Lyttelton Harbor!

Hello hello! I hope this weeks email finds everyone happy and healthy :)
This week was a pretty good one! We actually ended up dropping 2 investigators and being dropped by 1 so that kinda sucked actually, but that's missionary life I guess!

Our remaining investigator that we see regularly is doing pretty well! His name is Sam and we have a lesson every week with him! We started the Plan of Salvation with him, I love teaching that one! HE had so many great questions! I really love teaching people who truly desire to understand and learn more:) I really hope he goes far in the gospel and finds his personal relationship with his Savior!

This week we also went on exchanges with our Sister Training leaders! I got to go to their area which
was awesome! We went into a market in Lyttelton Harbor and had a whiteboard with "How would you identify yourself" written on it and had everyone write their answers. Then we told them that they were children of God! It was really fun! We only got yelled at a couple of times:))))) When we were finished, a member in their ward took us to lunch. She took us to this cute cafe up in the hills on a mountain (the drive there was so pretty). So this place specialized in chocolate...
I have never eaten so much chocolate in my life! Hahahah it was so good though!

Last night the missionaries in our stake put on a “Come and See” Fireside all about coming closer to Christ! It was really good and TONS of people came! There were such good speakers and powerful musical items! Everyone really enjoyed it! It was so nice :) I love being a missionary and being commissioned to help others develop a personal relationship with their Savior, Jesus Christ. I love that I have the chance to do this, and I can't believe I only have 10 more months to do it!

Thank you so much for the continued support, love and encouragement! I love you all!

Love, Sister Golden

My Birthday ~ 20 years old!

SO SORRY EVERYONE! This one is gonna have to be so quick! I got signed off of my email and had to wait a certain amount of time to sign back in :( So now I ma out of time! this week was a good one though!

Here is a pic of my new hair, and me with my cute trainee, also a pic of us missionaries and a couple kids from the ward at the tree planting activity :)

Highlights: 2 New investigators, Zone Conference with President and Sister Hudson, going to a community event to plant some trees t the military camp and so so many awesome birthday wishes!!!! Thank you so much to everyone for all the love!

We were also able to attend a convert baptism for another ward and give a lesson. The baptism was for 2 kids who's grandpa is a less active and he was challenged to come back to church, get the priesthood and baptize his grandkids! HE DID IT! Honestly, he had to redo the prayers and dunk them each a few different times, but it was such a sweet experience! I love this gospel and that there is always the chance to progress in it and become better! 

I love you all so much!!!! 

Love, Sister Golden

GOOD Week:)

HELLO! Welcome to your favorite time of the week and thank you for tuning in this fine day! For real, shout out to all of you awesome people reading my boring letters these past few weeks! haha! Thank you also for all the love, support and encouragement :) #MuchAppreciated

So, to get this weeks news rolling: We spent the first 2 days of the week in the flat!!!!!!!!!!!

WHOOOOOOOO! My cute companion Sister Snow was really sick! She had a migraine, body aches, dizzy spells, nausea, and pretty much anything else you can think of! My days mostly consisted of flossing my teeth, cleaning the flat, writing letters, flossing again, making chicken noodle soup from scratch (which actually turned out really good), watching Legacy cause all sister missionaries know that's the closest thing you can get to a chick flick out here, and nursing my cute trainee back to health! Then, just when we thought it was safe to step outside the flat, Sister Snow realized she needed a new face wash and so she decided to try a new natural neutrogena one... mistake. The next morning she woke up with crazy hives on her face and hands!!!! What a trooper she is though! Her face was SO itchy, dry and inflamed but she kept working hard! She got a blessing from the Elders and we found her some fun things to try from the pharmacy so it has been getting much better :)

Besides those fun times... this week we found a new investigator!!!!! Her name is Jasmine and we are really excited about her! YAY! Also this coming week is pretty full of lessons for us which I am so happy about cause sometimes it is even hard to fill our days during planning each night!

This week was so crazy with the weather too...?! WHAT THE HECK! So the week started off sunny then all of a sudden it was pouring rain, super windy and hail balls the size of probably marbles started to rain! We had to run from our car to appointments which did not go well with an umbrella cause it kept turning inside out! I hope I am not the one making bad impressions on mormon missionaries when they see me...

