Special Request.... pray for our investigators

Hello again!! Wow another week already come and gone, i honestly can't believe how fast missions are. It's unreal how fast time flies by!! So Saturday we had an international dinner with the ward. The ward was supposed to invite nonmembers and less active to come. Oh boy did they ever. We had like 20 NM there and about 10 less actives or so. It was incredible! Sister Prince and i had so many people to talk to, it was almost overwhelming but so good. Such a good turn out and it was a fun activity. So many different kinds of food, i couldn't choose what i wanted. And being the missionary i had to do more talking than eating, so we didnt really have time to try everything or really much at all. But that doesn't matter because some cool things happened at the dinner. We were able to get an appointment to teach some and also a lady asked the bishop if she could be a member of his congregation. We certainly are going to have some people to teach and i can only pray that it'll go through. That being said please pray for clare, squire, and yvonne! I love our ward so much. they truly and doing a great job in helping us do the work! ok so for the ward party we wanted to dress up because we were in the indian group. So we went to the indian less actives in our ward and borrowed some clothes(we've been working with them) and invited them to come. As we tried on the clothes we didn't know if we really should wear these if there were gong to be a lot of NM there but we took it anyway. So she put it in to a bag for us and then grabbed her perfume and sprayed like 10 squirts in it, the whole time i was raising my voice saying "oh no, stop, thats good, thank you , STOP!!" Ha i didn't want to smell like that. So then she turned the perfume at me as though she didn't understand that we didn't want it and she tried to spray it on me and i did the same but worse" NO, STOP, I'M GOOD, NO NO NO NO NO" ha it was quite a funny sight. she just smiled and continued onto sister prince who didn't freak out as bad but implied a no. ha what a funny experience. We didn't end up wearing the clothes to the dinner because we didn't feel it appropriate but we put them on later as you can see in the picture!

Some awesome members in our ward dressed up as Mexicans and it was great!! We love them and they are great fellow shippers and go with us to teach! So last week Chael said he didn't want to be taught by us anymore and then he texted us again and said he did. he is more willing now. He's had a lot of family opposition. I know it'll be hard but he will find God:) We had zone conference this week in which i learned so much. We first discussed the first point that it brings up to teach in preach my gospel. How so many of us just pass by it 'to get to the good stuff" like Joseph smith. The first point is "God is our loving Heavenly Father". This talks about who God is. Everyone's perception of God is different and we are fortunate to know that he is literally our father, he has a literal body of flesh and bone like us. No one out there truly knows that. We need to make sure they understand who he is. That he cares about us because he is our father, he wants us to be happy, he wants us to have success in this life. We taught this to chael and so far it has made it easier for him to pray. It was way cool:) He imagined God as a spirit or an essence in everything. Its so important that they understand God's true character. Why would we want to return to God if her was just some essence. He is human but Godly!! He is perfect, all knowing, all loving, i love him so much and am truly grateful for him, for his love and for the promises that he makes and keeps when we do our part. I love my mission! i am so happy here and i wouldn't trade this experience for anything. I know i won't always be this happy, i'm gonna have hard times on my mission but it's up to me whether i am happy or not! I found i am truly happy when i am being obedient, when i am sharing the gospel with other and bearing my testimony. That is what i came here to do. I didn't come here to be scared, shy and sit in my flat. I came here to teach, to testify of the living reality of the son of God, to testify that his true church has been restored to the earth, the commandments that he gives us are a safe haven, to keep us happy in this life. Truly obeying the commandment will make you truly happy, they are not a hindrance but a blessing! i love them:) strive to always obey them, read and study the scriptures every day so that you can have that armor on to help you choose the right. It's SO IMPORTANT!! cool story this week is that we taught someone during exercise time! ha funny story! We ran into him on the street a couple of weeks ago. He was interested and sincerely wanted us to come by, so he gave us his info. We went later and the person there said that he didn't live there, so we called the number and it was the same voice as the one at the door and they said the same thing. I was so bothered by this. Anyway, we moved on and forgot about it. So we randomly decided to ride our bikes the other day, which we never do. And we took a route that we never do and we passed this house of the guy i just mentioned. He was outside and it looked like the one we ran into on the street. So i turned around and went and talked to him . It was him, Jason, and we were able to teach him a lesson that morning and make a return appointment. We prayed with him outside his house and after we were done he mentioned that he was feeling something different. He had chills and it felt nice. We explained that those were feelings from God. We taught him about the holy ghost. It was so cool!! I've never done that before. I was weird teaching in exercise clothes but so worth it! He did say, " it's a little early don't you think" I reassured him that we only stopped because we knew him:) ha funny. I'm excited to teach him. He already had a Book of Mormon that he had been trying to read. So we explained it to him and he's already to Mosiah. So cool! love you all! Sister Bird

I've been out for 4 months already!

