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