Sister Flake's Mission Blog: Short week!

We found a super huge, cool mural at Kahuku HS!🌊

It's awesome right??!?! gigantor!

Aloha ohana! Long time no email haha! It feels like I just had pday haha.

-We had "transfer news", but I guess things will be changing a little bit with the Allans in charge here, and we won't be doing as much of a celebration or game for the "reveal", but rather a more "dignified" meeting to learn what the next transfer holds. The STLs put together a powerpoint to announce the coming transfer. SOOOO, next transfer *drum roll* ........ I get to stay with Sister Talia-Hunkin wahoooo!! We'll be staying in the Married student 2nd ward, and we also don't have to move pads, which will be really really nice:) I'm excited to come to understand the things that God still needs me to learn from Sister Hunkin. I've learned a lot with Sister Hunkin about the importance of communication, as well as using our individual strengths and weaknesses to best further the Lord's work here at the VC (and how to help each other blossom!). I love her!! ❤ I'm grateful I get more chances to be a better trainer for her, seeing as I have a LOT to work on! There's such an important balance to be found for providing guidance and instruction, yet not holding them back or stunting growth.

-I've been studying the topic of "Grace" lately in my personal study, and it has been super awesome! I love it! I agree 100% with Elder Bednar in his comment of 'grace' and 'agency' being two commonly misunderstood topics in the church. A lot of times people ask about our belief of being "saved by grace, after all we can do." There is often a big misconception here! Through Jesus Christ we can overcome physical and spiritual death. ALL who have lived on the earth will be resurrected and have a perfected body. But if we want to return to live in God's presence eternally, we need to also be cleansed from sin. We can do that by repenting! We accept Christ as our Savior by exercising faith in Him, repenting, being baptized, receiving the gift of the Holy Ghost, and enduring to the end. Sorry for the jumbled notes... I'll try to gather some more for later. God loves us all so much and wants to bless us. He requires us to make covenants because He respects our agency. With great privilege comes great responsibility. He won't force all of the blessings of covenants on us because there is great responsibility that comes from those covenants!

I LOVE my Christmas present!!! Thanks mom and dad!

-Online Teaching center highlight: Chelsea from Washington! She was a member referral from a member who called into mormon.org with her information. Chelsea had been looking for a church, and the member had invited her to attend a service for our church! I've been in touch with Chelsea on and off since December. She's been really difficult to get a hold of in the past (the Local missionaries in WA were never able to meet her), but it turns out she recently moved to HAWAII!!! Crazy right?! Hopefully she'll make it up to Laie sometime soon so that we can meet her in person! How cool would that be?! God is working in her life.

-One more TC highlight: This was an experience that reaffirmed to me the truth that God is hastening His work through technology. While missionary work is still mostly us going out and finding prepared individuals, technology is allowing so many prepared people to come and find US!! It's incredible! It's helping all of God's missionaries use their time more effectively. KerriAnn is a perfect example of a prepared individual who reached out to us by requesting a free copy of the Book of Mormon through mormon.org. I called her and ended up having a 15-20 minute conversation with her over the phone. She has been facing some challenging times, and she knows the word of God can help her through them. She isn't very familiar with the Book of Mormon at all, but she saw an advertisement on Facebook about it, and decided to request a copy. I was able to testify of God's love for her, and that this is an answer to her prayers and searching. I taught her many principles about the message of the restoration, and helped her identify the peace she felt as the Holy Ghost. I testified that this is Christ's restored church, and that she can know truth for herself through prayer (and the Holy Ghost will testify of truth to her). I felt prompted to extend the baptismal invitation to her at the end of our conversation, so I asked her "when you learn more from the missionaries and come to know these things are true, will you follow the example of Jesus Christ and be baptized by someone who holds the priesthood authority of God?" ...and she ACCEPTED!! Haha! Wow huh?! It was a pretty unique and spirit-filled experience. She is so prepared! I'm excited to see her grow and change, and to witness how the gospel blesses her😊

Sis Lin 2's drawing

-A Visitors' Center highlight: We met Maura and her family from Boston. They were so awesome! The lesson I learned for them was 1. to ALWAYS extend the guest card with an invitation to learn more, and 2. if you don't extend the guest card and invite them to learn more, GO BACK and extend it!! We had a wonderful walking lesson with them, and it came time to return to the tram. We shared some heartfelt experiences, and the Spirit was there. We had given them a copy of the Book of Mormon and bookmarked Alma 32 with a pass along card with our number on it, and we were walking back to the VC. I was reflecting on how we hadn't even extended the guest card, yet they seemed so open and receptive. I thought "what am I thinking??!" I stopped and turned to Sister Hunkin (we were halfway back to the front gate by now) and said "let's go back and extend a guest card to them!" So we turned around, went back, got back on the bus (they were the only ones on at the time) and extended the invitation to fill out the guest card and learn more. They did, and they checked the box indicating they would like local missionaries to visit when they return home! Wow huh?! Their family can be soooo blessed by the gospel! It was super neat because the dad said that he's been feeling God working in his life, and he knows that he'll be following God again soon. He was a Christian when he was young, but hasn't been since age 15. I know God is working in his life and his family's lives!!!

-One more VC highlight: We spoke with a family from Honolulu. The husband was somewhat familiar with our church. We were teaching about the restoration, and he said "well, why wouldn't Joseph Smith be a prophet?? God called prophets before, like Moses and Abraham, so why wouldn't He call one today??" It toootally caught me off guard because that's what WE tell GUESTS all the time... but this time it was a guest telling US haha! It was awesome! God really does show His love for us by calling a prophet still today! God is the same yesterday, today, and forever!

-Today for pday I attempted to take a nap with earplugs in, but I feel like I could still hear the roosters crowing in the distance hahaha aaaahhhhhhhhh there's no escape from the chickens here! Our friendly neighbor hen, "Hayhay" as we named her, has been dutifully incubating her eggs the past week or so. Hopefully we get little chicks soon! We decided to try out the new "waffle on a stick" food truck at the Fijian market... it was awesome! They even gave us our food for free!:') #ILoveBeingaMissionaryinLaie I tried the "weenie waffle". It had a hot dog surrounded by waffle. What a fun concept! They also had a bunch of different soda combinations, and we found one of the combos that was called "Go and Dew" so we HAD to take a pic of course. That's what we missionaries do! ...We take pics! ...and I suppose we "go and dew" (the Lord's command) too😉 It was fun to try some new things around Laie!

We decided to try out the new "waffle on a stick" food truck at Fijian market... it was awesome!
They even gave us our food for free❤ #lovebeingamissionaryinlaie

We "go and dew" what the Lord commands every day here!!!😉

so punny😉 I thought Colby and Bryson would get a kick out of these

Here is the one and only "weenie waffle"!!! It was a Hawaiian hot dog in the middle of a waffle... it was tasty! I also tried bites of the banana one, the oreo one, and the pizza one.. each were delish! The oreo was probably my fav😊