4 Months Down and a Baptism!!

Hello everyone!!!

So lets just get down to it! This weeks letter will probably be all about SAM AND HIS BAPTISM! Sam Smith was baptized on Saturday, May 28th! It was a great service! But, let's start from the beginning ;)

10:00am: Sister Hiatt and I drive to the chapel to meet the Zone Leaders and grab the key to the Stake center so we can come back to fill it later that day!

10:30am: They key does not open the font control panels! HA! So, we call the 2nd Counselor in the Bishopric and he came to open the door for us.

2:00pm: Sister Hiatt and I come to the chapel to fill the font. The font in this chapel fills with cold water then you have to heat it. It takes about 4 hours to heat so we came 4 and half hours early ;) We were pretty excited! Haha before we left we turned the heat ventilation knob and shut the closet.

5:30pm: (1 hour before the baptism) Sister Hiatt and I come back to the chapel to set up and test the water. Sister Hiatt goes into the font, feels the water, looks at me and says "It's freezing..." My heart drops and I start to cry. Then I jump into action and run to the kitchen and start boiling, microwaving, and putting water into crock pots! HAHA

IT WAS HORRIBLE! We were heating, carrying, and dumping water as fast as we could and it wasn't making a DENT! Sam came, changed, we took a few pictures and bless his heart he said it was okay that the water was cold.

Lots of ward members and Stake YSA showed up to support! The chapel was almost full! Our Assistant ward mission leader conducted and he really set the spirit for the program. He is our wards most recent convert and was baptized 10 months ago so he started by saying something like this: "Sam, I just want you to know that 10 months ago I was sitting exactly where you were, wearing the same white clothing, and probably feeling the same things as you are. I was so nervous, but excited! Sam, I just want you to know how much this gospel and that decision I made have blessed my life. My only regret is that I didn't do it sooner, when I was younger. Your journey in the church is about to begin and I am so happy to be here with you tonight." Then we had a song, prayer and a talk. After that Sam was baptized. I cried of course, the spirit was so strong and I was so happy for him! We went back to the chapel, had another talk, bishop gave some remarks then we sang and closed with a prayer! Lots of members brought food along so there was tons to eat and Sam was definitely the center of attention! Everyone was so friendly to him! It was amazing!

We went out to dinner with Sam, the bishop and his wife, the elder's quorum president, his fellowshippers and his friend Jasmine after the program. It was so fun and I think Sam had a good time!
The next day he was confirmed in Sacrament meeting as the newest member of the Riccarton ward! I have felt so great ever since! It feels like I am walking on clouds! I am so happy that we knocked on his door one day and that he was prepared to learn the gospel! He is such a blessing to me and my testimony is so much stronger because I was able to find, teach, and be a part of his baptism.

A couple fun things we did this week:
Sister TePuke made me FuFu!! I had bad memories of this from Liberia, but it was actually good here in NZ! And then we got to play dress up with Sister Downes saris. It was so much fun!
 

Thank you for all the prayers and support! I love you all! Have a wonderful week :)

Love, Sister Golden

A Little Under the Weather!!

Hello everyone! SAM IS GETTING BAPTIZED THIS SATURDAY!!! I am so beyond excited and I feel so blessed that I was able to knock on his door one day and teach him the Restored Gospel of Jesus Christ! He was so ready to receive it and it was such a powerful experience for me to see firsthand that the Lord's angels are preparing the hearts of people for us to find! He will be baptized May 28th at 6:30pm! He is very afraid of water so is actually pretty worried about the actual baptism part so please pray for him and us that everything will go alright!

Also, we have decided that we probably need to put Steve on pause for a little while. Ever since we taught him the Word of Wisdom he has really hit a wall and lost all his motivation. He isn't really progressing that much anymore. We are going to give him some time to reflect and see if he actually wants to live the gospel or just enjoys the way he feels when we visit him in the retirement home! It's kinda sad, but he needs to recognize the spirit more and not become desensitized to it.

Early this week I got to go on exchanges with Sister Christianson, one of my STL's! She is SO fun and it was a blast to spend the day with her! We had a really fun time and laughed a lot, but had a really good day of teaching and talking to people and doing some unplanned service... we ended up moving firewood for 3 hours for a less active! HA! After all the splinters were out we realized how sore we were from lifting and moving it so much! haha it was rough! She is a great missionary though and we had an awesome day!

So, our other investigator Josh that we met at the traffic lights and he came to church... he kinda fell off the face of the earth..? I am so sad! We have tried to call and text him a couple times with no answer or reply. We tried to go to the address he gave us and the people who answered said he had moved out! The house was kind of a boarding house and one of our High Counselors said when he dropped him off he got a weird vibe that it was a religious one and Josh might have gotten in trouble for going to a different church. I am bummed cause he was really excited to learn more, but someday he can meet missionaries again!

