Aloha

Well the work presses forward, we get new questions every day I like it though because it really causes me to research and explore things I haven't thought about before. There was someone last night that was challenging the great flood of Noah. I read some articles online( one of them was by brother Perry I also saw him in a documentary on the Book of Mormon that was fun :) ) and in one there was a really good quote about how 'we don't' know everything and we aren't meant to. If we did it would eliminate the need for faith.' That really is so true. If there was concrete proof for everything people would worship science not God. We are here to figure out for ourselves our relationship with our Heavenly Father and to follow His example. If something like not having proof of an Ark or something that isn't essential to our salvation stops us from following the commandments of God we are never going to be able to learn the mysteries of God. He is willing to teach us and help us understand but if we expect the answers to fall into our laps with out effort or faith we are doing ourselves a disservice. So here's the challenge for the week- study something in the Gospel you haven't studied before, use the Bible Dictionary or a source your normally don't use, you will be amazed at what you learn. Study the basics like prayer, faith, the Holy Ghost there are so many things that we only have a surface understanding of. I'm so grateful for the opportunity to study and I'm so grateful for the Gospel!

Well family I will let you know what my fate is next week! Love you all.

Half Way!

Hey guess what! Can you believe your two rascal of missionaries are half way! It's crazy to think about, time can go quickly. I'm really enjoying my last few weeks with Sister Sandstrom I don't know if I'll ever have a companion like her again. Sorry Tucker hasn't written for a while, that's really hard. I hope he's doing okay, I know though that the experiences he is having will shape him and make him stronger. I miss him a lot but know that I will get to see everyone really soon.

So here's a story for you. We had exchanges last week. When I met up with sister Sandstrom again I notice she had a cut on her hand. I asked her what she did. She told me not to worry about it. I continued to press and she finally said "I was bit by a dog" I looked at her and thought she was kidding but she wasn't. I asked her if she was okay and she said yeah but the dog drew blood. She said that the dog was all nice and letting her pet it and then when she stop it jumped up and bit her. I said so was it a big dog? She kind of smirked and said quietly ... it was a chihuahua. I started laughing. "you let a rat bite you? you're for sure going to get rabies! So the next day I asked Sister Eubank what someone should do if they are bitten by a dog ( now I'll admit I probably should have told Elder Eubank first) my companion glared at me as sister Eubank inspected her bite and told her to find out if the dog had it's shots. She then proceeded to say that if the owners wouldn't tell her we would call the cops. haha that scared her. In the end the little rat was okay but it makes for a good story. :) I tease her occasionally that she has rabies from a Chihuahua.

We had a really awesome experience this week. While we were making calls in the referral center one of the sisters had an incoming call. It was a member who wanted to refer his friend. The problem was that his friend lived in Vietnam, and there aren't missionaries there. So the sister suggested that the online sister chat with him. So he got our email and sent it to his friend telling him about us. The man's name is An Ho and he is so great! Because of his friend Mike he wants to know all about the gospel. He said that he basically wants his family to learn more about prayer and how the gospel can help them in their lives. He is so willing to do anything to meet with us. Because of the time difference it's been a little hard but when we sent him an email telling him we would love to meet at 8 am he thought we meant our time so he said he would be more than willing to meet at 1 pm his time. It was crazy. When we did meet with An Ho and his wife they were so great! They kept say Yes sisters and thank you so much sisters. He has two little boys and he want them to learn from us too. We were dying because we want to teach them in person. We have been working SO hard to find missionaries to teach them in their area because they are golden they are so ready for the gospel. The other problem is as far as we know there isn't a church very close to them theres one in Thailand but that is just to far away! Sometimes we take for granted how blessed we are to have the gospel and to have everything so close to us. We are going to continue to teach this amazing family and hopefully we can at least find a worthy priesthood holder in their area who can baptise them. I think that even before they have taken all of the lesson they feel this is different and that it can really make a difference in their lives. I am so grateful for the gospel and how much it does make a difference in our lives. Our families can be together forever, we can return to our eternal family, we have purpose in our lives and know why we are here. This is God's Church and he will help all those who come to him.

