18 months in the Outback!: Golden Bay + Sister Murry = Renewed Faith‏

G'day everyone!

Wow this has been one incredible week. I'll start off by telling you about my new companion. I am serving with Sister Jazemine Murray. She is 21 years old and is the 4th of 11 children in her family. Her parents were less active when they met and got married and it was many years until they became active in the church. She was converted at age 14 and once she knew it was true she knew she was going to serve a mission. She is the epitome of faith. I am so grateful to be serving with her. She has just finished her first 12 weeks and is now a full grown missionary. She still has her "greenie faith" and it is contagious! She was a power lifter back at home. There are 7 boys in her family and 4 girls. Sound familiar dad? With that many brothers (ranging from 25 - 8) they all spent a lot of time lifting and she was not going to get left out of that. We have so much in common. Only 2 years ago her dad became fully active in the church again. He stopped smoking, was fully active for a year, and they were sealed in the temple last August. Two weeks after their sealing her father passed away. He found out that he has lung cancer just after he was again fully active in the gospel. She has the most incredible testimony of the Plan of Salvation. Her family is being so blessed by her service here. She knows why she is here and she is ready to work.

She and I have had some amazing experiences already. Here is one example of our unity and faith put into action. We had one hour in our planning on Saturday to go tracting. We have 5 suburbs and needed to pick one to go to. I said, "On the count of three say a suburb." We both said Secret Harbour. The next day during companionship study we pulled out our map of Secret Harbour and I wrote down 5 streets and she wrote down 5 streets. As we were looking at the map Sister Murray said what I was thinking. She said, "There are so many streets in this suburb. There is no way that we are going to pick the same one." Well low and behold we compared our lists and had 2 that were the same! The we looked at each other and said, "Now what? We only need one." Sister Murry looked at me and said, "On the count of three!" I put my head on my study desk and just prayed that this would work. We both said Joanna! We freaked out just a little and jumped in the car after a prayer of thanks. No one on that street was interested until we got to the very last house were we met Sue and her daughter. They are a lovely family that are going to make the best members. She and her daughter talked to us for about 15 minutes and one thing let to another and now we are going back on Thursday to teach them about prophets! We were soo excited. We left that street and just felt like we had been exactly where the Lord needed us when he needed us there.

I have been dead tired everyday when we finish because of the amount of work and effort we are putting in to this area to get it fruitful and eventually white. I haven't slept this good in a long time. I feel like when we lie down at night we can say that we have done everything that we can. It's the best feeling. I definitely love transfers and the inspiration that President receives for each and every one of his missionaries. I am in the Mandruah ward and the Mandurah District. We are part of the Rockingham Zone. I am the only white missionary in my district :) Our District Leader is Elder Seiuli from American Samoa. His companion is Elder Eti from Tuvalu. The other Elders are Elder Poi from New Zealand and Elder Leato from Melbourne. I love my district. :) Our Ward Mission Leader is from Texas! His name is Brother Day. He is great and is helping us heaps. We meet with him twice a week and he is a gun WML.

Saying good-bye to people in Kal just about broke my heart. I felt a small part of what it will be like to actually come home. Coming back to the civilization of the real city was weird. It's nice to be back with lots of missionaries though. I know that I'm right where I am supposed to be. I'm excited to see what these next couple of months have in store. I hope all is going well with you. Soph, Squash, Ben, David, the school year is 3/4 of the way done. Work hard and do your homework so that your end of year tests are a breeze! I hope you are all having fun with your hobbies and sports. I've loved being able to read about all of the fun things you are doing. Keep the faith and enjoy the journey :)

All my love,

Sister Shayne

Pic #1 Fraser and Brother Timu were being eggs and wouldn't take a normal photo haha

Pic #2 Saying good-by to the Kaa family! Hopefully I'll see them in September!

Pic #3 The Aumoe family. Brother Aumoe is the funniest man I know. Dinners at their home always left me in tears from laughter.

Pic #1 Jade Mcilroy :) Love this girl. She is going to bring her family into the gospel someday.

Pic #2 Sister Taupau and Sister Hunt. We were helping the Hunts clean their old house on my last day. These ladies are the best!

Pic #3 Evelyn Iosefa! This lady is one to look up to. She is wonderwoman. Nothing is too much for this lady to handle.

#1 & 2 Madyson and Lemuel! I had to really hold it together saying good-bye to this family. They have a very special place in my heart. Lem said that they are going to come visit sometime next year :) I look forward to that visit.