November 24 - Sister Ngawharau...try to pronounce it haha + Happy Thanksgiving

Dear family and friends,

Happy birthday to Bryce, Keri, and Alexandria!!!

Hi! So heads up: we are not going to have p.day next week until Wednesday, so no letter until then!

I don't have much time, so I am just gonna send my letter I wrote President Alba this week :)

Dear President Alba,

Ah man! My whole email I just wrote to you deleted!! Okay, round 2.

Kia ora!! This week was good!

Sister Ngawharau got sick from Wednesday-Saturday (and very sick Wednesday and Thursday night) but got on some antibiotics to fight an infection the doctor found in her intestines. The food is hard on her stomach, but I am trying to eat healthy and have our dinner's feed us fresher food so her stomach settles a bit.

She is doing AWESOME!! She is an amazing teacher and teaches with simplicity and clarity. She has such a sweet, simple testimony, too.  She gets pretty nervous before lessons and contacting, but once she starts, she does great. We get along very well, too. We are ALWAYS laughing and having fun together - the ward also told us Sunday that they love these new "scripture of the night" texts we have been sending out to investigators, less-active members, and active members.

We set a new date for Destiny for December 20th. Her family has been going through so many medical problems lately! Her sister, her mom, and her grandpa all were in the hospital the past 3 weeks and things are finally cooling down enough for us to start solidly teaching her again. Sister Nickolette bought her a set of scriptures and Destiny has been carrying them everywhere :) Her YSA brother is also interested in learning more, now!

We have been receiving many referrals lately, too, and had a "ward blitz" on Wednesday that helped us set up appointments with inactive members we hadn't met before. The work is picking up here in Vacaville! We are trying our hardest to reach the high expectations every day and I feel so happy :)

I love this work!! I know it is true.

Sister Ngawharau led out the area on exchanges this week and did great! Her and Sister Rodriguez were on bike and they had a blast!

Sister Majors and I had a good time, too. We laughed a lot, which was good. Sister Majors was pretty hard on hereelf sonwe set some goals and made plans to help her overcome the negative and think more positively. But she is truly amazing and I love her very much! She is a wonderful sister and servant of the Lord.

I love you President Alba! Thank you for MLC - it was wonderful this week. I learned SO much from both you and Elder Nielson. Thank you for your time and love! Have a happy Thanksgiving!

I love you all! Have a happy week!!! Happy Thanksgiving!

Love,

Sister Nikole Decker

November 17

Hi! Hope you had an absolutely brilliant week! I sure did!! It was pretty crazy, though!

Monday was preparation day and then that night Sister Kwan and I helped out with our YSA FHE - Nerf dart war haha. It was painful but fun! We had two less-active members and an investigator attend, so we were happy about that :)

Tuesday was transfers day and I literally spent the whole day in Santa Rosa in meetings to prepare the trainers for the new missionaries.  That night we had a delicious dinner and devotional and then the new missionaries went to a hotel to sleep and I was with a temporary companion, Sister Miller, for the evening. We both had served in the Redwoods YSA ward so we visited a few people (including the Foley family! We taught the Restoration of the Gospel of Jesus Christ with the AP's - assistants to President Alba - and it was powerful). We also talked to Anthony MacIntyre!! Do any of you remember him from my first area? It was so good to hear from him - he is reading the Book of Mormon for the 2nd time now and blesses and/or passes the Sacrament weekly. He is thinking about getting his Patriarchal blessing soon, too :) So excited for him!!

Wednesday afternoon after more meetings I got my new "baby!!" Her name is Sister Rahera Paku Ngawharau (pronounced Na-fa-ro with a rolled r like in Spanish) from New Zealand! Fun facts about her:

-She is 6'2"...I am 5'1" haha

-She loves kickboxing, touch (a New Zealand sport like rugby but no tackling), and basketball

-She is a convert of 3 years and the only member in her family.

-She uses different words for lots of things:
   *Trekkies for sweatpants
   *Boot for car trunk
   *Jandals for flip-flops
   *Torch for flashlight
   *Chur chur for "cool cool"

-She is whipping me into shape! We do ab workouts every morning. So. Stinkin. Sore.

-Super relaxed and funny. She has a great sense of humor and we laugh often.

I'll leave a video with you so you can hear her sweet accent haha. She is such a great missionary - I am so happy we get to be companions!!

A lot of our appointments fell through this week, which was hard because I wanted Sis. Ngawharau to get right into teaching, but we had an AWESOME lesson with Alex this week! He has been struggling to understand the Atonement and Jesus Christ and this week he made us dinner and we ate a member of the Bishopric's house, Brother Day. It was a powerful lesson and he finally got a glimpse of what the Atonement is all about! Yay!! :) Sis. N did a great job, too. She is amazing, I already love her to pieces!