Aloha

Aloha!

Hi family, things here are going well. We got to spend a good day at the PCC. I think I've been to most of the shows now. That was nice of Sister Sandstrom to send a letter home. We have become really good friends. I told her I'm going to set her up with Tucker when they both get home and then she can be my real sister. :) haha I sent a letter to her parents a while ago and they are so sweet now they are sending me letters :) Her brother had the idea to have Christmas in December so were getting a lot of Christmas cards. :) As we have grown really close we have talked a lot about our families.

We now have pad mates, a very sweet Japanese and a Tongan. They are so funny! We love them.

We have had some great experiences this week on chat. There were a couple of people who deeply wanted to learn more about the church but because of family difficulties were unsure of how to proceed. It made me really sad to think that there are people out there who are so hard hearted that they won't listen to their loved ones and allow them the opportunity to learn more. Even more sad is to think that you could be married to someone whose religious beliefs are so completely different. It happens all the time where a couple comes into the visitor center and they have completely different beliefs and you can tell that God just isn't very important. If nothing else my mission has taught me how important it is to understand the relationship we have with God. If we understand God then we can understand why he asks us to do certain things. We can better understand his plan for us. We have been using a really good scripture with our guests in the VC its 2 Nephi 26:27-28. We all have the same opportunity to be with God again, he wants all of us to follow him. I'm grateful for all that he has done for His children and all that He will do.

Mini Missionaries

Talofa!

Sounds like things have been going really well. That's neat that you got to meet Elder Perry! I'm glad I got to meet him here or I would have been pretty jealous. Especially because you seem to have had more general authority visit the ward in the past 9 months than I have seen my whole life. :) I'm so glad that you got to play with you scum group, those were always good memories when all your friends came over and me and Tucker hid in the basement or played with the Sargent's. How is Mackenzie doing by the way?

Things have been fairly slow here which is sad because it's summer there should be a lot more people. Hopefully by the end of this month our guest number will rise. It was pretty great though because we have a goal to get 300 referrals in the visitor center and we finally hit it this month! It's been since October that we hit it last. President said that he would buy us pizza if we would do it again this month. He is pushing us really hard he really wants to hit 1000 baptisms this year and the way he's pushing us I'm sure we'll make it. That will be exciting. Things are changing all over the world in missionary work, sounds like preach my gospel DVD's are being emphasized, next month when we get new missionaries they won't have been taught the lessons. So it will be the trainers job to help with that. They will have longer comp. studies and they will be together for at least two transfers. This month they are also doing mini missionaries, which I hadn't really heard of before, but sister Anderson is doing it in Denmark as well. Young people from 17-21 are being invited to spend either a week or weekend with missionaries. We get to show them what a missions will be like. I'm not sure if the Visitor Center sisters get to participate but it should be interesting.

While on exchanges this week we got to eat dinner at a members house, they fed us real Tongan food, it was different but not bad (it was chicken, lu, taro and rice). One of the women told us she decided to serve a mission because she went on exchanges with a missionary. She said they went to this house that if she had known it was that house she wouldn't have gone. A little boy had previously been killed by the mans dogs and she did not want to go. The sister said we have to there is a 16 year old boy who wants to hear our message. When they approached the door the father was really upset and let all four of his huge dogs out! The sisters moved to the middle of the yard and realized they were in trouble the sister missionary grabbed this woman's hands and told her to close her eyes and say a prayer. When they had finished they looked up and all four of the dogs were lying in the grass. The man came out and asked what they did to his dogs! They never acted like this, he accused them of killing them. The 16 year old then came out and said he was going to listen to the sisters. It was a really amazing story and because of that this woman served a mission in Utah and had so many more miracles happen to her that were so fun to hear. Miracles happen to us every day and sometimes they go unnoticed, but when we ask for help God is always there for us. So with this experience in mind it will be neat to see how many young people who come on mini missions will be affected.

