18 months in the Outback!: Friday is the best!‏

G'day!

This was an interesting weekend. On Friday I didn't think I was going to have anything to email you today because our week up until that point had been pretty uneventful. Then Friday started and now I'm going to have to type fast to tell you about it all.

Last Monday we gave up most of our p-day to bake cupcakes as a district. Elder Teuira had this great idea to bake goodies and wrap them up and deliver them to less actives and investigators to show them our love. We went to Brother Chirsty's house to bake because he has a big oven. The problem is that without his wife in town we weren't able to go inside. Sister Tomaki and I sat in the back yard while the Elders did the baking. I had to take some good pictures. They had accomplished mixing 3 boxes of batter and put them all in tins and in the oven. I was so proud. Then Elder Teuira turned to the bench and started to clean up in order to start the vanilla batch. He looked at the bench, then at the oven, and back at the bench. He dropped to his knees and opened the oven. I knew from the look on his face that something was wrong. Low and behold they had left out the eggs. Our sister ward missionary showed up then and we were able to go in and fix the problem. We pulled out all of the tins, scrapped them back into the mixer with the eggs, and started again. There is a photo of Elder Cook and I scrapping the mix back into the bowl. All was well! We managed to save the cupcakes. The delivery was amazing. The people that received them were nearly in tears. They definitely felt the love that we were trying to share.

Friday! Good ol' Friday :)

We caught up with our investigator Paris. We found Paris tracting. He has only been in Australia for a couple of weeks. His family is from New Zealand. When we first met him he wasn't really sure if there is a God or not. We have only taught him the Restoration. We went and asked him how his prayers and reading was going. He said that he has been doing it! He said that praying was weird at first but he thinks it will get better the more he prays. He told him that it would. I asked him if he thought someone was really listening. He said, "That's the weirdest part! I really feel like someone is listening!" It was great to listen to him and see the light that has come into his life. He then started to tell us about his girlfriend. "I was talking to my girlfriend the other day and I was telling her that I was thinking about joining the Mormon church. She seemed pretty keen to listen to it all as well. I don't want to sound rude or anything but do you happen to have another book that I could give her so she can read too?" Our jaws literally dropped. We expressed our excitement and arranged for him to give her a Book of Mormon and then to tee up a time for us to teach them together. He said, "Let's get her to where I am and then we will come to church together." We walked away from that lesson just in amazement of what happened. As we walked down his street we tried to call the District Leader to share our excitement. Elder Eti didn't' answer. As I looked down to put the phone in my bag a dog came running up to us. I reached down to pet it while the owner put down her gardening tools and came to get her dog. Her name is Claire. She talked to us for a little bit and then asked us if we would like some water before we needed to keep walking. We said yes and she let us in to her home. You never say no when someone offers water. She let us sit down and we got talking. She sat down and said, "Okay so where are you from, what church to do you go to what what do you believe?" I just smiled and said, "Those are our favorite questions!" We sat and taught her the entire Restoration. Because we were walking we weren't carrying a lot with us and I had just given our only spare copy of the Book of Mormon to Paris. We asked if we could come back and give her a copy and tell her more about it. She said yes and we set up a time on Monday to go by and visit. We went yesterday and she left a note on her door for us. It read, "Sisters I'm sorry I'm not home to chat I had to go run some emergency errands. I misplaced your number! If you leave me a card with your number I'll make sure we get a time later this week to chat. I'm free tomorrow, Thrusday and Friday. Thank you and God bless." We took that as a good sign of her sincerity and left our card and number. We will go by later this week for sure."

Friday night our phone fell out of my pocket and went for a swim in the toilet. I never realized how much we rely on phones until ours was broken. I did all I knew to do and pulled the phone a part and put it in rice and prayed.

Saturday we had a massive service project in Baldivis. There is a children's forest there. What they do is they put up big fences so that kids can come and plant seedlings to keep the world green. The fences are up so that the roos don't come and eat all of the little seedlings. Well with 26 missionaries and a dozen or so ward members we had the tasks of taking down a fence, putting a new fence up in a different location, and laying retec (sprinklers) in an area where they had just planted seedlings. We were in the group that was in charge of taking down a fence. That is not an easy job. Sister Tomaki and I were in charge of cutting the wires that held the fence together and that connected it to the metal poles and big wooden posts that held the fence up. It was a good 3 hour project just to take down this fence. When we had all of the supplies of the fence taken down and in a big pile the man in charge piled as many of the big wooden posts in his van as possible. There weren't very many left so a ward member offered that we would just carry them back to the main area. We were about a kilometer from the main area and we were straight down a hill. Each of us grabbed a big post and put in on our shoulder and headed up the hill. When we got to the top we only had like 20 steps left and two elders came up to Sister Tomaki and I and asked if they could help us. I looked at them and just said, "Nah I got it from here." I wanted to add "You just go back and relax against the truck. If I needed your help it was half way up that hill that we just climbed." But I kept my mouth shut and felt proud that I helped in such an awesome way. The next morning my shoulder were sooooo sore! Our Elders were late for church and I think it's because they couldn't move. Once we finished there they hopped on the train and went to help Bishop's family move for another 4 hours or so. They are my heroes this week.

At church we learned about Samson and Ruth in our Gospel Doctrine class. It was fun to contrast the two people in scripture. We talked about how in Samson's story you rarely hear about God whereas in Ruth you read about God a lot. We talked about the difference in our lives when we live the gospel and are blessed and when we fall short and things start to go down hill. I couldn't help but think of the youth that come home from Girls Camp or EFY and say, "That was the best week of my life" or returned missionaries that say, "That was the best 2 years of my life." I want to take them by the shoulders and say, "Stop! Listen to what you just said! That week or 2 years was when you were away from tv, your phone, the internet, and everything worldly and you said your prayers everyday, read your scriptures every day, and surrounded yourself with people that do the same!" It really is amazing the simplicity of the gospel and how much we are blessed when we do the little things.

Last cool story comes from our public holiday yesterday. Since it was a holiday we had to work. Our Relief Society President had given us a handful of sisters in the ward that they didn't know anything about or that hadn't been visited in a long time. We texted the Elders and got as much info as possible about them. One family has two girls, Stevie and Joannah. We felt really prompted to go see them even though the Elders said that they probably wouldn't be very open. We went and the older Sister expressed that she had been thinking about her home teacher all week long. They had been having some major trials and needed some help. She has this next Sunday off of work and was planning on coming to church even before we showed up because she said that she felt like it was the right thing to do. We were amazed and how much we just needed to be there. I'm so grateful for the spirit! I love President Monson's example about never postponing or shaking off a prompting. As we are in tune with the spirit we will never be led astray. I can't explain how grateful I am for that. My testimony grows everyday. I love being a missionary! I don't know how many times I've said that but it is so true. I love this gospel. I love that I come from a wonderful family. I'm excited that my littlest brother chose to be baptized. I feel privileged to be the big sister of so many great younger siblings. They lift me and support me more then they know. I love you all and miss you heaps!

Much love,

Sister Shayne

2 Nephi9:6-7 The whole plan in 2 verses
9:20 He knows all
9:45 Put off sin and come unto Christ!
ALL OF CHAPTER 9 haha :)
10:16 Are we against God or for God?
10:23-25 Cheer up! Choose to be saved
22:2 My strength and my song
There are 433 verses of Isiah's writing in the Book of Mormon and Nephi tells us how to understand him in 25:4.
25:16-20 This is simply amazing
25:28 This is it!

ALL OF CHAPTER 25

26:33 We just need to come

The goodie drop is called a Pixie Drop. Elder Cook and I scrapping mix.