Week 30

Kia Ora Whanau

Its officially been a week since I've moved to Oamaru and it's been interesting.

Both wards that we cover are basically made up of one giant family so I already know everyone's name (brother and sister Kaufana) lol.

There were ups and downs. Most of the people that we are working with and Tongan and so for alot of the week I had no clue what was going on because I don't speak Tongan but my companions do.

On Tuesday we had a little miracle occur. We were meeting with a part member family and at the end we asked if we could say a prayer. The father, who is normally against the missionaries, went outside and called all the kids in for the prayer. His attitude did a 180 and he was so supportive of everything. It was so cool.

Tuesday evening, we had a failotu (prayer service) for a recent convert who just passed away. We sang hymns and messages were shared. It was really spiritual and a great missionary opportunity because his non member family was all there and got to feel the spirit.

On Wednesday we had exchanges. It was a bit of a struggle because I don't know the area, and my area book app isn't synced to my new area yet so we had no idea how to find people. I was working with Sister Bourne and we both didn't want to drive and use the GPS, so we took pictures of the directions on the GPS and then we walked and guessed our way to houses. We said a prayer that we would be able to find everyone and then we started walking. We found everyone that we planned on going to visit! It was so cool, prayers were answered. One lady that we visited gave us fresh cows milk! It was so yummy and I loved it so much that she sent us home with 2 litres of it. So yummy.

We had our recent converts funeral on Thursday. It took up basically all day, but the family really appreciated us being there. The service was really uplifting and the bishop did a really good job balancing teaching the gospel with remembering Pule and honoring his memory. After the service there was a big feed. At first it looked like there wasn't enough food for everyone so they started bringing out pizzas for each table. I thought that was the only food I was going to get so I ate a few slices. Then they said that there was plenty of food, so we all went and got big tongan style plates of food. It was way too much, but I could only laugh because it was so tongan.

On Friday we were visiting a part member family and their little boy was very curious as to what was in our bags. As he was going through them, he was ignoring everything that he was pulling out until he found a Book of Mormon. When he pulled out a Book of Mormon, he paused and flipped through the pages over and over again. I asked him if he wanted it and he got so excited and took it and was so happy. The next day we saw on facebook his dad post about how he won't go anywhere without it and he wants his parents to read it to him. This three year old boy is so in tune with the spirit and the spirit is telling him that the Book of Mormon is so important.

On Sunday we had heaps of people that we are teaching some to church. It was really awesome. One of them is so golden. Her name is Mina and she currently lives with her member brother and sister in law. She is so cool and keen for our visits and coming to church. We have big plans for her in the coming week! I'm so excited!

It was a pretty non eventful week. Lots of good missionary work was done but nothing extraordinary happened. Honestly its weeks like this that are the most important to the work. These are the weeks where we lay the foundation for the miracles to occur. Without weeks where we just work hard, there wouldn't be weeks where we see incredible things.

This week my spiritual thought comes from Preach My Gospel. In there it talks about how God is our loving Heavenly Father and how he is eager to communicate with us. As I pondered this, I thought about who I am eager to communicate with. Immediately I thought of my mom and how I talk to her freely and openly. I then realized that I need to talk to Heavenly Father with the same openness and sincerity that I talk to my mom with. I started to do this and it's been a cool experience. I have started to really feel like I am communicating with Heavenly Father. I know there is power in sincere and honest prayer.

That's all for this week! Happy Mothers Day everyone!

Ofa Atu

Sister Olson