Sister Mandy Welker

This email was sent by Sister Welker on September 4th. We received it on September 3rd.

Week 56: Goodbye Sister Meas, Return of the Trio, and Bold

So last Monday was Sister Meas last PDay. She had no idea but we had planned a massive surprise party for her (that's why I emailed earlier last week). We picked up the other sisters and blindfolded her, so she had no idea where we were going. It was about a 30 minute drive to the other sisters flat, so we partied to some music on the way there. Good thing Sister Meas was blindfolded so that she couldn't see my crazy car dancing, haha. All the sisters surprised her and we spent the next couple hours eating snacks and playing minute-to-win it games. I'm usually not good at keeping secrets, and planning a party for someone you're with 24/7 is harder than you think. But she had a blast, and was completely surprised!! :D

There's one really cool miracle I wanted to share from this week. My commitment from President this transfer is to be humbly bold. Not sure I'm humble yet, but I have been bold. We went to go visit this less-active family earlier this week. We watched a Mormon message called "You Never Know" (https://www.lds.org/media-library/video/2014-00-008-you-never-know?lang=eng ) with them and tried sharing our testimonies and promised blessings. Unfortunately, all the kids were talking, the baby was crying, and no one was listening. By this point, I was slightly annoyed and said a calm but bold "Hey!" The whole family stopped and stared at me. I continued by saying "What were the three promised blessings we just gave you?" The family all had blank stares and just looked sheepishly at each other. I repeated the promised blessings and asked them to repeat them back to me. It took a couple more times before they were finally able to list all the blessings we had promised them. We told them that if they said their family prayers once a day for seven days, that we could promise them 1) more peace in the home, 2) stronger family relationships, and 3) better communication.

As I was walking out of that lesson, I told Sister Meas how "I couldn't believe I was that bold." I thought that I had scared the family away, but this Sunday the whole family, except for the father came to church!! I was completely surprised. I couldn't believe that they had made the effort to come to church.

We said good-bye to Sister Meas this morning. She left Tarankai at 7:15 am and will be arriving in Hamilton later today. Tomorrow she takes a plane from Auckland to Cambodia, and will see her family again Wednesday morning. It's always hard to say good-bye even if we were only together for 6 weeks. We truly bonded, and I really enjoyed being her companion. I hope one day we will meet again.

So for the next 4 days I'll be in a trio with Sister Mavea and Sister Jabeque. I've served around both of them in Tauranga, and I've even been companions with Sister Jabeque. Who knew I'd be companions with her twice, even if it's only for 4 days. I won't find out who my new companion is till tomorrow night. I'll be sure to let you know all about my new companion next week.

“It isn’t as bad as you sometimes think it is. It all works out. Don’t worry. … If you do your best, it will all work out. Put your trust in God, and move forward with faith.”—President Gordon B. Hinckley, “Latter-day Counsel: Excerpts from Addresses of President Gordon B. Hinckley”

Hope you all have a good week.

Sister Mandy Welker