Flax flower

The drawing Isaiah made. Can you guess who it is? He is such an artist!

BeSt WeEk EvEr! :D

Dear Whanau,

  How are you all this week? My week wasso wonderful! Rochelle Wilson and her children came to church on Sunday. My companion and I were so excited! I was playing the hymns for sacrament meeting and the meeting started and they hadn't showed up, so I thought, oh they weren't going to show up, but when I turned around after playing the opening hymn there they were sitting and smiling and waving at me. :D It was the best sight ever! They all loved church and we recieved a text from Rochelle she was going to do a Family Home Evening Tonight! :D We haven't even told her about that yet; she is an amazing woman!

   We did service for her on Saturday and that was so good. Her daughter Anahera taught me how to make a flax flower. I really enjoyed ;eraning that. My companion and I have a bunch of flaz now in our flat, we plan on making some flaz flowers latter today.

    yesterday for church, we had a great lesson on Sacrifice and Job. Something I really liked about sacrifice is that sacrifice is putting things off so we can be closer to Heavenly Father. Something else someone said that I hadn't really thought about is that Heavenly Father Sacrificed His Son and His Son, our Savior Jesus Christ, sacrificed His life that we all might be saved and return to love with our Heavenly Father, all that we are asked is to sacrifice all we have and the blessings are more than we can imagine. Job is a good example of this. He lost all, although he didn't concsiously choose to sacrifice his great goods, and then in the end of his suffering he recieved double what he had had in the beggining. The Lord surely will bless us if we are willing to do the things He has asked of us.

  I love you all! Have a wonderful week!
Love,
Sister Sudweeks

SIster Matwaychuck gave my companion and I Reeses but it's Canadian! :D

This drinking fountain is in what is called the exchange which is right next to a street called Water St. This is where all the big banks and business used to be.

I am eating Tongan food! :)

Our Service....

Dear Whanua,

  Hello! I hope you all had a good week! We have had heaps of rain this week! I think it is about time I got a proper umbrella! We officially lost our car, and my companion and I are full of thanksgiving as our new weight loss regime is underway ;) Haha, one day perhaps my goal will be to bike all the way up high street without getting off! If you are unable to see a picture of high street trust me it is quite a feat. But a long story short we will be biking a lot now, and I am so excited about that!

   We saw Rochelle Wilson again this week. She is doing so well! We popped in and saw her with a member randomly and she invited us in and we talked to her for a minute, when she opened up and told us how she has been reading the pamphlet we left with her and she has been finding answers to her questions. She then asked if we had more pamphlets and if she could have one. We gladly gave her some :)

     On Saturday we went and did some service. We weeded a garden for one of our less actives and went to go and see this really nice Fijian member Sister Sala. I wish you could meet her! She is so nice. Well we got there for service and the first thing she had us do was to sit down and out came the milo, bisquits, chips, and ice cream. We were told there was no service but to just sit and eat.

   That is the happenings and goings of this week. We have a new Elder, Elder Toomalatia. He is from Samoa and is so funny. He bore his testimony yesterday and started off saying I am not from a large family just 8 brothers and 1 sister... I am sure you can imagine the rest of his testimony.

  Have a wonderful week!

much love,
Sister Sudweeks

A week of 7 miracles

 Dear Whaunu,
         This week is transfer week and I am so grateful to be staying here in Dunedin! Sister Fetu'u and I have a fire to start for missionary work before I can leave! Well I didn't exactly say that in my prayer but I was really hoping I would be able to stay at least one more transfer so I can help Dunedin catch fire for missionary work. My companion and I have had a really good week. We did exchanges with the Invercargill Sisters: Crankchaw(another sister from my intake: from South Africa) and Unsicker(from Utah). It was really good and we learned a heap!

      Sister Fetu'u and I had a really cool miracle this week. We were going street contacting yesterday and there was no one on the street. We only had an hour to do this, and we both decided we could do something a bit more productive with the time we had, so we turned backed to head towards the car and we were able to talk to a couple more people along the way. When we reached the car, I saw this old couple two car lengths away and I thought we should go talk to them. We did and managed to say hello and ask if they needed help (they were locking their bikes to their car) when this young man came up behind us and asked us what was the message we were sharing again (he had been with this group of young men we had talked to but he kept walking when we approached the group). We told him we were sharing about family History and he said he has been wanting to do that and we were able to give him a family history card. We then left and went to contact two referrals. They both weren't home. As we turned away from the second referrals door, Sister Fetu'u said lets knock on this door (it was the one right next to it) and so we did. I was expecting another rejection, but instead this Indian family invited us in to their home, gave us juice and talked with us. We now have them as our new investigators and we were able to find 7 new investigators for this week. We are really seeing so many miracles here in Dunedin. I know the Lord is blessing us for being diligent.

         Another miracle we had this week was Rochelle Wilson. She is a referral from Mormon.org. It was cool because the way she heard about mormon.org was from the Elders who door knocked her door and talked to her cousin. She decided she needed greater direction in her life and wanted to know more about our bible the Book of Mormon. She then put her information online. We went and saw her last week and she just opened up really quick. She is looking for something in her life, and we were really excited about her willingness to learn. We will see her again this week. She is really prepared to hear the gospel. Her daughter Anahera is also keen to learn! So we will be teaching them both. She has four children, one is 9 so maybe we can get him interested as well :)

        Something we are trying to do is have all of our members here create Family Missionary plans. I would also invite you all to do this, make individual mission plans. Think of how many people you want to help bring closer to our Savior Jesus Christ and Heavenly Father through the waters of baptism. Pray for people to be placed in your path. Pray for greater perception in recognizing those who are prepared. I promise that if you will pray for missionary opportunities and if you open your mouth, the Lord will fill your mouth with words to speak. People will be placed in your path who are ready to hear the gospel and you will have great joy and happiness as you share the truths of the gospel dear to your heart to others. Read D&C 4. The marvelous work is what has already taken place in your heart, that you know this gospel is true. Act on this, there are sheaves ready to be laden on your back if you will kindly and lovingly invite those you love to hear about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. I can't wait to hear about your wonderful experiences as you seek for missionary opportunities this year.

I love you! Have a wonderful week!

Love,
Sister Sudweeks