Transfer Week and a New Companion - 8/19/13

Melbourne Mission Moments - 8/19/13

What a wonderful week I have had! Seriously, this week has been so great!

Monday was really busy getting everything cleaned up in our flat and getting my companion and the Sis. R. all packed up and ready to go. After my companion finished packing we spent the rest of the evening visiting people in the ward that she wanted to see before she left.

Tuesday morning right after personal study we had to leave to head to the mission office for transfer meeting. It ended up being a pretty big meeting with a lot of changes made. My companion got sent out bush to Griffith which is in New South Wales. My MTC companion also got sent out bush to Wagga-Wagga so I will not get to see her for quite a while now. Sad. I love that Sister so much. Ever since the first day at the MTC we just had a special connection. After transfer meeting was over they assigned me to be with to other sisters for the next 24 hours until the new missionaries arrived on Wednesday. I love Sis. A. and Sis. K. We all have been serving the same amount of time and we had a great day together. We got to go teach Sis. A’s investigator. He got baptized on Saturday so our lesson with him was his last one before his baptism interview. He has a strong testimony. I love talking with people who have recently gained their testimony. There's just something fresh and special about it. After our lesson with him we went down to my area in Churchill Park and we stopped by an investigator’s flat. He wasn't home but his 4 flat mates were home so we were able to talk with them and share a little bit about the plan of salvation and made a return appointment for Friday. We all stayed at our flat Tuesday night so there were 5 sisters there. Sis. Trego's new companion is Sis. F. She is a tall blonde Australian from Adelaide. I love her. :)

Wednesday morning after studies, Sis. A., Sis. K. and I went to follow up with a few potential investigators. After that we headed up to the mission office to meet our Goldens (they call new missionaries Goldens here because it is a GOLDEN opportunity). Twenty-seven new missionaries came in. A few of them have been serving in the states for a little bit but most of them are young, fresh, 18-year-old boys straight from the MTC. We had a kind of training/orientation meeting for the new missionaries then they made assignments.

 Guess who my new companion is?. . .  SISTER H. from my district at the MTC! Such a blessing to get to work with her. I love her so much and we have had such a good week together. Since she has been serving for as long as I have she doesn't really need to be trained on anything except for Australian Culture and the mission culture here. I am so happy for the opportunity we have to serve together. She is FUN to be around and she has the same desire that I do to work hard so we have gotten a lot done. Heavenly Father is pouring out blessings on me by making us companions!

After all the orientation and training and dinner at the office they sent us home about 7:00 to unpack and then to sleep. Jet lag is a real thing. It happens to all of us and Sis. H. was exhausted so we went to bed by about 10:00 Wednesday.

On Thursday morning we had Zone Meeting. Our zone has had a lot of change because all but two companionships got split up so there's a lot of new missionaries. They also added two sets of elders to our zone so now there are 11 companionships in our zone. I love all of the missionaries. We all work hard and get along really well. Our zone is one of the smallest in the mission area wise but we have a lot of success. Elder M. is in our zone which is fun. I went to high school with him. We also have Elder N. in our zone who just got here after serving for 12 weeks in THSM so it was fun to talk with him all about Texas.

Thursday night we taught an on-going investigator again. I really am not sure what to do with him. He's been meeting with missionaries for almost a year but his heart is not open and bottom line he is not prepared. So we probably have to drop him which is sad but we need to be spending our time on the elect who are truly prepared. 

Friday and Saturday we tracted for a lot and it was FREEZING because the wind was blowing so hard. It was been windy for almost a week straight now and frankly I'm getting quite sick of it. We went on Friday night to teach the flat full of YSA age people that I told you about at the beginning of the letter. Well, it was a disaster. They basically just wanted to argue with us and the spirit was not there at all. It was really frustrating. Our Ward Mission leader was with us and he was as frustrated as we were.

Saturday night we had dinner with the K. family and taught them a lesson. They are still really serious about getting to the temple to be sealed so we are just going to keep helping them along. 

Saturday night we called one of our investigators to set up an appointment with her. She told us that her 12 year old daughter was in the hospital and had just had surgery to remove an egg-sized tumor from her brain. The tumor was benign which is good but it is still so sad for a 12 year old to have to go through that. My companion and I were able to go up there and visit them in the hospital. A couple of brothers from the ward came and gave her a blessing. It was great to be able to spend that time with them and a wonderful teaching opportunity. 

Heavenly Father is so aware of us. At the beginning of the week I prayed that I would be able to be happy this week. Not that I'm not happy, but sometimes Satan just works really hard on me and I get disappointed or discouraged. Well, Heavenly Father answered my prayers. I have been so happy this week and have had so many blessings. I'm so grateful to get to serve with Sis. H. She is a tender mercy from Heavenly Father.

I know that little miracles happen every single day. We will notice them more as we really look for them. I'm so grateful to be serving a mission right now. The church is true. I wish I could get everyone here in Australia to understand that. Heavenly Father loves us and has a perfect plan of happiness for us. I am so grateful for the knowledge of the gospel that I have.

Love y'all HEAPS!!

Sister Baker xxoxxo