I love this work, and even though it's challenging, and not everyday is a great one I am very blessed and the experiences I'm having now will last a life time.

I hope you all had a great fourth of July weekend, they really did ban fire works here so it wasn't as lively as new years eve. We still had hot dogs and performed some island dances one of the senior sisters taught us- lets just say have you ever seen a crazy Korean with a poi ball. Hahah talk about funny.

I love you all, wouldn't mind some more letters but I understand things get busy. Oh by the way the only time for us to email is from 3:30-6 unless we find out where the computers are on BYU. So sorry it will be a bit late for you when you get them.

Moments Matter That

So I keep hearing though letters about my brother but I don't know whats going on! Did his companion get hurt or something? Im getting desperate for some info will you forward his mail?

Thanks for the letter Kac, I'll be sending you one soon, and please do send the recipes. Im so jealous your going to Disneyland with all the kids! You sure you can't wait a few more months. ;) That's funny that they are all dressing up already.

So I had some visitors the other day. Jodi Jensen and her family came and I was able to give them a tour. It was so fun and they talked about how well Beth is doing.

So here's my funny story. It might not be as funny to you because you haven't met the sisters but here it is. So there are two sisters here who share a pday with us. Sister Moon-she's from Korea, and sister Imoto-she's from Japan. They wanted to get permission to drive here, they have licenses but didn't get them approved. Elder Eubank said that he wanted to take them out to practice before he gave them permission. After they got back the first time sister Moon was telling us about it. She said, "I love driving! I love speed, speed is so good!" We told her that wasn't a good thing in Laie since the highest speed limit is 40 and that's on the highway. We told her to be careful she was to crazy. She said that Elder Eubank wanted her to practice with him again. I guess that when she was driving with him the first time when they were coming into the parking lot she was driving to fast and he had to pull the emergency break on her. :) He is really brave to let them practice and he's letting them do it in his new car. So the other day he took them out again. This was the test to see if they could drive. Sister Moon came back and with a sad face said "I ran into a garbage can. I was doing so well! and when I was coming back I hit it and broke off Elder Eubanks mirror. He told me that I should wait till I get back to Korea and practice driving there." we were laughing so hard because all day she was talking about how she was going to be so good to pass her test so she could drive FAST. She keeps asking us if she can drive our car, and then she tells us she will pick us up on pday. She is so funny! We're going to record her telling the story because for some reason it so much funnier coming from an Asian. :)

We are doing great we still have a few people we are working with. We thought we had lost a couple of our best, but miraculously they emailed us back this week. One of them emailed us and told us he got into an accident, where his car rolled 4 times. He dislocated both elbows, one shoulder, and his knee was punctured! Sounds like he'll be out of commission for a while. But we are glad that he's okay.

Well here's a great new video for the week, from the mormon channel on youtube it talks about focusing on moments that matter most. Life can have so many hard, difficult struggles, but if we don't think about these precious moments that are occurring now and only look at what's wrong with our lives we will never see the good and we will be a miserable angry person. Try wwriting about a special moment each day so you don't forget, and you can look back later when times do get hard. Put a post it not in your purse or pocket so you will be prepared.

I love you all and look forward to hearing from you soon!

Aloha

Aloha!

Imagine my surprise when I came into the visitor center and the sisters told me there was a package here for me! Thanks so much that was great! The ring fits great! And thank you for the cotton rounds. Food land only has the square ones and I hate them! :) It's ironic that it's called food land because they really don't have lot of things, Im so grateful for walmart haha never thought Id say that. we might be on a sugar high by the end of the day because we can't let the taffy sit to long otherwise it will become a liquid ant hill. Good thing there are 18 sisters to help :) Thanks again.

