ANOTHER TRANSFER AND A NEW COMPANION

Aloha!!

What a week!!!...or weekend. Alright, so transfers have begun, and this one threw us all for a loop! Like I mentioned a couple letters ago, the American Sisters get trained for two transfers and then they go online for two transfers to to do online chat for mormon.org (while still having shifts in the Visitor Center). Well, turns out Heavenly Father has a different plan for me! I have been assigned a different area in Laie, and cannot wait to get started. It is a walking area, but luckily Laie isn't tremendously huge. I will continue my shifts in the Visitor's Center and the PCC, anddddddd.....my new companion is the amazing Sister Sekona from the Kingdom of Tonga; some might refer to her as Queen of Tonga : ) Sadly this is her last transfer, but I feel so blessed to get to be her companion! Seriously, she is the sister that everyone prays they'll be companions with!! She has a heart of gold, has a big Tongan laugh, and thinks it's really funny punch me in the arm, haha. She is such an amazing missionary, though, and I have so much to learn from her!!! I'm pretty pumped. 

 On that note, Hermana Rodriguez and I had an amazing last couple of days together in the Visitor's Center. We saw a lot of miracles that I'm excited to share!!!

Miracle#1: As soon as Hermana and I got on shift, two girls come through the doors. We greeted them and got to know them for a little while. Sweetest girls/sisters ever! They were from Florida and here on vacation (of course) with their dad. After chatting with them,  we explained that we would love to teach them more about the temple and show them pictures of the rooms inside! They loved that idea. So we headed into temple corner, which was good, but Hermana and I both felt that there was something else we needed to teach. So I kind of stopped for a second and felt inspired to ask one of the sisters what she knew about The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints...? To my surprise she actually knew a lot! We were able to fill in a lot of gaps, as well as explain the Book of Mormon!! They loved it all, and both said they wanted to learn more!! One being in college and the other still in high school we were able to get their contact info, and cannot even wait to see the gospel in their lives!!!!

Miracle #2: So when we bring the Tram tours from the Polynesian Cultural Center, we bring them into the VC to watch a 5 minutes video about the history of Laie, connecting the temple with BYU-Hawaii and the PCC. When they walk out of the theatre, the sisters on shift at the VC hand out pamphlets that show beautiful pictures of what the temple looks like inside. So while passing those out, the last family came out and they were this cute Filipino family. The parents both said, "Ooh!! Yeah, I definitely want one of those!!" Then the Dad and I started talking about how beautiful the temple is! Then he explained that his friend is LDS and his getting married in the temple and was kinda bummed that he couldn't go inside. He then asked me why that was? That's always a hard question, because you never know how people are going to react....but I simply explained that the reason is because we want to be prepared for the promises and covenants you make inside. He said that that would make total sense!! Pheww!! That made me happy that he understood. Then I asked if he and his family would like to learn more about the blessings of the temple and how the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints could bless his family's life...? He said, definitely and gave us his contact info!!  And, they are from San Jose, which is where a friend of mine (Elder Naoto Suzuki) is serving!! 

Miracle #3 Okay, this one is kind of my favorite. A girl, her boyfriend, and his brother came into the Visitor's center and so we asked what brought them there today..? The Bf said that it was the girl's one year anniversary of being baptized into the church!!!!!! SOOOOO cool. We all sat down in front of the Christus statue, and I asked her what really hit home for her when learning about the church. She paused a long time, with tears falling from her face, then finally said that she loved that because of the temple, families can be together forever!! After hearing that, we had to show her the God's Plan for His Families movie!!...which is my favorite. I've seen it probably a kajillion times now, and we were all just bawling!! When we bore our testimonies she explained that she was the only member in her family, and that was really hard because none of them were supportive of it at all. We told her how much Heavenly Father loves her and how much we loved her just for her amazing example of strength!!! Seriously, what an amazing testimony that was to me of the truthfulness of this church. She said that even though it was hard, the blessings that came from joining the church made it totally worth it!! Amazing.

I'm sorry to cut this short, but we've got a lot of cleaning and moving sisters out and in, etc. to do =/ But this week has been so good, and I am in love with this gospel!!! Just getting to see the transformation in these people's lives has been so miraculous and makes it "totally worth it"!! This gospel is true, and I know that with all of my heart, and I love getting to teach the gospel of Jesus Christ to people all over the world (and Hawaii of course) every day!!! How great is my calling?? 

Okay Ohana, I love you all, and can't wait to write next week!! 

Mahalo for all of your prayers!!!

PS 

Thursdays - New P-day!! PLEASE write - new address posted on 'WRITE ME'