This week Sister Hiatt and I realized that we have TONS of extra Kilometers this month and decided to go on a little road trip to visit a member who lives at the VERY edge of our mission boundaries, about an hour away from us! She was so excited when we asked if we could come over, and said she had never had missionaries over because it was too far! We spent a couple hours cooking with her, made a pumpkin pie, and read some scriptures! It was so nice to be in her home :) The weather was also beautiful that day and the drive to her house was kinda out in the country so I finally got a glimpse of NZ not in the city life! I loved it!

This week was a bit tough for me physically because I got a really bad cold! My ears were really plugged making me dizzy and I have been tired from lack of sleep! I am getting better, but we worked hard this week!

I feel so blessed to be a part of this work. To learn firsthand that I was placed here for a reason to meet those that the Lord has been preparing to learn about the restored gospel! I am so excited about this Saturday, to watch someone enter the waters of baptism and make their first covenant with God! It has been such a blessing to watch Sam grow from the first time we met him until now!

I love you all! Have a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Golden

                                                                                         Sister Beck

                                                                        The missionaries in my Zone

Busy Week!

HELLO everyone! What an awesome week!

First I want to talk about Sam Smith our investigator! He is the bomb! he texts us all the time with questions and just tells us cool stuff about his conversion process. He came to Stake Conference last weekend and church yesterday! We have taught him about the restoration and plan of salvation so far! Here are a few of his texts!

After Stake Conference: "Also, I just wanna say I'm really glad I went today. It was an enriching experience and I felt I was able to achieve some personal growth."

During the week: "I'm sorry, it's just that since Sunday, I've found this hole inside me filled with a spiritual hunger that I haven't felt before."

After Church Yesterday: "I was sad to hear that Sister Hiatt was leaving us soon, I was hoping that she would participate in my baptism with Sister Golden as they were responsible for bringing me to church and me receiving the blessing of learning about our Heavenly Father. Although I very much understand her desire to return home and continue with her life. How long will I be graced with Sister Golden's presence? I feel like ever since last week at church, I have been awakened in a way I can't describe. As if all of my doubts have been replaced with a feeling of love and faith. But, I feel that this isn't something that one should jump into, and I have no intention of being disrespectful to those in the church. However, I have no doubt that I wish to devote myself to Him and keeping His commandments and living as he would and because of this I know that I want to be baptized in my future."

WOW! We are so excited about Sam! He is 21 and a bit shy but such a sweetheart.

We also met a new investigator this week named Josh! We were biking around and stopped at a light and he was at the crosswalk and noticed how weird we looked biking in skirts so asked what we were doing! We chatted for a second then left him with a card and our number. He texted us later that day and we found out he has a solid Christian background and loves to read the bible! We taught him the restoration and he came to church yesterday! We are pretty excited about him too!

Kathy has not gotten back to us for 2 weeks now, and Steve came to church yesterday but doesn't think he will be able to keep the word of wisdom anytime soon.

This week, Wednesday night we were planning and all of a sudden the earth began shaking! haha AGAIN! So this earthquake came to be a 4.8! People say there must be a big one coming!

We had to ride our bikes and bus everywhere this week because our car was being repaired from a past accident! We took it in on Monday and they said it would be ready by Wednesday and they would call us. Wednesday night rolls around and they never called. We found their number and tried to call Thursday morning but the line was busy so we just took the bus into town since it should be ready right..? IT WASN'T! The whole front bumper was off and it still needed to be painted! So we didn't get it back till Friday! ha!

                                                                             My little friend Ford

This week I was studying President Monson's talk about Keeping the Commandments from last conference's priesthood session. I really loved how he said our Heavenly Father institutes commandments because He knows us perfectly, and knows what we need to get back to Him someday. I love knowing that no commandment is given without a blessing in return and that He only gives them out of love for us.

                                                                      Funny sign we came across!!!

                                                                        Dream Truck (one seater)

Love you all!

Love, Sister Golden

Happy Mothers Day!

Hello everybody! This week was a pretty busy one for us! Our investigators right now are Steve, Sam, Kathy, and Anna. We were able to have a solid lesson with Steve this week on the Word of Wisdom. He will have a pretty hard time with that one and told us he would think about whether or not he is ready to commit to live it, I was bummed to hear that. Kathy is still avoiding us (she was sick haha) so we haven't been able to see her for 2 weeks now. Anna is having a tough time accepting the fact that if she gets baptized into our church she won't be able to go to her other church with her friends. We are trying to find a way to explain that once she is truly converted she will WANT to come to the church she is baptized into. Sam is amazing! He came to stake conference this weekend and reads his Book of Mormon, and texts us questions all the time! I really like him a lot! Challenges early on in his life have really prepared him to receive the restored gospel!

