Sister Collins takes on New Zealand: May 2015

May 3, 2015

Hi Family! :)

This past couple of weeks has been really crazy, as you know I've been going through some really hard times these past couple of weeks. But this past week happened to be one of the best weeks I've had on my mission! This past week it felt like all the members in the ward and everyone we work with decided to come out and tell me how much they love me and how much they love having me here!

This past week we've been working with our investigator Jude a lot. We barely got through the first half of the Restoration with her the last time we saw her, because she talks so much. But she's reading the Book of Mormon and loves it! One of her friends actually started telling her all of these horrible things about Mormons last week, and she totally defended us! Also right before we left her house last week, she said she had a surprise for me. She said "she had been waiting for an angel to give this too" and she pulled out her wedding dress and gave it to me! So now I have a wedding dress in my closet, and I'm not really sure what to do with it.

Mekyla is doing really awesome! She came to church yesterday and is getting ready for be baptized on May 16!

That's about it for this week! We had a couple people tell us that there were a couple earthquakes in our area this last week, but Sister Albiston and I didn't feel them. I also hit my 5 month mark today! I can't believe I've been living in New Zealand and have been a missionary for 5 months now!

Love you all so much!

Brittany

The moon was so full this week!

Jude's wedding dress!

My favorite recent convert Meagan!

Getting our flu shots!

Me and a goat!

April 12, 2015

Hi mom!! :) My birthday was really good! I got your packages!! :) Thank you so much, I really loved them so much! :) I thought my birthday was going to be kind of depressing this year because it was really rainy and cold this week and sister Albiston was really sick all week so we were in our flat most of the week, but on Friday it was really sunny and sister albiston wasn't sick and the the elders from our area and 2 from another area and Maeghan came over and made me a cake and sang me happy birthday! Plus i got to open lots of presents so it was really fun :)

Your trip sounds really fun! I can't wait to be able to go with you guys again! I like to count my mission by Disneyland trips that i'm missing haha, so far I've missed 2 and i think i'll miss maybe 2 more until i get home ;)

I love you so much and i hope you made is back home safely! :) I'll send a better email in just a minute ;) love you!!!

Brittany

Hello fam,

This week was my Birthday week!! It actually ended up being a lot better than I thought it was going to be. I started off my birthday like how most 20 year olds do, by teaching someone the Law of Chastity. After that we went back to the flat and I opened all my packages J then right after that, Maeghan, the Elders in our area and the Elders from the town over, came and brought me a cake and sang to me! The rest of the day was pretty normal, but everyone was forced to be extra nice to me that day so I really enjoyed it. J

I got to watch Conference finally this weekend! It was so amazing, I really like watching Conference while on my mission because I feel like I get way more out of it than I've ever gotten out of it before. Plus Mekyla came to one of the sessions of Conference!

Speaking of Mekyla, she fed us on Thursday! It was really cool, she read to us her testimony that she had written down that she wants to read in Sacrament after she gets baptized! In her testimony she talked about how much she loves the Plan of Salvation and the Restored Gospel, she also talked about how much she loves Joseph Smith and President Thomas S. Monson. It’s so amazing to see how far she’s come in just a couple of months.

Well this week was really rainy and cold, and Sister Albiston got really sick, so we took most of this week pretty easy. We still went out quite a bit and taught a couple lessons, but we would also take breaks every few hours so that she could rest, so this week isn't as interesting as the others.

That’s about my week! It’s starting to get dark at about 6:00 here now, so it’s really hard to find stuff to do at night now, plus now that we share the car with the Elders, we are biking in the rain in the dark a lot more. Builds character. Side note, I started reading the Book of Mormon at the beginning of the year and I finished it this week! So in case you were wondering, the Book of Mormon is true. Love you all so much! Thanks for all the Birthday stuff you all sent me!

Kia Ora!

Brittany

Birthday Package

Yay! It's my 20th Birthday

Girl Scout Cookies

2 new Pairs of Toms

Birthday cake

Best pizza in town

a little beauty treatment fun!

April 6, 2015

Hello again! J

This week was pretty good! We didn’t get to watch conference though, but we get to watch it in church this weekend! I got to watch the Womans Broadcast on Saturday in Palmy though, which was amazing of course. J

So this week we had Zone Conference in Palmy, it was really good and lots of fun, but sadly, the Elders in our area got their car taken away from President, and now we have to share a car with them again….dang it. Oh well.

We were on exchanges this week, I was in Feilding with Sister Anderson again. We had a really long talk with Mekyla about her baptism coming up in a couple weeks because she hasn’t come to church in a while. We told her that we were going to have to push her date back a couple weeks, and she was actually really, really sad about it. She told us how much she loves Joseph Smith and Thomas S. Monson, she could almost quote the first vision too! She’s progressed so much, we’re really sad about having to move her date back, but we feel it is best for her.

Kyleigh got baptised on Saturday!!! It was so amazing, she was so happy the whole time! Lots of people from the ward came to support her. It was so great, Kyleigh has waited a long time for this to happen, so I’m so happy to have been able to be here for it!

We also found Latisha!! I don’t know if any of you remember her she’s a 21 year old girl we found door knocking back in December, she had a baptism date and everything. She started to move around Feilding allot though and it was hard to catch her, then she was in the hospital for a month because of her heart. Anyway, we found her on Friday! And last night we had a lesson with her and we set a new baptism date with her!

Easter was like an ordinary day here, not much happened. Yesterday we couldn’t do anything for Pday because everything was closed. So we went over to the Elders and played Uno and Phase 10 on their front porch for 5 hours haha.

That was basically my week! I hope you all had a good Easter and enjoyed Conference!! J

Brittany