26 June 2017 Letter

Hello all!

Hope it's been a great week for everyone! It sure has been for us! We are mostly just scrambling to make sure Patrice and Paul are prepared for their baptisms coming up quickly here.

Patrice's is on Saturday at 11am!!!!!!!!!! She is so prepared and doing super good. She is excited, we typed up a program for her on Saturday:)

Paul is also doing better than I ever expected. He is still set on July 5th for baptism! It's a Wednesday, and we are meeting our new mission president that morning so it might not be till that night, but it is happening! We still have a few lessons to teach him so we will be seeing him close to everyday this week. He is prepared though, because he believes fully and wants to follow the example of Jesus Christ:) We taught him the Word of Wisdom on Saturday and he is willing to live it, which for him includes giving up coffee and tea. He is amazing! I'll send a pic that Sister Sumaribos got of us at a branch Trivia Night on Saturday. He is really coming out of his shell because he came to that, and he came to, and intends to continue, coming to all 3 hours of church every Sunday! It's pretty much a miracle! Sister Mackey, the member who introduced us to Paul, has been the key to helping him progress and understand the blessing of the gospel. They are great friends because Sister Mackey cleans his flat once a week. 

Member missionary work is so much more effective than us just doing it on our own!! Pray about who of your friends might be prepared to receive the gospel right now, and Heavenly Father will bring someone to mind, then with His help, you can invite them to come to Christ and experience incomprehensible joy! This is The Lord's work and it works!

I love this branch, my companion, those that we have the privilege of teaching, everything I am learning everyday, and everything about my mission right now! It is such a blessing to participate in the greatest work on the Earth every day and along with that, to be building life-long friendships with the best people! What a blessing the gospel is to my life!

Have a wonderful week everyone! Heavenly Father loves you and wants you to be happy because you are His daughter or son:)

Love,

Sister Pace

[. . . And a little news from Emmalynn’s family email this week (She is getting a new Mission President)]:

(President and Sister Back) are the best and  I will really miss them! The Bingham's (new Mission President) get here July 1, the day of Patrice's baptism, so unfortunately neither presidents will be able to come:/ But maybe to Paul's on the 5th!

Yeah, President asked me to be a Sister Training Leader (STL) this transfer. SO basically I just go on trade-offs with the other sisters in my zone and be a good example and support them in any way that I can. Sister Beck, from Iowa, is the other STL in our zone. There are 8 sisters in my zone, they are all great! Also, I go to Missionary Leadership Committee when the new President gets here, where we will receive further training and stuff. So I don't really know what I’m doing yet...haha

Photos:

1-last time seeing President and Sister Back:( We had a district meeting at their house on Wednesday. They are so awesome and I will really miss them!

2- Paul!!!! He is such a jovial man! He is the best:

3-One of the minute to win it games at trivia night: get all the cotton balls onto the plate just by your nose and petrolium jelly:):

4--Got to see my old comp, Sister Nilsson finally!:

5-The Back's with the Dapttagong District:)

6-Sister Recktenwald, from Germany, took us on a ride on her fancy lawn mower. Good Times!

19 June 2017 Letter

Happy Father's Day Bart Babes!!!!!!!! My siblings and I are so lucky to have the funniest, kindest, wisest, and most lovable dad in the world! I hope you get spoiled rotten today:) Hopefully my card gets there soon! I love you and appreciate you so much Dad!

Heavenly Father has been blessing us with so many miracles every day. President Back invited us to expect a miracle every day because its true that if we work for one and expect God to deliver, He does!

Our investigator, Paul, accepted a baptismal date of July 5th! He still has quite a bit to learn, but we are going to do everything we can to help him be ready by then. He has great faith, and we have seen his faith grow and his countenance change just in the couple months we have been teaching him and he has been reading the BOM. Same with Patrice. They just seem brighter and happier since they have received the spirit and the gospel in their lives! The gospel really does change people in such a good way. It's so cool!

We are excited about a few investigators and potential investigators. We have a new investigator this week. Her name is Susan. She lives near us and she is in her 50's. She is super sweet and has a lot of good questions, which is great. She is reading the BOM so we pray that she will come to find that it is true and accept the gospel at this time.

