had
that testimony meeting - man! The Spirit gave me a nice pat on the back. :)
I flew down to Christchurch to meet my trainer. We are
currently serving in Ashburton, but we had to stay in Christchurch for a few
days until the new month because we have a certain amount of kilometers per
month we can use, and we didn't have enough to get home until February. OH MY
GOSH MY TRAINER IS AWESOME! Her name is Sister Paongo, and she's from Auckland
and is part Fijian and part Tongan. I was nervous about getting a
companion that didn't know how to work - I only have a year and a half,
and i want to use every second I'm here. But when we left the airport, we went
to the other sisters' flat in Christchurch and I changed my clothes, and we
went street contacting. YES! That is just what I wanted! Because my group of
missionaries that entered the field came a day later than expected, we didn't
get to spend a day at the mission home like normal. But honestly, I really
just wanted to start working as soon as possible. Blessings!! Anyways, I knew
that my trainer was awesome when we walked out of the flat and saw a boy across
the street. She yelled, "Let's go chase that boy!!" and ran across
the street. I remember thinking, "Okay, this is gonna be awesome."
She said that she talks to everyone because if we don't, we're taking away
their agency. I completely agree. Sister Paongo seriously loves to work hard,
loves to exceed the goals we set, and really has a deep testimony. Life is so
good!!
We sing to people a lot. If people seem sort of interested
when we talk to them, but still hestitant to let us come back, we'll sing for
them. We were door-knocking in Ashburton and had about 10 minutes left to meet
our goal for how many people we talked to that day. We just needed a few more
people, but we aren't allowed to knock on people's doors in Ashburton after
7:30pm, so we could only talk to people on the street or whose doors were
open/lights were on. We saw a woman inside her home and knocked on the door.
She said she had her own church, but was very friendly to us. We asked if we
could sing her a song, and she invited us into her home. She turned off the TV
when we walked in, because she said she wanted to hear us better. We sang her
"I am a Child of God" and we could see in her eyes she was feeling
the Spirit. When we finished, she thanked us for singing to her. She started to
cry, and so did my companion and I. She just kept thanking us for singing to
her. And she agreed to let us come back later and sing to her again. AHHHH! It
was so awesome!!! I loved that I got to be a part of her feeling the Spirit
that way for (most likely) the first time.
My area is pretty great :) Ashburton is a farming town
of about 6,000 and there are 140 people in our ward. The ward recently became
big enough to change from a branch to a ward and they are building a new chapel
to house everyone. So awesome!! There are mostly islanders here, so it's
awesome to get to know the Tongan, Samoan, and Cook Island people that live
here. They live the island life and it's really awesome :)
Yay missionary work!
Your favorite greeny,
Sister Rose
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