September 2014 Pictures

8 September 2014

Hello! It sounds like youg uys are doing some exciting things in the grove! :) I love hearing how involved everyone is with missionary work. You guys are such a great example to me.

 

This week was wonderful. Guess what? i get to STAYYYY. I'm so happy. Also, I'm not gonna go crazy or anything buttttt, I know that if i come home fat, you guys will know that i have been taken care of. And let me assure you I AM. I'm so grateful to this ward, they are so patient and just so giving of everything. I have learned so much from them.

 

Sister Wulfenstein and I are now in a two way. They took the other sisters out and are putting elders in our ward! Eeek! I'm excited, I think its easier in two ways to stay focused.

 

Heaps of missionaries went home this past transfer. It was so sad, but I'm so grateful for their examples to me. Esp, my favorite compy sister tautuiaki. I'm so glad i got to see her before she left.

 

Lets see, we are just seeing miracles left and right! A member's son has been doing missionary work, his friend has been coming to church with him for the past two weeks and he just wants to get baptized hey! Because he's only 10 years old. we had to wait before teaching him so that we could make sure it was okay with his parents. But while we were on splits yesterday sister wulfenstien and a ysa set a baptismal date with him! :) it was the best! so its set for September 20th. We are way excited.

 

Anywho. I love life. If you ever feel like sending me pinterest quotes. by all means DO IT :) DOOO IT! I love you heaps.

 

thank you for all you do for me, it blesses the people I am called to serve.

 

Ofa atu

 

sister mullen

29 September 2014

Hello! This week has been wonderful. 

I'm a bit more tired than usual because we've had mini missionaries two weeks in a row. Its just a little tiring because its like double duty. But yeah both of our minis have been great. Full of spirit and desire. Sometimes I forget I'm older than them because they always tower over me.

We have had some powerful lessons this week. 

I don't know if I've mentioned our investigator Shawn. Well. He's my favorite. He claims to be atheist. But we can just feel the spirit so much each time we go there. He knows. He says little things that tell me that he does know God exists. So we are praying extra hard this week that he will get an answer this week. He's super sincere, he just doesn't know.

Also our investigator Carol. She rides a motor bike and she doesn't want to come to church or get baptized but she isn't prideful or anything, she just has had bad experiences. But she LOVES the Book of Mormon. So we love going over there. She is progressing and so hopefully she'll come to church soon.

Saia is a less active that asked us to come to his house and teach him the Restoration he said he was in desperate need to feel the spirit. It was the most powerful lesson I've been able to witness. Even the adversary knew that he would have a change of heart. It was crazy because we were teaching him and all of a sudden when the spirit was super strong it started pouring. SO LOUD. and we were almost yelling so that he could hear us. It was amazing though :)

I'm sorry this is so short but at our zone conference we had a training on keeping up with our recent converts. So i was humbled and I know I need to do a better job at taking care of them.

I love you all so much. 

Ofa atu.

Sister Mullen

22 September 2014

WOW! thats so exciting :) you guys will be wonderful for the YSA. 

No those youth or ysa now  miss you so i know they're excited. man you guys just keep following us :) haha.

Whenever i start getting stressed or impatient with myself or others i always just tell myself "the church is still true" haha i know its silly but it really helps me to gain an eternal perspective.

That sounds like an amazing activity! I'm sure lots of planning. We're trying to create something like that for our youth and ysa here. I really feel for the ysa here because its so much harder to stay active in Australia. I've seen how lucky we are to live in a place where the church is so strong. People really struggle here. Strengthening them is the biggest goal we have.

We started in our new area and its been so good! We took some ysa and youth out with us finding ALL day. It was so much fun and they had the best attitude. We saw so many miracles. Like this blind lady that we knocked into. It was amazing. She has tons of health issues and never answers the door because she lives by herself but she felt like when we knocked she needed to open it! So we've started teaching her and Bailey got baptized on Friday. He's an amazing little kid. I'm so grateful i've had the opportunity to baptized 3 10 year old boys. My testimony has truly grown from their examples.