Also fun events, my cute comp can't signal very well on the bike, she feels she is going to fall off so this morning for exercise we got our butts on our bikes and she was biking around the neighborhood as I was like "RIGHT" "LEFT" from behind hahahaha must have been quite the sight for these kiwis ;)

Other good news!!!!! : We got a flash, new car!!!!!!!!!!!! WHOOOOO! The elders are all butt hurt cause they got our old gross one and we were upgraded ;) haha (Flash: fancy, new, nice, expensive). Also, I am turning 20 in 7 days (YUCK) but hey congrats to me for living through 2 decades I guess (*pat on the back*). Oooh and I also decided to chop all my hair off so it's short now, hahahaha!

Bad News: We have been showering in the dark for 3 weeks now... water started to drip INTO THE LIGHT BULB while it was raining so then it started to spark and smoke so we shut it off and we are still waiting for the repair people to come :-)

Also EVERYTHING in our flat leaks hahaha, so it is real fun running around in the rain with buckets trying to catch the water! HAHAHAH!

I love being a missionary!!!!!!!!!!!!! I really do! and all the fun times on the side just give me more stories to add to my repertoire ;)

Lots of prayers for our coming lessons this week would be much appreciated, hopefully they will become new investigators!!!! Yay! Love you all REAL GOOD and I will chat with you next week when I AM 20 YEARS OLD AH!

Love, Sister Golden

Sunnier and Longer Days!

Well, spring is around the corner here in New Zealand! The weather was beautiful this week! It seems that people are more cheerful and willing to talk when the weather is nicer so it makes missionary work more fun!

This week wasn't very eventful in the ways of lessons, bet we had an amazing district meeting with President and Sister Hudson! We talked all about Revelation through the Book of Mormon and why it is so important to have a solid testimony of it. We watched a talk by Jeffrey R. Holland that he gave about the Book of Mormon and how it was safety for the soul (a talk I HIGHLY recommend). I was totally crying after watching it and wishing I had the words and passion that he has when he talks about the Book of Mormon!

President then challenged us to cover New Zealand with our testimonies of the Book of Mormon, which I am so excited about! I am so excited to keep reading it, getting familiar with it, and loving it even more than I do now! In the introduction it talks about the course we should take when reading the Book of Mormon: Read, Ponder and Pray, and that any who truly do this WILL gain a testimony of it by the power of the Holy Ghost. I know this is true and I invite all of you to do this and I know that we will all either gain a testimony of it, or our testimonies will be strengthened!

I am so grateful for this special witness of the Savior, the Book of Mormon. I am excited to cover New Zealand with my testimony of it!

I love you all!

Love, Sister Golden

7 Months Down...where has the time gone?!

So yesterday was my 7 month mark (but I guess it would be today in the states haha). I can't believe how fast the time really has gone! It's crazy!

This week went pretty good! We started off the week in a different proselyting area with another sister missionary as our companion because her companion had finished her mission and went home a couple days early! We had a good time together being in a trio for a few days! They have heaps of investigators in their area so it was really fun having our days packed with lessons :)

This week we decided to try and contact some of the former investigators that we had in our area book and found a couple names we thought would be good! When we went to contact one of them it turned out that the lady had moved away, but then we started talking to the guy who had answered the door and he said he was interested in learning more!!! We were so pumped! So we will be trying to see him soon!

We also found someone to teach when we started chatting with the guy who pumped our gas for us! So we are learning to talk to everyone no matter what and the Lord really does work in mysterious ways!

So, good news!!! An area further south closed down, so a car was made available and we will be getting that this week! YAY! That was truly a tender mercy from the Lord cause not having a car to get to our far away places was starting to stress us out!

As for other news, a while ago the church released new rules on sister missionaries and wearing pants in certain missions during mosquito season to protect them ... well guess what everybody!!!!!! THE NEW ZEALAND WELLINGTON MISSION APPLIES!!!! So, if our mission president researches and finds that it would be safer for us to wear pants, we will be wearing pants this summer... I am SO not excited, hahaha more sisters are going to be dying from heat stroke than mosquito borne illnesses... BUT I guess that means I would kinda be making history.. hahaha so we will see.

