Bula Re! I hope you all had a Merry Christmas! It was so nice to talk to yous! We are so lucky to have such wonderful people here that invited us to meals and let us Skype from their houses! We are so blessed! This week has been pretty good! Even with Christmas we were able to teach a good number of lessons! On Tuesday we celebrated Dumpling Day (or something like that) with our chinese investigators, they taught us how to make dumplings and then we ate dumplings until we were sick! They are so wonderful, they listen so carefully to everything we say and you can tell that they truly want to learn, they came to church and the ward party and told us that even though they don't have any family here, the ward can be there family now! On Christmas eve we went to the Fell's house, Sister Fell's husband does FIFO (fly in fly out, and no that does not mean he is a pilot,(I was very confused on why everyone was pilots at first)). So he was gone for Christmas, so her mom came over from Brisbane and we got to have Christmas eve dinner with them, after we walked with them to the beach (not on the sand though) and watched the sun set (the wind made it semi-cold so it kind of felt like Christmas!) Christmas Day was fantastic! In the morning we got to go to Rau's house she is seriously the BEST! We had an amazing breakfast, and I ate oyster right out of the shell, raw, I might add. For lunch we went to another members house and ate ourselves into the ground! After we went to Sister Patty's house it was her birthday so we took her a present and sang to her (not only is her birthday on Christmas but she is a triplet as well!) For dinner we went to another families and just hung out with them! They are so kind to us and feed us really good! We went there for dinner on boxing day and the 27th as well (Don't worry we were invited all 3 days and we weren't the only freeloaders!) Boxing Day! They have boxing day here and everyone goes to the beach, except the missionaries they just drive by the beach and shed a few tears that evaporate quickly into the 40 degree air. Transfers are on Wednesday. I just said goodbye to Sister Young and may have shed a few tears, I'm going to miss her, she is such an amazing person and as tacky as it might sound we became really good friends! So now I am staying with some other sisters until Wednesday and I go with my new companion.... Sister Caesar, I've met her a few times at meetings and she seems really cool! She is from Queensland so I'll have another Aussie companion! I'm excited! Our whole district is basically leaving the only ones staying are Elder Tafilipepe and I. So it's going to be very different! I miss you all and love you all so much! I'm so grateful for the opportunity that I have to serve here in WA. I have learned so much in the past 3 months it is crazy! My testimony of Jesus Christ and his atonement have grown so much! I know he lives and he loves us. He wants us to live with him again, he has truly suffered for us because he loves us more than we could ever comprehend! I love you all! Au Lomani Iko, Sister Penrod
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Talofa! Merry Christmas!
We had the best miracles ever this week! #1. So Alysha, this girl we were teaching ages ago who kind of fell of the face of the planet for a while starting coming back to church a few weeks ago, yesterday after church she came up to us and casually set her own baptisimal date! Yay! #2. So last Sunday this couple came to church James, Ida and their 5 month old baby Thea, it was a crazy day at church and we wouldn't have even met them if not for one of the members of the stake presdidency President Johnson, who invitied them to church (James works for him) came and grabbed us and introduced us to them! James told us that Ida was a stay at home mom so we could go visit her whenever! so we went this week and they are Golden! They are from mainland China so they have basically no concept of God! But they told us they want to keep learning and come to church every sunday! They are so cute! They even came to the ward Christmas Party on Saturday! We are fighting over them with the Elders though, because they actually live in the Elders area, but because we were the first to meet them and Ida is usually the only one home, it just makes sense that we would teach them. We will see how it goes! But they are so wonderful! Have so much fun this Christmas, enjoy the snow! We are so blessed here in Halls Head! I'm so grateful for the opportunity to serve here! I hope you all have a wonderful wonderful Christ centred Christmas! I love you all! Love, Sister Penrod Talofa! Not a lot has happened since Wednesday! I went on my first exchanges away from Halls Head on Friday, I went to Kwinana about 50 Ks North with one of the Sister Training Leaders, Sister Forte, from Hong Kong. She is really on to it. We taught so many lessons! It