Prehistoric-Sized Centipedes...

Aloha ohana! 

Holy cow, I feel like SO much happened this week! It feels like it's been ages since I emailed home! Well, this coming week is already transfer week again. How does time go so fast?! Our transfer week schedule will be changing from how it's been in the past in that we'll have a pday during transfer week woohoo! We don't know what day it will be yet. We find out our new/same companion and area at "transfer news" tonight! Exciting stuff😀

I'm going to start off with some comic relief haha...  On Saturday night we had a prehistoric sized centipede in our pad. Sister Boyce was brushing her teeth in the living room, and we heard her start screaming about something. She is pretty tough by the way, so I knew it was something big haha. I walked out of my room to see her standing on top of the couch looking terrified as she pointed to the corner of the kitchen. I expected to see a mouse or something, but out comes crawling a huge centipede. I am not kidding when I say it was as long as the page I write on in my journal. So we had a fun time trying to kill the big guy. He was sneaky. I followed him around trying to get a video of course, but then I lost him. He literally just disappeared after crawling under the couch once. It was terrifying because we knew he was still in here. Before we lost him the first time, I tried stepping on him with jandals on, and I'll never forget how rock solid he felt. It didn't do a thing when I stepped on him several times with quite a bit of force. That made it even more exciting knowing he was practically indestructible. Anyways, after basically deconstructing our whole living room, and creating a radius of 3 ft around the shoe rack he was hiding on, he met his demise as Sister Boyce went ham hitting him with a frying pan hahaha. Frying pans, who knew? She said it was the best thing she could think of quickly besides a knife LOL. Needless to say, that frying pan was no longer circular when she was done, and our yard stick had been snapped into three pieces. That was my weapon of choice. LOL. It was crazy!  I conveniently had a yard stick to measure how long he was, and I am not exaggerating at all when I say he was at least 5 inches long before we decapitated him. AHHHHH😱😳

Sister Boyce and I have pretty sweet weapons of choice if you ask me... a frying pan and a yard stick. (Not pictured: my one tennis shoe on my right foot because I tried to step on the centipede with a jandal but was afraid he'd curl up around the edges of my shoe and get my bare foot😱)

On Sunday we had a musical fireside. It was incredible! The Spirit was so strong as many people shared their faith in Christ through song. Music is so powerful. I got to debut an original song of mine. Sister Preslar sang with me, and Sister Wang accompanied us. After the program, many people came up to us and thanked us for sharing. I had several ask for a copy of the lyrics, and a few told me I should submit it to be an EFY song. One senior missionary gave me his email and asked me to send him the lyrics and video if possible. He wanted to send them to his son who recently received a mission call but is hesitant to accept it. The senior missionary feels it will help his son do the right thing. One of the moments that touched my heart the most was when I saw a woman in the audience with tears in her eyes as we neared the end of my song. She hugged me and thanked me afterwards. Another senior missionary told Sister Preslar later that the song made her want to stay on her mission. She was contemplating going home, but when she heard the song it brought her comfort. My point is not to toot my own horn in any way, but rather to reinforce to you all that there are so many ways we can use the unique talents God has blessed us with to influence others for good. As we humbly seek for ways to use our talents to help others, God will bless us with increased talents and more opportunities to use them! (If you would like to hear "Let Him Lead," I have it posted on Facebook😊)

Sister Preslar and I after performing the debut of my song "Let Him Lead"🎶

Sister Goodman made some BOMB brownies-in-a-cup with cream cheese frosting and heath on top. YUM

This was Elder and Sister Goodman's final musical fireside to put together. They've been in charge of running the firesides for a while now. They ended up going home this week (only a few days earlier than planned) because of a family emergency. I will miss them so much. I've really grown to love them. One thing Elder Allen said that stuck out to me is "the only way to take the pain out of goodbyes/death is to take the love out of life." It's so true. It's worth it to love!

The Goodman's impromptu and quite tender Aloha 'Oe. They will be missed...

Aloha Goodmans! Until we meet again.❤❤❤

 

On Sunday I also ran into Jacob Johnson and his family (from MN)! It was CRAZY to see them! We took a picture all together and enjoyed catching up briefly before they headed off to church. Small world. 

