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