Week 3ish

Kia Ora 

This week was crazy! It's been so long, we'll see if I can remember everything. Just a warning this email is going to be long because it's been over a week since my last one and so much has happened. 

Throw back to Saturday the 28 I played rugby again during sport. It's been a week since hurting my ankle so I thought I'd give it a try. I didn't get hurt again which is a plus but I was for sure protecting my ankle. After sport we taught our investigator Bri and from that lesson I realized I need to have more charity if I want to be successful in missionary work. In Mosiah 28:3 it says "Now they were desirous that salvation should be declared to every creature, for they could not bear that any human soul should perish; yea, even the very thoughts that any soul should endure endless torment did cause them to quake and tremble." I need to be like the sons of Mosiah here and have so much charity that I literally cannot stand the thought of anyone not getting to hear and accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. If I can do that then I will be a successful missionary. 

On Sunday we watched Elder Holland's 2015 Provo MTC devoltional which everyone should watch whether you're going to be a full time missionary or not. It was so inspiring. He talked about how we have to have the message in our hearts and know it so so so well or we cannot be good missionaries. He likened the story of Christ and Peter in  John 21: 15-17 where Christ is asking Peter is he loves him and if he does to feed his sheep. It really hit me that Christ is also having this conversation with me. He has asked me if I love Him more than anything I have at home and if I do then to forget everything and to Feed His Sheep in New Zealand. The answer is obvioulsy yes I do so that is what I am doing here. 

Monday was my last day in the MTC. We had our last lesson with our investigator Lula and Sister Kipp and I commited her to baptism! Woot Woot! I was pumped after that lesson! It was a great way to end the MTC experience. The spirit was so strong in the lesson and it was a really powerful moment. Only the missionaries going to PNG and Wellington were leaving on Tuesday so we all left class early to go pack. After packing Sister Stacey and I went back up stairs to the class rooms to say goodbye to everyone but President Howes got mad at us and sent us back down and didn't let us say goodbye to our district. It was pretty annoying if I'm being honest. I don't really get President Howes a lot of the time but I try hard to believe that he has a reason behind everything that will make me a better missionary. It was sad though because I'll likely never see alot of them again, and they were such a huge part of the MTC and I learned so much from each of them. 

Tuesday I left the MTC for the feild! We flew to Wellington at 5:00am. I was just grateful it wasn't 3am like the PNG elders. When we got to the mission home we got assigned our areas and met our trainers! Now for the part you've all been waiting for: I am serving in the Lower Hutt area on the North Island (20 minutes North of Wellington)  and my trainer is Sister Petersen! The Hutt is known throughout the mission as where missionaries go to get fat 😬 The members are all Polynesian and love to feed the missionaries. Sister Petersen is the Sister Training Leader for our zone (she's a solo STL) and has been out for 14 months. She's from Aukland and just so great. She is so down to work hard and to be dilligent missionaries which I am so grateful for. She is Samoan and from Aukland but she grew up in Melbourne and she makes connections with people like crazy. She lives in such a small world. We have a car but Sister Petersen doesn't have a licence so I am the designated driver. On my first day here they stuck me behind the wheel on the wrong side of the road and said "good luck". Driving has been pretty good. I've only turned onto the wrong side of the road twice but that was on my first day and there was no one around so it was all good. I've switched to the other side pretty easily. There was an earthquake on Monday which was wild. It was just a little one but it was enough to shake the car while we were sittinging in it in a parking lot. 

Wednesday was my first day of fulltime work. Last week all of the investigators in our area dropped the missionaries so we currently don't have any people to teach so we are doing alot of finding. It's kinda fun because it's a fresh start and literally anyone we meet is a potential. On Wednesday we did a lot of tracting and we taught a 9 year old girl named Rayner  her first follow up lesson since being baptized back in July. She's the only member in her family and her mom doesn't let her have contact with her member grandfather so to be honest I don't know why the previous missionaries baptized her because she isn't getting any support from her family and she can't get to church because her mom won't take her and she's too young to come on her own. The lesson with her was good though. The spitit was really there and she has a serious desire to be a good example for her family and to be active in the church. Hopefully in the coming weeks we can get through to her mom and get the whole family investigating so that Rayner can have some more support. That night we went up to President Soloai's house for mission leader conference since Sister Peterson is an STL. It was super great and really motivating. President is a powerful man and can drive home a point like no one else, but he is also such a crack up. He shared with us how drastically the number of baptisms per year have fallen since 2013 (its gone from like 325-121) and he said very enthusiatically said "Stop The Fall And Turn It Around!" I am super motivated to teach in a way that turns the fall of baptisms around and gets more people on the covenant path, because that is my purpose as a missionary. 

