Temple Week

Me, Sis. Healy, & Sis. Walter

See the baby kangaroo's feet hanging out of the mother's pouch??

Hey everyone!

Sorry my letter is later this week. It's because we had P-day on Wednesday because we went to the temple this morning. I just love the temple! We have to get up at 4:30am on temple P-day so that we can drive to the train station and catch the train into the city and then walk from the station to the temple, so I am pretty dead and I apologize if my email has parts that make no sense. 

It's been a good week though. this morning at the temple was awesome because sister Healy the less active lady who we have been working with for quite a while now was able to come and do baptisms for the dead with us today. Even more special is that we helped her enter and print out the names of her mother and grandmothers to take to the temple. It also just so happened that our temple P-day fell on her birthday. NO COINCIDENCES. There was such a beautiful spirit there as we witnessed her being baptized and confirmed for her family members. It was also sister walter's first time doing baptisms for the dead in the temple so it was a good experience for her as well. And as for me I love baptisms and it's the only time my whole mission I get to be underwater so that's a plus as well haha just kidding...kind of. It is just crazy for me to think back on the first time I met sister Healy and she told me that she just couldn't accept some points of Mormon doctrine and so she has turned back to her catholic roots. She reminded me that semi-tricked her into listening to us by asking if she would, as a favor to us, let us practice teaching our lessons to her because I was training sister Walter (We really did need practice so I wasn't lying ;) ). She told me today she saw right through my trick but she is so happy she said yes and we were able to re-confirm to her the truths she had felt 3 years ago when she was first baptized. It was awesome. 

We also have this great investigator named Aaron who was meant to be baptized this coming Saturday the 28th but we just re-scheduled for the 5th. At first when he asked to re-schedule I was freaking out because I was afraid he had cold feet. But after speaking with our ward mission leader we decided we would all pray about it and see if moving the date is Heavenly Father's plan or Satan's, because it has to be from one of them. So we decided that heavenly father is A -OK with a baptism on the 5th and that's what we will have. Aaron is just the best, and I can't wait for his baptism! 

Another fun thing this week is that it's school holidays this week and next week so all the kids are home. During school holidays here they have this program for laurel and priest age youth to come out on mini-missions for a week so we have a 16 year-old sister from here in Brisbane who has been with us since Saturday. 

One more crazy story I almost forgot. So on Sunday this man walks into church and tells everyone that he just got baptized last weekend in New Zealand while he was on holiday staying with his Nephew, but he lives in our ward. Crazy! So we get his address because he wants us to come over and meet his wife and family so we can teach them too. So we head over there and I realize I've been to his house before because on this paper in our area book full of potential investigators some past missionary accidentally wrote their address down when it was meant to be their neighbor. So that was kind of weird, but I remember his wife saying she wasn't interested. Anyways we went to his house to get to know him better and as he starts talking about what he does for work and more about himself I start to feel like I've met him before so I ask if he has family that lives nearby, and his daughter lives down the street. So I figured out that I had door knocked into him and his son-in-law one day while I was with sister Vaipulu and we had given him a pamphlet. After I told him that he remembered that day too and laughed and said no one read the pamphlet it's still sitting at the house, but here he is now 3 months later a baptized member! So that was just a testimony to me of a few things 1. again NO COINCIDENCES 2. The Lord has a plan for everyone, if he wants them joining the church he will provide a way 3. fellowship and finding through Part Member Families is the best way to go, he said he never would have been converted if his nephew (also a recent convert) hadn't started reading the Book of Mormon to him and sharing his testimony with him. So that was just a kind of crazy thing that has happened recently here, and I only have two more Sundays left of this transfer and then I will quite possibly be leaving this area! SAD FACE! I love it here, and will be sad to go if that's the plan, but we will just have to wait and see...

Love you all! 

Much Aloha

Sister Rasmussen