Tuesday, May 27, 2014
Monday, May 26, 2014
May 26, 2014 - shaka brah!
Hi Ohana!!! :)
Shaka Brah! This week has been simply smashing! Summer has officially begun, and it's been raining straight for the past three days. It's really nice though. :)
So Hawaii schools have this huge tradition called Lei Day, and they always do it sometime after May day. All the kids dress up as a certain pacific island with all the traditional clothes and whatnot, then they perform a dance to show that island's culture. It's a super big deal here in Laie! So we were visiting Bethany, one of the non-members in our area, who's an elementary school teacher. Her kid's Lei Day was the next day, and she invited us! We are really trying to build her trust in us, so we decided to go for a little bit. And then she told us Jack Johnson would be there!!! So the next day we went (it was right by the beach where they have the surfing competition every year... remember when we were there for that??). It was so fun to watch. All the little kids did their little dances in their little costumes. It was so cute. Then Bethany said maybe we'd meet Jack Johnson! (..it seems to me that maybe pretty much always means no.) (see what I did there? :)) We didn't actually get to meet him because we couldn't stay for too long. But it was good that we went because Bethany was really happy! It's just too bad I didn't meet my lifelong goal of meeting Jack Johnson and converting and marrying him. Oh well, at least I tried right? :)
Anyway! You know how we teach the people we meet through phone and email? Well when sisters go back home, they give all their contacts to the other sisters. By the end of their missions they usually have hundreds of contacts. So about three weeks ago one of the sisters left, and gave a TON of her contacts to me. Most of them were people who she had tried contacting already but they never answered their phones. I had been stressing out about it because it's overwhelming whenever I see how many new contacts I have. For a while I considered just deleting some of them. I figured they probably wouldn't answer their phones anyway. But I felt a strong sense of urgency when I thought about them. Looking back I can now see that it was a prompting from the Spirit. On Thursday I had computer time, so I decided to just break down the people into categories and call every person within one category. So I decided to call all of my Member Referrals. I started calling, and on about the third person I called someone answered! His name is Carlos. He was actually willing to talk and listen! At the beginning he seemed kind of doubtful and confused about the Church. He had a lot of good questions. As we talked I was able to teach him more about the Restoration. Throughout the whole time, I could tell he was becoming more and more softened. By the end he was willing and excited to learn more! So he became my new investigator and I get to keep teaching him! I am so grateful I followed the prompting to call instead of delete his name! Because he really is more than just a name, he is a son of God who Heavenly Father cares about and wants to have the fullness of the gospel!
Anyway, sorry there aren't a ton of exciting things I can think of to tell you this week. But I hope you are all doing well, I love you each SO much!!! Keep doing CPR (Church, Prayers, Reading scriptures)!!! <3<3
Much Aloha,
Sister Sabey
Picture #1: the four amigos!!! these are my wonderful padmates!!! we seriously do everything together. we may as well be in a quadpanionship.
Picture #2: Papaya and ice cream. Our ward mission leader's specialty. Every week he sends us home with a bag of delish papaya.
Picture #3: it's an oldie, but this is when I was with Sister Kim and we finished the 12 weeks program! it was supposed to be a jumping picture and it failed, but it conveys the excitement right?
Monday, May 19, 2014
May 19, 2014 - alooooohhhhaaaaa :)
Hello my dearest family!!
I don't have a lot of time today.. but this week has been lovely!! I'll just give you a highlight. :)
So for Visitors Center, we usually don't plan lessons for people because we don't know who is going to walk in the doors. But this week Sister Richardson and I decided to plan lessons anyway! So we made a list of potential people who could come in. (It included an older non-member couple from Canada, a member family from salt lake city, a non-member Korean group..... the usual. :) So we just got on shift and who walks in? Our older non-member Canadian couple! They were so prepared. They pretty much just said, "we want to know more about the church, can we have a tour?" Golden. So we took them all around and followed the plan we had made, and it was perfect. They actually wanted to know about everything, so we were able to take them to every display. I love the Visitors Center because you can pretty much teach the Restoration and Plan of Salvation lessons just by looking at a couple of different displays. They loved the idea that families can be together forever. And they even liked the idea of having modern day prophets, which is super weird to most people who come in. They were able to learn so much about the Church! They told us how much they loved the temple and the temple grounds, because they could feel the peace here. So yeah! That was my favorite tour this week!
Well I have to go, but I love you all!!!!! I hope you have a wonderful week!!
Maholla!! (Mahalo + holla)
Sister Sabey
Sister Richardson
Monday, May 12, 2014
May 12, 2014 - Aloooha Everyone!
