Lead Me, Guide Me, Walk Beside Me

Merry Christmas everyone!! This week has been an interesting one as per usual. Highlight was WE GOT TO GO TO THE TEMPLE!!! Seriously the greatest thing to be back in the house of the Lord and be spiritually uplifted by the spirit. I am so grateful for the priesthood and the blessings and gifts we receive when we do go to the temple. As we were sitting in the endowment session I was so sad because I didn't remember a lot of things that were going on, but as we sat there I realized that at that time it didn't matter if I had everything memorized or knew what was going on. All that mattered was I was there to learn more about Gods plan and to come closer to him.

I am grateful for the church and the blessings that we receive in the House of the Lord. I am grateful for the answers I was able to receive as I sat and pondered and truly learned what God wanted me to learn. I know that each of us can have an experience with our Heavenly Father if we truly prepare for it and are striving to be worthy for it. 

We were talking with one of our members who is probably in his 70's. He is just coming back to church. This past week when we saw him he was doing his usual comparing himself to us and wishing that he would have stayed active and went on a mission. As we were talking to him the thought came to my companions mind to ask him if he has ever received his patriarchal blessing. Which he hasn't. We were able to explain to him more the importance of receiving one. That our patriarchal blessing is like a blue print to our life. It is a blessing directly from God to us. So much peace and direction has been given to us through our own blessings. I am grateful for the direction we receive from our Heavenly Father. I am grateful for this past week and the better understanding of the Saviour and what he went through, as well as what God wants me to go through while I am here. 

I hope you all enjoy the rest of this season! Love you heaps!

Sister Boiteux

Pictures! (sorry we had a very eventful week)

Zone Pday! We made gingerbread houses out of crackers. We made a temple!!

Sister Training Leader life. When  you leave for trade-offs with the wrong socks on. Had trade-offs with the sweetest Tahitian and Filipino. (sister christiansen's daughter) 

Temple Trip!

Tried to sneak a pic with President and Sister Balli :) Ended up getting a good one after!

My granddaughter. The legacy lives on!

Mamas donuts best things around!

Woke up to this miracle Christmas morning. Went out to the car to get something and saw all this on our door. Love being loved. We didn't have time to grocery shop last monday so we literally haven't had any food! It was a blessing to receive boxes and boxes of goodness! Thank you secret Santa :)

Companion enjoying the goodies!

Tis the Season

Merry Christmas!!! 

Can't believe that this upcoming Sunday will be Christmas. 2016 has gone by way too fast and it is already time for us to come together as ward members and family and celebrate the birth of our Saviour. Always the best time of year. 

I have a few experiences to share about this week..

1. On Monday we went to go and get my hair cut. Before she started doing my hair she went and grabbed a magazine. I of course couldn't read it so we resorted to the awkward small talk, but then eventually got into actually getting to know her. She wasn't very religious and didn't know much about Christ. Before I started to get into our purpose as missionaries I froze. Literally had no idea what to say to this lady. I felt like I was at the beginning of my mission again freaking out because I didn't know what to do. I also didn't have a companion to jump in and save me because she was on the other side of the room. As I sat there I thought of a line in PMG from Elder Holland that says if you listen there is something in what they say that will highlight a gospel truth to which we can then testify. It was really humbling for me to be able to teach about the restoration. Could have taught it a lot better, but I was reminded of the importance of implying our message into their lives and helping them see how they can benefit from it.

2. We had a come and see fireside last night. Best one in a while. It was Christmas themed and the spirit that was there was the greatest. President was the last speaker and he shared a story of when he was a leader for young mens and at Christmas time the young men decided they wanted to do a sub for santa. President went to a place to see if there were any families that may need help and the lady told him that it was too late in the  season and she can't think of anyone. So he left with no one to give to. The next day that lady called him and said that she knew of a family that didn't ask for any help and may not be happy if someone did something for them, but she was willing to give the name and address for them to do something. President told the young men and they said "well we can try." They got some gifts together and somehow found a tree and realized they didn't have much to give. So the boys ran to their house and found some things that they could give to the family. When they went to go drop it off the quietly walked to the porch and set everything up. They rang the bell and walked away. As they were walking away he said they could hear the kids opening the door and calling each other to come and see. A few moments later it went quiet and they knew the mum had come. Expecting her to be upset they heard her yell out to them "thank you, and God bless you!" That is when they knew she received their gifts thankfully.

Obviously President told the story way better and in a lot more depth, but I am sure many of us have had experiences of giving during the Christmas season. I remember doing Sub 4 Santa when I was in high school and it was such a fun experience to be able to go and shop for a family in need and then deliver it to them. I reckon it was an incredible experience because it is something the Saviour would have done. He always thought of others rather than himself. I know that as we truly strive to become more like him and strive to help others that his light will always be with us. The Christmas cheer can stay with us all year. I hope you all have a Merry Christmas. Love you heaps!

Sister Boiteux

pictures!

Please enjoy this wonderful reserve.

The Luki's are heading off to Australia. Last time we will get to see them. Love this family so much!

What Christmas in the car park looks like.