I am also grateful for a sister who does hair. It cost 20$ just to get a cut (thanks for the money very timely :) )

I got an email from Beth, that was nice of her and Im glad to hear that she is doing well!! How are the preparations for Bryce's wedding going?

Dad Happy fathers day! Sorry you don't get a special phone call, hopefully my rascal sisters will help you have a good day. Just know I love you and you are amazing to me. I did have a dream about you the other day. Your hair was all grey, it was really weird. :) But it was good to see you even in a dream.

Things are still going great here. I sent Tucker a letter this week but would you please forward his letters to me I still don't get them.

This week we decided to start having a scripture of the week, one that we could share with the guests who come in. This week its Alma 24:14. This is the Anti-Nephi Lehi's and they have just learned about Gods plan for them. How grateful I am that God has made these things known to us. Not only to the first generation but to all of Gods children, and to future children as well.

Because of what they have learned they are willing to do anything to follow God. Include not fight when others are killing them. What are we willing to do to follow God? Analyze you life, are you doing the simple things God asks us to do? Are you sincerely communicating with him? Are you reading his advice? Are you putting the Lord before the world? The lord promises that when we do these things we will have power over the adversary, and in these times that is something we desperately need.

Thanks for your love and prayers, I think about and pray for you all constantly. ;)

Sister Pinder.

P.S. If you want to see a very heart warming message watch Tessa's mormon message, It's such a good reminder to always look at the good in our life and remember that God does have a plan for us.

Online is Awesome!

This week has been so cool! The longer im out on my mission the more I love it. Me and another sister sister Wong, while on exchanges, were talking about how we are scared that when we get home no one will see the changes that we have made in our lives. I told her that our personalities are the same and we may seem like the same people but we will know the impact the mission has had on us and the differences will be so internal that it wont necessarily matter if others can see it or not. There is a lot that I am working on but it's so amazing to be in a position where you can just focus on building your spirit this is the only time in my life that I will have to solely devote to improving my spirit and Im so grateful for it!

This week we met a lot of really solid people online. Im really excited for them. We met Victoria she's 20 and is from California, she's researched the Church for a while but her parents are really against it. We talked to her for a long while and at one point she said that she felt horrible that she promised her mom she wouldn't join the Church. We continued to talk and answer questions and I felt prompted to invite her to be baptised. I waited a while and thought well we really aren't talking about that. I felt prompted again so I extended the invitation. she said "YES!" We said the missionaries in your area will hold a baptismal service on the 25th of June will you prepare for that day? She waited a long time and then responded "well my grandma drags me to mass on Saturdays -she's really against me joining the church- could we do it on a different day?" haha so we moved it to the 29th. :) Supper neat she's great. So we contacted the sisters in her area and they will start to teach her! We will stay in contact though and make sure she's doing okay.

Then we had Geoffrey and Brandon. Both are 18 years old whose parents are against them joining the church. However, they have both studied on their own and want to continue to do so. Brandon still needs to gain a testimony of the first vision, but we have contacted his missionaries and he will have the discussions. I'm confident that he will have a date soon. Geoffrey had a date when he lived in Utah but had some issues with his mom and had to move to his dad's. He contacted us and we have been having phone conferences. He wants to be baptized but he wants to wait till he goes back to Utah in July (so his fiance can be there). Last night we were able to set a date for him to work towards on the 16th of July!

Lots of miracles it's been so great. My companion is great we have a ton of fun together but we are working really hard too. Our pad is great, no Cain spiders lately :) I'm starting to get slightly worried that things are going a little too well... but I'll be grateful for what I have and when the trials come will know that it will be for our good.

It was nice to hear about your funny moments/blessings please continue to do that we are all so spoiled I don't think we realize it sometimes. Mormon 9:16 "Behold, are not the things that God hath wrought marvelous in our eyes? Yea, and who can comprehend the marvelous works of God?"

Love you all! Talk to you next week!