Annie Bananie never does anything she loves half-way.  

True to form, she has received approval to extend her mission by six weeks!  

Her new release date is October 23rd.

Hey family and friends!!

Not much time today, but I wanted to shoot you a quick email.

Still doing good here.  This past week was interesting.  Lots going on as usual, in the work and behind the scenes.  We got to host a departing sister from the Australia Melbourne mission and drop her at the airport the next morning.  It was way crazy to see what it's like to be going home and imagining that I could be there in a 4 months.  Aaahhh!!!  I can't believe how fast the time has flown. I've changed so much, and I know I still have a long way to go.  But dont worry, I'm still my crazy self, especially with Sister Chong and I together again.  Never a dull moment.

We had some break throughs in with our investigators this week and some other things that got waaaay complicated.  All in all it was an amazing week and I cant wait to see what this next week brings.  We've got some big plans in the works.

We had a special multi-stake conference broadcasted from salt lake this weekend.  It was amazing !!! If you get the chance try and look it up on lds.org.  If I find a link later I'll send it to you.  There was alot about strenghtening families and all that fun stuff.  Bhe way, in conference they asked the members to start going through Preach My Gospel. Are you starting?!  I'll send some of my favorite activities for yous to do.  Love it!!

Love you all!!  Send my hugs to the boys and tell them to keep singing in the car!!!!  They need to be up to par when i get back :D

Much love!!
Sister Pyne

 Guess what we did for P-Day?!    I finally got to go to that forest reserve in Tamavua!!  We were taking our morning walk when the Senior Sisters pulled up and asked if we wanted to come.  Monday was a holiday here so  EVERYTHING was closed and we had nothing to do for P-Day. 

Of course we said YES!!!  Here are some pictures of this amazing park!!!

Gorgeous waterfall!! And of course I've gotta find some critters :D My camera wasnt 

fast enough to catch the huge green parrot that whizzed by, but I did see it!!! 

Sorry they're mostly of Sister Chong, she was in front of me for most of the time so shes in alot of the pictures.  The boys on the swing are from our ward!!  We hiked down to the lower pools  and found the Kiribati Gang swimming and having fun!!  I'll send more pics next week.

Hey Fam!! 

Sorry I wasn't on yesterday, it was a holiday so everything was closed.  Hopefully you weren't too worried. 

 

Did everyone have a great Easter?  There weren't any dyed eggs over here, but we did end up with some blue green fried eggplants...... we decided to put some curry and masala in the batter and somehow they turned blue.  Needless to say we didn't eat them!!!  

I had a pretty good week.  We didn't get as many lessons as usual, but the ones we did have were amazing!!!  I'm thinking 'quality over quantity' is a good rule.  

 

Being with sister chong again has been wonderful.  Since we are already best buds we get to skip all the 'get to know you' awkwardness and cut to the chase; hence the amazing lessons!  We are unified in our companionship and everything just flows.  Sometimes when we get to a lesson the spirit isn't right and we have to change topics without communicating.  Hard to follow?  Nope!  Because we're listening to the spirit, we are constantly on the same page and ready to back each other up.  And for those times when we're both stuck, the Lord sends exactly what our investigators need.  For example.......   Sunday night we were visiting one of the security at Elder Wakolo's house (one of the area 70's).  He's been stuck for a while now and at that point in the lesson where neither one of us knew what else to say, when guess who walks out his front door and sits with us for the lesson... Elder Wakolo!!  He was a life saver!!  Without even knowing what our lesson was about, he built a relationship with our investigator, told some experiences from his own conversion story, and testified of exactly what we had been teaching.  He brought an easiness and strong spirit to the lesson.  Our investigator opened up and shared some things that have been keeping him back, teared up during our testimonies, then finished up by committing himself to baptism!!  Holy Cow!!!   I'm so grateful that we have the opportunity to teach at a general authorities house every day. 

 

Here's another miracle story.  Tuesday afternoon we were looking for our usual security at the Wakolos.  We got there and the schedule had changed.  Both of us felt like we should talk to the new guard.  A friendly chat turned into an OYM, which turned into a sit down lesson, and now we have another amazing investigator!  The best part was his questions. At one point he asked "do you believe miracles still happen?".  Earlier that morning in our district meeting someone shared Moroni 7:29-30.  It was exactly what we needed to answer this guards question!!  It's one of my favorites, but I know that if that elder didn't mention it I wouldnt have remembered the reference.  I have such a strong testimony of the Lord preparing us each day.  Because the spirit brought the reference to my mind we were able to share more with him, make a return appointment and now he's thinking about baptism!!  This truly is the Lord's work.

 

Despite being sick and all the added challenges we had this week, the spirit gave us the strength and unity to get through each lesson successfully and help each investigator grow. I'm still loving every minute of my service and I wish it would never end. 

 

Speaking of ending, I've decided to ask the Mission President for an extension so get ready for a call from President Wood in the coming weeks. 

Love to you all!!

 

Sister Pyne.

 

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So Annie is back with her old companion from Labasa, Sister Chong.  I guess they were too good a team to keep apart!  They are both "Sister Training Leaders" now. Sister Chong has an awesome blog, and between her blog and Annie's blog you can get a more accurate picture of their activities.  The link is over on the top right.