I've been enjoying sending referrals to some rad places lately with online teaching! Recenlty I've sent referrals to Tanzania, Zambia, and Trinidad (I had NO idea where that was until I picked up a Book of Mormon request from someone there haha). I get to serve such a unique mission! I love feeling like my mission call is to the entire world😃

On Wendesday Elder Allen told me he received an email from Brother Metcalf (he works for the Church missionary department. He's in charge of all of the Visitors' Centers around the whole world). Brother Metcalf said that they prepare online teaching reports to show the effectiveness of the online missionaries serving in various locations around the world. He said that the statistics they gather currently indicate that I have been very effective at helping the people I interact with online to progress to be taught by local missionaries in the field. He was wanting to reach out to observe. Crazy, huh?! I mean, when I was younger I may have dreamed of being an olympic gymnast one day, but never did I ever think I'd be dubbed one of the "most effective online missionaries" in the world haha😉 It was neat to get to video conference with Brother Metcalf. He said that a lot of missionaries do the same things, and do them well, but that missionaries like me just do a few little things that make a big difference. We worked to discover those little golden nuggets of little things I do that maybe other missionaries working online don't do. What I shared really centered around the importance of establishing proper expectations for both the interested person and for the local missionaries. I've learned so much from the other sisters serving here! 

Today for pday we got to watch the new Cook Islands show at PCC! It was so good! I learned lots about the Cook Islands, and I want to go visit now. For example, the geographical area of the country is the size of New Zealand, but most of it is underwater. The island with the highest population is only 25 miles in circumference haha. The Island will be showcased at the PCC for 5 weeks this summer. The culture is a combination of Maori, Tahitian, and Hawaiian cultures (as far as the dancing goes). So neat!

The new Cook Islands show at the PCC!

Here's some sister missionaries taking a pic with a buff Cook Islander. Nice, huh!😄

They (Cook Islanders) make all of these flower crowns and hats! Many are with those coconut/palm tree leaves dried and prepared specially. So cool!

We made some bracelets from pieces of coconut tree leaves. #ProWeavers This was an activity at the Cook Islands village.

Food highlight: We got to eat breakfast at Hukilau cafe this morning, so I decided to try a Hawaiian classic of spam and eggs. These Hawaiians LOOOVE their spam 😂!

My breakfast at Hukilau Cafe this morning! Spam and eggs, with potato wedges.

#compunity with our same order😂

Culture highlight: I learned quite a bit about Japanese culture from Sister Yamaji this week! She explained to me the "levels" of apologizing in Japan. It was pretty interesting. Japanese are so respectful! Also, Sister Wu taught me that in Asia, when people/things are total opposites, you say they are "10 Kilometers different" haha! I love getting to understand asian cultures better. I learned how to say "the Church teaches me how to love people" in Chinese. I'm almost fluent!😉

I have been thinking about the upcoming 12th anniversary of my baptism. It's been great to reflect on what a blessing it's been to be a member of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. Baptism really is a step we take to follow Christ's example! This week I shared something with Sister Wu that I learned at a youth conference in MN years ago. It was in regards to judgement after we die. The speaker was talking about how our sins make us unclean, and no unclean thing can dwell with God. BUT, when we are baptized, we take upon us Christ's name. After we die, at some point we will be judged. We will be unclean before Heavenly Father, and He will be obligated to exercise judgement. If we're unclean we cannot live with God for eternity. The point was that Christ knows if we've taken His name upon us, and He knows if we tried. He is able to tell Heavenly Father, "wait, wait. Ashley has taken My name upon her. She tried her best to live the laws and ordinances of the gospel. She's repented and tried to become like Me." Heavenly Father knows that Christ is perfect, and through Christ is able to exercise mercy. I'm so grateful for the Savior!

 

Alright, well I feel like I could go on and on this week, but I need to wrap things up. Hopefully I'm not forgetting anything crazy cool that happened this week😃 If so, I'll send it next week. 

Look for ways to become a little more Christlike in the little things this week! 

 

Keep smiling! 

Sister Flake

Elder Pugh's district, June 2018

Here was a district flag for the transfer.

"the feed" hahaha that's what Brother Kioa called it when he confirmed we were coming. #TonganFeasts On the left is some fish cooked with onions and some chili pepper flakes (you boil the fish in water, then add coconut milk and place taro leaves on top to keep in the moisture. The taro leaves are folded to the side now you can see), fried chicken (I thought Sister Wu was gonna cry when she saw this hahaha she talks about fried chicken nearly every day, and has been desperately needing to eat some good fried chicken), fried bananas, on the top foil you can see a dish that contains corned beef, a coconut milk sauce (I think), and some sort of spinach leaves or something. In the bottom right foil contains the similar spinach leaves, sauce, and lamb. There was SO MUCH FOOD. It was delicious! Not pictured: the mayo and ketchup that seems to always accompany polynesian food.😊😍

Look at this neat looking fruit I saw today! Hah!

Dragonfruit! Guess what this made me think of? CANCUN!!!!

Yummy funnel cake at the Fijian market>>> It was SO good. It has ice cream, banana, whipped cream, powdered sugar, and chocolate&strawberry syrups on top!