I haven't gotten swooped yet so that should be a testimony to all that prayer is real! :) 

All jokes aside though i'm so grateful for the things I have learned this week and for the Atonement especially. Whenever i fall short or whenever i've really messed up, the Atonement is always there to keep me from getting down on myself.

I'm so grateful for you guys and all the support. I'm espcially grateful this week for the person you raised me to be.

Ofa atu!

Sister Mullen

15 September 2014

Hello! Its been a wonderful week. Thank you for all the prayers because I haven't been swooped yet. I don't have tons of time to email today but i hope you enjoy the pictures. I have a really cool thing to tell you about Tangled though.

So we resplit our area with the new elders and now we are in a mostly "finding" area. FOR NOW of course. :)

But i was thinking of the different types of people we come in contact with. I would like to compare this to the movie Tangled. Rapunzel is up in her tower and she's singing that song that she's so happy and she has so many things to do. It appears to her that she is living life to its fullest. But she has no idea what the grass feels like, or what it feels like to have her toes touch the water. It isn't until her "prince" invites her to come down that she realizes that there is so much more happiness out there than she thought. I would like to compare that to investigators or just people who are perfectly happy but they don't have the gospel. It appears that they don't need this. But they do and it takes us as members to invite them to come OUTSIDE. I hope that makes sense.

Ofa atu :)

Thank you for all your support.

Ps. we have a baptism this friday for an amazing 10 year old boy named Bailey. The Lord's work is hastening and its because of members! I'll tell you about his story next week.

Sister mullen

August 2014 Pictures

1 September 2014

It was an amazing week.

I would first like to say thank you for all the love and support you've given me. Especially for all your prayers for the people we are teaching. I know more than anything that prayer is real.

The Leos were baptized on Sunday. Honestly, I couldn't believe it. Not that they weren't ready but just the fact of having the opportunity to be a part of their conversion. It was amazing. In their confirmations it was clearly stated that their dad would follow them. :) I hugged Carol afterwards and she was like "I'm so glad its over" haha i was just happy i could carry the burden of stress with her. We almost both sighed out of relief after the program was finished haha. 5 souls. 5 souls of a family were brought closer to returning their heavenly home. It was amazing. So many people came. I will send pictures next week hopefully.

I witnessed so much how much Satan works on us before the miracles. It was definitely a trying week but I'm grateful for a wonderful companion and for the Atonement especially.

I'm grateful for the softening of hearts and for promptings and the WAY promptings are given. I love mistakes and I love that i'm learning to GET over things.

I know more than ever that Heavenly Father loves me and that He always will no matter how many times I drop the ball. I'm so lucky.

Thank you for the pictures. Thanks for your email i loved it!

"thank you for your comings. yous brings us the blessings." (what poly families say when we come over for dinner)

ofa atu!
:)

sister mullen

p.s. im SO TERRIFIED. it is september again and that means its bird swooping season :(

pray for me! haha

25 August 2014

Hello! Its been a wonderful week :) 

