Sister Carmen Olson

Kia Ora Whanau Man the weeks just keep getting faster!  This week we had so many miracles! We found two new people who are interested in us coming over and teaching them about the restored gospel. It was so exciting. One of them is named Donna and we found her right at the very end of our day on Sunday. We decided to make a quick visit to a less active members home before we called it a day and when we got there, they had their neighbor over. We asked if we could read the Book of Mormon with the family and then ended up teaching their neighbor, Donna, about it and about the first vision that Joseph Smith had. It was so cool because you could see her accepting the message as we taught and the spirit testified of its truth.  Another miracle that happened is that our investigator Ann is getting really prepared for her baptism in December! She is just getting so excited about it and changing her life around. I am honestly just so proud of her. The coolest part about it...

Kia Ora Whānau  Well this week was a crazy because I hit my year mark of being a missionary for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints! Wow, I cant even put into words how incredible this last year has been and how grateful I am for the experiences that I've had. I wouldn't change it for the world! I have met so many beautiful people and seen the gospel change and bless their lives. At the same time the message that I have to share as a missionary changed their life, the lessons they have taught me has changed mine. If there is one thing that I've learned, it's that God is our loving Heavenly Father and He loves ALL of His children personally and infinitely. I know this because I have had so many experiences where I have felt pure genuine love for people before I have even met them. That would be impossible for me to feel and experience if it weren't for Heavenly Father blessing me with the opportunity to feel of just a portion of His love for each of ...

Kia Ora Whanau!  Okay this week was a roller coaster but it was good and we saw the hand of the Lord.  So on Monday, we had to wake up really early in the morning and drive 1.75 hours to Tawa, where Sister Tapumanaia had her self reliance course before she went home. So I spent the day with Sister Bailey, being her companion. It was super fun, but I'll be honest I just had so much stress over the fact that Sister Tapumanaia was going home. It just made me so sad. I hate changes and I hate saying goodbye to people I love.  Anyways, on Tuesday was intake day, so all the new missionaries came to the mission office for orientation  and met their trainers! My trainee is Sister Siale and she is from Tonga. She is so incredible and onto it, I am so blessed to be her companion! I love training, the new missionaries are always so special and throughout the week I have been able to tell that she is exactly the companion that I need at this point on my mission...

Kia Ora Whanau!    This week was so miraculous! So my Soa goes home on Wednesday and I just really wanted her to have a great last week so I was praying with all the energy of my heart that we would have a fantastic week and those prayers were answered. So at the beginning of the week we received a text from our investigator Ann that she had some good news for us on Friday and that we needed to bring our tissues. We were like what the heck could this news be!   She would not tell us until our appointment on friday. Anyways when we showed up she told us that she has decided she wants to be baptized in December! WOW we did not think that was going to be her news! It was so exciting because we didn't even invite her to be baptized she just wanted to all on her own! Some other amazing news is that in order to reach our zone goal of new people being taught we had to find one more person as a zone. So we prayed really hard and contacted so many people and we fo...