 Time for some random fun pictures.  This first one is a painting hanging in the office.  A returned

 missionary made it a few years back, but I can say this is pretty similar to alot of lessons we have.  

Lamp lit lessons are my favorite. the spirit is so strong! 

 My last picture with Sister Alagaelua before she drove away. So sad!!

Here's an amazing sunset behind the temple after our sisters meeting and transfers. 

Gorgeous ending to an amazing day. 

 Here's the fish..... can i just say that my hands hurt SOOOO bad after this! All the fins had spines on them and I turned my hand into a pin cushion more than once.....yum! no pictures of the finished product sadly, but it was so good.

 Scrapping coconuts for a Relief Society party. 

 Check out this wicked coconut scrappingtool. 

  Here's some boiling vudi, kinda like a giganto banana.

Here's me and Sister Lal, the member who runs the canteen at the primary school. She was helping us out.

 The awesome senior couple in our area, the Peterson's

 Lea's baptism

YSA activity

BULA VINAKA!!

Alright friends, its that time of the week again. 

Sisters training was WANANAVU!!!  All the messages were exactly what we needed to hear.  When president tells everyone he's about to change what he prepared because he feels prompted to share a story, you know its gonna be good.  Our training was on Christlike attributes.  One hour was just me and my companion sharing how these attributes bless our lives as missionaries and members around the world.  I forgot to bring our outline to send, but i'll attach it later. I have a commitment for all of yous though.  Now that we heard from a general authority that everyone should be studying Preach my Gospel, go through the chapter on the attributes, kerekere!!  It's my favorite chapter and I learn sooooo much!  Let me know what yous learned.

I'm with sister Chong again!!  Man was I shocked when I heard she was coming to Samabula.  I had to ask the elder on the phone to repeat himself a few times.  We had some other sisters staying with us at first so it was a little crazy, but now we're back into our old routine, just double time!   It's been a little hard to focus at times because we've been busy catching up.

So funny story about conference..... somehow we mixed up the time for the Saturday afternoon session and priesthood session.  We walked into the school grounds to wait for some investigators and one of the YSA said 'are you coming to priesthood session?'   'um.... what?' Actually we ended up going inside to watch for a bit (we still needed to wait for our investigators).  Needless to say, it was a little awkward.  We had great timing though. For all yous who attended priesthood, we sat down just when Elder Dallin H. Oaks was talking about women and the priesthood.  Nailed it!!  Still haven't  watched the afternoon session, and the morning was pretty fuzzy so we'll have to borrow the dvd and watch it when we have time. yay!! 

Well, the craziness continues!!   I sent heaps of pictures this week so that took up a ton of my time, but know that i love all of yous. Tosoliu e vei siga!! 

loloma levu,

Sista Pyne

BULA VINAKA EVERYONE!

This past week has brought a lot of changes. 

 

Our golden investigator, Lea, is now a recent convert and is loving every minute of it.  Her baptism was amazing thanks to Elder and Sister Peterson.  All the YSA turned out to support her.  The computer still hates my memory card so I'll have to send pics next week.... again. 

 

Transfers were called in Saturday night, very unexpectedly, and someone is moving on.  Sister Alagaelua has been transferred to be An Stl in Ba!!  I'll be so sad to see her go.  Luckily we have a mission wide sisters conference on Thursday so I get to keep her until then.  And here's another surprise.... my new companion is SISTER CHONG!!  That's right, we're back together again.  We only had 6  short weeks together in Labasa, but now its time for the real fun to begin.  I knew we still had so much to learn from each other , and when she left I told her she was gonna follow me here someday.  Turns out 'someday' came a lot faster than I expected!! all I can say is the lord works in mysterious ways. 

Here's my miracle for the week.  We have an investigator who is 7th Day Adventist.   We've been meeting with him for a while and he's been keeping his commitments, but he hadn't received answers to his prayers and it was keeping him from progressing.  This week, all of that changed.  We were blessed to have another sister with us and her strong testimony and experiences was exactly what he needed.  During our discussions he gained a testimony of the book of mormon and the restoration. but was still stuck when it came to the true sabbath (7th Days worship on Saturday, following jewish tradition).  During our conversation we  realized that the reason he hadn't received an answer about the sabbath day is because he has put up a wall.  He was unwilling to accept any answer but what he already believed.  We shared this with him and encouraged him to pray with humility and a willlingness to submit.  It was amazing to see the change that came over him when this clicked.  After sharing a little more about sincere prayers, we knelt down with him for the first time as he said the closing prayer. It was the most sincere words I had ever heard him speak.  Now he is praying sincerely, being more open with us, and we even fasted together for him to open his heart and find the answers he needs.  It has strengthened my testimony of asking inspired questions and the power of the holy ghost.  I know it wasn't us sharing those words with him, the spirit put words in our mouths that he needed to hear.  We truly are being led in this great work, I have no doubt about it. all we have to do is humble ourselves, seek the spirit, and have the courage to share whatever is put into our hearts.

 

I hope all of you are doing well.  Stay strong and keep moving forward. 

Love you all!!!  I'm out of time. 

Sister Pyne