Sept 30 - AloHa!

Hello my lovelies!! 

The Hawaiian word of the day is Aloha. You've probably never heard it before. So Alo means "to share" and Ha means "the breath of life." Every time we interact with someone, we are sharing life with each other. Kind and loving words give life, unkind or harsh words take away life. So let us oft speak kind words to each other, shall we? :) 

Well, this week was spectacular!! Here are some highlights :) 

• Exchanges!!! I have loved going on exchanges. For the past five weeks we have been going on exchanges almost twice a week. They are full 24 hour exchanges, so its been super fun and super busy. This week we had our last exchanges, with Sister Yoo and Sister Oh. They're both Korean. It was fun being with Sister Yoo, because we went on exchanges my second transfer when she was the Sister Trainer. And now she's dying (not literally... just finishing her mission) at the end of this transfer in two weeks. So it was fun how it kind of went full circle! I got to learn sooooo much from her on our exchange. She gave me all the advice I would ever need as a missionary. It was an exchange sent from heaven. Aaaand we're basically soul sisters. :) Exchanges with Sister Oh was awesome too! She is one of the the "Coordinating Sisters," which means she and her companion are in charge of the two sets of sister trainers, and generally over everyone in the VC. Kind of like a zone leader for sisters. She is so sweet and I learned so much from her!

• So Tia is simply wonderful!!! Sometimes I can't believe I haven't known her my whole life. We are still meeting with her regularly... and last week she decided to get baptized on October 11th! And she is SO sincere. From the beginning, she has been kind of worried about joining the church for the wrong reasons. She lives in Hau'ula (it's the next tiny town over from Laie) where there are still a lot of members, and her boyfriend and her best friend are both members. So she wanted to make sure she was sincere about investigating the church. So she decided to fast and pray about it last week. Which I'm so amazed at... She has so much faith!! Fasting is hard for members... but she was so humble and truly seeking an answer. We didn't have to tell her to fast for an answer... she had just overheard someone explaining fasting at church, and she felt like it was the way she could receive her answer. So despite being sick (and hungry of course), she fasted and prayed sincerely to know if this really was true and what she wanted. And Heavenly Father really answered her prayer!! (it was a yes of course..) So now she's waaaaay excited. Not that she wasn't before, but now she's 100% on board. So now we're just getting everything ready for that date, so we can be a little more prepared than Dani's baptism! Haha :) And I also just realized that that's the same date Melanie and Nolan are getting baptized! Oh man, the heavens are just opening up on Hawaii.

• So we found a new investigator!!! She just transfered here to BYUH. Her name is Alexandra. She's from Paris, but she went to school in Luxembourg England before. Aaaaand she's awesome! She actually wanted to come to BYU because of the honor code and the standards church members have. Which is a sweet reason, because most non-members at BYU are here either for sports or for the fact that it's a couple of steps away from the beach. We just met her a week ago, but she has been coming to all three hours of church every week since the beginning of the semester. And she's super open to learning more! So I'll let you know how that goes this week. :) One of the struggles of being a missionary in YSA is that usually the students are available by like 9 pm... which is our curfew haha. But it always works out in the end anyway! I love serving at BYUH and in YSA!! 

• Has anyone heard of "Meet the Mormons"?! I hope so! We get to watch it tomorrow at the VC. But I think it is coming to theaters (at least in some places) on October 10th. It's going to be an awesome missionary tool! Everyone go see it when it comes out! 

• The Church is still true!!! 

Wow sorry this email is massively long! I hope everyone is doing well and happy!! Don't forget about General Conference next weekend! If you go to conference with a list of topics /questions in mind, Heavenly Father will answer your prayers through the speakers! 

I love you all so much!! :):) 

<3, Sister Sabey

Pictures:

1: Sister Gementiza and I after our temple trip :)

2: Fire knife dancing.... This kid is 16, and he does fire-knife dancing every night at Waikiki... buuuut since we're missionaries we got our own show after they fed us dinner one night. We are BLESSED. :) 

3: cute kids of a Fijian family in one of our Married Student wards. They're going to be missionaries one day!