We also met a new investigator this week! His name is Joemel, he is from the Philippines! We had an awesome lesson with him and are super excited to teach him again this week!

We are working with Ann and Errol our less actives. Errol has always been very against having people come fellowship him but this week he actually brought out his scriptures when we came over and read along with us! I am so excited and glad that he is letting the spirit back into his heart!

I got to play volleyball this week with all the islander men in our ward! Something we are trying to do as missionaries is a sports night every friday that we can invite investigators and less actives to so they can be with the ward members but have a good time! It was WAY fun! I don't think all the guys realized that volleyball was my sport so they were pretty shocked when I jumped in and kept up with them! haha.

President Hudson and his wife came to Christchurch this weekend for Stake Conference and we had a district meeting with them on Saturday! It is always so good to be able to spend time with them! Stake conference was so wonderful and I received a lot of personal revelation and enlightenment from it!

This week I was also able to Skype my family for Mother's day which was SO wonderful! It was exactly what I needed to boost myself a little bit! I am so glad to have such a wonderful supportive family!

This week I have been studying Obedience, and I chose a scripture from the Book of Mormon to "ponderize". The scripture I chose actually goes along with Mother's day pretty well! So, in Alma Chapter 56 it is talking about the 2,000 stripling warriors and how they did not fear because their Mother's had taught them to trust in the Lord. The scripture I chose to ponderize is in Alma chapter 57 verse 21, and it says the warriors obeyed and performed all commands with exactness, according to their faith which they had in the Lord because their mother's had taught them to trust in Him. I LOVE THIS STORY! Mostly because who I am today is because of the faith I see in my own mother, and other mother figures. I am so blessed and grateful to have examples to watch and follow in my life to help me gain my own trust in the Lord. I hope we all take the time to think about those in our own lives who have taught us to trust the Lord.

Love you all! 
Sister Golden

Already May!

Time is really flying! I cannot believe that it is already May! This week went by REALLY fast! We finished making our lava-lavas and I love mine! They are so fun to wear! The people in New Zealand wear these like we wear sweats.

The Agavale family moved to Auckland this week, that was really tough for me! There were a lot of tears when we had to say goodbye to them. After they left, the primary of our ward lost about half the kids and our ward is slowly dwindling in numbers because people keep moving out.

So this week we had a great lesson with Steve about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. He is still working on fixing up his life, but enjoys learning about the gospel! He came to church yesterday and stayed for all 3 hours and enjoyed himself! The ward is pretty good about making him feel welcome which is always so helpful!

Another investigator is Anna. She loves to learn and we were able to teach her a bit about the Plan of Salvation this week! She isn't really willing to come to church yet because she has friends that she goes to church with, but she reads her Book of Mormon and prays so we are excited about her! We invited her to be baptized as she continues to learn about the gospel and know of its truthfulness and she accepted!

Our other investigator is Kathy, she has been frustrating me a bit lately! We didn't have a lesson with her this week because she wouldn't text us back... then we texted her to remind her about church... no reply. Sometimes it is hard to be patient, but we just keep praying that she will continue to progress!

We have a few more fun investigators in our teaching pool and we stay really busy having lessons which is a blessing!

Ann Gearry is a less active member that we have been working with for a while now. She loves our visits and always whips out her scriptures when we come. Her husband Errol just retired from work; in the past he has wanted nothing to do with the church or visitors from the church, but the last 2 visits he has sat and listened to the lessons!!! He is really sweet! So Ann is getting a surgery on an aneurysm soon and we talked to them about fasting and then invited them both to fast with us before Ann's surgery and they accepted!!! We are really excited that Errol is softening to us and our visits :)

This Saturday was a baptism. A lady in our ward named Sala had the Elders over to teach her 8 year old daughter about the gospel because she had been living in Fiji with her Aunt. Well she got baptized on Saturday and it was a very sweet baptism!

Funny story of the week! Sister Hiatt and I are walking down the street door knocking and we see this guy pushing a bird in a shopping cart! I decided I have to talk to him! So I run over and ask what kind of bird it is, it was a turkey! HAHA! I asked if he usually took it on walks and he laughed and said no, he was doing it because their flat was being inspected and they weren't allowed to have pets, so he was taking her for a little walk until the inspector left! HAHA

This week was a good one and a quick one! I am getting really excited for Mother's day since I will get to skype my family! I hope as Mother's day comes around we take the time to thank all the women in our lives, but especially our mothers, who have loved us and been there for us every step of the way! I have many women to thank in my life! I know that I wouldn't be who I am today without all the strong women I have had in my life to look up to!

Love you all! Have a good week everyone!
<3 Sister Golden