6 Months Down?!!?

Yep, that's right, I have been a missionary in New Zealand for 6 months! It is actually so weird to think that because the time has gone SO fast! I am still in Riccarton, Christchurch where I started, but I have had 4 companions here! haha

This week was a pretty busy one! Sister Snow and I went on exchanges with the Sister Training Leaders. I was with Sister Christensen here in Riccarton. We had a great exchange! But, we accidentally got separated for part of it which was probably the scariest part of my mission! Before the mission I used to love being alone or going places by myself, it is interesting how your mind changes when you know you are supposed to be with someone at all times!

                                                                                 Our Training Leaders

So we were biking down our busy Riccarton road stopping and talking to tons of people along the way. As we got on our bikes to head off again I checked the time and saw our appointment was in a few minutes, so I told her that and we decided to bike straight there. I was in the lead since it was my area, and going at a good pace and probably made it 2 K's down the road and turned onto the street of our appointment and then looked behind me and saw NO ONE! My heart started to race and I got off my bike and began to walk toward the main road, and suddenly I see Sister Christensen bike past the road and just keep going and I am thinking oh no I am never gonna get to her! I start thinking, she doesn't know where she is, we have 1 phone and it's in my pocket, how long do I go until I have to call President?!?!! I keep walking toward the main road and walk the direction she was going, slowly, hoping she would have stopped and turned around or something! I walked for about 10 minutes before the phone rings and it's her!!!!!!!!! She had asked to use someone's phone and had to call her companion to get my number! hahaha she had biked about another kilometer and a half down the road until she stopped and found someone to call me! AHHH! We found each other again and figured out that she had stopped to talk with someone else and I didn't know and she didn't yell or ring her bell so I kept going on my merry way! hahah SO SCARY! But it turned out alright :)

Sad story of the week: I was at sports night playing volleyball and got low for a dig with my right leg stuck out to my right and as I went down my knee buckled toward the ground and I heard a nice loud pop. YIKES! So I got off the court and felt all wobbly and dizzy and thought immediately of my mom in my head and went "oh great, I tore my ACL like my mom" it started to get stiff and all uncomfortable after that. We made it home alright and I iced it a lot that night and didn't sleep well that night cause if I moved at all it hurt SO bad! The next morning it was SO stiff and it took me a long time to be able to walk on it.

                                                                Sports night - right before by accident!

That day we had a meeting and the Elders gave me a blessing and I was promised that I would serve a full mission so I know I will be okay :) I may have to go get it checked out, so prayers would be very nice right now that it won't be anything serious :) Thank you!

On Sunday we got to do a member missionary work shop as the 3rd hour block for the 5th Sunday! It went so well and I think we got a lot of the members pumped up to invite their friends to learn more about the gospel! I am hoping they keep the fire and don't let it fade! It would be so cool to get to teach our members friends :) I am excited! 

Sister Snow is growing each day and I am so glad I have the chance to be her trainer and see her progress! I love it!

This week, actually Saturday morning I was reading the Book of Mormon and I was really bummed about my knee, and I was reading in Ether Chapter 12 about faith, this scripture really stood out to me in verse 6 and it says, "...I would show unto the world that faith is things which are hoped for and not seen; wherefore, dispute not because ye see not, for ye receive no witness until after the trial of your faith." Whoa. I was so blown away by how specifically this scripture was speaking to me! I realized that this is just a minor setback in the work and that it is a test of my faith. It isn't easy, and it's not fun to have test and trials, but they do make us stronger, and I know the Lord will help me through this one :)

I love you all! Have an amazing week!
Love, Sister Golden

This is my friend from the MTC; he is serving in Perth, Australia. He is standing in front of the Pink Lakes in Kalbarri.

Being a Trainer!

Hello everyone!
So sorry I didn't get a letter out last week! My email logged me off and wouldn't let me get back in! But now I will cover both weeks in this letter :)

So I am a trainer now! 2 weeks ago I went to the airport to pick up my greenie, Sister Snow. She is from Utah! I love her a ton! She is a lot quieter than me.. haha but so diligent, obedient and hard working! We have a lot of fun together! It is really fun to watch her grow each day! I feel like everyday she gets a little more comfortable teaching and talking to people! I really enjoy being able to study the gospel with her and help her learn how to teach it simply!

                                                                                         Sister Snow

                                                                           Our new Riccarton Ward missionaries!

