The Light of Christ in Western Australia

Hey all! 

During District Council yesterday, our District told us that we are the Light of Christ in Western Australia, and I really liked the way that it sounded.  It just kept echoing in my ears, and so I thought I'd add it here.  :)  We are the Light no matter where we go, does our appearance and our attitude reflect that?  :)  There have been some days this week where I know that my attitude has reflected it, and then there's been some less exciting days too.  But that's okay!  It's a new week and I have a goal to smile more and not have the bored resting face on.  In the words of my mum, "Eyebrows up, Hollee!"  

Plus!  We just have so much to smile about!  There were some MIRACLE teaching appointments this week, mainly just because they happened when we were afraid that they would cancel. Nothing is better than being able to teach more in the week than you did last week.  

The Young Women are such missionaries!  Cool story. So. There is a family that us as Sister Missionaries have been trying to reach out and contact for months now, but we have never been able to really connect or get a time to drop in.  But we do know that they have two girls who are Young Women's age, but stopped coming due to some drama a while ago.  We had the idea to text all of the families with YW aged girls requesting that they come just a few minutes earlier to walk over and invite these girls to come back to YW's with them.  Many of the families weren't able to do it, except for one family with three girls in YW's.  Their text said that they really wanted to do this, and would be there as soon as they could.  These girls are amazing!  They chatted and talked with us as we walked from the President's house to this home. They needed us to walk to the door with them, but they did the knocking.  They didn't answer the door, but as we were walking away, found the mum just coming home from a walk.  They connected to her right away and totally got the mum to share so much with us.  It was awesome! 

On Sunday we were talking to one of the YW who came with us, and she totally changed our conversation topic to going back to invite the girls again!  We were thrilled that they really want to do that.  Unfortunately the next two weeks are cancelled, but we'll have to remember for after that! 

Aussie word: Agro.  I think it means either angry or aggravated.... They just shorten things just a little much over here. haha 

And for the scripture!  3 Nephi 18:24--Therefore, hold up your light that it may shine unto the world. Behold I am the light which ye shall hold up—that which ye have seen me do. Behold ye see that I have prayed unto the Father, and ye all have witnessed.

I love this one because it matches with being the Light of Christ no matter where we are.  Along with just being happy, are we doing the things in our daily lives that we need to do, like reading the scriptures, caring for people, and praying? He is the best example that we have.  If you are wondering if you should do something, figure out if it matches the message that He wants to share with those around you. 

Love you all so much! Have a great week, and "Eyebrows up!"

Pictures: The sisters of the zone, the beach that we got close to but didn't touch, my golden cooking me food, and the moon! When you go contacting on the Jetty and you trade taking their photo if they take yours.... and then you invite them to take a card about the Book of Mormon.   

Sister Hollee Talbot

The Zone Sisters not on the beach

Sister Talbo and Sister Hughes

Contacting at the Jetty

A beautiful WA beach

Never a Dull Moment

Well, this week was quite the adventure, and then, sometimes not so adventurous.  For about 2 hours every day we have been digitizing our areabook.  We've made some great progress with it.... It's just that it's two extra hours inside our flat.  From the hours of 10 AM-9 PM we're supposed to have 1 hour of Companion Study, 1 hour of Additional study (Training study), 1 hour for dinner, and 30 minutes for lunch=3.5 hours in the flat.  But with the additional 2 on the areabook it's 5.5.  It just becomes really long.  I've been longing to go find some people and tract, but have had to stay in the flat....  But!  We should be done this week.  

Funny Joke! Ready?  Okay, so we're teaching English class to the Tongans, and unfortunately some's visas had ended, so we only had 3 in the class this week.  At the end of class the nonmember casually starts talking in Tongan, and the member announces that he was talking about baptism!.... And then went to tell us the joke that they've had all week.  They work with each other, so I guess the one asked to be baptised, and the member responded "We have too many members, we don't want you." Haha! We told him we would still take him, but we didn't take it any farther than that, so we'll follow up with that this week. 

Oh!  And we had to drive to the next closest chapel (1 hour drive) for church yesterday, the electrics are still not functioning.  

Other than that, we've just had our normal work. :)  

Aussie phrase: I can't remember any, I promise one next week. :) 

Scripture thought: Hebrews 6:12--That ye be not slothful, but followers of them who through faith and patience inherit the promises. 

I love this idea.  That we can inherit the promises.  It links us back to the fact that we are children of our Heavenly Father, and that rich blessings are in store.  If we do all that we can, Heavenly Father will grant us our inheritance, which is going to be incredible! 

Pictures: A silly little googly eyes project I did. :)  What we can learn from a dog, and just a library selfie because I didn't take a lot of pictures this week. :) 

Sister Hollee Talbot

Library Selfie for Sister Talbot and Sister Hughes

Golden Zone

Hey all!  How ya going?