Family,
Okay first of all can I just say it was SO GOOD to talk to you all yesterday on Mothers Day?!? It made me so happy!!! Haha my companion and I were pretty much giggling all day because we were so excited. And I love hearing about your lives. I love you!!! Thank you for being the best family in the whole world. <3
So this week has been so good!! This was the first week to be with my new companion Sister Richardson. And she's awesomeeee. I really feel so blessed with my companions..... so far they have been amazing. She has the coolest life story. She was born in Ukraine, and her parents both died when she was one, so she grew up in an orphanage. Then when she was 16 she was adopted by a family from Utah, learned English, was baptized and lived happily ever after! And now she's my companion! There's way more craziness in between those things happening, but that's just an overview. :) She has a super spunky personality. So basically we have way too much fun together (not tooo too much fun though:). Haha she always calls me Taylor Swift... she thinks I look like her or something. Hah! That's totally not true, but whatever! I'm okay if anyone wants to think that! Haha
I was kind of nervous at the beginning of the transfer because between Sister Richardson and I, I'm the only one who knows this area. But it's been really good, not even super scary like I thought it was going to be! The work just moves forward regardless of which missionaries are serving. I have really learned a lot though. Every day I am learning, and every day I realize even more how little I know. I have so many weaknesses and things I need to improve on, and I've felt how imperfect I am now more than ever. But I know that Heavenly Father gives me every opportunity He can to help me to grow and improve! I'm so thankful He allows such imperfect people to take part in HIS work. I read the coolest quote this week... I don't know it word for word, but it goes something like this.. "Heavenly Father gives us challenges, trials, and afflictions for one purpose only: to give us the opportunity to react by applying the teachings of Jesus Christ." I LOVE that. Seeing challenges as an opportunity rather than a burden.
Anyway, some highlights this week...
-Obviously, talking to you for Mother's day. :)
-One of our investigators gave a talk in sacrament meeting this Sunday!!! In our ward a whole family will give the talks during a sacrament meeting, and even though he's a non-member Bishop asked him to speak anyway! Just the fact that he accepted was a miracle.
-Four new sisters came to the Visitors Center this past transfer, which has been so fun! Everyone loves the new "babies" haha.Three of them are chinese speaking (from Hong Kong, mainland China, and Taiwan), which is always very needed here at the VC. I probably say this every week, but being around so many other sisters all the time is such a blessing. I learn so much from them every day! It's been fun to see the new incoming sisters, and remember what it was like my first few weeks. And realizing that I've learned a lot but I still have a LOT more to learn.
-The Colombian tour I took in spanish!!! I know I already told you about it on the phone, but it was just the best. They were so prepared and ready to listen even though my espanol was un porkito (hehe) loco.
Well I love you all an IMMENSE amount!!! Godspeed!!!
<3, Sister Sabey
Wednesday, May 7, 2014
Monday, May 5, 2014
May 5, 2014 - Happy Cinco de Mayo!
Hola familia!
Since it's Cinco de Mayo quizas puedo escribir mi carta en espanol! Chiste.
Haha do you get sick of people texting you pictures of me?? I'm glad you got them though! Yeah it was fun to see the Caubles! They're basically BFFs with the Relief Society president in our ward now, since one of her kids served a mission with McKay Cauble. So they're pasando tiempo juntos all week haha :)
This week has been awesome!! Probably one of the funnest weeks of my mission. Transfers are happening this Wednesday, and we got transfer news on Sunday night!! So! I'll be staying in Laie 5th ward, and I'll have a new companion, Sister Richardson! Right now she's out full-field somewhere on Oahu. She's from Ukraine, and I've heard she's awesome! I am SO glad I'm staying in Laie 5th... I LOVE my ward. And I feel like I just got to the point where I actually know everyone, so it's a blessing to stay. I'm sad that mama Kim won't be my companion anymore... But the good news is that I'll still see her everyday. That's what's so awesome about the VC. It's like I have 27 companions, because we're all in the same place and learning and growing with each other. I feel like we're a family. It's fantastic. :)
So since this was the last week with Sister Kim, we decided to really live it up!! As a zone, we had a goal to hit 360 lessons in a week. That's 20 lessons per companionship. For Laie, that's a pretty high number. And for the VC sisters it's super hard, because we spend at least 6 hours every day at the visitors center, not in our area. But! We were super determined to hit our 20 lessons, so we've been working extra hard... and we made it!! It was actually quite a miracle. We had been spending about an hour every day practicing cello, because Sister Kim was asked to play at a temple director fireside. I know that Heavenly Father really helped us to reach our goal!! We had less time, but we got a higher number than normal. I know that was the hand of the Lord helping us! And I know numbers aren't really the important thing, but it strengthened my testimony that Heavenly Father wants to help us reach our goals. I know that when He sees that we are trying, and putting in effort on our part, he will multiply our efforts and bless us!
I'll try to attach a video of my talented companion Sister Kim playing the cello with my other talented companion Sister Jenkins on the piano!! They did so good. They played "If You Could Hie to Kolob."
Well I love you all so much!!! Read your scriptures every day! :)
Viva Mexico!!!!
Love, Sister Sabey
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