Kia Ora! I so love love love my mission! i love teaching people, i love sharing my testimony with them. It all makes me so happy!!! People don't always accept it and that's hard because you know how much it's going to bless their life but you need to trust that they are in God's hands and he'll take care of them. He has a plan for them. We had a missionary fireside last night (which Casey spoke at- and did amazing). We had been inviting heaps of people and did our last check around before it started. Almost everyone, less actives and nonmembers came. It was so amazing. I know that so many were touched. Our relief society were supposed to invite a less active or a non member to come with them. One of our favorite members, who lives just down the road from us (Michelle Horsecroft) and she always feeds us. She takes good care of us. Anyway she brought her neighbor she's been getting to know and as she walked in the chapel and the relief society was singing prelude and she started crying and said that she could feel the spirit of the Lord there. It was so neat!!:) Also Chael texted us yesterday morning and said that he wasn't going to come to church anymore, he wasn't going to meet with us. His intention of coming to church wasn't to find God but to make good wholesome friends. We left it at that and visited him after church. We decided he can't tell us off over text... ha So when we visited him we found that he was having struggles with family and friends criticizing him for coming to the Mormon church, and that he just wanted the friends. We assured him that it would be ok and that he had already made some good friends in our ward. Come to church to see them etc. We re invited him to the fireside last night and told him Paul and Matt would be there and he would be able to chill with them. he agreed to it and honestly it worked out so well. Those men in our ward took him under their wings are i think it's going to work out. It'll take time before he joins the church but he has a good foot in:) The cool thing is that we were running out of time to make it to all these houses on time but i felt prompted that we needed to stop at chaels house. So we did and it turned out so well. I love heavenly father:) He helps things work out so well. Ps Sister Prince and i are staying together for transfers and in the same area. i think we will be together the next transfer too because it's in the middle of the Christmas lights tours at the vc. so hopefully we will:) Elder Mclachlan asked president if he could try the best not to switch out the sisters during that time since it was so busy with the lights and tours etc for Christmas. so we have high hopes that I'll stay one transfer longer!!! so excited:) I am so happy! i honestly am loving my mission right now:) things are going well, not perfect but we must have faith that they will turn out for our good! How did the challenge go of following the prompting of the spirit? i love you heaps and hope all is well! i can't believe Christmas is a month away today and also i've been out for 4 months exactly yesterday!! crazy! love you Sister Bird