Thursday we had Zone Conference up in Tawa (20 minutes away) so I had to drive on some highways on the wrong side of the road and go through a ton of round abouts the opposite direction but it was actually not that bad lol. Zone conference was good. We had some great trainings from President and Sister Soloai in the morning and then in the afternoon we had a super long training from the AP's on smart phones since this is the first transfer with them. I am super pumped about how the phones are going to help us be more effective. There are somethings that I love about them, like it makes daily contact with investigators easier, but there are other things that I don't love, like our daily planners are on a new app but the app isn't set up very well so it's kinda hard to use. Anyway, one super super cool thing that happend on Thursday after zone conference is how quickly the Lord answered our prayer. We went to contact a potential investigator and it was so warm and sunny out. We said a prayer before knocking on the door that she would have compassion and listen to us and let us in. Then I KID YOU NOT it started to pour rain! We were getting soaked it was raining so hard. When the door opened the lady didn't seem like she was going to let us in but then she saw the rain and how wet we were and she let us in! Then as soon as we got into the house the rain stopped. We started to talk to her and share a brief message and asked if she would want to learn more and she said no. She fought with the spirit for a second though before saying no and I have a feeling that if we are a little persistant she'll say yes so Soa (Sister Peterson in Samoan) and I will pray about how to go about doing that. It was so cool though getting that direct and quick of an answer to prayer. It was a tender mercy of the Lord. What a cool miracle. After the contact attempt we knocked on a former investigator's door and they let us in. They agreed for us to come back on Tuesday so we'll see how that goes. They seem like a tricky family.

Friday started out funny. There is no food in our flat so we ran to the Masima's home (a family in our ward) and asked for some milk. Apparently the missionaries go get food from them all the time. So for breakfast we had cereal that we stole from Sister Soloai the night before and milk that we stole from the Masima's lol. Friday was a day full of weekly planning. I had heard a lot of negative things about weekly planning before but I actually really enjoyed it because it was a chance for me to get the run down about everyone and everything so I feel like I can contribute more becuase I know what's going on. I really feel like we are going to be able to get a lot of the families that dropped the missionaries last week back. The spirit was so strong during planning and I can just see the potential each family has. 

Saturday was good! Sister Peterson calls me her good luck charm because we've gotten into so many houses that she had never gotten into before. On Saturday we got into a part member family's home and set a return appointment woot woot! We also gave out a Book of Mormon to this really sweet guy named Royce so hopefully he reads it and calls us back. We also taught our first follow up lesson with a boy named Luke who was baptized last month. Luke is from the Hawkins family, a huge part member and less active and active family that has a lot of potential. Luke lives with his really active and strong grandpa and got baptized last month. The lesson went really well because we were able to not only teach him but also his non member and inactve cousins (4 of them) and his inactive aunt and grandma. I have alot of hope for them! We had dinner at the Sione family home. The Sione's are Samoan and a weird thing about Samoan culture is that they don't eat with you they just watch you eat and then once you leave the house then they eat. Dinner was good but I can already tell how people get fat here. Sister Sione made Koko Samoa for desert which is basically this super dope hot chocolate, but it's not hot chocolate it's so much better! Man I could drink that stuff all day!

Sunday was really great! We saw some super dope miracles of fasting. Sister Peterson and I fasted for our teaching pool to increase. Then as we were street contact on our way to an appointment we talked to this guy named Thorn who was all tatted up and had a ton of peircings. Sister P and I both admitted later that we were hesitant to talk to him but thank goodness we did! He told us he wants to become a Pastor so we gave him the Book of Mormon and our phone number and told him to read it so that he could be better prepared to be a pastor and to call us if he had questions. Then later that night he texted us and said he wanted to meet with us! What a miracle and a blessing! Two things I learned from this: 1) the Lord blesses you for fasting and 2) don't judge anyone and talk to everypone because you never know who is prepared to accept the gospel. We had dinner at Bishop Semu's house and when we showed up our plates were already served with heaps of food on them. It was such good food but I am so worried I''m going to get fat because it's super rude to not clean your plate. Again the family didn't eat with us which was weird but after dinner we shared a message and then got a ton of referals! The Semu family is so prime and I'm so excited to contact these people. 

That was a super long letter I'm really sorry about that! Good for you if you read it all. Really fast I just want to let you know how much food the members have brought over since  being here. We have received 2 large chocolate cakes, and KFC 4 days in a row. I have never eaten more KFC in my life lol. My spiritual thought for this week comes from the bible dictionary. Under the term faith the bible dictionary says "Where there is true faith there are miracle, visions, dreams, healings, and all gifts of God that He gives to His saints." I just know that this is so true. Faith is the variable that determines the extent that the Lord's hand is in your life. If you have true unwavering faith, anything can happen. Everyone can always work on their faith. If you have faith as small as a mustard seed you can move a mountain, and I don't see anyone moving mountains so we all could develop a lot more faith. I know that the best way to do that is by reading the Book of Mormon and praying to Heavenly Father. I know that He listens and answers prayers. I love you all so much! I'm so excited to get to work in Lower Hutt and be dilligent so that the people of my area can come unto Christ. 

Love Soa Olson 

Do the mahi get the treats

(it's a weird samoan saying, it means do the work get the rewards lol)

Sister Alves at the mission office before saying goodbye. We were good friends in the MTC

My trainer sister Petersen

In front of the first house that opened their door. It was a lil Chinese lady who didn't speak english

Me and sis Petersen again.... she loves the selfie