is really hot in Kwinana though I love Mandurah, I hope I can stay here for awhile! On Sunday we had a ward choir performance, which we just happen to be part of. Haha yes I am singing, they asked us to change parts on Sunday I think because we were ruining the song! haha! Oh about the Maggots... so you know how our flat had rats, and then the roof broke, and then we had mice, well all those problems were fixed, except for the mold that stuff will not go away... But the other day we come home, and there are no joke these ugly little white wormy maggots all over our ceiling. Maggots... how disgusting is that. Turns out we have pantry fly/moth things and now they are gone but seriously, We deep cleaned the flat last week so we have no idea how this is happening! Haha our flat is cursed. I hope you are all having a good time this Christmas season. I hope that if you haven't been to Christmas.mormon.org yet you will check it out! The video #asaviorisborn is so amazing! and The videos about why we need a savior are so good! check them out! We also love the music videos they have for the first 13 days of Christmas! If you haven't seen The Prayer with David Archelauta yet check it out! It is amazing. We also really like Alex Boye's Little Drummer Boy! Check them out! I'm so grateful for this Christmas time, and the chance we have to really focus on the birth of Jesus Christ! I love and the peace I feel when reading the Christmas Story, I invite you all to take 5 minutes to watch this video this week https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCxV9CbC180 Good Tidings of Great Joy: The Birth of Jesus Christ, listen to the first presidency share their testimonies of the Savior. I love you all I'm so grateful to be here in Australia, I'm so grateful to have such wonderful family and friends! Have a wonderful week! Love, Sister Penrod G'day! I'm sorry I forgot to tell yous that we were going to the temple this week so our p-day wouldn't be until Wednesday! Sorrry!
Brother White's funeral/celebration was on Tuesday, we didn't get to go but we went to the chapel after it was over for interviews with President Fife, and there were soooo many people there it was so cool! He was loved by so many people, afterwards they had a dance, like a real dance with music and lights and everyone was invited to celebrate his life, we heard it was awesome, Rau and some of the members gave us heaps of leftovers from it! We saw the video of the haka they did after and it was wild Maori funerals are really neat! They are flying him back to New Zealand to be buried, that is why Rau is waiting to be baptized, she wants some of her close friends who are going home for the funeral to be here! On Wednesday we got to go to the temple, because our recent converts Cody and Connor were going for the first time to do baptisms, we had to go to Joondalup as well because our car has a smash in it from previous missionaries, Sister Young's first area was Joondalup so we got to go and see some of her old investigators which was fun! On Thursday we had thanksgiving! We had a turkey and everything at a members house (She is from... drumroll please... Turkey! yay!) , there was all of the missionaries there and heaps of members! It was really fun! This has been a pretty sad week as well. Elder Denning went home on Friday We miss him. The new Elder in our district is really cool though, his name is Elder Soquillio, he is from the Phillipines and is hilarious, he is also amazing at the piano! Other things that happened this week: -We weeded our garden and found the biggest lizard ever. NO joke it's like the size of my forearm (It's still out there we ran to get something to trap it and it disappeared. Not cool) But anyways its called a Bob tailed lizard. look it up I didn't get a picture. -I caught the giant cockroach, I will send pictures. -We had a flat inspection by the real estate, and we passed with flying colors they even called it "lovely" (you would be so proud mom) -I think I've gained at least 15 lbs. Sister Young's mom and sister sent us sooooo much chocolate for Christmas! And members just want to feed us fish & chips and Maccas! I hope you all had a wonderful week this past week, I'm sorry there is nothing super spiritual in this letter this week has been pretty weird, But I want to invite you all to reread the Christmas story in Luke and watch the bible videos of the nativity! The spirit comes so strongly when you read that story, I feel such peace when I read the scriptures but there is a special love that comes with the Christmas story! I love you all! Have a wonderful week! Love, Sister Penrod |
Sister PenrodHas been called to serve a mission for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints in Perth, Australia. She reports to the Provo, Utah MTC September 23! Archives
April 2017
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