Patrice is still doing great, and preparing for baptism on the 1st! She has been doing great with not smoking, especially since she received a priesthood blessing.

This week, President allowed us to attend Mittagong Branch's youth temple baptisms trip! It was so cool to be in the baptistery with just our little branch, but we had enough people to do baptisms and confirmations on our own! Many members brought their own family names to be baptized for, including Tony Magick, a recent convert, for his first time! It was so wonderful to feel refreshed by the spirit in there. Man, I have missed being in the temple! We were also able to pick up a white baptism dress for Patrice at the distribution center:))))))

On the way home from the temple, we visited Brother Jackson in the hospital. He recently had a quadruple heart bypass surgery that went well, and he seemed to be recovering well. Then on Monday, he had another stroke after all that. I was so shocked to see that he couldn't even really talk, write, or communicate. He was in tears when we visited him with the Burgoynes and Tony Magick. In the midst of struggling to communicate, Sister Sumaribos shows him a picture of Jesus Christ in a pamphlet. He just grabbed it, put it to his heart, and started sobbing. It was so sad but so inspiring that he was still looking to His Savior for peace and relief. In that moment, I really felt The Savior's love for Brother Jackson. Jesus Christ is the hope that helps us know that we can make it through anything, and that everything will be alright in the end as long as we are on His side. I'll never forget that experience.

I have been contemplating how grateful I am to have the gospel in my life and in my family. It is such a blessing. I am so grateful to have the privilege to share this with everyone we meet! Have a great week everyone! And always choose The Savior!

Love,

Sister Pace

Pics:

Branch Temple Baptisms trip at the Sydney Australia Temple! The temple is about 10 minutes into the Sydney North Mission:

 

My fairly accurate depiction of Sister Sumaribos:

A girl we met at the temple who served in the Philippines:

 Brother Jackson:

13 June 2017 Letter

The highlight of this week is that both Sister Sumaribos and  I are both staying in Mittagong for another transfer!!!!!!! WOOHOO! That means we will both get to witness Patrice's baptism. Patrice was really happy to hear that too. On Sunday, the day after we found out, she kept hugging me and saying " I'm so happy you're staying!" it made me feel so loved! She is so wonderful and we really love her! Patrice has moved her baptismal date to July 1, the week after. Things just seem to be working out better for that date. She is also working on quitting smoking, and is doing well. But she feels that date will give her the time she needs to be completely ready. We are so excited for her! We really love her so much!

 Paul, who I wrote a little about last week, has told us that he is committed to be baptized! He was thinking sometime next year, but we assured him that he could be ready a lot earlier than that, so he is praying about next month:)

Besides that, we have a couple new investigators and have had the opportunity to teach a few people for the first time this week. We pray that we can continue to help the elect souls who are ready right now, to progress. Things are going really good here, which I am grateful for!

Just wanted to share a quick miracle:

While knocking doors in Bowral the other day, we decided to re-knock on some doors on Gordon Road, that hadn't answered the night before. At one door, a young woman named Tess answered, and she let us come in to share a message! She is so cool and has beautiful red hair. As we shared the lesson, we found out that her partner, Joshua, we had met several week ago while he was on his lunch break in a park in Moss Vale, a different town! HE wasn't there but she knew who we were because Joshua had told her all about us and the Book of Mormon we gave him. It was such a miracle because I remember feeling sad that we didn't get Joshua's contact info the first time because he seemed pretty prepared to hear our message. Then Heavenly Father led us right to his house! These things aren't just coincidences, but Heavenly Father leading us to those who are prepared. Hopefully we can see them again soon!

I am loving every day here. Heavenly Father is really blessing us and those we are working with! Thanks for the prayers and love! Love you all, you are in my prayers! Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Pace

1-When you're knocking doors on a rainy day and run into a penguin friend that makes your day brighter!

2-Uncle Shane, I didn't know you were in a blues trio that is touring Australia?