We have found some new potentials to teach and have taught a few investigators but the work is still a bit slow. We are excited though to keep meeting people and teaching more! We are still working a lot with less active members which can be SO hard sometimes, but we love them :)

Being a trainer has really forced me to grow and rely on the spirit more! Sister Snow can be timid sometimes so I always have to be ready to have her back or add some stuff to her teaching so the spirit has really been helping me fill in and take more of the lead! I have definitely noticed growth in the both of us! I am so grateful for this experience!

This week I have been reading toward the end of the Book of Mormon, after Jesus Christ visits the Nephites. It constantly amazes me how quickly the people turn their backs on God and his teachings and His prophets. I am so grateful to live in this day when the gospel has been restored in it's fullness and we have a prophet to lead and guide the church the way the Lord wants it.

I love you all! Thank you for the prayers and kind thoughts! Have a wonderful week!

Love, Sister Golden

Transfers

These are the last pictures of my favorite group of missionaries. They are all such great people!

Interesting Week!

Well! This week was interesting to say the LEAST. It started off really fun with the 4th of July and our district got together for some nerf wars at the chapel. We finished off the night with a member lighting off some fireworks for us to watch :)

We are currently working with an awesome family that is a bit less active named the Bornillas. They are so awesome and love us a lot! They have been coming to church recently pretty regularly and staying for sacrament meeting! We talked with them about where they are and where they want to be and set some goals with them. I am so excited for them to be active again! The ward will be really blessed by them!

On Friday we had our volleyball night, LOVE IT! Lots of less actives and investigators come to that and members love to bring friends! It is such a great way to hang out in a non threatening environment! I love going!

Then Saturday rolled around... We were in a lesson with Ann our less active when we got a text from Sister Hudson, our mission President's wife asking us to call her when we had a chance. My heart started racing, knowing she calls to give leadership positions to sister missionaries so I got all nervous knowing something was happening! Once we finished the lesson we called her and she asked to speak to me, and told me that I was going to become a trainer. WHAT THE HECK?! I feel like I just finished training!!! I asked if that meant I would be staying here in Christchurch, and she said I would and that Sister Pulsipher would be leaving. So, this Wednesday I will be dropping Sister Pulsipher at the airport and picking up my baby, Sister Snow.

It is interesting to feel so many emotions about something like this. There is some excitement but also feelings of inadequacy and nerves! The Lord really likes to change things up when I get comfortable!
                        
This morning I was on a conference call with President Hudson, the Assistants and all other trainers and it was really nice. It helped to reassure me a lot and feel prepared somewhat for this next adventure.

A scripture that has really been helping me grasp my responsibility as a trainer is Doctrine and Covenants Section 105 verse 10. It says, "That they themselves may be prepared, and that my people may be taught more perfectly, and have experience, and know more perfectly concerning their duty, and the things which I require at their hands." This has brought me much peace and comfort knowing that ultimately all I need to do is align myself with the Lord and His work here and show my trainee what it is the Lord expects of us as missionaries in the New Zealand Wellington Mission.

I could really use some extra prayers this week as I begin to train a new missionary and set the pace for her whole mission. Thank you for all the love and support! Have a wonderful week :)

Love, Sister Golden

                                                         Elder Afoa took Bob from me! He loves Bob, haha!

4th of July in Winter?!

Hello Hello! Happy 4th of July!! It is so weird to think that it is July right now when I am freezing cold all the time! haha I think it is getting colder every day! The locals laugh at us seeing us all bundled and say "Oh sisters... it hasn't even started yet." YIKES!

                                                                    We decorated our flat for the 4th of July!

Good news for this week: OUR COLDS ARE GONE AND OUR CAR IS BACK!!! We were pretty pumped about that and we are excited to be healthy again!

Sad news of the week: We usually have District meeting on Wednesday. We didn't have our car back yet and we didn't want to bike, so we bundled all up, walked to the institute building on Wednesday, got there at 10:00 for our 10:30 meeting and waited in the cold. When 10:10 rolled around we called the Elders to see where the heck they were and Elder Dumbrell goes "SISTERS! I thought I told you District meeting was tomorrow!!!" We were pretty bummed and cold hahaha so we walked home.

                                                                         This is my street and apartment!

On Saturday the Elders had a convert baptism and we were asked to do the Wet to Dry lesson for it. It was a really nice baptism! The missionary work in our ward is going really well! We are pretty excited and I think the ward is getting excited too!

