20 November 2017 Letter

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

 I am so grateful for the ability and opportunity to serve my Saviour and Redeemer in Canberra, Australia, bringing precious souls to the knowledge of Him.

This week, we have been trying to evaluate how much time we should be spending in our farther areas like Cooma, and the impact it is having on Tuggeranong, our main area. It was the talk of discussion a little bit in Ward council yesterday and it was determined that in the past months of doing the branch meetings down there, we have seen progression mostly in just one part member family. Of course it is worth helping the one but hopefully we can figure out how to keep strengthening Tuggeranong ward the most, pulling back a little in the farther areas, while still helping this family and a few others draw closer to Christ.

We have been talking to President Bingham about it a lot too. We always appreciate his input.
This week was a good one with miracles big and small everyday, We did not reach the goals we set, even though I felt like we were doing as much as we could to meet them, but I am learning to trust in The Lord's timing for those we are working with and not my own. I know that they will either come around eventually or we will move on to others who are prepared at this time.

Jake is still doing good and we have been able to see our investigator, Evone more frequently this week, which was good.

This week, in my scripture study of Helaman 12 in the Book of Mormon, I realized that God is able to do anything and everything. He can cause any miracle to happen, so it is really just about aligning our wills with His through prayer to really see His hand in our lives.

I'm out of time! Have a great week and a happy Thanksgiving!

Love,

Sister Pace

Pictures :  Last P-day at the Parliament Building in Canberra.

With Sister Burgess.

13 November 2017 Letter

This week seems to have disappeared, it was so packed and went by so fast! I really enjoyed Canberra Zone Conference and I learned a lot that I am working on applying. Especially not using conditional words like "I guess" and "if", and really working towards our weekly goals each day and our transfer goals each week. Doing that has really payed off!

Near the end of the week, we realized that we had a weekly goal to have 3 new investigators, and that we didn't have any yet. We prioritized following up on solid potential investigators with the little time we had the rest of the week. Yesterday, we had a true miracle! One of our potential investigators, Jake, whom we had texted a few days before, apologized for not responding because he didn't have credit on his phone, and he asked what time we wanted to meet up! We were so happy!

That evening, we had an awesome second lesson with him, teaching The Plan of Salvation, and he even accepted a baptismal date for December 9th!! He is only 18 but he is so solid. He and his little brother live on their own right now, and it seems like he has had some hard times lately, so he is really giving the gospel a chance and keeping commitments! He is so cool!

That was the biggest miracle of the week that helped me realize that Heavenly Father is going to help us reach our goals (or help us get closer than we would on our own anyway) when we are working smart and doing all we can to meet them. He always pulls through with the miracles. Besides that, we also were able to do some finding in Jindabyne for the first time this week. It is almost 2 hours away and Sister Tan took us. It was really good! We got quite a few potential investigators, the people there are really open to learning, which is great!

Well, out of time, but hope everyone has a great week this week! You can make it a great one by reading the Book of Mormon every day. That is a promise! (even if it's just for 5 minutes)

Love you all!

Sister Pace

pics:

1) Canberra Zone sisters at zone conference

2) Beautiful sights on the ride to Jindabyne!  Such a beautiful road trip!

3) Us and Sister Tan

6 November 2017 Letter

Hello all, Happy November!

It feels weird that I have been in Australia about a year now and came to Canberra last November, and am here again! Time flies pretty fast here.

This week had lots of miracles as usual. Sister Haretuku, and I, and the elders decided that Tuggeranong needs a little more love to unify them more. We decided to text all the members an uplifting text every day (us and the elders take turns). We got good feedback at church so we think it is doing some good.

Sister Haretuku and I also decided to start something we like to call Cookies and Compliments. Where we are going to try to go around to all the members in the next couple weeks and bring them some homemade cookies and a card with a few compliments for them or the family.

Yesterday, at church, there was almost double the amount we have been getting in the last few months! It was amazing and felt so much happier. Not saying it was because of us at all, but I feel like our show of love helped bring that about in a small way. We have also received a couple referrals from members this week that we are excited to follow up on, and our ward mission leader is really on board now, and coming up with good ideas to help the work and the ward to progress. It has truly been a great week:)

Also, on Friday and Saturday, we went to Cooma and Nimmitabel. We stayed at Sister Sledge's house, an older woman in our ward who lives in Nimmitabel, on Friday night. On Friday, we spent most of the day following up with heaps of former investigators in Cooma. Then, on Saturday, we did some service for a potential investigator in Nimmitabel and more finding.

We were a little disappointed when Desi (our 10 year old investigator on date) and her parents cancelled on us twice, when we were supposed to see them 2 times while there, to help them progress. She is not on date anymore because they are just having trouble committing right now, but want to fully commit in the new year. Hopefully they just need a little time.

It was still a productive trip though, because we found several potential investigators that we will be following up with next Saturday.

No new investigators this week, but we had a few great first lessons with two 18 year olds actually, one named Bevan, one is Jess. They are friends so maybe we will teach them together in the future. They both had great questions though like: "If God is really there, why does he let bad things happen to us and make things so hard?"  Bevan asked that right off the bat, and we had a really good discussion about the plan of salvation/happiness. I will let you know how it goes! Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Sister Pace

Photo above: Keeping track of what scriptures we share with the members.

Next 3 photos:  Random pictures from Sister Haretuku's camera:

We rescued a lost dog on Friday.  His name was Red :)  :

Sister Sledge's front room where we stayed. She basically lives on a farm and it was so cold. Personal study was a struggle. It kind of felt like camping though, which I liked :)

A beautiful sunset outside our window on Halloween night. President told us to be inside by 7, even though barely anyone here celebrates Halloween. So we made nachos for dinner as a flat and then did flat role plays because we are that consecrated lol.

 A beautiful lake we passed when our ward mission leader, Brother Arnold, took us to a place called Crackinback (that is really what it's called) in our ward about 2 hours away. Apparently a family with some members lives there. That is how huge our area is and why it would be great to open up a branch in Cooma again, so they would only have to drive one hour to church instead of two.