Holy Cow! These weeks just keep flying by

Holy Cow! These weeks just keep flying by so fast, it's already half way through November!!!!! Family, my week was so great! I honestly do love my mission, i love talking to people and sharing my testimony of this restored truth! Ok actually looking back my week wasn't so great, it ended great though!! It seems as though we have a theme for each week of what people bring up... i don't remember the other weeks because they weren't so bad but this week was... drum roll please!!! Your church isn't true, Joseph Smith was a liar, you can't even prove the book of Mormon to be true with historical facts.. etc. It was honestly so awful and really discouraging. Taking your testimony smashing it to pieces and then telling you to do research on your own church. How it's false. It hurts a lot, especially because i know it's true and i am sad that they are not opening up their eyes to see the truth. They won't give it a chance at all. I pray that someday their eyes will be opened. So other than that discouraging word that we got at least once a day, this week was great! Casey finally got baptized and it was one of the best days of my life! It just went so well. The room was packed with family, friends, and ward members, missionaries and their investigators. I was astonished at how many people showed up. Casey actually hurt her arm boxing a few days before and her arm was in a sling. She pulled some muscle in her back that connects to her arm and her shoulder. It was really sore and caused her a lot of pain. The funny part of when it happened was that she thought she was going to die because it hurt so bad and the first thing she thought was no I can't die!!! I have to get baptized on Saturday! This is something that she really wanted, she knew it was important and nothing was going to stop her. She told us some of her friends were throwing her a party and wanted her to come drink at it but she thought real hard and decided not to because what would make her most happy in the end. Satan was trying to hard to keep her from being baptized. During the baptism, i spoke on baptism and Sister Prince spoke on the Holy Ghost. Then Casey was baptized by her uncle who is a convert. The one who she had problems with in the other ward at first but now she's all good. he was the one who said weird things in Sunday school. Then she prayed about it and God answered her so directly and actually through him and everything turned out and she ended up asking him to baptize her. It was great. Then after the baptism and while she was getting dressed we had everyone write her a little note, that was special. Then she bore her testimony. Wow. She truly is amazing. She started out saying how she was preparing for this moment and the moment she would bear her testimony and she said that she looked on google and on youtube for "the best testimonies" because she wanted to have the beyonce of testimonies. But she said that she could never remember what to say. She told her sister and she said 'maybe its because your not supposed to remember, those aren't your testimonies". Casey proceeded to look up more you tube videos and write down what she wanted to say but she always seemed to misplace her paper. Even that morning she misplaced her testimony. She had her sister rip it out of her journal and bring it. When she was bearing her testimony she expressed that she was so grateful for the blessings she had been receiving all this time. She was receiving so many that she was feeling guilty. But she really wanted to get baptized because she knew she would receive even more blessings. She said when she came up out of the water, Heavenly Father opened her eyes and she realized that all of her blessings were sitting right there and watching her. He blessed her with the best dad, the best mom, the best brothers, sisters, aunties, uncles and the best missionaries(this is where i cried ha lol) She's had these blessings all along but now she could see them and she was so grateful for what each had done for her in her life. Then sister prince and i sang a nice arrangement of "i know that my redeemer lives" it is case's favorite song and mine too:) The spirit there was so strong and i know so many people were touched. Even her mom who we were originally supposed to find and contact that day who actually pretended to be interested, she was touched and it might go somewhere. God opened the doors for great things to happen. She then came up to the VC that night and visited us. She brought us gifts. She made these bouquets of flax flowers she weaved about a year ago, she gave us a picture of us from that day and also she gave us her favorite scarves. I started crying, almost uncontrollably(really embarrassing) but i honestly was so grateful for those gifts and i love Casey so much. Honestly words cannot describe how grateful i am to have her in my life. These gifts are so precious to me. I'm not so much of a crier but this is one of the only times on my mission when I've cried. i was truly touched. I also cried a little the next day when she received the Holy Ghost and became a member of the church. I am so proud of her and joy just fills my heart to know that she has my favorite gift for herself. The gift of the holy ghost. That gift brings me true happiness. I know when i have it i am doing what's right and making my Heavenly Father proud. :) Such a great day! i honestly couldn't be happier!:) Goal for this week: Study or share your testimony on something that will help you testimony grow in an area where it is week. Love and miss you heaps! sister Bird I know this is true!

So I am now officially starting to love my mission-Nov 11

How are things going over in America? So i am now officially starting to love my mission. Honestly it depends on the day but the past fews days, I've loved being out and talking with people. I've loved the lessons that we've had. Our investigators are really growing and it's so cool to see the fruit of our labors. We met a few new people who are really interested. One is Chael (like kale from the words Michael.. idk) anyway he is awesome. He is 31 and recently just kicked his addictions of drugs and alcohal. He said he finally feels free. He's lonely tho because all of his "friends" he had before aren't his true friends and so he's basically starting a new life. I can't even imagine what that would be like. Living life just to get to your next fix so that you feel good again and then thinking the friends you have really care about you. Letting that all go and coming to find out how awesome life really is with out it and not have any friends... hard. He's great tho, he believes in God indirectly but is so willing to find him for himself and not through others. We had an awesome lesson with him last night, the spirit was so strong and the members that we brought to the lesson were perfect! (if you ever have a chance to go with the missionaries to teach, do it. it is so helpful and worth it. ask the missionaries for the opp to they know your willing to help) Sister Prince told me of an awesome quote that she heard it's "I am merely a spectator. I make the action that God leads me to do and then i watch the Lord work miracles" i love that! That's exactly what i want to be. Sometimes i forget to be humble and give the credit to the Lord, i just think how awesome it was and how strong the spirit was, but really he is converting, not me! i am merely a spectator..:) Casey is doing great! She is getting baptized on Saturday and it's so cool! I'm so excited and so is she! She went to church at her other ward and she loved it this time! We made up a word for awesomer than awesome and it's mantis. I forgot how she made it up.. i think it came from saying "man" like man thats awesome, but just turned into mantis. So she said that her day was manits, which is a good sign! She is really amazing and i learn so much from her. She is so nice to everyone, reaches out to all in her presence that she can. I just want to be like her. She belives in treating everyone, no matter what or who, like they are important to her. It's amazing. This week was so awesome:) The ward is really starting to work with us, help us find people to teach and teaching and fellow shipping with us! it's so amazing. Truly the work accelerates when this happens:) So transfers are next week... i think I'll be taken out of the vc and moved somewhere else. Maybe I'll open up a new area. who knows. I want to stay here because i love these people and the new people we've begun to teach but the Lord knows I'll take any responsibility he gives me, and gladly. I know that this work is true, i love seeing the gospel change lives and touch hearts, it's so mantis!;) I love it, i love it, i love it! thank you mum for helping me decide to go on a mission.Thank you for helping me realized that this would be greater than the humanitarian work i wanted to do. It truly is better times infinity. Hope you have a great week! Love you and miss you heaps:) Sister Bird

