Week 31

Kia Ora Whanau 

This week flew!

Tuesday was my year mark from receiving my mission call! It has been the fastest year of my life! Time just does not exist on the mission. When I recieved my call I felt peace and knew that the New Zealand Wellington Mission was the place for me. Now, a year later, I know why it's the place for me! I have learned more here and had more incredible experiences and come closer to the Savior than I would have anywhere else in the world. The Lord truly does know us each perfectly. 

So a big highlight for this week is that we started teaching the most golden investigator ever. Her name is Mina and she lives with her member family. She is 19 and so cool. On Wednesday we taught her about the restoration of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints and when we asked her if she believed it she said yes! Then on Saturday and Sunday she came all the way down to Dunedin for stake conference, and on Sunday night she came to a baptism for a little girl in the ward and started making hints about how she wants to get baptized! Like I said so golden. So we are planning on inviting her to be baptized this week! 

Another big highlight was the power of the priesthood. So on Satuday I woke up feeling super crummy! I felt like I had knives stabbing me throughout my entire abdomen. It was brutal. I worked through it for most of the day but then during the adult session of stake conference it got so much worse so I decided to ask for a preisthood blessing. It was such a spiritual experience because in the blessing I was told exactly what I needed to hear and I was also given a blessing of healing. Now priesthood blessings work according to your faith and I had no doubt that I would be healed. After I received the blessing I went and ate a roast dinner and felt 100% better. I have such a testimony of the priesthood and I am so grateful to have the privilege of having people in my life who are so willing to serve me by giving me blessings.

In stake conference, Elder Burdges spoke about how yes the prophet is coming to New Zealand and unfortunately not all of us will be able to be there. However, power does not come from seeing the prophet, power comes from heeding his counsel. I am so excited to get to listen to the prophet speak to us missionaries here in New Zealand and also to all of the members! 

Other noteworthy things that happened this week include how much biking we did. It's starting to get cold and windy here on Oamaru and biking up the massive as hills was a bit of a struggle this week. It seemed like no matter what direction we were biking, the wind was always against us. At one point we were all peddling as hard as we could but, I kid you not, we were not moving! It was crazy! I think we lost 10kgs fighting the wind and the hills. 

We had ministering night in Timaru on Thursday and then we spent the night and had the longest district council of life on Friday. It was 3.5 hours long! After district council we did a donut finding where we gave people free donuts if they did 10 push ups or they could get one of the missionaries to do the push ups for them. We found a couple of really solid potentials for the Timaru missionaries, it was cool. 

My spiritual thought this week comes from President Soloai. In stake conference he bore his testimony and called upon everyone to pray and ask God if they should serve a mission because we NEED more missionaries. Time is running out, and the work is hastening. In our mission, in the next 3 transfers, our numbers will be cut in half because there just isn't enough missionaries coming out. So I would like to extend the same invitation to all of you, please pray and ask Heavenly Father if you should serve a mission! My mission has changed my life and I am so grateful that I decided to come. I know that a mission will change your life too. 

Ofa Atu

Sister Olson



Donut Finding

Tema, me, Sister Tuionetoa, Mina, Sister Tuionetoa

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