A long, stressful week but a good week. We have been trying to figure out how we could help the Leo family more and then at our training, DUH. I was called to repentance. We were so focused on getting her over smoking and helping them learn all 5 lessons that we didn't focus as much as we should have on the Book of Mormon. I felt so dumb. But it was a good experience, we had an opportunity to do "Hard Yakka" with President and Sister Henderson. Thats where they come and teach our investigators with us. Sister Henderson came to ours. She was so great. She said we were allowed to go to the Leos dance show this weekend. We're going to double check but yeah i'm excited! Honestly I've been so stressed about Carol. I don't know if she realizes she can't get baptized if she smokes. I know I've told it to her a thousand times and now I can't tell if the spirit is warning me or if the adversary is trying to knock my faith. I was stressed all day yesterday. But our President has encouraged each of the leaders to study a Book of Mormon missionary and develop a certain attribute about them. After praying, I chose Mormon and his faith. How PERFECT was that for me, especially in this trying week. So I was able to be at peace after I read about Mormon. And I've also been really tired lately, not going to lie, I love it! I love saying that I've done my best, but yeah sometimes I feel like I'm doing this area alone. BUT again! reading about Mormon. HE was completely alone and he STILL had faith and he used every bit of energy he had. And I'm not even close to being alone as him. So I'm grateful for studies this week. Because they saved me. I'm learning how to deal with elders still. Haha. I'm grateful though that i'm confident enough to voice my opinion, I'm still trying to be humble though when we disagree :) We took some young women out with us this week that were amazing! They have such a Christ like spirit and taught ME so much. I love taking them out. One experience we had, we were about to go into a lesson where they like talking about deep doctrine. And we just blanked, we had no idea what we were going to teach. And my comp and i were trying to talk it out  and figure out what to do, and finally this girl Maddie said, I think that it will all be okay, we've prepared and the spirit will tell us what to do now. Oh my goodness I almost cried. Sometimes we can lose the real spirit of this wonderful work. It is always wonderful, no matter how long we've been doing it and no matter how "good" we get at it. There are always miracles happening and they are PRECIOUS. I'm so grateful for this trying week and all that its taught me.

"I love tough things." :)

Sister Mullen

Ofa atu!

18 August 2014

Hello wonderful dearest family of mine!

Thank you so much for the pictures! You all look so cute. :) I was excited to see shayla! I love that we all have friends like that, where things just "don't change." we can leave for a year and a half and still be best friends. Is rachel good at cooking thai food?

Thats so funny she walked home from the stake center! street contacting on the way probs. This week was actually really good. We were able to go on trade offs to Toowoomba and Darling Heights. It was so much fun! Its soo cold and windy there and the poor sisters are all sick. But they're soldiers. There was one sister that had a death back home in her family and it was really hard on her. A lot of the sisters actually struggle with language. They are all AMAZING but they are just frustrated with themselves that they're not "better" than they already are. I don't know they're amazing to me. But yeah, i love having the opportunity to serve as STL for another transfer because the first transfer i was kinda like "whats going on" and now I actually sort of know what to do, and I can start focusing on the QUALITY of trade offs now. So yeah when we talked before we were done planning she said that she wants to go and serve in Tonga. She said President called and asked her to pray about it and he'd call her again to ask. And I couldn't understand. But then I related it to me deciding to stay at school or to go on a mission. Whether she goes to Tonga or stays here, it doesn't matter its not like one is a wicked desire and one is righteous. Its BOTH TO SERVE THE LORD. Thats where agency comes in. He lets us choose. And it just depends on what we're going to regret. She pondered on it that night. And the night before our trade off day I was on my knees for I don't know how long. I plead so hard that God would bless us with miracles that she needed. AND GUESS WHAT. We saw so many miracles that day and she was actually running to talk to people. I was just so thankful that the Lord allowed me to serve, anonymously. I didn't want the miracles to come because of me. I wanted her to see it was because of her. And she did see it :) Now i just hope she stays. But yeah that was an amazing experience with those sisters out there. I also got to be with my old companion Sister Hwang. That was so fun :) She goes home next transfer! So weird.

We had amazing experiences with 2 sisters who are preparing for their missions. I don't know if i told you but my comp and i took advantage of the fact that we're the only sisters in the stake. We put our avalability sheet out to all the wards and now we have heaps of people who actually WANT to come out with us. They call us! Seriously. One in particular, Sandra, She's amazing and she's so willing to serve. I'm grateful that somehow we are blessed to be answers to other people's prayers. But yeah we taught another lady named Carol and she is just SO open. She's been prepared. We invited her to be baptized and she sad she already has but we asked her to pray and she said she would! She's so nice. She posts about us on FB she said haha.

Carol Leo and her family are doing good. They're a bit shy so its hard to tell sometimes. We've been specifically praying that she'd have a desire to give up smoking. She told us thats what she's struggling with most but yeah, she needs to give it up on Sunday. They're amazing though. I still can't believe how we met her. MIRACLES!