Nov 4th

Kia Ora! Wow this week has been full of ups and downs, but that is ok. I sure do see the hand of the Lord in my every day life. So many things happened this week that caused me to be discouraged. I prayed for things to happen and felt that they didn't. But the Lord answered my prayers in a round about way. He ALWAYS answers prayers, just not always in the ways we expect. And i have truly been shown that this week. I do every week but i always forget, i'm pretty sure that is why we have repetitive lessons at church, because we simply forget. We can always use a reminder. So this week we actually set casey for baptism. She had so many barriers and we just listened to her, understood her and shared our personal experiences of doing hard things. Such as choosing to come on a mission. We knew it would be hard and we didn't know that future and the things that we would encounter but we also trusted in God and that it was the right thing then everything would be ok. She really felt our stories, and they touched her heart. Her baptism is in two weeks and she is going to be a member of Jesus Christ's church!!!! so awesome! The scary things is though that we had her go to her new ward yesterday and she had a bad experience. Apparently her uncle is in that ward(she didn't know he was a member) and he taught the sunday school lesson, he said a lot of crazy, outrageous things and it took her back. It was stuff like black people sinning the most and that's why they are cursed with dark skin, and kapahaka is of the devil. It was crazy. We didn't know what happened and she was like i think i need a break for a while... We were so freaked out. Sister Prince cried but i am heartless and didn't. I held myself together because i felt that everything would be ok. We got it figured out. It was cool too because God always answers prayers. I prayed that he would answer casey's prayer in the way she needed it and he did. She was at the lake and her sister(step sister a member) called her and said is everything ok? I felt i needed to call you. She clarified with Casey that just because someone in the church says something stupid it doesn't mean that the whole church is wrong. Pull your head in and remember what you've felt. Casey called and told us what happened and then we met with her that night and talked it out and read Alma 14 which is about alma and amulek going though awful things, being smitten and having to watch women and children burn in the fire. She really connected with it and said, it they can suffer and go through persecution, then so can i. I can handle this. The crazy part of it was that she didn't read the scriptures that morning. When we let our guard down, satan will attack us even harder. She thought since she was going to church she would be ok, but he hit her the hardest that day. Always read your scriptures! They will save you! Sorry for the long story, there was so many more discouraging things that happened this week but it all ended well. I decided that if i am discouraged i must keep working and teaching because that i was brings me the most happiness. If i stop and pout, what good will that do? Nothing, i'm just letting satan win. But i was called to new zealand for a reason and to fulfill a purpose and that purpose is to teach people the gospel and i will do that! :) I love you all so much! Hope all is well, i sure do miss ya! ps we went to bridal viel falls again, i went with sister prince and casey and a lot of people it was great. Casey even brought her nm sister. It was such a fun time and so beautiful! We stopped a couple times on the way back up because there were 261 stairs and it was hard. So casey took the advice of Elder Mclachlan and said "make something of this" and so we would relate it to gospel topic or principle. Casey came up with the best one when we were all done. We were eating lunch and she made something out of the picnic table. It was all carved into and weathered. And she said "this table was me before i met you and had the gospel in my life. I had plenty of scrapes and i was weathered. But as i read the scriptures, pray, go to church , get taught the lesson then it's like sand paper scrubbing off all the bad things of my past and shaping me into who i need to be." It was so choice to hear that coming from her. The gospel has truly touched her life and changed it for the better. Pauline finally came into the VC to see me. It was such a joyous day. I love her so much. I started crying as we hugged. She's like a tender mother, even though she doesn't know all thats going on it was like hugging my mum and what i needed. She pulled out a little bag and gave me her own green stone necklace. It is so beautiful and means so much to me. I was shocked and touched. It was neat that she did that because just last week i gave casey my own ctr ring and i cried when i gave it away. I honestly loved that ring, i wanted it for so long and even though i bought it myself, it meant so much to me because i worked for it. I gave it to her to help her to remember to choose the right and to always wear her armor. It is a precious gift because it came from my heart and i feel the same about the necklace she gave me and the one Pauline gave me. I am truly honored to know them. I feel so privileged to be a servant in the hand of God. To share his gospel. No, i am most definitely not his perfect servant but i do try to do my best each day. :) I love my Heavenly Father and i know that he loves me, i know he is aware of me and each of his children and it's truly humbling when we see his hand in our lives. I love you all:) Sister Bird Casey calls me "Auntie Tui"