O Come All Ye Faithful

Hello everyone! I hope you guys all had an amazing week!!!

Our was busy and exhausting as per usual. It has been a fun week with inviting so many people to participate in #LIGHTtheWorld. Beyond grateful for the opportunity to invite others to come unto Christ this Christmas season. We were able to watch the first presidency Christmas devotional last night. It was the greatest thing. A scripture they kept referring to was 2 Nephi 19:6 

 "6 For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given; and the government shall be upon his shoulder; and his name shall be called, Wonderful, Counselor, The Mighty God,The Everlasting Father, The Prince of Peace."

One of my favourite scriptures that sums up the Saviour. I know that a few months back I talked about the atonement and how Christ coming was all part of Gods plan. Yesterday as they were talking I was reflecting on Gods whole purpose and plan for us. That it began in the pre-existence. I truly know that there wouldn't be a Christmas without an Easter. I know Christ had to come to earth and had to suffer for us. Brother Holmes talked about giving and receiving gifts. Sometimes we just look at the gifts God gives us but then we never open them. We just leave them sitting under the Christmas tree to be admired. One of the best gifts he has given us is the Holy Ghost. He gave 3 ways that we can receive that gift.  I wont go over all of them (you can just watch the devotional) but one of them was increasing faith. He said

"Increased faith brings greater endowments of the Spirit into our lives. So how do we increase our faith in Christ?We feast on and obey His word. Elder D. Todd Christofferson taught, “The central purpose of all scripture is to fill our souls with faith in God the Father and in His Son, Jesus Christ.”²⁵ This truth is found throughout the Book of Mormon. King Benjamin, for example, taught his people the words he received from an angel, which helped them have “exceeding faith” in Jesus Christ, and because of that faith the Spirit wrought a mighty change in their hearts.²⁶

If we desire the Holy Ghost as our daily companion, we will feast on and obey the word of Christ received through the scriptures, living prophets, and the whisperings of the Spirit. This daily pursuit of light and truth will increase our faith in Christ, our desire to be like Him, and our capacity to receive the third member of the Godhead as our constant companion."

I am grateful for all the counsel we were able to receive yesterday and that we were reminded on the birth of our Saviour. I know that as we truly feast on and obey the word of God then we will be blessed with even more than we can imagine. I am grateful that Christmas will be on a Sunday this year and that we get to go to church and partake of the sacrament and renew our covenants. I am grateful for the gift of the holy ghost and the many other things our Father in Heaven has given to us. I hope you all look for the gifts you have been given and seek ways to use them to bless others.

Happy Holidays!

Sister Boiteux

Pictures!

 Trade-offs with the Manukau sisters. This is Sister Stapley. She totally went to Bingham my senior year!! Miners are taking over the mission one sister at a time :)

Had to treat ourselves to nandos (sorry I send so many food pictures)

Some cute Christmas decorations. All I get since we have nothing in our flat.

Trade off with our Chinese sisters (Sister Howell). Once again more food cause she was teaching me how to use chop sticks. We also found out that we both lived at University Villas at the same time before our missions haha

Just Keep Swimming

Our week was interesting. We were pretty busy running around doing things, had MLC, companion had a few head aches here and there. But we are alive!!! 

On Saturday we were able to attend a baptism in Tangaroa ward. Sister Graham and I have both served there so we were really excited to go back. It was the nicest thing to walk into the chapel and talk to everyone after and they were all so excited to see us. Bishop even gave us a shout out in his talk haha it was pretty great. I know I have shared something like this before, but it was the nicest thing to go back to a previous area and see all the people I have come to love so much. To see that they remembered us and cared about us as well. It was cool to see people that Sister Lott and I found or taught and how much they have progressed this past year. 

In Bishops talk he said his only piece of advice to everyone is "Just keep swimming." The usual in that ward haha but it was a good piece of advice if you do apply. With not much happening in our area at the moment it is easy to get down and upset because nothing is happening. We were talking yesterday about the episode of the district when one of the elders talks about how he is almost finished and he is working harder than he ever has and yet nothing seems to be happening. We feel like him at the moment. We set new goals and are excited to carry them out. We know that even though we may not see the fruits of our labours if we keep working diligently and faithfully then the Lord will provide. That we just need to keep swimming and keep doing what we know to be right. I am grateful for the opportunities we have had to serve this week and to really feel of the Saviours love for everyone as we do so. 

I hope you all have a great week and keep swimming!!

Love,

Sister Boiteux

pictures!

MLC our intake takes up most of it. It was on our 16 month mark so had to document the moment. It was officially Sister Lott's last one. Love this sister to the moon and back.

#sisterassistants ;) 

Zone service. We cleaned windows and the elders were in their natural habitat and planted taro.  

Truth came out. My companion is a Maori warrior! 

Jasmines baptism. Saw a few of the favs!

Light the World

Yesterday in Sunday school we had a really good discussion on prayer. One of my favourite things to learn about. We were reading out of the Book of Mormon in the Book of Ether. Chapter 1 and 2 discuss when the brother of Jared cries unto the Lord to help them not have their language confounded and also what they need to do to travel to the promised land. Because the brother of Jared continually cried to Heavenly Father and poured his heart out to Him. The Lord had compassion on them.