Another miracle. It was pouring rain all day on Saturday and its not our car day. We were trying to go on splits because we missed out on two days in our area. Sadly the girls had something come up. But it was all good, nothing really happened at all that day and then we were following up with potentials around our house. and we were trying to find this one street but we walked to far and came to Arosa street, And i was like there's someone who lives here so we can just go to them, because it was like 8:50. It was funny though because I specifically saw her name but saw she was Aussie and thought, she might get upset because its so late. But "no unhallowed hand can stop the work from progressing, THANKFULLY its His work, not mine. But yeah we show up at her house and she was so nice! We made an appointment with her for the following day. PAUSE.

Then sunday, we had three young women come out with us. Its usually our busiest day because everyone we teach is at home and expect us to come. 

NO ONE LET US IN. And we took out 14 year old girls so we weren't allowed to door knock with them. So pretty much me and this girl were walking around for 3 hours haha. She was such a soldier about it though. We kept saying, we're just putting miralces in our miracle meter! Haha. So she was excited to come out with us this upcoming Sunday to see what miracles will happen. BUT. It happened later that day, A YSA called us with a solid referral of her family saying they want to be taught! And then We taught that lady from the previous story and she was AMAZING! So humble and she's been through so much. We'll be teaching her slowly but I know she's ready for the Book of Mormon.

But yeah! Its been a great week! I love it here. I love my companion. We're very different but she's amazing. 

Have fun reading the Book of Mormon!

Ofa atu!

Sister Mullen

11 August 2014

Wellp. My week was a roller coaster. I have some weird news and I hope it doesn't offend anyone. One of my best friends on the mission went home early. She's been suffering from an illness for a really long time. She called me to let me know that she was going home. I cried forever. I felt so bad, we started out together and now she didn't get to finish. But I know that the Lord has a different plan for her. BUT the point is, her going home was somehow a tender mercy for me. I knew that with Rachel going home, that would be a real easy way to get distracted. But since my friend went home, I feel even more urgent. So I still have a desire to serve the Lord but Sister Jenkins has added this huge push for me to be diligent for her. I love her heaps and I'm going to miss her.

BUT! This week has been greeeeeeeeeat. I'm grateful for that mini trial at the beginning of my week. To make me try even harder.

I sure do love my companion. We get along well. Haha.  But her stories are great and its good because all I have to do is listen.

I'm really grateful that the region I look over is mostly my companions. It makes it so much easier for me to discern with the spirit of what they need. Most of our sisters struggle with confidence in one form or another. So we are trying our best to uplift and help them! So Rachel, if you have any ideas, PLEASE tell me. :)

I have been stressing all week because for some reason I feel like I'm always behind. My stuff isn't even really unpacked and its my 8th week here. But its all good i guess. We do our best and the Lord makes it up. Right? thats how it works? haha. But in particular i was stressed about our family getting baptized on the 31st of August. There are so many little concerns to help them with. She smokes but honestly they are such a golden family that I always forget when we are teaching them?! Haha but when we went over yesterday we were able to talk and she was like "yeah i was wondering when you were going to talk to me about that. haha. I love them. they are island dancers did i tell you? I'll send you a video home on a usb. They are SO GOOD! It makes me want to learn it.

This ward is great. The members are so loving and everyone just does their best with what they know and have. I'm learning a lot about not just going to an area and demanding but working WITH everyone.

I'm so excited that Rachel is home. Its so weird because I'm always telling people my sister is serving a mission in thailand! I'm so grateful for her example to me. And for the first time, I'D LIKE TO LEAVE A COMMITMENT! I would like to invite you three, to speak thai in the house ALWAYS. Will you do that? Yes? Well! I can promise you that when I come home I will be able to pick it up haha ;) I always laugh about that thought that you guys will be saying secrets about me and i'll never know.

Wellp! I think thats it for now! Oh except i forgot to tell you we got sprayed with a hose on saturday. What a classy man.

Malo aupito!

Ofa atu!

Sister Mullen