"She was NOT speaking French!"

I wish I could express to you how happy I am today, but I'll just let you read my email and hopefully you'll get the gist of it.

Let me tell you a funny story about Tuesday. Sister Eddie is from the Solomon Islands and we share the flat and we were listening to her music in the car. There was a folder called "My Nice," so I asked her, "My nice what?" And she said, "My nice have seen the glory of the coming of the Lord!" I realized I've been on my mission for a while after that comment, because I thought it was the funniest thing I've heard in ages. Anyways, we started the morning off doing service at a member's home while they're away for a month. I was in charge of the chicken coop with Sister Teahe. Gathering eggs, feeding the chickens, cleaning the coop, rounding up the rogue chickens, etc. It was so much fun! But let's be real, I'm not much of a rancher. ;)  After we did some service we went and had a lesson with Kathy and a lesson with George. After we saw George we went to Mary's and off to rescues! Busy, busy, busy. Isn't being busy a blessing though?! So much better than being bored out of your mind...

Wednesday we had Bronwyn in the morning then we went over to Sister Cummings' house to get to know her a bit better. Can I tell you how utterly terrifying it is to share a message with the daughter-in-law of a General Authority? It's pretty intimidating... but their family is so great. We had a lesson with Julie then Vika and Sister Feinga went to visit people with us! It was a lot of fun having them get to know our investigators a bit. Then they took us to Hungry Jacks and they got eight ice creams.... Never say you "love" something to a Tongan who likes you, because they will make sure you never run out. But I'm not complaining! Ice cream is gold these days. We went searching with Sister Fenunuti and found out that one of our potential investigators is actually a less active member! Kinda of crazy, now we need to track down some records.

Thursday was mad as. We taught the Gospel of Jesus Christ to Craige and he loved it. Then we went and had a lesson with Mike, and he wants to be baptized November 14! Woo! Then we had a lesson with Alicia and set a goal baptismal date of December 5. Then we went to see a less active family and got to know them better. And then we ran into the Ashers, so they took us out to dinner. I love them, they remind me a lot of my parents but reverse the personalities. Does that make sense? Anyways, it's a pleasure to share Thai food with them any day!

Friday was a bit slower. A lot of appointments fell through and a lot of people weren't interested, but that's okay! We had a dinner appointment with the Feingas, but we missed the right train. So we had to take the later train, which meant we didn't have time to see a less active member named Bao that we had never met. But this guy on the train kept staring at me, so when I got off the train and he followed I was a little freaked out. Then he ran up to me and said, "Are you LDS?! I used to be LDS in Fiji!" Guess what, it was Bao! Divine intervention with our planning. Our appointment with the Feingas was great. They have a list of 10 names of people that they are going to invite to learn about the Gospel. And they're going tracting as a family next week! How cool are they? This ward is crazy when it comes to missionary work, I love it. Then we went and saw Helen, and this is probably the happiest I've seen her. Which makes me even more happy!

Saturday was so nasty. The last Saturday of the transfer, before we get our transfer details, we have to deep clean the flat. And apparently, the last 3 transfers the missionaries living there skipped doing it. Oh my lanta, it was insane. I'm not even to describe it to you, just know that it should never take more than 3 hours, and we gave up after 5 1/2 hours... Yea, blegh. Anyways, transfer calls came! Now they're a bit tricky, but I'm stoked. I've been sharing the ward with another set of Sisters, right? Remember the Sister Training Leader from Tahiti I loved going on exchanges with so much? So my area was killing it but their area has really been struggling. So Sister Sekete left completely and now I'm with Sister Teahe in the other half of the ward, and Sister Eddie and Sister Tuifua are taking over my old area. So I got transferred, but didn't even move out of my bedroom. Haha. I'm so excited. We also were able to watch the Women's session of General Conference. It was so good, I think my favorite talk was President Uchtdorf's.

Sunday was great. We went and said goodbye to some investigators and former investigators before church. Church was great as well. We were sitting in Relief Society and this lady said something a little blunt and added, "Pardon my French." And Sister Teahe turned to me and said, "She was NOT speaking French!" Hahaha. Sister Teahe's first language is French, so the expression didn't make sense to her. It was fun to explain. :) After church Ofa Amone's oldest daughter was baptized, so it was great to be able to witness that.

Monday was probably one of my favourite days on this side of the world. We took Sister Sekete to transfers then ran other sisters back and forth to their new areas for the rest of the morning. When we finally made it back to our area, we went straight to work! We rode our bikes and went to see heaps of former investigators to invite them to General Conference. Then we went to the Loughman's and had a Filipino dinner with them, so fun! It was great getting to know them better. Then we went and met a former investigator named Lena! She didn't like the sisters that found her a year ago but they made a note that she has a daughter with Special Needs. So I was super keen to go visit! We introduced ourselves, I told her I studied Special Education at University, and asked if we could come in and play with her. And she let us in! We all threw a ball around and had a great chat for about 45 minutes. It was so much fun and she invited us back without us even asking. It was great! Then we tried talking to this Turkish lady and she didn't speak English, but this 11 year old boy was right there and offered to translate! So he did and she asked us to teach her English, gave us her number, and left. Then we were talking to the little boy for a while in front of his family's shop. His dad came out and gave us Baklava (yummy middle eastern dessert) and talked to us too! And while we were talking, all of these refugees from the middle east came up to us and asked us (through Yusuf and his dad) to teach them English. So we're going to start an English class hopefully. It'll be way fun, but the only things we have in both Arabic and English are the discussions... :) Well, they've got to learn English and the Gospel somehow, so why not together! :)

I hope you were able to see how happy I am through me telling you about my week. God is good, He knows each of us, and he wants us to feel His love! And I definitely felt it this week. :)

Sister Stott

Picture: Sister Teahe and Baklava! :)