Sept 23- Aloha Ahiahi

Hello my wonderful ohana!!!

Sorry this email may be a little short.... But I have good news!

-We just found out that we are now allowed to go to the temple every month!!!!! Woooooo!!! Best news ever. Before it was every other month. I feel so blessed to be so close to the temple all the time. I'm so looking forward to going while it's still September! 

-Tia is doing so awesome!!! We were able to meet with her and have a lovely lesson. She is so prepared. She always talks about how all these "coincidences" are happening, that help her to learn more about the gospel and have spiritual experiences. They happen so frequently, she's starting to realize that they're not coincidences at all. Heavenly Father is really helping her to be in the right place at the right time! Anyway, so she wants to get baptized!! She is praying about a date. I feel so blessed to be able to witness her conversion. She is genuinely a truth seeker... and now that she's found the truth she loves it. It's the best. The church is true everyone!!!!! 

-Melanie and Nolan are still doing splendidly!! I actually got to see my full-field companion Sister Haws this morning!!!! Her zone came here for their temple trip. We only got to catch up for like 73 seconds, but in that time she told me how good they're doing! It makes me so happy to hear that they are still progressing so well. :) And another one of our investigators (who I only got to meet with once) is also getting baptized in a few days!! Miracles abound!

-Hawaii is still really really ridiculously beautiful every day. 

-One day this week I took a short nap at lunch time, and had a dream that I was on the top of the swiss alps with my snowboard. The snow was brown, so naturally I ate some.... and it was CHOCOLATE flavored. 

Well, that's all the good news I have time to share with you today!!! But keep reading your scriptures because they are full of good news!! I love each of you!!!! 

<3, sister sabey

Sept. 16 - Aloha from Hawaii!

Wow, mom, when you said  "Could you even imagine how sad it would have been if you wouldn't have gone on your mission?"... Even imagining that makes me so sad!!! Seriously.... I feel like I would feel so empty and lifeless. Not that everyone who isn't on a mission is empty and lifeless... I just wouldn't have learned how to serve and love others and not think about myself so much. The more I'm on my mission, the more I realize how much I need to improve on!! Not that I was a bad person before my mission... but it's so wonderful to have an opportunity to step outside my own world! 

Sept 9 - Aloha Nui Loa!

Hawaiian phrase of the week: Aloha Nui Loa: I love you very much!  So how is everyone?? :) Thank you for always emailing me and updating me on your lives! 

Welllll this week was simply smashing!! 

Sooo, funny story! Remember how I told you about Daniela? Well she is a gem. So we have been meeting with her almost every night, and she is just soaking it in! She chose a baptismal date of October 3rd, so we've been working towards that date.  On Friday, we had a lesson with her about the Gospel of Jesus Christ. She loved it and the Spirit was so strong. Then she told us that she has been praying about her date, and wanted to move it up to September 12th. We all felt really good about it, since she is already SO prepared. Anyway, Saturday comes along and we get a call from Daniela. She was like, "Hey sisters, can I actually get baptized tomorrow night??" And of course we were like, "Um, yeah!" Soo it was a crazy couple of days trying to get everything ready.... Haha and we still had a couple of lessons to teach her before she could get baptized. So here is how our Sunday went: 8am: ward council, 9am: meet with Daniela, 10am: church with Tia (the investigator I told you about last week!) 12: make baptismal program 1: church with Daniela (she hadn't even met her ward/ bishop yet since she just moved apartments) 3: teach Daniela the last lessons 5: her interview with the district leader 6: set up chapel, call people  8: Daniela's baptism!