October 20th. Great Blessings....

Kia Ora Family, How are things going over there is the US? We hear some pretty crazy things are happening with the government and national parks? So anyways, this week has been an interesting one. I hate that i switch so much about how much i love the work to not wanting to go out at all. I wish it would always stay the same about wanting to go out and talk with everyone and feel the love for them, but that is not always the case. It's alright though because yesterday was a great day. Casey came to church, and just so you know church is always a scary thing to bring an investigator too. It can either be really good or really bad. But in this case Casey loved it! The bishop and many other peopel came up to talk to her after sacrament and she instantly loved the bishop because he talked "ghetto"(as she calls it) too. He said "sweet as" and she felt that it was way cool because she says those terms. It was funny, he is also helping her find a new place to stay because she moved out of her moms house, contention... so hopefully she'll still be in our ward. The ward loved her and made her feel so welcome. The next best thing about church was that in sunday school the many teaching it, brother manukau, and he is mauri as well. He just stopped the lesson and told her everything about his conversion and how he had struggles with family and such but he knew it was true. He said it's hard, but it's worth it. He then connected mauri traditions with the church and she understood and connected with him and it was great! Apparently words in mauri are more meaningful than in english. then in relief society we were talking about what to do if our leaders make mistakes and lead us astray. What do we do? After many ladies said some things, the room started to feel dark, Casey raised her hand and said "if i ever have a problem with someone who is dark i just give them love, everyone can use a little love." Then she said, "although i don't know any of you's to well yet, its starting to feel a little dark in here but i love you's already". It was so cool! i loved it! And it totally lightened the mood and brought the spirit back. What investigator participates in church their first time? She's awesome:) she was so excited about church and everyone she met, she told us afterwards that before she wasn't so sure about baptism but now she wants to be baptized asap! ha it was so cool! Also, this week we were teaching casey and before we started the lesson she said 'hold up i have something for you two before we start". She gave us little black bags that had necklaces in them. These necklaces you don't buy for yourself, it has to be given to you by someone. she said "though this may be small, it means a lot. so just like what you are doing for me may be something small for you, it really is a big deal and means a lot to me. You girls are awesome!" It was so special and tender moment. That is exactly how i feel about the necklace. though it may be a small gift from her to us, it means the world to me. I will never forget her and these memories. The stone she gave us have a meaning and what it said before that's what i means. They have a mauri 'poem" kind of thing that goes along with them. but this necklace is so special to me. i never wear necklaces but i wear this everyday now. i just love casey. So glad that we met her and were able to teach her. I love seeing the gospel change lives. i honestly can't remember much of what else has happened this week. We are singing this next week in the sister conference for our mission, i'll see if i can't get a clip of it sent to you. It'll be too big to send in email but we'll figure something out.. i know you'd love to hear it. It's been fun practicing it through out the week. I'm evening trying to learn it to play and accompany someone too. That's my goal for the future, play the piano well enough to accompany someone. Something i learned this week is found all over the scriptures. Ask and ye shall receive, knock and it shall be opened unto you, seek and ye shall find. If you turn to D&C 103:31 it says that and then that men do not always do my will. Its Gods will that we seek and find. laman and lemuel never did, therefore they were confounded and found unwise and fell astray. We are wise when we study the sctipures. In Alma 30 it talks of korihor and how he persuades many of his teaching but the ones he didn't persuade were people who were wise, they knew God and them kept reading and praying. The basics are so simple, yet, people have such a hard time doing them. Always do the basics. For it is the will of God and will make us wise and we will not fall astray. I love you all and i know the church is true. This is Jesus Christs very church once again on the earth. And we are members of it, how cool is that? So cool! Goal for this week: read and pray everyday! doing these things are so important. It gives you the spirit, guides you in your daily lives, helps you to be more happy and handle struggles and trials with a sense of happiness and ease. Yes we will still have problems but the way we handle them will be more positive and we will feel helped and comforted. We may not be helped in the way we think we need, but we are ALWAYS helped. it also helps us with major and minor decisions. Please do it and you'll notice a difference and won't want to stop. You'll long for it, the days you do miss. Love ya heaps, Sister Bird