We had to move Destiny's date to 12/6 because of health problems in her family, but she is still doing great, too! Sorry this is short - I'll be more detailed next week! Shout out to Bryce and Keri for birthdays (well, next Monday and Wednesday...but happy early birthday!) Love you!!

Love,

Sister Nikole Decker

November 10 - Baby #3 on the way!

Dear family and friends,

Hi!! Hope you all had a wonderful week! Shoutout to Bruyn Decker and Justin and Mom and Dad for the letters! Thank you, I really appreciate them!

Ok. So crazy thing: another transfer is gone! Where does time go? 

Transfer information: staying in Vacaville!! I am still a Sister Training Leader (STL). And I am training again!! Baby #3! Haha I am excited to bring another new missionary into the mission field :) Training new missionaries is always so humbling and so much fun. I love helping people grow and become leaders themselves. I realized this transfer that a strength I have developed on my mission is learning how to help people desire to be leaders themselves. It's neat to see, for example, my first "baby" Sister Petersen, who is now an STL herself and is changing and growing SO much on her own mission. I love being out here and becoming more like Christ! It's the best.

Highlights from this week:

Destiny!! She is so elect. A member of our's, Kelsey, took her to the temple and Destiny got to go inside the front part and clean the waiting room and kitchen area. She has anxiety and depression but said inside the temple it all went away. I know that is because the priesthood power of the temple is real - it truly is a house of God. It made her so excited to be baptized so she could go inside and help other people in the Spirit World feel the peace she feels in this Gospel! 

Alex!! He is the less-active member we are working with. He is doing amazing!his testimony is growing, slowly but surely. We had a legitimate spiritual "CPR" (church, prayer, and reading the scriptures - the spiritual essentials to survive) lesson with him this week. He kept texting us crazy stuff throughout the day that got consistently negative and sad, to the point where he was questioning the existence of God. We called him and asked if we could meet, and he said yes. We met in front of the church and sat outside on the grass. I have never felt God speaking through me like that before, but I was praying so hard for God to use me as His instrument and I felt this amazing, calm feeling come over me and decided to simply open my mouth. As I did words came out that Alex needed to hear - the same thing happened to Sister Kwan. We talked with him for a loooong time, especially about faith in Jesus Christ, since we discovered that he doesn't have much faith in Christ. He believes in Heavenly Father, but not Jesus Christ. It is amazing to see, though, how if you have a desire to know if something is true, that God will let you know! Slowly but surely, as he prays to God, God is letting Alex know that Jesus is his Savior and that God loves Alex so so much. 

I also know God is our loving Heavenly Father, and Jesus Christ is His Beloved Son. Without Christ, the resurrection of our bodies to come back to God's presence to be judged would not be possible. We would not be able to be clean from our mistakes and would never live with God again. But because of Christ and His atoning sacrifice, we are able to come back to God physically and spiritually. 

If you aren't sure about that, go to the source of ALL truth: God. And if you aren't sure about God, go to that higher power you believe in - that higher power IS God, our Heavenly Father. And he loves YOU. Very, very personally, at that. In His eyes, "You are magnificent." Remember the beauty that can come from the ashes (The Butterfly Circus).

To end this email off, I wanted to tell you some funny quotes and stories from this week/transfer with Sister Kwan:

-Quote from Sis. Kwan:

"That car is horrible. They don't know how to drive! It is poopooing! Look at it!!!"

*Big diesel truck with exhaust coming out whenever he pushes the gas pedal. 

-I tried to give away pumpkin bread in a bag while we were contacting this week as a creative way to get people to talk to is...no one took it haha. I asked, "Why won't anyone take the bread?" Sis. Kwan: "Because it's creepy! They think you poison them!!" 

-While teaching how the Gospel blesses families, Sister Kwan said, "Imagine if you had no family and no parents. Imagine if God said to everyone, 'You is all BABIES!!' What would happen then?" Hahahahaha I ended up dying laughing...so did Alex, who we were teaching. 

-Whenever I got negative with myself or others, Sister Kwan would always remind me, "Think of the goodness, Sister Decker! The goodness."

I have learned a LOT from Sister Kwan. I am so sad we only get to spend 6 weeks together, but I am happy for the fun times and the growth we had together! "Look ahead and remember that faith is always pointed towards the future" (Jeffrey R. Holland).

Haha life is so good. I am so happy. I am so grateful. In these two weeks before Thanksgiving, I invite you to write one thing you are grateful for every day and put it somewhere where you will see it. :) You will see that you have LOADS to be thankful for! 

Have an absolutely terrific week, everyone! I love you all!

Love,

Sister Nikole Decker