April 28, 2013

Why hello there!!

This week was awesome!! I got the chance to run the area for the first time.. learned heaps, and really enjoyed it! Sister Saunders is the nicest, softest person in the world, so it was great to serve with her!

Also, Sister Paongo and I were invited to a Marai! (spelling?) One of the members in the ward is Maori, and the family invited us to come. It was cool to see the youth do the Haka in real life! Super intimidating and way cool! They did stuff with spears too, sorry for not knowing the right terminology. It was cool to be a part of it! I also tried eel for the first time and it was super yummy. (photo is of us at the Marai!)

A few weeks ago we ran into a less active, Brother Patea, while inviting people to General Conference on the street. We invited him and he said, "I've been thinkin i should come back to church." He has been attending church ever since, and really clicked with Henry, our recent convert. Henry even invited him to move in, and the two have created a little spiritual haven :) So cool! Henry says it's one of the blessings that have come from being baptized. Wow! it is so cool to see how the Lord is preparing people!!! 

Life is good :) Hope you all are doing well. The gospel is true!!!! 

Love,

Sister Rose

April 21, 2013

Greetings!!

This Sunday was AWESOME!! Henry and Michael received the gift of the Holy Ghost on Sunday and it was so powerful! Once a month we have a feed after church with everyone, so it was a double-good day! Seriously, seeing these two receive the gift of the Holy Ghost was amazing. There was such a deep peace in the room. Seriously, i can't describe it. 

Well, we are finding more and more people her in Ashburton! Everything is just coming together. We are getting more and more return appointments when we are finding, and the members are really getting on board. Our bishop put together a ward mission committee this Sunday, which is gonna be awesome once we get it up and running!! Our ward mission leader is great, and the senior missionaries are so awesome, too.

This work is great and I love it so much! Exchanges this week. I will most likely be running the area for the first time - I'm so excited!! 

Love you all!!!

Sister Rose

April 14, 2013

Hello!!

Fefehake? ("how are you" in Tongan - Sister Paongo is patient in teaching me haha) This week was good, but this weekend was AMAZING!! So the baptism was totally awesome. We traveled all the way up to Cashmere in Christchurch (about an hour) for the baptism, since we don't have a font here in Ashburton. Michael rode up with Bishop Pongia and Henry went up with his less active family (yaaaaay!) who all came to the baptism!! We had a lot of less active members at the baptism, but none of our investigators could make it up there. Some of the missionaries in Christchurch brought investigators, though, so that was awesome!

We had a big tongan elder and a big samoan elder help Henry into the font on a chair when he was baptized, since he is paralyzed on one side. It all went sooo smoothly, it was awesome! It's hard to describe what it was like to see Michael and Henry be baptized. These are two men that we both love so much. The joy that we felt was such a deep, abiding joy; I haven't experienced something like that. Baptism opens the doors of the Celestial Kingdom, and seeing someone make that step... it's just indescribable. You don't want to jump up and down, I didn't even want to cry - it's not overwhelming, it's a peaceful, calm joy that you can't describe. 

Michael and Henry both bore their testimonies as well at the baptism. Wow, we could just see their whole countenances had changed. We had seen them progressively become brighter, but this was different. They looked clean. And their faith has just been exponentially growing. Wow, it was a powerful thing to see them in the water, be cleansed and make a covenant with the Lord, and then bear testimony afterwards. Sorry I can't really put it into words for you all, but I've tried my best :)

Also, General Conference this weekend!!! We had some technical difficulties in Ashburton, and will finish off some of the talks some time this week. But wow, the Lord is seriously hastening the work!! Missionaries NEED your help as members to rescue all of God's children. We know that you are all disciples of Christ - don't be afraid to get the missionaries more involved in your own personal efforts. It will not ruin your friendships, I promise. 

This is the true church, and it was restored through Joseph Smith. I know that God has a plan for all of us, and He will help you turn your weaknesses into strengths. Press forward with steadfast faith in Christ!!

