Week 18

Kia Ora Whanau

First things first, on Saturday the church changed the guidelines on how missionaries can communicate with their families, and we can now video call them every Monday! So I'm going to keep this short because I'm going to Skype with my family!

So on Monday we contacted a potential named Sylvana and it turns out she's a member. She was baptized up in Aukland when she was 11 and hasn't been to church since. She has 2 teenage daughters and a little baby boy and she seemed really keen to come back to church. So that's awesome because her family has heaps of potential.

Tuesday night Sister Mamea got really sick, so on Wednesday we spent the entire day in Wellington at the doctors. All I can say about her getting sick is the priesthood has real power. She got better so much faster than she should have and I attribute that to her receiving a priesthood blessing. I have a testimony of the power of the priesthood and I am so grateful to have people who have the priesthood in my life.

Thursday was a day full of service. We first went into Wellington to do a service at the Holocaust memorial center cleaning buttons. They are creating a memorial to remember all of the children that died in the holocaust and they are doing this by collecting and cleaning 1.5 million buttons (one for each child) and then putting them on display. So we cleaned heaps of buttons. It was a really cool service. After the button service, we went and helped a member clean their house and oh man did they ever need the help. We were there for 2.5 hours and didn't even finish, but the member was so relieved to have her house cleaned, you could really feel her gratitude.

Everything fell through on Friday which was really annoying. A person that we're teaching that I thought was starting to progress forgot about our appointment which was really disappointing. Our lesson with Daniem did happen though! We talked with him about The Book of Mormon and he says he believes it, he just doesn't want to give up his religion quite yet. He is sincerley looking for the truth though and willing to keep commitments. His search for the truth has led him to come across some anti material online, but he is very humble and asked us for clarification so we were able to clear up any misconceptions.

On Saturday our whole zone ran a mini MTC all day for the youth in our stake. It was super cool. We taught them how to teach and door knock and use The Book of Mormon. We had a recent convert speak and a recently returned missionary speak. It was so cool. In the afternoon all the missionaries went on splits with the youth and took them door knocking. The street that the youth and I knocked was not very receptive and we got so so much rejection. But the youth weren't phased by it which was so fun to see. At the end of the day they had a testimony meeting and there were some really powerful testimonies given. Seiara came to the camp and she bore her testimony! It was so sincere and for sure made me tear up a little bit. It was a really cool day.

Sunday we taught Seiara about the importance of families and how temples can unite families together forever. Siste Hutia did such a great job teaching. Everything she was saying you could tell was guided by the spirit. There was also a fireside on Sunday with former All Blacks player Sid Going and also Sister Bennet (a senior missionary who works in the office who was baptized by Sid Going while he was on his mission). While we were driving to the fireside, Sister Hutia and I both looked at each other and said "we need to visit one more person." So we really fast went and visited Hine and Mia. We taught them about how families can be together forever and we set a return appointment which means that Mia is officially a new person being taught! I wa so pumped because I have been trying to teach Mia for 4 months! I am so excited to get to share with him the blessings of the gospel and see how it blesses their family. The fireside was really good! Sister Bennet gave a really great talk about her conversion and Brother Going talked a lot about the blessings of sacrifice.

My spiritual thought this week is from 3 Nephi 4:10. In this verse it is talking about how the Nephites were not afraid of the Gaddianton robbers who were coming to destroy them because they had prepared themselves spiritually and had repented and come unto the Lord. At the end of the verse it says "in the strength of the Lord they did receive them." This stood out to me because in our lives we are faced with our own trials and afflictions that sometimes feels like they will destroy us, but as we align ourselves with Heavenly Father then we dont have to fear because we will be able to face our trials not just with our own strength, but with the strength of the Lord.

Ofa Atu

Sister Olson