Week 62

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's always really fun to get to talk to then in a more relaxed situation. During the car ride, President made a comment about how I've learned lots of languages on my mission and now I'm going to learn Portuguese. I was like wait what?! Because both of my companions and assigned to speak Portuguese so I thought he was asking me to legit learn. I cleared it up though, he hasn't assigned me to learn lol.

MLC was really good. President Soloai did some training on how to have successful companion ships and how you need to out aside your differences inorder to have unity. At first I thought that it was good training but not applicable to my companionship because this is the most similar companionship I've ever been in. Well throughout the week I learned that while Sister Alves, Sister Romano and I may be the most similar looking companionship I've ever had, we are the kostdifferent in personality companionship I've ever been in. So I was very grateful for President Soloai's counsel because it has allowed us to work with each other better.

After Zone conference on Thursday we drove to Queenstown. I am finally not the designated driver and we are in a trio which meant I got to take a 4 hour car nap for the first time my entire mission!!!!! 

Well here are some things you need to know about the Queenstown area. It is approximately 1/5 of the South Island (so it's HUGE), there is no branch president, because it is so big we have 2 meetings each Sunday - one in Queenstown and one and hour away in a community hall in Alexandra, there are 4 couples that come to church regularly and the rest are usually tourists, there is no pianist so we always get a tourist to play the piano and they pick random songs that aren't in the hymn book to sing so they play the pentatonix version of "Mary Did You Know?" through a speaker for songs, the majority of the members are from Brasil and there is one American couple, the chapel has been converted from a regular home into a chapel, and we have to drive all the time because the area is so huge (not ideal). 

This week has been an adjustment because there are no polynesian families which I've been surrounded by my whole mission and I miss them. Also because the work is so different. Because there are so many tourists we have to be very creative with how we find new people to teach. So for example we play frisbee gold every Friday with a community group and try to talk to the locals who join in. We also go to farmers markets every Saturday to tall to the store owners because they are typically locals. This Saturday we went and we ended up giving a Book of Mormon to one of the booth people. 

Something else that we do in Queenstown is teach an English class twice a week. It's a super successful class and heaps of people from South America come. This week we asked a couple that comes tot he class if they would be interested in learning more about the Gospel and they politely said no. Oh well at least we invited them.

My spiritual thought this week is from 3 Nephi 14:7 which says "Ask, and it shall be given unto you; seek, and ye shall find; knock, and it shall be opened unto you." Sometimes I read this scripture and it sounds like the answers will be immediate when you follow this pattern of asking, seeking and knocking but it's typically not like that. Most of the time we have to ask alot, over and over again. And then we have to seek for a really long time in sometimes some very far away dark corners. And even after all that we have to knock as hard as we can with all our energy until out hands hurt. Sometimes receiving answers to questions and finding truth isn't easy, it's extremely difficult and that's okay. All we need to do is have faith enough to ask one more time and go to that dark far away corner to seek a little but more and to knock just a little bit harder. When we have that faith, the miracles occur in Gods perfect timing and we receive he perfect answer in the exact moment that we need it most. So if you feel like the heavens have been closed for just a little bit too long, keep having faith and keep asking, seeking and knocking. I promise you that you will find the answers and you will find joy.

Ofa Atu

Sister Olson 

Pictures: 
- the farmers market
- grocery shopping that's always too expensive 
-frisbee golf
-the saddest goodbye of my life and probably the saddest picture you've ever seen






Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Week 51

Image
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...
Read more

Advice from the night you were set apart

Mom: My advice to you was to be humble. The church website about humility says this: To be humble is to recognize gratefully our dependence on the Lord—to understand that we have constant need for His support. Humility is an acknowledgment that our talents and abilities are gifts from God. It is not a sign of weakness, timidity, or fear; it is an indication that we know where our true strength lies. We can be both humble and fearless. We can be both humble and courageous. My thought was to advise you to remember that you have something to learn from everyone you meet. Dad: Dad said to remember the big picture of why you are serving a mission. Programs and key indicators are not the mission. Of course we need organization and we need to keep rules, but the real purpose of serving a mission is to share the gospel. When times are tough, remind yourself of your purpose. Grandma: Grandma said that she is so proud of you. She said you are such an effervescent p...
Read more

Week 30

Image
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 m...
Read more