After the baptism another companionship of sisters from our Zone came over for dinner. We LOVE them! Sister Taylor and Sister Gala! Sister Gala is a brand new missionary and has recently received some sad news from her family and has been having a tough time with it. She told our mission president that she wanted to come visit the Riccarton sisters and he was all for it! So they called us up and we got together for dinner! It was a really nice evening and she said she felt a lot better just being able to spend some time with us. We were both really touched that she said she wanted to come be with us to help her through her trials!

This week we were able to see Ann, our less-active. She hasn't been to church for probably 20 years! We had such a nice lesson with her and she committed to come to church on Sunday! We were pumped!!! We were at church sitting in the chapel when 5 minutes to 9 we got a text from her daughter saying they really wanted to come but the lease on their rental car was expired and asked if we could come pick them up :(((( We aren't allowed to drive anyone else except missionaries in our car! We had to explain that, and we were so bummed! 20 YEARS and she was GONNA COME!! Hopefully she'll still want to next week :)

Yesterday at church was the first time all the new wards got together after the boundary changes! Although a lot of members will be missed I am excited about the families that are now in our ward! We had a very spiritual fast and testimony meeting and the feeling of love and unity was so strong for our first Sunday all together! I have really good feelings about these changes :)

This week we had a mission wide conference call and President Hudson shared a scripture with us, Alma 6:6- Nevertheless the children of God were commanded that they should gather themselves together oft, and join in fasting and mighty prayer in behalf of the welfare of the souls of those who knew not God.

I love this scripture! It meant a lot more to me to include this commandment in my fast this week. To think of those and pray for those who didn't know God to be able to have the opportunity to know Him. Especially as a missionary to have the ability to find those and teach those who don't know God. This week I hope all of you will remember to pray for those who don't know God, that they will have the opportunity to find Him, whether it is through you or the missionaries!

Love you all! Have an amazing week!

Love, Sister Golden

5 Months Down!

Hello! So on the 28th I will have been out on my mission for 5 months! The time has really flown by! It is so crazy to think about!

This week was really cold and pretty wet, and to make it even better, the car repair place is short staffed so the car still hasn't been fixed! We walked a lot this week, which isn't so bad except now we are both pretty sick.

This week was a bummer week for our numbers. We were both kinda sad yesterday when we had to call our district leader to report. It felt like everything kept falling through! We had members ahead of time to come to lessons with us and they would cancel right before. We were both sick and had to stay inside more than we would have liked. But, we are ready for the week ahead! We had a great weekly planning session and made some great goals for ourselves so we are pretty excited to get out and achieve them!

This week to spice things up a bit Sister Pulsipher and I decided it would be a great idea to push our beds together and build the coolest fort ever!!!!!!!!!! It didn't end up being as cool as we hoped, it's kinda messy, and it's only being held together by some clothes pins, a garden rake, and some rusty broom handles. But, we have slept in it for a few nights now and it hasn't collapsed on us yet!!!

Yesterday at church Sam joined 2 other guys at the sacrament table and broke the bread with them! He is pretty shy, so I was really happy to see him up there! Hopefully soon he will be ready to say the sacrament prayers! He also texted us last night and said he is planning on trying to get his temple recommend so he can go to Hamilton in October with the rest of the stake for their temple week and do baptisms and confirmations! I am just so happy! Whenever I think of him my heart just overflows with joy! He was so ready for the gospel and he is so personally motivated to keep pressing forward and staying strong! I am so grateful for him!

Last night was a stake meeting when the Ward boundary changes were announced! There were some pretty big changes made! A new unit was created called the Parklands ward. Our ward, the Riccarton ward had some big changes made! We lost a lot of ward members, including our bishop, but gained some other members from another ward! A new bishop and bishopric were called for our ward and most of the other wards last night! Luckily, although our ward changed a bit Sister Pulsipher and my proselyting area wasn't affected! We are very grateful for that! There will be a lot of work to do to really get our ward back to running, we lost a lot of our auxiliary presidents last night so it'll be fun for a few weeks ;)

Today, as I logged onto lds.org there was a new message made based off of Jeffrey R. Holland's talk, Like a Broken Vessel. I watched it and was so touched by it! Although I don't personally suffer from mental issues or depression it was so good to be reminded that at anytime we feel low or lonely we can turn to the Lord who loves us perfectly, that all these trials will not matter in the next life, and for me to continue to be positive and hopeful about the future. Everyone should take the time to watch the video! It was truly wonderful!

I love you all! Thank you for the continued support and prayers!