Casey and her brother

We forgot about an appointment....but it was a blessing ....

Kia ora Family! So this week went by slow but really fast too! I've been having a hard time this week wanting to go out and work all day. It's a tough thing. I love the work especially when i'm doing it and especially when we are teaching lessons to people who are progressing but satan has really been getting me down, as in i just never feel like going out to work. so i've been praying A LOT for that to change! We did have a good week tho, many miracles happened. First one i want to share is quite interesting. So there is this lady named pam that we have been trying to teach who is really interested but they are always busy. So finally we got an appointment with them and Sister prince and i studied and prepared and role played the best we could for this lesson. We went out and started talking with everyone before we were to go to the lesson. WE got caught up in talking with everyone that we completely forgot about our lesson and it was already time to go to the vc. While we were at the vc we had a lesson with Casey and in the middle of the Joseph Smith movie i realized what had happened. I whispered to S. Prince about what we did and we instantly started laughing at how stupid we were. We tried to keep it under control because we were in a lesson, but it was hard to. I felt so bad and thought how foolish can i be to forget our lesson. We've been looking forward to this for quite some time. That night we felt awful about ourselevs and gorged on chocolate. Each time we opened another lolly or chocolate we thought and said " might as well".. ha so funny! how pathetic! ha We called them and they didn't answer so we left a message. We stopped by the next day and they weren't home so we left a note. they texted us later and seemed like nothing was wrong. Thank goodness. i was so ashamed to tell them what had happened so we left out the part that we forgot and just apologized for not coming. I thought, we are missionaries we can't look irresponsible. i felt bad. but all was okay and they were ready to set up another appointment. As we were out that day, i saw a house that had a picture of Jesus hanging on their wall, so we knocked on it. They didn't seem like they were excited to see us but in the end they were members. it was a weird experience. ha After our lesson we asked for referrals and the lady who was their but didn't live there gave us some she wanted us to go see. it was pam and ammon(la partner). This lady was the aunt of ammon and had been reaching out to pam and said she was already being taught by sisters but would love a visit from us. We ended up being the sisters. Our next appointment with pam was supposed to be on tuesday but the lady, nikki, had aleady planned with pam to take her into the vc the next day. that was when we were on shift. so they did come in and we were able to teach her about the plan of salvation with the help of nikki. It was so amazing, she just got so excited about all the things we were teaching and they all made sense and she said that they were familiar to her. If we had remembered out lesson, then this amazing lesson wouldn't have happened. It needed to happen the way it did because although we had prepared we really weren't that ready. Everything went according to God's plan and was much better than our plan! Such a cool experience. We have a lesson with her tomorrow and i won't be there because we have exchanges but i'm excited to hear how it goes! she is so golden! The other day we were teaching a LA and some of her relative came in. As i sat there this man came over and tried kissing my companion. she had not experienced this yet, so it was quite commical to see her be surprised. ha then i received a kiss as well (on the cheek of course). Also, while we were there she gave us a hot drink, everyone offers those, this was hot chocolate. Oh boy was it hot! ha Sister princes tongue and mine are both scorched still!! it hurts! ha So the other day when the saturday morning session of conference had ended we were coming out of the chapel and a man was looking for someone. He had come a long way to find his long lost grandpa. He had been adopted and wanted to find his roots. As we helped him, we took him back to the vc and were able to take us around. When we first started talking with him and teaching him he kept saying "yep" like right after everything we were saying which gives me the impression that they really don't want to listen. But was we went on and taught him all about Jesus Christ and why he is important, about the plan of salvation and also the restoration and modern day prophets, by the end he loved it and thought it was so cool! the lord has prepared him for more than one reason to come to temple view to find him grandpa. One of the reasons he listened was because his grandpa was a mormon and he wasn't sure what he would talk to him about. it was so cool to see the countenance of this man change and see how the Lord prepares people to hear of his gospel. I love being the Lords mouthpiece. Casey and Donnel are doing well. they are a crack up and they say that they don't want to speak the way they speak, like "ghetto" language around us because they don't think we'd do that. ha they want to be like us. it's so cool! ha I love them and casey is progressing nicely. She still hasn't committed to baptism because she wants to make sure she knows everything and what she's getting herself into. She came to conference and loved it, but was uncomfortable with a few things they said. She hasn't told us yet, but one was elder oaks talk on chastity. So we'll see what happens. ha Its scary to bring investigators to things like that. its good but also scary because the prophets don't beat around the bush. Which is something S. Prince and i have been doing too much. We are going to practice being more blunt. This is the only way that we can return to live with God again and there is no other way, no matter what people think or believe. So there has got to be a good way to say it that will touch their hearts and not push them away! ha we'll see.. any advice? I know this work is true, i love it and i feel it. I loved conference by the way! so amazing! my favorite talks.. Elder utchdorf and elder ballard were amazing! i loved those ones! i also like elder dube. he was good! Doubt your doubts before you doubt your faith! come join with us! also, the invitation to share the gospel with someone before Christmas. He invited us to kneel to pray that god will send someone that we can share the gospel with and his promise was that millions will feel the love of God. We will feel more abundantly God's love for us and for them! what an amzing promise! i encourage you all to act on the invitation! God is calling all of us to reach out and save the world. time is running out. It may not be time for that person, they may not be ready right now, but if you do it they will never forget how they felt! i know that is true! I love you all! Sister Bird