Love you all!!!

Sister Rose

April 7, 2013

Greetings, young and old!

Wow, this week has been awesome. We have been getting ready for the baptism coming up this Friday!! Henry (aka Papa Henry) and Michael will be baptized this Friday, April 12th! We are soooo excited for them!! This Sunday we had fast and testimony meeting, and we will have a DVD of conference sent to us next week for church. Henry got up and bore his testimony! We never mentioned to him that he should get up, he just responded to the promptings of the Spirit. So awesome!!! His testimony was definitely from the heart. We can really see his faith growing, it is so cool. In our lessons he always says, "I just want to be a better man." So glad he has the gospel now :)

We see so many miracles here, it's awesome. One such miracle was when we were door knocking we met a woman whose name was Jade. Turns out she is less active! She was baptized at age 8, but went less-active shortly thereafter. She agreed to let us come back, and man! It was powerful! Turns out she has had missionaries knock on her door before but never let them in before; something just told her to open the door. She has two kids and is 21, although her life experience I think puts her much older than that. We shared with her how we first came to know that the church was true. After all, just because we were born in the church doesn't mean that we haven't had our own "Sacred Grove" experiences. Usually I just tell people that I've prayed to know if it's true, and then leave it as that, but I got to share the whole story with her which was awesome. Anyways, she is going to take the lessons and we are excited to see her faith grow :) Seriously, she is so awesome!

The church is true! Man, i seriously LOVE this work. Honestly, this is the best. I am privileged to be here in Ashburton. Also, we had daylight savings on Sunday so we got an extra hour of sleep. It was a precious, sacred extra hour. Hallelujah! 

love you all!!

Sister Rose

PS here's a picture of me with a sheep. :D Henry has a sheep in his backyard named Linda. 

Skate Park Newspaper Article

March 31, 2013

Hello everyone!

I hope you all had a great Easter! Yesterday we had an absolutely fantastic day. We have been seeing many miracles here in Ashburton this week, and Easter just topped it off! (Honestly - this week was great. We usually have like 298347893 like seriously intense crisis that we have to deal with, but not this week!) We had four investigators at church this week (hooray!!) and our gospel principles class went really well; we talked about gifts of the spirit. After church, one of our investigators received his first priesthood blessing and it was so powerful! The spirit was so strong, and he felt it! 

On top of that, we had a musical Easter fireside that evening. We had about 8 groups from the ward sing and we had scriptures about the Savior and Easter in between the songs. There were some powerful songs! Our ward mission leader and his wife sang, a family of 15 sung, and a bunch of other groups. My companion and I sung "His Hands" by Kenneth Cope together as well. It turned out really well! We were nervous, but that's okay :) The elders in our district came from Timaru to participate in the fireside. With all the new missionaries coming in from the MTC, transfers have been kind of crazy. Three weeks ago we had transfers, and the amazing Sister Paongo and I were assigned to stay here in Ashburton for the next transfer and our district was to stay the same. However, a week ago we had transfers AGAIN - because all the new missionaries were arriving! So, last transfer was really like 8 weeks long. We have three new elders in the district and a new district leader. They are all super fun and this will be a fun transfer with them! 

Fun fact: I met a member from Christchurch that grew up in Beaverton, Oregon. Her name is Rachael Beck, if I remember correctly? She's lived here for the past like 5 years. Also, a guy on a business trip from Mapleton, Utah joined us a church today, as he's a member. Small world!

So Michael and Henry both have baptismal dates!! Please pray for them! Christine is no longer taking the lessons, and could use your prayers as well. Thanks for all your support! :) The church is true, Jesus Christ is our Savior and Redeemer! As Elder Holland said, missionary work isn't easy, but then again salvation was never easy. I hope you all are doing well!

Also! We were in the newspaper! Attached is a scan of the article. :)

love,

Sister Rose