This week has been good!  It feels like we some how fit two weeks into one, but it's been good.  I don't remember too much of what happened (Really tired) and so I'll just put them in as we go. :) 

So!  The title of the email.  This week was Zone conference!  It was a grand time, and there was a lot of things that they taught us.  They talked about finding the Elect, and how we need to make sure to reach out to everyone, but not to stay too long if they don't seem to be progressing.  The Elect are still waiting for us, we shouldn't let "buddies" keep us from them.  We only had our one Zone at conference, which totals to about 13 companionships.  From that there are 6 brand new Goldens, 2 second transfer goldens, and 8 or 9 missionaries that were just transferred in!  Lots of changes happening, which makes it really fun! :) 

Oh!  So for Relief Society we're doing a secret Sisters thing.  Sis and I were given some young women to be secret sisters to. We basically were a little too obvious for the first sister because "you're the only people nice enough to do that".... Oops! haha :)  But the second gift she thinks was someone else, so we might be safe there.  For the young women I have, I found out that she loves the beach and her bike, and that she lives 5 k's away from the beach, so I made a wild goose chase for her! :)  This took some planning, but we did it.  :)  We set it all in place and then made our way to follow up with a potential for an hour.  Reckoning that an hour was good enough, we back tracked to see if we could tell if they've done it.   On our way to the second clue, we spotted two bikers! :)  They had the greatest smiles on their faces, and looked happy as.  <3 We drove past them (hoping not to get busted again!) and then went on our merry way.  They just looked so happy it was worth all that effort! 

Oh! Aliens and Jedi knights tried to take over our little chapel, so we had to cancel two hours of church. :)  It was kind of scary.  We were singing all 6 verses of the sacrament hymn, and just settling into church.  The lights were dimming and brightening, but that's kind of normal, so we just went with it.  Then, in the final verse, it sounds like an alien is coming out of our tiny electric piano.  So the pianist stops playing and we sing without it.  The microphones were weirding out, so the sound system was turned off.  After the sacrament ends, and the testimony meeting was about to start, there are all these popping noises that sound like lightsabers clashing start happening above us.  Acting casual, members are turning off the lights and turning off all power to our little building.  We open the curtains and hold testimony meeting in the dark.  One thing that I thought was beautiful amongst all these theatrics was that our sacrament meeting table was illuminated by the incoming sun.  It helped me reflect on the sacrament and the meaning of it. 

After the meeting ended, the Branch President announced that there was a possible Electric fire in the roof, and that we were cancelling and just going to watch videos at our homes for the rest of church. 

Aussie word: Right.  Is this okay?  She'll be right.  You're right. (it's okay.)

Helaman 15:7-8--7 And behold, ye do know of yourselves, for ye have witnessed it, that as many of them as are brought to the knowledge of the truth, and to know of the wicked and abominable traditions of their fathers, and are led to believe the holy scriptures, yea, the prophecies of the holy prophets, which are written, which leadeth them to faith on the Lord, and unto repentance, which faith and repentance bringeth a change of heart unto them—

8 Therefore, as many as have come to this, ye know of yourselves are firm and steadfast in the faith, and in the thing wherewith they have been made free.  

I love this one.  It tells us that as we gain Faith and a testimony from the Living prophets and from the scriptures that we will be able to stay firm and steadfast.  We won't just come and then go.  We'll stay there.  It's incredible to be a part of this conversion for these people, and to be able to watch them do it. 

Photos: The Jetty!!!!  And the Underwater Observatory.  

Sister Hollee Talbot

Jetty Train for Sister Hughes and Sister Talbot

Jetty Train!

Busselton Jetty

Underwater Jetty

Busselton Branch Out

*Disclaimer* I'm using quite a few words where Australians and Americans argue about the spelling.  Since the computer wins this battle here, we're going with these spellings, even if it looks so wrong.

The title of this week comes from a conversation that we had with our branch mission leader yesterday.  We're planning to start with the Busselton Branch Council and then Branch Out from there.  Sis and I had a little giggle that we were going to Branch out in the Busselton Branch.  :)

This week has been a good one!  We taught a few lessons and had a few member presents, which was really good!  We've been doing an English class with the Tongan Seasonal Harvesters, and this week we did something a little extra and added a small lesson at the end of it.  It was great! They were given the option to leave or at least grab a cupcake before we started, but they were so sweet and chose to wait until after the lesson was over to eat them.  :) 

SERVICE!!!  It makes me happy.  :)  So this week we tried out a service that one of our members referred us to.  The Busselton Museum caught fire a couple months before I got here, and thankfully they were able to put it out.  Though it did burn some of the artefacts*, many survived and were just covered with smoke stain.  That's where this service comes in!  We get the smoke covered items and clean them up. :)  They gave us a fire poker set to clean when we got there at 9, and then at 12, we had turned it from black to a shiny gold colour*!  (Photos to follow, more on blog)  It was so fun, and it also helped us to learn heaps of the history of Busselton.  It's not too old of an area, but it's got some awesome stuff starting up!

Aussie word: Fob.  Fob off! (Get lost)  Knick. Knick off (Go away)  It's funny that I learned these ones from my Branch Mission Leader..... haha

The Scripture this week is one I've been looking for like my whole mission!!! Romans 15:4-- For whatsoever things were written aforetime were written for our learning, that we through patience and comfort of the scriptures might have hope.

As I've encouraged and invited others to read scriptures, I've always wanted a scripture that says the word scripture and has the promised blessings in the same passage.  FOUND ONE!!! haha :)  (Though since finding this one, I've found more.) :)  I love that we are promised Peace, Comfort, Hope and Learning from our time in the scriptures. Need hope? Go to the scriptures. :)  I love it!  I was so happy about finding this one. 

Pictures: My Scriptures**!  Before and After of the service, and a funny little street art we found in Cowaramup.  :) 

**There is an Aboriginal member in the Stake I'm serving in who paints aboriginal art on scriptures.  She did this on mine, and I'm in love with it.  It is so cool!  There is a story behind it (most paintings this style do) but I haven't emailed her to get it yet, story pending. :) 

Sister Hollee Talbot

Angel Sister Hollee

Aboriginal art on Sister Talbot's scriptures

Fire set damaged by a fire, before being cleaned

Fire set, all clean

Sister Hughes working on fire poker