3- Natalie from the Branch:

4- Elder and Sister Allred, the senior couple missionaries serving in Nowra.  They came on Friday and took us to dinner at a Thai restaurant in Bowral.  Elder Allred used to work at UVU!  He remembers me serving him at Costa Vida, haha:

5 and 6- District P-Day Bowling:

7-14:  More District P-Day pictures.  Dapttagongs assemble/ Kiama Blowhole:

 Kiama Blowhole/ Daptagong Sisters:

 Lighthouse at Kiama Blowhole:

5 June 2017 Letter

Holy Cow, its already June!

My letter to President this week once again sums up some of the highlights of this week:

Dear President,

It has been another wonderful week. I am so grateful to be in such a wonderful area with such a wonderful companion. I really enjoy working with a branch because I get to know everyone better individually. We have some great members. Our investigator Patrice, is still doing well. Also, a miracle came from your challenge of having us invite everyone we meet to sacrament meeting!

We teach a man every week named Paul, who has Asperger's and some autism. We have invited him to church a few times before, but he has kindly declined because he is very introverted and only likes small groups of people. We decided to invite him again because of your challenge, not really expecting any change, but to our surprise he said he would come to sacrament meeting! He was there on Sunday and we think he had a great experience. Not only that, but he is reading the BOM and enjoying it, and we committed him to baptism again, and he said he will pray about it.

This experience strengthened my testimony that the gospel is for EVERYONE and everyone can progress and accept it.

I am really feeling the joys of missionary work lately. Sister Snell, Patrice's mom, who has been less-active for years, bore a beautiful testimony in sacrament meeting yesterday for the first time in a long time. It was so cool to see. I am so grateful I decided to serve a mission, because moments like these make it all worth it!

Thank you to you and Sister Back for the wonderful trainings at zone conference. I am more excited about reading the BOM now that the order of the stories is fitting together better in my head. We love and appreciate you both so much! Have a wonderful week!

So we had a great zone conference and P-day on Friday. For P-day, we went to a beach, had a BBQ, played sports, and "Big Buddha" (the missionary version of "Big-Boody).Thanks to my three years of dance team and dance camps, I was the unbeatable "Big Buddha".

We were also able to see the Ragg family again, finally this week. It was a good visit, but they don't keep commitments like praying, reading, and coming to church, so we can’t really help them progress until they do. Pray for them!

It has been a productive week though! Thanks for all the prayers! I appreciate them and feel the blessings:)

Have a great week!

Love,

Sister Pace

Pics:

This week, Sister Orrack, a 92 year old woman in the branch fell and hit her head, so now she will be moving into a nursing home closer to Sydney. We are so sad about it because until now, we have been visiting her a couple times a week. She is the most amazing person because she can’t hear or see very well so she just listens to conference talks on high volume all day. We will miss her so much!:

 Sister Orrock, My Companion, Brother Finnigan, Sister McKeown:



Just in case anyone was wondering what an Aussie $50 bill looks like:

Barbara Seville, Brother Finnigan, and Brother Seville.  Love them!:

We meet so many devilish looking cats!:

Mittagong missionaries:

Basic "name tag on beach" picture:

I don't know what my companion is doing.:

We had a Zone P-day after Zone Conference on Friday at a beach in Dapto, about an hour away from our area.  It was so pretty!

29 May 2017 Letter

Hi President!

Thank you for your letters both personal and for the mission, that are always so inspiring and helpful. This week, we continued to see miracles. Our investigator, Patrice, accepted a baptismal date for June 24th! She wants to make sure she feels completely worthy and work through a few personal issues before she is baptized, but  I feel confident that as we finish up the lessons with her and continue to help her in any way we can, that she will be ready by then! She is so good, and even helping her mom, who has been a less active member for a long time, get back to doing family scripture study and prayer! It has been so rewarding to see both of their progress! We love them!

We will be working with our other investigators to try to help them get to the same point. Have a great week President! Thank you for all that you and Sister Back do!

Hello all!