So, last week being a tougher week for me I went to the scriptures to help me. I was reading in 2 Nephi Chapter 4 of the Book of Mormon. For those of us who are familiar with Nephi, we know that he is THE MAN. He never murmurs and seems to only be able to know the Lord's will. Well, in this chapter, Nephi gets pretty hard on himself, he talks about how every time he wants to rejoice he remembers his weaknesses and iniquities, and his heart groans as he thinks of his sins and short comings. But then in verse 27 he asks himself why he is letting those things get to him, why is he letting his enemies have a place in his heart and bring him down. Then later he says that he will put his trust completely in the Lord, that no matter his sins, afflictions, short comings, and weaknesses, he will always trust the Lord. It really made me think to myself that even though I felt down, and like I was in a trial, it shouldn't matter if my trust was truly in the Lord. Each day I am trying harder, and learning more about completely trusting the Lord, especially in missionary work, and I hope to someday be at a point like Nephi when I can just shake off my negativity and press forward.

Anyway, thank you so much for the continued support, love and encouragement! I appreciate it so much!! Love you all! Have an amazing week :)
Love, Sister Golden

Staying in Christchurch!

Hello Everyone,
SOOOOO... this week is Transfers!!!!1 AAAAAND... I am staying in Christchurch. So by the end of this transfer I will have been here for 8 months hahaha. Time has gone really fast here! It is crazy!
One of the Sister Training Leaders left a few days early to get ready for school, so her companion is staying with us for the time being.

So this week wasn't too busy for us, in fact I am a bit down about the work here. It feels like we are hitting lots of dead ends, and there isn't anyone to teach and the people we are kind of teaching are not progressing. It's tough, but that happens on the mission I guess.
I'm also feeling sad because one of my favorite families, the TePuke's are moving to Australia. I hate saying goodbye!

Anyway! This week's highlight for me was being able to offer some service at a memorial service. A lady in our ward, her father passed away unexpectedly from a heart attack. They are a hard out Maori family so the memorial was very cultural! After the service as the body was being carried out of the chapel and put into the car, the grandsons and a few others did a haka. It was SO powerful and hakas always make me cry, which this one especially did because they did it with such heart and emotion, even as tears were rolling down their cheeks, they were able to channel their inner culture and do this amazing thing for someone they loved a lot. I love the culture here. As the body was being driven away, his wife, did a special goodbye haka for him which had me all emotional again. It was such a beautiful thing to witness.

I have to go now! Love you all! Have an amazing week!

Love, Sister Golden

Fast Week!

So the days and weeks keep going by faster and faster! Next week is transfer week and I can't even believe I have been training Sister Snow for almost a whole transfer! The time truly flies out here! I will be coming up on my 7 month mark pretty soon here and it feels like I just got out of the MTC! haha

This week went by so quickly! On Tuesday we had a Zone Training meeting! It was SO good! We talked a lot about talking with EVERYONE and asking for referrals. I always love coming together as a Zone and learning together! I feel so pumped up and excited about the work after them and it's fun to apply the new things you learn!

Also, recently we have been having a pretty gross mold situation in our bathroom ceiling, yes, IN it! So we can't get to it very well to do anything. But this week, thankfully, they sent a guy to come and clean the mold and kill it with some STRONG bleach so our flat smelled like a pool after that! Then we had to air it out by leaving the windows open all day so that was a cold night... But, we are very glad it got taken care of!

Lately the work has been a bit of a let down. The people we were so excited to teach have kinda let us know that they aren't very interested in learning about the gospel to be baptized, but just to learn more about religion and the world. It is hard. As a missionary you have the ability to love these people so quickly, and when you know you have something that can make their lives SO amazing and they reject it, it sucks! But, we can just pray for them and keep hoping that the spirit will be able to change their hearts!

The Elders had an awesome baptism this week! A Samoan family were all baptized together! They are so sweet, and faithful and they just glowed that day! I was so happy to be a part of it! I love convert baptisms! The spirit is always so strong!

Last night a family in our ward had a birthday dinner for our recent convert Sam! It was really fun and he totally had an awesome time! He has kind of been needing a pick me up so it was really good to see him smiling and having fun with everyone!

One thing I am grateful for is the chance I have to serve with Elders over here! They are such a blessing! When Sam was struggling we couldn't do a lot at the moment because we have to have a female with us so we called the Elders and they went straight over and were able to give him a blessing and now they have been taking him to lessons with them! He is loving it! The Elders also have a female recent convert who we have taken to a few lessons with us so it works out well :)

This week I began the Book of Mormon again and I am marking specific things about Jesus Christ in it and it is making me realize how blessed we are to have this book, another testament of Jesus Christ to read and ponder. I am so grateful to be able to have this way to feel closer to my Savior!

Love you all! Have a good week!
Love, Sister Golden