The answer is YES!

So this week has been great but rather crazy!! ha 

So your all asking did i get transferred, do i have a new companion, am i still in the VC, did the baptism go through????

The answer to all of those questions is YES!!!!

Your probably wondering why i seem so enthused but that is because the Lord has bless me tremendously. I was serving in Nawton last transfer and it was double covered by us and a set of elders. Now i am in an area called Tuhikaramea. I stayed in the same flat and now i can walk to my area so we don't have a car. i am still in the VC and training the new VC sister! She is wonderful. Her name is sister Prince and i couldn't have asked for a better companion. She is just like me when i came out in the mission field. She has such a desire to do such good work and be prepared for everyone and it's quite refreshing actually. We laugh together all the time and are constantly trying to improve and see what we can do better and i love it. We are out here to bring people into the light of the gospel and closer to Christ and if we are not willing to change then what is the point. So i am glad that we improve each day. 

Sister Prince is from West Bountiful, Utah. The typical american state that everyone here asks if we are from!! She is beautiful and she is 19. Her birthday is oct 27 so she'll be turning 20 in our companionship. She is truly inspiring and we get along well:)

For the last question, yes the baptism wen through and it was so beautiful. With the help of the ward members that we brought to the lessons all turned out great. Pauline looked so beautiful. She looked like she was ready to enter the temple and she just glowed:) She was so excited. Her son came late and we asked if she wanted us to wait for him and she said "no, it's okay darling. This is important, i need to be baptized" or something like that. it just touched my heart. She then said "he'll come, he'll come" He ended up showing up right after that. And we were able to start. I gave a talk on the holy ghost and it was great. i felt good about it and i could feel the spirit in the room. Then she was baptized. She was so happy! She said it felt so good. I cried a little because i was so happy for her and it's going to change her life. I think her son will listen and hopefully be baptized. After the baptism i sang "when i am baptized" for her.