Well, that is the biggest miracle of the week! We are so happy and excited for Patrice! Thank you for your prayers family! She is progressing so well. The song "miracles" from Prince of Egypt was definitely sung at full volume on the drive home after our lesson with her Wednesday night:)I just hope that we are both still here for it....:/ Either way, it has been so wonderful to be an instrument in helping Patrice learn about and accept the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is going to bless the rest of her life and into the eternities! It already has, we have seen it!

Besides that, we are just trying to help all our other ones to keep commitments so they can start progressing as well.

This week, we have met a lot of people who want to debate and challenge our beliefs. That can be tough when you are just trying to spread the love, but  I am so grateful to have a strong testimony that has been slowly but surely built upon the blessings and growth  I have seen from the gospel in my life. As they say, the church is true and the book is blue!

Have a great week everyone!

Love,

Sister Pace

Pics:

There are so many waterfalls here! We hiked to another one last P-day, Fitzroy Falls. The coolest part was getting to go under part of the water fall!

 

Finally remembered to get a picture with the Snells!  From left to right it's Sister Mollow (their fellowshipper), Patrice, then Sister Snell.  I love them all so much!

You can't really see it, but we wrote our name on a tree where many others had been carved.

Hello!

I hope everyone has had a good week:) Mine was fantastic! SO many miracles again. Lately, I have been sending more details to my mission president so I will attach the letter again:

Hi President!

It has been another miraculous week! Yesterday, we were so happy to see three of the less active members we have been working with at sacrament meeting! It was so rewarding to see them there and benefiting from being there. One of them, Sister Snell (whose daughter is our investigator, Patrice), will be getting her patriarchal blessing soon and wants to work towards the temple! Heavenly Father has really been in the work here and I am so thankful I have been able to take part in it!

Patrice, our investigator, is doing really well. She came to all three hours of church yesterday and enjoyed them. She has lots of questions about baptism and really wants to feel prepared to do so. She doesn't feel that she is worthy to set a baptismal date yet because of some personal things she is working on. Sister Sumaribos and I feel she is ready because she really keeps commitments and we are seeing her faith grow. Hopefully we can help her work through her personal problems and mental barriers so that she can start working towards a date. She is so good though!

It is really wonderful and fulfilling to be part of the work of salvation in Mittagong Branch. I really love the members, investigators, and all the people here!

I hope you and Sister Back are doing well, we love you!

Love,

Sister Pace

Yeah, so Patrice is doing really well. We started doing a weekly BOM study with her and Sister Snell on Saturdays, which is awesome. They are going to start doing family Scripture study together every night. They are so good! I keep forgetting to get a picture with them. Next week! After church on Sunday, President Sullivan gave Sister Snell some reading preparation for receiving her patriarchal blessing, and Patrice says "I wish they had something like this for baptism". She really has the desire! We gave her a gospel principles manual because she wants to read the chapter on baptism. J

Everybody in my branch is so funny! Most of them are old. Sister Orrock is 92 years old. We visit her twice a week just to give her company. All she does all day long is listen to conference talks on her CD player at full volume because she has really bad sight and vision. We love her so much! On Sunday, she said the closing prayer in Relief society and she says "Please bless our prophet, Spencer W. .... Monson."  I could barely keep it together, haha!

Another highlight of my week was getting a birthday package three months early from Mom and Dad! They are the best and sent me more warm clothing! Who would have thought I would have needed it in Australia. Thanks so much mom and dad! It really made my day!

1- When we visited the Seville's Saturday night. Barbara is from New Guinea. She is one of the ones who hasn't been to church in forever because she has a hectic job, but she came to sacrament on Sunday, which was a miracle. When we saw them both pull up at church together, we were so happy! I had to try to control Sister Sumaribos, who was jumping up and down:)

2- Finally 20!......in 3 months.

3- One of my cute new skirts!  Yay!!!!

Mom and Dad, Thank you so so so so much for the wonderful birthday package! I love all the clothes,  I am especially excited about the dress! So cute! And for the extra motab CD's and chocolate! WE are really loving a change of motab haha. You guys are so thoughtful and loving. I am so lucky to have such loving, supportive, and encouraging parents. You are truly THE BEST XOxoxoXOXOXOXOXO.

4- My cute companion and a pretty cat.