We discussed the difference between prayer and crying unto The Lord. Sister Graham and I had a got chat about how when we pray its like when it is 10:30 at night and we are dead asleep and our prayers are mediocre. Whereas crying unto The Lord is when we tell him literally everything. We pour our heart out to him and let  him know how we are doing, what we feel we can accomplish, and what we need help with. It is a completely different experience than when we just say our prayers for the sake of saying them. In chapter 2 of Ether it talks about God telling the brother of Jared that they need to make barges to cross the waters to the promised land. The problem is the brother of Jared has no idea how to do that. He directs him on how he needs to build the barges and how it will help them cross the waters. After the barges are built the brother of Jared realizes that there is no light, so he inquires of The Lord again. This is what The Lord said to him.

 "25 And behold, I prepare you against these things; for ye cannot cross this great deep save I prepare you against the waves of the sea, and the winds which have gone forth, and the floods which shall come. Therefore what will ye that I should prepare for you that ye may have light when ye are swallowed up in the depths of the sea?"

He asks him what he wants Him to do. He doesn't immediately give the brother of Jared the answer as to how they will receive light in the barges. 

Sometimes it's like us. We expect Heavenly Father to answer our prayers immediately or in the way we want him too. We don't put in the effort to figuring things out for ourselves. Of course in every decision we should communicate with our Heavenly Father and ask for His help, but He has also given us agency to learn and grow for ourselves. I am grateful for the challenges He has placed in my path and that I have had to figure a lot of things out so that I can learn and grow. Each challenge is a way to become more like Him.

On another note I wanted to share the new initiative the church came out with. #LighttheWorld. I hope you all have taken the time to look on lds.org and looked at it. They are doing a service every day leading up to Christmas starting with December 1. They have a countdown online with ideas of things you can do. Highly encourage each of you to take some time to look at it and see what you can do for others around you. What can you give Christ this Christmas?

I hope you all have a good week. Love you heaps!!

Sister Boiteux

pictures!

Some of our favs. Picked some flowers for us when we showed up for FHE.

Sister Graham sprained her ankle. So I got to be her nurse again :) So many life skills being learned with this sister haha

 The smiles came a little bit after the phone call.. But we got our trunky call this week!

Trade offs with the Tangaroa sisters! Got to be with Sister Ottley (my trainer). She goes home in a few weeks!

trade offs with a tongan sister.. Lol there were like 5 more pieces of bread after these ones. "Eat Sister Boiteux. You wont eat like this when you go back to Penrose."

#NewZealand

Oh Sisters...

We had a few interesting encounters this week. Life was good. We had transfers and Sister Graham and I get to stay together! Woohoo. Praying we kill each other off but we will see in 5 weeks. So this week we had to take outgoing sisters to the mission home and airport. Worst thing ever because we saw them saying good bye to members and each other and it was just depressing. Can't get over how fast the mission goes. It was weird being at the airport and thinking "oh that's us in a few months." Then it was crazy because the next day we were at the mission home again picking up new sisters starting their 18 months. So great to feel of their faith and spirit and seeing that they have so much ahead of them. The mission is fresh as, weird being the old one now.  

Rather than driving people around and what not we had a bit of time to work in our area. We spent the day contacting Niueans. My goodness the craziest experience happened. Can't really tell you about it but just know we had no idea what was happening. People didn't inform us to go to a home so we went in and it was just interesting as. After telling people about going there they were like "Oh sisters.. I forgot to tell you!" haha terrible. After the crazy experience we were talking and thinking about the spirit. That when we go into places sometimes the spirit doesn't go with us and it's scary. Moral of this story is always be willing to listen to the spirit and always be worthy of its guidance. We had stake conference right after and got to receive some words of wisdom from there. One of our members talked about self reliance. My companion and I clearly needed that since neither of us know what we are doing after the mission. I am really grateful for the church's self reliance program. That we are given the help we need to get our feet under us and become better. I am just grateful that they are stressing the importance of taking responsibility for ourselves and helping us gain skills that we need. 

President spoke in conference as well. Different than self reliance he of course spoke on missionary work!! He was talking about how when members pray for missionaries to find people to teach that it's good but its not enough. That we as members should be praying for our own opportunities to find people for the missionaries to teach. Just praying for us isn't really doing missionary work. I was grateful he said that, because even us missionaries need to do better on our prayers for finding. I know that as we live the gospel and as we lead by example it will soften hearts and it will help others come unto Christ. I know that there are always people ready to received the message we have to share. 

Sorry this email was a little every where. I am grateful for our Heavenly Father and the lessons He teaches me every day and that we are lucky enough to have the fullness of the gospel on the Earth today.

Love,

Sister Boiteux

Took Sister Cluff to the airport. Longest STL just died on me!!

Took some sisters to the mission home to pick up their new trainees and saw these cuties. Love our Henderson sisters!

Elder Summers also went home this past week so we joined them for kebabs. Always a joy with those creatures.