Sister Carmen Olson

Kia Ora Whanau! This week we did lots of missionary things.  Things of note include having lunch with a part member family and having a really good conversation with them about the gospel. I dont think I will ever see any immediate results from teaching this family, but we are planting some really great seeds and I know one day they will result in something miraculous. Something funny that happened while we were with them is I noticed their pool and I brought up how I'm a lifeguard at home and I manage a pool which they got really excited about. They asked if I knew how to vacuum pools and I was like "well ya that's pretty basic." So we set a time for us to come back this week so that I can vacuum their pool for them hahaha. I would have never guessed that my pool skills would be of any use to me while I'm on my mission.  Wednesday night we had a really good meal/lesson with another part member family that we are teaching. It was really tender and hop...

Kia Ora Whanau! So since Wednesday we have had so many miracles!  Thursday morning we woke up to a text saying that someone the night before requested a Māori Book of Mormon online. We were like what the heck this is random but so cool. So Thursday night we went around and met Phillip and his wife Renee and gave the the Book of Mormon. Turns out that Phillip is a member and his wife isn't. They just loved to Masterton from Taupou in the Hamilton Mission. She was being taught by the elders there and super close to baptism before they and to move here. She said to us "I'm not s member yet, but I will be soon!" Then they started talking about their Book of Mormon reading and their individual and family prayers. I was like what the heck! This is such a miracle! They also have the cutest, happiest baby ever! I'm just so excited for them to get sealed as a family!  Also on Thursday we went to Carterton and met a lady named Ann that a recent convert referred ...

Kia Ora Whanau!  What a long week, well last Monday we went out to Ngawi and saw the seals. We also walked up to a lighthouse and took heaps and heaps of photos. We did family home evening with a part member family and when it came time for us to share a dope message that we had prepared, the non member in the family ran away. Classic, it was still a good message though.  On Tuesday we met  less active lady who told us the dopest story ever. When she was young, she basically ran away from her home so that she could serve her mission in Kiribati, and at the end of her 18 months, her mission president asked her to extend another 6 months so that she could open up the mission in her home country of Tuvalu. It was such an amazing story and she got a little emotional when sharing it and the spirit was in her home at that time it was so special for her to have the spirit be so strong as she reflected on her mission. Wednesday we had exchanges and I stayed on Master...

Kia Ora Whanau!  So we had some really cool experiences this week! The first one happened with Natasha. So on Wednesday she randomly texted us and asked if we could do a lesson in and hour. We were like man okay! We went over and taught her about the restoration of the gospel of Jesus Christ and as we taught her you could literally see it click in her head and see the spirit testify to her that what we are sharing is true! It was the coolest and then nek minit she says "so what about baptism?" We talked about it a little and asked her when she wanted to get baptized and she didnt know but she wants to get baptized and so we committed her to pray about it!  Another cool thing that happened is we were door knocking and this guy named Seth opened the door and we had such a cool doorstep conversation. He is so keen and honestly I have never found someone while door knocking like this before! It was so cool!  A third really awesome thing that we started teachi...

Kia Ora Whanau! Transfers were this week and so SisterTapumanaia and I are reunited! We are whitewashing the Featherston branch while still covering the Masterton ward so its been heaps of work, but it's so exciting! Featherston is such a special place and the members are all amazing and we have recieved heaps of really good refferals from them already!  Monday last week after I emailed home, we went to castle point which was really pretty! We were in a tsunami danger zone which was cool, grateful there were no earthquakes. Tuesday we went to Wellington to pick up Sister Tapumanaia . It took so freaking long! The drive there is brutal but I'm so grateful we are back together. Wednesday we biked all day and had a lesson with Natasha. We then did some service with her and set a time to come teach her kids on Saturday. We are starting to make some real progress with her which is so exciting!  We started meeting everyone in the Featherston branch and man o...

Kia Ora Whanau! This week had some interesting things happen. We've started doing a bible study on Tuesday mornings and we had our first one this week. Only 3 elderly people from the ward came, but we challenged them all to bring a friend next week so hopefully we can start using this as a finding tool. It was a really good time though. At one point we were going around in a circle each reading one verse and we got to one lady and instead of reading it out loud, she read it silently to herself lolol it was crack up. We were studying from the come follow  me readings and man I've just got to say that the Prophet is so inspired. Studying these scriptures is so beneficial and applicable to the world! Tuesday night, while we were in the middle of painting someones wall, we got a call from the AP's and found out that Sister Bailey was getting emergency transferred 5 days before the actual transfer! It was so sad! Sister Bailey has been one of my favorite companions s...

Kia Ora Whanau Some key highlights from this week included all of our lessons with the people we are teaching getting cancelled, some miracles, and some rain. So the theme of this week was having some super awesome lessons planned and prepared to then get a text 30 minutes before hand finding out that the lesson is getting cancelled. Despite of alm this we did see some miracles.  One included the chance of getting to see a lady I had met in the my first area while on exchanges. While one exchanges this week, we went and saw Bridget who has been working to get baptized for forever and she is literally so close to achieving her goal but Satan is working really hard on her now. She struggles to understand the Book of Mormon so we showed her how she can read the Book of Mormon story book with the referenced scripture versus to help her understand. We did little to no teaching as she explained what she learned from reading the first chapter. I felt very impressed to say the...

Kia Ora Whanau  This week on Tuesday we had a million things to do but we couldn't do anything because we were going to Wellington to pick up our new companion Sister Shin, so we called our STls and they came and taught a lesson for us so that we could get a new person to teach! Sister Shin is a beauty, she's from Auckland and is suppose to serve in the Hawaii Temple Visitors center but she's waiting for her visa so for now she is stuck with us in Masterton and with the rain. It literally rained all day everyday this week.  Mostly this week we did heaps of biking and did our best to stay dry. It was a great way to get Sister Shin to really want to go to Hawaii lol. We had a great lesson with James and his mom Lavell. We made a plan of salvation game board and they were both really into it. We emphasized that the only way to go to the Celestial Kingdom is with our families. We were hoping that it would motivate Lavell to come back to church with her son. Then...

Kia Ora Whanau!  Okay this week was crazy so buckle up.  So to start off the week I had the most amazing and powerful day of my mission. On Tuesday, it was raining hard out so we got soaked. It was kinda brutal but also awesome because when else would I be out on a Tuesday morning biking in the rain. Anyways, we went and contacted someone who used to be taught by missionaries. We had a nice little chat and set a return appointment for a lesson! Then we went and had a lesson that a member set up for us with her friend Juliet. So right before I came to Masterton a man named Papa Toi passed away and apparently his funeral was huge. Juliet was at the funeral and afterwards came up to Nanny Cissie (Papa Toi's) wife and said she wanted to learn more. We were just planning on going and meeting her and teach a small lesson, but we ended up teaching her the entire plan of salvation and the spirit was so strong. It was almost like you could reach out and grab it. It was just on...