It was pretty tight! But sooo good! For her baptismal program, the chapel was completely filled with her friends. The whole girls and boys soccer team was there, plus tons of people from her ward (who just met her that day)... it was a dream come true!! Seriously, she has the best support ever. But the best part about the whole night was Daniela's testimony at the end. She bore her testimony on the Atonement, and how true happiness comes from living this gospel. It's because the message of the gospel of Jesus Christ touched her heart, and she couldn't wait to take the next step of baptism. She has SO much faith. Ah, I can't even describe everything. It just made me feel sooo happy to see her experiencing the joy of the Atonement, and how much happiness comes from being clean. It made me so much more motivated to give everyone else this same experience too!!! This gospel is TRUE, if it weren't, it couldn't bring us such joy and happiness!

Anyway, I don't have much time to tell you more, but that was definitely the highlight of my week!! I love you all so much! Remember that Heavenly Father loves each of you more than you can imagine!

<3<3<3, Sister Sabey

Sept 2 - Back in Blue!

Aloooooha! 

My dearest family, hello! So... I'm back in Laie! Back in my muumuu, back to the garden of Eden! (But really, this place IS the garden of Eden). I was kind of sad leaving my humans of Newtown, but I could not be sad about coming back here! I forgot how strong the Spirit is all the time, and full-field I feel like I had to work a lot harder to feel the Spirit so often. So I'm happy. :)

My new companion is Sister Gementiza (it's a spanish name, so the G makes an H sound, for all you gringos out there... aka dad that's for you;)). She is from the Phillipines and is the cutest 4'11" missionary out there! We are covering 10 YSA wards and 2 married student wards. It's madness! I'm so grateful to come back into a busy area though, because if we didn't I think I'd go crazy. And let me tell you, miracles abound here in the BYU-HI wards! There are quite a few non-members on campus, and so many return missionaries who want to help us out. On Sunday, we went to four sacrament meetings back to back, and gave talks in two of them. It was actually super fun! I feel like I should have been exhausted, but (thanks to blessings from heaven!) we were both still full of energy. Aaaaaand! We have an wonderful investigator named Daniela! She's on the soccer team here, and her team invited her to take missionary lessons. So on my first night in the area, we had a lesson with her, and she said she wants to be baptized! She is seriously the sweetest person. And the whole boys and girls soccer team are supporting her so much.... we always have at least 4 members at all of her lessons. It is genuinely ideal! 

Okay cool story:

One morning for personal study I was reading in PMG ch 4, and one of the study ideas was to "write down an unusual opportunity you had to meet someone with whom you could share a message." And I was just thinking.... I don't really feel like those happen a lot, I mean, people walk into the VC, and we meet them, share a message, and sometimes they want to learn more. Not too unusual. But! We had really been praying for a miracle. So we had morning shift and it was sooo slow. Afterwards, we went home and were finishing our studies, when the VC called us. They told us that someone (a member) was there who wanted to meet S. Gementiza, because they're from the same island from the Phillipines. So we go over to the VC and they meet and start talking in Cebuano. Whilst they conversed, I had nothing to do, since I couldn't contribute to the conversion. I noticed a girl sitting in one of the chairs in the corner, so I went to go talk to her. She was actually just looking to talk to some of the sisters, but everyone was super busy because it was tram time. So it was a huge blessing that we could be there and talk to her! We had a good 30 minute talk, and we learned that she is really searching for truth right now, and she wants to learn more about the church. We were able to share some scriptures from the Book of Mormon with her and she really felt the Spirit. And then we found out that she's in one of our YSA ward boundaries, so we are actually the missionaries who are supposed to teach her!! Her name is Tia by the way. She is so eager to learn more. I'm so grateful that Heavenly Father puts us in the right place at the right time. He really is in control and orchestrating His work here. 

Well, I gotta go, but I love you all soooo very much!!! Read the Book of Mormon every single day, because it really does make a difference!

<3, sister sabey

PS. I have Tuesday p-day for this transfer, just so you know :)

Happy Labor Day!

Pictures:

This is Daniela! In the yellow skirt. :) And (some of) the humans who come to her lessons! 

Some renovations at the Visitors Center.....They're redoing the tile and fountain, and it's supposed to be done in January. It will be beautiful when it's finished! 

TBT (dad that means throw back tuesday:)) This is me and Jonah!!!!