I am so blessed to have been the missionary to bring the gospel into Paulines life. It has brought me so much joy to see her have so much joy:) I never thought i would have a baptism in my first transfer.:)

So this transfer is going to be 8 weeks instead of 6 because we are catching up on getting the transfer dates accurate with the other mission. We messed it up somehow. 

So this week was the first time i have ever road my bike... and in a skirt. It was actually quite fun and we both enjoyed it. We felt like real missionaries! ha It's definitely fast to use the bike but it's always awkward to get off and talk to someone. We stalked someone the other day. WE got off the bike to talk to her and followed her and never caught up to her to talk tot her. We tried but we found she had earbuds in. ha it was a funny story. Sister Prince and i laugh at ourselves all day. The weird experiences we encounter. It's fun to laugh a lot.

Yesterday we were talking to people on the street and i felt prompted to knock on this door that we passed. i wasn't going to turn around but i decided to. As we talked with the man at the door he told us he wasn't interested but i never stop there. i ask them if they believe in God and then i asked him what it would mean to him if the gospel of Jesus Christ was restored. He said he would have to see it to believe it. i explained that we must ask God for questions like that. God has never just shown someone without faith first, so we cant expect to see things like that. We gave him the restoration pamphlet and invited him to read and pray about it. he said we could come back next Sunday to meet with him. I'm not sure if he is legitimately interested but it was cool to see the conversation turn around and have him kind of accept it. I'm anxious to see how it goes but more importantly i'm glad i followed my prompting. We will never regret following the promptings of the spirit but we always regret the ones we don't follow.

 

Sister Bird, Pauline, Sister Prince

 

I'm so excited about an upcoming baptism

23 September 2013

So I’m getting pretty excited!! Pauline’s baptism is this weekend on Saturday at 11! I’m so happy for her. She was so prepared and loves the gospel so much already! She wants to get to the temple! We’ve been meeting with her every day and will up until her baptism. I am so excited. I can’t even believe this is real. The scary thing is that transfers are on Thursday and we don’t know who will stay and who will go. I hope at least one of us can be there to support her. I can’t believe I actually, already have a baptism. It’s my first transfer. I don’t really feel like it was me though, it was definitely the Lord. He did it all.

-Sister Simkin's and I are getting really close and I am getting sad at even the thought of us being separated. I will miss her heaps. I will also miss this area a ton. I have gotten so used to the area and the people, just the atmosphere. It will be weird to change but I’ll do it if I’m asked. I trust my mission president and I trust the Lord. He knows what I need. I truly do love the area though. Yes, I do feel like it’s slow sometimes but that’s my fault. I need to get out and work harder to find people. The elders in our ward/area just found 2 new investigators and they have baptismal dates. So it is possible in any area.

 

I really do love missionary work but honestly sometimes I just don’t feel like doing it. Some days I have to force myself to get out there and talk to people. But I know when I feel like that it’s the adversary tempting me and that means that something great is going to happen and he doesn’t want it to. I hate how I have to consistently try to have charity, as in the circumstance where I want to go out all day and serve and talk to people. I just wish that desire was there. But where would be the learning in that? It is hard to go out and be rejected all day, but when you do find that one who will not only listen but who accepts it and wants to know more, then it becomes worth it. But recently I’ve found joy in just bearing my testimony to people. I’ve thought so many times ‘what more can I say that will help them feel something and want to know more’, what am I not saying. It must just sound like a nice fairy tale to have forever families. It’s interesting because we’ll share that and ask them if they want it and they say yes. Then we ask them if we can come back and share more and they say no. very contradicting. Ha I guess they don’t know what they want. ;P 

 

I am happy. I  love sharing the gospel. My testimony has grown heaps. As I share it each day I realize how much I not only believe but find comfort in knowing. I never realized how much of a blessing it is to be brought up in the gospel. The same church that Jesus Christ established when he was on the earth is now on the earth again and I am a member of it. That is so incredible!!! Who wouldn’t want to be a member of his church? Who wouldn’t want the many blessings that are promised and seen? I love it, I love this gospel with all my heart and find so much joy in being obedient to it and in doing the best in life that I can to please my Heavenly Father.

Ok Friends and followers.... please write to me.. I miss you all and love hearing from you. Email me at kailey.bird@myldsmail.net or send mail.... Oh how missionaries love mail!!!

Address is on the blog