Sister Carmen Olson

Kia Ora Whanau It was transfer week this week which was honestly so sad. Saying goodbye to Sister Siale was the saddest thing ever, but we are both going to the south island and we have mission tour at the end of January so we will see each other then. I flew to Dunedin on Tuesday and stayed there until Thursday afternoon because we had MLC on Wednesday night and Zone Conference on Thursday morning and out area is 4.5 hours away so it would have been a waste to drive there and back. So I just hung out in Dunedin for a solid 2 days which was pretty boring. Tuesday night we had a family zone evening which was fun. It's weird because I don't know have the people in my zone because they're all so new lol.  On Wednesday we went caroling as a zone which was fun. We started off really strong singing really well, but after about an hour we really started to struggle and sound really bad hahaha. We also picked up President and Sister Soloai from the airport. It...

Kia Ora Whanau This transfer is short because of Christmas so tomorrow I am being transferred to Queenstown which is basically the Banff of New Zealand! My new companions are Sister Alves from Paris and Sister Romano from Boston. They are Portuguese speaking so that'll be interesting considering my entire mission I've been learning little bits of Samoan and Tongan. It's a bittersweet transfer, I am so excited for the new adventures and growth in Queenstown, but I am going to miss my soas so much! I love them with my whole heart, they have been such a blessing in my life. Anyways, this week we had a few miracles. The first happened when we went and visited Sister Tuigamala. We taught her the Gospel of Jesus Christ and connected it to the Plan of Salvation. We drew it all out for her and she loved it! She kept calling it the 5 steps to Heaven hahaha. She is in a wheelchair and so she has caregivers that come and help her out. She shared what we taught her with one...

Kia Ora Whanau!  So last week on Tuesday we got a third companion, Sister Tauru. She's from Tahiti and came out on her mission at the same time as me! Some notable things from this week include going on exchanges. I was with Sister Tauru and Sister Gunnell who has been out for a total of 3 days. We spent all day in the Featherston area and it was so good because we got so much done in that area. I wish we were only covering one ward because it's so much more effective. A miracle that happened on exchanges is we went and visited a member who told us that Sister Tuigamala (a less active lady) was ready for the missionaries again. This Sister has been taking lessons from the Jehovah Witnesses the last 6 months and so 5 months ago when I first met her, she was not interested at all. The members kept ministering to her throughout the whole time and because of their diligence when we went and saw her this week her heart had totally changed. We taught her the plan of salvati...

Kia Ora Whanau! This week on Tuesday we had some very sad news. Ann, the woman who had a baptisimal date for December 7, cancelled her baptism. It was so sad but it was good because she made a hard decision to help her prepare more and overcome her smoking. She is still keen though which is fantastic and we are excited to keep helping her come unto Christ.  Wednesday we went on exchanges and I was with Sister Taroni in Wainuiomata. It was such a successful day, we found two new people to teach and one of them agreed to come to church on Sunday!  Thursday was hard because so few people were home. But no effort is wasted. We did get to see a woman who we just started teaching and she said that she would like her whole family to start listening to us which is so exciting because the gospel is all about families! So hopefully we will get to start teaching them all this week. We had some door knocking miracles this week. On Tuesday before we started door knockin...

Kia Ora Whanau We had zone confernece on Tuesday and it was probably one of the best ones I've been to. I just felt so uplifted and I knew exactly what I needed to do inorder for Sister Siale and I to mope the work of the Lord moving. It was a great day!  Wednesday morning Sister Siale woke up sick so she stayed in bed and I did the morning schedule alone. It's so much harder to do alone than when you're doing it with a companion. Sister Siale is such a consecrated missionary though, I look up to her so much! She got out of bed  around 11am  and did her studies and then went an appointment that we had even though she was feeling really crummy. After the appointment though she was not doing well at all and she ended up on the sidewalk crying. Many people stopped to help but there was nothing they could do. We called some members and they picked us up and gave Sister Siale a blessing. I have such a testimony of preisthood blessings because the things that were sai...

Kia Ora Whanau Do this week was so busy; it's always busy! Monday last week we taught Ann about following the prophet at a family home evening held by some members. We were pretty creative and taught it by playing "Simon Says" but instead it was "The Prophet Says". It actually went really well and sparked some really good discussion. On Tuesday we emergency moved some members who had their baby a month early and were planning to move to a new house that day. What a coincidence that the baby came the same day and the move. It kept us busy all day! Wednesday we contacted alot of people. One of them is a lady who we did some service for a few weeks back and who said she'd be interested in learning more. We spent a good 45 minutes answering her questions and overcoming some misconceptions that she had about the church of Jesus Christ. It was a really good visit and ended with her and her friend both accepting a Book of Mormon. We also rec...

Kia Ora Whanau Well transfers are tomorrow and history is being made. I will be staying in Masterton with Sister Siale! This is history because this will be the second area that I've been in for 6 months and because this is the first time that I will be staying with a companion in an area. All my previous transfers I've gotten new companions. Also fun fact, my other 6 month area was in the same stake and zone so after this next transfer, I will have served about a year in the same stake/zone. I like to joke and say that I wasn't called to the New Zealand Wellington Mission, I was called to the New Zealand Hutt Valley Zone Mission.  To be honest this week was a mental struggle. I was just so exhausted and I felt like I had done all I could for this area and I honestly was ready to be transferred. When I got the call that I was staying I was pretty disappointed and worried because this last week was a grind. I had a nice long chat with Heavenly Father where I told Hi...

Kia Ora Whanau  We did so much service this week! We put an add on facebook last week for free service and so this week we did at least one, sometimes two services everyday. It was really fun and set up some great opportunities for this coming week. On of the services that we did was for a family who needed help getting their mums house ready to put it on the market, so we weeded the gardens. Then afterwards they messaged us saying they'd like a little more help and a chance to ask us about the church and out missions!  Another service that we did was weeding the gardens of an elderly couple. They weren't home when we did it which was okay. We later found out that we were at the wrong house so we weeded some random peoples gardens hahaha. The last service that we did this week was for a family that is apparently family with alot of the members in the ward including the bishop! They seemed really cool and there could be alot of potential so now we are really...