Harbor City Week 4

Y'all will never guess where I just came from - THE BEACH!

Hola Familia!

Yeah! Today was beach preparation day! Once a year, all the missionaries get a turn to go with President and Sister Baker to the beach! Our zone went, along with 2 other zones. It was a blast! Oh how I miss being out in the sunshine and playing in the sand. I put on plenty of sunscreen and then played beach volleyball for about 2 hours and then just sat and relaxed and took some pictures :) it was nice! My feet are sore from running around in the sand, and I'm quite tired but it was all totally worth it!

Bula

And, in case you were wondering, "Bula" means "Hi" in Fijian :)


This week has been an amazing one. We were able to see a wonderful miracle the week with S***** and A******, the Indian couple we've been teaching. I was on splits with Hna Alcantara and we had an appointment with them - our final appointment of the day. At our last appointment they committed to read 3rd Nephi 11. When we started the lesson, A****** told us that they had started to read together but that it was difficult to understand, so they weren't able to get very far. We were ecstatic that they took the effort to even start reading! It's not every day that our investigators keep their commitments! Hahaha So we abandoned the "planned" lesson that we had and decided to just read the chapter with them. The Spirit was so strong.  They are so sincerely learning the Gospel - it was beautiful. They are so humble and prepared to receive this message at this time. When we got to the section of the chapter where Jesus teaches about baptism we stopped reading and talked about baptism, then we talked a little bit more about baptism. We had talked to them in our first lesson about it but they were still a little confused on the concept and what exactly it meant.  We decided to teach them a little bit more about Christ and His plan before approaching it again. This time, it was perfect. Like I said, the Spirit of God was so strong, We asked them if they would follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone holding the Priesthood authority of God - and they said yes! They decided on the 26th of May to be baptized! It was a wonderful experience. They came to church this Sunday for the 2nd time and the ward members were great. Everyone was coming up and introducing themselves and saying hello. Ah - it was great! Such a testament to how much more effective the work of the Lord is when members and missionaries work together.


This week we also had many opportunities to do service for the members of the ward. A lot of people are moving (which is sad) but we've been able to help them. It was a lot with packing and cleaning and getting ready. It's always an amazing experience for me to see the personalities of the people around me through the items that they've accumulated over the years. No matter what, I love to serve and it's such a blessing of my missionary service to be able to help people out in that way, as well as in teaching them the Gospel.


Sister Malani and I had a rather interesting experience yesterday while we were out tracting.

We didn't have any set appointments for the afternoon after church and so we decided to try and go find some potentials and formers. None of them were home and so we decided to knock some doors around the area we were in. People were generally nice but nobody was interested in having us come back. So we decided to knock one last door before moving on. This time it was my turn.  We take turns knocking and talking, and so I picked a door that seemed unintimidating. This older woman opened the door and she was holding a Rosary. So, I knew she was Catholic and didn't expect her to let us in - but she did! We walked into her house, and I've never seen so many statues in my life, almost all of them were different versions of 'Our Holy Mother".  Right away she started to tell us all about her family and about the different statues and about her beliefs and some miracles that she's seen in her life.  We could not get a word in edgewise. It took about an hour :) It was all very interesting and inspiring but by then we had to go and so we said about 3 minutes worth about ourselves and then set a time to come back tomorrow! So we'll see how that goes :)


Whelp, my time is about gone. I love you all! Don't forget to read and pray and go to church!


Love,
Sister Hensley

P.S. Here is another picture of the Sisters in our Zone.