Hey yous!
So probably gonna be a scattered letter but oh well. What a week!
Last pday I played RUGBY. Yeah. Well, touch rugby. I looked like an idiot I am sure but I had one heroic moment where I got the ball and ran it the whole way, and scored! So there was my one and only MVP moment. Rugby is huge here, as with all the Tongan elders. Also, had a high maintenance moment and got our eyebrows waxed, it was Sis. Soriano's first time haha. Beauty is pain sister.
Shout out to the London girls. I met a cute man from England at the mall. Too bad I am a missionary. But he redeems all the other English men we saw in London. And I gave him a mormon.org card :)
And shout out to Grandma CC- I got your letter and key chain. Made my day! Your letter is on the way! And same to Mad-dawg. Loved your letter and your reply is on the way as well :)
But spring is here! It is finally warm enough to go out without a coat. We even had a picnic at a park with Susannah and her family from the ward. It was beautiful. Except these birds.. magpies.. they are scary as heck. The swoop down and grab your hair for their nests. And steal your food. I took the empty Pepsi bottle and kept swinging it around my head like the awkward person I am :) We had to take the bus home after... and were there for a good hour and a half then ran to the right stop and caught it just in time. Brought back memories of freshmen year at BYU trying to master public transport unsuccessfully with Alyssa haha
The four of us sisters are all super close though and it is great. We all figured we all love having our hair played with and our backs scratched/massaged so we made a circle one night and it was the most genius thing EVER.
Tracting is fun. Really. Even if it is all I ever seem to do. We change lyrics to Beautiful Soul and Call Me Maybe to missionary lyrics. It is great! We have been visiting a lot of part member and less active families and even finding some new investigators - so thanks for the prayers!!
We found Shedrick who reminded me of all my Rwandese friends. When I recited the First Vision he kept saying "Wow... Wow..." it was great. I Look forward to meeting with him again. We also got invited in for a lesson with a Filipino family. It felt like my first real lesson. Like we had an opening prayer, closing prayer, the whole family there and everything. It was great!
And STEVEN HAS A BAPTISMAL DATE. It will be a journey. But this gospel will bless and change his life so much if he allows it too. He also was drunk and sick so didn't make it to church. So we hope to teach Word of Wisdom soon :)
We went to this Arboretum thing for our district meeting and it had great views of Canberra! It was super windy so we went down a ways to check out if it was less windy. As we were running through this forest, we totally had a twilight moment haha
Plenty of service this week as well, house cleaning, yard work and DOG WALKING. A recent convert has a German Shepherd and Huskie mix... so cute. Best service ever. I even went on a jog around the park with him in my dress. haha
There was also another baptism for some elders in our district, so Sis. Davis and I team tagged playing the piano again. They really need to find their own pianist.
We had a sweet fireside and feed at church on Saturday. They bought a whole full-on pig. Ears, snout and all. Reminded me of our first trip to Hawaii- it was delicious.
FUNNY STORY. Well first of all let me say, I was fasting. Which is the hardest thing EVER for me. I fasted from 7 pm Saturday to 5 pm Sunday- it was a miracle (luckily I recently studied Jesus fasting for 40 days/nights so I thought I could do 2 meals haha). Then we had a bomb Samoan feed. But for dessert... it was ice cream. Sis. Perez is lactose intolerant. That poor soul. I needed to help her. The tender mercy was the box of tissues next to her. So I went to go blow my nose/cover her up/put my bowl on her lap/ she shoved all the ice cream into my bowl while I bust up laughing into the tissue and go on to talk about how bad my "hay fever" is which has actually been great here. All us sisters were dying the rest of the night and Sis Perez said that is solely the reason I am here on the mission, to save her from her ice cream and hey, I got seconds!
I do love that everyone here just wants you to pray for them and wants you to eat their food so they get blessings. The Samoan culture is the best! haha
I also love constantly improving. As many of you know, I am a perfectionist. I am very aware of my weaknesses and try to improve on them, of course always failing but trying. The mission is the best place to grow though. Without even telling my companion what some of these weaknesses are and how I am trying to work on them, she said those things were some of my strengths. I love that about this gospel and the Atonement, we can all take those weaknesses, and things we think we will never accomplish or become, and the Lord will turn them into our strengths as we read in Ether 12.
Yesterday was also Father's day here in Australia so one last shout out to my Dad. It happened to be at church during our relief society lesson someone read "Confessions of a Mormon Bishop" please read this if you haven't ye,t to understand just a glimpse of what my Dad goes through to serve others, on top of being the most caring doctor and the best Dad to his 5 kids. He is also the best example of love, which I shared at district meeting talking about the Savior's love and who our examples of love are in our lives. I love that I get to hate how much my Dad lets everyone know how much he loves you. Seriously. He can be giving me the looooongest lecture and seem so mad and then will always say, "You know I love you right!!!!!" haha He is the best Dad ever. I know I am giving my all and working 110% out here because of the work ethic he has, his example, and the lessons he taught me. I LOVE YOU DAD!
I love this gospel. I love the people I serve. I love the support back home. I love knowing where I came from, why I am here and where I am going. I love when people notice I am happy. So that I can share why it is so. I love that this gospel is universal and it is for everyone. And that God is truly the same, yesterday today and forever. The power of prayer is the strongest thing ever and I thank you for all those prayers that have been said for my sake. I am praying for y'all as well and time is flying by too fast. First transfer is a week from today. I love this area and hope to stay. The old mission president said I am in the best ward in the whole Sydney north and south mission. I believe it. I am being well taken care of, by the ward and by the Lord.
Lots of Love!
Sister Rushing :)
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