Love, Sister Golden

Visiting Authorities!

Hello!!
This week was a busy one for us! It started off with a flat tire on Tuesday morning, the day we were supposed to shuttle senior couple missionaries from the bus station to their hotels for Zone Conference the next day! Immediately channeling my inner problem solving... we called the Elders to come change it for us :) HA!

                                                                        Elders Dumbrell and Fangufangu

We called the mission office to talk to the missionary in charge of the cars and he asked us to take it to the tire place so we did and they fixed it all up for us! That night we were able to accomplish our assignment and all visiting missionaries were safely placed in missionary flats and hotel rooms for the night.

The next morning was Zone Conference! I was so excited! We were going to get to see our mission president and his wife and hear from 3 general authorities! Before the meeting actually started we got to shake hands with all of them! It was really neat to have them at our Zone conference because they stopped each of us and had a conversation since there weren't tons of people there! I loved it! Elder Pearson, the presiding authority at the meeting shook my hand and asked where I was from, since nobody knows Gig Harbor I usually answer with Washington State. He then asked where about, I asked if he was familiar with Washington and he smirked and said he was, so I asked if he knew Tacoma, he said yes and then I went on to ask if he know Gig Harbor and he smiled really big and goes "We love Gig Harbor!" and his wife was smiling and nodding too! It turns out he was the mission President of the Tacoma Washington mission from 2005-2008! It was so cool!!!!

After everyone got to mingle with the authorities the meeting started! We got to hear from Brother and Sister Reeves (she's the General Relief Society 2nd Counselor), Brother and Sister MCConkie (she is the General Young Women's 1st Counselor) and then Elder and Sister Pearson. As a missionary, meetings and events like these are SO nice because we are here to spiritually feed and uplift others so when we get the chance to be on the receiving end it is amazing! I have truly been on a high ever since that meeting! I feel like I learned so much and I am just ready to go and work even harder! Also, the special musical number that I was a part of went really well!

After Zone Conference my companion and I went on exchanges with our Sister Training Leaders! I was with Sister Paia'aua! She is a new STL and this was her first exchange! It was really fun though! I like her a lot and we had a really nice time :)

Also this week we found out that our Stake Presidency is changing the ward boundaries. The most anyone knows is that the changes are pretty big and will affect each ward pretty drastically. That is my worst nightmare. We might be assigned to a different ward, we might have to move flats, we might not be able to work with our less actives or investigators or Sam; we will have to all get together as missionaries and swap teaching records and brief each other on specific people and so forth. I am already stressing out a lot about it, prayers would be much appreciated! haha

So this week we will not have a car to use because it is in the shop being repaired from our accident. It is SO cold here so if I don't email next week it is safe to assume that I am dead from being too cold :)

We had another Volleyball night on Friday! Those are fun and really good because a lot of less active and non members come and can meet us and see that the church has other fun activities! Also I love being able to play volleyball!

BIG NEWS! Sam was able to receive the Aaronic priesthood yesterday!!! We got to be there when he received it! It was so cool to be able to witness that! I am so proud and blessed to be one of the ones who has seen him through this journey!

We also have an investigator named Joey who is starting to progress well! I am excited about him! We taught him about the plan of salvation and he liked it a lot! We invited him to be baptized but he is a bit hesitant at this point but says he would like to be baptized someday!

This week I was studying the Book of Mormon in Jacob chapter 5 about the parable of the vineyard. I came across a phrase in verse 11 when the Lord of the vineyard says "It grieveth me that I should lose this tree." That really hit me hard, and I began to cry a little bit. I reflected on each time I passed someone and didn't try to share the gospel with them, each time I didn't knock on a door because I couldn't figure out how to open the gate latch, and how any of those people could have been the ones that the Lord has been preparing to learn about the restored gospel, and that it truly does grieve Him to lose those people. I resolved with myself to never let a gate latch or "awkward situations" stop me. I know that someday when I stand before the Lord that a hard gate latch or awkward situation is not going to be a good enough excuse as to why I let those people pass. We all have people in our lives who need our help, this week let's all resolve to reach out, love more, and be kinder to those around us so that the Lord does not have to grieve over one of His struggling children.

I love you all! Happy Father's day to all those men out there who have been an influence in someone else's life, and especially to my Dad, one of the kindest, humblest, loving people I have ever known. Have a wonderful week!

                                                                 Always prepared for an earthquake, ha!!

                                                                           #WatchYourCabeza 
Love,
Sister Golden